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Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Monday, April 17, 2006

I’ll be very honest with you. In all my four years of being a Christian, the idea of the resurrection never did anything for me. I’ve never seen it as anything remarkably special, novel or life changing. Not that I didn’t have the head knowledge to be cognizant of what Easter means, it just never, for lack of a better word, spoke to me.

Maybe it’s because of my Hindu background. I grew up reading Hindu comics, listening to the Ramayana, and colouring in pictures of half-man half-lion gods that broke out of temple pillars. Seriously, I can’t imagine anyone from a Hindu worldview finding a narrative like the resurrection spectacular and meaningful, simply because they would have been bred on a staple diet of absolutely over-the-top miraculous stories.

Monkeys that grow so terrestrially big, they step from Lanka to India, ten-headed demon kings, a god with a lady in his hair pouring out India’s river Ganges from scratch wherever the god walked… the narratives attached to the Hindu faith are no-kidding type of spectacle. So spectacular that if I told a Hindu that Easter is meaningful because the disciples found that Jesus had left his embalming linen and was alive, they’d probably giggle and think it pittance.

I mean, come on, how can that fight with avatars coming back, taking form, dying, going up, coming back, taking form, dying, going up, for like, eight, nine, ten times? I bet it makes no sense to Hindus why Christians find the resurrection all that jazz.

Especially in this age of pop healing testimony – from Christian and non Christian circles – I’ve heard so many healing stories from so many different sources, I’m desensitized already. I grew up hearing Hindu healing stories, now I hear Christian ones – what is so special about Jesus Christ?

Maybe because he is more historical, I can relate to him better. Maybe because I know he grew up an irrepressible kid, became a faithful workman, got tired, got hungry, found girls pretty, wanted to make nice furniture, enjoyed sleep, enjoyed good food, hung out with friends, dressed well, liked to talk with his mum, thought kids were all that, got sad, got frustrated, got angry, liked sunsets and enjoyed walks, makes me identify with him more. Maybe the fact that he’s more recent than Socrates or Plato or Nefertiti helps convince me that the stuff we know about him is pretty solid stuff.

But so what? The next Joe gets tired, gets hungry, finds girls pretty, and likes sunsets too. Why don’t I identify with him instead? He’s more recent than Jesus, isn’t he?

Is it because if the next Joe died, there’s no chance his body’s gonna disappear, and his mates are gonna see him hangin about all solid flesh in the weeks after? Is it because I don’t really, absolutely believe that all those Hindu gods are real?

Today, we sang a song in church that goes “because he lives, I can face tomorrow”.

Do you know what I have to face tomorrow? The sheer, utter dullness of mundanity, that’s what. Tomorrow, I have to face more subediting, increasing unrest about the mysterious team-shake up in my office, growing fatter without any resolve to lose weight, disappointed that the two people I want most to cast for my movie are not responding, that three of the four rims on my car wheels are dented no thanks to MPPJ’s potholes, and that on payday itself, I’d already blown 500 bucks on new tyres.

How the heck does Jesus being alive have ANYTHING to do with my tomorrow?

TELL ME!

AND IF YOU CAN’T TELL ME, THEN MAYBE YOU ALSO CAN’T TELL IF RAMA KILLED RAVANA SO THAT YOU TOO CAN FACE YOUR WORRIES TOMORROW.

Because I know.

I know that this life is boring and utterly plain and routine. I know that human existence has felt so pointless for so long that those who try to do good lose hope because there’s just so many new poor people every day, and it’s not gonna stop, and those who try to be nice lose hope, because there’s just so many nasty people every day, and it’s not gonna stop.

Have you ever felt like there is no sight of victory, not at least in your lifetime?

I feel that every day.

So along comes this Jesus Christ who says that in his death and resurrection lie all the answers. Apparently, because he sometimes got tired, died, and defeated death, he defeated tiredness, and now you can do the same. Apparently, because he sometimes got angry, died, and defeated death, he substantiates our feelings of anger, and with him we can manage our anger appropriately. Apparently, because he thought girls were pretty, died, and defeated death, he knows how badly you want a girlfriend, and every night he weeps with you that you’re still alone.

This is Jesus Christ – not just because he had a human side, that I may relate to him, but that in all his humanity, when he rose on Sunday to live forever, he provides me a model so I know that my team shake-up, my weight gain, my casting problems, all of it is surmountable. Why is it surmountable? Because dying once and being dead forever has been overturned, and if that can be overturned across a weekend, then by George, by Golly, and literally by the Almighty God himself, surely the trivial worries of my day to day life can also be overturned.

This then is Easter – that because Jesus who was a son died and rose again, there is hope for my Father complex. Because Jesus who was a carpenter died and rose again, there is hope for my career. Because Jesus who was a man died and rose again, there is hope for my self-esteem.

He is my model, and because he has been there, done that, and succeeded over every adversity, even death itself, he is credible, and so when he says that he is the only way, I buy it. I absolutely buy it.

I buy it more than I buy into gods who tell me to do good, help the poor, be peaceful and loving, and suppress my desires, because I don’t believe they know the struggles of my life. I don’t believe that anything that has never been fully human can ever know the struggles of human life. And if I also can’t believe that anything that is not fully God can hold the answers to my struggles then really, really, all I’m left with is Jesus.

And really, be honest, why wouldn’t you want him too?

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Genusfrog [ 1:04 pm ]

2 Comments:

  • This entry makes your blog one of my favorites now. :)

    Happy (belated) Easter.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:50 am  

  • amen brother. i am proud that you did not mention sigmalink. long suffering indeed.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:42 am  

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