A friendship is a treasure beyond measure

December 26, 2004, I got many phone calls asking if my family was okay, after the tsunami in Aceh. The town located on the tip of Sumatera Island and my family live in Java. Today I heard more good news from Aceh, where the economy starts to perk up, with new businesses, stores, , restaurants and hotels standing up again. After the tsunami, decades of conflict between the locals and central government had achieve an agreement and the Aceh people had their own election to decide their own leader from their own people they desired. Although some infrastructure problems still exist, there is no doubt that houses are being built in a better condition with the billion dollars assistances from the non-government organizations from all over the world. Although grieve are still on the air, thoughts of God and His greatness are being brought up in people's minds. And if death was the great equalizer, the hundreds of thousands lives that were gone in that night were not just gone astray. They were loved and they are still loved and missed.

Which also brought my thoughts of what I have in my life.

Friends and family are people who sometimes we take for granted. My family probably is not the best in the world, but they're the best that God ever given to me. And my friends, my friends are more than just a family.

One listened to me every morning and made me feel loved when I miss my mom.
One adopted me as a family in his big family.
One always asked me questions as if my opinion matters.
One called me up when he had a bad day.
One "lend me" his mom to give me a hug at my christmas away from home.
One helped me to prepare "a line" to answer my parents' usual question.
One stayed with me and offered me ice cream when I had a bad day.
One came over and listened to me when I cried over a heart break.
One told me that I need to figure out what I want before I did a foolish thing.
One noticed my voice and gave me a hug when I needed.
One needed me to listen and gave me opportunity to encourage him.
One gave me a place to spend the night when I lost my keys.
One gave me an advice on being a bum.
One told me that I didn't help when I told him the truth.
One ate the dinner I cooked although it was too salty.
One laughed with me when my dishwasher flooded, instead of making fun of me.
One drove far away just to say goodbye.
One came to my charity event although he has no interest whatsoever.
One said sorry for inexcusably being unattentive with my life.
One took care of my lousy car.
One never judge me.
One pushed me to reduce my coffee intake to only four cups up to this month.
One always encourage me to do what I love.
One asked me for help and made me feel needed.
One took care of my plants just because they were important to me.
One sent me encouraging words just in time.
One spent time with me when she could be elsewhere with people she loves.
And countless ones, had made me laugh and keep me young.

Every encounter we had with other people had a reason. And I believe each one is in my life for a reason. And I also believe that God had sent my friends to tell me He loves me. To my friends, I love you, and have a verry merry christmas.

Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful

The government isn’t the people. Mary my friend said that when I told her about my frustrations over what’s going on in this country (I am in the coffee island). In this day and age, just because of the ridiculously rigid policy on food import, some people have to eat “beras aking”. Beras aking is dried left over rice that we used to feed ducks with. It’s not like we’re running out of food as in Africa; there’s more food to eat, but they just can’t afford it. Rice is the main thing people eat, although there are other kinds of food available, people have accustomed that rice is present in every meal. It’s not easy to ask people to eat everything else when they are not used to it. And in this case, these people eat rice with banana leaves. BANANA LEAVES! Something that is not even considered as food.

They are human beings like me, cannot afford to buy rice because of the rising price, change of the harvest season, and import protection policy to farming. First things first should apply when people are starving. And there’s no other policy is better than protecting human rights.

In my brain I started to blame the government. But then, blaming the government won’t change anything. In Cincinnati, I have learned greatly about compassion, philanthropy, charity, and other things that would not exist without the legacy of my boss, Jesus the Savior. That change could happen without the government involved.

There are many social services agency here, but they’re just not enough. Our contributions (including mine) to help others are just not sufficient. Indonesia only have about 15% middle class society among the poor. I am not saying there is a lack of compassion; I am just saying that we’re hungry for more.

I am glad there are more people taking advantage of the “democracy” by exercising their rights to conduct more demonstrations, although in the end they have to depend on the justice system which we all know what it stands for. It’s the people who count, not the government. Focusing on what we have instead of what we don’t have is a destructive state of mind.

I am trying to stay at the bright side of life by enjoying coffee, the weather, food, trees, being a hobo by staying with my parents, and the resilient communities who already survived from the last earthquake. Jogja was as vibrant if not more, than the last time I saw it.

Everyday I hear the news about this disaster and that disaster, as if God was playing with the water near the sea throwing rocks over the land where landslide, floods and other environmental damages are happening. And the earth is screaming when we take more than what it has. When will we learn to take care of the environment? But, do we have any other choice when we have to choose between people and nature? We should not have to choose, there’s a way to live without damaging the environment, some of us just couldn’t see that far.

So, I turn off the news and go out to the traditional market to smell the fish, fresh vegetables, fresh herbs, and to listen to the crowds living for today . If happily ever after started with today, I should be able to grasp the joy on everyone’s face when they see the sun still rise this morning.

The best christmas gift ever was wrapped in a manger

I am trying to call my parents but the connection is bad, which is usual because it's not the weekend, and somehow the cell phone could not reach the ten thousand miles distance. I was reading "Thenewevidencethatdemandsaverdict", a book by Josh McDowell that I owned but never had time to read. It will be my companion during the three days and two nights trip to Surabaya this week.

I am trying to call my parents to tell them "I thank you." Mom and dad used to be moslem although I doubt that they'd ever practiced it, but they were baptized after they got married. My mom is such a dreamer, she always has dreams about things, and before she married my dad, she had a dream of seeing my dad sitting in the living room of my grandmother's house with only the light of oil lantern that became stronger and stronger. They knew each other since my mom was little, my dad always had a crush on her, and finally got married when he was 32 years old and she was 22. Being raised as a christian where my parents essentially were also still "learning" about christianity was interesting in itself. I always love the sunday school activities, the competitions, the bible reading contest, the christmas parties where I got to perform in many things (from singing, dancing, music) as a hyperactive kid. I knew who Jesus was, but that's because my parents told me so. And because the bible told me so. And because that's how I was raised, to whom my mom taught me to pray to. I used to immitate her when I pray. In Javanese, we address Jesus as the "Gusti Pangeran ingkang wonten suwarga", it means "The Lord, the Prince who art in heaven". I always wondered why we or she called God as the Prince, as if God has a son, and Jesus was the Son of God, and would God had a son, and who was the Holy Spirit.

Not until when I was in high school, I started to learn and to question who Jesus is. I learned more from the books I read, not all of them written by christian scholars, but many other point of views that contradict the point of view that Jesus was just a mere human being but reject his claim as the Son of God.

I remember a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, who used to be a baptist and convert into moslem, asked me if I believe that Jesus was God and why I believe that He is God. I grew up around moslem and I know their biggest rejection is that Christianity worship "three God" (they don't believe the concept of Trinity) and God obviously doesn't have a Son; and God would not be a man or came down to earth to be a man, a poor man who had nothing. I started to sit down to answer her question because it's gonna be a long one! I believe Jesus is God because: The bible that has historical evidence of future propechies and past prophecies and was inspired by God, said so. The entire bible, a collection of writings from the Hebrew history that was written throughout history through prophets with thousands of years span and 40 writers who lived in a different time and place, was written to tell the story of Jesus. The love story of God to men and women whom He loved. The story of redemption that God had written since the beginning of time. The story about the coming Messiah who is the Son of God, fully man dan divine at the same time. And Jesus is the only person, who can fulfill the entire prophecies including all the details, from John the Baptist who prepared his coming, The virgin Mary, his birth, his life, his ministry, his suffering, his death, his ressurection, and our forgiveness. And Jesus said himself that He was God. And there were more than 500 early christians who saw Him after his ressurection, whom all died, to defend what they experienced, to witness that Jesus was the Son of God, who could loose everything with nothing to gain. And there were 12 disciples who followed Him and knew his teaching and his miracles.

And there's more to that. Throughout my life, I have been blessed by God. Small little things of answered and unanswered prayers strengthened my belief that Jesus is God. I searched for Him and now I found Him everywhere, even in the evidence of science that only conforming to me that God is love, and therefore "Jesus" makes sense. The bible even said to "Test Him" and asked us to "decide to yourself." He's not afraid because He knows the truth. His idea, his teaching of love, and about love, and what He did to love the whole world, is just so overwhelming to me. Everything He said was true and I believe that. I am in awe of Jesus. I am in awe of what He has done in my life. I am thankful that He has made himself known to us and that He loves us, all of us!

In chapter seven of the book. JoshMcDowell cited JamesKennedy and JerryNewcombe in their book WhatIfJesusHadNeverBeenBorn to show the highlights of Jesus' sole influence in human race: Hospitals which began in the Middle Ages; Universities that were started by christians; literacy and education of the masses; representative of government; separation of political powers; civil liberties; the abolition of slavery; modern science; the discovery of the new world; benevolence and charity; higher standard of justice; the elevation of the commonm man; the high regard for human life; the civilization of barbarian cultures; greater development or art and music; countless of changed lives; the eternal salvation of countless souls. When God, the YHWH, sent his Son, the world was never be the same.

CS Lewis said that there's no way to believe Jesus only as a "historical figure" or a "great teacher", because his life didn't resemble that. He was either God, a liar, or a lunatic. The more I am searching to find Him, the more I am in love with Jesus. Not in love - in love - but perhaps it is more like "in awe". With all the things I've seen and read and experience every day, I could only see his affirmation of who He is and who He is in my life.

Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, 700 years before him: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6, KJV).

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoseever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That is my friend, the best love story I've ever heard....

Thank you God, for the best christmas gift ever.

You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life I promise you

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, written by DanielGoleman, published by Bantam Books, 2006.

I started out to read the book out of curiosity after listening to a BBC interview of the Next , Next Generation series with young people (translated to 18-35 year old) from all over the world, asking them of what they want to be, what are their challenges in the future. They came from India, Africa, New York, London, and China. By the end of the interview, the common idea as the most important trait to survive is: the social skills, from communication, relating to people, working with others. These important skill is crucial despite of whatever skills they have to offer, because other skills and demands change as the wind does, along with the advance technology, the happenings (that includes natural, and political disasters).

I grabbed this book, read it, and was not able to put it down, as I was "mute" for two days, even when I was asleep, dreaming about reading this book. DanielGoleman is a brain scientist, a psycholog and doctor, a self described " the author who redefined what it means to be smart." He is smart. The simple language, although I have to grab my pen to write down new "brain related" vocabularies that I haven't heard before. As a scientist, he was able to translate the language to the common mind, and the result, I found that the book was not that I expected. It offers more.

Empathy was the most important trait we can have to be able to communicate with others. Empathy exist in a brain that is not self-observed, which he described to have several forms, one of them is narcicist. Empathy was developed throughout our growth, depending on how our parents raised us, and the amount of encouragements we received, the amount of dissapointments we received during our childhood. My heart sanked when I read this. So, what if some children grew up in the "wrong" environment without love and encouragement? But, I kept reading and found that this is not a "period" in our brain development. These are a "curable" stage, that could be found through a nurturing, understanding partner, or a teraphy. Of course, realizing the "problem" would be the first step.

Without empathy, it is impossible to be a positive impact in the society, a positive impact to those surrounds us. These includes our roles, at work as an employee, or as a boss, or as a co-worker. Empathy is also crucial in our ability to create bonding, in relationship, ability to develop mental stability such as controling our minds to accept and reject situations that would change our emotional stage, such as breaking up with lovers, and our ability to be happy.

Happiness, Mr Goleman said, was a result of a resilient stage of mind, that is constantly working toward a better state of mind. The period of "grieving" is important to return our minds to the state of happiness, realizing the fact, that sometimes things are not working as "planned", that people die, and they come and go in our lives.

The "social brain" itself doesn't exist in the particular part of the brain, but was developed throughout the brain through the connection along the nerves. Mirror nerve, was the brain ability to relate to others. When we kiss, or we're in the state of "madly, deeply in love", the brain developed a substance that is similar to those that made us addicted, metaphetamine (what a surprise), and when we kiss, there's a fireworks in our brain that was developed through the connection of the nerves alltogether, when a couple fight, the brain developed a stage that lower the immune system for a couple of hours.

His explaination doesn't stop in the connection of one person to the other, but he also mention the importance of connectedness in the society that could lower the crime rate! He mentioned the example of this fact in a neighborhood in Boston, where togetherness in the community, such as community gathering, lower crime rates.

A healthy mind (and hence, soul), is important to develop empathy. And the development of the "social brain" and the brain in overall, is not only depending on what we inherited from our parents, but also what we received, able to overcome throughout the years, until the brain reach its maturity, in our twenty somethings (more like twenty four or five).

I am glad Mr Goleman wrote this book. But again, if we think about it, there's no "new" things here. Two thousand years ago, a jewish carpenter mentioned the importance as "loving others" but he didn't only stop there..."as yourself" which, could be translated as "empathy". Once again, science, the human brilliant "discovery" of how the social brain work, is yet another explaination of Jesus' teaching.

Home

The air sounds so foreign to me although I took my first breathe on this land. The land my current self could not stop to shake its head and ask, how come or why and what happened. The land where I would see everyone in my life who used to visit me on my dreams all these years. All those fights and laughter and tears.

Yet, I was too freak out to think of what they would think of me cause I am not what I was before. But when I saw their eyes, I found the same curiousity, and then I breath deeply and slowly.

Five years had changed me, and those five weeks could not replace all the excitement they would have if I were near. But I was near, as close as the telephone handle and emails and also snail mails. It was good to be with them, my family, but I didn't feel like I was at home.

A place where you were born is a place where you found who you are. And Rhineland is the place. Where there was a time I couldn't be more closer to You than any other time and place. Was I dreaming, or was I really go back home...

Rhineland 12406-437

A state of a recognition of soul of its counterpart to one another

Three theories to forget the past and to find what so called true love (above is the definition of true love I found somewhere but forgot exactly where)..

Theory one.
And the theory said that the amount of time to forget someone you love but didn't love you back is, the amount of time you've known the person, times two. This is a false theory, I must say, that with the prove of how long I've known Jake, times two, would be only four months. Based on the theory, it's supposed to be over by now, which is the fourth month after we broke up. And the theory doesn't catch up at all, in fact, it worked in reverse, because I have been thinking about him for every second now. If I don't have to do everything else. Especially when I try to catch up the time I've spent to forget about him by ignoring so many other prospects, that, in the right mind, might turn to be the right one. Possibly. But the idea of having him beside me, watching him sleep, seeing his beautiful circle on the right eye, of course, along with his other qualities as a martyr, someone who cared so much about humanity, is incomparable.

Theory two,
which may be true but need more strategy to comprehend, was that to forget someone is by being vulnerable again and through your imperfect heart out there, with bigger risk of being ups..dropped, and fell apart again. This was proven to be true, since, I liked Jake, I seem to have to shut my door to the past, where J lived, where he has been living for the damned four years of my life. I've never thought I would fall for someone else after that reckless love story with K, except that the theory has a deeper impact of my new love was more vulnerable than mine, having a hard time to trust me when I said I am still friends with my exboyfriend. Just what was wrong with that? Friends are friends and there is nothing more than that.

This problem, appeared to be, assume-ably, something to be proven by throwing your double-broken-heart again, out there. Let it be smashed and thrown away.
Unless there is a miracle, there is no way that this continuously destructive pattern would eventually cycle back to restore the doubled, tripled, glued broken heart.
This is getting harder, to the fact that true love might not come to you to often. The fact where a state of a recognition of soul of its counterpart to one another is a rare occasion in one's life, if anything at all.

So the chance of living miserably with someone whose not your true love is bigger, nowadays, especially when it is ticked by the state of turning thirty and desperation at forty, very dangerous, indeed, because when turned thirty, our mind has grown in its full extend with our body is capable to digest the taste of life. It would be, assuming we would live for another 40 years, the condition is a miserable one.

Theory three,
Which would be the theory of surrendering, is to realize that our mere existence belongs to God, and does He knows what he's really doing?

For me, November 26, 2006. Names on this writing were changed.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones

By Stephen Baldwin with Mark Tabb, published by Warner Faith, September 2006.

I came across the book in the bookstore last two weeks. It has a half face picture of the Baldwin I hardly know (I see Alec more often) and the book tells me why he's not visible in Hollywood anymore. I can't recall any of his movies, but I remember him being the more calm Baldwin. Reading this book is like reading an ego-maniac person who became an ego-maniac person who surrender to God. He still who he is, but he lets God performed in his life. He does great things now, and everyone would know it's the work of God, the God who is in him, not Stephen Baldwin himself.

The book tells profoundly about his conversion, how God orchestrated his life to come to Him. It was all dawn on him when a brazilian maid started to bug his wife's ears, and Augusta, the maid, told her that she came because God told the entire congregation in her hometown in Brazil that
the Baldwin will become Christian and has their own ministry. His wife responded to the story and started to search God. And Kennya, his wife, started praying for Stephen to come to Christ, an hour a day, in a year. Prayer is the most powerful thing that said we believe in God who make the impossible into possible.

And then Stephen tells us his sins, what he has done, although he said there's not any major conversion, knock on the head experience as in Paul. But he continues to show us the "coincidence" of how he founded his ministry "Livin' It", a ministry to the skaters, self-described tough guys in the world (Geezz, okay, tough guys). But, he is fruitful. His ministry is growing, and with prayer, it continues to grow and touch people's life, especially his target, the self-described tough guys who surf, skate, and do all the "I have no fear" activities.

The book tells me three things: God works miraculously in people's life when they allow Him to; there's no such thing in our life is a coincidence; and prayer is the next thing to connect with God.

The rest of the story shows me that Stephen is a human being, with a lot of sin and still living in flesh, but he is continue to work on the character, how his relationship with his o, so powerful wife (whom I admire better than Stephen) is growing, and how he's living his life because he surrender to God.

One thing I want to pointed out and I want to mention is the fact that he's not in the traditional way of evangelising. He's not one of those people who live by the "rules" of what so called a "Christian" way of life. That you should not say this and that if you're Christian. I met someone who recently told me that a Christian can't say "crap" for example, which is for me, when I had a bad day, that's the thing I want to say. Crap! So what? I didn't say God's name in vain, which is my definition of cushing. That's just the example. I don't think Jesus said these rules when he was on earth, only us, the self-righteous Christians who condemn other people instead of loving them, which actually, the main thing Jesus had to say. I agree with Stephen with that. I agree that we have to be relevant without being drawn into the culture. It is risky, but we can do it, when we have God in us. When we limit ourselves, we limit our God. Stephen mentioned about Christian rap music, which would be perfect to talk to the inner city kids, as the examples I've seen in CityCure, an urban ministry in Cincinnati. Yeah for not listening to additional what so called "Christian rules", Stephen.

