Held

My dearest mummy wrote in an email today, “I hope you’re rejoicing in the Lord for all the years that have been and look forward to the days ahead with God by your side…” and “This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it!”

So apt, given my prior state of un-rejoicing over today’s arrival. I laughed, and “always, again, I say rejoice!” (aside: lyrics from rejoice, chris tomlin, see the morning – which arrived this morning in the post! yay!) But what do I rejoice in? The hope that will not disappoint, the love that never fails, amazing grace.

And I rejoice, in twenty-one years (and an eternity to come) of being wholly and undeservedly loved by my Saviour and Lord, my Brother and Friend, by God.

“I know I am loved by the King, and it makes my heart want to sing.”

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:5-8

The Metroline bus drivers went on strike again today! So I had to walk to and from school. Which wasn’t a bad thing I suppose seeing as how
1. I haven’t been getting exercise.
2. The walk there refreshed sleepy me slightly in preparation for the four hours of classes.
3. The walk back the sun had set and when the sky’s dark you can’t tell that it’s a grey day.

Plus the walk back was actually very pleasant! There was a breeze and not the chilly kind, and no limited service bus passed me by (so I didn’t feel haiyah I should have waited), and cos the pavement was so wide, and cars driving past make noise, I could walk and sing and keep singing and singing without worrying about people staring. Singing specifically this: “How can I keep from singing Your praise/ How can I ever say enough/ How amazing is Your love/ How can I keep from shouting Your name/ I know I am loved by the King/ And it makes my heart want to sing.”

Retreat this year was different, felt slightly strange, and I now feel bad about whining about being tired far too often (sigh) because I enjoyed so many moments of it, (laughter, quiet, music, beauty, prayer, autumn leaves!, love.) and upon reflection, have found much to keep in my heart for at least some while to come.

“There is an endless song/ echoes in my soul/ I hear the music ring/
And though storms may come/ I am holding on/ to the rock I cling…”

Chanced upon this “poem for busy people”, which I just read here. To say that I identify with some of what it speaks understates it by far. We all need margins, margins of quietness and rest and time with the Lord.

Cramped

I need margins in my life. But I am
Crammed right up against my limits of
timefocusemotionstrength

Therefore it doesn’t take much for me to spill
over into the spaces,
Filling them until I have nowhere left to go.

I need margins. But everything in me wants to do
all I can. Be all I can be. Save the world
from sin and destruction.

Then I have so little time for rest and love.
So little time for quality so great is my quantity.
Rest and Love are segmented parts of my week,
teetering on the edge of my schedule
Where the slightest breath can knock them off,
treated like chaff when they are really marrow.

If I have a Palm Pilot that can keep track of all appointments;
if I have the ability to add more people to my schedule;
if I know all about grace and rest and love
but have not love and rest,
I am a tired disciple, a dim light, a busy Martha.

All that I have been taught tells me to do more.
Tells me that I can be God. That God needs me
in 100 places at once. That I can be Superman if I
beat my arms furiously enough against the air.

In order to make room for margins,
what will have to fall?
If I don’t make room for margins,
I will be falling.

—Marshall Benbow

Hui showed me this this morning, I loved it! I know next to nothing about ballet, but don’t you think it’s so beautiful? To be able to express something with your body through dance…

So tonight, the fireworks were shooting up into the night sky (it turned dark so early, so afternoon sky actually) and making a lot of noise, and creating a lot of smoke, but I love it. Like I told my housemates, and they agree, there’s something more charming about these any-oh-how-let-off fireworks, than those mega firework displays at the esplanade back home.

You never know where they’re going to appear in the sky see, you just kind of hear bang-bang and crackle-crackle from here and there, and then suddenly something lights up the sky! Hmm… ok actually that doesn’t make sense cos light travels faster than sound right? Like how you’d see the lightning and cover your ears before the thunder thunders? Aiyah nevermind…

Anyway, little random dashes of light and colour exploding here and there still make for very happy viewing… there were these ones which shot straight up and fell in strings of stars and I could see them just sitting at my desk with the curtains drawn open… [so ying, staying home I got to see pretty fireworks too!!]

But yes, they are also a health and safety hazard, and could mask gun-shots, and there are rules to follow. So now that it’s late at night, they seem to have stopped. (though of course I have no idea if that’s due to regulations, or if people just ran out of fireworks to set off?)

Anyway, another reason I like these random fireworks, is that they remind me of Enid Blyton stories. You know, the ones in which they had bonfires?I seem to remember one specific story where someone accidentally empties a wheelbarrow full of fireworks into the bonfire, so that they all shoot up into the sky! Hahaha, so each time something shoots up, I can almost imagine a little crowd of people happily setting off fireworks, and it’s all very pleasant and heart-warming.

