"Sometimes I feel so alone."

A feeling that I can say I haven't felt much of, or at least since I've really committed myself to my church community and felt closer to God. But I realize it's something a lot of people feel, some so very often. I saw a picture someone drew that said "Sometimes I feel so alone" and a lot of the comments people wrote said, "Me too" or along those lines. Also expressed in those comments was a sense of hopelessness, like there wasn't much that could be done about it. And when I talk to different people and different friends, I see it's such a common experience.

A kind of inexplicable feeling. One that gets you right in the chest and can hit you whenever, even as you're surrounded by people. A feeling that quickly seeps into every part of yourself, makes you so utterly discontent with life for no good reason. And you're grasping for something within yourself, just something to hold onto, because you feel like you're sinking or drowning or falling. Somehow you feel completely detached from everything that is going on around you. A feeling that makes you want to cry but you don't because crying, too, seems so impossibly pointless and possibly make you feel so much emptier. A feeling that makes everything so meaningless, drains all desire to do much of anything.

Empty and hollow and unsatisfied, unfulfilled... alone.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

Romans 8:38-39, Isaiah 41:10

For Whom It May Concern,

I find it hard to love you.

Oh sure, smiling when I see you and hugging you affectionately are fine and dandy. Want to talk for hours the night before my essay's due? How about give you advice, promise to be there for you, tell you you're special? Sure, no problem. Tell me to jump, I won't even ask how high, I'll jump as high as I can before you even finish that sentence.

But how about when I have to tell you you're not so special after all? What if I can't promise to be there for you, because I do have to be at work right now and my boss won't let me off to help you? What if the advice you need to hear is not the advice you want to hear, the advice you have been overbearingly been told by everyone and you just don't want to hear it from me, please, but I've got to tell you anyway because you aren't listening. What if all I have to offer are smiles and hugs but nothing much more to change the reality of everything?

What happens when what I have to tell you might make you despise me?

Do I have enough love to bear your hate?

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

1 John 4:18

F.Y.I. This is written to no one in particular, so don't ask me if I have a BF or anything.
Seriously people, there is more love out there than just romantic love.

Fishers

I saw a homeless person sitting in the Asian Ghetto, eating out a of to-go plastic tray with his hands. At first I was repulsed. Surely his hands are dirty, I thought. That's going to make him sick. I wondered why he didn't grab utensils with his meal or, if he got it from someone else, why there wasn't utensils with it.

Then I thought, he looked... not lonely, but alone? If that makes any sense. He just sat eating. No one gave him much mind. People didn't avoid him or approach him. He just sat. Just sat and ate, every once in a while wiping his hand on his blue, worn jeans after having shoveled a small hand-full of food (was it rice?) into his mouth. I thought of my Global Poverty class, and strove not to criminalize his existence, to blame his homelessness on imagined-laziness. No, he was just another guy who fell through the cracks, unnoticed and unseen, silently fading into the background of our lives.

At a loss of what to do, I just prayed. Somehow for him to know that he wasn't alone. That there was hope. I didn't have the gall to just sit beside him and ask him how he was, reminding me again of my sinful self, again that I lacked that perfect love Apostle Paul claimed drove out all fear.* Although I could not love that man enough, I knew God does. Although my prayer was small, I know God's heart is big.

I knew that, one day, there will be no more crying, no more pain, no more mourning. That God will wipe every tear from our eyes.** I don't know how my little action of noticing him changed anything, but somehow, I knew God would use that. God works, even when I do not, cannot, even when I choose not to.

I wonder how God will use this man to change the world.

*1 John 4:18
**Revelation 21:4

Signs

"Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

words of the Teacher, son of David

Study, Work, Read, Pay, Buy, Go, Stay, Clean, Call, Plan, Talk, Meet, Write, Finish, Start, Move, Drive, Cook, Prepare, Blah Blah Etc. Etc.

There's Always So Much To Be Done.

'I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.'

'"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."'

Easter Sunday

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty.

I'm often discouraged and find myself
suffocated by my sins and shortcomings.
But one day in heaven,
perfect love will overcome all my laziness and fears
and the Lord will reveal His hand in my life.

