若要人不知﹐除非己莫為

One day.

2009-06-03T05:19:00.004-04:00

One day, I will wash my clothes without forgetting to check every single pocket for tissues. This will be my victory dance. Watch out, World!

望江南

2009-05-09T12:15:00.003-04:00

多少恨

昨夜梦魂中

还似旧时游上苑

车如流水马如龙

花月正春风

多少泪

断脸复横颐

心事莫将和泪说

凤笙休向泪时吹

肠断更无疑

2009-05-04T08:28:00.003-04:00

Sometimes, I wish I could return to a time when my thoughts and perceptions were less formed, when I was less distorted and more malleable. I don't know if there was such a time. Even if there was and I could go back, I suppose I would also be returning to a place where I didn't know that soil hardens with time.

2009-04-19T01:09:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I heard a lot of concepts I had heard many times before. I was encouraged, not so much by what was said, but by what wasn’t said. As I sat there among people who are being changed by truth, I wanted so much to pray for them, and myself, because of how difficult and slow this process of change is. It’s hard to give up the things that were once our all and admit that they're nothing in comparison to something we can’t hold in our hands or grasp with our minds. One of the hardest things, I think, is to take our perceptions of truth, beauty, goodness, etc. and hold them loosely, admitting that we have no idea how wrong and incomplete they are. As I thought about this life, this deep unraveling and purging, I cried for the people around me, these people I don't know how to love but I know are loved on the basis of something I don't and can't fully understand. And at the end of the day, in some strange way I can't explain with logic, I was encouraged by all these things.

Deep, bold strokes.

2009-04-06T22:36:00.006-04:00

I painted the world in my mind using deep, bold strokes of life borrowed from the rainbow. The world seemed to come alive at that moment, and I knew the satisfaction of one who knows that everything is as it was intended. But that ripple of a moment has come and gone. My grayscale sketch has returned. Everything is as it once was.

2009-03-28T11:18:00.004-04:00

你

飘然而至

愿

乘风离去

Surrender.

2009-03-11T10:05:00.006-04:00

Hope is a risky thing. The higher the hope, the greater the potential for deep disappointment. The more you invest, the more you might lose.

I'm realizing more and more how much I operate under fear. It's not that I shake with trepidation in the face of dilemmas, situations, or uncertainties; it's that I'm afraid of potential complications, unnecessary disappointments, and seemingly avoidable hurts. This fear of 麻烦 leads to a certain wariness and skepticism towards having hopes and expectations. In my mind, I think I believe that it's better to tend towards caution than to take bold risks. This isn't how things are supposed to be, though, and I'm slowly learning how to give my fears to the Lord. I'm learning how to hope in Him by surrendering my hopes to Him. I think it's been one of the hardest lessons.

Answers sold separately.

2008-10-02T10:19:00.008-04:00

I'm reminded, again, of how it hurts to love and to care. We see problems, but can't fix them; we feel pain, but can't take it away; we sense that people are drowning in their tears, but can only look on as outsiders wallowing in our own sorrow. Sometimes, I want to grab a stranger by the shoulders and shake him so hard that we both wake up to our dreaming selves, and to the sleeping world, and to what it means to be in the world but not of the world.

Plastic bags, Facebook, and loneliness.

2008-09-23T10:05:00.008-04:00

I looked up and saw the blinking lights of an airplane as I was walking back to the apartment tonight. For that slice of a second, I thought I could have been home again. A blinking airplane is one of those things I can find wherever I might find myself; it's one of those things that can bring me back to a familiar place when I don't know where, or who, I am anymore. To me, it's as real and prevalent as plastic bags, Facebook, and loneliness. But I'm reminded of how, as much as we prefer changelessness over most things and while plastic bags and Facebook might be prevalent now, they're becoming things of the past in a world that doesn't stay familiar to anyone for very long. I'm reminded that in the midst of shifting sands and moving shadows, what is most real and most prevalent isn't a blinking airplane, but the One who saved us from ourselves to Himself.

Changelessness.

