How difficult it is to simplify matters.
Its not that I have grown wiser, its just that time has given me the realization that we select the adjectives we put to our statuses.
I am your true friend. I am your best friend. I am your loving friend. I am your busybody friend. I am your caring friend. I am your forgiving friend. I am your giving friend. I am your occasional friend. I am your greedy friend.
In the same way we could reverse the structures of the sentences and provide the definitions for another person.
You are a terrible friend. You are a best friend. You are a trustworthy friend. You are a sensitive friend. You are an unreliable friend. You are a tiring friend. You are a lousy friend.
We seem to get ourselves into knots each time we choose to reinforce into ourselves the kind of standards that we've been performing up to. It was only in these recent days that I realize that rather than allowing us to appreciate more the beauty and wonder of who our friends were, we were constantly placing impossible quantifiers and qualifiers to the kind of characters that we expected our loved ones to perform for us.
I can write it like this, because this is a constant struggle. I walk into an office and I say, this is the best job I've ever had. I look at my staff and I know how to say that person A is more reliable than person B, person C is the most efficient person I know. And each time I tell those things to myself, I further reinforce the belief that B is simply not reliable, and thus not allowing her the opportunity of ever raising the bar for herself.
These labels I've put to the people around in my life, they're such judgemental and impossible standards that I've placed upon them, all for the sake of satisfying my own judge-o-meter of who's best and who's worst.
So this is it. I am your friend. And you are my friend. And therefore, I will accept nothing more, and I will give nothing less. Whether you like it or not, I take the responsibility in fulfilling my duties, I will make this stand for you to be your friend, adjectives, qualifiers, standards not accepted. Because the moment I start living by anyone's definitions of good and bad, I start confusing myself and deviating myself from the ultimate role God has placed me in: to be A FRIEND.
…
And a friend will have to say what he has to say because he cares. You felt hurt because it was true, you felt I was insensitive because I was honest. And honesty always hurts.
…
I loved this Psalm long before I chose to accept my father's faith as my own. As a younger agnostic, searching teenager when I used to flip through Dad's bible, I used to hate the stories in it, in the times I chose to believe that God was evil because He allowed me to be born into a broken family. In recent weeks that I've considered the experiences that He has led me to encounter, I realized truly just how blessed I am to be be built just the way I am, and just how wonderfully and fearfully we have all be made in His image. That potential for growth to become just like Him just makes the whole concept of it logical. Of course carrying the cross is going to be difficult, you think being crucified easy meh?
Psalm 139
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!7 I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!19 O God, if only you would destroy the wicked!
Get out of my life, you murderers!
20 They blaspheme you;
your enemies misuse your name.
21 O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you?
Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose you?
22 Yes, I hate them with total hatred,
for your enemies are my enemies.23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
And yet here we are, sikit-sikit dah jadi marah macam nak meletup? How lah do to big things?
September 13th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
from ur earlier post - (I a bit perasan, can or not?),
The jury is still out on that. While awaiting verdict, pls refrain from further practise of perasan-ism.
Hey claire, I have a a few writing related ques i would like to ask but i dont have ur email. got something, or can u email me, u got my add!.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Let’s be friends
September 14th, 2007 at 1:50 am
‘I look at my staff and I know how to say that person A is more reliable than person B, person C is the most efficient person I know. And each time I tell those things to myself, I further reinforce the belief that B is simply not reliable, and thus not allowing her the opportunity of ever raising the bar for herself.’
There is a theory called ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ - predictions, in a sense, make themselves come true.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Hi care for a link exchange??
September 17th, 2007 at 1:31 am
Incidentally enough, I was taken to this very same Psalm this week…