Speak Lord, your servant is listening

I'm back from the retreat! Let's start with the superficial.

I made new friends, played weird games and ate only 3 meals a day!

But there's so much more. I've had 53 hours of irritation-free existence. Peace. I didn't just make friends, I engaged in fellowship. I praised and prayed freely. I pondered the reason for my existence, listened to the call of duty. I had a revelation.

I now understand why my life has been tumultuous and why I have hardened myself to the gift of life. The answer lies in the fact that I have not allowed my soul to develop through prayer and a relationship with God. I liaised, I said let's go slow, don't make it too hard. Then things, people, words began to strike me and I didn't even have to try much to hear Him speak.

It's also occurred to me how I only have one lifetime to get this right. And because failure as a human is so tragic and so unthinkable, I must get it right. But for now, I am very happy that I have found some answers to the questions I was too busy leading my secular life to even ask. This Christmas, I want Him to pave the way.

...and some other things that matter...

I learnt that there is no fulfilment in living alone. It's funny how sometimes I get so mad with the world that I want to become a hermit although that would be punishment more for me than for anyone else. A life that is worth living is one that is shared with the community. Once again this is the message of Christmas. And how true! Christmas is only important to me because I get to celebrate with my friends and family, and we exchange gifts because they are material manifestations of symbolic love and goodwill. It is your presence that counts.

Too many things to be said. I know they will be forgotten as time goes by, I will forget this sense of peace and this call to mission. I feel that my faith has expanded quite massively for now, yet this knowledge is so minimal because there is so much more to find out. Oh, the irony of how change is the only constant thing in life.

posted by beautiful at 11:27 pm

Sensitive New Age Guy

I wonder if anyone else has encounters with super sensitive males. Or is it just that I'm tactless and unsympathetic?

SNAG: Have you done the module preference exercise yet?
Me: Yup.
SNAG: What did you declare as your major?
Me: Literature.
SNAG: (something which I paid no attention to)
Me: Just anyhow declare something la, anyway you can change it later.
SNAG: I find these life changing decisions unnerving.
Me: !!!!!
SNAG: Forget it.
Me: Don't worry la the decision is not binding.
End of discussion.

But what I really wanted to say was this. Aiyah it's just an exercise what!!! I was shocked to see his message implying that he was unnerved. Why is a 21 year old guy who has been through national service and is so book-smart afraid of an annoyingly useless, albeit harmless procedure that everyone else in the same school has to go through? Why is it that my girl friends, on the other hand, tell me flippantly to just declare 'something - anything'?

Is this a life changing decision? You think picking one subject out of like, only the three other options the damned school offers is going to shape the course of the rest of your life? - well then, that's just sad. People are taking school too seriously sometimes. I'm not advocating that we all take on some bochap attitude: our education does play a part in determining where we go from graduation, but it is not the deciding factor in how we live our lives, and it most certainly isn't the only thing that matters! Good God! What fecking difference does it make what you major in? It's still a bloody Bachelor of Arts degree! I'm so sick and tired of the way education has become some sort of commercialised industry. And most of all, I'm sick and tired of these same losers saying that school is better than work - how can it possibly be when the same fuck-minded losers you meet in school go into the workplace with you and bring along their kiasu, competitive lifestyles!! BAH!!!!!

posted by beautiful at 7:19 am