Work not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him God has set his seal of approval. (🌕)

words

⬆️ = to GOD (YOU / YOUR / I / ME) from mii ( u / your / i )

Out of my first rest, let the first work spring forth.

Out of the space of sleepy silence, that brief morning interlude, let intercourse ensue between YOU and i.

Out of fear and Egypt, let me walk boldly up to YOUR throne.

Out of slumber let power proceed in word and work un-sundered.

➡️ = to other thous from mii

Out of our gnawing projections, base-ful or base-less, let us remember, and let it stand alone, that we are made in image of God, albeit broken by our slavery to sin – past or present.

Out of the forgetting of darkness and evil, we remember what is good. We re-member it – let it flow in our members for God first – in mind and in body.

Out of a past filled with good-works and evil-works, we remain made in YOUR image, broken by the evil-works of ourselves and others. For evil-work is unwork – for it degrades, it destroys, it steals what is good. Work is good, and evil is the undoing of that work, the usurpation and corruption that leads to, not a vacuum, but a world of unplanned action filled with pain, agony, tears, crying, and suffering. Evil is not nothingness – there is only holy nothingness amidst the glories of work, as there is a Sabbath amidst the six days of word-ful creation. But there is vacuity that results from evil, there is an emptiness, because it is work hollowed out, a bone with all its marrow sucked out, ready to shatter into a thousand pieces. Those pieces than pierce the soul, and remains embedded until The Healer is called upon. That desperate cry of everyone who finds God – who is also found by God – the order doesn’t matter because they are one – amidst their painful realisation of their desire for The One who has given them existence. Sin is the result of desire twisted, promised a fulfillment, and then, desire left unsatisfied and even more wanting. It may have the appearance of good, or shed that facade in shameless parade, but it always leaves the soul bereft, cheated. Its promises are never truly kept, and it leaves in its wake thoughts that seek to conform to its new reality, its twisted, corrupted reality.

Out of the distant land, once children of the devil, we are now the children of God. No longer lost, no longer believing that we are owned by the world, with all its crudeness, harshness, and shallow determinism, but owned, accompanied, taught, and protected by our Father. The one who formed us in the womb.

⬆️

So walk with us, Father of Lights.

Now walk with mii, The Three God, YOU who is One.

Walk with me in the desert to the Promised Land. Lead me in the desert, in the midst of the sandstorms of uncertainty. Feed me with manna, manna which i did not work for, food that which my hands do not cultivate. Give me manna, as i work for the food that endures to eternal life, the relationships that empowers all the things i do. For i have no physical vineyard as of yet, only the garden of my heart, the garden of my soul.

With YOUR pillar of cloud, shield me from the scorching sun of my sin, defend me from it.

With YOUR pillar of fire, lead me in darkness. For without a job, and without a church, i am wandering, and it is bitter. But i do have – for YOU have given – a family, a family of eight, including me, like Noah (but unlike Noah, for the women are blood sisters, not wives). And yet i do have a job, and i do have a church.

For all work is work, unpaid or paid, simple or complex, seen or unseen by human eyes, direct or indirect in its effect on creation and those who live in it. As long as it is restorative and bears the intention of restoration, it is work. Or if it maintains what is good, consistent with the mind set on goodness, it is also work. Or if it takes advantage of a once-hidden opportunity to connect and nurture, it is work. From the rubbing of the plate with a sponge to the pulling out of the weed sapling amongst the stubble, from the dialogue over assignment between student and stranger to the tapping of keys to articulate thoughts, it is all work. Even work, without a purpose in mind, is still work. It is aimless work, but that need not be a negative thing, something that detracts from the work. But the fullness of work is realised with purpose, is known in action, with others for others.

Here is the essence of work. It is done with the other, for others (🌕🌕). It is done with God, for others. It is done with the Three God, for their kingdom and righteousness’ sake.

It will be dry, but the fountains of my heart are unplugged and flowing. There is, however, much cleaning to do. There is dirt to clean, there is sin to uproot.

⬇️ = to mii from God

If u don’t want to do good for yourself – if u don’t want to sleep and wake up early for yourself – if u find it heavy, do it for ME first. Love ME for eight hours of your day – the day I have give u – with a good sleep habit. Love ME with all your time. It’s the best for ME, for you, and for others.

