crap.

i feel like crap. i feel like crap. i feel like crap.

i wonder if i keep saying that, i'll feel better.

very old insecurities rising up in me... I vowed never to get into a situation that would let those insecurities arise. I thought that was maturing. It's just ignorance. and my procrastination in letting God take care of those things has gotten the better of me.

It's so easy to just curl up in a corner and wallow in it too- just tell myself how much i dislike myself. How much i am so insecure. How much I try too hard to please people. How much I don't know crap about how to maintain good relationships. How much I just simply don't know how to love, yet i try to look like it. Because that's what i used to do, and that's why i buried it. The worst part is that it seems so self centered. It's just about me and nobody else. me, myself, and I.

i'm such a jerk-ass sometimes.

But I know that God didn't expose these old wounds for nothing. I know God didn't bring those memories back from junior high for no reason. God wants to heal me, not rip the wound open again... yet, it's amazing how similar healing and hurting feel.

I wonder sometimes if i messed up somewhere along this current healing process. Maybe I messed up God's plan to heal me. So that's why i'm back in the old cycle i used to be in in junior high.

But by saying that, I greatly underestimate who God is.

God, I just want this to stop. I just want it to all be over. I want to never look at these parts of my life again. I want to just pretend like they never happened. I want to avoid all that instability i used to have.

But God didn't come just so we could avoid sin, but that the sin would lose its foothold and power in our lives. And ignorance empowers sin, even though we'd hope it didn't.

I'm sorry this is so vague. I just feel really in the pits. I feel alone in the dark.

Are you really the light of the world? Are you really my stronghold and fortress? Are you really Jehovah Rapha, the healer of all wounds? Can I really believe that?

my heart is sick with an illness i'm too scared of to let God heal...

Kids...

today some of the kids wanted to pray for me. They apparently learned how to bring the anointing of God onto people... (that's what they said). These little preschool-maybe 2nd graders wanted to pray for me. They were so excited. I had a lot of doubt over them. I mean, they were fun kids to hang out with after church and called me names like hyena, or cheeta because of my hair, but this just seemed like another one of their games. I was in no mood for a fun version of prayer ministry.

However, they really wanted to pray for me... and how can you really say no to prayer, feined or not?

So, they got in a circle around me upstairs. They told someone to stand behind in case i fell. I was like.. yeah right. Then they told me not to fake falling. I was thinking in my head- please let this be over...

Then they started praying. The voices changed from little kids's voices to intercessors's cries. They asked for more power, more anointing... and there was power in their voices.

the next thing i knew i was on the floor.

That was a humbling and interesting experience. i've heard about kids being trained to pray at a young age... but i always thought it was in some super church... yet there i was on the ground- not forced or pushed or faked... just in laughing in awe.
------------------

This is a continuation of a discussion that has started on my xanga, but then my xanga's not supposed to be serious in nature... (at least that's how i wanted it...) so i'm moving it to my blog.

---------------

That's a good point, chongson. This is why diversity in a church is so important- Where it is not ugly patriotism, in which you become proud of the ideas you represent, or a melting pot, where you try to hide the ideas you have. There is a balance between them. What does this have to do with modalities and sodalities?

Ugly Patriotism:
I believe these are two facets of what the church's role is, and for too long those roles have become decompartmentalized, and seperated. Eventually, churches begin to center around one of those facets individually. There needs to be a shift in mentality in which both sides are important in the role of the church. There needs to be a holistic view of the church.

Melting pot:
There's also the other end that chongson pointed out in which those two roles have been so collapsed with eachother, that they are no longer distinct. That is, they no longer work to the fullest that they can because both roles have lost their identities. Both roles of the church need to remain distinct in order for them to work to their fullest potential, but then always keeping in mind that they need eachother.

This is the core of an idea i've been working through... i've called it the synergistic gospel... sounds really complicated. From what i hear, people have already started writing about the same idea, like some book called "the empowered evangelical". I would get into it... but i need to draw stuff to show what i mean... and i only know how to use paint. Some of you have probably heard me rant about this... but if you haven't, maybe ask me sometime, and we'll talk it over lunch :). Or maybe i'll stop being lazy and post it.

The thunder roars, and the earth trembles... It seems as if the seams of earth and sky are ripping apart.

Reminds me the enormity of God's voice. Yes, he speaks in the whisper, but what if he didn't hold back? What if he spoke with the bigness and glory of the one who created the universe, who commands the storms and waves to stop? It would make the thunder sound like a cats purr.

