Integrity

Integrity

Someone attributed that word to me some time ago.
It was a complement. And I appreciate it.
But when I clean my glasses and look at myself, it's just a crazy talk to me.

Integrity? Me? How?

Darkness attack

I was dishonest.
Why couldn't have I been more direct?

I was afraid.
Why couldn't have I been more bold?

So many lies, so much fear.

I've been lied to, I've been deceived.
I deceived them all, I couldn't tell the truth.

Broken hearted, crushed and thirsty.
Looking for water, dry sand is all I find.

Oh, prove Yourself to me, won't You, God?
Before it's too late, won't You rescue me?

My Engrish - 26-Dec-2007

In the past week, the most memorable Engrish I spoke was:

I'm from Scottish!

Of course I meant to say I'm from Scotland. I was trying to imitate the Scottish accent, and I ended up hearing my friend say, "you need to learn English first..."

Bonus:
My friend Hank was excited while playing Monopoly today, and said, "Hey, it's $25 for one houses each!" What! One houses each!! Bhwahahaha But then, what can I say, I am the one who once said, "let's read one verses each" and "let's take photo of one feet each!"

Gosh...

Why speak English when I can speak Engrish?

I am born in South-Korea and came to Australia when I was 16.
As you can imagine (or at least you can tell) that I still struggle to grasp the language of Australia, English. I am not very self-assertive person, nor very out-going. In fact, I am very introverted, reflective, and introspective.

This personality of mine plays on how I speak in English time to time. At times, when I am with people I am not quite comfortable with, I struggle much more than usual to speak in English. Pronunciations that I am familiar enough normally around my close friends become much more challenging when I am at some unfamiliar place or even at work. I forget the phrases I know, and stuff up the grammar I am used to.
When I make a mistake, I feel embarrassed, and it makes me even less confident about how I speak, then I speak even less and struggle more and end up making more mistakes. Such goes the vicious spiral downwards...

But, when I think about it, I don't really need to be self-conscious and feel embarrassed. It probably will help me to be a bit more light-hearted about it and laugh when I make mistakes or someone points them out.

So, here's what I'll do on my blog.
Time to time, when I make a mistake speaking in English, I'll post it up here.

and... first of such posts, here it goes...


Few days ago, actually, it was a few weeks ago now... (I saved this post a while back) I was at work, and was talking to another programmer, Nick. We were discussing a programming issue we had been trying to resolve, and decided to talk to another programmer/supervisor, Dan. When I checked to see if he was at his desk, he wasn't, and I said to Nick, "eh... maybe later, he's not on his desk."

!!!

'on his desk???'

I felt my face warming up.
'He's not AT his desk, not ON!'

All these 'at', 'on', 'in', 'by', and such words always confuse me.

Well, my good work colleague did not say anything about my statement, but just understood what I meant and didn't make me feel more embarrassed. Thanks, mate!

The Simpsons in a very non-simpson like style

Oh, wow, how's this for a spin?

Being confident under cultural attacks on Christianity

This new movie, The Golden Compass, and Northern Lights, the novel by Pullman which the movie is based upon are gaining more and more attention in Christian circles. Some concerns are voiced as the story is intentionally atheistic and anti-Christian, but I am glad to see some confident responses to this "apparent" rise of atheism in today's culture.
Tony Payne notices:

Pullman's trilogy has already joined the honour roll of recent anti-Christian bestsellers (think The Da Vinci Code, The God Delusion and God is not Great). Personally, I think this trend is a promising development. It is much better to be attacked than ignored—to be on the agenda of public debate than to be marginalized.

Here's another good article regarding this movie/issue by Michael Spencer titled, I’m Not Afraid of Atheists (or Their Movie):

Atheism has a powerful appeal when Christians aren’t well taught, honest and engaged. Its message can be potent when you’ve lived like a rabbit instead of a watchman or a witness. Many of the Christians warning us of “Atheists Ahead!” may be afraid their own faith couldn’t survive reading Sam Harris’s book. Atheists make dozens of challenges to Christianity and Christians that are MUCH NEEDED and LONG OVERDUE for consideration in many Christian circles.

So... anybody want to go see the movie with me?

Joined Technorati

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The Rules of Engagement in cultural battlegrounds

A thoughtful article at Challies dot com about a Christian response (or responsibility) towards the declining public education system:

We look to be a transformative influence. If schools truly are “prime battlegrounds for cultural conflicts,” as Dr. Mohler states, why would we purposely remove ourselves from them? Why would we give up and retreat from this battleground? If this is where the hearts and minds of generations of citizens will be formed, why would we take no interest in it? If we retreat, we lose our voice.

The article primarily talks about the public education system but the general principle is applicable to other issues we face today. Read it here.

Back to work

A week of holidays, over too soon.
Back at work, feeling the doom.
Oh, wait, girls are still on loose.
You then, sort the photos, make the memories bloom.
Others like me, working bees trapped in a room,
Be joyful for the work God gave you.
Soon enough, God will lift your gloom.


Well, now the photos are available for those interested, I won't point you there though. You'll know where to look if you know me or any of us who went on the holidays together.