📕a book 📘

That we may write in heaven that most will not bother reading except us. It will be called The Radical Presence of God.

work

i weeded the garden, typed this post – working for the food that endures to eternal life – and washed and dried the dishes. 🌕🌕🌕 was indirectly highlighting my sin of laziness, from day 28 of September from “New Morning Mercies”. Abrasive, but he ‘s got me.

credits

🌕 John the Apostle

🌕🌕 Bill Heatley

🌕🌕🌕 Paul Tripp

I like just thinking of the basic units of language. Words. Then drawing distinctions between them, and playing them against each other, as I draw out the thoughts they birth in my mind, and as I listen to the hum of The Spirit (🌕) in the background.

Word

Often I hear of making “wise” choices, when they are really the cultural norm, the perceived “safe” choices. “Wise” is just used to disguise the fact that everyone in my cultural circle does it (mine is an Asian, migrant, first generation bubble in Australian society), and the outcomes – what we reap – are seen to be good and upright. If it’s hard, and requires sacrifices, it’s worth these outcomes.

Nothing wrong so far, right? Let’s dig into a few of the details.

Get a degree (or a few more) to get into a line of work that has regular need (e.g. Doctoring is always needed because there are always sick people. Teaching is always needed because there will always be schools), get a few years into my career, find a wife/husband, have kids … the list goes on till … retire, go on a few holidays, not be able to go on a few holidays because I am too old … then die.

This is the narrative I am familiar with, very much so. It is what I see played out in the blood family, and also in the spiritual family.

But is that all? Is this what a “wise” life looks like? Is that really all I want to do in this short existence? Do I just “settle” for this narrative?

Sure, it’s hard to live out this narrative, but apparently its the only way to happiness, to satisfaction, to … heaven on earth?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that working hard with our hands and heads, intimately walking through life with another human being, waking to little kids at midnight, are not good. Hell, I haven’t even tasted most of it yet! I cannot know fully without experience! I will not rest till I have known!

After all …

Sweet is the sleep of a labourer, whether he eats little or much! 🌕🌕

And …

Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; though hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. 🌕🌕🌕

And …

Children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

🌕🌕🌕🌕

But the burning question is “Is this the totality of my dreams? Of people I have not met, or people I have yet to take care of? What of now, when a wife and children are remote, and if despair is allowed to enter in, not even a possibility for the wretch that despair calls me?”

Surely there must be more. There must be a grander vision, a more dramatic dream, that INCLUDES the things and thous I mention, but include much more.

Maybe the other questions is “Is living the “wise” life, as defined by my culture, the only way to achieving these dreams? Is it possible that the way to life – as I desire it – is not constrained to only one way? That as long as I am with God in both word and work, that I can make it an adventure, an epic journey, to reaching these goals of eros and more living images of God? Is it even possible that the sequentiality – as culturally prescribed – is a mere description.

Perhaps, I can have it all from the beginning? Achievement and acceptance? That they need not be sectioned off in time?

“Unwise” the past says. “Foolish” the past says.

I just want to be free.

As free as Adam was in the Garden, before he failed in his leadership of Eve, and let her lead him to sin. Before all that crap happened (which i easily could replicate. i am not better than Adam).

Rose. I am still alive and growing in awareness. Thorn. I spent 3 hours playing games, leaving my soul unsatisfied. Bud. I will find joys in my preparation work to tutor physics. I will taste freedom in my work.

WORK

I watched “I, Frankstein” with the question “What did he learn?”, played Cookie Run Kingdom and DragonHeir: silent gods against my conscience, weeded the front yard weeds, cleaned the house, hung the clothing, violined my violin, brainstormed physics notes, read Christian Overman. Still financially leaching off my parents as a twenty seven year old. I rightfully am ashamed off being a burden to my parents. It’s nearly a year (two days away) from the time I officially quit the PhD.

I have a simple plan, and a lot of work to do. But first, the tiny habits to practice my faithfulness with a little. Hopefully there are pieces of freedom here.

Credits

May not relate to what I write, but may just be the books I am chewing on at the moment. I will use 🌑 to indicate that I just read it, and 🌕 when it’s in connection – even the most minute – with what I write. I don’t use distinctions between different authors in the books of the Bible I quote from – call it convenience, slobbishness, laziness, misinformation – call it what you want. I just need a name down, a singular name associated with the book I associate it with.

