just minishorts.

Someone asked me to watch this video today. Accompanying the message was a warning note to realize that while Christians are still comfortable about 'doing Church', 'the evil one' is not only 'encroaching' upon us, but has 'already taken over us'. Since 'the earth is on fire', we need to have more 'committees and seminars' to talk about how to 'counter this situation'.

To me, the warning call sounds like a Jesus Camp, fear the evil one kind of mentality. A pre-pregnant me would disregard the mail, ignore it, and throw it away, while cringing at such faithless conversations, and wonder where the 'love' in Christianity went to. As far as I recall, my bible's Jesus doesn't talk about fearing the evil one, neither does He talks about Christianity as an enrolment game of bringing in the numbers. My Jesus tells me that while my faith has long dissappeared, God will still be there, and I keep reading over and over again, the underlying message of 'Be Still, and know that I am God'.

Alas, far from being still, many Christians seem to not trust God so much and like to make lots and lots of noises, labelling people who do not believe in the kind of God they believe in, people who believe in the devil, the evil one. Aiyoyo, no wonder-lah, the great Mahatma Gandhi said before, 'I do not reject your Christ, I love your Christ.It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.'

But then again, who am I to quote Gandhi. A lot of holier-than-thou Christians will fervently point out to me that Gandhi, being Hindu, is NOT in heaven, and is burning in hell.

I suppose many many non-Christians would have experienced at least 1 Christian in your life whose version of the Good News is entering Heaven after death, and accepting Jesus to escape the fiery lake of hell. Perhaps such Christians may be so overwhelming and overbearing that they have painted a bleak image of who Jesus is. I was brought up in such a Christian family, and it made me run far far away and it caused me to hate the faith for many many years. Cell group meetings consisted of praying for Jesus to help us to spread the faith more, and at the end of the year the overall Church mission was always to 'enlarge the tent' and bring in the numbers.

I want to say that not all Christians are like that. Many of us are not idiots. Just like how, in the Muslim faith there are people who deem going to candlelight vigils as 'not Islamic enough', just like how in the Muslim faith there are people who will chastise their fellow sisters-in-Islam for having different understandings about their faith, so are there these kind of people in Christianity. The scary thing is, fear resonates quickly, and makes very loud noises, so it gives you the impression that it comes in big numbers.

If you're the kind of Christian who actually thinks that Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism comes from 'the evil one', I challenge you to read your bible, and expand your view by reading of other Christian thoughts. Go back in our Christian history and face our own hideous, uncharming path (we haven't always been loving and kind, and neither are we still like this now). As long as we keep fighting a war that talks about 'killing off' all other people, there is NO way that Kingdom can come. And ultimately, Jesus's only prayer taught to us was this, 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us, from the evil one. Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.'

Nothing in the Lord's prayer tells us to fear. Nothing tells us to find the evil one and kill it for the Lord. It just tells us to trust in God and trust that God will deliver us from the evil one, whoever the evil one is.

Be encouraged: Why so serious?

I get all warm and fuzzy each time I see this photo. Can't wait to know whether baby is going to be a boy or a girl, that's during the next visit to the doctor's.

Sharing with family and friends.

The weekend was pretty good for me, but alas it's over. I don't look back and wish I could turn back time, because 'looking back' itself requires 'time' which is, IMHO, better spent on focusing in the current frame that I exist. I belong in the present, and so I don't spend too much time flipping the pages of my days-long past. The regrets of life, they don't hold me back for too long, because there's so much more for me to do. If I didn't move ahead with the days, I wouldn't do anything new except to mull and fret over what I did wrong, and the mistakes I wish I never committed.

Thus better to move-ahead then to keep banging my head on the same spot over and over again, hoping that a bleed on my forehead will make a difference to the already dismal place we call earth. It won't. What would make a difference is what I'm going to do now, next, tomorrow. The actions I'm going to take in the next minute.

So if you don't move on, I can't do much about that. If you're happy to stay in the past, well good for you, but I'm saying goodbye and leaving you behind.

I hope you have a good time watching the crumbling sand of time fall upon you.

