you learn

"You Learn.

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security.


And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.


After a while you learn...
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure...

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth...

And you learn and learn...

With every good-bye you learn."

— Jorge Luis Borges

human history

We try to be our own masters as if we had created ourselves. Then we hopefully strive to invent some sort of happiness for ourselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come human history... the long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
CS Lewis

day134: underlining meaning

bottom line of the book.


each day is a piece of art on its own.

001
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disclaimer: the images i use might not be photos of my own.

the man behind THE GAME

Dont ask me why i picked up the book:
The rules of the GAME by Neil Strauss.

It is the follow-up to the No1. Bestseller The Game

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I think i need to know how they sweep me off my feet every time, despite me being so cautious each time. im wondering if it is all a lie and magic power that cause them to be able to detach their feelings from it all. i enjoyed reading the The Style Diaries which i get to read inside his thought life. one interesting thought i picked up from his "30 Day Experiment" story is he can actually sincerely or lustfully feel, miss, and want all 3 girls at the same time. contrary to what i think, he actually fall in love (lets use this word loosely here) faster than average ppl. yahh, he is actually capable of missing a girl he never even meet before while having sex with another. he actually have the thought of marrying a girl he meets after a few hour though they never even have sex at all. so in a way he is not some sort of superhero that can detach his feelings.

it is interesting he didnt compile all his success stories in this book, but his very humbling and i would say more human side... dare i say these are the more memorable stories of his. but i think the most unexpected thing about this book is the postface. i dont understand why he wants to end the book this way but maybe he is not such a terrible guy after all. [there i go, i think of them better than they are]

---
"So why did your last relationships fail"
"I guess they failed because the women developed certain behaviors that made me doubt the success of a forever-type of relationship with them." [Neil]
"And i suppose you didnt have anything to do with the development of these behaviors?
"Of course i did. it always takes two."
"And now you've decided to be alone and miserable forever?"
"i just tried so hard to make these relationships work."
"How exactly did you try?"
"i was honest. i was faithful. i cut off all the other women i was seeing. i didnt tell lies or carry on secret flirtations or sneak around behind their backs." [sounds familiar, to their credit i believe every player has tried this at least once or twice though that actually should be the prerequisite for every relationship]
"And that's how you make a relationship succeed? By not having an affairs with other women? That's like saying you learn to swim by getting in the water. It's a given... Did you ever stop to consider that you never really tried?... You worked really hard to learn the game. You read every book there was, traveled around the world, met all the experts, and spent years making countless approaches to perfect the craft."
"I think i see what you're getting at... That maybe i need to learn how to have a relationship in the same way i learned the game."
"Ultimately, you're going to have to make a choice at some point in your life. And that choice to decide: Do you want to find a woman to spend your life with and make a family together? Or do you want to keep giving in to your impulses and continuing to have sex adventures and relationships of varying length until you can't anymore?"

Something he left the readers with. interesting isnt it.

heaven

"The secret of Heaven: That each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one" The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

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i know this might not be true but if heaven is a place where we connect all the dots, a place where we find all our missing pieces and find the peace--the answer to our many questions--that we had been searching for. That will be really nice. A sudden great anticipation, it got me thinking of heaven.

lessons from the mountain - part2

'I remember a pivotal time early in my marriage. Steve and I were deep in the wilderness as Steve was going through his ninety-hour-a-week internship in Seattle. I was a believer, but an immature one, and I thought: What good does it do me to be married if my husband is never around? I also felt that if Steve really truly loved me he would find a way to beat the system. I expressed all these feelings to Steve.

Fortunately, Steve was godly enough to listen to me. Though my husband was young in his faith, the way he responded to me showed me Jesus. Steve came to me the next day and said he couldn't see a way to change his current situation as a medical intern. Before I could begin ranting and raving again, he said, "I love you and I care more about you and our marriage than my dream of being a surgeon. I am willing to give that up."

