book shelves are here

I've got two swanky bookshelves to add to my two other swanky book shelves! Starry eyed and rather pleased with the two inclusions, I began unloading some books from the load of books languishing on my tables and choked shelves. As of now, three book shelves are almost full to the brim - yes my three kingdoms! Arranging books and picking some of them up to read is therapeutic to say the least and I'm still thinking whether i should arrange them by theme or by geography.... Maybe by colour... and i should start a library of sorts and charge borrowers a small fee so that i can buy more books.

I'm pretty thankful I was born in a time when books are hardly lacking and mankind is concerned with reading rather than say hunting. Suppose I were to be a hunter, I would probably be very bored, lying in the lalang, waiting for some illusive wild boar or deer to helplessly wander by, and giving the "we need to invent books and sports" look to my fellow hunters. I suspect they'll exile me to the cooking group or the story-telling-by-the-fire-in-the-night group(everyone needs entertainment). Imagine running around without the bible... it'll be rather awful.

If i traced my love for reading and the ascent of bookishness in my life, I'll say it began with reading the bible. When I was young, i wanted to read up on dragons and I used to like these role playing books, where one flips the pages according to the choices one makes in some quest. Of course, i got bored and searched for the ending and back tracked accordingly... thus I always won...wasn't very patient i guess. And for the rest of my youth, I played football, supported Man U(who lost to Chelsea 2-1 in an unfair match), created new and exciting games for my classmates to play (you wouldn't believe that i actually devised a shares market in sec 2 and got 1/4 of the class to play), played romance of the three kingdoms and read up on it accordingly. I was intrigued with maps and the movements of large bodies of troops. Quite the typical chap with dangerously short bermudas, white Bata shoes with the accompanying high white socks and a gigantic and tightly strapped school bag ( though I was still not close to becoming a Chinese high boy with their ultra short shorts - the sort that expressed their hairy legs or lack of it shamelessly- yes quite dreadful and heart wrenching I should add).

Then the bible came into my life in a slow but beautiful way. When God touched me, I began reading the daily bread, cover to cover, whilst i took the bus home. Quite naturally i tried reading the bible. Previously, before I came to know Jesus, I used to have a Good News bible and my lacklustre readings stopped somewhere around numbers. Not only was i bad in math, i could not understand why I should be bothered about the number of cows or people wandering around a land i hadn't visited. Also the Good News Bible had these interesting pictures of people without eyes and animals that came right out of my kindergarten pictorial gallery. But, as our God is gracious, the bible came alive for me. Suddenly I could feel the breath of God from the words in the pages. The Lord Jesus was revealing who He was through the pages. It was like entering into a world where one's heart was laid captive to something immensely palatable and delightful.

Slowly and assuredly. I began to find words powerful and liberating. I was now experiencing emotions and a whole new range of experiences that my limited vocabularly could scarely even express. I began to find these Words in the bible. Thats the power of words, it not only gives names to experiences, it gives it meaning and makes it avaliable thereafter. The power of words is really quite astounding - to say the least, God did create the world with them. They could be weaved into humorous passages, beautiful poems, and heart - tugging prose. Words above all, can change lives.

And most wonderfully, the Bible is composed of words I can trust. When He says He is good and His mercies endures forever, not a single word should be taken lightly. He is indeed good and merciful! Jesus says He is the good Shepard and that He is the one who tends lovingly to His sheep. Beautiful right? and its so darn true! Surely, I say again, Surely, all these words are true beyond doubt, in fact, they are more real than anything i'd known before.

I began to learn how to cry over the passages, because they pierced the heart with love i'd never known and convicted me of sin i'd shunned conveniently. They told me of a world that was fast dying, fast approaching its finish line. Yet it told of One, who through death in the most despicable form had snatched sin from His own beloved and placed them upon Himself, taking their place to glorify the God who loved mankind. All of which was/is the choice of God Himself, for it pleased Him to scourge His own son. Its wow wow wee wow stuff, if you know what i mean.

It was from here that books became precious to me, because I was taught to treasure the best one.

Waking up in the Morning.

I woke up this morning to get a glimpse of the sunrise and spend some time in prayer. Quite as usual, I rowed across the bed, in response to the shrieking tune of a planet shakers song whining loudly from the hand phone. Strategically placed in a hard to reach spot, I growled and moved swiftly to wrestle the phone to the ground. Tumbling my way through the obstacles I'd placed around the phone the night before, the Charles of yesterday was engaged in an epic early morning tussle with the Charles of the morning. Schizophrenia is a struggle for my mornings; though somehow its acute only within the first 15 minutes of my waking up and today, Charles of yesterday won.

Resting on the easy chair whilst rocking my sleepiness away, I closed my eyes to hear the early birds chirp. The christian songs led me into a time of worship and I began reading from 1 Kings. I think God is really a God who does not sleep, who suffers no jet lag and whose Love is new every morning. There are no routines in the mornings, no conversation starters like "oh so nice to meet you" or the handshake before the deal gets going. Its not always sweet but its certainly always loving.

Its quite like a little Boy staring at his mum as the bus door closes, with stark concern and earnest apprehension at the realities he is about to face, yet in that same strand, fully knowing that mum had already given him the pocket money and the knowing hug for the day. Now imagine, that mum or dad is omnipotent and omnipresent. Yeah, I get the picture ... no one will dare bully me in school or so I think.

But the truth is, I get bullied in school because I like being hugged and enjoy hugging mum. I get my pocket money stolen by mean thugs and rude words that mum frowns at come hurling my way. Sometimes, I retort, perhaps even become a bully myself, but most of the time I just wish that mum would just be there, and run the school too. Then, maybe I wouldn't have to do the homework :P wishful thinking.

