Inspiration Lacking

My brain is on holidays as well.

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Bending Over the Abyss

Solitude: the fine art of intentionally doing nothing for extended periods of time. As a Christian discipline, its understood as a way to separate yourself from the busyness and noisiness of this world. It is to be quietly still in God's presence, and through this quiet stillness, to actually be open to God's voice and presence. The world is a busy place, and we love the noise and activity. Have we considered the effect of that noise and activity on our ability to hear from, and respond to God?

Monks in ages past would literally flee society: literal solitude. Solitude will look different for us in our modern age, but the glaring importance of it remains.

A book I've currently been reading struck me as a moving reminder as to why we must continually seek God in the stillness of our hearts:

For inner silence depends on a continual seeking, a continual crying in the night, a repeated bending over the abyss. If we cling to a silence we think we have found forever, we stop seeking God and the silence goes dead within us. A silence in which He is no longer sought ceases to speak to us of Him. A silence from which He does not seem to be absent, dangerously threatens His continued presence. For He is found when He is sought and when He is no longer sought He escapes us. He is heard only when we hope to hear Him, and if, thinking our hope to be fulfilled, we cease to listen, He ceases to speak, His silence ceases to be vivid and becomes dead, even though we recharge it with the echo of our own emotional noise.

Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude

The Christian faith is about a relationship, may we be ever attentive and ever vigilant.

See my books on solitude

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Blog Updates

I've made the move to Google's new Blogger Beta, so what you'll notice is the new labels. Each post I write can be assigned labels, which you can think of a way of tagging all my posts.

So for example my previous post was tagged: article, chinese and culture. By clicking on any of labels you can see all my other posts with similar tags.

I plan to be blogging more these days, for whatever reason the juice is simply flowing. I'm not really a fan of my current colors/layout however, expect a makeover coming soon! I'm an obsessive compulsive minimalistic. Flickr has a photo group of neat web designs, hoping to draw some inspiration from there. Cheers!

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Where I begin

Its sort of like being beat up. Well sort of anyway. You feel a bit spacey, and there's some difficulty in focusing that can be accompanied by head throbbing. Not to mention the temperamental effects including impaired patience, mild unhappiness, loss of judgement, and just feeling plain drained. Its not a great state to be in. This is the world of sleep deprivation. Its a good reminder to know that sleep deprivation is used in torture. Suddenly the stupidity of self inflicted sleep deprivation grows in magnitude. There's something to be learned here...

Reflecting on this has reminded me of the clear depravity and brokenness of man. I constantly mess things up. I rarely know what's best for me, and even when I do, I have an uncanny history of choosing otherwise (sleep deprivation). This goes across the board though, don't forget that we're a species that lets 40,000 children starve every day, kills millions in wars, and causes countless broken relationships and families.

This is where life's biggest questions and conflicts begin: understanding there is something very wrong with us. This is why my faith (Christianity) is so mind-blowingly relevant to me. It meets me where I am: one who is hopelessly depraved and broken. Our attitude upon recognizing this should be one of humility. Its very easy for Christians (well anyone) to become proud and cocky. I think this is only possible when we forget our place. We are not in a place of strength of power, but of weakness and need. This is the most fundamental of truths in what it means to be a Christian. For it was in that place of weakness and need that God met us, it is where God saved us. Our humble recognition of that is where we need to begin, day after day.

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins (Economy of Mercy - Switchfoot)

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Lost in Translation

Who am I? Over my travels I constantly met people of different nationalities/ethnicities. After learning each others' names the next question is always "where do you come from?" or essentially "what are you?" My reponse was complicated. If I said "I'm Canadian", they would sort of peer at me strangely, since they're really asking about type of Asian ethnicity I was. If I said "I'm Chinese", they would be puzzled by my fluent English and North American mannerisms. What I eventually found is that "Canadian Born Chinese" (CBC) really is the most accurate, albeit a bit longer (and thus harder for non-native English speakers to immediately understand). The problem is I'm not fully Canadian or Chinese. The Chinese have a slang for me, 竹星仔 'jook sing jai' (literally "bamboo star boy"). This term is used to say that just as bamboo appears in independent sections, I am such a section. Thus I do not connect with either the section that grew before (Chinese) or that which is growing after(my Canadian side). Rough.