I was stunned as I thought about the sacrifice he was sincerely offering. Steve had already completed seven years of his training, but I knew he was speaking the truth because he, unlike me, is truly Christlike in the way of honesty. His willingness to sacrifice for me inspired me to sacrifice for him. I wept and I told him I loved him too, and that I would support him, and that we would make it through that year, and that we would make it through that year, and that he wouldn't hear any talk of ending our marriage ever again.' ~ Falling in love with Jesus

i wept right there. i concluded: women dont need things, maybe not even time and change; actually all they need is this little word called 'assurance'. but the sad truth is she dont normally know that. and we say things like "you are not meeting my needs?" honestly if you ask "What do you want?", we normally cant even give an answer to that.

but you know what is sadder. the truth untold: that many, many men out there toiled and work and get all kind of shit in the office just for their family. but not explained, not emphasized enough.

a guy asked me this the other day "how much assurance do a girl need?"
to which i briefly answered "everyday... (paused for a while) every minute"
he sighed "wah, quite difficult"

i know. and as a woman i wish it is not as difficult as well. i loathe myself for not belonging to the category of i-know-who-i-am-and-i-dont-need-a-man or i-know-God-loves-me-and-that-is-enough kind of women. but unfortunately im not, not strong enough for the former and not there yet for the latter. one more bad news, i happen to fall under the category of the majority.

just think about it, the fall of the whole creation was on her. she passed adam the fruit. do you know how much "it is ok, i still love you" she needs. honestly, she is having a hard time believing that God can love her. what makes it easier for you? but as you frequently remind her, just like you would for your daughter-to-come. one day, one day she will know.

may we all one day come to the full knowledge of God's love for us. meantime sorry, if we put too much expectations on you guys. we actually thought that it is more attainable to feel your love since you have a benefit of a mouth to express and arms to embrace. looks like it is as hard to figure out. i guess love can only be realised in the knowing.

one day... we will all know.

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just came back from 500 days of summer. i genuinely feel for him. the world will become a better place if we talk a little more.

lessons from the mountain - part 1

"The definition of romance is not limited to a guy and a girl. Though that's part of it, romance is so much bigger than just a love story. Romance has to do with making things lovely because of love. Romance means absorbing the beauty of life: conversation, atmosphere, places and surroundings. It means increasing our awareness of the fragrance of pine trees, freshly ground coffee, and sheets drying on the line; hearing the music of waves, children's laughter, and the rain drumming on the roof; seeing the signature of God on His creation. It means drinking the gift of life to the dregs. All to be enjoyed, all to be taken in...

My heart yearns for poetic phrases, perfect snowballs, and beautiful ballads. My heart was made for romance."


it is almost ironic that i spent the last few days on the same mountain of the last entry. as if the backdrop was set for this story to continue. it is just a two nights thing, i should be able to fit everything into my backpack, but i just cant seem to zip it. so i went up to my sis' room to grab a bigger bag to which i found this book. i think it is divine "Falling in love with Jesus – Abandoning yourself to the greatest romance of your life" by dee brestin n kathy troccolli. i immediately know i have to bring it. in the middle of the book was a note by the person who gave my sis the book. it was dated 2002, i cannot help but feel that He secretly arranged this. with a smile on my face, i stuff it into my bag.

i love "romance". Books, movies, stories, the idea of it. i love it when ppl leave notes for me, write letters and sms me unexpected messages that remind me that im special. i love journaling by the beach and reasoning with Him underneath the stars. but a few years back, i learned that the expectation of romance is an offense. that romance is just a fairytale thing, it is expensive and undoable, impossible to the time we are currently living. i remember i once try defending this word "romance" but fail in my attempt, thanks to my lack of vocab. but i remember saying to the extend of "no, im not saying i want flowers and gifts".

as you can read from the excerpts on top, i had already fallen in love with the book on the first few pages. because the opening pages free me from this guilt - the desire of wanting to live a romantic life. And seriously, contrary to expensive i realise that most of the romantic thing we can do are mostly free. im also intrigued to learn that i dont mind having a romantic break all by myself.

