Caught with her pants down...

What would you do if a girl shared her shame with you but you know it’s a lie? Would you confront her with it or be content that at least she spoke in a parable?
Secrets have so much power. The greatest fear of Man is shame. Secrets are dank with shame. I am not talking about secrets like, “Oh My God! (Panting heavily) That guy is sooooooo cuuuute! Dont tell anyone I said that”. But rather secrets like, “I slept with your wife. She’s a tigress”. The potency of a secret amplifies when it is augmented by accumulating shame.

What prompts us to share our shame? The yearn for salvation. We think that if we were to show someone our defect or fallibility then we can justify our action just that bit more. By sharing with someone our shame, we dilute it with opinions. For example, the person listening to us says, “Don’t worry; I’ve also slept with my friend’s girlfriend before.” Then our shame is attenuated because it is longer exclusive only to us.

However, some secrets are like dams that repress ferocious backlash. It affects not only the bearer but many around. I hold such a secret. I know it is abridged and mendacious but I understand the reason to lie.

Why do we lie about secrets? Because we are afraid of judgment and seclusion yet we want opinions or acceptance to satiate our guilt.

I have accepted your lie, absorbed your tears and concealed your shame; now will you give me your confidence and tell me the truth?

Afflicted Entities

The loss of a life. Nothing jolts us like the reality of death.

No matter the amount of friends/family we have, no matter how much love surrounds us, every one of us have at one point or another in life felt desolate and obsolete. The greatest catastrophe induced by desolation...suicide.

Death is feared by some, relished by some and viewed as an acquittal from the prison of life by an acquired few. Suicide is generally considered an act of cowardice; the easy way out of life and its problems. What is life was their problem? Truth is that if these people had any other avenue to relinquish life they would have but all they have is death to liberate their anguish. Only death ends life.

Is it really cowardly to cease to live prematurely? Is it right to judge these people? Yes they leave behind so much sorrow and misery yet who was there to partake in their affliction when they had life? To whom do they owe an explanation to? Behind each suicide is a reason that is unfathomable to those still living. I will never understand it nor could I ever embrace it. Suicide is a charade disguised as a riddle that is engulfed in an enigma.

Life isn’t created with its own permission. To live is a universal right yet to give up that right is not our right. The world governs itself with glorified morals yet forsakes the humanity that baptised it.

This day I commemorate two people: The man who succeeded and the woman who failed. I remember not the man who died but the man who was alive. And I remember not the woman who tried but the woman who condemned me with its blame. I remember the man who taught me that an opinion is a mask but an idea is a soul laid bare. I remember the woman who taught me that love is shared and not harboured.

To the man I say: Your ideas live in me. You had short life but a life nonetheless.

To the woman I say: You have survived your imprudence and indulged yourself in decadence that has shattered my innocence. One more chance. When are you going to live?

Obession, Delusion , Derangement

I have plunged fatally into my obsession. I cant quite determine what it is about her though. Whether I’m entrapped by her innocence or seduced by her youth. She is contrary to what I felt my ideal love would be and I know that this will never be condoned by my social circle. Yet I cannot stop myself from wanting to hear her laugh just one day more. I should stop and I must stop but she plunders my thoughts every moment. I have many a times raped my morals just to go out with her and immerse myself in her full-bodied aura of naivety. I am caught between accepting the age-barrier or debating the possibilities of breaking it. Maybe she is indeed too young for me or maybe it is the generation and not the years that form the rift between us - Social Dogma. Why do I desire her so much knowing it could never possibly happen? Have I succumbed to the treacherous wiles of life?

Most of our lives are spent in perpetual battle. Its us versus life. Many routinely go through each day not knowing if they can face tomorrow with the same vigour that they had today. Only some ever live life. Most are content to just survive in life and continue preset conventions. Only some ever dare break it and live life. Do I dare?

Each day I struggle between telling her and ending it. At least I know the guilt that devours my conscience each night will be tamed. True feelings solicit shame when it surfaces; proliferating turmoil that a facade easily disguises. Lies enable us to live life in relative peace. As history teaches us: Absolute truth begets crucifixion.

I loveth so much this girl,
Yet I cannot let my feelings unfurl,
For I fear the precepts of this world,
And I’m obscured like an oyster with a black pearl.

God's Will? Hmmmmm....(Part 3)

