DeLiCiOuS aMbIGuItY

23

2009-11-28T15:45:00.004+08:00

Perpisahan Paulus dengan para penatua di Efesus:

"Kamu tahu, bagaimana aku hidup di antara kamu sejak hari pertama aku tiba di Asia ini: dengan segala rendah hati kau melayani Tuhan. Dalam pelayanan itu aku banyak mencucurkan air mata dan banyak mengalami percubaan dari pihak orang Yahudi yang mahu membunuh aku. Sungguhpun demikian aku tidak pernah melalaikan apa yang berguna bagi kamu. Semua kuberitakan dan kuajarkan kepada kamu, baik di muka umum mahupun dalam perkumpulan-perkumpulan di rumah kamu; aku senantiasa bersaksi kepada orang-orang Yahudi dan orang-orang Yunani, supaya mereka bertaubat kepada Allah dan percaya kepada Tuhan kita, Yesus Kristus. Tetapi sekarang sebagai tawanan Roh aku pergi ke Yerusalem dan aku tidak tahu apa yang akan terjadi atas diriku di situ selain daripada yang dinyatakan Roh Kudus dari kota ke kota kepadaku, bahwa penjara dan sengsara menunggu aku. Tetapi aku tidak menghiraukan nyawaku sedikit pun, asal saja aku dapat mencapai garis akhir dan menyelesaikan pelayanan yang ditugaskan oleh Tuhan Yesus kepadaku untuk memberi kesaksian tentang Injil kasih kurnia Tuhan. Dan sekarang aku tahu, bahwa kamu tidak akan melihat mukaku lagi, kamu sekalian yang telah kukunjungi untuk memberitakan Kerajaan Allah. Sebab itu pada hari ini aku bersaksi kepadamu, bahwa aku bersih, tidak bersalah terhadap siapa pun yang akan binasa. Sebab aku tidak lalai memberitakn seluruh maksud Allah kepadamu."

Kisah Para Rasul, Fasal 20, Ayat 18-26.

Tahun lepas ini, saya semakin memahami apakah tujuan hidup manusia. Walaupun alam dan anak-anak manusia masih dibelenggu oleh kesusahan dan keperitan hidup, pengikut-pengikut Kristus tetap boleh memuji dan meninggikan nama Tuhan kerana kesedihan yang paling jahanam, iaitu perpisahan manusia dari Tuhan, telah dimusnahkah oleh kebesaran dan kasih sayang Juruselamat kita. Dosa akibat penyelewengan Adam dan Hawa telah ditanggung oleh Domba Tuhan, membolehkan kita memanggil Allah sebagai Bapa. Seperti yang diserukan oleh Yesaya: "Tetapi sesungguhnya, penyakit kitalah yang ditanggungnya, dan kesengsaraan kita yang dipikulnya, padahal kita mengira dia kena tulah, dipukul dan ditindas Allah. Tetapi dia tertikam oleh kerana pemberontakan kita, dia diremukkan oleh kerana kejahatan kita". Inilah Jalan Benar, kebenaran hidup manusia: iman yang mengaku keagungan dan ketuhanan Yesus Kristus, Juruselamat kita - tanpa dosa, tetapi dijadikan sebagai pengganti untuk dosa kita. Tujuan hidup penganut adalah untuk membawa Injil ini dan menyebarkannya ke seluruh dunia, dari puncak yang tertinggi sampai ke lembah yang terendah, tak mengira status sosial, kekayaan, taraf pengajian, kaum ataupun bangsa. Dan keseberan dan pembicaraan Tuhan mestilah dilakukan dengan semangat yang tabah, berani dan berkobar untuk Yesus. Berterima kasih lah kepada Roh Kudus yang memberi kita kekuatan sebegitu. Semoga hidup saya akan mencontohi hidup Paulus, yang tetap kuat dalam Firman Tuhan walaupun telah melalui pelbagai jenis percubaan dan penindasan. Para rasul yang diceritakan dalah Alkitab memahami maksud benar kehidupan dan kematian: "Barangsiapa mempertahankan nyawaya, ia akan kehilangan nyawaya, dan barangsiapa kehilangan nyawaya kerana Aku, ia akan memperolehnya".

feels like home

2009-11-09T18:08:00.002+08:00

I wrote this 06/02/07:

Perhaps this is where I'm meant to be: danger zone. But home will always be where I belong.

