Of mote and beam

Luke 6:40-41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own. Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.

This passage has stayed with me since the Friday before the last. I still can remember the phrase clearly in my ears, 'always remember that when you can see the mote in someone else's eyes, there is a beam in your own'. Clearly, this is not to mean that we are being ignorant and accommodating of what is wrong; but before I become quick to judge, I clearly need to examine myself. People are placed around us so that we can see ourselves as we truly are: 'Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.'

I was reading a passage written by Oswald Chambers and he puts it across so beautifully: "Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly."

Left hanging

Chasing a dream, or what I thought it was

Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

Prague has always been a place that I'd wanted to visit since I was young. Having read up on its beauty with all the Bohemia architectures, it was one of the places, along with Iceland, that I told myself to visit while studying in the UK. This summer I had the opportunity to visit the place with some of my housemates-to-be. A dream come true? Perhaps. Maybe not.

Sometimes, we chase after dreams not knowing that what we are seeking is not reality but merely a erroneous perception. I guess my visit to Prague was pretty much like this. Prague is without a doubt, a really beautiful place. But I felt that so much of it has been commercialised; I was greeted with hordes of tourists and touristy gimmicks. If you are looking for a quiet escape, I really don't think it's the place to visit. But if you don't mind the army of tourists, it still is a nice place to go to, especially if you love those Gothic buildings.

On a side note, I suppose it is good to really know what we are striving for in life. What a shame if what we work towards is nothing like what we'd thought in reality. But then again, few things in life are ever certain.

A $28 Tragedy

The beauty of sandy beach with crystal clear water teeming with marine life made me head back to Tioman for the past few days. The last time I went there, I used my dslr with a dicapac underwater casing for my snorkelling trips but it was not to my liking so I decided to try something else this time. Somehow I ended up with a $28 film camera with underwater casing. All I can say is that it was a tragedy with leakage on the first trip and the underwater casing becoming totally useless once I got back to shore. I can only hope that the shots that I'd taken prior to that could be salvaged and the same goes for the land shots. It is rather sad when you somewhat know that there is a high possibility that the photos developed will be quite bad even before you do it! Nonetheless, it was a good experience shooting with film. Tioman again? Why not!

In Remembrance of Iceland

Being in Iceland was such an inspiring and profound experience. I miss its vast landscape and the sense of awe that stayed with me as my eyes feasted on the beauty of it all: geysers, waterfall, volcanoes, lava fields and glaciers etc. Arvo Part's composition of My Heart is in the Highlands probably captures the mood as one looks back at the memory of the place. There is so much to be discovered of the place and I will most probably be back again. In remembrance of Iceland, I have uploaded a (really) few photos that I took while I was there. You can view them here.

Sölheimajökull Glacier

A free man

"We are not fundamentally free; external circumstances are not in our hands, they are in God’s hands, the one thing in which we are free is in our personal relationship to God. We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be."  Conformed to His Image, Oswald Chambers

Litany

This is an English translation of St. John Chrysostum's 24 prayers that Arvo Part used for his composition - something that I had only discovered recently and am enjoying listening to: Litany

O Lord, of Thy heavenly bounties deprive me not.

O Lord, deliver me from the eternal torments.

O Lord, forgive me if I have sinned in my mind or my thought, whether in word or in deed.

O Lord, free me from all ignorance and forgetfulness, from despondency and stony insensibility.

O Lord, deliver me from every temptation.

O Lord, enlighten my heart which evil desires have darkened.

O Lord, as a man I have sinned, have though mercy on me, as the God full of compasion, seeing the feebleness of my soul.

O Lord, send down Thy grace to help me, that I may glorify Thy name.

O Lord Jesus Christ, write me down in the book of life and grant unto me a good end.

O Lord my God, even if I had not done anything good before Thee, do Thou help me, in Thy grace, to make a good beginning.

O Lord, sprinkle into my heart the dew of Thy grace.

O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, Thy sinful servant, full of shame and imurity, in Thy kingdom. Amen

O Lord, receive me in my penitence.

O Lord, forsake me not.

O Lord, lead me not into misfortune.

O Lord, quicken in me a good thought.

O Lord, give me tears and remembrance of death, and contrition.

O Lord, make me solicitous of confessing my sins.

O Lord, give me humility, chastity and obedience.

O Lord, give me patience, magnanimity and meekness.

O Lord, implant in me the root of all good - Thy fear in my heart.

O Lord, vouch safe that I may love Thee from all my soul and mind and in everything do Thy will.

O Lord, shelter me from certain men, from demons and passions, and from any other unbecoming thing.

O Lord, Thou knowest that Thou dost as Thy willest, let then Thy will be done in me, sinner, for blessed art Thou unto the ages. Amen.

Familiarity

A familiar pathway and sight

I got back to the tiny sunny (scorching) island a few days back and have surprisingly adjusted back to the environment fairly quickly. It was not too long ago when I was talking with my friends about how we will face trouble getting used to the heat, the crowd, and the mannerism of the people here. It seems that having  lived on this soil for more than two decades made the transition easier than expected. Hopefully I will be able to make good use of the time I have during this summer break in this concrete jungle.

On a side note, the passing of time and season amidst the familiar sights have brought to remembrance this particular passage that I studied many years back by 晏殊 titled 《浣溪沙》：
一曲新词酒一杯，去年天气旧亭台，夕阳西下几时回？ 无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来，小园香径独徘徊。

Visions become Reality

"We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.

Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And battered by the shocks of doom,
To shape and use.
Arise and fly.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.

The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it." Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest