All The Same

Throughout our history, there have always been fights among human beings for certain rights, beliefs, ideaologies and many pointless wars and senseless killings which could have and should have been avoided. In Genesis 1:26 it says;


Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground." (New Living Translation, 2007)


When taken at face value this verse sounds like common sense to us. We have domunion over all living creatures that God has put on this earth along with us. But thats not what I'd like to talk about here. I'd like you to pay attention to the first few words of this verse which I believe is usually forgotten. "Let us make human being in out image" This verse tells us that every single one of us is an image of God on earth. Even that guy who smells a little funny or that girl who dresses like a barbie doll. What they may say or do may be a little odd to us, but they're still images of God as we are too. So everytime we look at another person, we're looking at the image of God. And one of the greatest sins that mankind has commited over the years and still continue to commit is exactly this. Failure to accept God's other creations with open arms and to love them like our siblings. Lets look at this with examples.

Racism. A major issue in the Unites States many years ago. well, maybe not THAT many years. I have a question for you. Does God differentiate his children based on their skin tone? Culture? Ethnical background? The land where they come from? You already know the answer to this one. No, he doesn't. He loves them just as much as He loves any other person so where do get our rights to claim superiority over any other race or person? If you look at "to be like us" the last part of the first sentence, racism is most definitely not something that God would do and its not "like Him" at all. Another example is Adolf Hitler.

Everyone knows that he didn't play very nicely with the Jewish people. In the end, his unfriendlyness led to a senseless killing spree. Why? Do we discriminate them because of what they believe? Or because thier history? If that be the case, there would be no such thing as world peace. There would be hate among the European countries, China would hate Japan, Japan would hate America and the world's biggest countries would be taken out of the globalization equation. We don't deny what happened in the past, but we don't live in it so don't drag things that happened before be the littlest things like your friend spilling his drink on your shirt. God doesn't hate us now because 'we' killed his only son. He's kind, compassionate and forgiving so "be like Him"


Another thing I'd like to bring up is gay bashing. Its true homosexuality is forbidded in Christianity and many other religions and generally unaccepted society. But its not their fault that that happened to them. God doesn't hate them because they have different sexual orientations. These people, have different lives to lead, a different path to take from the other so-called 'normal people' but they're no different than us. They eat, drink, breathe, study, work, clean, cook, wash so on and so forth. Whats so different about them at fundamental levels? Its unjust to bash these people up based on your own social standards, so don't.

I'm probably not the best person to be talking about all this since I'm a sinner, I'm flawed too. But I think this is something important that we've forgotten but something that should be thought about and kept in mind. Even those who aren't religious I'm sure you can still relate. What gives you the right to discriminate people based on their color or sexual orientation? Nothing. Its things like ego and superiority complex that gets in the way of all this. No one is better than another person. Everyone is All The Same.

Conversion. (Part 1)

There aren't exactly many people reading this but I guess I'm posting this up to recap what happened to me in the last year and a few months. About a year and a half ago, I was no more than a lost teenager with no real guide in life, living the days as it came by without thought about the 'bigger picture'. I was/am the nice guy who was always considered thoughtful, kind, never said 'no' to someone who needed help. Yes its true. In fact, I still can't say no to almost everyone. In short, self sacrificial. All this was good, I like helping people out and seeing smiles on their faces at the end of the day always made me happy and made me think my time, energy was worth it. But I had no purpose in life. Nothing to look up to in times of difficulty. Most people look to their parents for help. Of course. They should be the people who know you best and would support you whenever you need it. But I don't have that relationship with them, thus, it wasn't an option for me. 


I grew up in a buddhist-ish background with my dad originally being buddhist. Whenever we visited temples like kek lok si and many other temples for prayer, I felt like a foreigner in a different country. I wasn't feeling as homey as my dad was or as cheery as my other siblings seem to be. Maybe this was already an indication of something to come in the up coming years. (1996-1997ish)


In the year 2000, my dad was baptized and converted to a Roman Catholic. The reason for his conversion is *********...******. (For protection of privacy, details have been removed). Now this, also felt foreign to me. I was 9 at the time. The nearest church to where we lived at the time was The Church of Immaculate Conception. I lived in Midlands Condo just a 5 minute walk away. I always knew there was a church nearby but never thought I'd have any kind of relation to it. Life went on and we went to church on big occasions like Easter, Christmas and occasionally on some saturday evenings. To be honest, I really didn't like it. Having to sit quietly in church for an hour while things happen which i had no clue what it was, was like having to sit in a classroom where the teacher speaks in some weird foreign language which you have no idea and it feels like a total waste of time. During Christmas, all i wanted to do was for the mass to finish and to go home to the presents under the tree. Childish. Yes I know that thankyouverymuch. What do you expect? I was 9, no one told me about anything that was going on, or even attempted to try to tell me anything so don't blame me for feeling like that. 


