today feels like monday; i thought it was monday.

today feels like monday because the week has been turned on its head and hours scrumpled up, nights lasting as long as day and longer than days. sleep was caught wide awake, and dreaming of reality. what's a body to do in these situations?

enjoy what one can, i suppose.

because it was quite an eventful week. wrapping up the memories are a walk through the night safari, darkness and fonds and i swear i smelt animal when i walked through the path home. cameras, tripod and sitting on a's shoulders to see the hyenas better while j held my hand for support. i hadn't done that since being a little girl; there's a beautiful trust in resting on someone's shoulders, seems to me.

unrelatedly: we persist in asking why, sometimes because we don't want the answers/truth. it's the old news happening to new people, and the rugged cross providing life and salvation for all who will believe.

"... Contrition is a word that has fallen out from our vocabulary, though it remains a powerful call to one of the deepest places of worship. As David discovered, it is not an easy call to answer; it runs counter to our instinct to run, calling us instead to come near with a broken heart, with our own disappointment. The word "contrite" derives from the Latin word contritus, meaning pulversized or ground to pieces. While this may be exactly the fearful condition we seek to avoid, it is not a word meant to describe what God will do to a running child when he is finally caught. Rather, it describes what happens to a child's heart when she catches a glimpse of the mess inside it. Yet, in the wilful act of allowing our hearts to be broken in pieces by our own sin, it is here that God and God's mercy are nearest. The shattered soul is far closer to wholeness than the one who refuses in fear or vanity to see that it is in pieces at our own hands. To be contrite is to stop running and to turn without panic or pride to the one who has been running with us all along. ..."

http://www.rzim.org/usa/usfv/tabid/436/articleid/10713/cbmoduleid/1133/default.aspx

and today, as much as ever, i am thankful that this world is not all there is. thankful that my God is fully holy, and His is not a relative standard of goodness and justice. that one day, all wrongs will be made right, and every tear will be wiped away. and there shall be no more sorrow, no more pain.

sunday's over, thank God for sundays, i like sundays, but oof, so tired.

so g, r, and i met up today, the most uncoordinated of meetings but sure, i didn't mind. chanced upon a two storied cafe, dark purple walls, mirror squares, and low, soft things everywhere. we napped there, at least g and r did. i leaned too far right, fell off the sofa and stayed squashed awake amongst scattered cushions. daddy called. mtvs played. we didn't know who lady gaga is/was, not enough to identify her at least. r ate wings, g played with her dslr and we took half hearted photos. maybe i'll add one in, if gayle gets around to putting them up. we didn't pose very well.

we stoned our way from an srrfm, interesting concept but it looks like true free markets (in the economic sense) have some way to go before gaining acceptance in singapore. read: a long way, if ever. jayed into another clumation of goods and people, monopolistic competition this time. like the one z and i went to probably exactly a year ago, the one at robber street, or something. green grass, green fence and we sipped soya bean we'd bought along the way. an ant just walked across my thigh and now struts sniffily back and forth the top of mr darcy (my laptop). i've seen him for some days now, always at nights, streaking diagonal up the wall at my right, crossing pencil markings i've drawn onto cream concrete, leaving little anty prints. he has his own business to conduct, he's an ant on a mission. i try not to accidentally demolish his life.

it's five past ten. r's been in bed for some time already. g's been home even longer. i lie back; my sunday's wrapping itself up.

just wanted to think a bit more on the idea of treasures in jars of clay; gotten from an article whose link i've put a couple of posts down. it seems to me most powerful, the confounding picture of strength in weakeness. treasures in jars of clay; who would do that? who else but God, really, i suppose. the first level i really like (from 2 Corinthians 4:7-10) is how as we carry Jesus' death in our bodies His life is manifested in us. which sounds weird in a literal sense but thank God for spiritual understanding. as we live out His death (death to the self, obedience to the cross and so on), His life is made all the more evident in us, mayhaps like a tree that grows from the death of a seed. the imagery and promise of richness and life is good for the thirsting soul.

the second level extends from the individual into community: what the gospel must mean for humanity. knowing that Christ embraced the weak -and weakness- in passion, us having treasures in jars of clay are likewise called to live, finding His strength in our weakness.

speaking of waiting, look what arrived in the mail today (yes, the mail as in letterbox mail. because my friends love me so):

Clinging to God in Solitude
by Henri Nouwen

'When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense when nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies.

Then we begin wonering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant. Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are "somebodies". But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people's responses to us but God's eternal love for us.