The last couple years I have yearned to find my cultural identity, this post is about how this journey started.

The book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan absolutely floored me. The book is a collage of the stories of 4 Chinese couples and their 4 CBC daughters living in the US. Jing-Mei Woo(a CBC), the main character, goes through her journey of finding cultural identity. Her mother passes away, and Jing-Mei discovers she has long lost sisters in China who have never met their mother. The other parents tell Jing-Mei she must tell her mother's story to these sisters: who the mother was, all that she had suffered, and all that she had done for these lost sisters. The daughter is at a loss for words, and stutters that she wouldn't know what to say... she is torn between feelings of shame, guilt and confusion. She always argued with her mom, always thought poorly of the Chinese way of doing things, and really never understood or appreciated the Chinese way of things. It was with a deep sadness that I empathized with Jing-Mei.

Since then I've been trying to get more exposed to my parent's culture. This involves getting back into learning Chinese, watching Chinese movies, reading books, but much more important than all this - simply having an open, receptive attitude.

Understanding one's culture identity is incredibly important for growing as a person. To know who one is, one must know where one came from. For almost all of us, that's learning about our parents' culture and background. Those by far are the greatest influence on our core values, perspectives, temperament, communication style, morals, etc etc I could go on.

As I grew in my friendships in Austria it was so enriching to encounter different cultures - the conversation that comes out of it causes us to learn to identify our own culture. So when I explained that I was 24 but still lived a home (one of the few amongst our group) I had to think about why that is, and why in CBC culture this was actually almost always the case.

There have been ups and downs in this journey. Culture is a tricky, and quite vague really. I'm reminded when my whole family sits around the dinner table (myself, 2 older CBC sisters, dad born in India, moved to Hong Kong as a teenager, and mom born near Canton and moved to HK in early twenties). We're all different. We're all really really unique ("really" used for emphasis, really you can only be unique or not - really). Culture is a convenient generalization, but really we all exist on a cultural spectrum, with varying similarity and variance.

So this is where I am - learning about who I am, and where that comes from. God has made us with so much cultural variety. And our culture is something we're all proud of, and the thought of losing culture seems both sad and shameful. This isn't the case though - our culture simply changes. Yes its true my Chinese culture is definitely watered down, and likely my children (well, pending children) will retain even less traditional Chinese culture. There will be something in its place, something different - but also something worth treasuring and being proud about.

And if I persevere, perhaps I will not find myself as flustered as Jing-Mei. Instead I will be proud to tell of the culture from which I come from. If I also persevere as a student of culture, hopefully I will be able to fairly evaluate different cultures, and take from the good, and keep from the bad. As a Christian this will also mean what God's culture is like, what are His values and perspectives.

What about you? Tell me about your culture.



My Books tagged with 'Chinese'
My Links tagged with 'Chinese'

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No more

Everyone dies. If we call approaching death "dying", then it would follow that we are all dying. Now for the Christian readers they would argue for rapture-related exceptions but for the sake of discussion today let's not go there.

Dying is rather significant (at least somewhat significant) - so what are we doing about it? Do we think about it? Are we aware - and have we come to grips with this reality? I fear our answers to such questions. I know for me (and I suspect most of us) death seems so distantly irrelevant. Which is sort of silly, we think so much about other upcoming events in our lives: getting a driver's license, becoming an adult, getting married, etc. What should death mean to us?

There's a inherent sadness that I experience as I ponder death. Certainly those religiously minded yearn for the "next life", but we all want to experience things on earth. I would like to grow personally, perhaps experience marriage, travel the world, learn a Bach cello suite, pee off a ridiculously tall tree, and the such. To think of losing those opportunities forever makes me sad. So we cling to life, and we cling hard.

Let us not forget what is worse than death, and that is watching others die. I have yet to experience the sorrow of having a close one pass away. But in terms of myself, even at my young age I have become aware of how mental capacity, physical health and ability quickly decline. There's such insecurity and fear in that - to imagine one's self losing power, ability and throughput. As I've watched my parents grow old I've seen this firsthand, and know should I live to be old I surely face the same.