End of part 1. 

Thoughts

I didn't exactly have anything new to post up here so here I am talking about 'thinking' and 'thoughts'. The average person (not a person with depression) experiences and processes an average of 60,000 automatic thoughts a day. Automatic thoughts meaning those thoughts that come effortlessly and go by before you know it like, 'the furry is barking' or 'why is this guy driving so slow' We don't realize these thoughts as 'thoughts' like almost all thoughts including positive ones like, 'he's playing good music'. They just come and go like air.. 

Out of the 60,000 thoughts, roughly 45,000 are said to be leaning towards negative thoughts. Approximately upward of 75-80% in percentage. Even 'can't this old man move any faster' is a negative thought. You're feeling annoyance towards the poor old man who doesn't really have a choice to walk any faster than he already is. (Unless he's wearing motor powered shoes with wheels in the soles of it) Maybe thats why some of us feel so unhappy all or most of the time. Our minds are over crowded with negative thoughts and we're always complaining or dissing about something or someone in our tiny little brains. YES you heard me right, I said TINY. Big head? Probably. Big brain? Hell no.

To anyone out there who thinks their brain is as good as the new A5 processor Apple launched, its nothing compared to what He can see or what He has in mind for us. ANYWAY. Its not possible to monitor all  the 60,000 thoughts you have in a day. But you can be sure that when you're feeling some kind of resentment, or anger or frustration towards something, you're thoughts are wandering off in the undesired direction so give it a tug back towards you. Forgive the old man who's walking slowing in front of you. Let the guy in front of you drive the way he is maybe he's driving through the pain of a broken leg towards the hospital. Don't honk him unless he's doing something mightly wrong on the road.. I'm not saying you have to be like this ; 

But I think a leeeeeetle consciousness about what you're thinking and being a little more understanding towards the situation might make your day not so stressful or dull or depressing. There was this person who told me this story about a girl spilling her cereal on her dad in the morning and the different situations that arise from there on. Its very true. The response from the person would be 'OF COURSE ITS BLOODY TRUE!!!' anyway. yes its true, how we respond to certain things can make a whole lot of difference to up coming events or mold how we're going to respond to other things that may come up in our day. So, once again, loosen up, drop those heavy bags of stress lighten yourself and live life. Get out of the spiral of bad thoughts you have every single day of your life. I'm going to use this again just because I can and the occasion seems to fit, 

Get out of the depths of miserable thoughts! De Profundis. 

De Profundis

De Profundis. It is the Latin translation for the first words of Psalm 130. My interpretation of it would be a kind of penitential prayer. De Profundis means, ''out of the depths of despair'' I believe. As I do not know much about Latin, I've depended on many Many MANY online translations to confirm the dependency of this translation. The Psalm goes on, crying out to God, waiting for divine redemption. 


Psalm 130 : Waiting for Divine Redemption 



¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;
 ² Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
   to my cry for mercy.
 ³ If you, LORD, kept a record of sins,
   Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
   so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
 ⁵ I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
   and in his word I put my hope.
⁶ I wait for the Lord
   more than watchmen wait for the morning,
   more than watchmen wait for the morning.
 ⁷ Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
   for with the LORD is unfailing love
   and with him is full redemption.
⁸ He himself will redeem Israel
   from all their sins.



Being horrible at naming anything, this might pretty much be one of those cases but the idea came to me during mass today despite the fact that today's readings weren't exactly about this. But well, I thought it was suitable since it sort of fits my current state of mind, and its not just a Psalm to cry out to God during bad times but also to repent for our sins and ask for forgiveness. We're all sinners. Accept it! In verse 4 the psalmist brings up that we are afraid of God because He is powerful, yet we love Him because He is so compassionate towards us and forgiving. In verse 5, he waits hopefully for 'something good' to happen through Him. He emphasizes how much he wants this in the next verse how he says he wants the Lord more than he wants the morning to come. The word 'Redeemer' in the last verse we know that its one of the names of Jesus. Although the psalmist didn't know this due to his ancientness. 


My point is, there're many things we can or rather should keep in mind from this short Psalm. We tend to want other things or other methods to solve/run away from our problems. Indeed at times, there may be certain practical methods to solve a problem but we must not lose faith in God in the process of wanting a solution like a 'new morning' as in verse 6. I'm starting to lose my point and forgetting what I wanted to say in the first place so, I shalln't go on before I'm talking more crap than I already am. 


This marks the day of my blogging, and hopefully to more hopeful, cheerful days ahead of course by, ''Coming out of the depths of despair'' De Profundis