--The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." —from On the Road, Jack Kerouac

Seek and you may find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.

I just finished reading Franny and Zooey, a book written by JD Salinger and one of his masterpiece that tells the story of the children of the Glass family whom, when they were kids, performed in a show called "It's a Wise Child." I always love the language of JD Salinger and how he communicated so well through the direct conversationalist sentences. His words are meant to be read one by one, word by word, sentence by sentence.

This book has a heavier, philosophical content as in A Catcher in the Rye. It meant to treat our minds with thoughts that will give us back the freedom of making conclusion, asking questions, or even choosing what to do, in life. I said, that, in life.

Franny, the first book, tells us about Franny or Frances, the youngest and the youngest daughter of the glass family. She is twenty year old (in the fifties), just quit her major in theatre because she thinks that everything in the higher education is fake and everyone is starving to be someone. She's dating Lane, her boyfriend in one year. The story started with their lunch date in a restaurant prior to a football game where she visited Lane who went to a different school. The conversation at the table turned philosophical and ended with Franny fainted out in the restaurant manager's office, and when Lane left her, she started to chant the "Jesus Prayer".

The what so called the Jesus Prayer is a prayer she found in a book called "The Pilgrim's Way" (which I will check out later, too) that tells a story of a Russian peasant who tried to find the meaning of one verse in Tessalonian that tells the congregation to pray incessantly, without faint. This book and the sequel of the book "The Pilgrim Continues His Way" is the main source of why Franny fainted and later on got sick and unwilling to eat, in the Glass' family's house.

That later on lead us into the second story, Zooey.

Zooey, is the second youngest child, is a twenty-five year old actor who is still living in the house. Another philosopher in the house, Zooey was a tool for the author to tell us beautiful, amazing stories about religion, life, and what ever else might be in Salinger's mind. They older brother, Seymour, whom happened to be one of the main character that Salinger communicated through another novel, died ala Heindrich Von Kleist, committed suicide with his wife. His death has given enough pain in the family, since he was the most brilliant one. And Buddy, is their older brother who lives with full privacy in an apartment not nearly far from their house, without means of communication available, which always worries Bessie Glass, the mother in the house. These two characters influenced the development of both Franny and Zooey, who struggled with their own mind while growing up and trying to forgive the brother who left them egocentrically, and missing him terribly at the same time. The conversations between Zooey and his mother are rich, with the conversationalist style of Salinger, which led into the discussion that disturbed Zooey; Franny found the two books in Seymour's old room.

Zooey's way to talk to Franny about her depression in his own way, such as acting as if he was Buddy and called Franny, was brilliant. I don't know if Salinger had plots in his stories, but he has a way to spit all of his thoughts through these characters, the way he talked about religious figures, about Jesus, about Buddha, about life and what it's all about, was fascinating to me. The conclusion that both Zooey and Franny had, that brought Franny from hopelessness into Joy, was, that reason behind our every act is important. That, indeed human beings have their egos in the front list of those reasons that made us do what we do, but ego is part of us, and there's no way we could deny it. Unless. Unless, we're driven by the higher calling, the higher supremacy, who knew everything from the beginning to end, who had the answer that drives the Russian peasant to search for the meaning of "praying incessantly" and performed the Jesus Prayer until it came back to him as an answer. Which, would be, doing what we love for Jesus, which also mean, doing what we love unto others, who ever the others is. It is such a beautiful book, Franny reminded me of the importance of reasons, the importance of motivation, and what the best motivation is.

Seek and you may find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.

Don't have anything to be thankful for? Check your pulse

Mushy, not very crunchy green beans was created through a trial and error process of combining what supposed to be a healthy dish. A dash of minched garlic and ginger will do the trick, with the help of miched walnut that will help to make it crunchy. Sort of.

My brother's timeless joke about a dish, was that, a tasty dish is not a tasty dish if it was made out of supposedly good ingredients. He never spent a second in the kitchen, so he never made any comments out of what came out of the space. The problem was, when I was living at home, I've never spent any time in the kicthen either (I left home when I was in high school). His joke was started when he noticed I helped my mother to cook when I went home in the weekends. After awhile my mom would gave me responsibility of to create a dish. I thought his joke was not fair at all, especially with vegetables, such as bamboo shoots? I mean, they're good for you, but to create a tasty dish out of it require more ingredients other than only spices. And papaya leaves? I love greens as much as a rabbit would, but I don't remember making a dish out of papaya leaves without adding other things in it. In Cincinnati, local/regionally produced vegetables such as green beans and kale created another challenge that reminds me of my brother's remark.

Last thanksgiving, green beans was what I made to bring to dinner with my friends. I've never was succesful with them, since I tried not to put any kind of meat in it. And that mushy green beans was what I brought, they had too much fun in the oven and when they were out, they're not crunchy anymore. Thank God I had friends who were so pleasantly polite, they said they liked my green beans, although I doubted it that it was true.

Thanksgiving is a precious moment to spend with family, in my case, this would be my friends and their family. But the idea of a national feast in the world that offers fast food, car food, and everything that marked "I am in a rush" food, sitting together to eat the same food (turkey, mostly) that came out of each kitchen, created with hand-down recipes represents hope that we can slow down and enjoy life. I am so used to celebrating Thanksgiving, I could not spend thanksgiving alone. But, some people might have to. Some might have to work to keep us safe. And I could see how that must be very hard for them.

One recipe to create a delicious Thanksgiving moment when we're alone, is just to add prayer with that. Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Jesus is right for whatever is wrong in your life

Beside the opportunity to walk everywhere, living in downtown offered me so many opportunities to get in contact with people. Every kind of people you can think of. From "new" people who just moved in one of the rapid "inner-city comeback" along with condo developments which proved that Cincinnati is NOT shrinking. And "old" people, who have been living here, meaning having an actual own living space, or call the streets as home, one of those, whose, some people would avoid to be in contact with. I heard the CityGospelMission with their campaign of "help other people start with a meal" to prepare for Thanksgiving and the holidays on the radio all day long. People did respond, they wanted to help, and CityGospelMission helped them to make the best use of their resources to really shake people's hands, give people what they need, to start, with food.

But, seeing them everyday giving me another point of view. That there's something they need more than just food. Something in their eyes crying out behind the curtain of anger, or dissapointment, or bitterness. I always feel hesitant to even smile to them, which I had tried most of the time. But, when they didn't smile back, I just had to try once more when I see them again.

This evening I went to the library to pick up the books I had on reserve. I parked my car around my apartment and walked to the library. Blinking red light. A lady was walking with her hands in the pockets, empty eyes which seems to look forward to nothingness. No one, including me, could offer her a smile. She walked as slow as possible as if she didn't care of the cars that came towards her. As if she was just want life to end. She has nothing to loose.

Imagine you're a female. And homeless. You're vulnerable. Your chance of getting bitten up or exploited, insulted, or raped, is bigger than if you're not homeless, or if you're male. You still have to face the fact that not every soup kitchen ministry or service open everyday to provide you with a meal. Not every shelter is a "safe" shelter or even have enough bed for everybody. You probably couldn't get a job because you don't have any addresses, or telephone number where future employers could contact you, or if you had bad mistakes that took you to prison. Or even worse, if you have had any drug addictions. If I were her, I wonder how long I would fight back. I wonder how long I would try to get out until I stop trying. One unfortunate moment seem to lead to endless miseries. You know you have to keep moving but why bother? You have nothing to loose. No body you could turn to. No future that awaits you.
And you probably are still trying to make sense of your past, of what happened when you're younger, trying to "forgive" God who let all those things happened. And try to forgive yourself of what happened that lets you where you are.

It's easy for me to make up stories as the one I just did, but I don't know what that woman is facing. I don't know if she has given up.

On any given day, they said, there were 2,500 people live on the street in Greater Cincinnati. That scene was just one of the many that are not recorded in statistics. Or something that you could capture in the radio while you're trying to figure out how much money to give when they campaign heard. People are still people, no matter how much they are "hidden" behind the numbers. But people have their own reasons to be on the street. Sometimes they want to be on the street because that's the only life they knew. Some couldn't get out even if they want to. The reality behind the numbers, is that, each person has their own reason, and there's no way to generalize when thinking about what solution could help them.

Who would tell them that there is Jesus? Who would even start? I know the CityGospelMission has this kind of ministry, to start one on one relationship with people, but I wonder if they have enough resources to reach more people.

Unless you're flat on your back, you have to keep moving to float.

There's no plot. There's only adventure.

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, published by Viking Press, 1957.

I read On the Road again after I visited San Francisco and fell in love with City Lights Bookstore, which changed my point of view of the first experience in reading the book. The sense of freedom at loose, the sense of curiousity and spirituality in the book is very inspiring. Kerouac was one of my favorite writers, one of those who "knew the rules but freely breaking it" and created an entire world of journey with words.

Kerouac brought honest words, merely conversations as a narator and conversations with his world along the journey. There's no plot. There's only adventure.