It's like the song:

"May be surrounded by a million people, I still feel all alone, just wanna go home"

But..where is home?

They say home is where the heart is.

It's like the song:

"Once you found your lover, you are homeward bound, love is all around"

Home is in the arms of the one who loves you

Today is 09/11/09. Here's another song:

Something in your eyes, makes me wanna lose myself
Makes me wanna lose myself, in your arms
There's something in your voice, makes my heart beat fast
Hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life

If you knew how lonely my life has been
And how long I've been so alone
And if you know how I wanted someone to come along
And change my life the way you've done

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

A window breaks, down a long, dark street
And a siren wails in the night
But I'm all right, 'cause I have you here with me
And I can almost see, through the dark there is light

Well, if you knew how much this moment means to me
And how long I've waited for your touch
And if you knew how happy you are making me
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

Edwina Hayes

2009-11-07T20:02:00.000+08:00

She may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
May be the treasure or the price I have to pay
She may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day

She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
The smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem inside her shell

She who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry
She may be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I'll remember till the day I die

She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough and ready years
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of life is she.

rainer rilke

2009-10-18T18:24:00.004+08:00

Immer wieder, ob wir de Liebe Landschaft auch kenne und den kleinen Kirchhof mit seinen klagenden Namen und die furchtbar verschweigende Schlucht, in welcher die andern enden: immer wieder gehn wir zu zweien hinaus unter die alten Baume, lager nuns immer wieder Zwischen die Blumen, gegenuber dem Himmel.

Again and again, though we know the lie of love's land, and the poignant names in its little churchyard, and though we know that the others ended in a terrible, silent ravine: Again and again we go out together under the ancient trees, we lie down together, again and again, two by two - among the flowers, faces up to the sky.

Their actions and mine, and those of many women I had known in my life were variations on the one theme. The ravings about love, the going onto beds in locked rooms with men picked up in bars, the exposing of bodies, the marriage vows spoken against reason to cruel men, the days made bearable by tranquilizers, the kisses delivered with eyes tight shut. It is not a great distance from the poor madwoman in Hanwell Asylum babbling about being f***** by the gardener, to the old lady who sheds one tear, in her neat, nursing-home bed, at Madame Butterfly singing ecstatically on a distant radio about the fine day when Pinkerton will come back to her. Even when we seem to be gathered safe into the fold of marriage, we can be driven by a dream of fulfillment and completion that leads us - like sheep hunted over a cliff by a wild dog - into a terrible fall - My Dream of You, Nuala O'Faolain

2009-10-07T14:07:00.003+08:00

L'attesta lunga, Il mio sogno di te non finito

The wait is long, my dream of you has not ended
Someday my happy arms will hold you
And someday I'll know that moment divine -
When all the things you are - are mine.

From '500 days of summer': ".. but I like her. She's not like the girl of my dreams. But I like her. She's better than the girl of my dreams. Because she's real..."

wave goodbye

2009-08-04T17:02:00.004+08:00

May the road rise up to me you
May the wind ever be on your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields
And until we meet again,
may God hold you in the hollow of his hand

People come. People go. The trend of my life.

And if you never stop when you wave goodbye, you just might find if you give it time you will wave hello again.. you'll wave hello again... -Mayer-

It is they who stay behind that suffer - Longfellow -

from postsecret

2009-07-19T19:32:00.001+08:00

the long silence

2009-07-08T08:22:00.003+08:00

At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God's throne.

Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly - not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.

"Can God judge us? How can he know about suffering?" snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. "We endured terror...beatings...torture...death!"

In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. "What about this?" he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. "Lynched... for no crime but being black!"

In another crowd, a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes. "Why should I suffer" she murmured. "It wasn't my fault."

Far out across the plain there were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering he permitted in his world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a Negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified to be their judge, he must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth - as a man!

"Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.

At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can be no doubt that he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it."

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of the people assembled.

And when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.

And He did so in the one called Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

Edward Shillito - Jesus of the Scars
If we have never sought, we seek thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-marks on thy brow;
We must have thee, O Jesus of the scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by thy scars we know thy grace.

If, when the doors are shut, thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of thine;
We know today what wounds are, have no fear;
Show us thy scars, we know the countersign

The other gods were strong; but thou was weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.

