Songs of Pain and Hope

You know what one of best metaphors for power is? 

Definitely not the gun, sword, law, etc.

Water.

Bruce Lee said it can flow and crash.

He left out envelop, permeate, drown.

Be water, my friend.

My high school friend and I discussed this relatively old movie – Heat.  It is about bank robbers but I read somewhere that it is really about relationships.  I can see that.

But that’s not the reason it was brought up.  The ending of the movie has bothered me for a long time.  One of the lead characters, played by Robert DeNiro, is about to leave the country with his love and the money.  Just as they pull into the airport, he gets a tip that someone who has snitched him out has been located.

Torn between escaping with pretty much everything and getting revenge, he chooses the latter and gets killed.  I told my friend he should have left it behind.  My friend disagreed and said in the moment you do what you think is right.

I’ve had some time to think about it and I am more ambivalent.

I used to love the Count of Monte Cristo movie with future Jesus and Superman starring in it.  The movie is way more sanitizd than the book, which focuses more on the ill effects of consuming revenge.

This one is hard.

I designed and led investigation into the NYPD’s use of force (excluding lethal instances).  Unlike those that followed, it was an honest one.  But it was tricky.  If I had to do it all over, there are a few things I would do differently.  Like never take the job in the first place.

Nonetheless, the use of force is necessary.  There needs to be better training, especially in de-escalation and involving more scenario-based modules.  But force is an integral part of law enforcement and the pursuit of justice.  

I once read an online exchange where someone said that if a perp was sexually assaulting his wife, the Christian thing to do would be nothing.  A pastor also once questioned the use of force (even non-lethal) to protect a congregation.  Not ok.  Really not ok.

In my personal experience, several of the times I used force worked out well.  It was only when I threw a basketball at a bully’s head when he stopped.  And when someone threatened a roommate with a concussion, I clotheslined him before he could make good on his promise.  I actually recall that ending his night.

It is extremely unfortunate, but that is at times, the only feasible avenue.  I once attended a mock barricade situation with actors and I was scared watching it unfold.

The best samurai swords are made with several types of steel.  Hard on the outer layer, soft in the inner.  The hard steel is necessary to ensure the sword can actually do what it’s supposed to do – cut and kill.  The soft steel gives it flexibility to prevent if from breaking.

I’ve thought this an apt metaphor for development and growth.  In my experience, some of the best people I know follow this model – tough but kind.  What I really despise is the opposite.

If not into swords, then the king of fruits – the durian.  Notwithstanding its really uncalled for reputation (it’s delicious, I promise), it’s the same concept – spiky outside, soft inside.  Don’t mess with the durian, falling ones can put you in a world of hurt.

I wasn’t always the well-behaved, rule-following,  compliant, submissive man you see before you.  After I once asked the kids where they sit in class (girl in the middle to avoid attention, boy also in the middle), I told them that growing up in Malaysia, daddy had a very special seat in the classroom.  Right next to the teacher.  I sat there for half a year aka Nelson Mandela.  My parents never found out, I’ve never told them.  No snitching please.

I only recently told a friend how we were disciplined (ages 7-12).  Aside from the caning, we were made to stand a lot – in the sun for an hour (Malaysian sun), in the drainage system, in class holding a desk or chair on our heads, with our arms outstretched while holding books.  

My friend asked me what effect this all had on me.  It was a great question.  I’m still not actually sure.  It probably sowed the seeds of making me a grumpy old man.  It also probably gave me the thick skin I’ve needed to call on at times.  In my parents’ day, my understanding is that discipline was harsher – kids would be caned at school assemblies in front of the whole school.

At a church in Boston, at a parenting seminar, someone asked about how to best discipline their children as they were moving to Scotland where there was a law where you couldn’t hit your children with anything other than your hand.  This for some reason concerned the questioner.  The reply was surprising – go to a soundproof location.  After the seminar, I pull the parents aside and explain why that law was passed (a kid either got really hurt or killed when an implement was used).