God may break us in order to remake us

Scar. No one was born with it. If anything like it, it would be called birthmark, and birthmark is far more "holy" than a scar. A birthmark is something that came with us when we were born, attached to who we are. The word scar sounds like something worth to hide, I wouldn't want anyone else to see. It represents a damage, a broken tisue, a failure.

The scarriest scar I had is still on the back of my palm right on the border of my fingers when my right hand tried to stop the velocity that hit my body from a scooter that was hit by a bycicle. The accident happened late at night about nine years ago when I tried to get some coffee (that event didn't stop me from drinking coffee). My hand was in a bandage ala a boxer for about a month, just in time when I had to go to a trip for a research project in Japan. Great. The wound was gone, but the scar are there, four of them, everytime I looked at it I remember how much I was blessed because nothing else in my body was hurt from that accident. Even my glasses were intact! It was a miracle, and I certainly greatful I only had the scar.

This August, life had scratched more scars than I'd ever had in my collected years. What else if it's not because of poison ivy. The three-leaves "plants" is harmful to our skin and body, even if it's been dead for three years. You couldn't see it when you had fun, throwing frisbee, eating pizza, watching the sunset, and listening to a live music.

There's a lesson to this, though. When scrambling through the woods, a pair of jeans might be a better choice.

Our body has an amazing system of protection. When attached by foreign agent, in this case poison ivy, the body had a strategy to fight back. Scars are areas of fibrous tissue that replace normal skin after destruction of some of the dermis. It is a result of the biologic process of wound repair in the skin and other tissues of the body. Scar looks hideous, but it is a natural process of healing. Our scars shows that we, more and less, alive.

We saw the opportunity, took the chance, failed, broken hearted, scarred. If I didn't take the chance to scramble through the forest on that beautiful summer day, feeling pretty while wearing my pretty dress (stop laughing, please), I would not have the memory of a beautiful summer day spent with laughter and joy. I wouldn't know there was this hidden field of black-eyed-susan in the back pathway of Burnet Woods, more like a wild prairie field. I wouldn't know how to play frisbee!

It's life, and life has its scars.

The best things in life aren't things

When Sunday comes, the weekend is over. The long awaited weekend was here, and it's gone. What could be better than spending the weekend as you please? There's no deadline, just things to do. I planned to spend this weekend "to get things done" but I am glad I spent some of it with my friends. I didn't know how I could get on otherwise; this is one of those time when I didn't even know I needed other people to cheer me up.

I thought of friends I have and what they have done in my life without they even knew it. Every single person I met and interacted with was one of the ways God communicated with me. Without they knew it, they brought me to the thoughts I need to think about, decisions I need to consider instead of jumping to conclusions. They made me think of how much God loves me when I thought of my love for them but then sometimes I was dissapointed in them too. They made me think of how much God must have loved me when I knew I could always forgive them and shed tears for them when I missed them. They made me feel blessed with the hugs and love. With the phone calls "to catch up". With the laughter and the jokes and the games.

They said friends multiply joy and divide sorrow. But I knew a friend when they don't judge. We agree to disagree. They tell me what they think but wouldn't tell me what I should do. They came when I cried for my own stubborn-ness, but knew that what I need was not another "I told you so".

One of the goals of my life is not to own things. Things nailed me down, it's a chain to my freedom. In one place and another, I found friends instead, even I don't have any control of how long they would stay in my life. Learning to let go is the hardest thing, but it's get easier with time and when new friends come along; that reminds me, with God, I could face anything.

Someone created us.

The female brain, by LouannBrizendine, published by Morgan Road Books in 2006.

I've never known that in fact, female tears generated pain in male's mind since they have trouble in digesting emotion. That explained why: male always try to shut us up (with anything they can use) the moment we start crying. In my experienced they had used all kinds of things just to get us stop crying, from trying so hard not to "see" us, giving us tissues, a hug, a kiss, whatever, just to get us stop crying. The fact that male and female are two different creatures who live in two different body and brain systems that react and act in their own ways just made life simple. Phew.

Dr. LouannBrizendine explains the entire science on female brain and its interaction with male, its development stages and the chemical reactions in simple conversations helped me to think of myself in a different stage and to make sense of communications with others and with male. Why my relationship with my dad when I was little is important in my development as an adult female; how those touches and hugs and kisses were essentials. What really happened in my brain when I fell in love. What really happened in my brain and my body right now. The changes of our bodies. Why crying giving you a sense of power and made you feel stronger. Thinking about it all, generated a sense of awe, that such a complicated system of life could exist, with generality, but still with an amazing variety of individuality; made me sure, again and again, that Someone created us.

As a scientist as well as therapist, Dr Brizendine gives us real life examples from her patients, along with explanation of what chemical reactions happened in our brain. The female brain develops more dynamic than male brain (ha!) because it has different role and different stages as a female and a mother. Our hormones drives our lives, our emotions, and why we focus on one thing and not another.

With catching chapter titles, she differentiates female brain development in its varying stages. She also talks about sex, menopause, desire to achieve, what tick's us and how we could perform at our best!

A very good read for female to get to know our bodies and how to use its potentials. A good read for male who wants to understand us!

There are two things in Life that I've learned: There is a God, and I'm not him

I hug trees. Not literally. Trees continues to fascinate me. A single tree, trees in the forest, trees in the park, naked trees in the winter, colorful trees in the fall, a tree-lined street, trees that give shades, trees that hold water, trees that bare fruits, trees that cools the air. There is no single tree on earth that has the same shape, even if they are the same kind.

I just came back from a botany class from the CivicGardenCenter, one of the community classes for those of us who are interested in community gardening. Science is not my favorite subject, as you might be able to tell, but if it's about trees, I would not give up to try. Of course I heard about this already when I was a eight-grader, but the non-expectation of what they call exams made me focus on what made sense instead of trying to memorize everything. What I thought would be a boring science class was an interesting discovery. God could not stop showing himself and his glorious mind and creation.

None of us who live in this moment could prove of how long the earth had exist (please don't try to convince me with the entire carbon testing method, and explaining this would need to be covered in a different post), but science could prove that the chronology of creation according to the bible was correct. Trees existed before other moving and breathing animals and us! They were the only one "thing" that could change the form of energy from light to chemical energy called sugar.

Science also proves that it will be impossible to imagine that a complex system as in a tree or even a leaf came from a big coincidence of nature. And the most fascinating thing to me is that there is no tree alike on earth. Well, we can tell that every tree will grow depending on its environment, soil, the amount of micronutrient, macronutrient, the amount of oxygen, water and air around it. But even each tree will produce seeds that each will produce a tree with a different characteristic than the other. And without human intervention, every orange tree will produce oranges that, if each were planted back, will produce a different result. Therefore anomali and adaptation happens. In my brain, I could not imagine that such a brilliant, complex, (and working!) system is a result of a coincidence. There was a brain of all of these.

All the chemical reactions, enzymes, the flow of food, water, air, and oxygen "dictated" the entire system what to behave next. Stomata on the leaf knows when to open and when to close depending on the activity of photosyntesis that happened in the leaf. They know when to "breathe", they know when respiration and digestion need to be done. Reproduction became a natural activity for trees; when they feel like their lives were "threatened" (for example when their roots were cut or if they "feel" there were competitions) they would try to produce flowers, which actually was an act to produce seeds, to prepare themselves to "die." Who in the world could create these natural brain? Certainly not one of us. We could find a way to reproduce trees through cutting, or graphing, or planting the meristems, but we cannot create a tree out of nothing. Only God can.

Back Side Redemption

I missed the last show of "JesusCamp" at the Esquire. Whenever I passed by, I kept looking and planned to go, but I missed it. I have a mixed feeling about it. I think the best relationship with God is found after we saw the world and decided to choose Jesus anyway (we know He chose us first, of course). I grew up "christian" but my parents wouldn't know that I went along the way to turn around, come back to God and had a better relationship with Him. I thank my parents for all those colorful bible story books, sunday school activities, and all the prayers at the dinner table. But, that was just the beginning.

Growing up was an interesting journey in itself, let alone taking our minds deep down into the conversation from "who God is" into "where God is in your life". It's all came by questioning and searching. I was talking to a new friend about this last night, and it dawn on me that I don't want to change a thing even if I could. Because the experience to stray from God's way, to go around and make a u-turn was priceless although it was unintentional. When I had enough rain I could appreciate the sun shine..I knew how living without God was like, and I knew that all I need in my life is God. There was nothing wrong with being "good" all our lives, but the reality is, not everyone had that privilege. Some of us made mistakes, a lot, and God helped us to learn from them. We knew what the world offered, we questioned, and we chose God anyway.

Sunday school is fine. But JesusCamp kind of teaching? I don't agree with closing up our minds to the world, because, it seems that we limit God if we limit our world, as if God has a limit, as if letting His power goes only as far as our minds can go. God is God, and He would make the best of whatever is wrong with the world. God is God, and he will show us the way with his own way, sometimes it is through the mundane life story (your parents are Christian, and you affirmed your faith when you're an adult), or the unthinkable story (God spoke to my friend through AnnaKarenina after he refused to confirm his faith, it's the questioning that He put into our DNA that led him through that). I could find God in Superman, HarryPotter, U2, ColdPlay, Stesenko, falling leaves, the sky, a night club, American Beauty, Amelie, or Prison Break, the possibility is endless). I could find God in nature. I could find God when my friends dragged me into a busy low lighting club, where all I could do was drinking beer while praying to God that the place needs missionary the most. You could find God everywhere in the world, even in the minds of politicians, whom, I assume, care first and foremost about securing their seats.