2008-08-15T22:47:00.001-04:00

It's strange coming home and seeing how some things have changed, while other things have remained the same. Some of the things that have changed haven't really changed for the better. Often, we're only willing to make a few external alterations to help us cope with, or forget, the underlying issues that we don't want to deal with. The underlying issues are the things that haven't changed, but they also have the greatest need for it. I'm reminded of a line from Greene: "Happiness is never really so welcome as changelessness." I don't think it's about our preference of changelessness over happiness, particularly, but our tendency to choose changelessness over most things.

Realizations.

2008-06-28T09:28:00.005-04:00

One of the harder things about caring about people is realizing and being okay with the fact that you aren't the best thing for them. As much as I want to be a part of their growth, and maybe even the reason for it, my influence is always more limited than I would like.

This is one of the harder things about romantic relationships, and being attracted to people. As much as I care and want to lighten his burdens, ease his hurts, and help him grow, I also know that I'm not the answer to his problems, just as he isn't the answer to mine. In this light, separation and unfulfilled hopes aren't all that painful. They simply mean that, for the time being, I have done my part in his life (hopefully not as a negative influence), he has done his part in mine, and God will continue to grow us apart from one another.

These are all generalizations, of course :).

"A balm for loneliness."

2008-05-01T12:25:00.003-04:00

Everyone desires, to some extent, to walk, share, and live life with others. No matter how vehemently we attempt to suffocate it, we have some inherent inclination towards intimacy. Yet the more we strive to mollify this appetite, the more we realize the futility of our efforts. Some might seek satisfaction through friendships, a posse or two, or a spouse or two. Yet as we become increasingly "intimate," what we see is that we are being driven further apart, further into discovering the depth of the reality and inevitability of our apart-ness. Perhaps our greatest commonality is that we are each living a "long loneliness" all our own on our own. This is why I don't enjoy being with people all the time. This is why, I think, solitude can be a balm for loneliness.

"Alas and did my Savior bleed

2008-04-26T10:49:00.004-04:00

And did my Sovereign die
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I
Was it for sins that I had done
He groaned upon the tree
Amazing pity, grace unknown
And love beyond degree

My God, why would
You shed Your blood
So pure and undefiled
To make a sinful one like me
Your chosen precious child

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut His glories in
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man the creature's sin
Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear Cross appears
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness
And melt mine eyes to tears"

Reminders.

2008-04-20T11:55:00.006-04:00

Everyday, God reminds me that the things He has put in my life are good things. Most of the time, I miss those reminders, but I managed to notice a few this past week: cool mud on clean skin, twists and turns in meandering mountain paths, mosquito kisses reiterating happenings from home. The biggest reminder, I think, was the group of people I was with. We chatted, we mused, we prayed, and we reminded one another of what it means to be blessed blessings by telling and retelling accounts of a partially perceived grace.

Disparity.

2008-04-12T11:53:00.003-04:00

I think it's absurd and foolish and frustrating that I'm polite and pleasant around strangers I don't know or even care to know, but sarcastic and biting and hurtful to friends I actually care about.

Accepting grace.

2008-04-04T08:35:00.010-04:00

Looking at my planner from the past few weeks, I realized that I hadn't taken a Sabbath since the end of February. It's not that I have an insurmountable amount of work to do each week, but that I have some number of things to do everyday. There is always an email to respond to, a friend to remember and remember to contact, another friend to meet with and influence (harhar), a family member to call and catch up with, a spreadsheet to update, a topic to read up on, a study to start preparing, questions to answer, thoughts to chew on, things to learn and relearn, truths to be reminded of. There is always an hour to plan, a minute to fill, and a second to saturate with productivity. But in the midst of being, or at least appearing, busy, I often forfeit any shallow understanding that my worth isn't based on how much I can do and accomplish. I forget that my value isn't founded on how well I can control myself and my life. If that were the case, I would have self-destructed ten years or so ago. What defeat! How are we to respond to such defeated-ness? Well, we can admit that we have failed and accept it, its consequences, etc. with pride and some form of dignity, or we can admit our defeat and accept it, along with grace, in humility. Sometimes, I think that I would rather gain some victory in retaining my pride than admit that I am wholly defeated and in need of saving grace. How difficult it is to accept the grace that requires a declaration of our utter need for it.

