"He is no fool to lose what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Fifty years ago, a team of five American missionaries, all young, married men, headed to the remote recesses of Ecuador to reach an isolated and ferocious tribe of Aoka Indians. They talked. They took them on plane rides and offered peanut-butter sandwiches.
A year later, all five of them were murdered by the tribe they risked their lives for. Four of the wives turned back. One stayed, with her sister and children, and continued to work with the Aoka people. One image I remember is that of her small daughter, a scrap of a girl with blonde hair, trying to crawl into a canoe - and an Indian boy about her age, looking on. Today, her son continues her legacy, successfully converting several from the tribe. This includes the man who killed his father.
I think about historical grudges, and dead-lock political situations, and Harry Potter's revenge ("He KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!"), and - wide, amazing, depthless forgiveness, that I would look for in the very corners of my heart and never be able to find. The cynics/atheists will say - I can already hear them saying it, rolling their eyes over sentimental stories - that getting them mixed up in religion is a good enough revenge. Say what you will.
And consider how big a man's heart can become.
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I was given a whirlwind lift to church by my ex-Sunday School teacher, and we squeezed into the car along with his wife and three daughters. I fear I will throttle my hypothetical offspring in the future when they ask one too many questions. A conversation with their oldest girl went something like this -
Girl: "Who is who?"
Han: "I am Shuang Han. That (points) is Shuang Ning."
Girl: "Huh?"
Me: "You can call me Ning."
Girl: "What?"
Me: "Never mind. Forget it. Just call me jie-jie (big sister)."
Girl: "Huh?"
Girl: (Points at Han's file) "What's in there?"
Han: "Minutes."
Girl: "What are minutes?"
My ex-SS teacher: "They're like notes."
Girl: "What are notes?"
My ex-SS teacher (calmly, patiently, cheerfully): "Like when you go to the Botanic Gardens, and you see a bird you like, you want to write about it, right? So you take some paper and write down what you think, or make a sketch or something..."
Girl: "What's a sketch?" etc. etc.
But I am sure I will grow patient if I do have kids; I shall go around with a calm, maternal expression that snaps out of sight when they make me mad -
But why am I considering starting a family? I haven't even gone to university yet. And if it were up to the inefficiency, dripping with red-tape, of US admission offices, I won't go anywhere. End bash. I am most probably going to Virginia, and am reading up on Civil War site preservation so the soil will mean something to me when I reach there.
Some time back, I shared a gal-pal moment with my mum and sister, when we were all in bad moods and felt like bashing men, going on about what they look for in women - i.e., everything. A few I remember are
a) She should not wear too much makeup - "Why do girls wear so much makeup anyway? I like her just the way she is." Because all that makeup would cover up the natural beauty that she inherently possesses.
b) No dream girl should be clingy. "She became my third arm! I couldn't get rid of her! Why do girls have to be so... dependent? Doesn't she have girlfriends she can bitch to?" BUT "I need to have a unique place in her life. It'd hurt to feel... replaceable, especially within her large pool of confidants."
But what of the bitter American girls who say "This is what men want in a woman: Dumb as a post, big knockers, the younger the better. That is all"? Perhaps we should feel lucky in our local men. Or not. Whenever you start a list, you are guilty of generalization, then learn from your mistakes when opposers struggle to prove they are extraordinary.

Was our view too narrow, too biased, too hasty?
Were our conclusions too rigid?
Maybe.
- From the end of The Motorcycle Diaries