And since I missed the JesusCamp movie, all I can say is just the interviews with producers and commentary. But, I saw the trailer, and the movie was quite "scarry" to me. Let kids be kids. Let them found God by freeing their minds into the world. Let them choose. And please, if Jesus were alive today, he would care less about who got elected in November than saving you and me.

Note: The church sign was found by a street photographer who was interested with the sign when he traveled to Maine. He, then, decided to come back and took a picture of this sign that he sold at a street art festival on Market Street in San Francisco. He said the sign so far was the second laugh-generating pictures he has (the first one was "Broken English, Spoken Perfectly").

Rain

I wish I could write a language that could be as universal as can be.
Something
that every human being could understand.

To answer that deep,
longing desire to be fulfilled.
And to be loved.

I wish I could be a dash.
inside of the force that fulfill our dreams
a drop of water

The answer
of what is true.
And what is not.

I wish I could be my brain's own hand.
That will scratch the words
flowing in my mind
through the thoughts
and hold it
right at that second
and hold it
before it moves on.

I wish I could be the eys of my mind and my heart
that would send the mesage of love to others
to let them know that they are loved.

I want to be the rain that falls down on your world and ease your pain.
The rain that will wash off your sorrow, give your trees more water to grow it leaves, its fruit, and strengthen its roots. The rain that will follow your rotation everywhere you go. Not tho hard that it will destroy it.

Note: Instead of a quote, all the poems will have its own title.

Man's way leads to a hopeless end! God's way leads to an endless hope

"My friend Andrew the Protester believes things. Andrew goes to protests where he gets pepper-sprayed, and he does it because he believes in being a voice of change. My Republican friends get frustated when I paint Andrew as a hero, but I like Andrew because he actually believes things that cost him something. ..What I believe is not what I say I believe, what I believe is what I do." BlueLikeJazz, pg.110.

I have a story while working with people in my neighborhood. Part of my job is talking with them about their concerns and motivate them to be neighborhood leaders, by working together with other residents to solve problems or to achieve goals to create a better neighborhood. My neighborhood consists of hard-working families who has been living in the area for more than 40 years. Most of the older generations I've talked with, surprisingly, worship God.

When it comes of solving real problems, what do we do as followers of Jesus? I think it would be so naive to just pray without doing anything, or pray that our government will always do the right thing.

The answers that I sometimes heard were: that God will solve every problem, and we just have to pray about it; that we don't have to do anything other than praying. I can't argue that hold the authority to make things happen, but I also believe that someone need to do the work; that God makes thing happen by using living creatures like us.

God helps people who help themselves, right? Sometimes, the city forgot to patch back a pot-hole because there are so many holes to fill they only have so many workers. Sometimes, residents need to be persistent to remind people who hold authorities that, "hello, yes, our neighborhood exists and we pay our taxes too. Please fix this and remove that." Or sometimes, we need to let the congress know that our children have loss so many jobs in the summer and they need somewhere else to work or else they will end up finding other things to do on the streets.

My motivation to do what I do is almost the same as Andrew the Protester in BlueLikeJazz. One time, in our national coalition, we asked for a meeting with the BusinessRoundTable in Washington DC to talk with us about the new NoChildLeftBehind initiative that we thought would reduce a big portion of funding for our children in their school. Communication is very important, and a meeting is a way to talk to view our concern otherwise they would never know what we, the people, know and hear. We didn't do anything violence, we sang a song about love, and all we want is a meeting. Our coalition has been doing this for more than 34 years, annually, and, prior to the protest, we prayed (this is one thing that I was surprised with but I am glad. I felt the present of God in the room, it was very emotional, and it changed my point of view of the entire conference).

If God was there, there's nothing I doubt about it. God help people who help themselves.

Courage is not absence of fear, but mastery over it

For the last couple of months, I've been thinking about what it's like about turning thirty; may be because many friends have celebrated their birthdays, or because I've been too coward to accept the fact that I will turn thirty in the count of months. And the thoughts kept coming when days gone by so fast, I couldn't even keep up with what I used to call "slow time". I feel that even if I had slow-time, it seems to be going away faster.

Why thirty was a big deal, I don't know. But deep down I could feel that too. Soon I will not be able to call myself a member of twentysomethings who are foolish enough to think that we can change the world. There is no excuse of not being a grown-up, since the world seems to think that way for some unknown reasons. Another loss is the down-grade of my art-community memberships that offers more discounts to people under thirty, another proven expectation of the society, as if when you're thirty, you're supposed to be completely independent and able to afford those artsy-fartsy activities with less discounts.

Those outward "expectations" had haunted me, in addition to my own expectations of myself; remembering when I was 26, I expected to be able to be an author by the age of thirty. This is not happening either. Not even close, since my "to-do-list" is only getting longer and longer each day, with a little scratching or deleting, just to meet the most "urgent" things to keep up with life.

And I guess being thirty, or being a grown-up, or being able to be independent while still can afford to have what I called a life, or to achieve what I wanted to achieve, is still an unknown territory. When counting what I have accomplished in life seems unthinkable (since I cannot think of any).

The fear is growing when I know I am not ready to give up my delaying-to-do-things habit (talking about the queen of procastinating), that somehow I should be able to master it, or to deal with it, way before I really turn thirty.

Also the whole commitment thing, that got me into thinking that somehow, I am not capable of holding myself accountable for any long term commitments. I am not talking about relationships (well, that, may be one of them), but only to be able to complete a project that I have started but never seem to have a final result. If I scramble through my apartment I would find uncomplete projects of things, two sewing projects, about five paintings, two crochet projects, and countless articles I "planned" to write. This is not good at all, and I am getting more scared. I am serious. This. is. not. good. at all.

About three weeks ago, I finished a small group discussions talking about what is MY PASSION. There were four of us came from different backgrounds, going through a session to find out what our passion were. The study was a result of a research that was meticulously done through millions of data of every individual that will note every person's individuality. We answered questions about what we thought to be our "passions", took a test, and the result of the study will only affirm what we have stated, but in a more precise language that blew my mind because the characters described seems to exist only in the "goals" side of the table. This exercise also got me into thinking of my turning-thirty thoughts.

I felt like a person with attention-deficit-disorder who unable to focus. I know what my focus in life is: to glorify God with talents that God gace me. I "sort-of" knew what my passion was, but the discussion affirmed that. I went out thinking that I am already focus on my passion, but I have been doing a variety of things that given me more opportunities to grow and, well, just to enjoy what I enjoy doing without limiting my world.

Coming back to those thoughts, may be turning thirty is not about loosing a silly thought that a "thirtysomething" could change the world, because I do think I can change the world (still, being silly).Being a thirtysomething is being able to let go of our "overachiever" self, to budget our time without unrealistically committing to activities I wouldn't have time with, setting a more focus life while managing my "slow-time" in the budget. That in turn, will give me more time to give myself a reward in every accomplished task.

May be, there's nothing to be afraid of by being thirty, the more mysterious being thirty, the better it is for the journey.

God sends away empty those full of themselves

I am not opposed of abundance, thinking that richness is God's blessing. No, really. Materials we have is God's blessings. But, reading the Time Magazine article about the "evangelical" movement who promote searching, digging one's own abundance really gets my attention. Motivation is very important for people to go to church and to commune. When finding wealth on earth is our motivation, we should ask ourselves whom we worship at the first place.

Okay, I might be unequally treating people based on what their wealth, while God would seen them equal, Jesus died for rich people too, as much as He did for me. I don't consider myself rich, when talking about wealth, what we have, how much money we have, but I consider myself rich in convidence that God will provide, and what He gave me is (and will be) enough for me. And I have seen how world's kind of wealth had sometimes blindfolded our hearts towards other people, or whatever else going on in the world, although, it could be a blessing for other people (through philanthrophy or charity). But when it comes to finding money and being consumed to the goods of the good old world for our own benefit, when wealth become our first nature that replaces desire to glorify God, I would say that covers the dirty word greed.

Beside, what does it mean for us to own things more than we need when we know that the world is full of people who even struggle to live, and still, thinking about ourselves. Our world has been build on the act of consuming. That's all we do, consuming and consuming. More room in the house, more cars, more couches, more garages, more clothes, one TV for every room, more, more, more. Instead of seeing the earth as resources worth protecting, we have been consuming it as if we have more than what we have. How could one species on earth misinterpreted the word of God so bad that we missed the word "stewardship" and letting ourselves drawn in the action of consuming and consuming that creates a great deal of imbalance, not just in nature, but also in other people's lives, that we may not see from the horison, but does exist, where people do not even have one piece of cloth to cover them, or think that they were lucky to eat a bowl of corn. Meanwhile, we're so eager to ask God for more and more wealth to come to us. That. gets. me.

It's true that God will bless us more (and He also asked us to "test" him on thithing, that we will receive more than we need), but we need more than just money, or materials, or things; there's more joy to give than to receive. May be it's time to ask "What would Jesus do?" in time when inequality, imbalance, social injustice, are living prosperously in the world that is getting overcrowded?