Quoted from The Cross of Christ by John Stott

no longer traditional

2009-06-30T13:31:00.001+08:00

A personal response to the Mark Sanford scandal

It's true

to be just like her

2009-06-29T15:33:00.002+08:00

"Of Psyche's beauity - at every age the beauty proper to that age - there is only this to be said, and there were no two opinions about it, from man or woman, once she had been seen. It was beauty that did not astonish you till afterwards when you had gone out of sight of her and reflected on it. While she was with you, you were not astonished. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. As the Fox delighted to say, she was 'according to nature'; what every woman, or even every thing, ought to have been or meant to be, but had miss by some trip of chance. Indeed, when you looked at her you believed, for a moment, that they had not missed it. She made beauty all around her. When she trod the mud, the mud was beautiful; when she ran in the rain, the rain was silver. When she picked up a toad - she had the strangest and, I thought, unchanciest love for all manner of brutes - the toad became beautiful."

Till We Have Faces; C.S.Lewis

1 down!

2009-06-28T07:01:00.003+08:00

Walked out of my last exam of the semester feeling absolutely awesome! No one could wipe that smile of my face.

1 down, and then 2 weeks break, and then hell unleashes itself again.

But this time, I'm well-trained.

Non-stop studying since beginning of Feb. Not that I study 24/7. Just that studies have been constantly on my mind, and there are no periods of short breaks or holidays, even when its supposed to be holidays. I was doing a 4000 word essay during the last holidays. Sigh.

But this is the hols and I'm gonna enjoy it to the fullest by not doing anything, except things that I want to do, or things that I need to do to live. Like eating. Lots of eating. And lots of crap DVDs. And I need to clean my room. And my flat. I'm embarrassed to even invite people over now.

And it all starts again after two weeks. And this time, there's the mega research project. Aiya...

Anyway I was talking about one of the happiest moments in life.

So after the exam, my friend and I stuffed ourselves. I had proper breakfast at 1pm. Bacon, toast, poached eggs and sausages. YUM.

And then I went out that night as well.

And then I watched Wimbledon.

And then I went to sleep and woke up half an hour late for church. Sigh. So sorry dear God. I accidentally set my alarm for 830pm when I really meant to wake up at 830am to get to church on time =(

But thank God for podcasts. I'll listen to past sermons online. It's not the best. But it is Sunday, and like every other day, God should be remembered. But even more so on a Sunday. Because Sunday has always been Sabbath.

Something beautiful:

For Bruce Schooley, stricken with cancer
Whom in Jesus Christ
Found a cure for death

- What's so great about Christianity - Dinesh d'Souza

seek

2009-06-10T13:23:00.002+08:00

I hope that one day, you'll take my advice and try to seek after Him.

Seek Him with all of your heart, all of your being.

Then you'll realize that it wasn't you who has been seeking Him.

He has been seeking you all along.

With abundant love and hope of an everlasting life.

Good conversation though!

i agree

2009-06-07T12:51:00.003+08:00

From Postsecret.

What is wrong with my generation?

2009-06-05T20:17:00.002+08:00

I hope someone who is worthy of you will see how beautiful and wonderfully made you are. And I hope he will love you forever.

I don't know why is it so much easier for other people. And I can't promise you anything. But all I know is that you're beautiful. And no one should ever make you feel otherwise. And I hope that someone else can see the pearl in you, and will pursue you and fight for you, to prove that he truly deserves you.

Care not for cowards or for those who stroke their egos. They are but empty vessels without substance. These are plentiful. But open your eyes wide and look for precious diamonds amongst the plain rocks. They are hard to find because they last through the ages.

And always ask our Heavenly Father, who is the only one who knows the hearts of men. Surely our humanity is sinful and depraved, but He who started the good work in us, and in many, who is changing us from glory to glory everyday.. He is our guide and our beacon in the darkness. I pray that He will bless you with a beautiful diamond in the rough, a fighting, loving warrior, so that you will always know that you're loved for your unchanging beauty, uncorrupted by time. Because I love you. Because I think you deserve it. And I think you deserve nothing less.

mihimihi

2009-05-23T10:42:00.002+08:00

Ko the Saviour's saving arm te waka
The Saviour's saving arm is my canoe

Ko Calvary te maunga
Calvary is my mountain

Ko River of Life te awa
The River of Life is my river

Ko the Fellowship of the Believers te iwi
The Fellowship of the Believers is my tribe

Ko Lim & Misin te hapu
Lim and Misin are my sub-tribes

Ko Jesus te rangatira
Jesus is my chief

Ko Heaven te marae
Heaven is my home

Ko Fran, God's child ahau
I am Fran. God's child

2009-05-18T12:19:00.002+08:00

My heart is drunk with a beauty that my eyes will never see.

