More bas-relief. At the bottom men fight as onlookers (perhaps supernatural beings?) look on:
As mentioned, Bayon Wat has an amazing collection of Bas-relief carvings. Some of these are individual stand alone
"We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found in our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God;..."
- 2 Corinthians 6: 4-6 RSV, emphasis mine
Our next stop on our New Testament journey of kindness has us stop in 2 Corinthians. Written as a follow up to 1st Corinthians and an unknown "severe letter" confronting sin in the Corinthian church, it (among other things) establishes Paul's apostolic credentials in the midst of false teaching in the Church.
We are about mid-book here (chapter 6 of 13) where is speaking of how he and his associates are working to share the gospel, comparing themselves to how some of the false teachers of the day acted. Paul is in midst of speaking about how they actively work to make the gospel accessible. Verses 4 and 5 discuss the physical issues they face - physical endurance issues through travel including all of the things he lists: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger - not necessarily a list to recommend following a belief system to anyone then or now.
Then he turns to the other elements. Some - the Holy Spirit, the power of God- are supernatural and beyond their direct control. But others are under their control and practice - purity, knowledge, forbearance, genuine love, truthful speech.
And, of course, kindness (chrestotes (χρηστότης) - goodness of heart, kindness).
Again, it makes me wonder: why, when listing out things that he (Paul) uses in the presentation of the Gospel and proof of his ministry, does he include kindness?
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Paul, in this passage overall, is talking about acting as an ambassador of Christ, of drawing individuals to him - "Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation" (2nd Corinthians 6:2). They are doing this, he states, in various ways.
The first - demonstrated by the rather long list of difficulties they have encountered - demonstrates their commitment to the cause of Christ. It is as if Paul is saying you cannot say we do not endure great things for this message we are proclaiming (which, it follows, we must believe in - after all, why else would we do this?).
The second part breaks into three different kinds of demonstrations by Paul. The first are those things which Paul himself has no power or control over - the Holy Spirit, the power of God. These he can demonstrate, but he cannot generate. The second kind are those which Paul lives out personally in his life - purity, knowledge, truthful speech. These are things which are come from him internally to the outer world.
The third kind are those which he practiced to the outer world: forbearance, genuine love, kindness.
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One of the thing history tells us - if anything - is that human nature has not undergone much of a change in the 2,000 years since Christ walked the Earth (or longer, really; it is not like the records dating back any farther suggest we as a species were anything but what we still are). Therefore, these virtue practiced to the outer world - forbearance, genuine love, kindness - must have been just as out the ordinary then as they seem so much of time today.
Imagine the example of a man like Paul - beaten, tired, without a real home, constantly ministering to the needs of others, constantly thinking about all the churches he has planted, potentially always under the risk for arrest - constantly demonstrating kindness in his relationship to others. Yes, he could be severe - he confronted Peter about Judaizing, and was willing to go toe to toe with Roman authorities about his rights as a citizen - but in his letters, and likely in his person, he was kind.
Like his Master was.
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Kindness - like forbearance and genuine love, practiced constantly and freely - makes a mark on the people around you. It draws them in. It, as Paul demonstrated, gives credence to the idea that something has changed in our lives: after all, who can be consistently kind in world that too often lives by force and selfishness.
Sometimes, it even draws people in against their will. Which should not surprise us: when commodities are valuable and rare, people wish to attain them. Or in Paul's case, attain the thing that makes them possible.
Friends, as you read this I am likely somewhere over the ocean, heading for Japan:
The first collection of poetry in Japan was published around 759 A.D. The work, called Man'yoshu (万葉集) or "Collection of 10,000 Leaves", contains 4,516 poems of various types dating from around A.D. 457 to A.D. 759.
Japan at this time was in the historical era known as the Nara period (A.D. 710 - 790). Buddhism at this point had been in Japan for over two hundred years. The great reform known as the Taika Reform (大化の改新), which had reoriented Japan both in its land control and its cultural orientation towards China (at that time the Tang dynasty) has occurred over a century earlier. The capital of Heijo-kyo (now Nara) was built, larger modeled on the Tang Dynasty capital of Chang'an.