Today also, I re-discovered two programmes I used to watch last year on BBC- Songs of Praise and Planet Earth. And the penguins! The penguins on Planet Earth are so so adorable, and the whole story of how the baby penguins safely hatch is so touching (and romantic)… I now think I should go watch March of the Penguins some time, since someone told me it tells a similar story. Hmm and I generally dislike birds, but I think I’ll have to make an exception for penguins.

Why am I writing so much?? Tomorrow’s the start of reading week that’s why.

The bus stop where I wait for the one bus which ferries me to college, and to church, is right outside a club. (recall french vocab! ’sotir en boître’- to go to a club) It seems that this club only opens or weekends? Or at least, on weekends it seems to open past midnight and stays open through the night into the afternoons, because there’ll be party-goers streaming out long past noon.

Which is why when waiting for the bus on Sunday mornings, I often find myself standing on flyers littered around, and among people in all sorts of get-ups exiting the club, shielding their eyes from what must feel like glaring sunshine after a night of dancing/drinking/whatever else people do in clubs.

The crowd this club attracts isn’t rowdy, it’s an older crowd, not the college students sort, and plenty of foreigners too, judging from the many different languages I’ve heard (including Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia and Thai I think, though that might just be my ears). So, the only harrassment you’d face is from mini-cab drivers pestering anyone waiting at the bus stop to get into their cabs.

But today, while I stood there, a man, rather drunk and dragging his feet, slumped onto the seat at the bus stop, and started talking to me. Being the scaredy-cat I am, I usually ignore or pretend not to understand, but because he seemed rather sad and harmless, I ignored the alcohol on the breath instead, answered his questions and let him talk.

He said, he was from Georgia; had to work in two hours; shouldn’t have gone for that after-party; manager had just raised his pay wanted to see improvement and he really didn’t want to let her down; wasn’t sure he could make it to work in time or make it at all; and hey I was sober right, what did I think, did he look completely wasted, yes quite he did, even when he did this – {a funny grinning sort of face}?, eh yes even more so I thought; argh how was he going to be able to start work in two hours; he had to had to make it there; he worked as a bartender, he said.

“So, where are you going?”
- I’m going to church.
“You’re going to church?”
- Yes.

Silence, and I thought his glazed-over half-vacant eyes were staring at me with incredulity, or shock, and whatever other emotion I don’t know, couldn’t identify.

“I used to go to church too.”
- Did you?
“Yeah. So what are you, Catholic, Orthodox…?”
- Protestant.
“Ah, protestant…. I see… I used to go the Orthodox Church.”

More silence, because I didn’t know what to say, and he looked like he was trying very hard to get thoughts straight again.

“That’s beautiful…. that’s just beautiful.”
- What is?
“A girl, at the bus stop, going to church – that’s beautiful…”
Yet more silence.
“It’s so beautiful, yes it is, going to church… an inspiration to me you know, I’m a musician, I compose music, an inspiration..”

And then more talk about composing music, playing the keyboard, but I can’t remember much, because all I could think was I want to, long to say something more, something about Jesus, something more than a cold and clinical “Protestant”.

The bus came, he got on, took the seat next to mine, chatted to other random passengers, and asked if I could wake him if he fell asleep before his stop. “Ok,” I said, but inside I felt something ache and I was trying and trying to summon up courage enough to say:

“Hey, go to church again someday will you? Pick up a Bible, find out who Jesus is, cos in Him you’ll find enough beauty and inspiration to last your whole life long, you’ll find truth that leads you past this life into eternity, living water to quench your thirst forever, why drink to forget and lose yourself when you can drink of Life itself?…”

But, there were those other people he’d started chatting to, and he was drunk, so I couldn’t bring myself to say anything much. Couldn’t even manage even a simple “God bless you, Jesus loves you” when I left the bus.

Next time, I tell myself, next time. Boldness ok? Boldness.

Anyway, it reminded me of a friend’s story: She’s doing clinicals in a geriatrics ward, and on one of her rounds her patience was being tested by an grumpy old lady, whom she had to get to do a routine test, and who had been repeatedly demanding that her pillows and tubes be readjusted – rather a grumpy old lady basically. Glad to get it over and done with, my friend then moved on to the next bed, and the next, but when she’d walked just a few beds down, the grumpy lady suffered a cardiac arrest and died. And she was stunned. By the suddeness of death, the fact that mere minutes before her patient had been talking, writing, complaining. And then came that tinge of regret- that she could have said something simple, something kind, something to bless the lady, and maybe point her to God in those last moments of her life.

So maybe this time
I’ll speak the words of Life
With Your fire in my eyes
But that old familiar fear
is tearin’ at my words
What am I so afraid of?

