Crispian's Toothache

By Crispian (the main actor), Kenneth and Clarence (bit players)

June 2002

[Kenneth]

One Friday in June 2002 Newwine held a potluck gathering at Moses's place, and we took turns to play a game requiring each of us to answer questions centering around God and our understanding of life. My question was "What is love", and I gave an answer trying to sound like M. Scott Peck but ending up coming off a lot more like Pierre Png.

Jason and Clarence invited a friend called Crispian to the gathering, and we persuaded him to play the game. His question was "What is your toothache in life?" and Crispian explained that his toothache, or problem, was detachment.

After I thought about it, I realised that Jesus does preach a message of detachment—from material goods, relationships, and yes, even family. And it's a difficult message to accept, for Crispian and the rest of us. Crispian is Buddhist, and I thought it marvellous that God chose him to answer this question, knowing Crispian would answer the way he did.

Perhaps God has a sense of humour. Anyway, I asked Crispian to write a short article on the gathering and why he answered the way he did.

[Crispian]

I attended my first Safehaven prayer session last Friday, courtesy of Jason and Clarence. Well, they didn't tell me that the "Gathering At A Friend's Place" was actually a "A Safehaven Prayer Session Waiting To Happen", so I was totally unprepared for the surprise upon stepping into the host Moses' house. After silently berating Clarence for the sleight of hand, I figured there were two options. Either make an excuse and scoot, but that wouldn't have been gracious to the host as well as Jason and Clarence, or stay, and maybe learn something interesting along the way.

So I stayed, politely sitting at a corner observing the prayer session of Newwine in full swing. During the prayer session I recollected why I did not become a Christian. After all, in my teens I attended church (Holy Family in Katong) and studied Bible Knowledge in secondary school. I could narrate the events that took place according to the Gospel of Luke, explain the parables, understood the teachings of Jesus and still at the same time score an 'A'.

Yet, with all these efforts, I still could not fully immerse myself and experience and appreciate the way of Christianity. I did not understand why. I thought it was because I was too sinful to be admitted to Christianity. So I backslided, much to my own embarassment.

It would be years down the road before I understood why and what happened. I was in my teens then, and there were more important issues that a teen had to address: school grades, popularity, pimples, peer pressure, exams, exams, my bludgeoning sexuality, ambiguity ... it was a tough time. There were simply more basic needs I had to attend to.

Years later, when I've matured more or less, learnt about sex and relationships, got a stable job thanks partly to good grades, I started to realise there was more to life than material needs and just existing. There was a spiritual need as well. And it just so happened that the first book I picked out on spirituality was a book on Buddhism.

Would it have been different if the book I picked out amongst so many was the Gospel of Luke? No, it wouldn't. Because later that night, I learnt that what Buddhism had taught me and allowed me to experience had actually in my distant past been explained to me in the Bible. It's just that it wasn't time yet for me then to explore my spiritual needs. In their most fundamental form, both beliefs actually teach the reader the same philosophies. Some people, like me, just take a wee bit longer time to reach that part of the journey.

So based on that point above, loosely speaking, am I a Christian? Yes, I should think so. But then again, vice versa, aren't you a Buddhist as well?

When Newwine fellowship played a game of "Truth (without Dare) Under The Grace of God", I was invited to participate in the game. I figured besides embarassing myself, there wasn't any further damage that could be done if I said something stupid. The question that I picked and which I had to answer was: "What is your toothache in life?" Immediately my response was: attachment. Why did I say that? I don't know. It was the first thing that came on my mind.

We all have attachments, things we cling to because we think they make us happy: our relationships, our money, our rising careers, our recognition in our work/social places. But if we were to critically examine these attachments, aren't they too a constant source of pain and worry for us? To cure a toothache, extract the teeth. To ease the pain, get rid of the attachment. What? You might ask. Cut ties with my boyfriend? Give up my hard earned money? I can't do that! I've got a house to buy and I really love my boyfriend!