I remember only one child abuse case assigned to me.  Initially, when I familiarized myself with the facts, my first thought was this doesn’t sound so bad.  No worries, I did my job. 

I had other child cases too and know several friends with that type of background.  When I became a parent myself, I resolved not to spank the kids at all.  Have held to that.

(From the DA years)

There are four types of people in the world. 

The first type of person is the weak person.  Although we are all weak in one aspect or another, I use the word here to describe significant physical, socioeconomic, and political weakness as found in the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized sections of society – minorities, those in poverty, the less-talented, the disabled.  This category struggles to stay afloat. 

The second type of person is the strong person that chooses to be weak.  This group includes people who are blessed but for some reason or other refuse to use their resources for the greater good.  Instead, they turn to fulfilling their own desires or insulating themselves.  We as Americans probably fall into this category the most. 

The third type of person is the strong person that abuses the weak.  Included in this group are dictators, warmongers, haters, and other low forms of life (or as we used to label these people in the lab, “wasted sperm” or “should have been abortions”).  Truly a dangerous group – Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam, child molesters, rapists, to name a few.  These people thrive because of the complacency of the second type of person previously discussed.  This potential lies in all of us. 

And the fourth type of person is the strong person that uses his resources well.  We call these people heroes.  They are truly rare.  There is a saying that goes, “Show me a hero and I’ll show you a tragedy.”  Perhaps this is true sometimes, but I doubt it applies wholescale.  There are everyday heroes – our firefighters, police officers, paramedics, teachers, journalists, and more importantly responsible parents who raise their families properly. 

The reason why the world hates Christians isn’t exclusively limited to the message of the gospel, but rather the lack of us living it out.  Tony Campolo, a prominent evangelical writer and speaker, spoke at various Christian campuses on world hunger.  In his speech, he addressed the students saying something like the following, 

“The truth is that most of you don’t give a shit about world hunger and you are probably more upset that I’ve used a swear word than about the issue I am addressing.”  

True to his prediction, the presidents of these colleges wrote him to admonish his language.  These letters did not mention world hunger once.  

The truth is that if what we preach in our suburban and small-town churches cannot be taught in an inner-city urban church, it is probably not worth teaching at all in the first place (and vice versa).  

Don’t look before you laugh

Look ugly in a photograph

Flash bulbs purple irises

The camera can’t see I’ve seen you walk unafraid

I’ve seen you in the clothes you made

Can you see the beauty inside of me

What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?

Oh, you look so beautiful tonight

In the city of blinding lights

A friend from high school loved these verses – “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  He recently reminded me of them.  Unlike him, I was born and raised in a “Christian” family and environment.  Shows you what that’s worth at times.  I barely know the words to the Star Spangled Banner much less Bible verses.

I do not like those verses.  Initially, they sounded like the teacher in the Peanuts animated cartoons.  Then I really did not appreciate the concepts behind them.  Suffering?  Perseverance?  Character?  Less please to all.  I just want to be happy.

But there’s something there which I haven’t fully grasped – that part about hope.  In middle school, I wrote a poem for an English assignment on hope.  I don’t know what prompted me to write it – maybe because of the immigrant experience and difficult family or the Washington Capitals or Bullets.  In any case, hope is one of those themes that captivates me and circularly, gives me hope.

Told to go home to my country (which one? the one that didn’t want me or the one I’ve barely been to?)

C—-k

G—-k

Slanty-Eyed

Office Boy (heard at DAs Office)

Chinaman (heard at NYPD)

Bruce Lee (although why this is an insult is beyond me)

Asked whether I could read a sign in English at the grocery store (yes I can, I teach Legal Writing at the law school)

Told I’m not a “real” minority

Ignored

Overlooked

Underestimated

Investigated

Undermined 

Feared

Rocks thrown at my head

Spat on

JD, PhD, Philadelphia Assistant DA, UN, NYC Secret Police, NYPD, Teacher, Guide, Protector

Still standing, still alive

Child of God

And that jumpshot