"i can do this forever: living on top of e mountain, all curled up next to the fire place with a latte n a book. life was a bliss the last 3 days" my recent tweet

so ya, here is me unapologetically back. criteria in a man: charming, romantic and with depth. i guess what i mean is, i dont need a rich man. just one that is willing to take the plunge with me to enjoy the rhythm of the earth and everything on it. breakfast on bed, sun shining in, with white sheets sounds really pretty :)

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was rereading some of my past entries about romance. still pretty interesting :)

hints followed by guesses

The written word is clearer than the spoken word. Language, as we speak and hear it, is very ambiguous. We miss a lot, we misunderstand a lot. No matter how logically and plainly things are said, the listener quite often don't get it right. Conversely, no matter how attentive and knowledgeable the listener, the speaker most often doesn't say it right. We proceed, as T.S.Eliot once put it, by "hints followed by guesses" - excerpts from Eat This Book, eugene peterson

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this finally console the tiny heart of mine that struggles all my life with this thing call language. Besides the point that i do not have a strong command in english, neither fully in cantonese, nor have i conquer fully my mandarin. i feel that i do not have a language that i can use to fully convey what i feel inside my heart and mind. so very often i find myself being misunderstood. therefore whenever i have something bothering me... i normally rehearse it many many times before i meet up with the person. the many reasons and issues will all assembled in my mind wanting to be part of the final outcome. i will try saying it out loud, arranging them, sometimes it gets too complicated i might even grab a pencil and paper to help clear my mind.

but all these are meaningless because the sentence that i finally manage to string out doesn't even feel like what i want to say. the process will go on for a few nights most of the time, especially when i dont quite like those sentences. finally i will get really irritated and agitated with the many sleepless nights and just spilled it all out. not in order, to my regrets most of the time i forget what i want to say and add what i should not have.

so i write sometimes, thinking that it gives me more time to think through what i say but i have come to believe that is even worst because the tone is never right. leaving the misunderstanding worst than before.

so i stop expressing.

so i stop explaining myself.

so my heart stop.

so language is now only a piece of business, transactions, a meaningless exchange of words.

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conclusion: i dont think there is anything we can do about it to avoid misunderstanding but maybe something to avoid more damage. write love letters, iron things out face-to-face when you are in a fight. the-one-conversing say only what is important, keep it short. say what-you-want as the outcome, do not leave it for the other party to assume. the-one-listening always give a benefit of doubt. speak with love, receive with love.

that piece of paper

"However something about these engraved pieces of paper can destroy a marriage or cause men and women to sacrifice leisure time with family and friends, and even health, to get more of them. This innocent paper you're holding has driven young men in the inner city to entice their friends to take killer drugs. It has corrupted the justice of men who started out to give their lives upholding the law. The lust for money has led adults to do the unspeakable things to children, to make millions in the kiddie-porn trade. The desire for wealth has even caused wars. Somehow money has the terrible ability to gain control of a person's soul. The power of money can bring life or death."

excerpts from Daring to live on the edge by loren cunningham

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suddenly reread this, worth a moment of pondering.

stages of life

Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody.

He spent the next forty years learning he was nobody.

He spent the last forty years discovering what God can do with a nobody.


D.L. Moody


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i thought i knew it all. i thought i know how to love God, master my work and figure this thing call relationship. the funny thing about it, the more i learn, then more i realise how much i do not know. today im in a position of weakness, not trying to be humble. almost embarrass to say this but seriously... i cant get anything right in my life.

100 mess up years

the fine prints retype for your amusement
SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
If you are gay: this one could take a while. By all means have fun trying, but you may also want to consider adopting.
If you are underage: please check beforehand with parents or the person(s) who will be paying for the child's upbringing.
If you are single: have one night stand with pre-punctured condom, then seduce the individual into marrying you before the pregnancy is apparent. A gamble, but worth it.

