ancient death scimitar
if that's not a cool band name, i don't know what is.

well, apart from it sounding incredibly goofy, it does have experimental joke properties.

i wish i could update you all on fantastic things that are developing in my life like finished new songs or projects that break the creative barrier or of gigs that could potentially change my life, or revelations to bring the gospel to uncreached people groups..

but i'm pleased to report that nothing of that sort is happening and i'm stuck here in the bowels of my own mediocrity. damn, i hate this feeling.

miniature hearts
i'm sitting here a bit fazed, because well.. i'm supposed to know what i wanna say by the time i get here. but the thing is, i don't really know what i wanna say, or if anything needs saying at all.

i've just come back from church camp, and it was every bit as good as the ones prior to it. i've learnt many different things, and in different ways too. it wasn't just about being hit full on by the spirit of God, but this time it was more about careful timing, perfect placement, strong steady arms and firm grounding instead of great emotional heights.

from earlier posts, you may have realised that i was not staying with my peers, but rather people from the worship team, some of which i knew, some more like acquaintences. but i'm glad to say, that it didnt matter, God made sure i was never short of company, blessing me with this group of people, having meals together, talking together, joking or laughing and basically, just enjoying God through the friendship of others.

but that was not the real reward for not asking to be changed to a different group. i think since the arragnments were proposed, it was a lesson from God about living things his way instead of what our desires tell us so.

it's alright to have desires, but we have to be careful to live them out in the context of what God desires more of us, becuase his ways should be our ways.

the speaker for camp was a Ps. Dennis Balcombe who was a US missionary to China for more than 30 years of his life. he's what you might call fanatical.. the disciplines he put himself thru, the principles he lived by all to bring delight to God. basically, i think he's might almost be the fire and brimestone guy on the streets telling you to repent. but that is the conviction that God put in his heart, that without knowing Jesus as our saviour, we are undoubtedly going to hell when we pass away. and for him, there's no time to waste. me? maybe my heart's not in that place yet, because this whole camp has showed me how much i hold back, wanting to control my life of fear that when God controls my life it's gonna spiral out of control.

on the last night of camp, Ps. Dennis gave the altar call to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and renew us. i was on acoustic guitar duties, but when a young man asked if i would like to be prayed for, i agreed and left my guitar with him to play. as i stood there, my mentor came and prayed for me, reminding me to go back to the word of God which is a very timely reminder. after that, i waited, but no Ps. Balcombe.. i thought i would give myself a few more moments, but he didn't seem to be walking in my direction.

well.. no big deal i reckon, i already have been baptised with the holy spirit, and there's no denying that the spirit works in my life as well. so, i guess i just decided to going back to what i was doing earlier, and that was playing the guitar.

however, when i walked back to the worship line, another Ps. David asked if i had been prayed for by Ps. Balcombe. i thought this was rather intriguing because i had just returned from the altar call, and even if no one was watching, i would feel rather silly fluttering between two zones so often. but i sensed God was wanting to tell me something, so i agreed and stood at somewhere slightly more prominent hoping he would see me this time.

well, i waited and waited, feeling a bit uneasy.. opening and closing my eyes wondering when it was my turn. perhaps if i was really in the zone, i would have just been lost in experiencing God. but i was fluctuating between worship and 'what am i doing here' thoughts.

finally, Ps. Balcombe laid his hands on me. he didn't say anything, but was just praying for me in tongues, not loud or anything, just how someone would if he was praying for you, and then he moved on.

well, that was rather strange i thought, but i allowed it to soak within me. it wasn't that i didn't understand it, on the contrary, i was glad that he finally came to me, and prayed for me even if it was in no intelligible words. because i was determined to stand my ground and not let God pass me by, just a touch from him was enough to fill my spirit. the short pause really did lift me up, and i was feeling much better about my circumstances. as i was about to leave, my cell leader walks up to me and reads a word into my heart.

