My Take
DiVoran Lites
Last Monday, our painting group met a younger woman, Denise, who used to paint with us, at her friends’ Chinese restaurant for lunch. “The Asian House,” is near the gym where she teaches Tai Chi. She is Chinese, too, and we delight in that.
The owner’s wife and the waitresses all wore red. Our friend, Denise wore a red tee-shirt with roses and blings on it. They hugged each other and spoke in Chinese and posed together in a colorful bouquet of red and black for a photograph. The owner’s wife brought out long boxes for each of us which contained Chinese calendars with illustrations of animals in a ring. We opened one of them and began talking and laughing like women all over the world who are taking a break together at a quilting bee or at the village well.
The animals, in Chinese legend, stand for the years people were born and represent various personality characteristics. We joked about our birth years and the youngest waitress looked them up. Were we born in the year of snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, boar, pig, rat, bull, tiger, rabbit, or dragon? What did it say about our personalities? Who should we have married?
I’m sure every culture has its own ways of categorizing people. In America we have horoscopes, psychological tests, and color quizzes. The Christian world has temperament discussions, and giftings. Our society puts people into categories such as homeless, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, dummies, and nerds.
My year of birth when they finally found it, not on the calendar, but on the place mat, turned out to the year of the tiger. My husband was born in the same year so he’s a tiger too. In America, the lion is considered the king of beasts, but in China, the tiger is king. Actually my husband and I are quite different from each other. He is an engineer, and I am a writer and artist, but we compliment each other and it feels empowering to think of ourselves as kings.
When I finished writing this, I opened the mail. There was a card from a pastor we always loved. After his signature, he had Romans 5:17b. I looked it up. Here’s what it said: “…all who will take God’s gift of forgiveness and acquittal are kings of life because of this one man, Jesus.” So how about it, would you like to be a king as well? You don’t have to be born in a certain year, all you need do is to receive the gift. Let’s all be kings together.
Old Things R New 