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always love this guy works. not that i will do any of it but he is really brilliant in his copywriting to come out with 365 crazy ideas each year. now you can participate too. find a way to screw up your life every year heheheeh....

my top 100 list of books i want to read

i was looking for a list as a guide. but either i find a whole list of novels or a whole list of philosophers' books list. his list looks like there is a mix but it still seems a little chim (deep) for me. the best selling list looks kinda interesting, though i dont mind reading mao zedong or the quran. im not sure i want to read book of mormon and lord of the rings.

so i finally combine the list to form my own 100:
1. Bible
2. The Message interpreted by Eugune Peterson
3. Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
4. Mister God, This is Anna
5. The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
6. Church: why bother? by Philip Yancey
7. Reaching for the Invisible God by Philip Yancey
8. Daring to Live on the Edge by Loren Cunningham
9. Is that really you God by Loren Cunningham
10. The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason
11. The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by Brent Curtis
12. Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge
13. The Screwtape Letters by C.S.Lewis
14. This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
15. Piercing the Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
16. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
17. Roaring Lambs by Bob Briner
18. Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson
19. Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas
20. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
21. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
22. The 100: A Ranking of the 100 Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart
23. Murder in Mind by Kirk Wilson
24. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
25. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
26. Fallen Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah
27. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
28. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
29. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
30. The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood
31. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
32. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
33. God's Chaser by Tommy Tenney
34. Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti by Bill & Pam Farrel
35. The Series of The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
36. Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson
37. The Shack by WM. Paul Young
38. Falling In Love With Jesus: Abandoning Yourself to the Greatest Romance of Your Life by Dee Brestin and Kathy Troccoli
39. Jane Austen by Malcolm Day
40. The Five People I Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
41. Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern
42. Wish You Are Here by Phillipa Ashley
43. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
44. Why Men Marry Bitches by Sherry Argov
45. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
46. For One More Day by Mitch Albom
47. Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom
48. The Secret Lives of Men by Christopher Blazina

BOOKS WAITING FOR ME TO READ
49. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
50. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
51. The Generals' War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor
52. Life with God by Richard Foster
53. The Cases that Haunt Us by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
54. Rereadings edited by Anne Fadiman
55. Addicted to Love Kate Moss Fred Vermorel
56. The Odyssey by Homer (attempting)
57. Martin Luther: Heart of Reformation by Edwin P. Booth
58. The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
59. A Memoirs of Wangari Maathai
60. The Republic by Plato
61 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
62. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

BOOKS IM INTERESTED TO READ
63. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King Jr.
64. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
65. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
66. Paradise Lost by John Milton
67. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
68. Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
69. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
71. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
72. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
73. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
74. Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks
75. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
76. The Testament by John Grisham
77. Persuasion by Jane Austen
78. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
79. The Politics by Aristotle
80. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung by Mao Zedong
81. The Illiad by Homer
82. Ulysses by James Joyce
83. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
84. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
85. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
86. The Thin Red Line by James Jones
87. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
88. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
89. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
90. Emma by Jane Austen
91. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
92. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
93. Hamlet by Shakespeare
94. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
95. Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi
96. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
99. The Meaning of Hitler by Sebastian Haffner
100. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt


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EDITED on 3 january 2011. I have read more books than those being listed on the top but these are my favourite, meaning books i am willing to reread again. Books that i cannot forget the content till date -- that is why i cannot help but include The Series of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, my childhood favourite "The Saucepan Man"--. These books are probably books that had shaped who i am today and how i think. Am looking forward to read the many other books listed here too, suppose to be good.

the present

if life is pre-destined then how does what we do matter? we will end up where we are anyway, right?

