Monday, June 19, 2006

Sympathy

It's the easiest thing to give but sometimes the hardest thing to receive. I mean it's innate(at least for most of us) to feel sympathatic towards people whom we feel are in a pathetic state, see where the word comes from? However most of the time people don't realise that most people do not want sympathy. In fact it is one of the hardest let's say gifts, to receive. Partly because we recognise the innate reaction of the person and we usually wouldn't want to admit that we are on the deserving end of sympathy, ie in a pathetic state. So I've come to realise recently that sometimes people don't respond when everybody around them is trying to help them, because what they really need is perhaps a more practical response and this may sound exaggerated but saying things like 'that sucks man, wouldn't wanna be ya' would actually make them open up to you admist all the 'awww take care' and 'I'm trying to help you'

I had a lot more stuff to put here but I cannot remember the rest of it, hahahaha.

Okay let's try a lighter entry for once, erm yeah I watched quite a number of movies this holidays, she's the man, the omen, the da vinci code, coming to think about it that's like nearly 30 dollars down the drain. Yeah the monopoly of the big screens.

okay I'm still rather slow with studying, aiyah you know what they say chuan2 dao4 qiao2 tou2 zi4 ran2 zhi2 I miss speaking in chinese and I know I'm going to be really out of touch with it again once school reopens. oh and I'm supporting argentina for the world cup, at least they weren't disappointing this time and made it to second round.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

The Voice Inside My Head

Yes you know it, that voice reminding you about the one flaw, one mistake and one thing you've been running from all the while. A week ago, that voice came alive, spawning into form right before my very eyes and I really thank God for making this happen because I'm rid of that nightmare now, and this illustration being extremely appropriate since it does feel really surreal even as I look back at it.

David Pierce set the wheels in me into motion with that madly emphatic sermon on how he leads a lifestyle surrounded by sin yet is kept safe in God's arms and the way he processes his thoughts when making decisions.

I've always stood up for rights, how we should have the rights to know certain things, rights of choices in situations, the freedom of expression, the freedom to use our lives however we deem fit, and among that, subconsciously deciding that I should follow the parts of God's word that I like and avoiding the parts which I didn't like too much. I was always confident about my ability to tell right from wrong, thinking about the grey areas of life and reasoning them out myself and hence forming principles one after another.

Now I've learnt that rights are a luxury and freedom at it's best as man sees it, is an extravagant form of selfish madness. Absolute freedom is empty, it is a life of options. It's empty because then we are forever insatiable, meaning there are always going to be that many goals and ambitions and purposes in life and with absolute freedom to pursue everything, we would end up with only an insignificant portion of everything. In fact total surrender and submission to God is, was and always will be most fulfilling. And contrary to what most people might think, what God made you to be is actually a far more conceivable notion than the infinite number of goals possibly achievable in our life on earth.

Through much drama and craziness before and after the church camp, I've experienced myself how satisfying it feels to do right by God. How wonderful it feels to be nice and good altogether. How wonderful it feels to shut that voice up, the one that takes the form of our conscience everytime we cling on to our rights and freedom with dear life and let that individualistic margin dictate our every move.

And even as I write this I know that people will read and people will be skeptical or even think this is hilarious bullshit, but I've been running from even blogging about this for a while, and if I am even afraid to blog about what God has taught me and the kind of person I long to become, how am I possibly to ever live it out? As the song goes

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

I know the holidays will end, I will be back to school once again and far from the church. I know I will be tested time and again and I will fail time and again. But I'm glad I've been shown the right direction already and I know it would be up to me to walk along the arrows. Cornelius said something which really struck me during the camp, something about not being afraid to proclaim our beliefs just because we do not live perfectly by them. Of course there's a fine line between taking the right amount of comfort in that and taking God's grace for granted, so I guess I just have to be really careful there.

Submission is the key to true freedom which means to not be bound by the options and choices of worldly freedom. That is what is meant by freedom in christ. The beauty of the paradox.