Pilgrims on a Journey : Tolstoy and Nouwen (part 1)

Pilgrims on a journey. I've been wanting to blog about this topic for awhile, keeping a reminder on my PDA that keeps popping up. But yet, what journey and what pilgrims are we talking about?

Reading Yancey's Soul Survivor, on Yancey's heroes of faith, I find myself deeply identifying with both these heroes, Leo Tolstoy and Henri Nouwen. Today, I shall talk about Tolstoy.

Although born as a nobility, Tolstoy, once considered the finest writer Russia has ever produced, sharing the honour with Dostoevsky, lived a tumultuous life punctuated by high ideals and the depths of depression of the failure to obtain it. Even Mahatma Gandhi, the father the nation of India, found Tolstoy's spiritual writings profoundly moving and credited Tolstoy's 'The Kingdom of God Is Within You' as his inspiration of non-violence. However, as Yancey puts it, for every Gandhi stirred by Tolstoy's high-minded ideals, another reader is repelled by how miserably he failed to fulfil those ideals.

Whil growing up, I've always asked myself on how could I be more Christian in my conduct? The bible states in Matthew, for us to turn the other cheek, but in the world we live in, turning the other cheek only means being given a hiding by bullies and people who think you're just too soft. And how about the other aspects of the Christian life? How can we ever hope to reach the standards preached to us by Christ on His sermon on the mount?

During his time, Tolstoy constantly had to reply critics, which included his wife, Sonya, on whether he carried out what he preached. And Tolstoy responded with this, 'What about you , Lev Nokolayevich, you preach very well, but do you carry out what you preach?' This is the most natural of questions and one that is always asked of me; it is usually asked victoriously, as though it were a way of stopping my mouth. 'You preach, but how do you live?' And I answer that I do not preach, that I am not able to preach, although I passionately wish to. I can preach only through my actions, and my actions are vile... And I answer that I am guilty, and vile, and worthy of contempt for my failure to carry them out.

At the same time, not in order to justify, but simply in order to explain my lack of consistency, I say: 'Look at my present life and then at my former life, and you'll see that I do attempt to carry them out. It is true that I have not fulfilled one thousandth part of them [Christian percepts], and I am ashamed of this, but I have failed to fulfil them not because I did not wish to, but because I was unable to. Teach me to escape from the net of temptations that surrounds me, help me and I will fulfil them; even without help I wish and hope to fulfil them.

'Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow, and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side? If its not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: "Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!" No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support'

Yancey mentions that Tolstoy, like a spawning salmon, fought upstream all his life, in the end collapsing from moral exhaustion. Don't we all at times, whereupon at our weakest hour, we fail God, only to be fraught with dissapointment and despair. It seems so easy to just go to church on Sundays and cell group on Friday/Thursday, and then living back the same life as everybody else. 'Hypocrite' is what some fellow Christians call me when I tell them I'm trying to live a life worthy to be a testimony. Like Tolstoy, I want to pursue the authentic faith, even though I might seem to fail at times. Is it much better to just live a nominal faith? No! I can't bear standing in God's presence, knowing I'm wilfully sinning and not bothering about it.

'I'm not an orphan on earth as long as that man lives,' said Maxim Gorky, one of Tolstoy's most talented contemporaries. He raised the sights of an entire nation, and still today his writings bear that message to the world.

God Bless.

The Problem of Pleasure (and sex)

Trudging through life, I'm sure dat at times you wonder, why does bad things happen to seemingly good people, like for example, the friend that had her bag snatched by a snatch-thief, or even worse, as Ravi Zacharias puts it, a man who was an eye-witness to the slow murder of young Jewish boys in a Nazi concentration camp; whereupon the boys were hanged and slowly left to choke to death. The Jewish man promptly cried, 'Where is God, in the midst of all this?'

And I'm sure that we can go on an endless debate about the problem of pain. But take a moment with me with this jolly philosopher, who struggled with Christianity before accepting it, and was known as the philosophical Peter Pan of the 20th Century, as it was explained by Phillip Yancey.
'In addition to the problem of pain, G.K. Chesterton seemed equally fascinated by its opposite, the problem of pleasure. He found materialism too thin to account for the sense of wonder and delight that gives an almost magical dimension to such basic human acts such as sex, childbirth, play and artistic creation.