but the thing is even if life is predestined. we totally have no idea about what was predestined for us. so by not doing anything, we might be doing what was predestined, by fighting what we are destined to be we might be just fulfilling what was meant to be. we spoke as if we know what was destined for us and by intentionally doing against what we are destined to be we will change our destiny. but what if that intention was exactly part of what was destined to be? we know not what we ask sometimes. how so often we need to ask ourselves again the very question we ask.

our failure to fight today results to our regret tomorrow. what we fought for leads to our reward in time to come. that we may know that decisions we make today is part of that predestination that we do not know. so why do we call that predestined. for it is predestined for him who lives beyond time but for us who lives in time, we can never say our life is predestined. for us who are in the now even though the destination was already written down, we still am part of it because we are what is being written.

it is almost like a twist in the movie. a scene of a girl who walks into a big library filled with books. she saw one with her name written on it. she quickly run through page by page. it is exactly what she did the last 5 years. she wondered who had been stalking her, stoled her diary and penned down those words. she flipped to the front of the page to check who the author is? but she saw something more astounding. the book was published 6 years ago. so did her-very-action write the book or the book write about her?

Try as they may to savour the taste of eternity, their thoughts still twist the ebb and flow of things in past and future time. but if only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimpse the splendour of eternity which is forever still. they would contrast it with time, which is never still, and see that it is not comparable. they would see that time derives its length only from a great number of movements constantly following one another into the past, because they cannot all continue at once. but in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present. time, on other hand, is never all present at once. the past is always driven on by the future, the future always follows on the heels of the past, and both the past and the future have their beginning and their end in the eternal present. if only men's minds could be seized and held still! they would see how eternity, in which there is neither past nor future, determines both past and future time. excerpts st augustine confessions

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a thought like this showed how foolish i was yesterday. i do feel a little wiser today though i cant even pen down properly what i think i understand. still i am wiser today, better off in compare to yesterday. but when the next light dawn, i will think how foolish i am today to have said what i said. and now you see how empty our words are, how we think that we cannot change today after it passes but tomorrow just proves to have changed my today. but i take heart, that each thinking process leads me to higher truth. i have no intention to complicate life, but life is complicated and i will be a fool to live as if it is not. i will be careless to take for granted that tomorrow is not too late to fix things for i do not have a clue what is installed for tomorrow. i will be so wrong to think that i can undo what i did yesterday for what i did had been done and forever will be there. what we think, is not yet; but what we do, is.

so what the past already written, the future already penned down? somehow the now is still out for us to seize. do not leave life unquestioned, life is meant to be a quest.

my bucket list

inspired by the movie the bucket list (which i have yet to watch), a few of us were discussing about "what is the one thing we will do if we know we have 3 days left to live?"

some says sky diving, "i have fear of height so i guess it doesnt matter since im going to die anyway"
some says travel around the world, "i know i cant do it in 3 days, i will go as far as i can go"
some says sitting around ppl they love, "im going to built a tent outside my house and watch the moonlight with adele (his wife)"

as for me, i cannot decide. which is more morbid?

1. to have a wedding and get married because i believe the marriage vow will be one of the most beautiful thing i will ever say and hear. plus i dont think i am cruel to get married before i die since the vow is always till death do us apart :) i guess i just need to die believing i found someone i love that loves me. i dont need any certificate so he will have no string attach to him hahah...

OR

2. to have a living funeral. it doesnt need to be sad, it can be a party. i mind as well gather everyone and praise God for one last time, meet all my friends and let them tell me what they think about my life then to have my funeral 3 days later when im no longer around. so if i know when im going to die. i am going to do just that. later i was reminded by one of my friend that this is what happen in the book tuesday with morrie. honestly, i cant remember this is in the book. now you wonder how much books you read influence things you do in life.

the girl in the frame

this is for those who have not seen me for a while. i do like to see myself smile. somehow she reminds me of the happier me.

i was contemplating if i should show you guys this because i've got recent comment that i have a lot of slutty photos. being a person that very much get bothered by how ppl think of me, i was a bit affected. then i think about it... come on my photos are so mild compare to those beach girls photos a and d took. also, i dont really have what it takes to do slutty photos. btw that is called art :)

also... it is a truth, i'm quite vain. i like to show off my nice photos. sometimes i do feel that i look better on photos. i guess it is because in photos you choose what you can keep but in life you cant really do that. In case you are wondering why girls go for makeover and big shopping after breakups. they need that to rebuilt their self esteem. Here is a written proof.

