Things to thank God for

I think I got a bit overly enthusiatic with meeting up some of the guys in my ex-cell (I'm leading a new bunch of sec ones now with Wai On, while Hewlett and Abraham take over the boys). You see, some of them have either undergone a 180 degree transformation since church camp last dec (they even text me bible verses! quite rare for punk boys), express a desire to come back to church/cluster/cell, or decide to pray a bit more because of their transitions in their teenage lives. I tried to capture that fire by meeting up with them a bit more intentionally and regularly. But I think the cell leader himself is not doing too good a job with managing his time between thesis and ministry. For the past few nights, I got really tired by 9pm, but I found it a bit hard to sleep until 1am or so. There is just this strange eclectic mix of thoughts in my head that makes me hard to settle down and sleep - thinking of the 5 chapters in my thesis, running through the conversations I had with the guys, upcoming events that vic and I are planning for heartbeat, and strangely marvel and DC comic heroes, which is somewhat a new thing that I've picked up in recent weeks. It just dawn upon me that the comic characters in x-men, batman, superman, wonderwoman etc tell a narrative that reflects American society and politics to a large extent, and their narratives change over the years as American culture changes. Duh... I know it is mundane political blah again, but it is a new thing to me in understanding the connection between politics and pop culture. Ever since I stopped the idea of going to mfa, I've been wondering what use is PS besides making one a rather cynical newspaper reader. Maybe the answer lies in movies, comics, photography etc; gives me a reason to indulge in the 'low art' of pop culture.

So I guess there are things to thank God for, in the midst of a slightly tiring and overloaded week. Seeing the boys in my ex-cell slowly morphing into marvel heroes for God. Seeing myself running the race with them. And maybe I should include my painful thesis into the thanking list. It is really tough going now. Habermas is not a very friendly guy to understand. So is Gramsci. Can be a pretty discouraging process not knowing what to write (with 2 more months to thesis deadline). But at least I get to write a thesis, which is quite a cool thing. If you can pray for me, pray that I won't get too discouraged easily in the thesis, and that I'll find strength to lead the marvel heroes in my cluster.