I finally uploaded a website i did almost two years ago.

Where do I even begin? Each mind-boggling topic is glued so hazardously close to another mind-boggling subject. I attempt to surgically separate one, desiring to decipher it in detail, but I can find no artery or nerve or vein willing to safely detach itself without hurting the rest of the other vital organs. They are that closely linked. Truth is usually like that. Truth. Or Veritas. My mind cannot stop fondling and caressing that word. Truth is enticing, mysterious and revolutionary at the same time. I have made contact with the source of truth. It says, ask from me wisdom and you shall receive it. Silly me. Why are you hesitating now? Truth wants to be known and my being wants to know it. I want to hold it in a perpetual embrace. We could live happily ever after. That, or I might just end up getting steamrolled. Do you really want to experience the full force of Veritas? Can you?

My memory is far from reliable. However, I can remember quite clearly some days from my youth, sitting with the boys in the all-boys school, dressed in uniform, waiting for the shriek of the school bell telling us that we can head on to class. Crack of dawn. 7 o'clock in the morning did not stop us from having a good time. (Secondary school was the time when I laughed the loudest; it was probably where I honed the horriblly-loud trademark guffaw that I have now.)

Fifteen years old. Oh yes, the biological clocks were signalling post-pubertical 'fresh-tosterone' everyday. At that age, many in our troupe had already begun to notice the female kind. For the good of everyone, geeks like myself were anointed a 2-year delay from female-attention.

You think gossip is a girl thing? You need to grow up because guys do it too. All you men have done it before. I'm just going to make it easier for all of us and lay the truth out in the open. So don't blame me. But of course, back then, we did the sagacious thing and called it "news-sharing", etc. We would talk about girls like it was nobody's business. We would lay down the ugly/beautiful judgments everyday and joke about the new girl wearing the "push-up's". We would make comments about every new couple that made headlines in the "underground culture" that formed Malaysian high-school networks. You know what I mean. You remember those people who hooked up and everyone thought was the funniest thing in the world? It usually involved pudgy, fat dudes and supermodel-type chicks from the Miss Penang Pageant. "If he could get her, there's hope for all."Or maybe the guy you called a "loser" just because he didn't know his left index finger from his right, but still managed to ask the (hot) girl out? "What? Is she blind or what?" How can these pathetic and defective excuses for "real men" score? I asked the same question, so many years ago.




surprise, surprise.





I never expected to be one of them. It is no doubt the 8th wonder of the world.








Disclaimer:
We have been ingrained with the worldly notion that beauty must always match beauty. Who can help but chortle at a "mismatch"? Now we know better than to treat the fair sex as objects/ property. Girls, pray forgive us.

In this article I will be using words such as “them” and/or “they”. Please note that these words are being used only for the sake of practical linguistic explanation. Try your best to disregard the connotations or biases that may arise from such word usage. “They”, in all reality, aren’t very different from “us”. We humans have more similarities than we do variances.

Towards the end of 2005, I started praying for more relationships with people who are not Christians. Not mere acquaintances, I want Friendships: deep, true and vulnerable ones. I did not know what I was asking for; recently I was hit with the fact that God did answer this prayer. And honestly, sometimes I wished I had never made that petition. Around that same time, I was going through a devotional which centered on this passage: Matthew 25. After reading, I began complaining that the world in which I lived in did not allow me to minister to the poor. Come on, how often did we see people so poor that they had to go buck-naked? Is anyone dying of thirst or hunger here in Warrensburg, MO? Show-me(pun intended). Et cetera. These kinds of people don’t exist. If only I had the opportunity, I would prove my “sheep-idity” to Jesus. Proudly I implied that there was absolutely no way I could be a goat, when the time to show it came.

Word association exercise. What comes to mind when I say “poor”? Impoverished, diseased, dying, destitute, oppressed, needy, orphaned, widowed, downtrodden, powerless? Exactly. These words impressed upon me the idea that poor-people described in the bible were as gentle and placid as lambs. They would be ever ready to receive help. They would sit there with tears in their big, wide eyes. They would receive my help with thanksgiving and weary smiles. And I would take their hand, pray for them, and lead them to my Jesus, and Jesus would nod at my work well done and call me “good and faithful servant.” We then live happily ever after. Why… even the bible shows that “innocent” and “righteous” comes hand in hand with the word “poor.”

That is true of them.

But obviously the bible “forgot” to say that “they” could also be rude and obnoxious. Poor and lazy. Smelly and crude and foul-mouthed. Violent, dirty and irresponsible. Messy, drunk and idiotic. Simply put, they are very unpleasant to be with. Many of them are spiritually blind, unwilling to listen, and are oblivious to the fact that they even need help. These adjectives (though quite mean) may very well be true of “the poor”.

To continue my story, my God answered my prayer. He placed and is putting “these” people right under my nose daily. They are closer to me than I ever thought I could be. The question now is this: Will I prove myself to be a sheep or … a goat? Shamefully, I admit that I have proven myself to be more of a goat than a sheep. My prejudice and disgust for these (my fellow human beings) is appalling. Now my prayer is one of repentance. May my negative feelings be removed and replaced by the compassion of Jesus. May we be ready to grovel in the dirt and grime of true, loving, eternal relationships. May we look at the poor and see that these are the inheritors of God’s kingdom.

“Even though I would prefer to be isolated, I live in a world that won’t allow it. I’ve been pulled out of my prison into relationships with my neighbors and others outside my comfort zone who are altering the way I view people and the world around me.”- John Fischer ‘Confessions of a Caffeinated Christian’

Bono’s Speech

James 2:5

The Global Rich List

Matthew 25: 31-46

burnsidewriterscollective

Looks like Donald Miller's latest project. Looks full of potential. (Gosh, I hate being a groupie.)

Don’t confuse wholeness with perfection. For me a functional definition of wholeness is simply “a person who can give more than they receive.” - Erwin Raphael McManus

king will be taking a break from journalling. Reading Lamentations.

Mark 3
A Man with a Withered Hand
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

There are very few things in the world which are more pitiable than a heart that cannot be taught. A hardened heart once caused a great pharaoh to allow incredible amounts of suffering to his subjects. It still compels people to murder and war. A hardened heart automatically shuts up two other senses: sight and sound. One who cannot learn, cannot see and cannot listen. Many Christians today have stopped growing or maturing simply because of this deadly tendency. The church has been rendered incapable of love: all that is left are hate, fear, tradition, and religion. The story of the man with a withered hand should not be surprising to us; we see modern-day parallels of it daily. Can the right choice be more obvious? Who in his right mind would choose Death over Life? The following reason, however, is the final blow: a hardened heart ... grieves Jesus, blindly it would seek even to destroy my dear Jesus.

Great fear overcame my soul the moment I realized that even I have no immunity whatsoever against a hardness of heart. Have you been around proud people? Pride does not see past its own face.


The Perils of Ayden- Uncertainty