"I was also touched when Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour called to propose an article and photo shoot for the December issue of the magazine. It was gutsy of her to offer and counterintuitive for me to accept. In fact, the experience did wonders to my spirits. I wore a glorious burgundy velvet Oscar de la Renta creation for the cover shoot. For a day, I escaped into a world of makeups artists and haute couture. The Annie Leibovitz photographs were greatm giving me the chance to look good when I had been feeling so low."
Hillary Rodham Clinton words in her biography Living History after the scandal between Bill and Monica Lewinsky

the cure at troy

change removes what we hate about ourselves today and bring about what we want to see in ourselves tomorrow

i remembered there were a point in my life that i felt so out of place because i'm not exactly well read. i know nuts about celebrities or music, the who is with who. i always felt the need to know so that i can blend in a proper conversation with others. unfortunately i really dont know where to start, but God sees my humble heart and he made a way.

stumbling into FHM and HELLO make me now one of the most kepoh and well informed person in malaysia. or at least 2 weeks ahead. i normally read through the stories to understand how to arrange it while others just caught my attention because i was bored working. so now i know what drop dead gorgeous models look for in a guys to how many time this celebrities married, about when king and i will hit the theatre to movies that are not even on screen yet and for music what is recommended to download from their albums. fact that i can start hearing michael bublé before it started playing on hitz FM is a good sign. fact that i know most of the movies before it goes on the screen and finally i am putting names to these faces. it is all too good.

studying greeks philosophy to anthropology -- love, from gossips to politics (living history: hillary rodham clinton memoirs), from spirituality (IDMC and EDGE conference) to humanity (reading blogs).

well i guess that is why it is always said working is a learning curve. i'm enjoying every bit of it. now i just need to find a newspaper to work with so that i can start reading news and be an all rounders. well at least i know about lucky & flo. since most guys like intelligent girls maybe then i will be a babe to die for muahahahah.

inspired by clinton i just want to use this phrase, this is the time when hope and history rhyme.

two things we cannot do alone

finished reading church: why bother? by philip yancey in one sitting. why am i reading this book, it doesn't take a genuis to see i'm actually questioning if cell works, if any of us actually change when pastor shares his heart out or if i can come to God at all through church.

but as much as i used to believe bringing a pre believer to church once might give that person a chance to know Christ, i'm giving myself an equal chance now. just maybe the next time will be it, i will experience God again.

'Saint John of the Cross wrote "The virtuous soul that is alone... is like the burning coal that is alone. It will only grow colder rather than hotter." I (yancey) believe he is right'

someone once asked me this "why do you come to church?" i answered "to worship God, i do not come for the people" to which i thought was the perfect text book answer. i am not influence by people. i just realised what i meant was "i always ignore the people". the same person also mentioned "when Christ comes back for the Bride. it does not refers to us as individuals, how we always laugh about the man becoming the bride are just nonsense. the Bride refers to the church." i couldn't understand how important that is until now. that you are either part of the church or not. i guess yancey quotes him well.

"there are two things we cannot do alone," said Paul Tournier: "one is to married and the other is to be a christian."

