muffler

Strangely, things became clearer after today's sermon. While there are many uncertainties in my various life trajectories, if there is any need for assurance (though I know none is needed or necessary), I still and do mean whatever I've said last time.

Who is running the race for the rat?

It is not that I am not praying.
It is because I am not sure how to pray.
Or where should I start in my prayer?

The church camp last year warns me of the danger of running the rat race, and emphasize the need to run God's race. I really believe in that and I still do, and I think it somehow really convicted me of the passion to chase the so called three desires of my heart.

Three months on, I think I am still running it. But you know, sometimes things aren't just so pleasantville and simple and kind. Running God's race requires some sort of super uber tunnel vision, to really cast aside the obligations and expectations of the world. And sometimes, I'm not even sure if I am running the right race for God. My own little life journey has taught me that things that seem so right can go mega really wrong; and things that seem so wrong somehow turn out pretty right. How can I be sure that the heart is not deceptive above all things?

I think I'm finding it hard to explain to a few folks why I'm trying to really pack my summer holiday. A really simple and straight forward answer is that I hate the feeling of idleness, which sometimes comes with the bonus package of loneliness.

But a deeper answer is probably due to my own strange psychological make up. Have you ever felt that a bad experience or lesson in the earlier part of your life just kinda forms your character and outlook in the later part of your life, even many years down the road? For example, maybe a particular failure in the earlier part of your life can either make you more of a perfectionist in order to get back into the game, or makes you avoid the game at all cost. Or maybe the tragic loss of a friend just makes you want to avoid losing any more friends by having no friends at all?

So perhaps I just have a really bad case of idleness during my first year of summer holiday, which resulted in a chain reaction effect of many many more bad experiences. And I do not want that to happen again.

I want to push idleness as far away as possible, so that I won't be stuck in a vulnerable position. I want to be somehow distracted by the rat race so that I can really focus on what convicted me last year. God willing, He will change my conviction, either through His own voice or through some divine tragedies. But the last thing I want is for my own hands to take away what drives my heart. That will be a tragedy to those who feel, a solution to those who wept, and a comedy for those who laugh.

I don't think anyone in this part of the world will understand.

Let the War Begin!! =o

27th March: ISM Draft 1 submission.
Prayers: That I won't write rubbish, thank God for a kind supervisor so far; that he'll will be able to give me a deadline extension

28th March: Democratic Possibilities Student Led Seminar
Prayers: That Clement and I and our 3 grp members will be able to pull off a good show in front of 20 local students and 40 americans (our grp got arrowed to entertain these ang mohs, a bit stressful cos I think americans talk a lot, even when they have nothing to talk)

28th March: Chinese Politics Presentation
Prayers: That I'll be able to say something substancial, although I've decided that this will be the last of my priorities

3 April: European Union-ASEAN Essay Submission, ISM Submission
Prayers: I'll be able to ask for extension for ISM

7 April: Singapore Foreign Policy Essay Submission

10 April: Chinese Politics Essay Submission
Prayers: My most dreadful module this sem, pray that I won't write rubbish

12 April: Proposed deadline for ISM submission.
Prayers: That my supervisor will grant me this deadline!

Good Friday: Democratic Possibilities Group Essay Submission
Prayers: That I have enough energy to contribute to the group essay

Reasons for rejuvenation

Went for the preaching workshop today at St Andrew Cathedral's new 'fangled' (new word I learnt today) building. I thought it was an eye opening perspective on 'expository preaching'. I guess I've always wanted to spend some effort in extracting the 'exegesis' and 'hermeneutics' of the bible, but a lack of motivation, time, prayer and resources sometimes make the bible studying process a pretty baneful one. But I think today's workshop opened up a perspective that I do not need to be a historian or theologian or language expert or a jurgen habermas to make the bible come alive. All it needs is a really astute sense of the bible's context and an attitude of humility that all verses - I dare say including the genealogies - are profitable, to extract the depth of the bible.

I think I do malign my own faith once in a while, due to the lack of insight into the bible. Maybe that is why i find it hard sometimes to really explain to my unchurched friends some of the Christian issues that they themselves are curious about.

The Singapore film festival is coming soon, but as usual, it is right smack in the middle of the pre exam season. Nonetheless, I think I'll probably give myself a bit of indulgence after my last paper on 14th April. There is this film, Adam's Apples, that I thought is more disturbing than the Da Vinci Code but might be a better platform to launch a discussion on the reality of God and the Devil.

Check out the synopsis

Adam is a neo-Nazi, paroled to the care of Ivan, a pathologically blinkered pastor whose faith is about to be shaken by Adam. Adam is challenged to bake an apple pie from the tree growing in front of the church. But nature takes its own course - birds, worms and lightning attack the apples. Ivan believes it is the Devil testing them. Adam on the other hand, thinks it is God himself, because perhaps evil does not exist at all. Written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, this twisted comedy was a huge box office hit in Denmark and received the Audience Awards both in Hamburg and Warsaw.

Oh well, maybe the danes just have a knack for sardonic humour.

say No to mass culture

It has been a pretty liberating experience to abstain from msn chatting and watching tv. Maybe that explains the slightly increased frequency of blogging inane posts; I guess there is that bit of need to keep in touch with the cyber world, though probably no one really quite visit The Pseudo Philosopher Blog, which isn't quite philo anymore these days. Ha ha.