God, speak Your words of life, love and POWER to UCSD. A voice that shakes the heavens. A voice that we have placed in mythology and have abandoned. A voice that changes an individual. A voice that defeats impossibility. A voice that refuses to be silenced. A voice that changes a campus.

Let it be so.

i wish it were easier to just be straight up and honest with eachother. It'd save a lot of trouble... sometimes we get so caught up in the trouble that telling people the truth can get us into that it causes more trouble not telling the truth... that sentence made no sense. But hopefully you get my drift.

BE REAL.

i wonder what would happen if all the people who have been chased out of the church because they would think too much were to refuse to leave... if they simply would sit there and demand an answer and refuse to be shut up or marginalized. They would keep pressing in not for themselvs but for God. To go deeper in love into the issues that everyone avoids instead of going deeper into bitterness and cynicism...

the church would be a lot different today then... no longer a symbol of western homogenization, but a social and cultural force that fits under no culture... it enhances and empowers culture instead of erasing it... it thinks instead of just blindly accepting things... uses it's HEART, MIND, SOUL, and STRENGTH...

anyways, i was just thinking about that.

Revolution

The war i see in front of my eyes is a civil war. This civil war seems to not exist on the outside... but it is raging on behind our masks of perfection. We say there is no illness within us, we try to cover it all up. We're so stuck in our cultural contexts of christianity, we have let our seperate cultures replace the God we're supposed to worship. These cultures war against eachother instead of bringing eachother closer to the God of which each of them represents a part of. Each sees itself as the revolutionary that will change the church into something greater. But that something greater is so miniscule compared to our God. When will the true revolutionaires arise? Where are the bridge builders? The peacemakers? Where are those who will serve God, and not their culture; will seek after the true and living God instead of mundane theology or repetitive emotional experiences? Where are those who will cry out for something more?

The sham is but a whitewashed tomb. Bright and vibrant on the outside, and decaying and on the inside. Outside, everyone walks by this clean whitewashed tomb and sees right through the fakeness. It's obvious it's a tomb. Why try to hide it? And those within the tomb are people ever leaving the sham, searching for the glory that that tomb was supposed to hold. They get lost outside... When will they leave their bitterness and come back to breath life into the tomb they left? When will they arise and destroy the de@dness of culture, tradition and routine?

When will a new song arise? a song more fervrent than any heard upon this earth? A song that isn't sung for its simplicity and "congregational appeal". A song that is so intricately formed with excellence and creativity, and belched out in raw honesty. A song that is an anthem of the true and living God.

And on that day, the civil war will end. I believe in a diverse church that learns instead of divides. The Calvinists will embrace the Charismatics. The racial divides within the church will crumble. Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal- all holding hands. I believe in what many have seen as futile and impossible, because I believe in a God that is infinitely beyond anything we have ever encountered in humanity's existence on this speck of dust called Earth. And on that day of peace, finally, the church will look away from itself and see those around them that are dying... She will no longer be a tomb, but a place that gives life for those around her. She will bring healing to the broken, bring justice to the oppressed, raise up the poor out of the mire, and raise the corpses to life. She will bring freedom to those in the prison of the evil one. She will stand up against the evil one who is stealing the lives of a generation. And the evil one who has tried so hard to cripple her will not be able to walk because his knees are quaking in fear.

This is the revolution. This is the manifesto. This is the movement. I believe this dream cannot stay a dream. It is screaming within its box to get out and be unleashed upon reality. It's waiting for you...

Will you arise? Will you join this movement? Will you serve others and not just those that are the same as you? Will you serve your God instead of your culture? Will you throw off your pride and bitterness? Your answer to those questions shall determine if this dream is but a dream, for reconciliation is the linchpin of this revolution.

----------------------

A revolution that many have walked away from because of its impossibility is one that I will keep clinging on to in hope, for I believe in the God that created the very idea of hope.

just had a very cool conversation with my twin cousin (jason) about what post-modernism has to do with the church. It was the first intellectual conversation i've had with him. And i found out we think alike. whoopee.

why can't i feel you, God?

We sat in the car together in silence. My grandpa and I had run out of things to talk and joke about after 10 minutes of our trip. I simply couldn’t think of anything else to say. I awkward moments like that. I always try to break the silence and end those moments… but today I just didn’t have a way out. Luckily (or rather unluckily) my grandpa broke the silence with one of his classic lectures. I started to roll my eyes.

“Lei yieu do dee duc shu!” (You need to study more!)