“Understanding this aspect of God’s will acknowledges that while we have the power and ability to disobey God’s commands, we do not have the right to do so. Therefore, there is no excuse for our sin, and we cannot claim that by choosing to sin we are simply fulfilling God’s sovereign decree or will. Judas was fulfilling God’s sovereign will in betraying Christ, just as the Romans who crucified Him were. That does not justify their sins. They were no less evil or treacherous, and they were held accountable for their rejection of Christ (Acts 4:27-28). Even though in His sovereign will God allows or permits sin to happen, we are still accountable to Him for that sin.” This argument was put forth by a rather well-known Christian Evangelist and writer. What he says is that although the betrayal of Jesus was God’s sovereign will ((meaning his absolute right and power to do all things), Judas was to be blamed for allowing himself to indulge in sin. Does this argument really make sense?
A Christian is indoctrinated to think that God has a Will in his/her life making them totally dependent upon HIM to make any decision. Personally, when I was riding on the wave of my new found spiritual euphoria (I was young and impressionable), I prayed long and hard over almost every decision I had to make. Be it going out to watch a movie or deciding if I should ask my Dad for a new Discman or if should beat my sister up for behaving worse than my neighbour’s dog. The truth is, despite my naivety, not once did I ever get an answer from God. My Mom would tell me,”You need to learn how to discern and look for signs from God.” So I grabbed my magnifying glass, fedora and whip (a la Indiana Jones) and started hunting for signs. I’d look for them everywhere i.e. sermons, worship, conversations, random verses; anything at all that would affirm my prayer or request to God. Any coincidence would be my affirmation.
Over time however, I realised that there is no such thing as coincidence only the deception of it. That’s how we are isn’t it? We crave attestation and grasp on to the hope that it will be granted. In the case of my star crossed friend, her religion clearly stated that she shouldn’t marry a person out of her religion and yet she had a relationship with someone outside her religion and later ended it because of her sudden awareness that she breached her religious boundaries. Did she really think the God would exercise His mighty prowess and convert the guy into her religion or did she hope? What irks me is that she still has not gotten over him nor has she discovered God’s answer to this. She floats in spiritual limbo and her prayer everyday is, “God please tell me what to do”. The blatant fact is that God has already told her what to do in his Word but she just cannot accept the finality of it. Herein seethes the conundrum.

I Wonder why........

Ever realised how life becomes an encumbrance only when we actually stop to think about it? Its as if predicaments only ever catch up to us when we attune to them. For example, when I was in secondary school, I used to forget my books every day. My maths teacher, Ms Ng, once called me into the counselling room to have a heart to heart talk with her. The purpose of the session would be to impart some values on homework ethics to me but I found it pretty hard to be concentrating on what she's saying when she's sitting across me, on a low wooden bench, in a short dress. Eventually she'd lose patience and threaten to call my parents to complain. Since I dont have a say in her decision all I could do is prepare for the worst (by worst I mean broomsticks, cooking utensils, vaccum cleaner and toilet bowl covers in the hands of my martial arts trained parents and me as the sparring partner). The cruel reality of this life-threatening situation does not hit me when I'm playing soccer, eating ice cream or catching spiders with my friends, but it knocks my guts out when I'm sitting alone in the bus going back home. The buoyancy of problems is directly proportional to our solitary state during that particular time. The lonelier we are the heavier the problem.

Labels: Life, Problems

God's Will? Hmmmmmmmmm...(Part 2)

Ever since my inception into Christianity, at a age where I couldnt decipher if what I felt was merely my emotions or divine insemination, I've always been pondered much about my new religion. Let me thus share my thoughts one such moot point: God's Will.

Christianity preaches that everyone of us have a purpose in life and that purpose is what Christianity labels as God's Will. According to many preachers, in order to attain enlightenment on what that Will contains for us, we have to have a close relationship with God - through prayer, fasting and whatever else is prescribed by our "spiritual father" a.k.a Pastor. Essentially what this means is that we have to spend part of our lives discovering what has been decided by God for us and then spending the rest of it living as he wanted us to. Now what could be more glorious and fulfilling than living a life predestined by our Creator right? But is this truly what God meant by his Will in our lives?

Genesis 2:7 says ,"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." This is the first and only reference, throughout Creation, to a soul. God created man with a difference from the rest. Man was given power over all other life created. Man was made god over all else except God. Man was created with a soul, in the image of God and with the freedom to make a choice over the Tree of Good and Evil. What this means would be God created a free spirit, one very much like him and the Tree of Good and Evil was the first temptation. Temptation was created together with Man. Adam and Eve both had an relationship with God and God's Will for them was this: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28. This was God's first Will for Man.

We all know what happened in the garden soon after and the rest of the happenings in the Old Testament. The turning point was the birth of Christ. Before this, throughout the Old Testament, God was manifesting his Will in a tangible manner. During Christ’s time on earth, God mostly worked through Jesus. It’s almost like an evolution. Although we still do see here and there instances where God still spoke through Angels and other corporeal means, the substantial withdrawal of explicit guidance from God in the New Testament was startling and it only got more obscure after the departure of Jesus.

Labels: God, Will

God's Will? Hmmmmmm... (Part 1)

Recently I spoke to a friend of mine, Ginger (not her real name obviously), who was rather depressed over the happenings in her life. This is her story: Ginger is a highly educated woman in her late twenties. She has a stable job and earns a respectable income. Ginger has always been apprehensive about love. She didnt feel that she could ever fall in love. Just as all love stories begin, along came man who swept Ginger of her feet , captured her imagination and set her heart so much on fire that she knew that it HAD to be love. And so begins the love story of Ginger who builds a relationship with that man for a couple of years and then tragedy strikes. Ginger is a pious Christian. Her lover, lets call him Fred, is a Hindu albeit a rather lax one. Ginger's concern is the contrictions of her religion. Christianity does not condone inter-religious marriages. Now Ginger was so convinced that this couldnt be God's Will and so they broke up. Its been a year or so since since and yet she has not gotten over him. Now what intrigued me was how God's Will was interpreted by Ginger in this matter. Ginger was sucidally convicted that God had a plan in her life and that this could not be His plan simply because it was against Christian conventions. Makes you wonder doesnt it?

Labels: Conventions, Love