don't you see?

A prospective group leader asked me this morning what my advice would be if his social life centres around Saturday night.

I said, well, it's simple isn't it? You either serve and give up on your social life (of course you can work hard to achieve all sorts of good compromises as I did), or you can give up on the opportunity to be a group leader.

It's obvious that it is one or another, neither will happen without a sacrifice.

But wanting to encourage him, I went on, and as I typed, I discovered a glorious truth I had previously overlooked.

I said, look, some of the apostles, like James and Peter, spent a lot of their time in Jerusalem, amongst brothers. Then we have Paul who was sent to the gentiles. I think God can call us to serve in church or use us as a light to the unbelievers. Either way, bottomline is that we are to serve Him regardless of where.

and here's the realization:
It's not a question about "to serve or not to serve", it is about "where to serve" that is the question.

I really wanted him to know that all the saints will rejoice with him if he serves God as he hangs out with his friends.

But if he serves.

Isn't it glorious? That whether we serve in church or not, that we should all serve the Lord?
I hope God impresses upon his soul the imperative of service and then also the direction He calls him to.

Frisbee

I'm taking some kids and volunteers for a session of frisbee on Sunday.
There's no free lunch in this world, not even for kids. The game is meant to be a springboard to some sort of character education.

What is there to learn from frisbee? It doesn't seem immediately obvious, but I learnt some.

First, teamwork. Don't roll your eyes yet. We roll our eyes because not every sport actually teaches teamwork. It's possible to excel alone in some sports, yes, even team sports. Frisbee is quite different though, like every sport in which no dribbling is allowed (e.g. Captain's ball), teamwork is a lot more important since you will not be able to progress across the court without passing.

Frisbee is on another level. Not only do you rely heavily on the team to attack, you rely heavily on the team to defend. This is accentuated by the mix of long and short distance plays. Because you never know if the play is going to be one of tightly coordinated short passes or just one long brazen pass, you depend on your teammates to really man-mark the hell out of the person they're tagged to.

Summarize: you can be really good at throwing or catching, but you're not going to score anything on your own.
You may be really fast at running and good with predictions but there's no way you can defend the entire court.

And this is precisely my experience with frisbee and my frustration at tournaments. It doesn't matter how well you can fetch if no one in your team can make the throw. In these circumstances, you need to reassess the capabilities of the team and position yourself to take advantages of their strengths.
That's the teamwork in the game. You just can't win it by yourself, I've been there and seen it replay over and over. Sometimes the team just falls back too hard on the "pro" and then they get disappointed.
The fact is, you need at least 2 pros to make a difference.

That's the first lesson I learnt.

Tucked away in "Teamwork" is perhaps "cooperation". This is another big thing I learnt from frisbee. I've mentioned it briefly, it's about adjusting your expectations on the fly and learning how to live with your team. The "blame game" often slips into games because people have inaccurate expectations of one another. I can blame my team for dropping the discs or I can run a little harder and encourage them more often to go for the safe passes. That's one thing I learnt as team captain, transiting from the first Inter-neighbourhood-games to the second.

I remembered blaming and shouting at my team in the first year. It's just not worth it to strain relationships over a game and it also does little to improve the game.
I switched tactics in the second year. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because I was ashamed of the way I behaved in the first year or maybe it's because I've grown attached to these people and so I feel reluctant to scold them (or I don't even have the desire to). But it was so much better, as the game progressed I found myself thinking in the broader picture, of how I may fit into the team rather than how my team may fit me.
Afterall, being more experienced means that adapting to playstyles was a much easier task for me. I found myself giving in my best, I found that they were more receptive to any calls I made, I found us enjoying ourselves a lot more. The first year was like everyone just ran off when the game was over.
Which was sad.

Finally, frisbee is about discipline. While it may seem a breeze for a seasoned player to make a throw, the discipline behind every throw goes right down to the minute details of your arm speed, wrist flick and finger release. The longer the throw the more disciplined you'll have to be with every sub-step of the throw.
Then there's also discipline in remaining sober, conscious and present. You need to keep your eyes open to every one of your players, you need to watch from the corner of your eyes. You need to consider the opponents' reactions and consider how to manipulate them with fakes. You need to think about the tendencies of your teammates, their flaws, how their discs tend to curve etc.
As you tire, it really takes willpower to keep your brain switched on a working. As you tire it really takes the flexing of your neurons to be disciplined with the stroke of your arm as you make that long throw.
As you dive and the pain of the impact hits you, it really takes discipline to brave it and keep your eyes on the disc.
As you contest for a disc with a high jump and someone else knocks into you mid-jump, it really takes discipline to swallow your fear, grab that disc and worry about falling later.