Not another one of these… As I had suspected, my grandpa began spouting off in Cantonese on why I should concentrate on my studies. I couldn’t understand it all because my Cantonese was lost in my English preschool brainwashing. But I had heard the speech plenty of times.

He would tell me to study and to work hard. He would tell me to stop going to work if I needed to study more. He would tell me to get a good job with a lot of money. He would point to my dad or to my aunt Sharon and say how they have good careers. Sometimes he would make a comparison or two to some of his friend’s grandchildren’s successes. All my times with my grandparents would be cut short because they wanted me to go back to school and study.

However, this time, there was something else added to the end of the lecture.

“… because I wasn’t able to go to school when I was a kid.”

A pause. He stopped talking. I asked him why he couldn’t go to school. All of a sudden a hidden part of my grandpa emerged. He said something about da jeung. I didn’t know what that was at first… thought about it, and realized it meant war. In my broken Cantonese, I tried to ask what happened. Years of bitterness seemed to come out. Bitterness from pride being trampled on, of a future stolen from him… His voice changed. It was no longer at a stereotypically loud Cantonese volume- it was quiet and remorseful.

He talked about the Japanese closing schools during WWII.

He talked about Japanese stabbing people with their rifle sabers.

He talked about mothers and children dying on the road side.

He talked about their stench.

He talked about how people were starving to , so they would eat those bodies.

How deep were those wounds... How can bitterness this deep be healed?

Silence took hold again. But this time it wasn’t awkward. There just wasn’t anything to say after that.

I always talk about not letting school work consume my life. I always talk about not letting things stress me out. That’s good and all… but have I devalued what God has given me in my life? Have I cheapened God’s mercy and grace? Have I been doing the best I can with the things that God has given me? Have I been doing the best I can knowing that two or more generations of my family have suffered so much to get me here in America and in school?

I really don’t know what I would do if war were to crash upon these shores. My heart would not be strong enough to see the bodies strewn along the road. My mind can’t comprehend being so starved that I would have to eat another person.

This still happens today in places like Sudan, in Uganda, in Iraq. It happened in Rwanda. We hide in our American bubble pretending like things like this never happen, and will never happen to us.

But spiritually, there’s a war going on, even here in our bubble, which is more violent than any world war we have ever seen. There is a war for souls… There are people out there being slain by the enemy. There are people enslaved to the lies that he professes. There are people starving for truth and relationship.

Rwanda. Sudan. Uganda. Iraq. America.

We need to open our eyes and see the war going on around us. We need to bring the victory Jesus has given to us to a world in desperate need of it.

----------------

Sunday Bl00dy Sunday
U2

I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes and make it go away.
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
'Cos tonight
We can be as one, tonight.

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the de@d-end street.
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall.

Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Oh, let's go.

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart.

How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
'Cos tonight
We can be as one, tonight.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away.
I'll wipe your tears away.
I'll wipe your tears away.
I'll wipe your bl00dshot eyes.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday.

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality.
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they d1e.

The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On...

Sunday, bl00dy Sunday
Sunday, bl00dy Sunday..

i can't focus. can't think straight. i abhor these moments when you can't seperate yourself from God's voice... when you need to hear it the most... God- help me hear You... help me to not only hear but to obey... help me to obey. I feel like my heart just wants its own way... if i hear You, don't allow me to twist your voice so that i obey a perversion of Your voice... I just want to hear YOU. nothing else.

i feel like i'm back in junior high. Old questions about love are popping up in my head that i chose to ignore and forget instead of answer... Like how can you tell between infatuation and love? How can you know it's really from God or just a trick in your head?

i fear more and more each day i will become one of those relationship-defected christian single guys who have never talked to women and don't know a thing about dating, and are doomed to be a bachelor for the rest of their lives. Although devoted to God, lonely and devoid of human relationship...

that would really suck. makes me depressed.

hahaha and don't give me the "you won't be lonely if you're satisfied in God" answer. That answer is the one i use all the time, but is totally devoid of how to deal with the realities of our human state. I have tried to appease myself with that answer for years, and i am still alone.

God, i don't get it. Can that cliche answer really be truth? Can i truly be satisfied in You only? God, i know it's impatient of me... but i feel like i'm running out of time before i am forever doomed to a life of lonliness...

I feel like i'm still that junior higher that has no idea what to do with his new found feelings... except they're not new anymore. They've been there for so long, and i still don't get it. It's so stupid.

benson always has good links for me- read this, it's worth the read.
http://www.internetmonk.com/critic.html