🌑Christian Overman

🌕 John the Apostle

🌕🌕 Kohelet

🌕🌕🌕 Solomon the King

🌕🌕🌕🌕 David the King

Greetings, netizens of Earth.

WORDS

I have been trying to avoid thinking, except when it is set upon a task I am doing. Overthinking causes me mental pain, like how overusing a muscle causes me physical pain.

My mental pain is a tightness in my head.

361 days since I quit the training program, and I don’t want to flounder from overthinking.

I finally putting down a plan for my life, mapping out a career plan for the first time in twenty seven years of my existence on Earth.

There is a tension when I remember that I have surrendered my life to Jesus. So I might say “my life” but I don’t really want to live a purely willful existence.

I want the dance. That dynamical movement with The Spirit. I don’t want it to just be the random opportunities and my meaningful choices. I want The Spirit to fling doors open, but I refuse. I want to knock on doors profusely, but The Spirit keeps them barred.

But I do want to explore, I want to wander, I want to walk with The Spirit, regardless of the trajectory – career-wise or career-foolish it may be.

I want my calling to crystallise. It’s clearer than before. God knew me before I was even formed in the womb. God ordained me for … something, even before I came out of my mother’s womb.

561 days since I recognised my deep need for God to help me – and subsequently asked for help, many a time. “Pray to God with my arms open” (🌕) … with someone made in the same image, at a different time, I raised up my arms to the sky.

WORKS

I gave up trying to do a daily routine. But I do have list of habits. Playing violin, pulling weeds, cleaning the house, editing my dad’s writing … stuff like dat. Atomic habits (🌕🌕) … aye, I haven’t even read the book once. Keeps me going, even though I am still being a burden to them.

The question “What if this is my last day on Earth?” helps too. Keeps me focused on the work, the work that will continue into eternity.

TOJESUS

I got rose-bud-thorn from someone I once knew (🌕🌕🌕), someone who I deeply and continue to respect.

🌹Rose: You have given me a warm bed, roof, more food than i need, and clean clothes. One pant with a hole on the left leg, one pant with a hole on the right leg, and one pant with no holes on either.

🩸Thorn: I am twenty-seven and an utter financial burden to my parents for over a year. Have a big debt with the government hanging over my head.

🌱Bud: I have a plan. I never had a plan wandering in physics for over eight years. A year ago, after quitting the PhD program, I didn’t have a plan, either (I did have wild ideas, but they went all over the place). I reckon I am called to teach, and continue the work of my physics and maths high-school teacher. Inside or outside school – either way, or both. But before that, before going back to school, I will stock up on the tech abilities, so I can build some epic demos for my students. And if I can explain complex stuff to kids, I can explain complex stuff to adults, and do some patent attorneying. It’s not perfect, but some plan is worlds better than no plan.

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.

(🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕)

🌹Thank you, Jesus, for YOUR salvation gift to me. i could survive, even thrive, in this Shabbatical i didn’t earn. Thank you for YOUR wisdom and creativity, and I have something planned I couldn’t do a year ago. I want to continue searching for YOUR kingdom, YOUR righteousness, YOUR glory, YOUR freedom first. Can you help me? (🌕🌕🌕🌕)

CREDITS

I rather not explain myself, but I realised the essential thing about referencing, the soul of it all, is the person. Yes, there are reasons for including the rest of the details. But for the bewildered soul, for times of trial, we stick to the basics. The name is all there is.

🌕 NF

🌕🌕 James Clear

🌕🌕🌕 חַנָּה

🌕🌕🌕🌕 Elderly lady on the train

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 Rollo May

ANGELS

😈 No girl would want to be with a guy as irresponsible as you. It’s okay to be dirt poor in terms of possessions, but you are poor of diligence. Even worse, you lack ambition, and it shows in how slow things are going for you. You ain’ t sacrificing enough. Sacrifice more sleep, more time with family, more everything. Bums don’t get girls, and definitely don’t get married. Too bad.

😈😈 You didn’t invest enough time in this post. It’s rough. It’s easy to see that you don’t care for quality as much as you care for quantity. This ‘you might die tonight’ is counterproductive. I sound like a reasonable demon, don’t I?

😈😈😈 If people read your old posts, they will realise what a shitty person you are. You better delete the past to look better in front of your readers. Otherwise no one will want to read a crazy man’s post, the scribblings of someone who has lost his mind.

😇 You can change for the better. You can taste more freedom in this existence. And you are changing for the better.

