monday morning...today was one of those days i find myself waking up, my hand grasping for the alarm clock that is beeping...i've been anticipating the 'beep' for possibly an hour, trying to stay asleep...i can hear the sound of soft rain by my window...i've all but given up hope. these days my body automatically 'switches on' at about 6am...the first thought on my mind is the last one i had just before i dozed off last night. i know this doesn't happen everyday...why it does sometimes, and at other times, not, remains a mystery...we don't get to pick or choose our thoughts the moment we awake.

making my way to work, scanning the landscape of KL from my vantage, through the train's window, i couldn't help but realize how predictable human habits actually are...come on...all of us travel in vehicles shaped like little boxes, all filing in and out of the same asphalt roads, day in, day out...all of us dress the same too...most...i hasten to qualify. but even the anomalies are quite a uniform group, guys and girls in blue jeans and t-shirt...the rest of us 'office-types', well...you get the drift...

how is it that modern men and women, who so pride themselves as rational 'choice-makers', we the possessors of freedom of choice, still end up so uniform, so 'normal'...if we are such free creatures, our innate creativities should actually be expressed in ways more diverse or more original than the range of adopted life-styles that we see around us...yuppies, networkers, 'the youth', senior citizens etc.

the conspiracy theorists will tell you that our choices are not actually 'real' in the first place...much like the choices that mcdonald's or burger king would give to its customers : meal 1, meal 2 or meal 3 etc. powerful business interests dictate what we can actually choose...the TV channels we get to watch, what kind of products would make you happier, or even the kind of jobs you should aspire to...

to dwell on this thought...i feel helpless...what if we, as a civilization, as society, is heading the wrong direction? we have so ingeniously set up structures and technology to advance as a race, but now we find it hard to control; these 'powers and principalities' are controlling us instead...we can't seem to be able to change our course, our destination...

i am no pessimist nor a doomsday prophet...even if such observations of our daily lives are true, to a certain extent, this does not mean acquiescence and surrender to the inevitable. the christian, the follower of christ, is the last person who should or need submit to such a logical reading of our history, to be 'conformed to the pattern of this present age'. the christian is the true revolutionary, only if we understand our place at this historical moment, to derail this world's logic or inevitability in the light of the eschaton, the judgment of Christ of every human project and ambition in the light of the NEW WORLD he is constructing...

i will be heading back to class...i ask myself 'how can christ be present here?'; 'how does the kingdom of god manifest here?'...not tomorrow, not through telling people that when we all die, we get to be heaven... that kind of gospel is hollow to me, and i suspect, also to many of my friends and the young... we, 'postmoderns', have an intuition...something's not right...something's amiss...in ourselves, our families, our nation, our churches, our government...

today, i hear his words: " change your life/redefine your priorities...God's radical kingdom is confronting your life, here and now..."

is a different world or future still possible?

staring through el greco...

Toledo by El Greco

I fell in love with the paintings of El Greco, when I chanced upon them at an art gallery in London, a couple of years ago...it left an indelible mark...the shades of blue held my attention...reminding me of mystery, that some parts of reality would always remain impenetrable to the human mind... to have gazed at those paintings was to be called on to pray...truly icons of another world, or messages in bottles come from the Sublime...

The last few days, I felt as if the things that really matter, if there is any thing that makes my life worth the passing of 28 years, they have recently flashed before my very eyes...experiencing ethereal beauty in a new-found friend ...escaping a possible premature death...to have rested in the company of friends...and filled my ears with the raw sounds of earth and trees...

What more can I ask for? Have I the hands to receive, in spite of my constant profligacy? Eternal life finds its logic in my insatiable longing for more of this life... To be alive is to be surprised time after time...grace thriumphing over karma...

Today has never happened before...even a cynic like me, is starting to believe...

it is raining heavily here, in wangsa maju...spread out before me is a large field, peppered with large pillar-sized trees...looking at how the raindrops fall, incessantly, against the clear, brown and green foliage, beneath a grey sky... feeling the wind...melancholy...hope... and a tempered peace...

this was my moment of reprieve...

the weight of words...

Heard of the death of Kyle Lake, 33 year old pastor of University Baptist Church in Texas, last week. He died in a freak accident, while conducting the baptismal service, with about 800 people present... 'Where are you, Lord, in all this?' A question, a longing, a struggle to understand seems more apt in the face of such tragedy...may we never arrive at clear and clinical resolutions too easily... May the God of all comfort shelter Kyle's wife and two young children in the midst of the pain...

Words from his final sermon notes moved me beyond measure, as I heard them spoken by my own pastor last Sunday.

”Live. And Live Well.
BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now.
On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun.
If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE.
Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time.
If you bike, pedal HARD… and if you crash then crash well.
Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done—a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed.
If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old’s nose, don’t be disgusted if the Kleenex didn’t catch it all… because soon he’ll be wiping his own.
If you’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well.
At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because-it-is-most-definitely-a-Gift.”

Thanks Kyle... for your life and reminder... I've almost forgotten how to lose myself, to be immersed in the gifts around me...

I am getting knee-deep again in a novel...it's been ages...