Monday, December 17, 2007

role models or heroes

12:17 PM | Posted by | | | Edit Post
i want to know what it means to be Christian.


Phooi Wah (she's the friend who came with me on that trip) said to me the other day, "I want to be spiritual, not religious,"

And I felt that, that really is so fundamentally true.


But... I don't know how to seperate being religious and being spritual in Christianity. It's like the two are married.


I don't read the Bible enough and you sure know, I go to Church as little as I read the Bible... So much for sprituality!

I've had Ms Moey and a friend tell me today that I can seek God and seek to be spritual in my own way and question what's being taught in Church, but I must always turn back to God's word...

However, perhaps my thinking is faulty, but i feel that if I followed that thought process and did seek God but always turned back to God's word... it would ultimately lead me to being a Religious Christian... the same mold as it was before... Because, I think that, Religious Christian is Spritual Christian...


I've not met any Spritual Christian in my life, you know... Somehow, they're always religious... Or, they might somehow start out spritual, like how Phooi Wah, actually, is very different... But it always really boils down to the same fundamentals of religiousness and beliefs and rites and dogma... things that I want to escape from...

It's not that I don't believe in those beliefs, I do, perhaps, actually, I believe in them too much and too strongly... But... actually... to stop beating around the bush... The crux of this constant turmoil that has been in my life since I was 14 is that: I want to live a life that I imagine yet have this life, though it's my dream, it is still serving unto the Lord... BUT... somehow, everyone I've talked to..... I don't think that is possible at all, IF i wanted to be a "true" Christian...

Many people have told me ways around it... Like, if I seeked God more, then I will find that my desires will conform to His will... Or that I would find myself wanting the things of God... Or that I can always serve God through how I live my life, no matter what I am doing... Or we can petition to God and we can serve God in whatever vocation we do...

It's just that, I can't see, how my desire to work in the music industry or to stay in Japan or whatever, which are so SOLIDLY MY desire and my love, can be what God wants... THAT is something I can never see jiving together. I always always always see my will as being MY desires and it CAN't be from God without lying to myself about it, without trying to cheat my way into thinking that it COULD be for God or serving unto God.

I can see FULLY that THAT is the life I WANT. And, I am adamant in wanting it, or wanting to want it even though God might be wanting something else for me... It's so much of that I don't think what i want is what God wants for me. I feel that it's such a selfish desire and such a singular personal desire that I don't think God's desire is in that equation at all or can be in that equation at all! without me deluding myself in some way that I can still be following God in all that...


I know if I seeked God, if I petitioned God about this...

It's not possible to have all those desires and to live that desire and STILL be a Spritual Christian.

If i wanted to be Christian, then it WOULD have to mean giving up what I WANT and following what GOD wants... and that means, giving up those dreams, because those dreams are in no way compatible with God or Godliness or Christianity or being a real true Christian..

-and i am torn-


I wish i can be like my friends... Just follow the money, follow the regular job and career, follow that well-prescribed life... then serve God in Church or be religious, read the bible pray everyday, go to Church every weekend... and everything will fall into place... and be such a great true Christian through it all...

It's just that my desires are not that simple, not that regular, not that easy to have and still have it jive with serving God in Church or being religious, or just be spritual by reading the bible pray everyday, go to Church every weekend...

AND... I think, it's not so easy, and it's not enough... because.... being a Christian is so, so, so much more that doesn't just call for service, or reading the bible and praying everyday, going to Church on Sunday, or serving in a church council, or being religious. Because, to be a true Christian means for me to die to myself, my desires, my dreams-- and for Christ to live in me-- THAT is what it means if you really really really want to be a true Christian.

And that is my fundamental Christian belief in what "Christian" means, and requires-- there's no way around it, or lie to yourself about it, or negotiate-- because if you go back to the word of God, you will see that requirement.

So where does my desire play in that? The two does not jive, Elaine, it will never jive-- You cannot seek one and still have the other. You cannot want one and still think you're faithful to the other. Because you can only serve one master in your life.


I want to be a someone who knows in my heart of heart that I believe in God and in Christ and I believe the love of God, and I believe in loving others and serving others, and in serving God and showing and giving the love of God to others... But that's not being a Christian, not a totally real true Christian anyway...

I think my friends got the one thing right though, I think that through it all... they're happy with where they're at... somehow, they seeked God the right away and it has led them there, to where they're happy...

I want to be happy, God, and to be content.. I don't even know if dreaming what I dream would get me there.. I just want to be happy...

It is terrible to be born with dreams and be born with a belief in those dreams. It's better to just let dreams be dreams and believe that dreams will always be dreams and just get on with life... It's much simpler that way, much easier.



"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

"but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you."
Jeremiah 7:23

"But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
Luke 12:31

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Philippians 1:21
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Saturday, December 15, 2007

「夢から覚めるにはまだ早い」

11:06 PM | Posted by | | | Edit Post
So.... Today is the last day.... I remember on the last night back in June when I was in Japan, I was in Tsuyoshi`s room and I really felt that night that it was really the end of a dream.... Of course the trip at that time, especially since Tokyo and Lunkhead came towards the end of the trip, I was really still warped in a daze of a dream come true the last night i was there.... And I really felt, that night in his room, how much when tomorrow comes and the sun rises, the dream was over....