But that's how my day starts, hugging Jesus as He reveals Himself through His word. He puts the Words in my pocket and tells me that's what I need for today. He tells me, He is with me and as the sun rises, the door closes from the front and the bus rides off. Uncertain and sleepy, I'm about to enter the world again and I've got to be more like Him. The sunrise looked blue this morning, almost pure cobalt blue, and I'm sitting here wondering, if i can just sleep in and not go to school. I need a hug.

The Lord is God

I've spent time thinking about this - O Lord you are my God

I've read it in the bible quite often. What's the difference between Lord and God?

as far as i understand, the Lord is the one who holds authority over me, whom I obey.

And He is God... the one who created me. not some punk...nono... the one who determines my path created my path. The one who demands my obedience gave me the grace to obey. The Lord is God.

HE who fashioned me in Love, orders me in Love. He who commanded me to believe, has the power to give His Son to death, that we might believe and hail Him son fo the living God.

We shouldn't artificially construct definitions for words, but I think we're onto something here. I wish I could know more!

When our Lord is God, it makes His authority amplified onto the stage of omnipotence. The commander is all powerful. When God is Lord, the Creator is in authority. He is not the "blind watchmaker", He is the supremo who must be obeyed.

I wish I knew more. I always get stuff like that, think them through, pray them through, search the bible for more insights and still feel short at the end of the day.

Give me grace O Lord, to know your ways, for You are God.

Only Jesus

All is very dim in these moments, as I gaze at the stars on high. From afar, they look like they are separated only by a distance no more than a shoulder's length, but in reality, they are millions of miles away from each other. Sentinels in the night, with barely a companion, barely a melody to play to its blazing brilliance.

When i journey into these moments in life, I can attest to the acute sense of lonliness. Its very sharp and unrelenting. In these times, one cannot explain or describe the winter of the heart. One cannot cry or whimper, neither dance or laugh, for it is as falling snowflakes, beautiful yet tragic, no more than heavy rain adorned in white dresses. even this metaphor does not work as well as I would like it to. It seems that these moments cannot be shared, for they can only be appreciated in aloneness. I've not touched the depths of these feelings for a long time.

Its a journey into a land far far away, where mortality, meaning and melancholy connect. Everything else feels so frivolous and you can't cry. Yet one feels so much. And there gazing at the stars, where it seems, I'm only a shoulder's length away from the nearest person, I'm actually miles away.

The only person that is real at this point is God. I think, without Him, this would be unbearable, yet this could be a really important part of the journey. Whilst the universe is huge and incomprehensible, the human heart is filled with depths of tragedy and emotions that is certainly as dark and vast. Only Jesus can change it and fill it with Love. Only Jesus

Quietly passing to the future

Colin sent me this picture and it brought an instant smirk. The world of music and fashion are notoriously fickle and I guess that's how the world twirls. But, so goes the same for children's programs - think Barney the purple monster, Captain planetless, High then low Five and coach potato tubbies, all performing the ignominious flying Dutchman act - gloriously appearing and then mysteriously disappearing. Few stand the test of time, like Sesame Street, the Celine Dion of kids country, whether you like her or not. Her heart will go on.

The facts are that children's programs and literature aren't really written for kids and they sell well because kids cannot write for their own children's market. Its the parents who buy these products for their children and force them down like vitamins. The writers are writing adult experiences in the language of children and we understand the books though the children do not.

For most of us, that childish world had long since evolved beyond recognition and we cannot by any effort re-enter that frame of mind. That is why, I've always found Alice in Wonderland particularly disturbing. Lewis Carroll's known emotional intensity in relating to children and his simplistic caricature of the perfect child made him the worst of the lot. It's always those who get too emotionally involved with children that I find suspect; one must have a wistfulness and prudence when it comes to little believing minds. Notice, how his books are acclaimed by adults only, hardly by the children who are forced to enter the maze-like labyrinth of nonsense. Yes, to the adult, he made nonsense a higher sense (i've always found the book amusing but not suitable for children, like harry Porter), but to the child that I once was, it simply made no sense.

The problem I suspect, is presumption on the part of older folk, like us. We presume to know the world of children more than we really do. Because we've been down that road once, doesn't mean we know perfectly well what it means to be there again. Memory has the effect of sentimentalising the past beyond recognition.

It's a huge problem-- when we sentimentalise the past such that they are constant morphine shots into our difficult present.

I was reading Ecclesiastes, and it reminded me of the foolishness of harking back to some mysterious Elysium-est good old days. They are old days, not always good. There were salient good points about the old days, but they're not necessarily always better than today. Remembering what was good before, allows me to make tomorrow a better tomorrow, but it is foolish to try to repeat the past. Living in the past is the recipe for wasting the future but using the past as a guide to days ahead, allows us to lay hold of the Hope before us. Take the hurts, take the joys, take the disappointments and the acclaims, hand it to Jesus and don't desire to go back. Our past, present and future are now His.

I am a sentimental creature. Very very much so. It's a historians' habit to recollect the past and dream an idyllic future. But a good historian is deeply aware of the fact that there is no rewind function in life. Yes, yesterday might seem better but Jesus always makes tomorrow a day closer to Him. And because there is Jesus, we can let go of the crippling effects of the past and embrace the exciting unknowns of the future, fully confident that the end point is the arms of our Saviour - then we will know what it means to be fully forgiven, totally whole.

If I should allow the past to cripple me, may I look for this cartoon and smirk again. Goodbye Big Bird! I'm moving on :P (not many people will get this, but heh... too bad)