"he trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him." Psalms 22:8

wow, the Lord delights in me! and it was just like it said, waiting on the Lord is trusting in him, over circumstances, over our comfort zones, over what we think is the right thing to do, over justification.. regardless of where we stand, whether we're in a good place or a bad place.. we just need to trust in the Lord, and he will deliever us.

another cell member came up to pray with me, and share about how we should always ask the Lord to stay a little bit longer, which i can say is something i need to learn. without knowing it, i know i compartmentalise God in various areas of my life.. he has some control of my life, but not everything. things deep down inside, the stuff i know i have to deal with, i'm learning to let God instead.

overall, the challenge presented to me at camp, was that we get so comfortable with our own lives sometimes, that we have no more desire to see God perform miracles and revivals in our lives. Ps. Balcombe showed us a lot of footage of the revival sweeping through china. most of them were simple folk, with very little going for them in life, but they had such fire in their eyes. they were hungry for the word of God, hungry for miracles, for healings and teachings. one might look at it and think that it was more a simplistic faith rather than a simple faith. i mean, i don't know if they understood the doctrine of calvinism or the differences in denominations or various creationist arguments supporting christianity..

to these folk, it didnt matter.. all that did was that God gave his son to die for their sins, rose again and conqured death, and now he is extending his gift of eternal life into their lives. and they had fire.. something fanatical as opposed to the rest of us civilised folk.

i began to wonder about the more developed places like beijing. would a successful business man or government official want to be seen with these simple folk, in their poverty acting like stark raving lunatics for God? and i began to wonder about myself.. would i be able to 'act' like that in public, or rather would i allow the Holy Spirit to use me in such a way? i mean, am i more concerned in societal rules and keeping up with appearances rather than being concerned about how God thinks, how God wants to do things.

this was my challenge, and i'm in the process of understanding more about it. but the more i think and pray about it, the more i realise what an absolute farce so many things in this world is, and yet.. i also know that there is nothing guilty with being born into the income group God placed you in when you were born.

Paul taught that to the greeks we become greeks, and to become all things to all men so that some might be saved. wherever we are called to serve, we should not need to feel guilty about our circumstance, because it's all God, what he called us to be and do. the only difference is that, where we are, are we actually fulfilling the work of God. are we investing ten talents for another ten or just burying them in the ground?

open arms
will be gone on saturday. but i'm just wondering just how much of open arms will singapore accept me when i return?

review: my life as a process
ack, only because i'm gonna leave my seat in fifteen minutes time for a class in half an hour. between now and then, i am photoshopping an image to illustrate my future plans for world domination.

it is done!



well, i'm doing this because i cannot afford a US made Lakland Joe Osborn, so i was thinking of getting a much cheaper Fender bass and just modding the electronics. sure it might sound different with the woods and all, but that's the exciting thing as well! having your own mutant beast and not feeling guilty for changing it!

don't know love
saw a man eating alone today. he was the kinda guy that didn't look very fashionable, very plain, in his thirties, and well.. my first thought was that gee.. he's looks awfully alone or lonely, and my secondary thought was, gee, i hope i don't end up like that..

well, for that split second my fear of being alone in my thirties crept up again.

but this time instead of entertaining the thought or lies about self worth, what was brought to my attention by the holy spirit was that there was such an unecessary emphasis of a man's virility by the companion or companionship he has by his side.

i mean, think about it. usually our first conclusion about seeing a person doing 'community' actions alone, we tend to think that they are such lonely people. meals, movies, at a club, at a gig, having a coffee (but not doing anything else).

sure sometimes its true, but my argument is that usually it is our own self-righteousness that judges them that way.

if we are so bound by what the status quo tells us to be, then well.. thoughts of dying alone will forever plague us. but if we can accept that singlehood, or even alone time is exactly another part/phase of life, and that a person is no less than the company he/she keeps by his/her side, then i think we could learn a thing or two about our own perceptions of our self-worth.