Today, I was out shopping with Mayuko when Angeline smsed me and announced that the Holiday is over and it`s time to come back to the world...

But you know........... yeah, the holiday is over but you know, but I will still keep on believing in the dream....

SURE, some might say it`s high time to WAKE UP and FACE REALITY, but I don`t think I will stop believing in the dream...

You know WHY?

Because it was the belief in that dream that I am here right now, in Japan, writing this, and living that dream come true.

If you don`t dream, if you don`t believe in the dream, and if you don`t chase after that dream as ellusive and illusive as it may be... you`re never gonna have any dream come true, you know what I mean?


I really came this trip because of Lunkhead... This was totally a finacially and illogical trip to have taken, but I`m glad I came anyway-- I`m really glad that the waves of Tsuki to Tenohira brought me this far... I`m glad, I`m glad...


When I was at the Lunkhead live last Sunday, I really felt it was really really really really gonna be the last Lunkhead Live I`d see.... I don`t want to talk about the future, and I fear to plan or expect ahead, but, I might well REALLY be the last time I`d EVER see Lunkhead....

But you know.... for all that is said and done, perhaps I want to hold on to that tonight... Not because I think I`d ever have a chance to come back here again... But it gives me strength to want to keep believing in dreams, and believing in dreaming...

As Yoshitaro said that night in the live:

「終わりじゃなくって、はじまり」
Owarijanakutte, hajimari...
This is not the end, it`s the begining...

Yeah....

「夢から覚めるにはまだ早い」

Yume kara sameru niwa mada hayai..


Perhaps... hey, it`s still too early to wake up from the dream... It`s still too early to give up on believing...
You know... for someone as PESSIMISTIC and unbelieving in the goodness of life as I am.. I seem to always have dreams come true haha... Thanks God, You`re still and ALWAYS the best :)




TOKYO SKY


I was walking with Akio at Kamo River in Kyoto yesterday and while we were standing there beside the river in the frigid air of the cold night, there was this live band playing this really beautiful song...
The atmosphere was just simply beautiful.. The melodies of this song straying into the cold night along this timeless river against the glittering lights of this ancient city... it was beautiful...

I managed to buy the CD of the band... so here`s the song :)

Please check it out... the song`s really beautiful :)
LAST NOTE:
SUPER THANKS TO!
TSUYOSHI AND FAMILY! without which NEITHER of the dream would have happened!
MAYUKO! FOR ALL THE PLANNING AND HELPING
PHOOI WAH! ENNNNNNNNDLESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SUPPORT in more ways than one! ;)
DAD------------------------ supplementary..... support hahahaha..
EVERYONE ELSE who have been so great!! CheeWoh PHONE DUDE even if it`s motorola hahaha...
and of course...
LUNKHEAD.... thanks for giving me a dream to reach out for and one to hold close in my heart... :) and most of all... thank you for the music that fuelled those dreams to begin with... <3<3<3
and most Definitely...
GOD--- for ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS 本当にいつもいつも giving me a chance and always always always being so GREAT to me when I absolutely NEVER deserve it... Thank You for always letting my dreams come true ALWAYS :)
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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

JPN

12:35 AM | Posted by | | | Edit Post
「夢から覚めるにはまだ早い」
 
I was looking through some papers from my first trip to Japan to look for Rie's number, and I was thinking... about Japan.
 
"masih dijajah," as someone once told me. Perhaps.
 
My perception of Japan is still clouded under a much hazy glow, like an unclear dream, but a dream and an idealized perspective nonetheless.
 
When I think about Japan, I still do think about the little quirks and the little things in my memory that I saw there that captured me. So perhaps, after seeing the Japan I saw, I still only really have good memories of the place. It's still the good, weird, different, facinating things that I saw that I liked that frames how I view Japan.
 
Like many (and I mean MANYYYYYYYYYYYY much to Asuka's horror), I got to know things japanese through Anime (oh i am so sorry Asuka, but that's the reality of the world outside japan: Anime is cool!). But I suppose, it was the culture or the perceived beauty of their cultural heritage that first captured me. I remember the very first thing that captured me about Japan that made me like fall idealically in-love with this absolutely unknown place to me was the feeling I felt when I watched BOA's My Will ending theme song on Inuyasha; it was of the red spider flower and the lights of the ferris wheel refected on the water...
 
 Now that I have seen Japan, well, their past and their history and their culture still intrigue me, and I'm still facinated by it (especially Shintoism and its symbolisms)...  But I like the place for many other things, you know, especially how it's very different-- how Japan is a quirk of its own-- and it's these little things that still paints for me this idealized perception.
 