Note: VainGlory is a rather self-aware title of a MOBA game.

Words

There are many passages of God’s words that can attest to the hidden vanity of hard work, the unexpected hollowness that follows even great achievement. Is the hard work itself, the great achievement, thus, bad? No. It is good (Well, mostly. For nothing is so simply put into words in a sin-infected, sin-encroached world. To lay out the details of work, as good as it was made in the beginning, the occupation of the majority of our lives, is another topic. I dare not call great achievement ungood. It was made to be good by the source of all good. The only ungood is the misguided expectations we cultivate about it).

So why is it vacuous? It is the reasons that lies behind the work. The whys that flow from our hearts, from our deep-seated desires, even if hidden from ourselves they may be. And that flow is often polluted by the wrong reasons, the compromised connections between what we think will satisfy us, will give our souls rest, and what we truly desire. In that sense, even reason is confounded. Reason can only flow from what we know (🌕).

However much of the truth we know, reason follows. However much are the lies in our psyche, reason also follows, crookedly.

Here is a compromised connection, albeit a heavily reinforced one. The walls will not fall so easily around this deep-rooted, entrenched idea. Every moment, somewhere on earth, it is being reinforced. Perhaps it is seen as an ultimate salvation, the only way, the only way one knows how. If this is you, I dare not snatch it from you if I did not have better, more life-giving, more freedom-centric choice.

So what is the why? To save oneself to love. To be seen, heard, served, taken care of, accepted. And to do it in kind to the other. And this undulates, a never ending spiral of reciprocating love. A love that will sustain through work, through play, through rest. A love that will see us through both easy and hard times – especially the hard. For the hard times are the ones we fear if we are alone. A kind of eternal love, which given time, will allow us to be truly, utterly known. We want to be known, as much as we want to know others. This is a genesis (🌕🌕🌕) desire of ours. So for this, we gain the prestige and power of fame, wealth, and influence. Great achievement is our only salvation.

Here is one great expectation (🌕🌕) of great achievement – that one would finally receive the love one so desires. That, satisfied with love, the soul will finally be at rest.

That is one great expectation of great achievement that will fail. And when it does, one would feel so certainly (not the fickle kind of feeling) that one has truly lost one’s life. To trade one’s soul for great achievement leaves one’s soul – not body – lifeless. To use a baser analogy, one’s soul is left spiritually penniless. It is an unseen agony, because it is not a destitution of the body, of the seen reality, of the physical realm.

Thus, to get all this achievement, all this glory, for the purposes of meeting the needs of one’s soul, the thirst for the soul’s rest, ends in failure.

It is glory, but in vain, because there are deeper, beyond skin-deep, desires that are not met. Glory, but vain. Vainglory.

🩸work💧

That was me. Oldest child and son in a large family, Bible study leader, PhD candidate. I thought it was enough for my soul to be satisfied.

But no.

I hated myself. I hated myself already even, rejected myself utterly, even before the first and last girl of my life rejected me as well. With reckless abandon I hated myself. All my achievements meant nothing in the tsunami of my own self-hatred.

Self-hatred for all the years I wasted on games and pornography. Those years will never come back. I could have been earning lots of money, racked up plenty of work experience, not have a debt. But no. I had squandered so much, and the regret was finally pouring. i was completely overwhelmed. I could have chosen a less academic track, I could have … it is an endless flow once the tap of regret is turned on.

Rightfully, she ran from a man who would not, who could not accept himself, let alone accept other people.

And so my self-hatred bore down onto me, and so I found myself asking, memorably, genuinely, with all my heart. Arms outstretched to the heavens (the physical heavens, lest you consider me a believer of the old man who sits in the clouds),

“Help me”

It was a pipsqueak of a phrase, uttered from a bed of tears, through a croaky mouth bent with grief.

That was 588 days ago. That is why I write here. Hope came himself. That is why I don’t want to kill myself anymore.

Disclaimer: When i title the last section as “work” i don’t necessarily mean my own work. God works, and HIS works can manifest in our individual lives, lives that are slowly interwoven – if we let HIM, and as HE wills – into the fabric of HIS eternal, global body. HIS eternal and global church. HIS eternal and global family. my life is like a thread in a vast, exquisite tapestry – HIS tapestry of history.