How many loved your moments of glad grace?
And loved your beauty with love false or true
But there will always be one man who loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

For in all ranks of the human heart yearns for the one called Beautiful.

...
Was moved by Danny Gokey's rendition of the classic "You are so beautiful". I teared.
...

honours schmonous

2009-05-15T20:36:00.004+08:00

"You are a super human study machine that eats dissertations for breakfast."

But I still think that it is, and will be, the best year in university, mainly because the knowledge that I can be exposed to knows no more boundaries. Well, it is still under the umbrella of "accounting", but I didn't know that there was so much more going on behind the scenes! It is tough, that is for sure. I don't have a life outside the university but for ICF and church, and even then I haven't been attending lifegroups regularly. And I know I should!

Ah but the things that I've learned!

And I know that it has changed me somehow. And I probably will not be able to look at a set of financial information the same way ever again.

So now what do I do with all that I've learned or going to learn? One of the main things that I've gained from these past couple of months is the discovery of my intuitive desire for change - change in the economic structure, the business organisation, the labour relations, social justice and emancipation. I guess these desires go down deep into the heart of my faith. God has changed me. So how do I now show this change to others? How do I bring about change in my community and my work? These are questions that would not have risen up if not for this postgraduate year, and I am glad that I did Honours, despite all the long hours in the library and the never-ending stress.

I thought that the year would have been a lonely one because they left, but in the group I have found some pretty amazing friends, and I know the friendships will last. But, I still haven't stepped into Fujiyama since end of last year. And I've had my first yumcha of the year only just 2 saturdays ago, after a very long of craving for it. Too sentimental? Maybe. And I still think of them sometimes. But its probably more because none of my current friends would be able to stomach those kinds of food. Plus, who has time to go for proper lunch? Now, we either eat food we brought from home in front of our laptops or just go to New World for 5 minutes to buy food and then eat in front of our laptops. Worse than working. At least during the internship, I still had an hour everyday for proper lunch, and my day will end by 6pm. I will hang my imaginary working hat outside my door so that I will not bring the burden of work back home. So I sit home and watch TV and discovered the funny-antics, the wonder and the screaming trumpet that is Gordon Ramsay. His shows were incredibly funny and they still are!

But through it all I've declared God as sovereign over my life, as He should be, as He is sovereign over all the earth, the heavens and the universe. And He has taken that role very seriously, teaching me all about Him whenever my human attentiveness allows for it. He has been kind and merciful to me. I hope that His strength will help me carry this burden. I hope that His joy will lift my heavy heart. I hope that 16 October will come like a flash of lightning! That is the date when I need to hand in my thesis - the thing that would be my sweat and passion, and I intend to glorify Him and His authority in my work.

Jesus: Come, all you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

And a wonderful happy 21st birthday to my one and only brother!! (He's the only one I got). Well the norm is that 21 entails adulthood, but I think he entered into adulthood a long time ago =). God bless you. Stay out of trouble. And be a man. Do the right thing. Haha..

for mummy

2009-05-10T12:25:00.002+08:00

The faith of a child starts with the faith of a mother.

Happy mother's day mummy. You are the best.

And when I have children of my own, I hope I can parent half as well as you did.

i've made up my mind

2009-05-09T06:12:00.000+08:00

Now I just have to convince my parents.

Psalm 91

2009-04-22T19:43:00.006+08:00

Extremely profound and life-changing. It made me see God in a deeper light. And I hope that I will remember this everyday

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty
I will say of the LORD,
"He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."

Most High - El Elyon
He is the Most High God, the highest of the high, the ruler of all, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He created us in His image, and we belong to Him. Thus, He is in control of all things - of the universe, of all creation, and he should have pre-eminence in our lives. To dwell in the shelter of the Most High is then to live in utter submission to this God who has created us in love and out of love. We are living in an incredibly busy world - work, life, family, friends - all great but after a long time of trying to juggle it all it will get tiring. It is then important to just take some time out and rest in His shelter.

In Genesis 14, Abram, who would go on to become Abraham, defeated Kedorlaomer and his allies because they captured his relatives. Abram was then met by Melchizedek, the High Priest (another person whose story will be told another day) and Melchizedek blessed Abram. Abram then gave a tenth of everything he owned. The king of Sodom wanted to give Abram more wealth, but Abram raised his hands to El Elyon and swore that no one but God will make him wealthy, so that no one may say that the king of Sodom made Abram wealthy.