am i sorry for this man? no more than i am sorry for myself.

make love, not warcraft


because only the good stuff belong here. one of the latest southpark episodes utilising warcraft iii machinma to animate various scenes. hella funny even if you don't know l337 speak. please watch it r-tards!

my secret lovechild
i've been nursing the ghost of Anna Karina for eleven posts now, and in case you don't know how irregularly i update that space, i'm telling you here. -)

just uploaded a short demo of the chorus to a yet-to-be completed song. you can download it and hopefully listen to it, but it's not imperitive, except for napkin man

the (red) army
so it helps to be socially aware right?

well, i got to know more about project (red) from bruce's blog and according to their manifesto, (red)red seems to be rewriting the business models of the world. buy our products, we give $10 from every product bought to buy medicine to fight AIDS in Africa.

as usual, when i was reading the article and the what nots about how this product is launched, my cynical radar lept at all the tasty breadcrumbs that corporate america had left behind to lead me to its gingerbread house. but i hope to be as objective as humanly impossible, but i'm sure some of my personal bias will leak through.

for starters, what the model is perpetuating is that if you buy our product, you can make a difference. make no mistake, this is a wonderfully innovative idea to generate funds to manufacture medicines for the people who need it. i guess no matter what i say, i can't defeat this bottom line, that these companies will give more money to the AIDS benefit in a day than i ever will in my lifetime.

but this is where i say it merely addresses the symptons.

been longin' for that new ipod, get it in (red), want a new armani watch? get it in (red), wanna get a new GAP t-shirt? get it in (red). want the new U2 album or Oprah Winfrey's panties? get'em in (red). they've basically made it cool to be socially aware, helping the people who need help and cool to be charitable.

maybe they done for the masses what no scrappy social worker has ever been able to inspire the yuppies of the first world, and that is to get people interested. the products that (red) sells is the nice shiney carrot, because everybody wants the cool new (red) ipod. (iriver already had a red mp3 player with the H320)

but where i wonder are the deeper undercurrents. so if i buy my branded product, i've done my part to save the world? more insidious than this, you're not just buying a trendy (red) product, but you're buying a right to be able to sleep a peaceful, socially aware sleep. once i spend $199 (listed on the apple website), my $10 goes to a kid who needs it. well, the challenge i present is that if you forgo that apple product, you help 19.9 kids who could use it.

and what has apple or any company really done about anything? put a shiny new coat of (red) paint on all existing products, and suddenly you create massive cult items that everybody wants and you only give $10 to an African third world nation whilst your revenue reaches unprecedented hights because of the sheer branding power of a colour.

so what now? red is synonymous with helping AIDS victims in Africa? last i remember, i don't think there ever was a patent on a primary colour before.

as you can tell by now, my problem is not with the actions of (red), its with the attitudes that it perpetuates in the masses. if we choose not to break it down, we'll just find everything in our house a bright red colour, or until some other business model decides to sell (blue) products to help slave children in china. and we in our riches start stocking up on different coloured products, and as long as the hurt is elsewhere, our little difference in monetary alleviation means that we don't have to concern what the other causes out there. once we've spent more of our disposable income on products that help, we'll have less to give for problems closer to home, or those that you feel more for.

bottem line from me, don't buy a (red) product because you wanna help some kid in Africa, buy it because you enjoy the design and aesthetic of the product you bought, or the branding that has gone into making it a product with an inflated price tag. there should be no shame in that, but we should be ashamed of ourseleves if we think the only way we help people is by only by buying a product

don't get me wrong, i am conceeding that its great that money goes to where its needed, but if my symptom analogy is anything to go by, medicine getting delivered is the symptom cured, than our apathetic hearts is one of the root causes of any diseases.

a new coat of paint - that's what it looks like to me.

pinch recovery
things are heating up in perth, for a change i'm actually switching on the fan to a power of one for the first time in months. if i were in singapore, the fan would always be at three, no second guessing, just automatic. once i'd come home from anywhere, it's straight to the room and switch the fan on to three. it's probably so routine there must be some sort of comfort and security in doing it so often.

