My, how you’ve grown, my squinty-eyed princess, over the last few days.  You now know so much more about life and the world.

You now know what the Spanish basketball and tennis teams think when they look at you, my squinty-eyed princess.  And you know, byway of their “apology” that if you take offense to their “squinty-eyed” pose, you are the one with the problem: you are the one who is “confused” and “hyper-sensitive” about their "affectionate gesture."

You now know what the world thinks of you.  You are the little runt,  the little Chihuahua that could.  A renowned sportswriter wrote that you should be eating baby food and napping in Yao Ming’s shoe.  Apparently, you are too young to appreciate the enormity of the event, and that is why you have an advantage.  You do not have an advantage because you have trained hard and because you have demonstrated gutsy-determination.  No: it’s because you are a cheating runt, my squinty-eyed princess. 

And you now know that you have no talent.  You are simply a by-product of the gargantuan Chinese sports machinery which has mechanically churned out athletes who are devoid of personality but devilishly, demonically perfect in execution.  Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin: they have innate talent . . . and innate grace and innate beauty and courage and …   But you are a squinty-eyed runt mass-produced at a sports factory taught to whirl around the bars like a monkey on a caffeine high.

And we now know why gold medals hang around your “feathery neck.”  It’s not because of your incandescent, luminous performance on the uneven bars (although you took a hop on your landing, you cheeky little monkey), but it’s because the international judges are behind you in a mass conspiracy to undo the Americans.  Never mind that the judges are not Chinese, never mind that the judges didn’t even decide the tie-breaker system; when the Americans don’t win, it’s a mass conspiracy meant to “rip-off” the Americans.  You didn’t win gold; no, you snatched it off the neck of the beautiful (albeit sulking, albeit whining, albeit . . . ) American.

So tsai-jian, my little squinty-eyed princess.  Even though you are a world-class athlete, I know next to nothing about you, except that you are a squinty-eyed champion somehow to be blamed for not coming second.  Perhaps you hoped that winning might draw global respect and well-earned praise, but instead, alas, it’s brought about such raw snappishness.  So do me a favor.  As you prepare for next Olympics in four years, please get plastic surgery to unsquint your eyes, add some curves to your body, look older than your natural age, and, above all, don’t be such a monkey on the bars again.  My squinty-eyes can’t take it anymore.

This is a letter I recently wrote to the church I attended during college: 

Dear  _____ Church

You probably don’t remember me.  I was one of hundreds of students who attended your church during my four years in college.  We walked through your doors, we sat in your pews, we enjoyed your worship, your sermons, drank your coffee, we came and went via the buses you provided.  Over the years, countless thousands of students have breathed your air and taken up your space.

My reason for writing you is to apologize.  For all that you gave us, we never gave anything back.  We used your facilities, but never tithed a cent.  We enrolled in Sunday School classes, but never offered to teach (or help with e.g., nursery).  We enjoyed your worship services, but almost never helped out.  You welcomed us into your fellowship with arms wide open, but we kept our arms clipped downwards, huddling in cliques after service, stiff-arming you.  We did lip-service tokens of service like occasional acapella performances, but they tended to be of the min-commitment/max-limelight vein.  We were the kind of churchgoer I now despise, the parasite who offers nothing, expects the world, and takes everything for granted.  We came to be entertained and edified; we left having given nothing.  We were parasites, like the typical church youth, too myopic and self-centered to know better.  But we were older and should have known better, and for that, I apologize.

There is another reason why I’m writing you.  It’s to thank you.  Now that I am older and perhaps wiser, I realize what it cost you.  You sacrificed in real, tangible ways to accommodate us.  Real money spent to expand the church to be able to fit us.  Buses bought to transport us, people willing to attain bus licenses, willing to wake up early to pick us up.  More teachers willing to teach Sunday School classes to half-asleep, dozing ingrates.  Muffins and coffee prepared or purchased, only to have them gobbled up by students already on full meal plans.  So many examples: invitations to home meals, mentorship, allowing us to use your facilities for overnights, guidance, etc. etc.  You gave and gave and gave, and demanded nothing in return.

I was baptized at your church.  In my testimony, while standing in the water before the church, I thanked everyone but you.  You still clapped and cheered and cried when I came out of the water.

Thank you for modeling Christ to me, for truly demonstrating what sacrificial love looks like.  Years too late, but for what it’s worth:

Thank you.

(and here’s a check covering what I should have tithed)

Oh, my dear friends, where art thou now?

I never had better friends than the buddies I had in college.  I never had deeper, richer fellowship than those days when I explored college and life and faith with friends in my Christian fellowship.  And since those days long gone by, I’ve come to realize that nothing will ever come close to what I had back then when it comes to fellowship.

I miss those days, painfully at times.  I miss the college fellowship group – where in our innocence, naiveté, and youthful energies, our relationships transcended mere friendship and touched the ideal we professed in – loving fellowship between brothers and sisters.  

A Hallmarky phrase, perhaps, but back then it was real to us.  We held hands in circles as we prayed and it didn’t seem cheesy.  We hugged constantly, literally soaking shoulders with tears – and it didn’t seem corny.  I remember midnight treks in the snow under a canopy lit up by a blaze of stars and a mercury moon, worshiping God.  Spring break missions trips to hell and back, but together, always together.  Another time, around a campfire, a group of us praying, our eyes open, looking at one another with tenderness, overcome with love for one another.  So many other moments, where the intercept of idealism and friendship and spiritual passion made for a beautiful collision.  In those times, I truly felt like I was in heaven with spiritual brothers and sisters.  Fellowship wasn’t an overused and emptied word, but a living ideal, breathing, flowing, pulsing, invigorating.  It was a given that we’d all be lifelong friends.

I never thought we’d forget each other so quickly after graduation.  No, that’s not quite right.  We never forgot each other, we did something worse.  We drifted, became indifferent to one another.  Within a couple of years, we no longer mattered to each other.  And now, today … we might live in the same city, but never bother to meet anymore.  Be part of the same fantasy league, but not even a quick email to say hi, even when head-to-head.  Members of the same church, even, but hanging out in different circles.  We were spiritual siblings who once thought we’d literally die for one another; instead, we’ve become redundant to one another.

The last scene in The Age of Innocence is one of the more poignant ones in all of literature.  Archer sits outside Ellen Olenska’s apartment – a woman he has not seen in 25 years, yet a woman daily in his mind because of the deep, passionate and youthful love they'd once shared.  Sitting on a bench below her apartment, he visualizes going up to see her.  He pauses.  He realizes that the memory of her is more precious than what the present reality.  There was something sacred about his past which the present reality would only sully and desecrate.   In the end, Archer gets up and returns alone to his hotel.

Sometimes I feel like Archer a little bit when I decline college reunions, or Facebook notifications.  Responding yes to such invitations would no doubt put me in the loop again – but it’s a loop of obligation and perfunctory hellos and obligatory Christmas cards and scripted small talk.  Something is lost, not gained, by answering yes.  Something lost: the tears, the laughter, the canopy of stars, the love, the idealism, the worship, the ridiculous sense of belonging . . . the fellowship.

And that's why I decline reunion and Facebook invites.  Because as much as I miss my college friends, I miss the fellowship we once had even more.