He has overcome the grave.
All things are made new.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things have passed away."

Good Friday [1 minute late]

an amazing, amazing love.

As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

A Reminder

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

Hinges Straining from the Weight

"Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself."

I can't help but think that you know now how God feels. To give all you have to receive little to nothing in return. Oh, the pains of unrequited love.

Luckily for us, His love never runs dry. Overflowing, generous, overwhelming, fulfilling, ever-abundant, satisfying love.

How little we have to offer in return.

Look!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zengography/190092624/

I read somewhere that whenever someone asked Mother Teresa how it was like, doing what she does, she would say to them, "Come and see."

Are we afraid to go because it would take too much effort?

Or are we afraid of what we might find and realize we can ignore no longer?

Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

"Come," he replied, "and you will see."

Laundry Day

Do you ever wonder about the consequences of your seemingly meaningless actions? Ever wonder how the world would be different if you hadn't got out of class a little late, putting you in the moment and position to be asked directions from a guy who, otherwise, would have not arrived at this destination on time and not have met the people he met on the way there? How did he influence them? How did you influence him? How did he influence you? How had your getting out late of class trigger a series of events that led to... And what factors and events led up to your professor keeping you in class a little longer?

In middle school (and I think early high school), every time I signed off from AIM, I would type "God bless!" and "good night!" to almost everyone on my buddylist, even if I wasn't chatting with them at the moment. Years later, in my first year of college, I met Wils again at my Berkeley church by chance. We haven't seen each other or talked for four, five years. He asked me if he remembered that one time, long ago, when I told him "God bless!" that one night, randomly. Of course, I really didn't. Perhaps, just a little but vaguely. After all, I told everyone that nearly every night for a year or so. I couldn't really recall which people I typed that to. He said that he had happened to have a really crappy day and was feeling really down. And, somehow, randomly, I had typed him a "God bless!" He said that it had completely made his day. He said that it had made him feel totally better. He still remembered. He said thank you.

Do you ever wonder how that one kind action, that one mean word impacted the people around you? Do you ever wonder how it transformed people's thoughts and lives? What do you think might have occurred as a result of that one day when you decided you were too tired to give a sh*t about anything and, thus, said and did things that you normally would never do. How did that negatively affect the world?

So many say they want to live lives of significance, of purpose. They want to change the world; they want to leave behind legacies. They want to look back at their lives on their deathbeds and think, wow, look at what I've done! Look at how much I helped the world. Does it ever occur to them that, perhaps, changing the world only takes one little push? Do they know that just a smile to the bus driver, a gentle "good morning" to the bum on the street, a second to stop and give directions to a wary traveler, an extra dollar left for tip, and an offhand word of praise to a co-worker could change the way the world turns?

Do you ever wonder how much good and bad consequences may have resulted from your smallest, most thoughtless actions?

I do. It drives me insane.

"And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children."

He looked at him and loved him.

"The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you - O Absalom, my son, my son!""

You are not a Good Person

"What is your source of Significance?"

A short, Korean man stands on the stage of the middle school auditorium. Filled with college students, the room sat quietly, listening attentively to, ironically, a Kim JongIl look-alike. He pushes his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. He asks again. "What is your source of Significance? Beauty? Intellect? Your achievements, maybe. The approval of others. Are these what make you important?"

People shift in their seats.

"In our hearts, we divide the world into losers and winners. Then we try, desperately, to be one of the winners, according to our own strict and self-imposed definition. And when we fail to be one of the winners, we struggle to reestablish our significance, to feel relatively superior. We are driven by fear of being the loser." He takes a sip of water from his bottle and puts it back down.

"Have you ever failed in life?" he asks. Somehow, he, in all his white-collar-shirt-blue-jeans-glory, has enraptured them. "If you have not failed before, you are a coward. Fail and fail early in life.

"How frightening it is when your source of Significance is on the line. Your desire to cover up your insecurity causes so much pain, so much struggle. But such insecurity," he asserts, "is wickedness. It's greediness.

"Do not seek positive self-esteem. Do not try to feel good about yourself. As C.S. Lewis says, 'You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.' You do not eat to poop. You cannot gain significance by trying to gain significance. We need to acknowledge our faults, our imperfections. There is something so satisfying about not having to feeling good about ourselves. By trying always to raise your self-esteem, to cover your insecurity, you suffer and only feel dissatisfaction.