But it doesn't end there. I do not regret thinking about death, because it helps me treasure life even more! That the sunlight upon my face feels that much more vibrant! The joy of laughing with a friend or enjoying the peacefulness of a quiet walk. The become so much more real, so much more valuable. So I am glad to have thought about physical death. I am glad for what you've taught me. Yet regret arises for I know I could have done more. I should have done more. This is why I will remember you, and what your short and simple life has taught me. Thank you Mr. Grasshead.

The author does not wish to portray any insensitivity to the death of loved ones. Rather just the contemplation upon the simple life and death of a plant. Well in this case a rather large number of plants. The author doesn't actually know how to refer to a single grass. He just says "there's some grass". I mean, some people use "blade", but that's in reference to the leaf structure, not the plant itself. "A grass" perhaps is most accurate, but I digress.
The author currently resides in Winnipeg, Canada and spends some of his free time practicing grass-revival techniques, mostly involving water.

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Contentment

Life is filled with all sorts of changes and experiences. I can ask all sorts of difficult questions trying to evaluate the past - should I have done X? Why did I leave Y? Did I ever consider Z?

This brings up the discipline of contentment. I just started a new job. Could my cubicle be nicer? Sure. Could it be worse? Again, sure. Could my salary be better or worse? Sure. I am not attempting to trivialize circumstances, rather I am challenged to consider what it means to seek contentment.


Ascetics and masochists aside, I do believe contentment is a good and important thing. However it is an incredibly variable thing. Some days I believe I need some very expensive item that is really snazzy and I will be content. Other times on a hot day, all it takes is to sit in some shade and enjoy some cool water.

What matters is one's standard for contentment. Person A can be content with a $10 bottle of wine, while person B cannot be content with less than a $100 bottle of wine. I personally think A is better off. Our society however pushes both person A and B to be discontent. To always crave something more, something better. But how much is enough? How is it possible that our society who gets the top 10% best water, food, shelter, clothing, technology, wealth, healthcare, etc still manages to be discontent and always craving for more?

Simplicity is a freedom. Contentment is a freedom. I for one would rather be content and free, than constantly craving and discontent. People talk about doing financial tip X or saving up for Y to improve one's standard of living. Here's a cheaper (but harder) tip - learn contentment. This brings up many other hard (but incredibly important) issues. If we're people who do wrong things, if we are spiritual beings, then we will crave a much deeper contentment. And that, is something only God (not I) can help you with.

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Arts: Film, Literature and Music

Great art can communicate before it is understood. -T.S. Eliot

I've had more time to explore these things these past weeks. We have the privilege of having easy access to film, literature and music like no generation before us. I have often taken this for granted, forgetting how these forms of art have power to inspire, impact, teach, entertain and allow you to experience such amazing things.

Here's some thoughts and tips that have been on my mind with regards to the arts.

High Art and Low Art

Often people differientiate between high art and low art. An example from music might be trying to compare Mozart and Britney Spears for example. I do concede that (and find it plainly obvious) that Britney and Mozart are on different levels of artistic music. However if we look at our lives, we see that both high art and low art are important. I love to listen to the classical masters, but that's not my bread and butter music. Shakespeare may indeed be beautiful and profound, but most of us need the simpler fiction for our dose of storytelling. A friend put it this way to me: high art is like those special lobster dinners - they're wonderful and special, but not what we live off of. Lets not forget the low art, our bread and butter.


Good Art and Bad Art

Although low art is important, this is different from bad art. Some might protest to this heading, that art is subjective and we cannot determine objectively whether art is good or bad. There is a standard though, if we consider God's example as the ultimate artist. Good art is good for you, bad art is bad for you. Some art reflects beauty, enlightens, or helps us grow as a person, and is good for us. Other art demoralizes, glorifies evil, reduces our humanity, and is bad for us. With the amount of art/media we get exposed to daily, its crucial that we are critical partakers. I'm mostly referring to TV here... lol.