speaking of heating up, has it finally come down to this. for once in a very long time, i'm finally actually having something of a little temper tantrum toward the powers that be in my church here in perth.

for starters, forgive any attitudes that might sound rather seething, because.. in my bid to just lay it all down, i'm just gonna tell it like i see it or feel it.

it's been awhile, but i feel rather under-appreciated. don't know why, don't know if i can put any specifics init. but maybe it's got something to do with my paranoia of finally leaving this place and well, i can't help but feel that sometimes i'm being treated like i've come to the end of the line and that well, various ministries are just not investing anything into my life anymore.

now this might sound terribly selfish, and perhaps i shall be the first to admit that it is.. but i guess it is also a good gauge as to how much i've done things for myself, opposed to maybe how much i've been thinking of what i was doing for God. recognising this flaw is one thing, accepting it and learning from it is something else.

and then i have to shoot someone's wedding tomorrow, gonna be a whole day affair and i need to skip mission trip training. telling my group leader/pastor, i dunno if she was joking or not, but it just looked like she expected that i would have managed my time better or something. the thing is i didnt realise was that the wedding was on a sunday (most are held on saturdays), and well.. perhaps its my fault this happened. but one thing that gets to me is that people in general like to focus on your present mistakes rather than any contributions you made in the past. well, in this event, i just felt as if everything i did in the church for the past three years didnt mean anything to anyone. and again i recognise the selfish agenda that has crept up, but likewise.. i'm laying it down now before it's allowed to slowly eat away at my soul. i suppose the enemy uses anything he has at his disposal to bring us down..

and finally, i guess i just found out about the living arrangements for church camp this coming sunday. basically the campsite will be divided into two seperate areas with a space of about 1 km in between. people in my age group will be in this area called CYC and the other area is for the family cells in an area called FREEWAY or something. and guess what? i've been assigned to FREEWAY with the families instead of CYC with the majority of my peers.

in a way i feel betrayed, i mean, surely the organisers know that i have no family here, why're they taking me away from the only family i got down here? and paranoia creeps around here and there.

and this just in. having been prompted by the holy spirit that i might be being tested or under some sort of spiritual attack to lose my trust in God, or a servant's ability to sumbit to authority or sowing the seeds of dischord within my life and church, i think God reminded me of something quite important.

i'm supposed to be doing a media study with one of the kids in the family district, so perhaps me being in the FREEWAY area is more beneficial than it is detrimental. there might be a whole other host of other things being where i am, and if anything.. let's believe that God will show all of us the way..

don't talk cock in parliament!


i don't really care what you think about my country, but this is really funny and tongue in cheek -) for me everything was summed up with don't talk cock in parliament!

clout one's judgement
the da vinci code has sown its seeds among our human intellect. possibilities, theories and endless what-ifs. this world is not a black and white one, we have in our superiority over all things claimed the massive grey in between and would prefer to live in the encompassing subjectivity rather than bear responsibility for ever crossing a line.

am i too hardline in my approach?

i always thought good and evil should be absolute, that the nature of the universe are is empiricals, that we had our binaries and its opposites. that anything that does not stand of holiness is unholy, anything that is not of God surely is of something else. hell is not just a place, it is a seperation from all that is God. it's not just physical, mental or spiritual suffering. it is the emptiness of not being around God, the disenchantment, the rut, the staring off into the edge of space and nothing more. nothing more. and that scares the absolute crap out of me.

sure a part of me has doubted the authenticity of the bible. in fact it would make tremendous sense that the books were chosen by either human intellect or someone with a personal agenda. sure that over the years, meanings could be lost in translation. sure, it makes perfect logical sense.