'I (yancey) once visited a 'church' that manages, with no denominational headquarters or paid staff, to attract millions of devoted members each week. it goes by the name Alcoholics Anonymous. I went at the invitation of a friend who had just confessed to me his problem with drinking. "come along," he said, "and i think you'll catch a glimpse of what the early church must have been like."... Mostly the members, seemed to enjoy being around people who could see their facades. There was no reason not to be honest; everyone was in the same boat.'

my desire of a church.

in my greeks philosophy class, there is this cave anology. after we walk out and see the light, do not be too proud and move away thinking we are too smart for the rest. enlightentment was never for that purpose. go back into the cave and tell others about how big the world is. they might not believe you or follow you. be gentle, remember you were once like them. thank God, He had showed you the light.

i had been visiting a few churches, with very different people, preachers and worship styles. they all have their own flaws but if i was told to lead a church, i am sure it will still fall short of what my ideal is. i know what i mean because i was the co founder of my college CF. things do not happen as we always plan it. i guess therefore i should give credit to all these pastors who had been faithful to try sustain what they had been called into. i cannot say i love my church anyway if it is not a pain in the ass. the fact is, i had not really love if it does not hurt.

for now i am trying my very best to walk as a believer. i am not apologetic about my absence in ministry. my greatest concern is my heart with God. if i cannot worship with you in church, all my act of service is just a mere show.

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my first 24 hours back had been very fruitful. welcome by samuel and sara crawling to me. that's new, cuteness. a good night sleep. finish my errands in the morning. lunch with steph and jac. visit celia in her new house, my other secondary best friend. dinner with family. follow by this good read.

phílos: friend, or lover and sophía: wisdom

i paint this during my second semester in college.

why am i studying greeks philosophy? probably i am searching for the logos (word) which also mean knowledge, wisdom, reason, logic... just like what the greek philosophers were doing in their days.

In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things was made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made...

that we may know that the creation was not just a splash of beautiful accidents. it was done with much thoughts and calculation. don't even start to think that we found some new wisdom or new methods now. He has been here since the beginning.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

He is not just a great idea but He became flesh that we may know as well that it is not just an airy fairy thing but He is here.

just because we heard that it is a mystery and not seek to understand, that is ignorance.
with much of that we will no longer know what we believe in.
with much search and study if we still could not comprehend.
that is when it leaves us in awe of God, without searching we will never come to this point.

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we women are not asking that you understand us but we love it when you want to know us :)

i can't start my engine for 2007

what had i done the whole week:
had been reading the Philosophy for Understanding Theology book by Diogenes Allen.
- i have to say it does really open my eyes to many things. a lot of unlearning to do. made me really humble not to grasp God fully. but i am not giving up, need to have a discipline of theology.
- Ron Choong my si fuh said this when we were doing our skype sessions with him
we are not proclaiming because we understand what we proclaimed
we are proclaiming what God said
we are learning to understand what we proclaimed
don't stop proclaiming, don't stop understanding

watched A Night in the Museum for 3 times.
- the third time i watched the movie, the guy asked me this "so you watched the show 3 times with 3 different guy?". "ermm, tehnically you are right, but the second time i watched it with a group of ppl". the first time i was helping him kill time, the second time they got extra ticket and i was bored, the third time i just wanted to keep him company. but most important of all, i never pay for any of the tickets :)

sleep and really sleep.
- i used to tell ppl when i was younger my hobby (something i do when i am free) is to sleep. i had been sleeping till my little sis leaves for her afternoon school. i had been taking afternoon naps in between and before my dinner. well i think reading that philosophy book does the magic, i mean that book is heavy... i need to read every sentence and paragraph again.



honestly it is not because i got nothing to do, i've got work pilling up:
1. i need to close my 2006 accounts for income tax
2. i need to backup all my work for 2006 and label them
3. i need to update my website
4. i need to look for new jobs to clear my next month bills

alternatively...

like someone puts it, i need to work on my big project: find a husband

relationships

The pure relationship, how beautiful it is! How easily it is damaged, or weighed down with irrelevancies--not even irrelevancies, just life itself, the accumulations of life and of time. For the first part of every relationship is pure, whether it be with friend or lover, husband or child. It is pure, simple and unencumbered. It is like the artist's first version before he has to discipline it into form, or like the flower of love before it has ripened to the firm but heavy fruit of responsibility. Every relationship seems simple at its start. The simplicity of first love, or friendliness, the mutuality of first sympathy seems, at its initial appearance--even if merely in exciting conversation across a dinner table--to be a self-enclosed world. Two people listening to each other, two shells meeting each other, making one world between them. There is no others in the perfect unity of that instant, no other people or things or interests. It is free of ties or claims, unburdened by responsibilities, by worry about the future or debts to the past.

