Matt W Cook

writer.former fundamentalist.christianly fellow

Tag: love

September 19, 2011

Love Gems #1 – Mr. Miyagi

      I performed a wedding a few weeks ago. It was a glorious time and a glorious couple. I had the opportunity to share a bit about love and marriage. I defaulted to nuggets from four of the greatest men who ever lived. The first was Mr. Miyagi.

      Remember that scene from The Karate Kid? Mr. Miyagi askes Daniel if he’s ready to start learning Karate. Daniel shrugs and says, “I guess so.”
      Mr. Miyagi shakes his head and takes Daniel by the shoulder. “Daniel-san,” he says. “Must talk.”
      He crouches down and unpacks his parable. “You walk on road, hm? Walk left side – safe. Walk right side – safe. Walk middle? Sooner or later squish just like grape. Same with Karate. Karate do yes? Okay. Karate do no? Okay. Karate do ‘guess-so?’ Sooner or later squish just like grape.”
      Love’s that way, I thought. Love do yes? Safe. Love do no? Safe (though empty). Love do ‘guess-so?’ Sooner or later, squish just like grape.
      Love is the wildest battle I’ve ever fought. And any battle demands all your attention.
      People fail when they love their neighbours and their spouses ‘guess-so.’ It’s as bad as walking down the centre of the road. Gotta pick a side! Either refuse to love anyone, and live that empty, dark life of safe loneliness. Or choose to throw yourself into love and walk that vibrant path of peace. Otherwise you’ll be always waffling back and forth between selfishness and love, never sure which hand to play.
      The love path will get you beat up, just like the Karate path earn Daniel a few bruises. But it was better than the other path. Because love creates a bubble of protection around us that we are enabled to extend to the people in our circles. It makes the world a better place. It heals every hurt. It’s not easy, but it’s safe. Safer than ‘guess-so.’

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July 4, 2011

Advice for Matt Going to Pakistan

     Do you ever give yourself advice? It’s a good process. Because you’re much more likely to value what you say to yourself than what other people say. That’s just the way things go.

     I’m going to Pakistan on Saturday. It’s been two years. In the scant moments of free time I have while I prepare for the trip, I remember what it was like and I wonder what I need to do to prepare myself for the trip. I drew up a list of advice I am giving myself to make the trip the best it can be. I hope I listen. I should. I’m experienced, after all, having lived completely immersed in rural Pakistani culture for about four years.

  • Chill the hell out! Seriously, Matt. Just freakin’ relax. You get too stressed out over tiny cultural annoyances. Yes, people are going to stand too close to you when they talk. Yes, you are going to get offered more food than you want. Yes, people are going to follow you around when you want to be alone because they are afraid that you might be lonely. Deal with it. The problem doesn’t lie in Pakistan, it lies in you.
  • Remember it’s more complicated than it looks. When you see poor kids on the street, resist the urge to raise your fist at the first rich guy you see. Issues of global poverty, women’s rights, and religious turmoil are as complex as the cultures they are born from. You think you’ll walk in there from your comfy suburb and have the insight to fix it all? Fat chance. Odds are you’ll just try to work against fringe symptoms and end up pissing people off with no real benefit.
  • Go to learn, not to teach. I hate to have to say this, Matt, but someone has to. You are an arrogant S.O.B. I know that you think you have the insight of the gods with which you can smite every root of suffering and injustice. But you don’t. Because, frankly, you’re a bit of an idiot. So stop trying to tell everyone what to do. You’re ignorant and ill-informed. Why don’t you just shut your mouth and take this opportunity to soak in the viable and unique way of looking at the world that Pakistan offers. You cannot put water in a glass that’s already full, after all.
  • Quit being right all the time. Remember all those neat cultural quirks that you hated and took it upon yourself to attack? Quit doing that. You can’t get rid of them and you just piss people off. And, let’s face it, you don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. Like when you used to bitch about having to wear nice shoes to church when you just ended up taking them off at the door? Yeah, don’t do that. You’re not right. Or when you rebuked people for doing their work in a way that you deemed inefficient? Yeah, don’t do that. You’re not right. Because when you try to be right all the time, people get the (accurate) impression that you’re just another white guy coming over to tell the natives how they ought to live. For the love of God, Matt, do not be that guy.
  • Expectations work against you. What? You expected that Pakistan was full of nothing but charming, quaint people who smile all day and sing Bollywood tunes? What? You didn’t expect that there would be a similar ratio of jerk:nice as there in in Canada? What do you really know about Pakistan? After four years, nothing. Say it with me Matt, ‘I know nothing’. Because you don’t. You read books and you lived there, but you know nothing. It takes a lifetime to know and understand a single individual. It would take a thousand years to understand a culture (by which time the culture would have evolved into something totally different anyway). Don’t expect anything. Don’t fall into the deathly trap of thinking in terms of ‘the Pakistani way vs. the Canadian way’. Just roll, friend. Just roll.
  • Eat slowly. Yeah, you remember how long it takes a white stomach to get normal over there. Take it easy, champ.
  • Smile. It’s a cool place filled with cool people. Enjoy them for what they are. Laugh with strangers, dance with friends. Give joy and be willing to receive it when it’s offered to you.
  • Embrace. The people you meet are more like you than you realize. There is not us vs. them. There is only us. If there is a them, it’s God (or aliens, I suppose). That Hindu fellow in the village who cannot read and works in the fields? He’s a man like you. That Muslim woman, all covered up as she floats through the bazaar? She’s a soul like yours. That kid on the street, that angry-faced preacher, that smiling shopkeeper. They are all carriers of the Divine. And so are you. Look around at that strangers and remember that they are not strange. Greet those strangers and call them ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. Rejoice in the things you have in common. Learn from the things that are different.
  • Love. Matt, I realize that your memory isn’t the best. And that’s okay. I love you anyway. So if you manage to forget everything I’m telling you know, just try to remember this last one. Because if you can pull this last one off, you’ll be alright.

