Pardon my Polemic
Thursday, June 28, 2007
♥ Thursday, June 28, 2007
Lets give credit where credit is due.Joshua," if you dont hope it just goes to show you dont love"Val, "it was the final straw for you"Jeanette, "it'll come to apoint where i wouldnt want to talk to you"Exasperation. There's something very ominous about all of this. It seems like everyone just wants to proselytise. They need to hear only things that they want to hear. How loved and blessed we are. How we must be truthful when we struggle so on and so forth. And its like the ultimate travesty if u share the wrong thing. And they have this whole memorised script at the back of their heads, with perfect scriptural verses and hymns and songs and life sharings to accentuate their points. ITs brilliant but its not human.when one does share, they're so quick to think of a rebuttal they forget the need of the person to simply be there to listen. So, people like me, talk back. And naturally there will be only a "talking at" never a "talking to". And interestingly, thats how u reach ultimatums like that. " if you carry on like this, there'll be a point where i wouldnt want to talk to you." Big surprise. "if you need to talk, i'll be here"You'll be here, to? To convert me? To tell me how im losing the big picture and that i must see what u do? And eventually i will let you speak. Because i know that unless you do, you wont ever feel like the conversation ended on a light, spiritual note. The one reason why i cant stop talking and being so contentious is because no one really listens. When i talked to Merrill, when i hear steven out, when i hear myself fulminating, i hear people who wants to be heard. Not people who wants advice nor appreciates it..people who needs understanding. Thats a kinda brokenness and a cry people will never admit to. Only maybe online. Where the people scrutinising are behind the masks of their computer screens. People whom such internet users and bloggers wouldnt really know. Thats how pathetic this whole situation is. That people have to complain to the anonymity of the internet community because the real living persons in the community have failed so miserably. Its interesting how we're getting pretty effective at our ministries and our delivery. How we planning fast and ahead. How we're getting evangelical and ambitious. But the heart of the issue is an issue of the heart. An individual's heart. A bleeding wounded heart that is neither in need of big talks on big visions, nor smart chats on theology, nor even righteous psychoanalyses. All that heart needs is another heart beating alongside it. In so much voices, there will be silence. And out of the silence, there will be a voice that 2 hearts beating together can hear. "a friend is one soul in 2 bodies"- Aristotle. Point is, simply, shut up.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
♥ Sunday, June 24, 2007
LOSS.I find it so difficult to share this, because of 2 things. 1) i have difficulties putting this feeling into words, and 2) because i guess its not easy to find someone out there who really listens. Today was a day with far too many clouds. I woke up feeling it all wrong. Maybe its the Israel war, Gaza strip conflict that i've been reading about. Maybe its about the suicide cases i chanced upon the day before. But something just didnt feel right.Mass was a struggle too. I told myself that it must be the empty stomach, just find some sugar, get a good breakfast, it will be alright. Halfway through the homily, Fr Ho came in. With an unusual, scratchy voice, the kind of voice you might have dealing with a shock, he said these words that tore me up. " Pray for this boy...His heart stopped. I am rushing to the hospital now."And nothing felt right anymore. This is the very little i know about him- Super athlete, probably from RJ, younger than me, and i might have facilitated in his confirmation camp before. And now he's gone. News like this come and go, and more often than not i stay sad for no longer than the duration of the announcement; but this one struck, like a hammer on a rod..with the resonance lingering through a long time after the hammer has stopped. And there's a crack, somewhere. The hammer hit on a nail, and it felt like underneath that nail was my heart. I have no idea where or what does it mean, but suddenly the day's no longer the same. I was in a rage when i saw the nonchalance in people's faces when they heard the news, when they reacted like it was just gossip, when we had to carry on and do what we had to do and when we had to conduct praise and worship. PRAISE AND WORSHIP??? What praise? to what purpose? for what? How can life go on so relentlessly and so heartlessly when a part, however small that part was, is no longer there?Is this grief? Yet i have no clue to who he is, or what he was like, what his favourite colours were or even who his parents is. But we will be acquainted. Yes, at the wake. Thats when the dead will meet the living, thats when i will start remembering and ask myself, 'have i spoken to him before?' 'what did i say?' 'what was his reply?'And no words can be enough, no hugs or no wreaths, no photos and no lamentation can be adequate in expressing this loss. "In memory of..." they say. The only memory i can have of you, if nothing else, is this post, and the way you sleep, as you rest in eternity. I wish i knew you.
Lets scold.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
♥ Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Yap, lets scold.
You! You who think that romance is all about a trade. What you can receive with what you can give. You who dare trade money for looks. You who provide companionship in exchange for one. You who believe that love is a toy, dazzlingly new and precious at first, but increasingly monotonous and banal at the end. You who even believes that love begins and ends.
What a travesty. What a flagrant disregard for the many relationships who have gone through that are beyond your comprehension or imagination. And you... you who havent seen pass yourself far enough to accept or give love. You say you're cynical and you hide behind the masks of knowledge and experiences of others but not yours..you're an infant who has never touched crayons, but believes colours are ugly. An architect who draws but never constructs, an army general who has held neither a dying man's hand nor a rifle, who's only tool in a a pencil on a map. You're a spectator from afar. And all you have had....are glimpses of people's lives. And you draw flippant conclusions of love.
When you read Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steele, when you watch 50 first dates and Notting Hill, you look at those endings and you say "yeah right". You hear cases of breakups and friends telling you their other-half's peccadilloes..and you tell yourself, "i told you so". But of course, when you're challenged, you have these wonderful theories and sharings that you speak with candour and conviction. "warmth" is just a word and "intimacy" a taboo, "im crazy about him" is a cliche, and you roll your eyes when someone says "she makes me so happy".
I think you have no opinion of your own. You're so afraid to go through the hell and high waters of a relationship, you hide behind your own BS. And when someone happens to come along, you brush him/her aside. You let these books and these people hinder you from witnessing something so incredible, why i wonder. Because you think you're independent? What's that? That you dont need anyone or that you pack so many friends and so many events in your life you're missing life itself?
But i dont believe that you really believe your crap. I am wondering whether there are times you are envious, or even jealous of people who never seemed to experience your sense of loneliness. I am curious to know if behind all that facade, you want a relationship so bad that you end up being in denial.
Are you that sure someone just cant make you happy or accepts you the way you are? Or is there no more to you. You are a walking talking apotheosis of an
eros-pariah. yap, thats hte word. A love outcast. A person who scrutinises from afar but has never been in. A person so frightened to face the realities of who he or she is, that he/she'd dimiss the very possibility of someone falling in love with that reality. Listen...wake up!
Smell the fresh air of freedom and flowers. Taste the sweet coffee and care. Devour the chocolates and kisses. Be lovey dovey. Be emo, be obsessive, be cheesy, i dont give a damn. Just wake up.
