Review: Achievement Addiction

 Justine Toh, Achievement Addiction (CPX/Acorn, 2021)

Since I first met Justine 15 years ago, I was impressed with her knowledge of pop-culture, be it written or screen. And it's nice to see nothing has changed. She brings her wide and deep reading to bear in this newest addition to CPX's Re:Considering series, in this easily digestible volume considering all things achievement related.

Chapter 1, Strive, was really a look inwards, at the Asian in all of us. This is something I've grown to understand, coming from possibly the whitest school in Australia (there were two non-white kids in my grade), to now living in Sydney, pastoring a Chinese church, and having to learn some Cantonese to speak to my in-laws. But what Toh demonstrates is the views stereotypical of Asians are values shared by many of in many ways. It's the constant push to succeed, to be driven and to drive your children. We are addicted to achievement because we valued, and value, by our status in society.

Chapter 2, Suffer, is about what we will put ourselves through in order to achieve, and to be seen to achieve. Toh talks about Fitbits, but it could as easily be my unbroken record of 400+ days of Duolingo until I went cold-turkey. Because suffering to achieve can become dislocated from what we are actually suffering for. So with a retelling of the plot of A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing (or one might think of Herman Hesse's devastating Unterm Rad), the point is driven home, that to suffer to achieve can become a striving which can never reach its goal.

Chapter 3, Smug, pricked me the most. Growing up little, bookish and bullied, I sometimes wonder whether those who saw me as an easy target would think twice if they knew how far I've come academically. But of course they wouldn't; it's my smugness to think that I've achieved and they haven't and therefore I'm better than them. If life is divided into the haves and the have-nots, I can rest easy in my smugness. But of course, as Toh suggests, there is nothing virtuous about achieving: smugness makes one unwise, unkind, blind and prejudiced.

Chapter 4, Story Time, suggests a different way. Beginning with Eliza Hamilton's gracious forgiveness of the smug, unwise and unkind Alexander, we see in the one who said that "the first will be last and the last will be first," a different way of living and being and achieving. Rather than the equation "hard work + perseverance = rightly earned success", a life lived by grace, receiving as a gift, transforms how we are in the world. It enables true community (as suggested in O'Donovan's Common Objects of Love), so that achievement is not simplistically diminished, but "put in the service of others." (58)

Achievement Addiction is a charming and provocative read. Even if I missed the Harry Potter references, and had not heard "bougy" before, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated this book. I also have a few more books to read—just need to add them to my list and instagram a photo of how tall my to-be-read pile is growing...

A reflection on Ruth 2

 Naomi left the house of bread for the fields of Moab

but the fields of Moab meant only death

So she left full but returned empty (1:21)

and worse than empty - burdened by her foreign daughter-in-law

but 1:22 they've come back to the house of bread at the beginning of the barley harvest

Ruth suggests a way to not be a burden, which is to gather leftovers in accordance with the Levitical laws

Note how she is described by Boaz in 2:11

And Boaz answered

and he said to her

"It has been fully declared to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law

after the death of your husband

and you forsook your father and your mother and the land of your birth

and you walked to a people whom you did not know until this time."

What is interesting here is the language is very similar to Genesis 12:1

Yhwh said to Abram,

“Go from your land and from the land of your birth and from the house of your father

to the land which I will show you."

Like Abraham, Ruth leaves everything, entrusting herself to Naomi and Naomi's people and Naomi's land and Naomi's God

Like Abraham, Ruth didn't know what would lie ahead,

but in God's providence, she found herself in the land of bread at the time of harvest and under the protection of a kind man of standing.

Fast forward to the end of the first day and it's meal time (2:14):

And Boaz said to her at eating time

"Come here and eat from the bread

and dip your piece in the vinegar"

And she sat on the side of the harvesters

and he held out to her roasted grain

and she ate

and she was satisfied

and there remained extra

From full to empty to full

and again, when she gets back to Naomi that night (2:18):

18 And she carried

and she came to the city

and her mother-in-law saw what she gleaned

and she brought out

and she gave to her what remained from what satisfied her

From lack to abundance

and although there is more to come

even from the eating we can see that God is the God of the nations

that God is the God of abundance

that God gives to overflowing

and this points us, of course, to the banquets Jesus set out for thousands who came to hear him (Mark 8:19–20):

“When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”   “Twelve,” they replied.