Why is sex fun? Reproduction surely does not require pleasure: some animals simply split in half to reproduce, and even humans use methods of artificial insemination that involves no pleasure. Why is eating enjoyable? Plants and the lower animals manage to obtain their quota of nutrients without the luxury of taste buds. Why are there colours? Some people get along fine without the ability to detect colour. Why complicate vision for all the rest of us?'

and here

'As Chesterton saw it, sexual promiscuity is not so much an overvaluing of sex as a devaluing.
To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it...Polygamy is a lack of the realisation of sex; it is like a man plucking five pears in a mere absence of mind'

And thus, wouldn't pornography and masturbation be a devaluation of sex and the intimacy of a Godly, loving relationship that is to come with it? It is like forgoing all aspects of a ten course meal at a lavish, exotic five star restaurant, in order to have the final dish, the ice cream, as an entire meal by itself, on a daily basis.

God Bless!

p/s: Comments welcomed! Please do post your views! ;)

Orthodoxy

Just got back from Borders, clinching one of the books I've been looking for almost a year. Orthodoxy, the book by G.K. Chesterton, who in turned influenced people and thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi and C.S. Lewis among the others. The repeated hearing of Ravi Zacharias' audio CDs convinced me to look and read for myself, what the modern fathers of Christian Apologetics wrote and thought about.


Oh yeah, got the compilation of C.S. Lewis' writings. Looking forward to get his other book, 4 loves. Do let me know if you're interested to borrow them ;) Now, yea, it's time to continue the exam preparations.


God Bless!
p/s: Yancey and Francis Schaeffer are good writers as well, though, you can't really find much books on apologetics in places like Salvation. MPH and Borders do offer a wider range.

Awesome Camp photos

And they try hard to crab-dance. The winner gets a year's supply of crab :p Now you know.. haha

Famous Amos. It seems to be the best way to win people's hearts ;)

I-Bridge Camp 2006 - The Report

Hello there! Just got back from the recent I-bridge camp at Selesa homes, last Sunday till Wednesday. How do I sum it up? ;) It's really good, in terms of being a good break from work, a place to network and to meet friends (old and new), plus, well, realigning our priorities in life and work balance. Makes you think whether you're really hurtling down the correct direction.

Attached are the camp photos for this year's and last year's camp. Do take care. God Bless!

The hedonist in us

More to be posted soon. Please stay tuned. ;)

I-bridge Camp 2006

Just got this. Would you be joining us? I promise it'll be fun and refreshing ;)

See you there!

Hey peeps! The closing date to sign up for the camp was 6 October but now we have extended the date to another week! If you have already decided to sign up, then what are you still waiting for??? Just click on the registration form to sign up! If you have nothing much better to do during this Deeparaya, then why not take this opportunity to learn more about God in this conference and also fellowship with each other in the camp? If you are still hesitating/doubting, after hearing about this camp for the second/third time/many times, what is stopping you? In the stressful working world today, we needed so much of words of comfort from God and also from our brothers and sisters in Christ! The Lord cares for everyone, the same comfort He has poured out in the lives of others, he longs to pour out in ours. Therefore why not you come and join us to be encouraged by God through the speakers and also the campers?! We are longing to hear your reply! For those who have already signed up, can you please help to tell others about this camp? We do want our friends to also be encouraged by God and not missed this out, don't we? Till then, just keep the registration forms coming in, ya! :)

In His Service,
The planning committee.

The Economics of Working

You know, how funny it is that when we start working, we find ourselves sometimes working beyond the usual working hours, or working on something we do not have a passion of doing, or perhaps, working, but hoping that one day, one fine sunny day, we'll hit the jackpot and will be able to sit around at home, sipping our ice lemon teas and just lazing around at home? That childroom dreams might not be as easy as it seems?