     See you on the other side.


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June 18, 2011

For When She Wakes

My wife is asleep right now, in Pakistan. When she wakes up, it will be our anniversary.

She’s been gone a week or two. I can’t really tell, truth be told. Living without her is like living on night-shifts. I can’t really gauge the passing of time well. So here I am doing night shifts and away from her. So, yeah, I hardly can tell what day it is.

What can I say about Ruth this year? What can I say about where we’ve come and where we are?

I never could understand poets and story-tellers who would compare their lovers to gods. I could never understand that idea of worshipping a spouse. It was distasteful. Worse, it seemed forced. Because, since I did not understand it, I assumed it was not nearly as real as they were making it out to be. Because any spouse, at best, is flawed. And how can you worship something that is flawed?

But I get it today.

Ruth, are you there? Are you awake yet, my beloved Devi?

I love you.

I offer my life and my heart as a sacrifice to you. I do not say any of this out of ‘oughtness’ or duty. No. My heart yearns for you, even when you are with me.

When you are away, I have trouble finding the point for anything I do. I try to write and my mind whispers ‘What is the point? Your Devi is away.’ I try to study and my mind whispers ‘What is the point? Your Devi is away.’ Suddenly I understand in what way you are my muse! The muse does not grant ideas and creativity. Those things are already in each of us. No. The muse shows the importance of those things. And you, Devi, are my muse.

What can I say? I look back over all the years that I have called you ‘wife’. And here I stand on the tallest mountain of love I have ever seen. It makes all the other years look like bumps and hills.

What can I say?

Remember when we used to joke that we were Sita and Ram? We are not really like that, because Ram drove Sita out in the end, because he felt his responsibilities as king demanded it. A kingdom is not worth as much as you to me.

Or when we joked that we were Layla and Mujnun? We are not like that, either. Because Majnun gave up when Layla’s father refused him. I would have never relented.

Or when we joked that we we Romeo and Juliet? We are not like them. Because our story is not a tragedy.

Who are we?

We are Matt and Ruth. We are the greatest love story the world has ever seen. Other readers may roll their eyes and think I exaggerate. But you know. I know. We have the sort of love that stories are made of. And that is the truth. That is the truth.

See you soon, Devi.

In kadmon mein saansein waar de
Rab se zyaada tujhe pyaar de
Rab mainu maaf kare
Rabba khairiya, haai mainu maaf kare

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February 14, 2011

Here’s Lookin’ At You, Kid

I forgot it was Valentine’s Day. Did you? Did you get in trouble for it?

I didn’t.

I forget about a lot of special days. I didn’t always. But now I do. And I think I’m starting to understand why.

There are three main days that will earn a man a harsh reproof if he forgets them. Birthdays, Anniversaries and Valentine’s Day. Most men will start nodding now and remember the chastisement they received last time they forgot one of these days. But, when it comes down to it, most men forget these days far less often than I do.