‘Cause here I go again
Talkin’ ’bout the rain
And mullin’ over things
that won’t live past today
And as I dance around the truth
Time is not his friend
This might be my last chance
to tell him that You love Him

- Here I go again, Casting Crowns 

The neighbour’s kid is playing basketball in the backyard, so as I type I’m listening to the thud-thud-thud and crash as the ball bangs against the metal board and falls in through the hoop nailed to the wall. I’m not actually watching any of this though I wonder how he looks like, (because I always hear his mother screaming for him to come in from the playground in the evenings)… I can’t be bothered to walk over and draw open the curtains, the rays of sunshine are prettier streaming in through the gaps like that. (What was that John Donne poem now? “busy old fool, unruly sun”… I’ll never say that about sunshine I like it too much.)

I’m bothered though, by my ever-expanding To-Do list for the upcoming reading week, half of which does not have anything to do with reading whatsoever, although there doesn’t look like there’ll even be enough time to get through the first bit that HAS got to do with readings.

But, I have absolutely zero legitimacy to whine or complain, given the stress people around me are going through, whether they have three interviews a week or none at all- meaning different causes of stress, it’s that same arduous job application process.

Saturday night is Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire night, fireworks! Should I go to Alexandra Palace to watch? I’m sure I’ll be able to see pretty 烟花 just sitting at home actually… Shall decide later: see at least that’s something I know I’ll be able to make a decision on. Feel rather paralysed otherwise with a few of the other decisions/choices/blah I need to make.

On a slightly unrelated note, why am I so easily influenced by what another person says? Could be anyone really, halfway round the world, over msn, over the phone, face-to-face over coffee… How do I tell if what I think and feel are really my own thoughts and feelings and not kind of insiduously planted Iago style by someone else? Ok I’m being paranoid, the thoughts and feelings I’m considering are not wild-rage/jealousy/Othello-ish type feelings, and the people I’m thinking of are definitely not Iago-ish!

I’m thankful it’s sunny outside. I’m glad it’s Friday.

Excerpts from what I read this morning after a night of fitful sleep:

on tears…

Psalm 56:8 “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

Oftentimes a poor broken-hearted one bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears; yet that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God and treasured in the lachrymatory of heaven. “Thou puttest my tears into thy bottle,” implies that they are caught as they flow.

Tears are the diamonds of heaven; sighs are a part of the music of Jehovah’s court, and are numbered with “the sublimest strains that reach the majesty on high.” Think not that your prayer, however weak or trembling, will be unregarded. Jacob’s ladder is lofty, but our prayers shall lean upon the Angel of the covenant and so climb its starry rounds.

True, he regards not high looks and lofty words; he cares not for the pomp and pageantry of kings; he listens not to the swell of martial music; he regards not the triumph and pride of man; but wherever there is a heart big with sorrow, or a lip quivering with agony, or a deep groan, or a penitential sigh, the heart of Jehovah is open; he marks it down in the registry of his memory; he puts our prayers, like rose leaves, between the pages of his book of remembrance, and when the volume is opened at last, there shall be a precious fragrance springing up therefrom.

on prayer:

Sword and spear need furbishing, but prayer never rusts, and when we think it most blunt it cuts the best.

Nor is prayer ever futile. You may not always get what you ask, but you shall always have your real wants supplied. When God does not answer his children according to the letter, he does so according to the spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because he gives thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if instead thereof he makes thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual maladies? Is it not better to have the cross sanctified than removed?

When I unlocked the front door just now I was feeling sian because

1. I think my tutorial might be late cos I dropped it into the lockers past noon;
2. I stayed up late last night working on that tutorial, and the only reason it was late was because I forgot to leave time allowance for the possibility that the chem building cluster room might be occupied and I’d have to run to dms watson library to print it instead, but that was exactly what happened and so I was late;
3. I went to the gym after that and felt extremely unfit plus the weighing machine tells me what I already know, that gobbling down so many mcvities plain choc digestives in the middle of the night will make me heavier.

BUT I feel really happy now! Because, when I opened the door, it got stuck on a package, and when I picked it up, I saw my name and address handwritten on top! Not that anyone sent me anything though… the cds I ordered from gettymusic arrived, perfect timing. I love opening packages. And they were such great buys too!

1. songs that Jesus said
2. New Irish Hymns #3 Incarnation

I’m listening to the first one now, and it’s such a lot of fun I wish I were back in Sunday School. Oh and those who went to Word Alive Spring Harvest last year would know, that “I’m ready to go!” song they sang (with actions) at the family celebration every morning in the Big Top, it’s in here.

And actually right, so silly to feel sian over such trivial things in the first place. It’s a beautiful day! Cold yes, but the sun’s shining, the sky’s sooo clear and blue, the neighbour’s roses looked so red and pretty when I walked past and, I have much to do this afternoon. yay!

Around the world He paints the sunlit skies
They remind us He is there
And in the evening the stars dance overhead
Heaven’s singing He is still there
- “He is my Light” Thankyou Music