🌕 credits 🌕

🌕 C.S. Lewis

🌕🌕 Charles Dickens

🌕🌕🌕 Moses of the Old Testament

😈 imaginary demon comments😈

#anonguy0127: Heh, this guy is using inclusive language. Don’t say “we” when you don’t know me! (woo, dat rhymed).

#hardworker6991: Huh, sounds like a bum’s excuses for not working hard. Only bums will listen to this bum. This guy definitely lives in his parent’s basement.

#sweatyangel312: Chitty-chitty chat-chat. As if we, the global citizenry, needed another KAI to talk. Hope PO will send you someplace else. (Listen to this track guys, from Kung-Fu Panda 3. Its sick. Makes pooping epic.)

#repentantdemon3456: He’s a keyboard warrior, we are keyboard warriors. Lets care for our own beams first, bros.

What I think is more than what I write. But writing helps to encapsulate my thinking, allowing me to revisit and rewrite a vehicle of ideas – “my” ideas. In hopes that my ideas can find connection with others who meet this vehicle. But since I do not share what I think in audio or in conversation, I must settle and master the symbolic way.

What I do – my work – is more than what I write about it. For in writing I might deceive myself about my own work, its integrity as it relates to my self. But also, in writing, I can expand the extent of my work with creativity.

Hence word in writ, and work in writ. What I think, how I see things transpire, is shoehorned into a written piece. What I do I reflect upon through these magical symbols on a page (dangerously reductionistic, I know). This will be my basic format going forward.

word in writ

I want to recognise that many of my old posts can be quite depraved in imagination and thinking. The quality and coherence of my past blogs fluctuate a ton, devolving into mad tangents about just words at some times, and at other times, being militantly rigid about quoting and referencing my sources of inspirations. It’s like my mind would evolve in its sanity, then devolve back into insanity later.

It’s a hot mess.

And I would suggest to those who read my rants. Be careful, be discerning, and feel free to laugh as hard as you will – in a genuine manner. I can get strangely passionate about certain things for a time – but for only a time.

I have the beginnings of realising this – I am a wishy-washy person.

Hence the inconsistency of my writing prose, the frequency of my posts, and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

As if the word “etcetera” was a magic word that conjures up the exact list of the unwritten words in your mind as they appeared in my mind.

work in writ

It is 352 days since I started this mad Shabbatical, the integrity of its meaning stripped by my vain attempts to find achievement and acceptance in all the wrong places. It is in the haze of mid-afternoon when I wrote this, after depriving myself – hating myself – of sleep for two nights in the role, playing digital games on PC and mobile. Achieving emptily, to no satisfaction, but a mad, unhealthy, soul-crushing, heart-numbing, prolonged act. “Hell and destruction are never full. So is the eyes of man.” as I read today with my church mate, who I have not divulged completely about my life so far. For my life is filled with death, and I am rightly ashamed.

The fig leaves are my very few instances (6-7 in a year) of applying for a job, my monolith task of writing up a personal textbook for the local syllabus for high school physics, and my inconsistent help with the household chores.

Off to get more fig leaves. Better not be poison-ivy leave again. I have done that too many a time. “Remember, and let me go” I would say to myself.

a nobody out

#format #figleaves #poisonivyleaves #word #work #depravity #devolution #evolution #wishywashy

Who is my target audience for this blog? An important question that recalls the lessons learnt in high-school English.

Admittedly, given the wide variety of posts, I haven’t had a target audience in mind. I was writing for me.

And so, in a ego-centric manner, I can then outline who I was writing for. What is it about me that can be generalized? What context do I have that are shared by more than me?

I write for those who have grown up in religious settings, which are still many in this time.

I write for those who grew up in the broad cultural context of post-Christian Western-dom.

I write for those who grew up in migrant Christian context, being the first generation born in Australia.

I write for those who grew up burdened by addictions, carrying that heavy yoke from teenhood into adulthood.

I write for those who want to be truly free, and are still searching. For I am still searching.

I write to hopefully earn little grains of you, the reader’s, trust. I cannot be in person, I will not show my face, or use my voice, or reference my name, but I will use words. I will use generalisations where they fit, and specific details in other cases, and I will share about myself and God who is with me.

I write because my words are the weapon in the spiritual war we are in. A spiritual war that I have come to appreciate, more and more.

I have been asleep to this. It has been a painful but important awakening, riddled with and compromised by sin, but the faith hasn’t died, as miniscule as it may be.