To me, Jesus was the most radical person in his time, who opposed to be "religious" and to follow the "rules" just because it was a tradition. He was the one who stood up for the poor, helped the helpless, challenged authority because he knew what was right. He sets up a new rule: love, love, and only love. Where is love when we are searching for things for our own benefit, first and foremost?

You may need to lose everything to find that God is all you need

I was taking my bike outside when Lisa approached me. I wonder if she noticed me, but I noticed her. A thin, pale woman in her thirties and a bandana on her head. She always carries a badge that she holds when she approaches people. She offered the street magazine published to help the homeless. I didn't have any cash with me, since i wouldn't need anything while biking.

I told her that I live here and asked where she lives (you never assumed that someone is homeless). She said that she lives in two places, one in Over-the-Rhine, the other one is in Northside, which explain why I see her in that neighborhood. First she said that she needed money for the rent, since she has a little boy, a two year old, and she is currently in disability, because her lawyer told her to, and she had a fellony one time, but it wasn't anything major and she did her time, which is fine with me.

When I asked where her son is, she said he was with her dad in mt. Healthy. And when I asked, if she didn't mind, how much the rent is, she said she didn't really need to pay because she lives in people's couches. Which was a different explaination than the one she told me.

Lisa is one of the many people who hangs around my neighborhood. Her story is different than the other people, who have their own circumstances and other problems that got them on the street at the first place. It can happen to anybody in any given day. But looking at the numbers of homeless people in Cincinnati alone, is discouraging. 2,500 people in a given night is a scary number for a city that is inhabited by 300,000 people.

The solution sounds easy, but it's hard to implement, especially with so many different interest and needs. My neighborhood is overwhelmed with social services. I don't want to point fingers, but sometimes I question if they would provide the roots of the problem at the first place. Most of homeless people work, they just can't afford to have an apartment, or they can't because they didn't have a place to start at the first place. How sad is that? Rent in downtown Cincinnati is not as high as in LA, for example, but yet, they can't afford it because of other things.

But when enough is enough? Shelter and social services might answer the immediate problem that will avoid people to spend the night on the street, but looking at the definition of "HOMELESS", we should realize that a home is what they need, not shelters. Even in one of the most successful cities that did they right thing for their homeless, Philadelphia, providing enough shelters is not enough. After the release of the book "UndertheOverpass" by MikeYakonski, many do-gooders and college kids live on the street to find the experience, which created more problems instead of reducing it. Jesus asked us to have emphaty, and it doesn't mean we have to create more problems for people whom we thought we touched.

Lisa and other people need an access to housing, but they can't do it alone, they need a support to help them to go back in the society. In her case, her record might prevent her from finding a job, then why not assist her to access jobs that will not discriminate someone with a crime record (they did their time, give them a chance!). She might have addiction problem, why not help her to recover or rejoin her father in the suburb.

The irony is that there are more than 500 vacant residential buildings in Over-the-Rhine, which made it more absurd because renovating one building is seems like pulling teeth when dealing with regulations over regulations that didn't even address the root problems. I am talking about the ridiculous lead regulation. Yes, lead is dangerous, but who in their right mind would let someone to live in a house full of poison for their children? I know I won't. And sometimes the rules were so strict, it leaves the main purpose of removing the lead and create a healthy home and deal with the checklist of regulation.

But deeper than just housing, these people need God's boost in their minds. Not just them, but all of us. We need God that will help us to endure anything. God that will connect them to their innerselves, that will help them to go on with life with joy.

If you wanna kiss the sky, you'd better learn how to kneel*

Where did music come from? If it's has been in existence since human being existed in the universe, then probably it was programmed in our DNA and each society then developed their own kind of music. It depends on how music influenced us, I can't emphasize enough that music has drawn my thoughts to God.

It doesn't matter on what kind of music I listen to, I am sure that music exist for our enjoyment and for God's. It is something that cannot be separated from the action of worship in the ancient days. It was what God required to have as the "burnt" offering in the old testament. It was what the entire Psalm was composed of. It was what God used to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Last Saturday, when I was replicating Singer Sargent's painting in Ludlow Garage with my team, I heard this shouting, calming music, came from an instrument called Harped Dulcimer. Although my understanding of music is limited to chords and octave, and my voice could only be heard when the shower is running, my ears know what good music is: it will tell you stories with no words required. And this was how the Harped Dulcimer sounds like. It was as clear as harp, but has the dynamic of guitar, and tune as deep as piano. Dulcimer was rooted from the Irish who came to this country and created their own instrument, and had been enjoyed more in the Appalachian region. The harped is more complicated than the thin, three string dulcimer. I can't remember how many strings it has, but it was just seems more difficult to play.

I really didn't care about what the song was about, and I almost glad there was no words, because then we have the freedom to where we want the music to take us. Music without words gave suggestions, but as the harped dulcimer was playing, my mind was traveling to the mountains where tall trees, shades, smells of eucalyptus, and wet soil mixed with falling leaves. Music is a great tool to meditate, but I thought there should be more than that.

Thoreau introduced the importance of music making, where he suggested to listen to the music making process instead of just "music". Sure there was not any CDs or recording when he was alive, but he had the point. May be music was meant to be experienced both ways, where the maker and the listener could interact just like I was interacting with the harp dulcimer player, as if we understand its language without talking about it, or even compromised on what the music meant to us.

What I was trying to say was, that God created music so that we can have a complete "cross". The horisontal interaction with others and vertical interaction with Him. It is there to remind us that we're not alone, but together in the world.

Another point, that came from U2 (I've been coming back to listening to U2 night and day again!), is that, it can be used to worship without being too "intimidating" or "too evangelical". If I heard words of God in most of U2s music line, other people might too. "If you wanna kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel??" was obvious, isn't it? Prayer is an absolute instrument in our lives. And there is not only U2 that has been worshiping God through "secular music": switchfoot is another group I notice and I listen to. They're like Donald Miller in the music business. My Boss is so brilliant, using all that He created for us so that we can love Him back, my little brain could not even grasp His true genius mind!!

*The line is taken from U2's MysteriousWays.

Happiness is an inside job

My defends on "spending time alone"..in progress.

Is spending your time alone selfish? Why is that such an important question? I was going through a passion affirmation class at church, a gathering that was started from the business world to understand individuals so that, as assets to the company, they will be able to channel their passion in their work, and how to see them as a person instead of a someone to finish such and such project. (Hmm..I wonder if they stole the individuality concept from my Boss...)

While discussing about what I love to "do" and listening to what other members in the group love to "do", I heard myself saying that I love to spend some of my time alone. Everyone has their owns share of wanting to be alone, and I know when it's imbalance with their social time, it became unhealthy. I saw the tendencies from things that I love to do: write, read, yoga, working with plants, all of those were alone time. I saw these things as counterbalance of what I do in daily basis. I work with people and I interact with people more than one third of my days, so may be I do need my alone time.

What would my Boss do? He had his alone time, most of the time, to pray, to meditate, to fast. He even spent 40 days in the wilderness, alone, except that satan could not leave him alone.

Jack Kerouac, one of my favorite writers, also said that being in solitude (being alone is completely different than being lonely) could cultivate our kindness, endurance, utterly loving all life, and to be sincere with everyone, in our madness modern world. He concluded his writings and his "movement" with the beatitude teaching from my Boss, that later on, was followed as the "beat" generation, which most of the time was misinterpreted.

Be alone, sometimes, just remember that someone won't let you to be completely alone (as what my Boss experienced), so, beware. And keeping the balance of alone time and time spent with others is the key. Nothing out of proportion is good for the soul.

Morality, like art, consists in drawing a line somewhere

I am in the midst of reading "ConversationswithBono...", a book written by his pal, Michka Assaya. I have to stop reading once in awhile because the conversation was heavier than I thought; feelings travel farther than thoughts. Many things that Bono was talking about made sense.

I like Bono not only because of his music, but because he's "too politically correct" and he's a Jesus freak. The man reads the bible, practise it, and continue discovering what's left to discover.

The last page I read was an insider story of a "terrorist", a girl Zamura, whose life was tragic: started in not a very good life, lost her parents, lived with her grandmother, forced to marry with a stranger just because of the old fashion tradition, only to know that her husband was shot dead while she was pregnant, deliver the baby only to know that she was taken away from her, until she was sent back to her grandmother's house far away in the corner of the country. Geezz.

She was haunted by guilt and grief. She was then decided to join the suicide bomber, which made her able to pay for her debt, got some money, and off to the plane to abduct her daughter. She got caught by her aunt, but then she got away with her plans and join the rest of the terrorist. For her, to die for "God" is a way to get out of the suffering.

She then escaped from the plan because she found the tragic life of the 14-year-old girl that was with her, blowed herself up in a concert and died with 14 other people. This was a miracle where Zamura realized about how horrible the plan was, and that GOD doesn't want revenges.

Love and mercy do work in the world.

I was in the plane last week from the west coast and was reminded once again of 9-11. Which was tragic, but according to Bono was not as tragic as the current killing of African because of AIDS, or the current Darfur fights between ethnicities. Horrible.