I thought of this topic after going through Freakonomics, the book your truly so plainly tries to imitate (but fails miserably)

Think about this, an average graduate gets around RM 2k-2.5k upon graduation. In most cases around Klang valley, the graduate works 3-7 years to get promoted to executive and then managerial position. However, in some jobs, the graduate has to work late, sometimes 8, 9 or perhaps 11 pm. In extreme cases, till 2-3 am. And lets say, in some sectors like the IT sector, it's not a one off thing or a one month in a year thing (that auditors go through), but an average of 3-4 days/week, in a year, the graduate has most probably worked around 150-180 days of overtime in a year.

If you do calculate this by 5 years, the graduate spends at least 2.5 of the 5 years working overtime and coming back late.

You know, it's quite interesting to find that if a person was offered RM 300 more to work late on a regular basis, he'll most probably reject it. But add the opportunity of climbing the ladder (no matter how long it is), and most graduates would jump at the opportunity. Hmm, smart or foolish?

And it's most telling when senior staff of companies that worked them overtime start counting down the days till retirement. With the rise in the marrying age, the drop in the amount of social time we have for family and friends, we in danger of losing more than we hope to gain in pursuit of the 'American Dream' and being better than the Joneses (or in Malaysian terms, the Ah Kows, Ah Bengs and Alis, not forgetting Muthu too)

I've always told myself that while it might seem good to work for money, why don't we take work as a part time job and life/ministry as a full time thing. After all, in climbing up the work/political ladder, it's quite a common sight to see people scheming to get ahead of the rest in terms of lies, deceit and manipulation. Isn't life meant to be much more than just climbing a wrongly placed ladder?

Just watched 'Walk His Trail' by the Footstool Players and highly recommend it to anyone's whose reading this article. Your life might be changed.



Till then, God bless folks!

Branding

Recently, brands and managing of brands caught my attention. I wanna be a brand manager. Oh yea, ;) Got some ideas on a new company. Let's see what happens will ya.

God Bless!

The new gizmo

Please welcome gizmo.








;)
It's a HP IPAQ rw6828.

And I used to think I would never get a Windows based handheld. Hmm.

Job-hopper

It's been a long hiatus. Looks like it's months before posts do arrive, doesn't it? Sorry folks, been really busy with the rainy-grainy stuff of life.

Anyways, I recently left my job in one of the largest multinationals around town, one dealing with computers. And it was a bit funny how things happened, how offers came pouring in just before my contract ended. At the end, while the new contract was on the table, I had a few choices to chose from and decided, well, it's time for a break from the corporate life. ;)

I still miss my job, my old job that is, the friends and all, but well, as the saying goes, 'No regrets, no retreats, no compromise' Heh, you might even term me, 'The serial job hopper'

Spiritually, I'm good. Thank God that I've settled down in a church not too far from home ;) It's a nice cell group and all. Keeping my other weekdays busy with postgraduate classes (which reminds me, my assignments! Darn! I was sick! :( Was down with viral infection the last few days. It's really bad)

Till then, gotta go! You know how to contact me, don't you?

Always free for a cuppa coffee at our local coffeeshop.

Peace

The Job : It's a farnee thing

I've got myself a new pair of glasses recently that looks something that come out of the 60s era. Agnes, my collegue commented that it looks too garish ;) Coolness huh?



Anyways, ironically, it might be one of the last few comments I get from my fellow collegues as I might be leaving in the not-too-distant future.

You know, the farnee thing was that I was really determined to get a new job all these months as working late meant missing my Marketing classes, missing outings with friends and finally, missing doing what I loved. Life became a routine of 9am - 9pm or sometimes, 11pm, 12 midnight or sometimes 1 am. I hated it, but worked hard nonetheless as confirmation would mean a salary exceeding RM 5k/month, which would put me in the yuppie class.

And it was this salary that kept me working hard though my heart kept telling me that there was more to life than just this cold hard cash. I want to do tuition to the orphans, I want to have time for my aging parents, and yes, I want to settle down and get married. But yet, I had no time or options for this, until now.