These days serve as pegs on the calendar. Reminders of our duty to affection and mutual comfort. And, without these days, I guess a lot of couples would go through the year living more as roommates than lovers. So it makes sense that men are punished for forgetting these days.

But I can’t remember them. And I’ll tell you why.

My wife bursts with affection. Not sometimes. Not occasionally. All the time. She oozes with it. She couldn’t hide it if she tried. And her wild affection and love and empathy with me expresses itself in ways that boggle the mind. So, instead of making some ham-handed list of what I love about Ruth (as if my love for her was conditional on anything) I’m going to share a wild list of the ways that Ruth displays her love. And that may be what I love the most.

  • She hugs every chance she gets. When I leave. When I get home. When we sleep. When we’re walking. When we’re sitting. She’s gotta touch.
  • She tries to like everything I like. And she tries hard. She tries so hard that she’s the only girl I know who likes anime, video games, paper-and-dice RPGs, and action/sci-fi/horror films. She can’t like everything I like, but she’ll try her best because everything she takes on is one more thing we have in common.
  • Her affection does not change. When we disagree on politics and religion, her affection stays the same. When we are ill or tired, her affection is the same. When the kids are going crazy and the house feels like an asylum, she will still take a moment to sit on the couch and get/receive affection.
  • She says nice things about me. An ego-boost to be sure. And proof that I am on her mind. Sometimes I feel like I’m her favorite movie – she just can’t stop talking about me!
  • She takes offenses against me as worth approximately 3.67x greater than offenses against herself. It’s easy, you see, for her to forgive when people wrong her. But should someone dare to wrong me, be warned!
  • She refuses to let me go to work without food. This is interesting, because there is usually food at work that I’m free to eat. Decent food, too. But that’s not good enough for Ruth! If her husband is going to eat, he’s going to eat well!
  • She empathizes.
  • She dances with me, whether people are watching or not.
  • She lets me be a silly, unconventional, bombastic, slightly-more-than-slighty-unstable person.
  • She laughs at me when I want her to laugh at me. She comforts me when I want to be comforted. She holds me when I want to be held.

So, on this popular day of affection and hand-holding, I am happy. Not because I have a chance to get some special affection. But because I get Valentine’s Day-worth affection every day. So it’s no wonder I forget this day every year.

See ya soon, Ruth.

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November 5, 2010

Smilin’

A man can love his wife without ever really understanding what love is. Just like a man can gain strength from food without knowing a thing about nutrition. But some people just gotta know.

I’ve tried to pin down love. I used logic and cold reasoning to do it. I started making up and stealing sentences like math formulas to analyze and grab a hold of some intellectual picture of that strange phenomena. I never had much success. Each witty saying came out cold and lifeless. They sounded good, of course. They sounded true. But they didn’t seem right. They didn’t seem alive.

It bothered me because I wanted to know for sure that I loved my wife. I knew I loved her, of course, but I felt like I couldn’t prove it.

Thank God for Louis Armstrong.

Love is, primarily, a creative force. Since it is the greatest virtue is stands in opposition to the greatest evil (entropy). So it stands to reason that the way to uncover the secrets of love would be found in the heart of creative expression. And I think I found it:

When you’re smilin’….keep on smilin’
The whole world smiles with you
And when you’re laughin’….keep on laughin’
The sun comes shinin’ through

But when you’re cryin’…. you bring on the rain
So stop your frownin’….be happy again
Cause when you’re smilin’….keep on smilin’
The whole world smiles with you

This is love.

When Ruth is smiling, the world is bright and light and true and alive. All is well and every difficultly is seen for what it truly is: nothing special.

Where is love? Love is when her smile causes the universe to smile.

Thanks for smilin’.

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September 6, 2010

Easy Growin’

Dane Ortlund of Crossway Books recently asked 26 evangelical leaders what each thought the key to growth in godliness was. Read them over, if you’re at all interested, and see if you can tell what is similar about nearly all of them.

Did you catch it? Did you see it there?

Nearly each one is abstract, intellectual and conceptual. They are focused on a certain point of view or a point of fact or belief. Generally they are things you can do in bed. Read this book. Think these thoughts. Take this view.

Not all of them, of course. Carl Trueman says the key is going to church. Some of them say it’s reading the Bible. A few, like Steve Nichols’, are just plain confusing.