But it was midnight, I had no dinner, had only a couple of cups of coffee, and thus I was grumpy. I had to go through the security twice because I forgot to move my "liquid" things to the luggage.I've gone through many baggage check, to and from other countries, but gladly understand it needs to be done for security. This time was not that terrible, but the feeling was terrible, that made me think more about 9-11 (which triggered the entire security madness), how relevant the Jesus-morality was. The more I think about it, the more it made sense of EVERYTHING that Jesus preached. To love our neighbors, not just those who live around us, but those who live across the globe, and those who do not agree with us in so many things in life, those who might hate us because what we believe. Love and mercy do make sense.

The two were holding hands

The two were holding hands, walking in front of me.
Market Street between Third and Montgomery.
mother in a pair of jeans, a sweater as bright as the sun.
daughter with her long pink shocks, a pair of ballet flats

The two were holding hands, walking in front of me.
Halloween costume caught their eyes.
Look, mother, they're scary enough for the front porch.
she said we can look around more.

Mother and daughter holding hands in front of me.
as if they were in peace, i wonder if they ever in quarrel?

The two were holding hands. As if the world meant to be seen together.

What we sow in time, we recap in eternity

It's feels like a rat race. One part of the day I am working to help rehab abandon houses in a frame of neighborhood revitalization. The long process includes observation of detail, requires preserverance and where one reaction to a problem could influence the entire process. Another part of the day I punch digit, calculating numbers, analyzing effect of how many house will be foreclosed this week.

This one long process of revitalization, could be annulled by a wreckless rollercoaster action of irresponsible action of poorly regulated mortgage lending practice.

As an effective non-profit organization, we have been capable of turning around more than 30 houses in a year. This was in effect when everything was in place, that includes funding, acquisition, neighborhood organizing, housing counseling, and recruitment of highly qualified contractors who cares about energy efficiency, environmentally friendly houses. When one component messed up, the other will follow.

Meanwhile, we're racing with more abandoned houses, more crime that take place in the abandoned houses, more people leave the neighborhood because of the crime, and more people became homeless or partially homeless.

When I thought about this at work, my mind went back when I was in fifth grade, sitting in "Bahasa Indonesia" (language) class, reading a text book that cited verse from Romans 5:1-5 about preserverance. Even in Indonesian, the every word sang to me like no other. It reminded me that everything I am going through is a process of character building. I hope I'll survive this rat race.

Will the road you're on get you to my place? -- God

Last week, I went to a writing class sample that promote many writing classes in the organization. The topic offered was creative writing, which was different from what I am interested in, but close enough to jump start my brain, or even to exercise. I had no expectation other than may be listening to what other people have to say and may be, I could pick up some inspiration along the way.

I had an idea what this organization is all about, but I was always curious of what they are really like. We were sitting down in a circle in a dimme lighting in a large room with low ceiling (it was located in one of the newer houses in the suburb..). There were about thirteen of us, all women! No one said a word; I was wondering if they had the same thoughts as I was. That. this. already. feel. like. an. occult.

The leader than came and sit down in the center. She light up a big red candle in a big mug. She said, the "tradition" they have before starting a class is to light a candle and hand the candle to each person. The purpose is to focus and as a symbolic action that we're leaving every thought in the world and leave all the thoughts in the room. To concentrate, may be what she meant. She held the candle longer than all of us. I didn't know what she was doing actually. So, I did what other people did, but with a prayer, to say that "God, this is sound like an occult."

And then she rang a chime. Once. And she hold a stone. Again, the tradition has been, that everyone who speaks need to hold the stone. She said many women had held the stone, and it has been "empowering" to all of them. Whatever, I think. This reminds me alot of the original hippy tradition, where people hold a feather when they speak, wait for a turn. The one thing I don't agree with religion, is the ritual, the made-it-necessary-by-human-rule actions, where you should do this and you should do that, otherwise...and yes, "God, this is sound like an occult..."

If the sole purpose of this exercise was to write and to share our writings with others, then why do we have to deal with the candles. And meditate, sort of. ALthough the exercise was good, consist of two sessions: fast write and saying things. Fast write is creating the first draft of our writings, and then the next one is reflecting from the poem they chose for the day.

Ayn Rand once said about hippies: exhibitionist who don't have anything to exhibit. But, this is the last thing I would like myself to think about from the experience. I do feel good after reading my own writing to other women. But, I am sure, it would be better when we start everything in prayer, to Jesus, because if we need to center our world, it should be to Him, our creator, the reason why we exist, and the sole purpose of what we have in life. And if writing is a gift, a talent from Him, then we should give it back to Him. Not to the chime. Not to the candle. Not to self.

Worry Ends When Faith Begins

Shoes should serve the feet. They are made to help us protect our feet, and to help them function better. Last week I bought two pairs of vintage shoes. These are shoes worn in the old days, perhaps in the sixties, where women's feet were smaller (I guess), so that the vintage stores are my favorite destination. One is small with a little heels that would only rise me about an inch, they are light brown with a dash of orange, with tiny ties around the the ankle. Far from mundane. I've worned them twice, and I almost fell over more then ten times, on silky floor. I was lucky to have someone hold my hand all the time. We cancelled the walk because of the shoes, and we have to drive because of the shoes. I don't know about the pretty shoes, but I am not gonna wear them if it would eventually cost me my back.

The other pair were red. My other favorite color. They are not mundane red, but promaganate red, with a little worn out color on it. I've worn them once, to work, along with outfit at the same tone. By the end of the day, after all those walking around the properties, running around upstairs and downstairs for printer, going to meetings, I felt like I need not just one, but four bandages for my shoes. Never mind all the comments on how cute they were, I am not wearing shoes that would eventually ripp the skin off my feet.

So, I came back to these pair of three dollar shoes I got from one of the goodwill store. I was lucky because they are so comfortable, hold my feet well, and when I was walking, I felt like I could feel the ground. I've been running around with it, when I don't feel like wearing gym shoes when I wore dresses or skirts, these shoes served my feet well.

I felt it right after I changed my shoes. I could feel it right away that my mood changes just because of the shoes. They were so comfortable, I forgot that I could not run before. Driving home from work, I could not stop thinking about worry and faith. Worry is like a pair of shoes that don't serve the feet. The more you think about it, the more it will feel hurt. The more the feet will hurt, the slower you walk. The slower you walk, the less you'd be able to function (for me, anyway, cause my job constitutes of, almost, walking and walking all day.) Faith, is like a pair of shoes that serve you. It cost you nothing, just trust to God, the kind of trust you have when a pair of good shoes serve your feet, knowing that the feet will not hurt, knowing that the feet will be able to take you places, and the feet will stay intact by the end of the day.

Shelved the worry that hurt your soul. Wear the faith instead, today.

I don't know what the future holds, but I know what holds the future

Reading "This I believe" section from the NPR this week about a once autistic adults who understand life in a different perspective who hold a career as a scientist who work to create music that calms animals in slaughterhouses prior to the "execution" could be very depressing. The only sentence I could remember from the whole story was: that, "Yes, human being or animal, we will eventually die."

So, then, what is life for? For nothing? Just to try to use our "great potentials" as human beings just so that we know that we're always fail? Because we are. And we will be. It's human nature that we will make mistake and countless mistakes we have done. It's the earth's nature that there will be a disaster somewhere, sometimes because the way this earth works. And because of that, there will be people die somewhere.

And it gets pretty depressing to know that we will eventually die. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Could science prove the nature of dying? Why we have to die? Why couldn't we live forever so that there is no one suffering? What are we become when we die? Do we just vanish from the world and our soul just vanish like that? Just like animals in the slaughterhouses?

Our body is biodegradable. But what about our souls? Our feelings? What would happen to them?

I know someone who could answer that who had died before. Whose been there, done that. One time, my moslem friend asked me if Jesus was God. And why do I believe that? That Jesus was God? I told her all about What Jesus said about himself in the bible. I told her about all the facts, prophecies about Jesus from the beginning of the bible to the end; that Jesus' life had fullfilled ALL the prophecies, not one missed. About the falidity of the bible that consist of writings of people inspired by God. About the lives Jesus had transformed. About the hundreds of people who knew his miracleous works, who testified for him by sacrificing their lifes for the truth they knew. About the millions life He transformed throughout the ages. About the relationship he has with me. About the many miracles I believed came from Him. God himself, came to the earth and saved me and my future. So that when I die, I won't go astray, but my soul will united with its creator, forever.

Yes, dying could be depressing when you have nowhere to go or worst, you don't know where to go. But dying could be a happy transformation, from living in a fallen world and witnessing all its suffering, to reunite with our creator, our Dad in heaven, our best friend, and our true love.

Grace is everything --for nothing-- to those who don't deserve anything

It's way passed Wednesday morning at 400am. And here I am still overwhelmed by the way God loves me. I remember the phrase saying "Jesus loves you, everyone else think you're a jerk." Jesus loves me the way I am including my addiction to coffee, the way I am out of shaped and unregularly exercising my muscles, the way I failed again and again to be discipline in writing, many times I made mistake on what I should've and should've not done. He just loves me the way I am. He doesn't judge me for being different. He doesn't judge me for having opinion on the way things got done in the world. He doesn't judge me for being sad of what's going on in the world. He doesn't even judge me for my perspective towards getting old, and the way I see life as only sixty years old or only when you can be independent. It's all who I am and he takes me as is.

He redeemed my soul from my sin and all of the above. There's no better way to describe love other than that. There's no love greater than his. Halleluya that He moved my heart to realize this.