Of course the kids won't understand any of this. But this is what the sport has taught me.

Thoughts in the toilet

When I called
You found there was hope afterall
When I died I gave you life
When I bled myself dry
My Father was pleased to see me die
So you could live a life worth living

He would be
just to justify.

Obviously need some lessons on how to order the lines according to metre, as one writes poems, but this will do for now.

And so I have this friend who writes some of the more profound songs I've sung thus far. I don't always agree with him on his choices of lyrics, but there are always parts I find myself agreeing, wishing I thought of putting things that way before he did.

People talk about him as a person lacking emotions. I too puzzle when I read his songs because they feel so much more emotionally rich than the average person. I've learnt, over the years in my life, to differentiate being emotional and being emotionally awake.
I've come to see being emotional as a form of slumber, as drunkenness.

The thought tells me that misunderstanding happens really often.
That we tend to think that the emotions we feel are more comprehensive, more full and real than that of others. Nobody seems to us to think as deep as we do.

Between the dismissals of others and my dismissal of their dismissals as dismissals, I find a problem.
It seems to me that I will never really understand, never truly comprehend.
I can't ever be perfectly compassionate.
But then it seems clear to me that even something obscenely short of perfection can be of great help to a person- a really fortunate state of affairs.
And so we move on, cognizant of our mediocrity but not discouraged.

What's this feeling I'm getting now? Ah I know, "Brokenness".
Broken because we're broken, so short of perfection.
Broken by the thought of such grace that our feeble efforts should accomplish any work.

these frustrations stem from aversion from greater perversion

The stressful looming shadow

Stress is stressful. These days I feel myself worrying whenever my stomach shows any signs of indigestion or hyperacidity.

I worry when I break into unknown fevers (like the one last night), when I feel dizzy from climbing the steps in school.

It seems like I've become more fearful about health issues ever since I had the stomach problem a while back in august.
How can I not? The doctor diagnosed it as being stress induced.
Stress, as I know it, has never quite ceased to be part and parcel of my life these years.

However, surely there is a difference between being busy and being stressed?
Do I enjoy the things I'm doing? Do they bring satisfaction?
Am I excited or am I fearful?

I think that I get stressed when I don't do my work, when it starts piling up.
When I spend my time doing trivial things and when I want to focus on the serious stuff I feel like... I have no right to be.
I feel like such a pretender, and then I don't want to be a pretender
and then I realise that I'd have to say goodbye to the trivial distractions before I'll ever feel genuine
and then.. that just feels so difficult.

Am I expecting too big of a change in too short a time frame?
What does God expect of me? I think He expects me to get down to my knees and pray whenever I feel overwhelmed.
I think He means for me to take these moments of helplessness seriously.

Oh when my hands are full and my health betrays me
When my mind is troubled and it cannot pierce the fog around me
Teach me to turn my eyes onto You, these things are frankly beyond me.

A lesson from the keyboard

It's wonderful how much meaning the bible gives to these simple, mundane words. These are subtle reminders to resist transgressing against my God when I use the computer.

Beginning from the left:

1. Function. Hang on, what's your function? What does God say about your purpose in life? Are you living it? Is what you're about to do compromising and sabotaging you from living it? You are not made for this. 
2. Control. Self-control. God does not subject us to temptation any more than we can bear. There is a point in exercising self-control because you can succeed. You will triumph over any temptation placed in your way. 
3. Alternate Option. No, this is not inevitable, even now you have a choice and you can make it. No, you are not that free, there is much work to do, much more that you ought to do. Is there really no better way to spend your life? Do your urges really rob you of doing otherwise? 
4. Command. Whose command are you under? This is His command, that you flee, that you honour and glorify Him in everything. Does this glorify Him? Does this please Him? Is this according to His command?