I don’t mean to nitpick, of course. They only had a sentence or so to respond and I’m sure they’d elaborate if they had the chance. But isn’t it telling that the first thing to come to mind, for these leaders of the evangelical movement, are things we do in our head or things that involve benefitting ourselves? Is there something wrong with that?

Didn’t God say that in helping the helpless we will find spiritual health (Is. 58)?
Didn’t Jesus say that in helping the helpless we will find spiritual cleansing (Luke 11:41; 14:12-14)?
Didn’t Paul say that in helping the helpless we will find spiritual treasure (1 Tim. 6:17-19)?

Maybe I’m being a little jaded. Maybe I’m blowing this horn again because it’s trendy or because I’ve been disillusioned by my upbringing or because I have a bit of a malicious streak and I like to imagine fundamentalists squirming in their seats. Maybe I’m preaching a social gospel and since I am for helping people on earth I don’t care about their souls. Maybe.

I have never understood why folks perceive a conflict between social justice and spiritual welfare. In fact, doesn’t Jesus seem to suggest that the two dance together? Wherever he went he helped bodies and helped souls. So when a group of evangelicals can all give different answers on the ‘key’ to spiritual growth and not a single one mentions anything that has to do with our relationship with our fellow man and the way we treat them, I think it’s a symptom of something yucky.

Am I saying there is no mysticism with Jesus? Am I saying that a metaphysical view of Christ does not change us for the better? Nope. In fact, most of those keys seem useful. But not as keys. Not as the deep secret to spiritual growth. If they were, we might as well become hermits. A spiritual life that is not holistic, I think, is not spiritual at all.

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September 1, 2010

Crazy Horse

Jesus was having dinner one day when he decided to rip up some of the religious and political practices of his hosts. When a lawyer who was watching mentioned that his talk was kinda insulting. Jesus turned to him, then, and started laying into him and his kind, blaming him for the murders of all the ancient prophets.

Seems a bit unfair, eh? I mean, how did this lawyer have anything to do with the deaths of prophets hundreds of years ago? It sounds kinda like how some bands charge us western folks for the murder of the Natives and all the various crimes of our forefathers. Unreasonable, eh?

Or maybe not. Jesus seemed to suggest that the lawyer was guilty of those murders because he was living in a way that denied the message of the prophets. He was looking at their messages in a scholastic, unfeeling way. A way that denied the life in the message, and only accepted the words. In a similar situation, he would not have acted much differently from his ancestors.

And what about me and the modern Christians I represent? Some modern media charges me with the murder of Crazy Horse. Legit?

  • I buy things from stores that oppress their workers oversea.
  • I see extreme poverty, have excess of food, and do not alleviate.
  • I care little for floods and earthquakes in Asia, but I was glued to the TV for the minor quake in Canada.
  • I care more whether or not two men can marry than I do about the 50,000 people who died of hunger yesterday.

How can I deny it?

The way I live shows no remorse.
For the day, the day we killed Crazy Horse.

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August 30, 2010

A Good Day

I knew the coffee would be bad, so I ordered a tea instead.

There was no Tim Horton’s nearby, as strange as that may sound. There was only a Coffee Time. I had to hurry. I had just got off of my normal night shift and I had thirty minutes until the planning meeting began. It would go on into the afternoon, and when it was done I’d have to race home, sleep fast, and be back at work for the next night shift. I was not looking forward to it.

I ordered a tea and a muffin. Dragging my feet I carried them to a table in the corner and sat. Immediately my body tried to fall asleep. I shook my head and looked around for something interesting to take my mind off my fatigue. Right beside me there was a sign with the words written on the bottom: “It’s going to be a good day.”

It pissed me off.

I started an internal argument with the sign. “What makes you think,” I said, “that this will be a good day? What do you know about my day? I have just come off a night shift, you silly sign. And I have a meeting in a few minutes and another night shift after that! Does that sound like a good day? On top of that, you don’t know about all the things I’m trying to start that seem to be failing before they get off the ground. You don’t know about the stresses my family is facing or how we are dealing with them. You don’t know about my internal struggles with all the nasty spiritual, mental and emotional forces I am dealing with. You don’t know, you silly, stupid sign! You just don’t know!” I took a bite from my muffin. “And this muffin tastes horrible, too! Why? Because on top of all the stresses that this country gives me, I cannot even find a decent coffee shop from which to get some decent comfort food. So what, you stupid, silly sign, makes you think it’s going to be a good day?”

And then I looked down at my tea, and stopped. There, on the lid, written in that white chalky pencil, was a smiley-face.

