A tip of the hat...

... for those who raised their CAP. :)

My CAP went up by 0.01! woohoo!

Salvo Audio

Someone has been putting Army songs online!!!

http://www.salvoaudio.com/

Band songs, Songsters, recordings from the congregation, sermons even. Super! I like.

If I could give one piece of advice to young brides, and only one, it would be this: study your man. Study him as if he were some rare and strange and fascinating animal, which he is. Study his likes and dislikes, his strengths and weaknesses, his moods and mannerisms. Just loving a man is fine, but it's not enough. To live with one successfully you have to know him, and to know him, you have to study him.

Look around you and decide how many of the best marriages you know are ones where a wife in a deep sense actually knows her husband better than he knows himself. Knows what pleases him. Knows what upsets him. Knows what makes him laugh or makes him angry. Knows when he needs encouragement. Knows when he's too charged up about something and needs to be held back. Knows, in other words, exactly what makes him tick.

- Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale, The Adventure of Being a Wife
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1971) pg 29.

Think it probably applies both ways. But I like the use of language here.

dad time

spending time at home means hanging out with dad more, which is nice.

went to get the car inspected today prior to renewing insurance and road tax. got the car washed along the way. spent time talking about the economics of selling free-car-wash coupons in stacks of 100 only. inspection centre was darned cool lah. all kinds of automated machines designed to test the functionality of the car, and lighted sign-boards indicating pass-fail. so government.

and a few days back we had an excursion to kranji to pick up a manual juicer. dad's been grinding wheatgrass juice for home consumption... tastes pretty good actually. :) although i'm fairly cynical about the purported health benefits....

Perfection

Our duty is to be more ourselves, not less - Thomas Merton

This phrase accurately sums up something that I've had to learn in order to accept myself better.


http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch
I am an introvert. This used to bother me, and it still does sometimes. It seemed to me that extroverts got so much more out of life - more friends, more experiences, more highs, more lows. I longed for some of those things too, but found that I simply did not have the emotional energy to keep up with that lifestyle. Hang out with me for two hours, and you will find that my conversation eventually fades away, and I begin to zone out.

Through articles such as the one listed above, through much affirmation from Jill and other friends, through the Bible, I have begun to understand and accept that I am as deeply valued as all the people whom I used to envy. The envy of others stems from the fallacy that there is somehow a perfection that we can each strive to - that there is a state which is superior to all others, which we must achieve to obtain happiness.

There is some element of truth in this, but not in the way that we expect. The Bible, talking about the body of Christ, speaks plainly about the variety that God has imparted into His people, and make it clear that this is part of the plan. As the body of Christ, we are called to move towards perfection as a body, not as individuals, leaving room for the infinite variety of ways in which God has created us. I begin to realise that God is an artist, and that one design cannot adequately express perfection, because each design is different and beautiful in its own way.

Would the perfect body be characterised by having no disagreements whatsoever? I am not sure. Perhaps the perfect body is simply characterised by the ability to settle disagreements in an amicable way.
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I don't take teasing well. I don't agree with casual flirting, and I hate bargaining and haggling over prices, even when it's considered part of the culture. But I'm learning.

I'm learning that these things should not be taken seriously, which is tough because I take everything seriously. I've begun to realise that all these things are games of a sort, games that people play with each other in full recognition that the words being bandied about are not being said in earnest. The trick now is to transfer this mental understanding into my instinctive reactions.

Reflections

It was a good retreat. My term is just about over, my involvement will scale down to nearly nothing. It was a strange and difficult year. The new team made decisions that were exactly opposite to mine, yet I feel that both decisions were correct. Perhaps it was one of those situations that God gives us sometimes whereby either choice will do. It was for me a time of fixing relationships, of closing the ledger of accounts on an old year, with hopefully no outstanding debts to carry over into the new.

During one of the devotions, I came across an old highlighted verse in my Bible. Isaiah 55:5 says, "Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor." I am amazed at how God has done this for me. I had initially wanted to turn down the exco role to concentrate on this very thing, yet God himself has done it for me, so that I may not boast.

Now I step down into my personal rest. My personal disciplines had melted to nothing this past year, and I must find them again. I am glad that you have shared with me deeply, and accepted what advice I could impart, but all the relationship in the world will have no value if God does not do His redeeming work through that love, and for this, I must pray. I pray that God will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; that He will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh; that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul as well as strength.

Two stones...

A man should keep two stones with him at all times. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and ashes." On the other, "For me, the world was created." He should use each as appropriate.



Knowing. Understanding. Grasping. Comprehending. Not the point. Not relevant.

Transformation. Purification. Sanctification. Abasement. Worship. Mystery.

iRead

Reading Programme: Book 1

Reaching for the Invisible God - Philip Yancey

I've been wanting to read this book for a long time, to see how others have coped with the doubts I struggle with.

I'm a guy who likes things black and white, and when I was young, I liked that about my faith. This is true, that is false, this is how the world works. I liked that about Physics too, which is why I'm studying Physics at NUS now. But as I grow older, the old certainty has been replaced by disconcerting thoughts about the way things are being done in some churches, and I have been struggling for the longest time to find out what exactly being a Christian means for me and the way I live my life. Physics has similarly betrayed me, as I have discovered that it's all very fuzzy at it's core. It's kinda funny, I guess, how my path in these two areas mirror each other.

As a science student, there was something I didn't like about the theology which I was learning, which was that it simply wasn't contradictable. If something good happens, you thank God. If something bad happens, you say that God is refining you. If you pray for something and it comes true, you thank God for answered prayer. If you pray for something and it doesn't happen, you say that perhaps it was not God's will. Under no circumstances can anything ever disprove God, because everything can be interpreted away accordingly. My logical mind was unhappy with that, because it sounded like a desperate delusion. Is God a testable hypothesis?

I am pleased that Yancey has included similar thoughts in his book. He tells the story of a man who steps off a curb and narrowly misses getting run down by a car. People praise God, saying that God was looking after him. The same man steps off the same curb a week later and gets run over, suffering serious injury. He spends months in hospital recovering, while people thank God for allowing him to live. A week after getting out of hospital, he steps off the same curb, gets run over, and dies. At his funeral, the pastor speaks on how God saw fit to call this man home.

The first day of the next three months...

Sermon today about families. I think it was relevant. My take-home was the last bit about grace and forgiveness.

My papers are over. I am thankful. They went somewhat well. I think I put in less effort this sem than I normally do. Was remarkably unmotivated. But I picked modules I had aptitude for, so that compensated.

Priorities for the next 3 months:
1) Develop support network.
2) Commence reading programme.
3) Exercise.
4) Learn to cook?
5) Resolve forgiveness issue.

I know I shouldn't dwell on the offence. I am definitely not supposed to keep a record of it. Yet when people talk about forgiveness, they always mention the need to be specific about the offence, which requires defining it. I guess I should get round to writing it out, and then throwing it away when I'm done with it. But I generally prefer typing.