Almighty - El Shaddai
"El" means powerful. Scholars cannot agree on the meaning of "Shaddai" and hence there are two camps - one believes that it means "strong, like a mountain", while the other believs that it means "like a mother's breast." Combing these meanings, we then have an image of a God who is powerful and strong, mighty and all-sufficient but at the same time loving, nourishing and satisifying like a mother's love. He supplies all our needs, and He doesn't need us to help him out.

Sarai, Abram's wife, tried to help God out. God has promised Abraham that he will become a father of all nations, and through him, all the world will be blessed. But he was of old age and had no children. Sarai tried to help God out by asking Abram to sleep with her maidservant, Haggar. From that union came Ishmael. But this was still not the child that God had promised. This "helping God out" may have been one of the biggest mistakes in history because until today, we can still feel the impact of that act. Then at the age of 99, when Abram and Sarai were as good as dead, God appeared to Abram and said:"I am El Shaddai; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant with you and greatly increase your numbers." (Gen. 17). This appearance of God was the starting point of Abram becoming Abraham, the receiver of this wonderful promise. Sarai became Sarah. A year after that, the promised child, Isaac, was born. Through the years, God was faithful to this covenant, and this promise was fulfill in the person of Jesus - the forever living descendant of Abraham.

Is there a promise that you have been waiting for? Let God do the work.

LORD - Jehovah
He is a just, holy and righteous God who must purge evil because this is His character. People always talk about how it is God's love that held Jesus at the cross; yes, but it is His righteousness that compelled him to hang there in order to deal with evil once and for all. He then calls us to righteous living. How are we suppose to dwell in his righteousness as a refuge, as He is such a loving, wonderful God, but yet, so just? How are mere sinners suppose to stand in this presence? We do so by living a repented life - a life that acknowledges the saving grace of Jesus, and to turn away from sin, that we may be called "good and faithful servants".

God - Elohim
He is the one who stands on covenant relationships, as He cannot break His promises. He is trustworthy. He will never leave us nor forsake us, engraving our names in the palm of His hands. He restores and He never forgets our names.

In Genesis 15, Abram asked God:" How can I trust you?" when God wanted to make a covenant relationship with him. In the olden days, covenant was made by cutting animals into half, leaving a trench or a trail of blood in between the pieces. Both parties are then to walk on each side of the animal pieces as a sign that says: If I ever break the covenant, let what happened to the animal happen to me." But we see that when God made the covenant with Abram, He alone walked through the ceremony, in a form of a blazing fire. God decided to bring unto himself the burden of bearing both sides of the promise. And again God did this when Jesus came and died on the cross as our perfect substitution. Indeed a trustworthy God that will still remain faithful even though all others are faithless, because He cannot go against His own character. Remember that He never forgets who you are.

Isaiah 49:15-16.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

Elohim never forgets.

I will dwell in the shelter of the Most High
- I belong in the arms of the Father
I will rest in the shadow of the Almighty
- I will be fruitful and not step out of God's shadow. I will get to know Him
I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress
- I will live a repented life. Every time the Holy Spirit urges me on something, I will deal with it. I will not run.
My God, in whom I trust
- I will trust in God because there is security in His name.

Help me know you Lord.

i wish

2009-04-20T17:25:00.002+08:00

I wish my younger self had known what I know now.

Maybe things would have been different.

I probably won't have gone through that much just to learn really simple lessons.

And maybe, just maybe, if I've had these realizations much earlier...

.. God would have answered my prayers earlier too

But I'll never know.

I hope its not too late.

还有没有人知道，你的温柔像羽毛，微笑像拥抱，
多想藏着你的好，只有我看得到。。。

我坚持学单纯的小孩，静静看守这份爱。

the hymn and the formal rule

2009-04-13T19:58:00.004+08:00

Quote:

Ricoeur uses aspects of the biblical tradition to direct our attention to the "strangeness" of the discourse of love. The discourses of love and praise function in a way that are at odds with those discourses that seek univocity at the level of principles. Love is imperative; it commands us, ordering us to have a feeling. What force, what authority, can such a command have? Ricoeur's response is that the authority of the commandment to love is founded upon love itself. The relationship of love, between God and the individual, is foundational to Law and the commandment to love. It is so much more than just a moral obligation. Love, best understood in terms of the power of poetics and metaphorisation, confers a dynamism that is capable of mobilising a wide of affects that we designate by their end states - pleasure vs pain, satisfaction vs discontent etc. This power of poetics and metaphorisation allows love to be capable of signifying more than itself.