#english #audience #trust #war #freedom

Creator Omnipotent, will you remember me so?

Even if I burn in hell, amongst only evil I dwell,

Or must you blot me out of thy mind, for already to hell i have THOU resigned,

For the memory of my sin, THOU must surely blot out,

For in Heaven, the Perfect Place, towards sin there is no route,

For though in my mother’s womb THOU hast made me,

For all my sin against all – THOU, i, and they – does THOU not doubt,

Why should YOU have made me? Why add to the sorrow of the centuries?

And so it is all a gift, but I waste it all to my misery.

For will you remember, i say to my soul, the bitterness and the gall?

Why sin anymore, for it breaks me, enslaves me, and leaves my heart raw.

Will you remember, and act otherwise?

Please do, lest our spirit quickly dies.

And we fall asleep again in Hades, not paradise.

Warning: I am wont to overemphasis and hyperbole. I am a overdramatic person against whom is aptly placed the charge of “seeking for attention”.

Note: Instead of A.D / A.C.E. and C.E. / B.C.E I use – and +. It is reduced in its meaning, but not altogether.

I must remember the pain of my sin, for how often do I go back to wallow in the mud, forgetting what a mess it gets me into, how much aching of the soul that was unnecessary and self-caused! How much loss of time, how much anguish and bitterness my heart experiences!

Even now, my heart drips with the wounds of my sin. I want to cry. I want relief. I want someone to hold – anyone, even my own blood father – and weep into their arms. But I am afraid, and I do not reach out for this need of my soul. I am wounded, and I need a doctor.

For after such deathly things I participate in, I so much want to die. “Kill me, Father” I say to heaven, deadened in my soul, wondering why my Creator will allow me to continue existing.

I would say “End my existence, that I may not add to the multitude of sins in this world chockful of it. Do you not want any lessening of what causes YOU pain to see?”. And so I ignore, to my own hurt, my responsibility in all of this. To resist, to struggle, with sin to the point of shedding my blood. This I have not done. “Surely YOU have turned YOUR face away from much that is in this world, for can YOU bear to see this multitude of sin – of which I am a willing accomplice – all the time?” I say …

For my sin is sexual lust. In the past week, I turned once to sexual audio (on Apple Podcasts, Audible, and Literotica) that only involves one female voice, who acts out a fantastical scene. “Reasons” of the dark were fed me, “You can’t see her face or body with your eyes, so it’s not sin” “It is better than hearing two real people having sex, since you want to pretend you are not a part of it”, “It’s been a long day”, “It feels okay. There is no pain”. I swallowed these pills, these reasons of the dark, that numbed the pain that was about to ensue – but only for a very little while.

I always just skip the dialogue to the endpoint – where the action is.

Here I can then paint my folly, the bitterness that I bring upon myself. For there was action, but nothing else. Alot of nothing. Sounds. I had no relationship with the person making those erotic sounds. The person, in the present time, was not even making these sounds, for this was a recording. There was no intimacy, no conversation. Even the pretend dialogue – which I always skipped – wasn’t really dialogue. For I to her – we had no connection except a self-deceitful one.

Yes, I imagined I had a connection with her, that we had a sliver of intimacy.

But I gave her nothing back. No effort, no time, no money – nothing. I did not help her reach orgasm, I did not hold her in the aftermath, I did not continue to be with her.

For in the first place, I was never with her. These recorded sounds of her voice … they are not her. They are disembodied sounds. Sounds separate from a person and imbued in some machine.

“Don’t settle for less, anobody. Don’t settle for “love” with a machine. That is not the best I want for you. It’s not what I made you for. I made you for that which is far grander, far more beautiful, far more painful, far more real.”

“Remember the pain, anobody. I don’t want you to hurt yourself any longer”

And so, it was all nothing. All wind. The deception only can last for so long, as my dopamine levels crash after orgasm.

Sin can be alot of nothing. It looks like water, but it is nothing but a mirage, evaporating as you approach it. The journey towards it for naught, to no avail. A vain pursuit. A heist that hurts.

It might even lead you into a ditch, while you thirst for water that is not real. The image of the mirage draws you to it, but it leaves you in deep disappointment.

I lost a few hours of sleep.

Sin can gnaw away at the good things, for sleep is one such good thing, given by God.