I will never understand how they think (haha!) but the things I like about Japan are like how there's just this bombardment and myriad of things swirlling around. There are a thousand things confined in a one-inch space, roads don't make sense swirlling between houses that are packed like sardines in a can then suddenly out of nowhere, there's a nice lil cherry tree with a string of vending machines lining the corridors. I like how Japan is this streaming boom of technology but yet, culture and heritage, and the oldness of the past permeates through their conciousness. I like how japan, and perhaps the Japanese, is this coagulation of a thousand conflicting and harmonious things that just flows in as... well, Japan. It's like, things there just look so foreignly familliar. So global yet uniquely Japanese and only Japanese. It's like every other country you go to, you will recognize famillair things or brands or whatever, but Japan itself, you think you kinda know the thing but dude, the product or the thing is just so... Japanese.
 
It's like... How i feel about Japan still has that idealized glow that My Will ending made me feel, except now it's touched and rubbed through with these other things that I experienced there and saw there... And on the flipside is that, everything I saw there or experience there is, in itself, also rubbed through and touched with this idealized glow and feeling.
 
Everything else before stands, but something else has come in-- and they just mix together and reinforces the other to form this perception and feeling that I have of Japan.
 
In many ways, the things that draws me to this country has changed and is changing and perhaps has faded or morphed-- I don't think I'm like all crazy over Japan like I know some friends are-- There are many realities of Japan that I don't like, or don't think I'd ever get used to--You have to understand that this was a country that was CLOSED to the outside world for hundreds and hundreds of years till the very end of the 19th Century. In many many ways more than many other modern developed countries, history and cultural religious beliefs are very much integral in Japan and the Japanese. 
I think that the Japanese and Japan are just too different for you to ever feel like you entirely belong, or to even feel entirely comfortable, I think. (That's why it felt so great to feel in that one moment standing there in the concert that you belonged to this group of fans as we sang together from our different worlds under the banner of the same song). But I don't think it's any fault of theirs, of course. It's just that, to be Japanese is to require you to be born into the conciouness of a being a pure Japanese-- to be born into the history and culture and belief and teaching and flow that every pure Japanese inherits from Japan's cultural, religious and historical past.. -- And I think that unless you are a pure Japanese, you will never truly understand that..
I don't mean that in offense to people who aren't "pure" Japanese-- But it's a culture entirely very, very unique and distinct in it's thinking. I never really use the term "conciousness (of a collective)" for any country's people, because it rarely applies that a single country has a singular conciousness-- but Japan is that exception.
 
I don't know... I guess knowing that-- you just have to view Japan idealistically! hahaha... U might be a lil dissapointed, or feel outcast or bewildered, if you didn't look at Japan in an idealized light! ;)
 

I don't know. In many ways, I've not seen much of Japan at all. I would love to travel to other places like Kamakura and Nikko (?) and especially the coastal towns and perhaps up to Hokkaido (IN SUMMER OF COURSE haha). I wish to visit more.... tourist places haha! Yet, at the same time I would love to stay longer, especially, or go to other lesser-known Japan places that are more well, Japanese... Or at least, more Japan, more representative of the essense of the idealized Japan that you see in Jdrama haha!
 
But I think, I do like my experiences of Japan. Of getting semi lost, of all the "huh?", of all the "wow!", of all the rusa masuk kampung... I guess, it's just, I don't know where my experience stand-- it's neither like experiecing it like a "native" (Honey, if u ain't japanese, I think u will NEVER experience Japan as a native), nor has it been a tourist experience... It's just caught between the two.. A lil of both.
 
I'm glad I got to travel on my own, I'm glad (and thank you to all) I got to stay with locals with them and with their families, I'm very very happy I got to stay and visit Japan "suburbs" (all those Ranma's scenes haha!), I'm glad I got to deal with their higly "huh??" subway/train/local train/bullet train systems, I'm GLAD I GOT TO GO FOR CONCERTS IN JAPAN!!!--- that one of course, it's a whole experience in its own being together in part of something special with all these people you can't even speak the same language with! haha!, I'm glad I got to the the countryside of Japan and not just the cities, I'm glad I got to see Kyoto, I'm glad I got to see Tokyo, I'm glad I got to see their kombini hahaha! (ahhhhhh especially Yoshitaro outside them kombini!)...
 
A myriad of things, yes.

I don't know.
 
I guess.. I still don't quite know why Japan captures me.
 
No, Asuka, thankfully, it's not because of the anime.
 
And, i suppose, it's not even the music (although I'd kill to have a chance to live in Tokyo for the next few months just to go for Lunkhead shows every weekend hahaha!).
 
I don't know what it is that captures me-- except for those hazy glow of memories and expectations and images that blurs between what I saw and experienced and what I've watched on TV and read in books. It's a lil of the the things I saw, the things I imagine and the things I believe about Japan and the Japanese.
 
And as Yoshitaro sang in the line i quoted at the begining of this 'email', "It's still early to wake from (this) dream.."
 
Well, Yoshitaro, we'll see how that goes.
 
Elaine
-I've got tunnel vision and I'm doing fine-
 

--
"but eventually, they must push forward because so much awaits them."

Love is just an abstract concept. It can't knock down stuff.

http://goodbyetracy.blogspot.com
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