And then how swiftly, how inevitably the perfect unity is invaded; the relationship changes; it becomes complicated, encumbered by its contact with the world. I believe this is true in most relationships, with friends, with husband or wife, and with one's children. But it is in marriage relationship in which the changing pattern is shown up most clearly because it is the deepest one and the most arduous to maintain; and because, somehow, we mistakenly feel the failure to maintain its exact original pattern is tragedy.

It is true, of course, the original relationship is very beautiful. Its self-enclosed perfection wears the freshness of a spring morning. Forgetting about the summer to come, one often feels one would like to prolong the spring of early love, when two people stand as individuals, without past or future, facing each other. One resents any change, even though one knows that transformation is natural and part of the process of life and its evolution. Like its parallel in pysical passion, the early ecstatic stage of a relationship cannot continue always at the pitch of intensity. It moves to another phase of growth which one should not dread, but welcome as one welcomes summer after spring. But there is also a dead weight accumulation, a coating of false values, habits and burdens which blight life. It is this smothering coat that needs constantly to be stripped off, in life as well as in relationships.

Both men and women feel the change in the early relationship and hunger for nostalgically for its original pattern as life goes on and becomes more complicated. For evitably, as the relationship grows, both men and women, at least at some degree, are drawn into their more specialized and functional roles: man, into his less personal work in the world; woman, into her traditional obligations with family and household. In both fields, functional relationships tend to take the place of the early all-absorbing personal one...

But though both men and women are absorbed in their specialized roles and each misses something of the early relationship, there are great differences in their needs. While man, in his realm, has less chance for personal relations than woman, he may have more opportunity for giving himself creatively in work. Woman, on the other hand, has more chance for personal relations, but these do not give her a sense of her creative identity, the individual who has something of her own to say or to give. With each partner hungry for different reasons and each misunderstanding the other's needs, it is easy to fall apart or into late love affairs. The temptation is to blame the situation on the other person and to accept the easy solution that a new and more understanding partner will solve everything.

... But can the pure relationship of the sunrise shell be refound once it has become obscurred? Obviously some relationships cannot be recovered. It is not just a question of different needs to be understood and filled. In their changing roles the two patners may have grown in different directions or at a different rates of speed... It was an end in itself and not a foundation for a deeper relation. In a growing relationship, however, the original essence is not lost but merely buried under the impedimenta of life. The core of reality is still there and needs only to be uncovered and reaffirmed.

(if you don't like long blog, start here)
... Perhaps, as Auden says in his poem, this is a fundamental error in mankind.

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

"It is alright to wish to be loved alone," he said, "mutuality is the essence of love. There cannot be others in mutuality. It is the time-sense that it is wrong. It is when we desire continuity of being loved alone that we go wrong." For not only do we insist on believing romantically in the "one-and-only"--the one-and-only love, the one-and-only mate, the one-and-only mother, the one-and-only security--we wish that "one-and-only" to be permanent, ever present and continuous. The desire of being-loved-alone seems to me "the error bred in the bone" of man.

from the book Gift of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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as in any relationships, we as a person too need some time alone. that in quiet place we may find ourselves once again. may you find that secret place before the year end that you may embrace all relationships in its purest form in the year ahead.

I remember i once said to you that with all i have, i want to see the image of Christ in you. to see the beauty and the glory of God formed in you. today, i want to renew that promise to you. for it is an eternal promise.