Articulating this is going to be pretty damn hard given that I'm not even sure what my current state of mind is. I've decided that I'm going to have to devote some time and energy towards renewing my relationship with God. I arrived at this decision based on the fact that yet again, I have ceased to pray. More tellingly, I have ceased to feel the conviction I once had: that there is a God in the midst of all that is bad and all that causes pain, that there is a God who is good and who loves us --me-- faithfully and steadfastly in spite of everything. I don't want my faith to stagnate any more than it already has, where I believe only in God's love through necessity (because if I don't I can see no other way of getting through life and it's sometimes seemingly endless barrage of shit) and I 'pray' or rather talk to myself in my head just to fill the silence that will otherwise be unbearable.

I have remembered one very important thing I have somehow forgotten all about in the past few months. My calling. Above and beyond the present moment and its obstructions, there is a greater purpose for my being here. This is not something I tell myself to make myself feel better about life but something I believe because it is only then that I have anything of incorruptible value to aspire to. I used to obsess constantly about the epiphanic moment when my purpose in life is revealed to me. That I have finally remembered this is a good thing. Because I am tired of how uninspired I have felt, and how the present moment has taken such a great hold of me that the future seems dulled.

My reflections began when I asked myself what it means to love a God whom I have never seen and whom I struggle hard to communicate with. Of course I didn't obtain an answer, to be honest I'm not sure I bothered because then I might have to give up the whole notion of a personal religion and divorce my life from everything I've ever learnt. But this has shifted to questioning what it means to love my parents. And this has led to another revelation: that perhaps I need to fall in love with my parents again. To renew in the same way that I need to renew my relationship with God, the bond that we used to share and that has slipped through the cracks.

Really, I'm quite glad Christmas is over. Because when you take away the constant reminders that this is the season of love, peace, joy, and whatever saccharine sentiment they're shoving down your throat these days, you are forced to evaluate what's really important and why you do the things you do. I've come around in my own time, and I might be jumping the gun just a little bit, but thank God Lent will be upon us once more.

posted by beautiful at 9:40 am

Happy Birthday Karen Creampuff! It was a very nice, simple evening we spent together watching cartoons. Maybe in the beginning I was sceptical about the whole regressive mood but I think right now, I'm glad we did it. Right now, I wish I was a kid again. I know the year ahead will only be a fantastic one for you; I have faith in this year for the both of us, and we both know why. Here's to the glee and the good fortune.

In other news, I have discovered another one of those cheap thrills that make my day. I just know there is a God when I'm sitting in a cab, and the traffic along Upp Aljunied Rd is not moving... but suddenly I see gurkhas in white shorts running by... in the pouring rain...

posted by beautiful at 9:33 am