To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.'

Emphasis mine.

while this hasn't really been my experience (i do get out and go about, meeting people, working with projects etc), i think it captures the perspective that people tend to look through to me. often the questions they ask, 'what do you do?', 'so you haven't found a job?', 'when are you going to start working?', 'and until then..?', reflect the mindset that a jawb is my end goal, when really, there are goals to be appreciated and fulfilled in this time too. i remain really thankful that God has given me this space of x months (where x is a number only He knows) to rest, to expand, to be.

so let's end with the verse mary-ruth wrote:

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom

or the strong man boast of his strength

or the rich man boast of his riches.

But let him who boasts boast about this:

that he understands and knows me,

that I am the Lord,

who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,

for in these I delight"

Jeremiah 9:23-24

v24 gives me the shivers man, and makes my heart expand.

last night, i dreamt of stairways and stairwells, sinister agents and secret meetings. it ended with a young taxi driver getting into trouble, and me running through unending alleys in a dark night.

i was looking at old posts, and realised i used to be terribly personal. these days i've switched over to ___ .

speaking of these days, it's been a wonderful few-many months, since may/july, however you want to mark the start point. and at the same time it strikes me more clearly than ever that singaporeans associate very strongly productivity with doing, in other words it's very hard for them to understand (if they do at all) that times of waiting can also be-and has been for me- times of productivity. and i'm never very good at explaining myself anyway so invariably they leave with the same ideas they came with. oops and bleah, unambiguous sign that yours truly must never sign for miss universe. hmm but seriously, there are some kind of questions/inquiries that leave me dumb.

in any case, i wonder when this happy time will end. it has to, ultimately if i am to go on to the next phase and i've said what i have to to God, so it's alright. it's all good.

1) from chambers:

. . . someone said to Him, ’Lord, I will follow You wherever You go’ —Luke 9:57

Our Lord’s attitude toward this man was one of severe discouragement, “for He knew what was in man” (John 2:25). We would have said, “I can’t imagine why He lost the opportunity of winning that man! Imagine being so cold to him and turning him away so discouraged!” Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God. Our Lord’s answers were not based on some whim or impulsive thought, but on the knowledge of “what was in man.” If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.

2) 'Journey of Questions':

'Followers of Jesus are called to this place of paradox. It is a place of difficult questions that often go unanswered, and where our earnest desire for immediate answers must be sacrificed as we place our trust in a loving Father. Indeed, the journey of faith is like the journey to Golgotha, for as we go forward in faith, "the questions get harder and harder because they not only stretch the mind they also call us to obedience. [For] the truth has not only to be appropriated, but also to be served".'

~

3) i went to this yesterday, and go back to it again today. only, if you've already gone to the previous article linked above, then to read both links in one sitting may be a bit of an overload! both are quite heavy duty. in this, carattini writes on treasures in jars of clay.

treasures in jars of clay

remembering last night's experience and conversation, Christ and the gospel are even more strongly counter-cultural. to the worldliness of the world, the message is even shocking. no wonder some embrace it and others recoil. the wonder and mystery of the Story!

arghh =/ =] =']

`
"As I write this, I am waiting for a bus on a busy corner in an extremely poor community in Central America, in which I lived for a year and have been visiting now for nine years. Most of the time, the tragedy of this place fades into the background of my thoughts, pushed there by familiarity, busyness, and the cheerfulness and resilience of the people who have welcomed me here. Nonetheless, it is evident that the joy many people here display is in clear defiance of the facts of their daily existence.

Sometimes, moments like this one come when I can no longer ignore these facts, and the sense of tragedy becomes overwhelming. I can see garbage strewn around me—plastic bags, empty bottles, crumpled wrappers, cigarettes—things discarded. Since it is located on the site of an old dump, garbage literally serves as the foundation of this mini-city, which is full of people discarded. I see a young girl walking towards school and I wonder if she shares the experience of so many other girls and young women here whose bodies are used, owned, or defaced. I see a boy whose swagger makes him look older and more confident than he probably is. As he joins the group of laughing older boys, I am aware of how likely his future is to be stolen by gangs and drugs. They are more lucrative ventures than most other job options that will be available to him—lucrative as long as he is alive, that is. Beside me is a woman selling tortillas and green mangoes. Like the innumerable other single moms in this community, she must choose between being with her children and feeding them. Even the dogs, whose ugly skeletal bodies manage to reproduce at obscene rates, join this dance of joy and threat, death and life that is ordinary living here.

