I would like to thank all of you who wished me well on my baptism.
Ten years ago, in a time of difficulty, Paul told me that “Love conquers everything.”
I have been attending church ever since. It took a long time for my perspective to change: to shift from a reductionist perspective I thought of as “scientific” toward a fuller view of living, dying, and spirit. Only after this was I ready to enter the church.
I am still in search of wisdom, but now I am persuaded: true wisdom is found through love.
I would like to share with you a few paintings in which I’ve tried to express the spirit of love. This is a pastel I started the day after Paul and I met:
This is an oil painting:
This is an oil pastel of the first dance at our wedding:
God bless all of you and Happy Easter!
via this link:
Lovely artwork. You are so talented. Congrats on your baptism, and God bless you both!!
Suzan
You made my day, Shou-Ching!
Thanks a lot Shou-Ching. I really appreciate your sharing about love and ‘higher ground’. Congratulations and God/dess bless.
Can you doubt it was a miracle that you two met and fell in love. Thanks for posting your beautiful paintings.
Ooer! I can’t believe I didn’t think to say something last post. Indeed, I wish you well in your future spiritual endeavors. Those are some sweet pictures!
It was such a delight to meet you in person and see how you make such a spectacular couple. Congratulations!
Happy Easter and God bless!
Congrats! We just had our 3 children baptised 2 weeks ago. What a beautiful thing and welcome to the family 🙂
Congratulations Shou-Ching, and Happy Easter as well. You are a very talented artist.
Congratulations on the beautiful art and your inspiring Easter! I find the postings here so hopeful….in all ways. Thank you both for your insights.
What a great day!
Oh how wonderful, wonderful. Heartfelt congratulations.
He is risen, indeed!
I was at Easter vigil last night and saw a little girl baptized. I felt so happy.
I came home and saw that you had been baptized. I felt so happy again.
Thank you so much for sharing some of your journey. Difficulties are real; but so is love, and work, and community, and creation.
I wish you many blessings.
Congratulations!
As a man of faith my whole life, I am touched that both of you, who are so brilliant in science, would profess to the world your own faith. I invoke Heavens blessings upon you and your work.
What a wonderful time to baptized.
I hope Paul can feature more of your artwork in the blog….
Congratulations Shou-Ching. Thank you for sharing your artwork. Many years of continued good health and happiness to you and Paul. Thanks also for your dedication, expertise and research that was put into the creation of The Perfect Health Diet.
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your beautiful artwork. You are multitalented! You can deffinitely feel the love in your paintings. Glod bless you!
Congratulations on finding happiness in whatever form it presents itself. interestingly I myself have walked the opposite of your path, having abandoned orthodox christianity many years ago and recently turned towards the Eastern traditions by taking up Zen Buddhism (at least a secular variant)
I shed tears of joy seeing your beautiful artwork and hearing of your baptism into the Roman Catholic Church. I’m so happy for you both.
Congratulations on your baptism. Welcome home. May God bless you life abundantly.
I just now discovered this post. What beautiful expressions, Shou-Ching — both your story and your paintings. God bless you both.
Congratulations on your baptism, Shou-Ching! As a lapsed Catholic and a child of very religious parents, I envy the happiness and fulfillment that so many people of faith have. Perhaps one day I will return- it’s better than being gnawed by doubts about so many things 🙂
And you are a truly gifted painter! The second and third ones especially are beautiful. They’d fit right in at an art museum. You and Paul are quite a talented duo.
Congratulations, Shou-Ching. You and Paul make such a great couple. It was a pleasure having dinner with you both, and with Emily, back in March.
love and hugs
Nian Nian You Yu ????
(I know it’s past Chinese New Year, but I think the sentiment is timeless)
Thank you, Aaron!
For those who don’t know Chinese: “Nian Nian You Yu” is a Chinese New Year’s wish, it means literally “Year Year Have Remains” or “From year to year may you have leftovers,” meaning lots of wealth, food, etc. to carry over to the new year.
But Yu which means “leftovers” is a homonym for the word for “fish,” and it’s a tradition to have a fish dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve, and leave some of the fish uneaten for the next day – “from year to year have fish.”
Chinese has a lot of these homonyms so Chinese poetry is full of double meanings.
That’s right Paul. It makes learning Chinese interesting and fun. It’s like solving puzzles, and those of us with analytical minds love puzzles. Plus, Chinese grammar is similar to English and there are no verb tenses (i.e., past tense, future tense, future perfect, etc.) nor is the world of objects divided up into male/female (e.g., the “le” and “la” I had to memorize for each object when studying French). So to me, this makes learning Chinese much easier than learning the “romance” languages. AND I think Mandarin, in particular, is a very beautiful language to listen to, at least, when it’s spoken by an orator.
Congratulations Shou-Ching.
I am a recent visitor to your blog and only saw this post now.
Your research on the toxicity of wheat raises a theological question, and I’d love to know what you think. Don’t your findings pose a problem for the centrality of wheat not only in Christian symbolism (as life-giving etc.) but as a central sacrament in Catholicism (the Eucharist)? One answer could be that, well, Jesus was bound to a particular context and had to make to with what he had available. But if he is God, after all, then why not have the prescience to use something less toxic instead?
Best wishes to you both.
Hi Brandon,
It is an interesting theological question.
One possible answer is that today’s wheat may be quite different from the wheat of Biblical times. Modern wheat has been hybridized several times, and just in the last fifty years a new dwarf variant has been adopted. All of these changes may have increased its toxicity.
As you say, Jesus was present in a particular culture, the Chosen People were chosen for reasons other than their staple grain, and God’s interactions are in the context of that history.
Could the church changed to a rice-based wafer? Well, they’ve been able to change from classical wheat to modern wheat, so perhaps it’s not out of the question.
The church has accepted low-gluten preparation methods, so perhaps toxin-free wheat is the ultimate solution. See eg http://www.benedictinesisters.org/bread/low_gluten.php.
Or maybe a toxin-free Eucharist is an eschatological endpoint, like lions lying down with lambs … the end of original sin?
Best, Paul
Great, thanks, these all make sense!
Btw, in case you haven’t come across this already, here is a conference you both may be interested in, that brings together medical researchers and professionals (and even patients) to better understand the meaning of what they are doing. Though religion isn’t a central theme, many of the organizers are Catholics. Transcripts from previous meetings are available:
http://www.medicalconference.us/
Thanks again,
Brandon