Ricoeur contrasts the discourse of love with the discourse of justice, and there are certain aspects where there are clear opposition. What does it mean to be just? By looking at our social practices, he observes that justice is reliant upon argument, confrontation and communicable reason, all of which are foreign to love. He also draws upon the fact that justice, as opposed to love, requires closure - it demands judgment. Many philosophers, from Aristotle to Rawls, have identified justice with distributive justice - assigning roles, tasks, rights and duties based on notions of advantages and disadvantages, of goods and costs. Justice is then tied to equality, where the ideal is an equitable division of rights and goods to the benefit of everyone. From this perspective, society is then seen as a space of confrontation between rivals.

Ricoeur then tries to build a bridge between the discourse of love and the prose of justice - joining the hymn and the formal rule. He found this in Jesus and His teachings. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke's gospel, we have a dramatic contrast between the logic of humanity - the "logic of equality and equivalent" and the logic of God - the "logic of superabundance". Jesus' logic of excess, of disproprtionality, of superabundance and generosity, is made plain in both Sermons.

Love your enemies

Jesus calls forth an extreme response in us by builidng a pattern of commandments that challenges our human logic of equivalence and proportionality.

Ricoeur identifies the same logic of superabundance in Jesus Christ himself: he is the divine excess of generosity, the abundant free gift, the "how much more of God". The clash between the logic of equivalence and the logic of superabundance is on the level of the dialetic of life and death, redemption and fall. On the side of the logic of equivalence - sin, law and death. On the side of the logic of superabundance - justification, grace and life.

However, it is likely that Jesus did not intend to show that love and justice are irreconcible, but rather with the logic of love, he intends to shed a new inflection on the rule of justice. It interprets justice in terms of generosity. Applied in our society, it is to avoid descending into immorality, to uphold social justice. It is only the logic of Love, disproportionality and superabundance, that ultimately secures justice, and the logic of equivalence, from perverse interpretation. The rule of justice then has the potential to be reflected as a recognition of mutual interdependence, or a competitive attempt to secure private advantage within the security of an accepted framework. Thus, Ricouer suggests that our institutions of justice need to always be guarded by the poetics of love - this includes accounting.

Accounting cannot be satisfied only with the logic of equivalence. At present, accounting is not only satisifed with this logic, but it is its guardian. We must be careful with the perversion of this logic. Our modern capitalist society seems to be founded on the logic of "free" and "fair" exchange - again the logic of equivalence - but behind the semblance of market equivalencies is a perverse reality of coercion, force and covert constraint. The market makes exchanges seem equal when in reality, they are unequal and exploitative.

Ricoeur reminds us that the law of exchange and equivalence is not eternal. Before this existed the economy of the gift: men and women compete to be generous.

- Accounting, Love and Justice; McKernan & MacLullich

treasures in jars of clay

2009-04-09T12:54:00.002+08:00

This past two weeks have been really good! I thought it was going to be an absolute mess due to uni deadlines, but its been quite all right. The presentations went well and I've finished my assignment. I have lots more due after the Easter break, and lots and lots and lots of reading that I need to do. But its the holidays! I know I've already taken a day off yesterday, today, and will probably do so tomorrow, but hey, honours has been hectic. More than I thought it was going to be. But God has been gracious - somehow it doesn't seem too bad now.

Oh and my visa finally got approved! FINALLY! I've waited for more than a month to get it! Its during these times when I really feel like a foreigner. I've lived in this country for more than 3 years, and this is going to be my 4th year. It's been 'home' for a long time, but I'm always going to feel just slightly out of place. But thank God my visa has been approved! I can go pick it up from uni next week.

And tomorrow is Good Friday...

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus...

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Help me carry your death and resurrection like treasures in jars of clay, so that your death will help me die to sin, and your resurrection will help me shine light to others.

on reading the Bible

2009-04-01T11:08:00.002+08:00

Sensus non est inferendus, sed eferendus

Meaning must be read out of, not into, the text.

So true

2009-03-22T10:40:00.004+08:00

"Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart."

Wish I was home.