just minishorts.

I think its funny how people think that their ideas are the only ideas that matter.
I think its funny how people want to make sure that other people agree with them all the time.
I think its funny how people can resort to bullying tactics just to make their point known.
I think its funny how people can cling on so tightly onto their opinions.
I think it's funny how people can get upset just because someone says something that challenges their stated opinion.
I think its funny why people spend so much money on conventions and meetings just to discuss ideas and agree on a common way to achieve peace.
I think its funny how people have to agree on 'methods' to peace.
I think it's funny how people like to complicate matters by giving themselves excuses.
I think it's funny how easy it is to achieve peace – forgive, forget, love again.
I think it's funny just how complicated it is, simply because people don't like to forgive, much less forget, and God forbid, love again.
I think it's funny that we're all so anal about these crazy value when at the end of it, none of us are going to die taking home these values with us into the grave.

I think the whole political scene in Malaysia is a joke. I think its funny how those crazy politicians still think they're doing great things for this nation.

I think its funny how after all these… BN is still in power. Haven't I been explicit enough already?

April, among other friends tagged me on facebook a while back, and it took sometime for me to get back to earth (I let my mind run havoc online whenever I can and the blog suffers). I figured that this would be the fastest way to update the family and friends on whats up recently, so here goes:

1. I'm currently in my Kung Fu Panda mode, trying to micro sense everything whenever I am able to.
2. I can do Chinese Calligraphy pretty well, and that includes both writing and drawing.
3. I did a test on 'Which Gem of Life character are you?' recently and I'm Melissa.
4. I hated homework as a kid, and there was once I feigned a tummy upset to bring my homework into the school toilets so that I could complete the work before the teacher came in.
5. I suck at maths. As in, I really, really, really suck at maths.
6. I tend to ignore every invite on facebook, including those event-type invites, and especially group invites. But for some reason I'm still found on over 30 groups because I'm too lazy to leave those groups.
7. I can't stand people who friend request every Tom Dick and Harry on facebook. Like, just because we went to the same school, did the same training, love the same shows, and wear the same clothes DOESN'T MEAN I am happy to be your friend, doink!
8. I am reading this crazy book called The Truth: What You Must Know Before December 21, 2012, and I think the theories in it actually make sense.
9. If there were a 'religion' called Zen Christianity, I would probably subscribe to its theology.
10. I believe that Christians who think that non-Christians will burn in hell are heretics.
11. My husband bought me a Wii for valentine's day. MUAHAHAHHA  I AM SO LUCKY!!
12. Currently my favourite game on the Wii would be this crazy thing called Warioware Smooth Moves.
13. I'm stuck on the Goron Mines level in The Legend of Zelda's Twilight Princess.
14. I'm currently designing a training module for Effective Business Writing and am wrecking my brains over the mechanics in making it more experiential than classroom styled.
15. I found out that I can cook pretty well, and its a pleasant discovery.
16. I have P1 Wimax and it beats Streamyx, Maxis, Celcom and all of those wannabes.
17. I love yoga and my current goal is to be able to do a perfect split.
18. I can place my palms flat beside my feet whenever I do a forward bend.
19. I think Christians who think that Yoga is from the devil are heretic.
20. I am a supporter of Barack Obama (but then again, who isn't?)
21. I can't stand the Malaysian government. I can't stand unscrupulous businessmen. I'll name names here: I can't stand Badawi, I can't stand Najib, I can't stand Kit Siang, I can't stand Karpal, I can't stand Syed Hamid Omar, I can't stand CAP, I can't stand Francis Yeoh, I can't stand Vincent Tan.
22. Here's a known secret – I left TNB because the system was dead on being bureaucratic and they have the MOST number of pointless Audits in the whole world. I loved the company and the people there though but it was literally impossible to make a difference.
23. I prefer Sony Ericsson phones over Nokia, my husband prefers Nokia. I think Nokias are ugly. I think LG makes pretty phones. I believe that Samsung phones don't last very long. LONG LIVE SONY ERICSSON.
24. I tend to let my principles guide me, and sometimes they lead me to disastrous results.
25. I am currently drinking Milo + Nescafe panas in a Starbucks mug.

(I'm tagging whoever… because most people seem to have done this already haha).

Today is the first year that I'm attending an actual Ash Wednesday service.

Growing up in the Charismatic Church tradition, I never heard of the liturgical calendar before until sometime in late 2002, a friend from the Roman Catholic Church told me that she was preparing herself for the season of Advent. At that time I researched Advent, but for some reason what remains in my mind now is the memory of labelling advent as a Western excuse to make pretty online designs and expensive candle holders and candles to charge buyers money.

Of course a few years on and now that Eric and I are attending a traditional church (we're Lutheran), we look at the liturgical calendar from a very different point of view now. I think it was about a year back when I told a friend (Brethren I think, but she didn't know of the liturgical weeks), that I really appreciate the church years and was glad to know about it, and I wondered why the Charismatic churches so deliberately avoided using Years A, B, or C that her response struck me in my toes.

'Oh we're not like that, my church, we don't do what liturgical nonsensical stuff like you say. We just do the stuff that's straight from the Bible.'