Anyway, I think maybe I'll just stay away from msn all the way till God knows when. I guess there is not much reasons to go online anyway these days. I think mass culture strips away a lot of authencity in human relationships. It is rather dehumanizing that emoticons should replace our emotional lexicon. Perhaps getting away from the whole connected world makes me appreciate meet ups with people more, since I barely communicate with people these days. But for now, I think I prefer to stay away from people.

Still, the bible did say that at some point or points along the pilgrimage of 'solitude', we will enter into what St John of the Cross describes as the 'dark night of the soul', where we have a sense of dryness, aloneness, lostness; the will becomes arid, the intellect becomes dark, and there lies a burdensome cloud which afflicts the soul and keeps it withdrawn from God. (I'm quoting these from Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline). St John of the Cross says that in such times, it is not so much a case of one being 'out of sorts', but it is a process to go into deeper waters with God than we usually care to do so.

I'm not so sure if I am going through such a suspended phase, but I think the last few days have been really tough going. I don't know.. I think I'm taking comfort in being withdrawn from the usual people. The pragmatic part of me tells me that nothing much will change after I step out of this space-out zone, the curious/faithful part of me tells me that God might just change my perspectives on certain issues. I don't know, I'm quite a boring person, I prefer to keep things the way they are, even if it does not make sense to everyone out there.

Nearing winter

But now I stand behind him,
in the silence of prayers.
He puts a hand in a pocket.

Should I slip away, I wonder,
or go up and touch his shoulder,
and talk about the weather.

No, I'll leave him, alone.

I will offer up my life

I will offer up my life in spirit and truth
Pouring out the oil of love as my worship to You
In surrender I must give my every part
Lord receive the sacrifice of a broken heart

Jesus, what can I give
What can I bring
To so faithful a friend
To so loving a king
Saviour, what can be said
What can be sung
As a praise of Your name
For the things
You have done

Oh my words could not tell
Not even in part
Of the debt of love that is owed
By this thankful heart

-Matt Redman-

The waffle guy

I went to watch Rosetta yesterday. Needed to chill out after an epic night battle trying to come out with an ISM outline, which I duly submitted at 5am sharp. Nonetheless, I'm wondering how would a 2000 word outline fit into a supposing 5000 word essay. Oh well, that will be a problem for another day.

Anyway Rosetta was one of those M1 fringe fest films that has a rather bittersweet ending. Rosetta, to begin with, belongs to one of those lower class jobless citizens caught in the backwaters of the French (or maybe Belgium? I can't really deduce it from the film) industrial complex. Living in a crap caravan with an alcoholic mum, she is basically moving from point to point trying to grab a decent job, and hopefully some meaning in life.

So the film is bitter (and maybe boring) in the sense that the director is super excessive on Rosetta's really routine and mundane life. Half way during the film we really questioned if the director had simply ran out of ideas to show any sign of progress in his narrative. Interestingly, everytime Rosetta is going crazy looking for a job, the camera (which I suspect uses some sort of a prime lens) will trace her movements in a really jerky manner but stabilizes once she finds back some sort of rhythm in her life (that comes with a job). Either the director is really pushing his image stabilizer mode, or he is conveying a message of how meaningless we are in this lousy capitalist system.

But the film is sweet in the sense that Rosetta finally cried at the end of the show. Throughout the film, she is just this stone cold girl who moves from point A to B and to C in a viscious cycle trying to get a job, showing no emotions whatsoever to the waffle guy who really loves her (but really sucks in pleasing her), and trying to get her mom out of her alcoholic addiction. Towards the end of the film, she wants to kill herself and her mom (who is knocked out by alcohol) by gassing themselves with the kerosene tank. It is really eery that she does it in such an impassionate and methodological manner. However, in true blue down and out fasion, the tank runs out of gas halfway and she has to get out of the caravan to get a new tank to gas herself and mom. And the film ends (really abruptly) at the part when she drops the new tank at the door and broke down in tears.

Oh well, maybe the film spoke to my friend more than it spoke to me, or maybe vice versa, I don't know. Not that I have an alcoholic mom, but perhaps it does show how meanings in life can be lost while we are searching for some sort of an end-point? I mean, we often hear the usual story that 'meanings' are found in the 'process', or 'journey', and not the goal in itself per se. But I think sometimes we do drift too much in the process searching for a reason in life. I guess I don't mind having some clear end-points now; it is kind of dreary that at the age of 24, I haven't really figure out what I really want in life. Or maybe I do know what I want, but it is just kind of denied by circumstances, or maybe denied by my lack of courage, character and charisma?

Perhaps that is one of the few things that I hope God can show me in this season of Lent. Just a glimpse will do, of what He wants out of me. At this point in time, it is kind of a blank. Still, I think there is much freedom in drifting in an aimless state. Perhaps it gives me the space to do crazy things. I mean, life kinda shows a lot of potential when one has nothing to lose. But of course it must be 'controlled craziness', within God's moral paradigm. I won't gas myself.

***
I think today's worship really spoke to me. Esp the song that has something about "saving lost souls" or something like that. I can't remember the lyrics. I think there are friends out there who need to know Jesus.

The space of Soren

Perhaps, space has not entirely dissolved into a vacuum.
Though space will never be defined as a potential,
still, it warms the heart that the ephemeral narrative of space-as-undefined,
has been laid to rest.
Rest is not necessarily the absence of space,
but the irony of rest - its passivity and inaction - is that it necessitates a new narrative.
Maybe it is in the human nature to constantly create new meanings within the transient notion of temporality,
but what new meanings can he achieve if he never knows the answer to space-as-undefined?
Will he then go to the Absurd to claim the finite back?
He just might be, lest he'll remained in the realm of infinite resignation.