I woke up this morning to a huge mug of fresh milk, courtesy of dear Eric. This has become a daily routine ever since we found out the good news, and I've grown to dread it thoroughly and thoroughly.

Before this whole business of no more periods, I was a milk lover. I used to enjoy drinking Susu Lembu Asli and would purchase cartons and cartons of milk in different brands. So the moment we got our pregnancy positive on the test, I told Eric to get me a can of EnfaMama – ambitious lady that I was, determined to give the growing baby in me every nutrient available. Eric's all about the calcium and pumping me up with whatever's available so that baby doesn't take away the goodness from my bones, so he's always nagging me to 'drink more milk, drink more milk.'

Alas, I didn't count on losing my love for milk completely. Within 3 days I was rejecting wonderful EnfaMama (the can now sits forlornly on a corner of the kitchen counter), and Eric, panicking, decided that I would switch to either Farmhouse, Good Day, Dutch Lady of Marigold, whichever works. Now the daily morning cup of milk is pure torture, and I hate it to death, but each morning, religiously, I hold my breath and swallow it. Later, I'd spend the next one hour desperately trying to keep the milk in, lest I puke it out (I don't have morning sickness, but my body seems to reject foods that taste odd to me).

I've got six more months of milky mornings to go through, so not looking forward to it. *sniff*

p.s. A friend asked me I was still going to call my baby Paul if he were a boy, after the crazy whacking that I've been getting from some very angry commenters (actually there's not so many, just the same person keeps coming in as both Paul and Kenneth and comments incessantly so that's why its getting quite hilarious)  in the past few posts, and my take is this: why not? Paul's a good name, and that person is probably a good person who just doesn't hold my opinion. It doesn't take away my desire to name my son Paul. So there's that.

I learnt something very very strange about human behaviour recently, or more precisely, over the course of two days.

You see, I'm no angel, so I have my share of detractors. Actually I have a HUGE number of detractors, and at one time it got so bad that I almost had to stop blogging – which I did. But then I came back, because blogging, apart from being a place for me to articulate some thoughts that were going on in my head, allows me to occasionally collect samplings of human thought and behaviour, and in the work that I do – these experiences help me help my people immensely (if you don't know already, I'm a PR professional, but I'm sometimes invited to give professional coaching in writing and business communications to companies).

I don't know about you, but when I get scolded by some people in their blog, the last thing I'd want to do is go in and tell them how wrong they are and start a long argument with them. I would NEVER EVER return again and again, several times in a day, to tell them how rude and unlearned they are, much less give my two sen to them over how I think they should lead their lives.

The other thing I would never do is to walk into another person's blog who is commenting on something that is close to his opinions, and tell him how wrong he is to have that kind of opinion.

But I must say, because I am sort of righteous and opinionated, and judgemental myself, I do get agitated when I read of news and posts and actions of other people who occur to me as the biggest culprits of pointless stupidity. And I'm not that kind of person who thrives over gossiping at the local coffeeshop, because personally I think it's not very nice to disrupt a relaxing milo session by talking about people who are stupid and wrong, in my eyes. So, I let'er rip by blogging it, and when I blog it, yah, I get into my words and I really let them out.

…

To me, a blog is a personal place with windows to the soul of the person. it's a bit like somebody's home, with curtains that are drawn open occasionally to give you a peek into what's happening there. My blog is something like a show unit, so many times, I open doors and allow visitors, strangers even, to walk in and enjoy the view. Of course, it's not all the time comfortable and soothing. Once in a while, there are arguments and glass vases thrown around the house.

If you are a visitor to this kind of house, do you tell the owner off in her face, 'You are rude and you are a lousy host?'

I don't know about you, but I'm the type who would shut my yap and never return, because obviously our characters clash.

THE LAST THING I WOULD DO IS START AN ARGUMENT WITH THE OWNER OF A HOUSE IN HER OWN HOUSE. If she scolds me back, I think she has every right. If I know she scolds me back, I wouldn't come back again and again to argue with her.

I'd thought that was common sense, but since two days ago, I really learnt something very very strange about people. *puzzled*