"Such goals are blasphemous rejections of God's Love for you." He looks out into the crowd, directly at their faces. "You're saying that His Love, His gifts for you mean nothing to you. A woman strives to make herself look beautiful with cosmetics and clothes. She suffers to appear beautiful. Her husband, observing his wife, tells her, 'Why must you do all this? I love you either way. Is my love not enough for you?' She looks at her husband and, after a silent moment, replies, 'You do not understand. This is important to me. You do not understand what this means to me.' Is this not a sad picture?

"What is your source of Significance?" He comes, now, to his conclusion. "Our source of significance comes from God. God raised us, the poor and weak, to be princes and princesses. Royalty do not have to do anything to be important. They simply are, through birth. We simply are important because God has made us so.

"Every little thing we do, He will see. Jesus says that we are the Salt of the world, the light on top of the hill. Prayer changes the world, so pray! Here is where our significance lies."

Every little thing we do in His Name has the power to change, to influence. God offers unconditional, pure, and unearned love. We do not have to do anything to be important, to be loved. In God, we simply are, we simply belong.

You are not a good person. But it's okay. You are still loved; you still will be loved; you have been cared for, despite everything you've done, despite your short-comings.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."
John 15:9-11

+ much of the words are paraphrased. Not his exact words.

Charismatic Matthew

Frustrating.

I'm taking longer than I thought I would to get used to the new church. I realized that this is a common pattern for me. When I attend a new church, it takes me quite a while to integrate, to let go and be myself. In service, my mind is always on my previous church, comparing things, worrying about things, etc. I'm just not completely comfortable.

Getting used to college was easy. Getting used to dorm-life was easy. Getting used to new people, a little hard, but still, just took some days to get accustomed to. Church, however, is still difficult. Perhaps because I still haven't gone to church enough. After all, I spend everyday with new people, dorm-life, and college. Church is once a week (not counting Friday Bible Study and Wednesday Fellowship) and I have only been with them two weeks or so. But I can feel that it will take me a while. I just hope it won't take too long. It's frustrating when I can't be myself around such kind and open people.
+(Pastor Ed Kang's messages are quite powerful. He's funny and engaging and his messages really echo in my head. Especially this statement: "If you're not excited about the Gospel, you do not understand it.")

But what is especially frustrating is my poli sci professor. Today, he talked about charismatic authority, authority which derives its power from charismatic leaders. Examples: Mao Zedong, Lenin, Adolf Hitler. Then, he stated the example of Jesus Christ.

Which I can understand, really. He is a charismatic leader; His Words brought by followers who then spread it, bringing a sort of revolution to Europe and eventually the world.

However, the way he pointed it out, the tone he used was laced with sarcasm, disbelief, and almost a bit of pompous arrogance. I just wished he used a little more tact, more respect, at least TRIED to acknowledge the fact that maybe, just maybe, among the 500 or so students in the lecture hall, there were a few Christians who might be offended. He also took Bible verses out of context, making it seem that Jesus sought to break down family ties and values, as many charismatic leaders in history have done. (which really is not the case. True, the Bible does say:
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw, a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." But He was refering to the fact that when you believe in Jesus, sometimes, you will find yourself in conflict with your family, with the people closest to you will not support your choice to follow God. He's not saying you have to go turn in your parents to the Nazi police for being Jewish (to site a specific example); He's saying that Christianity is something you do not take lightly. Your faith has to be strong to weather any type of storm or trial; it has to be stronger than any family tie.) It's frustrating to a point where I'm getting angry and upset, even tearing up at the thought. I try so hard everyday to be the best person I can be as a Christian so people do not judge us by bias. You wouldn't call every Muslim a terrorist, every Jew a penny-pincher, every Mormon a polygamist. So why has society deemed it okay to label every Christian as a homophobe, an ignorant and blind fool, and a hypocrite?

It's frustrating because so many people don't realize they have this double-standard. I had thought my professor, as an intellectual, would have more decency and respect for others' beliefs.


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