From behind me, I hear an old man groan; he is struggling to stand up from where he is sitting against a wall. And it seems to me right now that I can hear in his groan the groaning of this whole place, and for that matter, the groaning of all creation that Paul spoke of in Romans as it waits for its redemption. The groaning of these hills, soaked with the blood of those murdered for a cell phone or a pair of shoes. The groaning of this river, polluted with chemicals and sewage. Holy groans. Like the groans of the people in Egyptian slavery that touched the ears and heart of God. Like the groans of the psalmist while his very bones wasted away. Like groans of the crucified One, bearing the weight of the whole world's pain. I want to groan too, because I don't have any words to speak. So I am thankful for the beautiful Spirit who joins the groaning, who takes my conflicted feelings of guilt and anger and love and intercedes for me with "groans that words could not express." Holy groans.

But now, I am struck by something else. I hear the voice of a little girl coming from around the corner, singing loudly and clearly a song I know well: "Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it will forevermore endure, the saints' and angels' song!"

Love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong. In the middle of so much suffering, this can easily sound like the mockery of an indifferent universe. I am certain of one thing: it must either be a cruel joke or the deepest possible truth. It is easy for philosophers and theologians to debate the question of suffering when they are removed from its stark reality. However, it is a costly thing for those who suffer to speak of the love of God in the midst of their pain. That is why their voice carries the ring and force of truth. When it comes to questions of love and suffering, the voice of the smallest, the poorest, and the most vulnerable carries an authority far beyond that of philosophical treatises or the debates of the 'experts.' I have read many good books on this topic, and I have even tried to write about it myself. But I have never read anything that speaks so profoundly to life's deepest groans than the song of this child in this place. This song does not dismiss or deny our groaning, but assures us that we do not groan in an empty void, but in the midst of a universe whose truest reality is Love.

-

Rachel Tulloch is a member of the speaking team with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

there was no form nor sound. the mould under the bushes, the moss on the path, and the little brick border, were not visibly changed. but they were changed. a boundary had been crossed. she had come into a world, or into a Person, or into the presence of a Person. somthing expectant, patient, inexorable, met her with no veil or protection between. in the closeness of that contact she perceived at once that the Director's words had been entirely misleading. this demand which now pressed upon her was not, even by analogy, like any other demand. it was the origin of all right demands and contained them. in its light you could understand them: but from them you could know nothing of it. there was nothing, and never had been anything, like this. yet also, everything had been like this: only by being like this had anything existed. in this height and depth and breadth the little idea of herself which she had hitherto called me dropped down and vanished, unfluttering, into bottomless distance, like a bird in space without air. the name me was the name of a being whose existence she had never suspected, a being that did not yet fully exist but which was demanded. it was a person (not the person she had thought) yet also a thing- a made thing, made to please Another and in Him to please all others- a thing being made at this very moment, without its choice, in a shape it had never dreamed of. and the making went on amidst a kind of splendour or sorrow or both, whereof she could not tell whether it was in the moulding hands or in the kneaded lump.


[here's theology for you. that search of spleandour.]

'that hideous strength', c.s. lewis

for remembering: http://fissions.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/473/#respond

*

anyway, i've been reading lewis' 'four loves', food for thought in every page but this one really struck me. i put it down not to pressure/unsubtlely hint to the male race, but because the Christ-like love is such a humbling love- 'the husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. he is to love her as Christ loved the Church- read on- and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25). this headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is- in her own mere nature- least lovable. for the Church has no beauty but what the Bridegroom gives her, he does not find, but makes her, lovely. the chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the fauls of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. as Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labours to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs. he is a King Cophetua who after twenty years still hopes that the beggar-girl will one day learn to speak the truth and wash behind her ears.'

mending relationships

hard to do qt these days.
feels a little like the calm after heavy rain, all's quiet now but that's just because the thunderstorm ran out of energy. things haven't really changed.
hoping it all gets better asap.

as far as a stuffed and sneezy brain can think-

hmm, i can think of some people who'd like reading this post (oops, linkaging) on the wonder of creation simply for pleasure. true that, insofar as it speaks up for enjoyment, appreciation and value just because it is.

don't despair of a complicated world; instead pray for true sight

"The world of souls is a mysterious place after all.
But where you see an eye of the kingdom, rejoice.
For God is near."
- petri to a traveller


and hmmm. on people with a past-
and we live as a people called both to remember and to be ready, for we look to the author of the entire story, who was and is and is to come.'