The poems of the Man'yoshu fall into several types: long poems (chōka), short poems (tanka), one an-renga (a short connecting poem), one bussokusekika (a poem in the meter of 5-7-5-7-7-7) and several Chinese poems or quotes from Chinese literature.
"Why does any of this matter, TB?" A couple of reasons, beyond the great benefit of having more trivial knowledge. The first is that, like many cultures, Japan has a long history of recorded poetry. The second is that even very early on, there were a variety of poems and their lengths (including a version of 5-7-5, which we will come to soon enough).
By the 9th Century A.D., Japan had entered a new historical period (the Heian period, A.D. 794 - 1185), had a new capital (Heian-kyo, or modern Kyoto) and Japanese poetry had a formal name - waka (和歌), which literally meant "Japanese poetry" (Wa being a very old name for Japan).
Practiced largely by the aristocracy, who were the only ones that knew and could write in the rather formal Chinese literature, it had reached the limits of the Chinese characters versus the Japanese language - until the Buddhist monk Kukai (at least legendarily) created the Hiragana syllabary after returning from studying in China sometime in the mid-9th Century. (New language word: technically the hiragana is really a syllabet, as it is not truly a syllable nor an alphabet but rather the syllables of the Japanese language (we read them as k, g, t, d, s, z, n, h, b, p, m, r, and y, combined with the short vowel sounds a,e,i,o, and u).
Within forty years or so of this radical change in writing, the poetry collection Kokinshu (古今集) would be published with around 1,100 versus dealing with seasons, love, a sort of "Human experiences" section (congratulations, partings, travel), acrostics, and a miscellany including songs from "The Bureau of Song".
This update in the Japanese Alphabet drastically changed the language and culture and, in many ways, established the syllabary that we study today. The next great change could come not in what characters were used, but in the poems written.
Works consulted:
Wilson, William Scott. A Beginner's Guide to Japanese Haiku: Tuttle Publishing, New York: 2022.
Bayon Wat (Bayon Temple, wat meaning temple in Khmer) is located at the center of the city of Angkor Thom. Built by its founder Jayavarman VII circa late 12th to early 13th Century A.D., it was the last state temple built at Angkor Wat.
Angkor Thom, as you may recall from last week, was built by the Khmer King Jayavarman VIII sometime after A.D. 1181 following the looting of the capitol of Yasodharapura by the Champa people. Jayavarman, a devout Buddhist, started a building program that lasted through the 37 years of his reign.
At its height, Angkor Thom had a population of between 80,000 and 150,000. Access to the city was controlled by 5 gates, 4 set at the cardinal points (North, South, East, West) and another named The Victory Gate. About a quarter of a mile from the Siam Reap river, the city is surrounded by a moat. The walls of Angkor Thom stood 8 meters (26 ft) in their heyday.
The approach to the South Gate, the best preserved gate.
This past Saturday I deadlifted 4 x 250 lbs (113 kg).
A deadlift - moving weight from a floor to the standing position located at the hips and then down again - is arguably the most impressive of the Olympic lifts, at least to me. That may be a bias on my part, simply because I know of the main powerlifting lifts (squats, bench press, deadlift) it is by far the one I struggle with most. That, most likely, is due to form (when performing the lift, a neutral spine is critical; a rounded back is an injury waiting to happen), something that I struggle with.
It is a great exercise which uses a great many muscles: the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, adductor maximus, spinal erectors, latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, obliques, and abdominals. That is a lot of muscles for a single movement. Also, it this only lift that I can genuinely say I have felt a "rush" as the body chemicals kick in.
The record is 510 kg/1,125 lbs, set by Halfthor Julius Bjornson in 2025.
My only personal (and somewhat less impressive) lift is noteworthy because this has been the first time in 3 years I have hit that number.
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Being a latecomer to the weight lifting game - I had a number of false starts until I started training regularly in 2014 or - I have become rather famously addicted to it; a week without working out is like a week without sunshine. But with that comes the realization that I am inevitably fighting a merciless foe - time - and ultimately, the odds are against me.