Warning: photos may be misleading...
Lesson to be learned: don't trust everything you see especially on the internet.

I'm back...

Came back from the holidays last Saturday.
No, sorry, although we took some photos, the camera didn't belong to me, hence I can't promise to post up any photos up.
Anyways, I took an extra day off today to "recover from the holidays", and I'll be back to work tomorrow. In fact, it's today now.
Hopefully, I'll keep up my writing motivations and post up some thoughts going through my head more frequently from tomorrow.
For now, it's bedtime.

I'm on a holiday...

I've been on a holiday since last Monday. My friends and I came to Shell Harbour, about 3 hour-drive from Sydney. Unfortunately, the weather's been... cloudy, and few showers everyday, and quite chilly as well. It does not feel like a summer holiday at all. So we've been watching a few movies and playing some card games.

I don't quite mind staying indoor and spending time with friends, and get away from normal daily things, but hopefully the weather will get better before we head back Sydney.

Grief as what it is (even for Christians)

Hugh Begbie shares:

Grief is like living with a profound absence, a shadow that lurks at every corner. At times it has felt like a physical pain.

It was a moving story he shared, and I could identified with his emotions more than I actually wanted to... well, I won't share my story here, but just let me say that I am most helped and comforted by what he shared there.

Go and read it here.

How to navigate through the darkness

On Desiring God blog, Jon Bloom shares what he learned in a Spiritual Storm.

"Spatial disorientation" is what an aircraft pilot experiences when he flies into weather conditions that prevent him from being able see the horizon or the ground. Points of reference that guide his senses disappear. His perceptions become unreliable. He no longer is sure which way is up or down. It can be deadly.

The only way a pilot can overcome spatial disorientation is to be trained to read and trust his cockpit instruments to tell him what is real. That’s why flight instructors force student pilots to learn to fly planes by the instruments alone.

There is a spiritual parallel. I’ve experienced it. On a spring day in May 1997, I flew into a spiritual storm.

The only way a pilot can overcome spatial disorientation is to be trained to read and trust his cockpit instruments to tell him what is real. That’s why flight instructors force student pilots to learn to fly planes by the instruments alone.
Go and read it, act upon it, and pray for those around you who are struggling. And... pray for me too.

Perhaps I am going through such storm at the moment... Perhaps a few years down the track, I would be speaking from my own experience then...

Jesus, the greatest thinker...?

I follow Justin Taylor's blog. While I don't feel I understand everything on his blog, I thank him for I have benefited much from his posts. (Mr. Taylor, if you ever come to visit here on my blog, I just wanted to say, THANK YOU!)

Just today, I saw a post on his blog about a book review done by Doug Groothuis of Denver Seminary. I never heard of the Denver Seminary, nor the professor who reviewed it. I also have no idea about the book nor its author. I am not going to talk about them. What captured my interest was the phrase quoted on Justin Taylor's post. Professor Groothuis said:

Despite the strong points of The Philosophy of Jesus, we still await the definitive treatment of the philosophy of Jesus, the greatest thinker who ever lived.

Now, I am going to have to be careful here. I have no intention to dishonour my Lord by misrepresenting Him, nor do I wish to cause anyone to stumble. But I had to raise this one question. Was Jesus the greatest thinker who ever lived?

I would never hesitate to call Jesus, the greatest man who ever lived, for He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of the all creation. He is greater than the first Adam, He is greater than Angels, He is greater than prophets, He is greater than kings, He is the One and Only Son of God. So it kinda goes against my grain when I raise that question, "was Jesus the greatest thinker who ever lived?"

Imagine for a moment that somebody claimed Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived. I don't think we need to go around arguing whether that statement is true or not. I think we simply don't have substantial evidence to say that Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived. The Bible does not say anything about Jesus' running ability. Sure, he walked on water, so I think we can assume that, if He wanted to, He could have run faster than any human beings as well. (Perhaps He could've broken the world record while running on water!) But breaking world records was not His mission, and such specific event isn't recorded in the Bible. So I think it's quite pointless to claim such a thing as "Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived", but even more so, it would be a misleading claim by distraction from what Jesus was about.

Now, back on to the original statement: Jesus, the greatest thinker who ever lived. Can we say that Jesus was the greatest thinker? On what basis would we be able to say that? What do we exactly mean when we say Jesus is the greatest thinker? On what evidence can we say Jesus was the greater thinker than other secular thinkers, such as Socrates or Plato? If we did have evidence, How would we measure that? It might be the case that I am just not quite knowledgeable in the field of philosophy that I am unable to answer all these questions and wondering about with that statement. Yes, if you asked me, I am afraid that I am not entirely sure how to answer my own question. All I could say at the moment (going by my gut-feeling as a Christian) is that, Jesus IS the greatest thinker who ever lived on the basis that Jesus knew and understood the ultimate reality, that is God, better than anyone who ever lived and who will ever live. But if you are applying the critical thinking, metal capacity to draw out logical conclusions, and so on, as the measuring stick, I don't know if I can say Jesus was the greatest thinker (philosopher) who ever lived.

I am open to biblical instructions here, so please lead me to light.