You know, it's farnee that my last day of contract coincides with the 1st day of my long awaited (and delayed) graduation ceremony, which would be effectively starting on the 11th of August, 2006. Is that a sign? I dunno... and you can be sure I've been asking God long and hard the last few days. God, can you gimme an answer? I wonder..

But yet, reading Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie seem to put things in perspective. Is my job really worth the hassle and the time required? What if, I was Morrie, dying, would I die at my job, or would it be in investing in something more important? Like relationships with our friends, family and acquaintances. Perhaps our kids and spouses if we're married. Hmm.

Talking to a Pastor from SiB, who used to be the sales director of a IT/Engineering company awakened me further as he mentioned, 1/10th of our time should be given to God daily, and we must have time for our family and friends. I seem to be so off track.

Ha, alright, I better get some rest soon. Do pray for me, for God's direction and call to be clear these few days. I feel I really need some guidance ;)

Till then, God Bless

Celebrate Life

Ah, welcome back.

Here I am, jotting some thoughts over the computer monitor as a sleepless night drove me to blog a bit on things once more.

'Celebrate Life' was the theme playing around in my head. And after reading 'Tuesday's with Morrie', life seems so much vibrant.

So much had happened the last few months. *Chuckle*, I would say I've grown, erm, bigger, older and perhaps a wee bit little wiser. Work indeed let's you grow up fast. And what more, things seem to happen at a much faster pace than I can spell out, erm, what's that longest word again, hmm, nevermind, I guess some of you will know it. (or better still, go ask Wee Liem)

You know, it's indeed farnee finding out that my contract with JOS ends exactly on the same day as MMU's graduation ceremony. There I've been grumbling around about getting a more decent hour job, and now, looking at the bills to pay, plus potential lost of income, I'm hmm, confused you might say? Ah, and yes, I've prayed this many times over.

Looking back at old friends on the Friendster list, I let out a few sighs knowing some friendships lost due to transition through time, whereby we take out different paths after some time travelling the road together. Deeper sighs were for mistakes that broke friendships. I mourn, but then, unlike last time, I move on. Life is meant to be savoured.

Nonetheless, I thank God for the friends and fellowship He's provided that sustained me these few months. Hmm, World Cup finals was a good example, not that Zidane's headbutt was anything great to shout about, but indeed, it was good feilowship.

Gotta log off soon. Till later dudes.

Signing off...

Jean Luc Picard, erm, nah, Leo Koo, heh.

Still here

Dear all,

Sorry for the lack of literary action recently ;) Just felt I needed a break. Will resume shortly. Do stay tuned. Thanks!

Standards and decisions

It's almost 3:18 am.

Just taking a breather after clearing up the house (disposing of dog poo, feeding the fish, before it dies of hunger, watering the plants after 2 days of neglect, etc), when I realised, hey, life has passed me by, so fast, these few months. (Hmm, dunno if I've blogged on this, but..)

Looking at the stack of old comics and computer game manuals made me reminisce about days of yore, times where hot-bloodedness ruled my thoughts back then. Sadly.

Standing here at crossroads now, with decisions to make. Dad wants me active in MCA, and I was thinking, is it a God given opportunity? I mean, we often talk about revival, about reaching out, but at times, due to legislations in place, our hands are tied and bound. Would it be wise to venture into politics as a changing factor? Though, the more you know about politics, the more you see the dark side of it, like perhaps Frodo with the ring in Lord of the Rings. Would I be drawn to a life in the dark shadows of power, deceit and friends ready to turn against you? I wonder..

But yet, there must be someone to champion the Christian cause, and perhaps its an opportunity for me to do so, to be a lighthouse in the darkness, salt in a tasteless world.

Furthermore, I might take a long layoff FGC for now. I know there are calls for me to go back, but yet, I just don't feel like I want to, not yet, not just now perhaps. But yet, it pains me so to take this sabbatical/leave, and yea, I might be running away, but.. not now, not just yet. I need time off, time to do the things I want to do, to perhaps satisfy my want to just sit at the back of a mega church, not involved in ministry altogether for now.