but i refuse to believe that my God will be bound by the same linear laws that he effected in the first place. despite my human understanding of this word of god, when you believe the words that he says his words will endure forever, that nothing will be changed in his own word.. you'd better believe it. not in human systems, but in the Word Of God, and if he says that it doesn't change. then it hasn't.. despite what the critics tell us.

is it just a simple faith? if you can't believe the authenticity of the bible, can you believe the immaculate birth and the foundation of his cruxifiction for our salvation?

hollow uprisings
it's funny when you meet someone whom you know is kinda like you. sometimes you automatically dislke this person, because you might see the same flaws within him/her, or you acknowledge the similarities, but when any differences arise you wonder why he/she could possibly make such 'mistakes' because.. well, you wouldn't.

it's funny how we're all perfect in our own eyes.

self-portrait


guess i haven't done these in awhile. a photo from about three months back and gone thru the digital lomo process as best as i could remember it.

maybe i'm putting it up just so i can remember what i look like twenty years down the road and perhaps this domain still exists somewhere in the digital eternal.

sometimes i think we only recognise our flaws whenever we look at ourselves in the mirror. would we be leading much more blessed lives if we weren't so self reflexive?

no more tears to run dry


watching videos.
crazy plan to go to japan and do JET and after that do actual art and production there.
a nonsense project band called pi.

why am doing all this as opposed to what i'm supposed to do?

true freedom means no fake guilt
we've always wanted to be free, but everybody imposes their own set of rules on us. naturally i think we're bound by rules, for example, as a natural order of things, humans can't fly on their own strength, or interstellar cosmic aparitions don't escape blackholes. so my theory goes that there is a true set of rules and a whole buncha other false ones. if you live by the true set of rules, you find freedom becauses realistically speaking, those rules aren't meant to make you feel bad for living by them.

i'm also listening to last year's mix cd, and i'm really glad that it's still good after all this time. i'm happy that this year's one will be so different from last years because i've included a whole set of other indulgences.. so look forward to it aight peeps?

i hate bureaucracy
*sigh* called up their insurance company today, was tossed around 3 times before they found me the right department. doesn't matter, tried to negotiate the the amount asking my such minor damage should cost so much since they were replacing the other party's whole bumper instead of simply knocking it back out. don't know if i should go directly to the person and talk this out or whether i should just contact my insurance company and pay the $550 excess.. i don't feel like talking to the women because i just feel somewhat betrayed for my honesty and pointing out the dent i made and all when she didn't notice it at first. but i guess that's what you get when you let your good heart lead you home. i don't regret what i've done which was to do the right thing, i just feel this immense sense of betrayal and being left to take the fall.

life isn't all about slackin' off


project i'm helping to cinematograph. i think it looks pretty decent! so enjoy.

estimate is subject to any unseen damage
about a month back, i accidentally knocked someone's car from behind (this is not the one driving my friend's car from my misadventures with napkin man and beatmastermark). it was a red light and i was already braking but some mofo on my right was trying to say something to me. being the gullible idiot, i was kinda deciphering what he was saying and somehow my car just allowed itself to roll into the car in front of me. it was a jolt save the least.

we drove to the side of the road to exchange details and also when i looked at damage on her car, it was really just a nick and a slight dent. i immediately thought.. crap.. probably bumper replacement, but i didn't expect it to go as high as when they just sent me the letter today.

$$1128.88

i'm abit flabbergasted that such a small amount of damage can result in so much cost. looking at the breakdown, labour cost almost $500 and her new parts cost almost $580. i suppose my own insurance company will pay off most of it (they start paying after an excess of $550), but it's still a pretty rough lesson. i used to think i was a safe driver, but perhaps you learn lessons this way. you can always be safer, no matter how safe you are in the first place.

i feel the pinch more because it has over-exceeded my budget not because of the expense. but yeah, i suppose at the end of the day its the amount of money i have to fork out as well.

blast no offence desu
i love this guy!

not without equal
if you can explain it, the power balance and relations are balanced.

