the threat of becoming...

Can a man’s life be summed up in a matter weeks, days or months? The last 2 weeks of my life, has been so filled with the sublime and beautiful, weaved together with pain and sadness… I experienced the simple kindness of strangers and old friends; celebrated the marriage of my best friends; took in the beauty of my country and culture (it took the fresh ‘seeing’ eyes of my Californian friends to help me perceive KL anew…); wrestled with guilt and pain towards a dear companion…

How could one say there is no meaning in life? Being human is so pregnant with possibilities, feelings, layers of meaning… I find it so hard to take it all in, to streamline or smooth out the rough edges of human experience… to know that each human life is a unique story, lived in the particular, constrained by limitations and contingent events. Our lives are so horribly precarious, a hopelessly beautiful vulnerability… Laughing and crying, feasting and hunger; their place forever dignified (or deified in the terms of Orthodox spirituality) and invested with truthful meaning, through the historically conditioned, precarious life of Jesus of Nazareth… turning water into wine while celebrating a friend’s wedding, his enduring of every trial and temptation imaginable with much tears and cries, and his annihilation on the cross… the wideness and depth of human experience and suffering becomes the wideness and depth of the Father’s mercy and reconciliation…

I am and feel so painfully unfinished…but I do hear him say ‘Become…’.

Fever Pitch... Confessions of a Koppite

Half a million supporters celebrate at St. George's in Liverpool...

I have supported Liverpool Football Club for more than 10 years now... Them winning the Champions League this season, is without doubt the highest point in the life of a person who supports a football team... Especially after all those years of under-achievement and suffering from the haughty gloatings of Manchester United supporters :D

It's not just the fact that they won the Cup, but the remarkable manner they did it, coming back from 3-0 at half-time, makes it the most fulfilling experience a football fan could have... At half-time I did think it was over... but, boy am I glad that I persisted watching the match till the end... A night I will never forget, to be passed on to future football posterity :D

It just feels sweeter, the fact that I was at Anfield back in 1997...but those were the days Liverpool were struggling to recapture their glory days in the late 70s and early 80s... I was part of the new generation of Reds' supporters who did not see the team achieve much success in the 90s (the era of Manchester United domination). Hence the deeper appreciation of this victory, a climactic moment after years and years of disappointment... To think that I bumped into Jamie Carragher, one of the current Liverpool heros, in Manchester Airport back in 1999, feels absolutely amazing now. I remember walking towards him and his friend and asking him for an autograph. I still have that in my room today!!! WOOHOO!!!

YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE...

The Cup paraded by the Kop in Anfield, the spiritual home of all Liverpool supporters...

CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE FOR THE 5TH TIME!!!

Liverpool captain Steven Gerard lifts the European Champions Cup!!!

Liverpool players jubilant as they win the shoot-out!!! The most unlikely of all comebacks is complete...

Dudek stops the decisive penalty... LIVERPOOL WIN THE PENALTY SHOOTOUT 3-2!!!

Dudek pulls off a miraculous double save against Shevcenko at the end of extra-time!!!

The unthinkable happens... Xabi Alonso completing the amazing comeback... Liverpool 3 Milan 3... 3 goals in the matter of 6 minutes, after trailing 3-0 at half-time!!!

Smicer hits the second in the space of 2 minutes... Liverpool 2 Milan 3

Captain Gerard pulls back an unlikely goal... Score 1-3

Staring at defeat...Half-time Milan 3 Liverpool 0

The Cup seems headed to Milan with the half-time score at 3-0...

Milan hits three before half-time...

coincidence that it's a day away...

Your Birthdate: June 11

Your birth on the 11th day of the month makes you something of a dreamer and an idealist. You work well with people because you know how to use persuasion rather than force. There is a strong spiritual side to your nature, and you may have intuitive qualities inherent in your make up, too. You are very aware and sensitive, though often temperamental. Although you have a good mind and you are very analytical, you may not be comfortable in the business world. You are definitely creative and this influence tends to make you more of a dreamer than a doer.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?