It was as if I had a fit. A fit, because I felt so passionate about it I could no longer contain it. A fit, but not really, because it had been stirring inside me over days. Over days, since that special night we went awalking in the back alleys of our city’s red-light district.
Something deep and powerful was brewing within, something I could not place my finger on. Polarities stirred wildly within me- hatred and love, filthiness and purity, desecration and santification. I hated what I saw that night- yet, nothing could erase it. A profound hatred for the sights grew within me: the sins of lust, greed, vanity and pride were epitomised along those alleys and yet, it was matched by an equally deep compassion for those souls, so lost. Something of the filthiness echoed familiarly within me like a memory in the shape of Ed, yet a burning desire for purity pleaded from the wells of my heart. Just the remembrance of the sight brought out my own desecration hiding within.
Consecration. Someone had mentioned this to me just a week ago, asking me, God has given you a special calling-so what part of your life do you feel Him asking you to consecrate?
Consecrate: the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, literally means “setting apart”.
Why do I want to be set apart? What does that mean? I didn’t know how to answer that question. So I prayed.
I hated what I saw that night, and the hatred grew deeper, deeper still over the days. It bore too much truth to my own filthiness- the prostitutes reminded me that I too, had prostituted myself to the whims of this world, seeking man for approval instead of God, searching for security, identity and praise in the wrong places. Haven’t we all?
Most, if not all girls go through a phase where they have absolutely no idea how to love themselves. Walking through those alleys opened my eyes to make me realise, that my micro-skirt phase only began when Ed entered my life, when he convinced me that one’s self-worth was based on Man’s approval, however base it was. And after the contemptibility of what I saw, what it reminded me of, I told myself I’d never, ever want to be looked at that way by any man ever again in my life. I want to learn to love myself, find my approval in God and God alone.
It was as if I had a fit. A fit, because I felt so passionate after that day I could no longer contain it. A fit, but not really, because I was calm, thoughtful and methodical about it.
Over the past few days, I have cleared out my wardrobe over and over. Over and over. Just when I thinkI’m finally done, I return to the four-walled monster that housed so much of Ed’s choices, so much that now remind me of what I saw in those back alleys, so much that screamed of insecurity and attention… and found myself clearing out more trash, over and over, over and over.
This must be the most vicious clear-out I’ve done, and some part of me thinks I could’ve been more vicious, still. About half to two-thirds of my clothes are gone now- all that short, semi-luscent trash (many of them gifts and hand-me-downs from top-brand shops I wouldn’t have the audacity to step into, some with their pricetags still on) packed into bags; lots of good, wholesome but extra clothing I felt led to give away to the thrift shop at HighPoint and the orphans in Nepal; a towel and a windbreaker for Grandpa Zhou (“Oh it’s so so chilly here at night,” he told me by the dirty train steps, clad in a paper-thin plastic poncho which should’ve been incinerated a century ago. “I know I smell a little bad,” he says, “It’s been so cold and I’m so old that I can’t bathe every day, you know!” )
Why do I have two windbreakers. So many towels.
All that Trash sitting in my four-walled monster. Trash, I’ve decided to call it. Why do I have so many shirts. Even what is good, if in excess and not shared, becomes Trash. Like the way hoarded love, hidden treasures or stashed-away money does.
God is with the poor, the needy and with those who choose to Consecrate themselves. Consecrate, not necessarily in a religious sense, but simply from the heart, laying something down to dedicate yourself to a service or purpose.
Consecration or being set apart, to me, is a cleansing of the heart, coming closer to the heart of God. That’s all it is.
So half-or-twothirds-of-a-wardrobe-given-away later, I feel much more at peace, cleaner, lighter and happier too.
I want to go back to the start and find that simple girl again. That girl, who hated shopping and took forever to decide to pierce her ears because she feared it would be a waste of money, who was happy owning only her sister’s hand-me-downs and who never cared too much about how she looked, what she owned. That simple girl, happy in her White world, happy to live simply, naturally, wholesomely. That simple girl whom God gave Simple inspiration to write and paint because her heart was simple, too.
Perhaps, it is when we are finally able to live simply, naturally, unpretentiously, without excess nor fanfare, ordinarily and plainly, that we can truly, Live- simply and wholesomely, and truly be set apart.