the scary thing about blogging as long and as regularly as i have, is that if for any reason you break the routine, you become paranoid that something is going wrong in your life. this familiarity of my typing has made all of us, producer and reader all rather stagnant in that the wheels keep on turning and the machine keeps on moving. sometimes it's hard to tell when the machine is slightly broken in places.

sometimes i jolt us back into the original joy of starting the blog, the sheer randomness or the expression behind each word and alphabet to the dot. but, things inherent become things apparent.

when options fail democracy
boo. i like the new yahoo mail interface.

not much time left now...


perhaps the thing that draws me to cyborg text is that man has seemingly wrested control of the synthetic and replaced his own natural physique. the tower of babel if you wish, but there is a subtle frailty in seeing a man struggling to attain some sort of trancendence in his life when really, we are just mere mortals.

perfect beings
you know you're beautiful and you know how to get the things you want. that scares me as it makes my blood boil. you're building the world in your image, but it doesn't leave much room for the rest of us. society built upon the broken backs of lesser people, it would be better if there was nothing to reign over us, nothing to subjugate over us and just let it all crawling back down the surface of the walls.

i say things in electric warbles, you look intently into this purple facade and find everything not according to your liking, but this will only serve to convey a vague sense of hope and loss. me? i've crossed over to the other side, where my imperfections lay perfect with the rest of us.

the bleak future has its hope in life support machinary, but what of life supported machines?

mediocrity
seems i'm a rather moderate person. here.

Survey Complete.

Thank you for completing the survey.

The Desirability of Control (DC) Scale identifies the extent to which people are motivated for control. People who score high on the scale are described as decisive, assertive, and active. They generally seek to influence others when such influence is advantageous. High DC people have high aspiration levels and select harder tasks than low DC people. High DC people are more likely to attribute success to their own efforts and abilities than low DC people, and attribute their failures to external sources. Your DC score is 100. This suggests your desire for control is moderate.

The Novelty Seeking Scale measures two dimensions; cognitive novelty seeking and sensory novelty seeking. Sensory novelty seeking refers to a person’s tendency to enjoy stimulating or risky activities. Your score is 12, suggesting that you are moderate on sensory novelty seeking.Cognitive novelty seeking refers to a person’s tendency to enjoy new experiences that stimulate thinking. Your score is 17, indicating that you are moderate on cognitive novelty seeking.

wishing upon wished stars


neat song and music video. plus its only a minute and a half, so you know you won't be wasting too much of your time. hehehe. but the reason why i like it is that its such a good deconstruction of music. so there, i'm sounding more intelligent than i really am, but hey.. you didn't know that did you?

friday night and i believe. i'll believe in all the things that skip a tune to the beat.

i've been listening to dark forrest by buddhistson a lot today, because i like the guitar riff so much.

when i got home at five today, i played guitar and bass till eight thirty and then i went out to burger king to get dinner. guess i really miss jamming with folk, i tried a few more riffs that i'd been working on, and man.. i'm just itching to go back and play with my friends. i also watched a tv show on agustus the guy who succeded julius ceasar. it was interesting, but not terrbly interesting.

and then i find myself staring at this blank screen, contemplating what to tell you but then i already did.

and oh, check out the latest production report in this production i'm involved in here.

when you realise all your cliches
i've read hi-fidelity and seen half the movie, and i guess its no real surprise i compare myself to the story's hero. with his record collecting and list making quirks, and how one by one he chased each girl from his past down so that he could have some sort of closure with them. i'm like that, with the list making, the rankings, the once in awhile indie snobbishness, and also probably more importantly, the whole thing about closure. i've had closure before, i know how good it feels like. i've had closure with girls i've liked before, and maybe i'm glad they have closure with me as well. it really wraps things up and just so you know the emotional hithers aren't so much in play as well. don't distance yourself from your emotions, rather, i think they should be interpretated with a fine finesse as well.