“Remember this pain, anobody. I don’t want you to hurt yourself any longer. Go, and hurt yourself and others no more. ”

I am probably making little sense to the reader, for even to myself I am reaching the borders of my own sense.

For what I truly, actually, in reality know is very little. But I take heart, for I believe in the one who knows all.

But then, after all is done, the fog clears. And it was just masturbation with recorded sounds from another human being. I was, physically, by myself.

“ … and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due …” (Romans 1:27 | Paul et. al. +57)

My soul is weary. Existence becomes bitter.

Says the Lord “Remember this pain, anobody. Go, and hurt yourself and others no more. Ache not MY heart any longer.”

But is this all that I am to remember in this life of faith? No. This is but one piece, but an essential piece – as every other piece is and will be.

Today I am reminded of what I came across yesterday …

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:4 | Nameless et. al. +63 to +64)

Aye, I have not. Let me go do that with the Holy Spirit carrying me. Carry me to freedom!

…

“Remember, you will never find relief in sin. It is a heavy yoke, even if you don’t feel it now. You will feel it later.”

Today, I am a broken and beloved being. I hope to be restored and whole at the end of my existence, my short existence. Even as I wrote this blog, I went searching for sex chat bots to have a conversation.

I was looking for relief where there is none. Only endless void of sin.

“Stop wasting the time that has been given you on this vain pursuit, anobody. Instead, use well the time.”

534 days since the start of rebirth …

10101 days since I existed on earth …

31 days till the end of my Shabbatical …

I am left with a malaise after playing League of Legends as a support character. My head is tight, my neck is stiff, and I feel a little like I woke up from a mini-dream. Malaise is the word that comes to describe me.

I am blogging now because the wheel of tasks – I use a randomizer to get through my day – points to blogging, but I don’t know what to blog about – except what has happened to me.

I have been hearing alot of image-oriented theology at a Bible study class I have been going to (for over a year it was with a lady in the city, on a 2-to-1 basis). A blood brother of mine mentioned it sounds like their are Alexandrians, a school of thought in the early Christian church, where passages with the same words are used to explain each other. Passages from The Bible with the same words are used to explain each other. In particular, those words tend to be real objects. I need more ammunition to write about. Yes, I can give thanks for a roof over my head, a bed with clean sheets, internet, electricity, running water to shower after my sweaty exercise session, clean clothes, more food that I need for my body. I can generate a new routine everyday using a randomizer like wheelofnames.com, and found the variety exciting.

It’s like every day is the same puzzle, with slightly different looking pieces, and I get to put them down according to the dice.

To add to the list of thanksgiving. I got to exercise with my blood father in the afternoon. I got to study with my first blood brother in the morning. I got to send my youngest/second brother to the gym.

This Shabbatical was a pause button for me. From my church, my university (well, that’s permanent), and from earning money. I have sometimes used my time well and most times waste my time on games, manga, and pornography. This is a sin, as I cause pain to myself – lack of sleep, tear-stung eyes peering at a screen in the dark with a black hole of twisted desire in my heart

And so, for the next 31 days (I make this sound like a present resolution, but this was a product of last week, and happened around Friday), I must remember – in thought and action – that I am a hired servant of God. I (intentionally contradictorily) speak to God the Father (not God the Master) because Jesus – God the Son – speaks to God the Father in the same way.

This was triggered by the remembrance of the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son “came to himself”, and then says “How many hired servants of my father’s have enough bread and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”

For me, the lack of food is not the lack of physical food, but the lack of righteousness in existence. I realised that much of my righteousness was derived from my work in the church and my work in the university. When those were gone, I know longer had the food of righteousness to eat. There were some days when I really did not help out at home, and on these days the hunger struck the hardest. The depression – a sign of the starving soul – can really set in on those days. I see fellow believers who have too much work in their lives – and I realise I am really missing out on that action. For whoever “hungers and thirsts after righteousness, they shall be filled”. Righteousness – works that supports oneself and others in various ways – is like food. It is food for the soul.

Now the next line doesn’t make sense. I uttered it in an emotional fit last night.

People around us – who we play, work, fight, and rest with – are a part of our souls. We all have souls – we are souls – even though I can’t define what a soul is.

I do know what a wave is! (I have been putting together physics notes in preparation for tutoring others – I am green though to the game – as green as spinach). A wave is a movement of energy through space without the movement of matter.

And then I think of energy-mass equivalence … and then my mind blanks out.