You can't be blamed if you think that way. Many do. But what Buddhism means by "Get rid of the attachment", is that you should not "cling" to these things. Recognise that they are there and they are yours, fine and good. You've earned them. Don't reject them. But also recognise that one day, they will be there no longer. Your boyfriend may leave, your money may be spent, you may get retrenched, people may forget you. Once you can accept and understand that there may come a time these things be lost, you will too understand that clinging to these things and refusing to let go of the notion that you will lose these things, will become a source of unhappiness and grief for you.

And so you learn to "uncling" or "unattach" yourself from them. And when you do, you will ironically treasure them even more. Why? If you know that you might lose your loved ones the very next day by reasons beyond your control, won't you want to love them like today is the last day of your lives? Won't you want to spend money wisely and invest carefully for yourself/your future if you know one day the money may be gone? Wouldn't you work harder today knowing that there may not be a job for you tomorrow?

Think about it.

[Clarence]

I am really glad Crispian came along to Newwine. Firstly it got him to see an informal Christian fellowship. Also I thought it rather surreal that he randomly got the question "What is your toothache?"—of all the questions that were available that night, this was the most Zen-like. It was as if the Lord was him to have that question and we to listen in.

I personally have had a strong affinity with Buddhism. When I was young, my parents used to send me to kindergarten very early when no one was there yet. The kindergarten was beside a Buddhist temple. It was the place in which I sought refuge until my other class mates and teachers came. The monks took this 6 year old kid in and chatted with him and didn't just treat him like a pesky little twerp.

As an adult my walk with the Lord and my faith has constantly been enriched by Buddhists and their perspectives of life. Of particular impact are the Dalai Lama (whose commentary on selected gospel passages is a gem) and Thich Nhat Hanh who is a Vietnamese monk who is a peace activist and is active in inter-faith dialogue.

I had a bit of an epiphanic experience two years ago relating to the latter. I was out with Kelvin Wong of Heartland, a Singaporean gay buddshist man who had been featured in Time magazine. We had done a survey and were in a Buddhisht bookshop. I picked up a Thich Nhat Hanh book and was reading a particular poem.

Kelvin, who was somewhere else in the bookshop, came over to me excitedly carrying another Thich Nhat Hanh book and exclaimed "You must read this!" and it was the very same poem I was reading then. I felt the Lord wanted to really impress that poem, "Call Me By My True Names" in me. It spoke to me more clearly about incarnational ministry more than anything else I have read before. Nhat Hanh wrote the poem after he heard the news about a 12 year old girl and struggled over her fate.

Call Me By My True Names

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deepely: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve year old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself in the the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate
And I am the pirate
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo
with plenty of power in my hands
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth
My pain is like a river of tears
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.

Going back to Crispian's point that "detachment" (which is the opposite of "attachment") is a key Buddhist goal and Kenneth's comment that this is similar in Christianity, here is a comment from by the Dalai Lama in his commentary on the gospels:

"...true and genuine compassion is a compassion that is free from attachment...if you look at compassion that is mixed with attachment no matter how intense and strong that mixed emotion may be you will realize that it is based on your projection of certain positive qualities onto the object of your compassion—whether the object is a close friend, a family member or whomever.

"Depending upon your changing attitudes toward that object your emotional feelings will also change. For example in a relationship with a friend, suddenly one day you may no longer be able to see in that person the good qualities that you had previously perceived, and that this new attitude would immediately affect your feelings toward that person.

"Genuine compassion on the other hand springs from a clear recognition of the experience of suffering (read 'sin' for Christians) on the part of the object of compassion and from the realization that this creature is worthy of compassion and affection. Any compassionate feeling that arises from these two realizations cannot be swayed—no matter how that object of compassion reacts against you. Even if the object reacts in a very negative way, this won't have the power to influence your compassion. Your compassion will remain the same or become even more powerful."

I think this quote speaks volumes about the nature of agape love.