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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





Sunday, December 21, 2008
ON CHRISTMAS AND REAL LOVE

I don’t know how to let my friends and family know that I’m not trying to convert them. I just want them to be part of my christian life, and part of that christian life involves being there for christmas celebrations in church and – quite inadvertently – in a place where Jesus is recommended as choice for life.

I don’t want to convert my friends and family. They are autonomous adults with their own faiths and as much as they’ve respected mine – to the extent of stepping into Jesus turf to be with me – I owe them the basic respect to not run a covert operation to convert.

i don’t want to be known as a converting christian. I’d much rather be known as a converted christian. A christian whose life has gone down a better road since he chose this strange world of churches, pastors and christmasses without santas. I don’t want to compromise my christianity but even more than that, I’m tired of christianity’s bad reputation and I don’t want to contribute to it. No, not this christmas.

This christmas, I don’t want your soul. I just want your friendship. I don’t have an agenda this christmas, I just have an invitation for us to be together. This christmas, and maybe next christmas and the christmas after that, I want to learn what it’s like to be a christian without a hidden intention to evangelise. I’m through with snazzy gambits and insincere care. The kind of care that, when faced with rejection of Jesus, either continues to insensitively push harder or disappears in the direction of the next convertable person. From now on, I want to learn what real love is like.

And what does real love look like? I do know one thing – real love continues to love even when someone clearly says no to Jesus, and it loves (and cares, visibly, practically) without hidden agendas. It’s weird, that after six and a half years of being a christian, that I’m only now understanding what Jesus meant when he taught about the good samaritan and loving your neighbour. Who would have thought that two thousand years after Jesus riled up the pharisees by showing them that real love has its knees on the dirty floor, that we would have to learn all that from scratch again today.

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

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Genusfrog [ 11:02 pm ]

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