The idea that I will ever have a physique like Chris Hemsworth as Thor is a hard daydream to give up.
But even with time, what was more frustrating was the realization that I had to scale back training due to unforeseen circumstances, Hammerfall 2.0 and Hammerfall 3.0. Yes, I was able to come up with a substitute, but nothing compares gym with bars and plates and loud metal music blaring away. Dumbbell deadlifts and presses are substitutes, at best pushing off slightly the inevitable.
There is something magical about plates and bars.
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Is there an end game? Is there a finish line?
The reality is that new PRs (personal records) are likely beyond me at this point: your late 50's is not your mid 40's. I say "likely", not "definitely" - after all, the human body can be an amazing thing and, with nutrition and care (that is, not doing anything too stupid), there still may be peaks to see.
It was nice to hit 4 x 250 lbs. It will be nice to hit 4 x 260 lbs, which is my previous PR.
4 x 265 lbs, looking at you.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. Against such there is no law." - Galatians 5:22-23
When I think about kindness appearing in the Bible, these are the verses that immediately pops into my mind (most likely because it is one that I have memorized). And as I was thinking about these verses in general, thing that popped into my mind is that of all of the fruit of the Spirit, kindness is the one I cannot specifically being called out by Christ.
Love? Joy? Peace? Christ talked a lot about those. Goodness? Faithfulness? Self-control? These are either mentioned also by Christ, or alluded to in His parables. Kindness alone is the one that initially seems to be missing.
A look through where else kindness (chrestotes (χρηστότης)) as used in Galatians 5 reveals something else interesting: the word itself is never used by Jesus. It is only used by Paul (2 Corinthians 6:6, Ephesians 2:7, Colossians 3:12, Titus 3:4). As Paul was not one to preach that which he had not received from The Lord (as he would say), there is clearly something up. Why would he speak of a fruit of the Spirit which alone seems to be one which Christ never directly spoke or taught of?
He speaks of it, I think, because of his experience with Christ.
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No-one can reasonably claim that Christ did not evidence kindness. His invitation to let the children come to Him (this, from a man who was constantly interacting with people almost all the time), his words to Peter in Luke 22:31-32 predicting Peter's betrayal and his restoration, and even his interaction with the rich young ruler where he did not confront him mockingly when he assured Christ he met all the conditions - Christ knew and practiced kindness. And yet He does not seem to have specifically addressed it.
And yet, Paul does (everything that follow here is obviously my opinion) because Paul directly experienced Christ's kindness.
Paul's (then Saul's) experience on the Damascus Road is one I wonder if any of us can fully understand or appreciate. A enemy of Christians, in his mind serving the God of his fathers, he is literally on his way to drag believers back to Jerusalem for trial and quite possibly execution; he is said to have been "still breathing threats and murder against the disciples". We know he approved of the stoning of Stephen; we do not know if any others had died because of him (but it was possible).
And suddenly, he is confronted directly by Jesus.
Jesus does not accuse Paul, He does not threaten him with punishment for the damage he had done to believers or what he had said of them or even ask him what he is on his way to do. He simply asks "Why do you persecute me?"
Paul's response is "Who are you, Lord?" With the answer of "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" reality becomes painfully clear.
Christ never reminds Paul of what he was after his conversion. He never has too; Paul remembers all too well. He likely remembers the names of every person he persecuted, he can see himself standing at the body of Stephen after stoning. Paul remembers - but God never speaks of it.
Instead, God through Christ gives him the Hebrew hesed, loving kindness pouring over him and running down him. Paul was trained in the Law; he understood very well the idea of hesed. Perhaps for the first time, he actually lived it.
Every day, then, became a reminder of God's kindness to Paul.
Which is why - at least to me - Paul mentions it among the fruit of the Spirit, even though it is not spoken of in the same manner in the Gospels. Once he experienced the kindness of the Lord, he could not go back.
Which is why I think it is so important for us to practice it as well. In being kind, we can give people such a different experience from the world that they will inevitably return - and in returning, wonder and perhaps ask how and why we are this way.
We are this way, because we, too, have experienced the hesed of God.