2008-03-15T11:50:00.002-04:00

What have I to offer
But the brokenness within me?
What have I to give
But who I am, and don't want to be?
Clear my sight and help me see
That though I've nothing
You are enough for me.
Make me whole and help me know
That though I'm broken
Brokenness is not my foe.

Sharing life.

2008-03-02T06:59:00.003-05:00

We shared about our fears, our desires, and the things we want to change but don't know how to. We asked questions like, "Do you think Jesus told jokes?" and reminisced about good times, strange times, and foolish times. And like old times, we prayed, laughed, cried, and finally, we remembered how we keep forgetting to remember that God's love and sufficiency are unchanging. Most of all, we heard God speak to us through it all. That, I think, is what sharing life means.

Shelter.

2008-02-25T06:38:00.000-05:00

"In the arms of the good Father
You can go to the deep water
Where the questions we have left unspoken
Come out in the open
We will find shelter here

So I lay down what I cannot hold in my hands
Every sorrow and hope spinning out of control
And here I find sweet resolution comes in letting go
And we will find shelter here"

One unified reality.

2008-02-19T11:00:00.004-05:00

"When joy and pain are both opportunities to say "Yes" to our divine childhood, then they are more alike than they are different. When the experience of being awarded a prize and the experience of being found lacking in excellence both offer us a chance to claim our true identity as the "Beloved" of God, these experiences are more similar than they are different. When feeling lonely and feeling at home both hold a call to discover more fully who the God is whose children we are, these feelings are more united than they are distinct. When, finally, both living and dying bring us closer to the full realization of our spiritual selfhood, they are not the great opposites the world would have us believe; they are, instead, two sides of the same mystery of God's love. Living the spiritual life means living life as one unified reality."

Down with down!

2008-02-15T01:24:00.000-05:00

I decided to wash our white cushion covers today. First, a simple note about the color white and cushion covers. Putting the two together is like saying, "I believe that all stains are born with the freedom of visibility and should never be concealed without consent under any circumstance. I pledge myself to ensuring the most conducive environment for stains to be seen by all, by providing the optimal foreground-background contrast." Anyways, our covers needed a washing because they had become disgusting, naturally. As I was removing the covers, I realized goose feathers were flying out. Strange, I thought, these aren't down cushions. There must be an invisible goose with visible feathers trapped inside this cushion! Much to my dismay, there was no invisible goose, just a floor covered with feathers. It turns out that the cushions have a thin layer of down on the very top. It's a thin layer because most of the down is now on my floor. How those feathers escaped the cushion lining, I have no idea. Let this be a lesson to all! If you have down cushions, never ever take off the covers or you're doomed to be attacked by invisible geese!

"Only the inadequate are adequate."

2008-02-13T00:30:00.001-05:00

This is a quote from one of Tim Keller's sermons on the book of Mark. I had heard the talk for the first time about a month and a half ago, and I'm glad I got to hear it again. The context is Mark 6:30-44, which tells the story of Jesus having a "picnic" with well over five thousand men, women, and children. When his disciples suggest to send the crowd away so that they can find food for themselves, Jesus responds by saying, "You give them something to eat." Jesus tells the inadequate to do the impossible.

God never asks us to be sufficient. He never commands that we ought to be perfect. Yet all of our inadequacies, weaknesses, and shortcomings are not enough to keep us from being His beloved children. We are inadequate, I am inadequate, I know, but His grace covers you and me. Though the tasks set before me are impossible, I will still do the things You ask of me.

Our adequacy isn't in and of ourselves, but comes from the one who is and is our all. That's exciting, not only because I'm lacking, but because everyone is. No one is adequate, but by His grace, everyone is.

It's going to be a good one!

2008-02-09T01:08:00.000-05:00

Before I got home last Sunday, I had big plans (and every good intention to follow through with those big plans) to spend these few days doing "useful" things like reading, journaling, and pondering the important questions in life. But aside from successfully sleeping in, being a couch potato, and eating more gummy candies than my cavity-prone teeth can afford, I haven't done a whole lot. I will, however, say that I cooked up a pot of chicken vegetable soup (for the first time!), ushered in the new lunar year, and began my 24th year of existence! I know it's going to be a good year, not because of anything I have planned, but because of everything I don't have planned.

2008-02-05T10:22:00.001-05:00

2008-02-05T10:21:00.000-05:00