“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” They answered, “Seven.””

12 is enough for the Jews - like Naomi

and 7 is enough for the Gentiles - like Ruth

God is the provider for all who place their trust him.

A reflection on Ruth 1

We can easily get swept away with the story of Ruth; we just want Ruth and Boaz to get together already! But it's important to slow down and notice the details along the way.

v1 a man walked, from the house of bread, to sojourn in the fields of Moab.

A man walked. Already we're told to slow down.

He walked - he didn't run, he didn't journey, he didn't ride. He walked.

The next line tells us who with, and the line after that tells us their names.

But for now it's just a man, and he's walking from Bethlehem - or literally, the house of bread in Judah -

God's people in God's place, the place where God provides daily bread for his people.

And they're leaving for the fields of Moab.

It could have just said Moab,

but it's the fields - the fields in a foreign land with foreign gods, in order to plant grain in their fields.

And they walked.

How many times did they pause along the way, where they might have reconsidered their actions - it would have taken a long time before they were even half way - why not return? why not wait on God's favour to return to his house of bread?

If you look at this phrase, "a man walked",

5 times you will find it exactly

and each time it's fleeing, scattering, people who have lost trust in God and in his plans (Judg. 7:7; 9:55; 20:8; 1 Sam. 8:22; 1 Kg 1:49; 13:12; Jer. 11:8; 16:12; 51:9; Mic. 4:5; Psa. 39:6; Prov. 6:28).

so too this man

with his wife and his two sons.

Well the next time we hear the word walked, it's "they" walked

but it's a different group

this time it's Naomi and her daughters in law,

with her husband and two sons having died.

Is it any wonder she demands her name be changed to Mara - bitter?

v7, they walked in the road to return to the land of Judah.

and she says to them,

walk! return! each of you to your mother's home.

they walked in order to return to her home

and she ordered them to walk in order to return - but to their mothers' homes.

In v9 there is a kiss, then their voices are raised, then they weep.

they say to her v10, we shall return - with you! to your people!

but Naomi, thankful as she is, says v11, return, my daughters - why walk with me?!

and v12, return my daughters, walk.

we can see these two words, walk and return, are easily reversed,

they are Naomi's instructions for them to turn back

but they are their reassurances that the only walking and returning they will do is with her, to her people.

as with v9, in v14 again there is a kiss, raised voices, and weeping,

although it is a different order.

The kiss is held off until the end, and it is Orpah; a kiss goodbye,

But where Orpah walks and returns, Ruth clings.

So Naomi speaks again,

v15 Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods

return after your sister-in-law

She has listened; why won't you?

Ruth: v16 Stop pleading with me to forsake you, to return away from after you

Because to wherever you walk, I will walk

Orpah can do what she wants,

I however am with you.

The only returning and the only walking I will do is with you.

Your God is my God; death alone will separate us.

What does Naomi see, 18?

That Ruth was determined to walk with her

so she ceased - the Hebrew is a bit harsher here - she ceased to speak to her.

Ruth is as stubborn in her clinging

as Elimelek was in his walking away from Judah.

The story more or less concludes with a reversal of the beginning,

look there in v 19

And they walked, the two of them, until they came to the house of bread

So that where a man walked out, a woman and two sons in tow,

now a woman returns, with only her Moabite daughter-in-law clinging to her.

As she says, she went out full, but Yhwh has returned her empty.

And here is the story formally ends,

not with walking,

but with returning.

v22 Thus Naomi returned, and Ruth of Moab her daughter-in-law was with her,

returned from the fields of Moab.

Walking out full,

returning empty

leaving for a foreign field

and returning to the barley harvest

walking out with sons and a husband

returning with a foreign daughter-in-law

It was a long way to get home

but now they are where God wants them, when God wants them,

in the state of mind where it is not a husband and sons which fills her,

but it is the surprising mercy and overflowing grace of the Almighty that will fill her up.

A lot of us have been walking more in lockdown

usually in loops - walking out and returning home.

As we reflect on the walking and returning in this first chapter of Ruth

let's remember that God has his plans

and they often come through hardship

through going in circles

and at a completely different to what we might like

but they are wiser and far more beautiful than anything we might imagine.