Don't Buy New

Access to art doesn't require a lot of money. It can seem like it as movies often cost $20 and books aren't exactly cheap either. But unless you are super keen on it, or it has been very recently released, there really isn't a need to buy new. Cities have tons of great used book stores (Winnipeg's list), and many shops with used DVDs, CDs, etc. This helps give you exposure to the great classics out there too. Of the last 10 books I've bought, 9 were under $4 (a couple were $0.50), with the other being $7.


Don't Buy at All

Here's an even more obvious money saver. With books guess what, let me reintroduce you to a word most of us have forgotten since elementary school: library. Our tax money goes to pay for it, and for us Winnipeggers we have a really amazing newly renovated Millenium Library. This is the best way to try out a book without being sure if you'll like it. The books I have out: worth $30. Cost to me: nothing. There are somethings money can't buy, for everything else, there's mastercard.

Other great ideas are coming out like movie passes. I currently have one at Movie Village (in Osborne Village) where for $20 a month, I can always have 3 movies taken out and I can swap them as many times as I want. There's also many new mail order options that are very good as well.

The web has free stuff. Old classic writings are available free. For the musicians out there, the web has TONs of places to get free music, or very very cheap music. Here's the simple fact, virtually all classical music is public domain. The cost comes only from the editing and publishing. The web has really made so much more instantly accessible for almost no cost.

And last but not least: borrow and lend. I know, our materialistic society is very trophy-oriented. What I mean is that after doing X, we want to go out and buy something as our trophy/testament to doing X. Hence all the stupid T-shirts (I've been to the top of ________). You don't need the trophy, if the art was good for you then that is the most important thing. Also if you're tired of some of your stuff - why not give it away?


Variety is the Spice of Life

Embrace variety. There's so many genres and artists out there, why not try something new? We inherently love variety, but often because we fall into patterns where we stick to what we know. Make an effort to watch perhaps a historial movie, a documentary, sci-fi, anime, foreign, suspense, etc etc. Then one starts to realize how much great stuff there is out there. Use review sites and just pick out rated movies. I don't generally trust a single film critic, but I'm willing to listen if they're mostloy agreed on whether a film is great.

I think variety is most important for books. A lot of people desire to read more, so they pick a book and try to get through it. Then they get a bit bored or hit a lull and then kind of give up. Instead, I read so much more if I have 3-4 books on my shelf, and a bookmark in each. Then on a quiet evening I have a menu before me to choose from.

For the Christians out there I think this is a great way to add variety to reading the Bible. Reading cover to cover is tough (Leviticus will knock you down like nobody's business), rather I recommend this system:
-one bookmark starting from Genesis
-one bookmark in psalms (read a psalm a day)
-one bookmark starting in the major prophets (Isaiah)
-one bookmark starting in the Gospels (Matthew)
-one bookmark starting in the Epistles (Romans)
Its a nice way to get a cross section of the Bible and keep motivated.


So now what?

Go read a book! Listen/play some music! Watch a film! There's tons of other art out there besides simply literature, music, and film. Come to the Rodin Exhibition with me and check out some sculpture for example. Our workaholic society has a disregard for the quiet, stately enjoyment of art. In its busyness we forget we need art. We are creative beings and need oulets for that creativity, lest we let it die. Go get some, trust me - you'll be better off.

Love to hear about your thoughts/experiences. My friend was recently interviewed and shared some really good thoughts (Link).

More Resources

The web has plenty of offerings when it comes to art, check out what I've come across:
Movie Links
Music: Online radio, Sheet Music Sites
Literature: Sites with Ebooks online

Allan is Currently Tasting:
Books: Manufacturing Consent, Jan Wong's China, Discipleship, browse my libraryshelf
Music: Learning Schubert's (transcribed by Liszt) Der Muller und der Bach, Op. 25 No. 19
Film: Godfather I and II, Trois Coleurs: Bleu, Lawrence of Arabia

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Lilfe Doesn't Have an Autosave

It was on. I had brought my A game. It all started with a furious smattering of keys (in a somewhat consequential order), followed by a pause, and further smattering. Again I paused with hand on chin, and then smattered some more. It had good links in it and well thought out paragraphs. I proofread it several times, as to improve on my writing style and word choice. Being the multitasker I was, I was surfing off in another window. Happened to click a link to a PDF file, and then BAM my browser crashes. Thank you very much Adobe Acrobat Plugin. It seemed fated that this is how I would discover that blogger.com doesn't have an autosave feature. Lost the blog post I had laboured for.