If God had a wallet, your picture would be in it

After spending my two good young years at the UC School of Planning, here I am landing on a grass-root community organizing organization. I would say that other than the books I read, none of the skills I've learned from the Planning School is applied here at work. Unless, if I have to count the restless hours of working and reading books and writing papers and getting things done under pressure and chasing down professors to meet with us. I would say that I learn more outside the classroom as if bending an iron: persevere and being persistence.

I have done large scale planning with a county level government and that did not satisfy my soul. I crave for a more personal relationship with people that will allow me to get to know them personally.

I've learned that from Jerry McGuire. A movie where Tom Cruise was a athlete manager who realized that focusing on money instead of clients was wrong. He stood for what he believed, wrote a resolution only to be rejected and laughed at, left and got his own client to succeed. The smile of Cuba Gooding Jr in the field when he hit home run, Jerry's understanding of his family's needs, and what's important for his client, was his priority. Their relationship grew from more than a client and a manager, but they became friends.

What I didn't realize was that it was what Jesus was teaching all along. Jesus is always personal. Remember the Samarian woman on the well, or the thief beside him on the cross, or zakeous, every one of them was about SOMEONE. A person. A soul. A heart. He is also a leader who serve, washed the feet of his disciples, one by one. One-by-one also, preparing every character, honoring them to help them to be ready when the time comes for them to build his kingdom. The truth is Jerry McGuire must learned it from Jesus.

It is also one of the key why Jesus transformed countless lives. Because he touches us personally. That, I think, is what He wants from us, for us to know who we are, what our purpose is in life, is to know Him personally, as a creator, a savior, and a guidance-giver. He does not want us to trap ourselves under what we called religion, or denomination more than just the way we worship and build community. And above all, he wants us to love one another, regardless our level of understanding of salvation.

Learning as a community organizer, I work one on one with people to take active participation in their community. The community I work with is a low-income, African American community that is isolated among major interstate exits. They have been fighting to retain their neighborhood from being erased by the City who wanted to expand the industrial area. They have also worked together to reject the plan to erase some part of the neighborhood to build more highway exit. As time goes on, the community has evolved and the new residents sometimes are unaware with these history. To get them involved in the neighborhood activities that sometimes requires more than just time for their family is not easy. I always get into the idea of attracting their own interest. "What's in it for me," "Yes In My Back Yard (instead of Not In My Backyard)" are two keys to get people involved to improve the quality of life.

GODISNOWHERE (now read it again)

Somehow God has managed to put thoughts by thoughts in my mind about Cincinnati, the inner-city, hopelessness, and everything else that follows.

As I walk on the street passing homeless people asking for help, as I sit on the bus watching everyday's life of baby-mama, as I sit in the meeting listening to faithful prayers of ordinary people who trust God completely even to lead the meeting, as I clean the litter on the sidewalk that was left by God knows who, as I listen to the shouts on the street at midnight that woke me up, as I hear the gun fire right across the street, I kept asking God of what he wants me to do.

I know there is only one answer to a revival. It has to start in each individual heart. It has to start with God knocking on the door and rescue them for the things that they might not even realized were ruining their life, taking away their joy, and robbing the precious time they received from God.

I know this thoughts probably is one of the common phenomenon of "twenty-something" person in my stage of life where I began to ask -what can I do to make a difference-, but I know more that this is part of my calling to glorify God through whatever talents that I have. A new friend I met earlier this week reminded me about what encouraged her to start a new ministry in downtown Cincinnati. She mentioned Matthew 25, the parable of the talent. I don't want to be the servant who burried the talent because he was afraid of using the talent. Fear is another type of prison. I am sure God can use my life now and today and where I am.

I was one of the examples of the hopelessness, too. I was hopeless that something can change. I was hopeless that every single little things that we do will not change the situation. I was hopeless that the authorities won't ever _EVER_ get it right. I was hopeless that some people still refused to talk to each other (like an adult). I was hopeless that the long-timers will still view new people as threats, gentrifiers, while the rest would not get along.

But it all started with God. And he is God. Nothing is impossible for him. Then I started to see the lights: everywhere around me is each person working for God. I can mention a few among many: the City Cure and their ministries who belief in relationships with each individuals, to touch them by heart and help each person to find God in their life; or the Vineyard who follows Mother Theresa who believes that "simple things done with great love can change the world", what a faith! Then I found the Sisters of Charity, who probably approach God in a different way but has done major impacts in real people in real life with real problems.

Individual artists working to open their own galleries, independent architects help locals to renovate their new condos or houses around, community organizations working to employs locals to rehab their houses, writers write, bakeries open, stores stay, university lend their helping hands to the people who otherwise don't have access to design assistance, local centers open their classes for free, libraries with their continued effort to educate, I can't mention everything.

I began to see that revival is not impossible at all.

But sometimes, churches lost their most important task to reach out. Once, a neighbor of mine told stories where they planted trees on a residential street where they lived, where a church "of open door" was also located. But the church's door was never open, they didn't even get involved in tree planting. Fifteen years later, the church was just a building, empty without people, and another neighbor turned it into condos.

It's not the greatest story on how church should become an engine of revival, where God should shine and reach out through their members. Not to be burdened by programs and programs, but to be burdened by a weight of gratitude, of the grace of God, that in rejoice, are reaching out to the community. How else would they know about God if not from people who knew God?

Making a Living is Not the Same as Making a Life

To me, to work on the job that I love is crucial. It is THE most important thing. But, how do we get there?

A friend called me in the middle of the night, vented on how she doesn't like her job. She's a food scientist; her works involves creating formulas for food scents and taste substitutes. She experiments with bacterias, chemical, and all that good stuff I don't understand, but interesting to hear. But this is the first time I heard that she doesn't like her job. She wants to quit, but doesn't know what else to do.

I told her that some days in our jobs sometimes made us want to quit that day. It happens to me too; what I usually do is to revisit our motivation: why we do what we do, that would encourage us to love our job again.

The one thing to pursue what you love to do, and the other thing is to give up on what we have now. Life needs to be discovered all the time! Including now. I understand what my friend was saying that she hated the job because she felt like it doesn't make a difference. Let's stop there and we discuss that later. But, when I asked her if she had a chance to go back to college, what was it that she would it be? And she said, she would take the same thing, since she loves being in the lab, working with bacteria and discovering new formulas. Well, that's it, then. She found what she loved already.

Let's go back to her idea that the job doesn't make a difference. Of course it does; it helps create a better tasting food, the food would help feed people; her job is a piece of the puzzle of the complicated network of the food industry that exists because of demand: it provides to life.

But the other day I was reading about this book called "Finding the Road Map: Railroad Nation Series". It's a book contains stories of people who succeed in what they do. One of the sentences that I read, was a quote from Albert Einstein "Who you are is not determined by what you do." But, my thought came back to what I have heard, that Jesus loves us no matter what we do. That, the love of Jesus itself, could be, or should be, our main motivation to love what we do, or to discover what we love to do, and do that the best we could, for the Glory of God. But if finding our talents and our gifts and using it to enrich our lifes and others, is an act of worship too. Loving your job is a state of mind. Go, baby. Go!

We're all invited to a heavenly feast, but we must RSVP!

Do we have free will, meaning the Will to decide to believe or not to believe God or Jesus as our savior?

My understanding is that God is God and he is love. He wants to save us that's why he came to our wicked world to save his children. And it is Only through Grace that we are saved, but in my understanding, is that Since He is Love, he won't FORCED us to believe Him. We have our FREEDOm (WILL) to choose to believe him or not.

To me, this is the beauty of the relationship. It's a two-way street, where love is to each other. Love is not forced. That's why we state our minds and our hearts to receive Jesus as savior. But, I understand also, even when we pray, when we decide, God through Holy Spirit, ENCOURAGE us to do that. (I read this from CS Lewis Mere Christianity)

The next question is: is that FAIR of God to do that, what about people who never heard of God in the middle of pacific ocean somewhere? My answer is, I don't know, we are not in the position where we can judge other people, God is God and he is perfect, he is just, and his judgement is true.

So, when we DECIDED that we received Jesus as savior, we proclaimed our own connection, reconcilliation with God, to God and to other people. What about predestination? Are we predestined that we are CHOSEN amongst the nations and the people? My first reaction is that: this issue has created such a misunderstaning of Christian values, that claimed that Christians are arrogant! Here is my explaination of predestination, or the way I am trying to picture it:

Since I (used to be) an architect, I will use an architect's office analogy. An organized architect will have in his/her room: a drawing table, a computer, books, an easy chair, and his/her works neatly arranged and organized the way they wanted to be. When s/he has a three year old come into her/his room, he would know, where or what is the three year old target would be. The three year old will target the most interesting (and valuable) drawings on top of the drawing table. WHY? Because he/she (the architect) has a more "superior" intelligence compare to this three year old.

God, (1) the superior intelligent beyond our capacity as human being, would know what will we choose, are we going to believe, or not. God is also (2) the creator, that knows by heart each of us, our thoughts, our way of thinking, our decision making, and the way we grow. God, (3) also stands in the eternity, beyond time, that he is here right now and yesterday and the future. We experience time that passed by us, but God, see them alltogether (that's why NOW is the closest time to eternity which I think is very cool! that we can be as that close to God).

I don't know what will I do without God: he picked me up from dirt and blessed me with his love everyday.