CXLV - my friend with the heart of gold

dl, ahead on our way
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZPyBvuXPk

i once had a friend. his name was daniel.

i could not... put in words, what i thought of him.

his is the first great tragedy in my life; it may be the greatest, and the most tragic.

i unexpectedly found an email from him. perhaps he might mind me publishing these emails now. but he cannot protest. and i suspect he wouldn't.

Daniel Leung 

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18/8/2011

Well i've been finding it hard to understand how i'm feeling too sometimes. Definitely blessed to hear what you said. Havent got down to reading the sermon tho.

Hit you again as things come

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Ian Ho 

16/8/2011

yo, island of dreams

i don't really know how you feel and i can't say much to reassure you, but i guess that's not why you're writing to me either. 

basically, this is how i feel. i didn't think you were too strong in your opinion or in your speaking. in fact i think it's important that we think through things robustly and rigorously, and if there's a bit of feeling, then all the better for it. i don't believe you've been un-christlike, and i don't think anyone should apologise for being honest. in many ways, the truth speaks for itself, but i also do believe that the Word speaks for itself, i.e. that it often doesn't need us (i'm understating this point for comic effect, humour me).

as to humility, very often it finds us rather then we find it, i feel. often times i feel that a humble person is really simply a reserved, disingenuous person. but that's just me, i am suspicious of people who wear the humble mask.

i am as much on a journey to find true humility as you are. if i stumble and bash across the way, i make no apologies for it. i try to be humble as Christ was humble, and i try to be passionate as Christ was passionate.

here, i recently read some john wesley. see if you have the patience to go through his preface.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.iv.html

see especially paras 8-10 of the first part.

ian

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Daniel Leung 

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16/8/2011

Hey Ian,

So i've been reflecting on the things i've told you about God, especially since this recent time of suffering. I've apologized for sometimes dumping my thoughts on you? thanks for taking it. 

but it's not just that. i've been reflecting further on, well further back things. y'know on how i think a lot churches are wrong and i've been saying a lot of challenging things? Well through this time, as i've been reading and praying about things i can see further that my approach to these things has not been very good either. I mean I still hold that God has very different plans from what most Churches teach right now, but I feel in many respects my approach to dealing with the differences has not been Christ-like. and you're one of the people who had been experiencing my un-Christ like approach to dealing with it? I mean looking back there are a lot of ways I've dealt with it badly. Like i definitely know i've been a lot less loving and merciful than i should have been. And that my life still had a lot of work to be done, much that is much more obvious now. and in that light i think i've said some things i should not have said?

I can't say I've got it down now of course, I'm still learning. but I wanted to apologize to you that it and pray that God would have guided you through my mistakes. 

Heh I've also been learning about my imperfections of course. I'll not be perfect (in some senses) here but i do want to apologize for things i do wrong too. and be humble about it

yeah, so. also thankful that you're like 'no it's ok!' and have been here to visit and talk with me.

oh and so like the thing about fasting. i've never really meditated much on fasting so i''ve just throwing back ideas that i do meditate on as you tell me about it, praying that God speaks to you through it too.

Yupz

DanieL

(i hope that made sense)

i have often said that keeping things in one's memory is best. but there is my friend, dl. RIP, brother.

CXLIV - making the rounds

i had a moment of halcyon (what a word! i sooo love thesaurus.com) reflection today. as i made my round around bedok reservoir, the sky was grey and calm, the trees were full and swaying, and there was quiet all around. the kind of gentle quiet that makes things slow down, so that softer sounds stir. leaves fell to the ground as they always have, buffeted and caroused by playful breezes, interrupted only by the implausible combination of uncommon luck and a nimble hand. as i ran i thought, if only running could solve everything. so i wished that forever i could run through these trees.

restfully seated on a bench, i thought, man, i'm plateauing. i don't think i've become better in any way since i've been twenty-four. the past two years have meant nothing to me as a person. i usually look back at passing years in my life and can pick out phases of growing up, of learning. i mostly feel that i have things to better myself at. but i can't say that of the past two years, and whether it might not be the same way going forward.

i feel that i've become less strong. physically, yes; but i don't begrudge that. more importantly, i feel that there are some parts of my psyche that are less resilient, less robust, less self-sufficient. like the difference between naked snake and old snake. i feel more keenly what it is to be alone. i worry more about things which i would previously have laughed at myself for worrying about, even relatively important things; or at least, i take longer to laugh at myself lately. i feel the dim and dusk of evenings, that great affliction of mine, more severely; the pallor that that witchful hour casts on me weighs more gloomily, more seriously, more ponderously. if i am not cheerful, i am morose. i wish for... things, and times. i feel... vapid. like my adventures are over. like peter pan without never never land.

if this observation is correct, there are at least two conclusions i ought to draw. one is that i don't think there's anything left for me to learn or that is worth learning. i leave you to consider how wide this latter limb might be; it is entirely possible that i am right. [note that by "learn" i mean, to become better at]. two is that my willpower to learn has become too low. in other words, i'm tired of this phase.

there's always a way out. i know that. i know that i can rid myself of this passivity, this sluggishness.

but for so long, all i have had is this process. this god damn process. all the things that i am is due in part to this fucking process. this waiting, watching, thinking, and learning.

and where would i go? is there a world more free? and what then of the meaning of this struggle?

someday, i'll be twenty-seven. and so on. maybe there are no answers, only perspectives.

but i insist that is it better to be me than to be something else. i insist. so let not this cup be taken from me.