Affection. The lady who made my tea took a second and drew a smiley-face on the lid. And the serious and smiling truth hit me: Love and affection exist. Indeed, I have plenty of both in my life. Therefore it is going to be a good day.

Despite a crappy work situation.
Despite a handful of dim-looking prospects.
Despite a fatigue so great I fell asleep during the meeting.
Despite a muffin so insipid I couldn’t finish it.
Despite all these things, I have love. I have affection. Both stream to and from me and to and from my friends, family, neighbours and strangers.

Despite not seeing fully. Despite not knowing fully. Despite not living fully I have these three things that remain: Faith, Hope, Love. Love’s the best. It’s going to be a good day.

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July 19, 2010

Dora the Lover

    For a while I was despairing about finding children’s media that I felt good enough to share with my kids. Ponyo was a great film, to be sure, but I was looking for something smaller and repeatable, like a TV series. But the vast majority of them are empty and mindless. Shows like Spongebob strike me as the unfiltered imaginings of an insane ten-year-old.
    Then I found Dora the Explorer. My kids love it almost as much as I do. It’s about a bilingual brown girl who runs around with her best friends exploring and discovering. Here’s why I love it:

  • Dora explores and embraces racial diversity. Her skin is dark and she speaks more than one language. She takes part in different cultural celebrations. Difference is good in Dora’s world. Not something to be hidden, but something to be celebrated. She doesn’t try to make us all the same, she rejoices in all our differences. This is wild because just recently Joseph noticed that I am a different color than Ruth and that we are both different from him. For a second, as he was asking about it, I saw a glimmer of confusion on his face. I told him he was right, that we are all different, and I acted excited about that. “Isn’t it neat that we are all different colors?” And Dora backs me up on that, whatever the kids at school might say.
  • Dora is a hard-working helper. Like the time when her friend Boots lost his truck and they had to climb a mountain to get it. Or the time her parents asked her to help with the babies and she spent the entire episode reading to them and feeding them banana baby food. While most children’s programs have heroes doing everything they can to get out of school and work, Dora embraces the tasks she gets and even asks for more.
  • Dora loves her enemies. Swiper is the villain of Dora’s universe. He goes around swiping Dora’s toys and food and anything else he can get his foxy hands on. He’s a klepto, I’m sure. He never gives Dora a moment’s rest. He’s a punk. But when Swiper, through his own crimes, was trapped in a magic bottle, Dora was quick to help. She didn’t say a word about Swiper’s swiping or about his guilt. She dropped everything to travel across the world and get the king to release him. And when Dora gets anything good that she can share, she tracks down Swiper to make sure he gets some of it. She doesn’t fight her enemies, she embraces them. Reminds me of a Man I know.
  • Dora never hates. She never has a harsh word for anyone. She holds no grudges. She only works against the ‘bad guys’ when to do otherwise would compromise her own high moral standards. And even then she does it gently, without anger.
  • Dora loves to sing and dance. She isn’t content to sit and sleep and eat. She wants to get up and move. She wants to dance. She wants to explore. She wants to get out of the place she is from and achieve and carry her unique light into the world.

    •     So if you have kids, go check out Dora. She’s a hero.

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    June 28, 2010

    As You’d Be Done By

    So as Jesus is closing off his famous sermon he encourages us to do to others whatever we’d have them do to us. And he backs it up by saying that this wild ethic is the embodiment of the Law and Prophets (which, I imagine, would have bothered the religious people listening).

    It got me thinking about how I’d like other people to treat me. If I could work my way in the world and dictate how people treated me, I think my list of demands would look something like this:

  • Love me. Give me attention when I want it. Give me affection. Show me respect. Speak of me in a positive way.
  • Help me. Bend over backwards to help me whenever I need it. Support and encourage me and my wild ideas with consistently positive energy. Heal me when I hurt and own my dreams.
  • Empathize with me. Rejoice when I rejoice. Weep when I weep. Do your best to see things from my point of view, even when you disagree with me.

    • Pretty selfish list, eh? But I guess that’s the point. If you were to make a list it might look different from mine in some point, but the basic foundation would be the same. We want the world to revolve around us. That’s just the way it is.

    And so, when Jesus tells us to treat others the way we want to be treated, it’s a pretty tall deal. That list is no longer and expectation or a hope to be called on from others. It’s a model of how I should treat those I am in contact with.

    Thank you, Jesus, for such a wild ethic that proves you’re different from everyone else!

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