2 things that surfaced in the shower - for me.

Be more honest with yourself
Be very very sure that you have come to terms with the consequences of a decision before launching into it.

I'm starting to notice, that amongst the other things I miss about Singapore, I am looking forward to being in her sophistication.

I miss being in a society that works, is clean and is relatively honest with itself.

Since when have I forgotten that cleanliness, safety and sophistication are NOT virtues?
I think I am embarking on a remolding of my outlook in life.

I climbed the tree with my Hannahlee
My intentions they were pure
Oh the breeze did whip and I lost my grip
I tumbled towards the earth
Where You never would guess who it was that stood below
And his name I would never tell
But His eyes were clear
And His arms were strong
And caught me as I fell

Hannah ~ Ray LaMontagne

Luke 12:22-34

Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It's all the nuances in life that serve to remind me, not just of God's grace, but of his presence. The extent of his care then, must be met with my extent of obedience. We'll get there.

This seems to resonate with what, put simply, I believe in: Hell is when you MUST do what you want to do. It's the tyranny of choice.

What we need is less of "you can be ANYTHING you want to be" (which is an outrageous lie), and more of "this is who you are". And yes, I know what I'm saying.

We are free from many things that used to chain us. But we no longer have any goal to weave our freedom toward. We have nothing to be free for, so what is the point of freedom?
Of course, there is always the self.

And what's going to happen when our relationships become subsumed by this?

I think we just need to remember that we are finite, and should understand that we need a frame work to work in and to work with. And we have to understand that we are not alone here.



"Her beauty is only skin-deep, surfacial. I mean, this is all there is really. Nothing else to her. And to make things worse, She's delusional, and arrogant"
~ Conversation on the bus.

My life, is perfect.

But it's 1 am, and all I want is to connect with someone. To belong. To be known.

And if I cannot be that, I might need to recollect, reflect and reassert.
Home is near.

It's 4 am, I have a constitutional law exam in less then 12 hours, and I have a bone to pick with Creationists. If you are one, please respond to me. Dialogue is always great.

I don't quite see why we have this debate to start with, it has become quite passe. It must be the last vestiges of frustration I encountered a couple years back when in attempting to engage in a bible study on this topic. Frustration to no end. It's 4 am.

Anyway Creationism doesn't seem to serve any purpose in the Christian narrative. Science has pretty much debunked the allegation of God's hand molding us from clay, and history has reveal Genesis to be a rip-off (albeit a necessary act of plagiarism) from ancient Mesopotamian creation myths that pre-dated the Jewish race. Neither of which, of course are verifiably empirically true, we juggle ourselves from theory to theory. Some we take more seriously then others like, say, gravity. But there is a reasonable, rational basis for living by some and chuckling at others. And while God definitely transcends reason, it definitely isn't biblical to subvert it. He gave us faculties, he gave us gifts, he gave us capabilities of satient understanding out of utter respect for both our beings and His glory (I guess our existence is inextricably tied to his glory ala Westminister Confession of Faith). Besides, faith and science have never been mutually exclusive. If I believed in an all-powerful god, why should I be fearful of Newton? Afterall, there is plenty of evidence that God, while being the definition of goodness, is also, the God of evil. That would be the logical conclusion for a monotheistic faith in an All-Powerful being. While defining goodness, he is supreme over evil (or however else you want to define this).

The only response I remember receiving thus far is "do you believe that the Bible is God's word?"... "If you do not believe that the Creation story if fact, how can you believe the rest of the Bible?" And this is where it gets really messy.

Fact and Truth are, in my odd mind, altogether separate things. One precludes a empirical rendering of objective elements, and the other seems to encompass elements that go beyond what's lying in the petri dish. That my mother once hit me, is fact. But it does not follow that she ceased to love me (right mumsy?). Context context context. So the creation myth then, can very easily be truth without being factual. It all boils down to the realm beyond positivist fact and empiricism. The Genesis story is true - it doesn't tell us what happened (does it really matter? can we ever know?) it tells us why. Its purpose back when Israel was building its nation (by 'back' I mean 2000 BC not 1948), was to give her people an identity. Creation stories birth our ontologies and paradigms. Who we are is very much built on where we came from. And to have carved a chosen nation from scraggling nomads and the riff-raff of society calls for some extensive identity formation. To carve the Church from centuries of mistakes and myriad fragmentations also calls for some extensive identity formation. And herein lies where the Bible is truth - it's the story of who we are, not what happened to occur back when...

This interpretation of the creation story is, I think, the progeny of the modern age and all its epistemology. We see, numbers, facts, charts, graphs and empirical knowledge. I do not see how this alone is congruous to the Christian story. It has to be more then what is scientifically measurable. But this is what Creationism is built on, an attempt (a pretty good one) to build the warm flesh of truth onto the partial and incomplete skeleton of fact. If we take away our scientific reading of the creation story, would we come to the same conclusion? I don't see how. And yet insistance on this 'truth' leads to an ironic reality - When the gospel of love winds up being presented in forms that are instantaneously intellectually exclusive.

And if we are to stick to face-value factual renderings of the Bible, Mark 9:1 is going to pose us some serious issues: And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power (NIV). There aren't many people around from 33 AD who haven't yet 'tasted death' and a strict scientific rendering of the text "Kingdom of God" would, in Christianese, mean the second coming of Christ, all that Jazz in Revelations and what have you not. There is something (and that something is pretty big) that isn't consistent here. And if I remember correctly, consistency is a number one tenant of the scientific method.

So what really is going on? Are we so trapped within our arrogant paradigms that we can't see beyond ourselves, and our human accomplishments. The other gift of the modern age is the phenomena of individualism and a crippling toward respect for 'the other'. If we are going to restrict truth to a single interpretation of the Word of God, we might as well say that God is mono-lingual. And that just negates everything.

Why am I even doing this? I remember saying 3 years back, that this debate really didn't matter. Can we focus on other things that actually have weight? Like really loving our neighbours, really getting to know ourselves, and really studying for law school midterms?

[Edit 16:25]

I forgot, that God created us is a statement that speak to ontology, not methodology.

Teach me to delight in You, and in the work you give me. That it might be pleasing in your sight.

Post-modernity - theo-politics - theology and the state - theo-structuralism - identity - community - and a whole host of other disciplines I have yet to learn the names of...

Dear Curto. Thank you for the breath of fresh air and reminding me, again, of what I truly believe, what I want to be, and what I want to study. Will you academically marry me?

Where are we? What the hell is going on? The dust has only just begun to form, crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling. Spin me round again and rub my eye, this can't be happening. When busy streets a mess with people would stop to hold their heads heavy. Hide and seek. Trains and sewing machines. All those years... they were here first. Oily marks appear on walls where pleasure moments hung before. The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life. Hide and seek. Trains and sewing machines. Oh, you won't catch me around here. Blood and tears. They were here first. What you say? That you only meant well? Well, of course you did. What you say? That it's all for the best? Ah of course it is. What you say? That it's just what we need? And you decided this. What you say?

What did she say?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth. Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.Speak no feeling, no, I don't believe you.

You don't care a bit.

All we have, and all that we are, exist within the tones of tension that resonate from the relational ties we create. Like the strings from a violin, the music is all bound up here. It's all we can know. You, me, he... we. It is our identity. It's a give and take. Mutually defined, encircled by power plays and politics and vastly jarring notions of truth and love - we live in a world dictated by identities.

Now, my identity has been a continual process of give and take. But I will remember what I had to give up in order to take, and I will reclaim it when the time comes. And when I find my identity solidified again, I can only hope that I haven't lost too much.

And, I only speak to what is mine. Not yours. My journey. My map!