and we have reached the end of a crisis!
thirty thousand visitors! hurrah! hurrah indeed! i reckon this is like hitting thirty in real life, only that i'm six years premature.

six more years till i'm thirty! i wonder what that will be like.. what would i have accomplished by the time i hit that number? i suppose i would have graduated by then, but haha.. it's been a long time coming.

i'm just chomping on an apple now, typing shite before i head off to class, which is two and a half apples down. there've been a lack of updates because i've just been busy procrastinating to get all my work done, and also the student production i'm working on. but it hasn't all been in vain.. i've more or less compiled a list for this year's mix CD and also, entertaining thoughts of starting a new music project. the ghost has been kind of stagnant of late. but today i worked a few riffs that seem to be in the vein of alternative country.. we'll see how that progresses

worse for wear
i have a proposal due friday, so i'm trying to get started today. unfortunately i'm the easily distracted type. i don't know why, i don't know how. i wished people would sympathise when i say it's hard. sharing is caring, and i wan't you to care. we might hit 30000 visitors by the end of this week. what a milestone! words coming out non-stop since 2003 and in the third quarter of the forth year, we hit thirty thousand passer-bys. maybe it will make me feel slightly better.

in other news, this anti-pornography movement seems to be an interesting cause in the right direction. i won't exactly agree with their "Jesus loves pornstars" tagline because taken the wrong way, it could become just another cultural shbang like Fonzie's "i fucked your girlfriend." however, it is a very powerful statement, and hopefully it does more good than harm. if we don't become apathetic to such a statement, it really is a powerful one. i've always wondered how we could try sharing the gospel to people to an industry in say porn, or drugs, or organised crime. i mean, christians tend to be so prim and proper that sometimes, even being associated with the people from such walks of life takes so much out of us. i for one can attest to how hard it is to being a good testimony.. because it really is hard on our pride. i don't think i could do anything if it wasn't for God's compassion for others, if he loves them, then so must i. it's a little mix of obedience and well, maybe being open to what God can put in our hearts. our pride and fear of the unknown are usually our first defence against doing anything radical for God.

well, i think this guy has a pretty unique ministry. i may not understand it all, but we pray no matter what. we pray no matter what, whether we understand or not.. because what else can we do? we can't know everything, but we can pray for everything as the spirit leads. we don't always have to be right, we just need to have the right attitude to let the spirit work and let God work in whatever situation.

find some health


churned out this rubbish in five minutes after having an overload of stereo sushi the last day or so.

compassion for reason
today, someone was just sharing about the compassion he shared toward the people in hongkong when he went there for missions the past three times. (i'm going to hongkong at the end of the year for a mission trip) he said something that really spoke to me, which was that the compassion he felt, toward the poor or the homeless, if a man needed food, he'd get him food, or if the person was cold and needed a jacket, he'd give him his jacket.

now, i have a schwipe jacket that costs over 200 dollars, and when i heard of such an action, i just naturally thought of my own worldly possesion. if this was me in hongkong, wearing my jacket, would i give it to someone who needed it more than me at the time? forget about buying the guy some other jacket or giving him something else to keep warm with. i'm just proposing that right here right now, someone needed the jacket off my shoulders and it happened to be my expensive jacket, would i have given it to him?

it's rather crippling, this price of compassion i can put on material things. i know i'm no saint, but.. man, i was confronted today by the holy spirit. it really caused me to ponder and re-inspect the things which i place value on in life. if so, material possesions probably ranks quite highly up there then. i dont know if i could have given a homeless man my jacket. the brand, or the quality or even the way it looks should actually not amount to anything should it? i mean, when push comes to shove. but i think i was shoved, and i took a second guess, and i didn't like what i saw.. didn't like how i valued my own things more than i valued the things of God.

and so, i take a step back, and review the things that i buy, things that i desire.. and have to realise that all things come from God, and things which we place before God ultimately become our stumbling blocks.

hiding things and finding things
watching tv today kind of made me just want to pack it all in and fast forward my life.