***

You know these days' there's so much on my mind that each time I do get the time to come on board to blog a post, I tend to ramble on into my tiny space of oblivion. Other times because there's so much conflict and confusion struggling inside my brain that I choose not to log on at all, and just surrender into the peace of just being. Last night, I thought about my past, how the confusing memory of growing up in a very charismatic and also very traditionally Chinese ancestral worshipping family made me such a keen observer of the damaging effects of religiosity. I recalled my little spats with that crazy Muslim activist called MENJ (God bless his little soul please), and how I used to be so angry at Christians who were obsessed with the concept of a burning hell. It wasn't until a bit later that I realised that all these labels of Catholic, Lutheran, presbryterian, Methodist, Pentescostal, AOG, Charismatic, Spirit Filled, you name it, were just litte human shields of protection seeking to correct and all too human concept of who a transcendant God is. The point is, I don't believe that we can ever encapsule God into a tiny vessel of understanding, or at least, I am unable to accept that God is a 'concept' that we can ever grasp, at least, not unti we die and cross over anyway.

That's probably the reason why I won't go so far as to accept an atheist understanding of God as not existing. Because to me, the signs are everywhere, or at least, I am sensitive to the concept of a higher understanding hovering in and out of us. I can feel it, and the science materialists will like to call this 'superstition' and obviously the Richard Dawkins purists will call us religious nutheads.  But all these derogatory labels can't take away that significance of Eric and I embracing the understandability of the Christian Liturgical Calendar anyway. (if you're attending a charismatic Church and you have NO IDEA what I'm talking about go google 'Liturgical Calendar'). I think it's crazy that churches who seek to be so far apart from the traditional church just because they believe that they are more Christ-like than these have to even seek another set of 40-days of fasting. I think its crazy that they ignore the entire season of Lent and then suddenly converge on Good Friday to celebrate the resurrection come Easter with a huge stage presentation of The Passion. You cannot take away the educational meaning of the church seasons. And the flow of the liturgical calendar has made reading the bible a whole new experience. Being in a Lutheran church, in particular, has made it exciting because we can now compare texts from all faith traditions in a heathy way, without having an intention to swallow up the tenets of another belief, such as Confucianism, Taoism and Islam. We can co-exist and still learn to love our neighbours, just as God planned.

I'm writing this because I know many people in the Charismatic and Pentecostal traditions who believe that they are chosen, that they are better than all of us, and that the rest of us are all going to hell (yes even those of us who attend church) simply for 'facts' like 'you were not immersed at baptism', or that 'you can't speak in tongues', or 'you visit a doctor when you're sick so where is your faith'. I think its time I just say it: what nonsense and how un Christian, wait.  I stand corrected. How INHUMANE of you to say such things. So I go into Lent seeking a rebirth and a reboot, and with this little vow to be as honest as ever, to speak my mind whenever I can, and most importantly, my little act of consecration: to abstain from any form of fowl or land walking beast for the 40 days of Lent.

Or at least, I will try to do all of that.

Or trust everything. Or do both at the same time.

I speak in riddles these days because there seems to be no point in having clarity. It feels as if the more confused I sound in my writings, the clear and emptier my brain is. I cope, just like everyone copes, and amidst the chaos that is the now, I have to believe that this, whatever this phase is, is the right way to go, the right thing to do.

So the frogs jumping, the photos leaking, the murders, bombings, killings, devastations, fires, deaths… why all of this all at once, or is it true that the more you know, the more you understand, the more pain you will feel and have to experience?

Its no longer a dog eat dog world. It's just a bleeding reality of devious humanity, and the sad thing is, you see the good people falling like pins and then suddenly, even RPK now sounds like a freaking drama king (he sounds almost like Jesus in his latest, and perhaps final post). Or how did you react when you heard the news about Eli Wong, what did you feel when you see her wiping her tears on your TV screen?

Or were you like me, upset and disgusted at the way Khir Toyo (responded), upset at the way Anwar responded as the de facto leader of PKR (Come on have some balls lah cannot issit? Stick out for her make a decision now, don't say 'we will wait till she comes back from her extended leave').

We have strange people leading, or aspiring to lead this nation. That's the problem now. The problem is up until now, there isn't a choice, not at all.

Sometimes we talk as if we're such millionaires, who own every thing we do, every result we create, every minute we have. But the truth cannot be further from the opposite, in essence, we are all poverty-stricken, what has happened passes us by fleetingly, becoming a part of the past, essentially nothing, and yet even that we tightly cling on, as if that nothingness can actually change our very beings at this very moment.

Of life even, when we talk about it, we speak so haughtily, as if we own our lives, as if we have rights to dictate what happens, as if we steer this possession to the results we create, that fleetingly touch our lives, and then is gone. The poets and sages have written about all of these through the ages, and yet stubbornly we refuse to learn what has been recorded, regarding every wisdom as a load of meaningless sound, but naught till our final breath do we realize the truth, that we didn't own our lives at all, instead our lives owned us. And then it dawns upon you upon that very last breath, that choice you finally have to make, is it going to be painful, or is it going to be that last beautiful experience you get to live before you pass on?

I wasn't nearly as touched as the passing of a near-stranger than I was by the leaves that swayed in the breeze. Or maybe it's just the ego in me, feigning wisdom by drawing strength from all those books on Zen knowledge. I can only try, and hope that one day when I return here I'll be able to pick up some bits of my past to help me make my choices in the present of that time.