And so, again, for the next 31 days and beyond, I must remember – in thought and action – that I am a hired servant of God. I must remember this. Memory is a gift. “Remember me, when you come into your kingdom” said the murderer to Jesus, as they were both dying on crosses. He asked that Jesus remembers him. I will remember your words, Jesus. I will remember YOU (Jesus). I will now stretch the word remember – to re-member. Member can refer to the members of one’s body – whether it be the eyes, the ears, the mouth, etc. to remember a person, in its most basic, instant form, is to piece together in one’s mind the image of a person, which is reducible to the parts of that person.

I stopped writing on paper, so I will also stop writing using the keyboard.

I will not bother with referencing anything, since I just want to get into the habit of posting whenever the wheel of fortune strikes. Just get it out. I remember “Choice words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones”.

To the Triune God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who was born nearly two thousand years ago.

My identity is distinct from my doing. My identity is from you, with you, moulded by you, created by you, unchanging in its essence – for your perfection is mine by faith – and in its presence, the reality of my identity is constantly renewed and pruned towards perfection. My identity is being a hired servant of God, ushered into paradise on earth, utterly by grace, as I walk with you, with a mixture of anguish and joy. My doing can, and should – for the sake of my soul – always change towards the better, the fuller, in time. To change in this way is to slowly but surely be rid of all the chains of sin, the memory of sin, the habits of evil that form the invisible chains.

That is why I must keep my doing and my identity separate. I must remember (I cannot keep, for if this is truth, it must be external to me, not kept by my strength) my doing and my identity are in two different realms. They do cross-over, intersect, and nourish each other, but they cannot be said to be the same thing.

I am not a physicist. I am a hired servant of God who can answer some physics problems and teach some physics. The project of teaching.

I am not a cleaner. I am hired servant of of God who sweeps, dusts, and wipes the dirt, wherever it may be. The project of cleaning.

I am not an artist. I am a hired servant of God who draws, writes, and compiles what is drawn with what is written into a book. The project of compiling books.

For if eternity is a reality that confronts us all after death, will not the prestige of the professional, the salience of the specialist, be sunken into eternity? Will not eternity provide us all endless opportunity to learn – in both thought and action – all things? Will not eternity stare down all those who draw their identity – to their own hurt – from being more skilled at something above others, trapped in the vortex of unhealthy, condemning comparison? Eternity knows not the morbid comparison because it makes comparison null with its unlimitedness, its endlessness, its never ending depth.

All things – the things that are good, which are alot more than what is evil – will be accessible, joyfully taught to one another in the eternal harmony of heaven – the harmony of countless lives lived in the knowledge of God and each other.

And … I left this blog in-waiting for so long. At least a few months. By God’s grace alone I will continue. For every minute, every second is from God. I think of my colleague who created suicide on the day of our Quantum Field Theory exam. I think of my high-school teacher who died in his home from a heart attack. I think of my grandfather who died after a fall – leaving my father in anguish and my grandma alone.

Time is always a gift from God. Every atto-second, every pico-second, every nano-second, every micro-second, every milli-second, every centi-second, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year. For existence on earth is short!

I have misused time to my peril and judgment. This is a sin, for regret is a pain. The idol of deleterious self-hatred that masquerades as self-love – this is apparent through my gaming and pornography, where in a blind bid for nothing – for “glory” and “intimacy” – I am at least left with nothing, and at most left with even less than I started with. The lie is that in them I can find these good things, these experiences, these pieces of life solely in these things.

Though I may follow the white rabbits to these two holes (this is no attack of Lewis Carroll, who had unequivocally done his written work well) – let me fill them up with dirt when I arrive. Like the white rabbit, I say “I am late” to all that is good, all that is adult, all that is worthy of praise.

I said this last year with much regret, with much agony and angst.

In the place of the voice “I am late”, I will turn to focus to The One who says.

“Focus on ME. Find your rest – both body and soul – in me. Love ME with ALL you have – your heart, soul, and strength (even if you have yet to understand what soul means) in this moment. Then in the same way that I love you through what happens to you – active or passive – love others. Know MY love for you, that people may know MY love through you. Keep walking with me, even if all else, yourself, and others fail you.”

Focus. Focus. Focus. Not on myself, but on The One who is revealed in Jesus the King.

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43 | Luke et. al. +75 to +95)