After 9 months of staying in Shanghai, I flew back to Manila during the Chinese holiday. It feels so good to be home. Come to think of it, Manila is so backward compared to Shanghai. Everything in Shanghai is hi-tech, flyovers connecting different districts, and almost 10 lines of subway and light rail connect almost every known place in Shanghai. Manila? We just have 3 lines, connecting major parts of the metro, and traffic is always bad… but I love it!

I miss the crazy drivers in Manila who only cares about themselves. I miss the food. I miss the TV. I miss the hot weather. I miss the jam-packed light rails and all the undisciplined people. We call it democracy, but if you’re from another country, you call it chaos. We find order in it, but try to come here and you will never understand how people survives in a city like this.

Shanghai is a lovely city, but it will never take the place of Manila in my heart. I love the people, I love the chaos. My family is here, everyone I love. My favorite auntie is here. I love everyone. I miss them. I hope I can come back more often, see the special people in my life more often.

Manila, whatever happens, you’ll always be the most special place.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all your strength.

My life is in You, Lord, my strength is in You Lord
    C                        G            D
My hope is in You, Lord, in You, it's in You (Repeat)            C             D          G
     I will praise You with all of my heart
               C             D          G
     I will praise You with all of my mind
           D         G         E          Am
     With all of my life, and all of my strength
      F         Am         D
     All of my hope is in You!  (Chorus)

©1986 Daniel Gardner
Words and Music by Daniel Gardner

“Ah, what a thing is man devoid of grace.” George Herbert.

This is from Philip Yancey’s “What’s so Amazing about Grace?”. It is a combination of my reflection and direct quotations from the book.

Try this experiment, ask people in a busy city to define “Grace”, and it is possible that a lot of the people you’ll ask will not have a clear idea of what it is. We’ve been living a world where war, violence, economic oppression, religious strife, lawsuits, and family breakdown are rampant and common. We don’t know what grace is because we are living in a world of ungrace.

Apostle John said, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." But we Christians have been debating and reflecting about the truth of the Bible and interestingly, have anyone of you heard Churches debating how to be more graceful than another church?

Philip Yancey described Grace as "Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate. Sadly to a world desperate for this grace the church sometimes presents one more form of ungrace."

It feels like Christians are stucked in the Old Testament even if we've been trying to live a life closer to that of Jesus. We try our best to stick by the rules and push people who don't away. We are like the Pharisees during Jesus' time who are hypocrites.

The law was broken when Jesus came. We don't deserve to be treated well by God, and we don't deserve His blessings. But, He gave us a bridge that would connect us to Him. Through Jesus Christ so all our imperfections will be forgiven and the gap between Him and us will be pulled together. Jesus changed the rules -- it is no longer through following rules because no matter how hard we try our efforts just ain't enought. It will be through Him, God's grace, that people like us will be forgiven and cleanse.

This chapter in Yancey's book enumerated several other scenarios of ungrace:

1. A child smiling at everyone in Church was scolded by her mom. Telling her to stop smiling as the Church is a serious place.

2. Anorexia is a direct product of ungrace. People with this disease try to hold up the ideal of beautiful, skinny models, and teenage girls will starve themselves to death in an attempt to reach that ideal.

This is how Philip Yancey concluded this chapter:

"Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people. I think back to who I was -- resentful, wound tight with anger, a single hardened link in a long chain of ungrace learned from family and church. Now I am trying in my own small way to pipe the tune of grace. I do so because I know, more surely than I know anything, that any pang of healing or forgiveness or goodness I have ever felt comes solely from the grace of God. I yearn for the church to become a nourishing culture of grace."

I agree with Yancey that people who understands grace are endangered species. We don't have a complete grasp of what Jesus meant when He showed us grace. It might be we can't understand, or we already felt the advantages of not understanding grace, rather than feel guilty because of ungraceful actions despite knowing the right action to be graceful. We have to put grace in our hearts and try to make it into our life's song. We should learn to sing it without thinking so we can dance the song everyday in our life. Grace is only from God. He gave us grace that we can learn how to show grace into the world.