I'm jobless too now. Took the opportunity to leave the job on Friday, earlier then the prescribed date of 1st of March. And yeah, I just turned down a job with a Singaporean company doing Accounting Software. It wasn't the pay, as the pay was good, but yet, it wasn't what I was looking for.

Perhaps I offended many when I wrote about working for others as being not the best solutions, and yea, I'm sorry for that statement. I do believe that you could do a good job working for others, but yet, it's not for me, as I wouldn't like reporting to others all the time, and would prefer a freedom in doing things.

A few new business plans came to mind, and yeah, I might start sooner or later.

And yeah, one last thing. Just cleared off a number of movies, and no, they aren't porn. But yet, I find myself affected by the number of nude scenes/sex scenes in upcoming movies nowadays. It used to be so much easier 10 years back, as those movies had farnee titles like 'sexy' or 'hot mama' or something like that. Nowadays, nudity seems to occur in every other movie, other than those animated.

And yea, I just felt the need to live a life to God's standards, not standards everyone prescribe to. It's not a try to be the 'oh-so-holy' type, but it's a want to honour God, to live right, blameless and in His statutes. Don't get me wrong, I do fall, but yet, I want, I desire to be as Holy as I could. The urge to run with the horses, above mediocrity spurs me on, but yet, sin pulls me back. And the worse thing is, sin has become so normalised that we rationalise it's alright, it's okay to do so. We don't want to look as wannabes, holy-moly types out to impress. But are we really out to impress, or are we out to be after God's heart?

The strange thing is that sex, money and power has always brought more than a Christian away from God's path, even in the olden days of yore, where during the world war 2, they had poster gals, in the 19th century, they had women posing nude for artistic purposes. And now, well, it's in the movies. And it's true, guys are visual. Sigh, sadly, I'm a typical guy, so..it's a sacrifice I've gotta make. Perhaps more movies in the cinema?

Till then, feedback would be good.

Gong Hei Fatt Choy and have a safe journey whereever you're going!

p/s: Sigh* Just packed off a muscle-fitness magazine. I must not compromise on this.

The Marketing Guru-Jee

Just a brief update. Taking CIM's Professional diploma in Marketing at Stamford. It's every Monday to Thursdays, 6:30-9:30pm, and it's still open for registration! ;) Join me? Hee.

click here for more info

Down, but not depressed. Heyo heyo!

Hah. Just in case the previous post made everything look bleak. Well, we all do go through difficulties (and yea, you can't control how others react to you, just gotta give your best, ain't it?) Anyways, just wanna claim God's promises that though I walk through the valleys of the shadows of death, I shall not fear ;) I know my God's for me, heh.

Here's something dat never fails to cheer me up, whenever I'm down




Till then~Do drop me a call if anything =)

Time out

It's been a long while since I've posted here. Partially, I'm lost, hurt, disillusioned with things, life, church. You name it, it's there.. And it gets depressing reading friends' blogs, whereupon I do feel left out from the MMU CF scene. I just stay away from Audrey's, Wee Liem's, Mel's and everyone else's blog, due to this. Perhaps I really am, lost and away from what's going on over there.

Handed in my resignation a few days ago too. Found it really hard to stay on, when 3 months worth of claims don't come in and you're forced to borrow from mom to survive, being embarrasingly unable to bless others with presents and all.

At times, I do ask myself, has my time in CF and church gone to waste? Are they being nice because I'm their church member/CF mate back then? Or perhaps, I'm of a different age group. I don't know. *sigh

But yet, in the midst of it all, I do thank God for the new friendships found and nurtured during this time. Friendships that sustained me and gave me hope, instead of looking back and feeling that failure. And yeah, working did give me a sense of satisfaction, as giving my best at work became my first priority, and now, perhaps, the starting of a new company.

Am taking a few months off church for now (am still going, but, yea, will be church visiting), as I need the time to gather my thoughts, and perhaps find a place I could serve and give my best to. Indeed, you folks had been wonderful, but it's really hard for me to stay on. The memories of failure is still fresh, and yeah, it hurts real bad to just be around...

2006? I just want to give God my best. To be the best in work, as a friend and yea, as a Christian. God, sustain me..