The post on Music, Literature and Film will have to wait. Life doesn't have an Autosave... after a blunder we can't just revert to a previously saved reality.

Until then, 3 guesses on what "Fire Exit" is in Welsh, and the first two guesses don't count.

Photo takens by friends from the Schloss
while visiting a castle in Wales

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Perspectives

Life as we know it is governed by our perspectives. Something can happen that person A and B both experience, but can exist as completely different experiences based on their perspectives. Our perspectives hold great power over the way we interact with the world. Hence, improving our perspectives (in truthfulnes and wisdom) becomes a very worthwhile activity.

A neat site I came across helped me experience a hypothetical perspective, which gave me a better global perspetive. What if the earth only had a population of 100, yet all the proportions of races, religion, wealth, standard of living and the such remained the same. Check it out at www.miniature-earth.com/ which has a neat flash presentation. This topic of perspectives has been on my mind...

in the days before the anniversary of September 11th, 2001. The question came - what do I know of 9/11? Sure I know the surface media story and the basics, and could regurgitate (roughly) what was replayed over and over and over on the news during that entire month. I can't name any of the individuals that were accused. I can't give any clear explanation on how the twin towers could collapse after burning for under 2 hours... (while in 1975 a fire broke out for over 3 hours over 6 floors with virtually no structural damage)

In fact tons of alternative theories began to abound, easily spread by the advent of the internet. The official 9/11 Commission Report was released three years after 9/11. ABC recently also showed a docudrama The Path to 9/11" was then based off of. Still, many people seem quite convinced that something wasn't adding up.

Before we just label these as mere conspiracy theories, consider: these theories are rapidly gaining support from educated people who actually know a bit of what they're talking about. Consider a movement such as the Scholars for 9/11 Truth. They have quite an educated membership of about 300 including people experienced in advanced research, engineering, physics, etc. The wikiepdia does point out however, notably no one from the American Society of Civil Engineers is yet part of this organization.

Haven't caught up on some of the hard criticisms of the official 9/11 Commission Report? Check out some of these videos, roughly handpicked: Jim Fetzer 9/11 Panel Discussion, the popular Loose Change documentary, an MIT Engineer's take on the WTC collapse. There's countless other organizations, websites, and videos, some of which are more reasonable than the others.

I wish I could have the right and truthful perspective on much of the world's happenings. 9/11 had huge repercussions, perhaps giving ease to the American public allowing its government to declare war on Iraq. That was based on one particular perspective of 9/11, that gave sympathy to the Americans and fueled anger towards the "terrorists".

I think exposing myself to more documentaries/movies/etc can help. Best not to shut one's eyes. My problem is more of fear and this is why I have yet to vote - I find myself a paralyzed agnostic when it comes to such matters. :(

Edit (2006/09/12) - Google Video is hosting an area with tons of eyewitness footage, plus a special film called "7 Days in September". Worth checking out - http://video.google.com/911anniversary.html

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The Unnecessary Webpage

For awhile I had messed around with making a personal webpage (ThinkTankProject.com, and currently allantan.net) but with the advent of the blog, its become practically useless. There's simply so much cool stuff out there. Here's a breakdown of my current setup:

At the base of it all I use Google's Blogger.com to host my blog (which allows anonymous commenting, and you don't need a blogger.com account to come see unlike services like facebook, hi5, etc). There's tons of templates to choose from, and with a little HTML I customize colors, layout, and add my own thingies ^_^. Made the move from Xanga to Blogger about a year ago and its been great.

Then I add on a few free services (all of you can see I've integrated into my blog along the right hand side):

Del.icio.us provides a way for me to share all my links out there. You'll see my tags under "my del.icio.us tags". So i.e. you can see my saved links related to literature by clicking the corresponding tag. It's a great service to share the most popular links out there. If I had to name one site that's revolutionized my surfing, this is it. When first looking for sites to help learn Cantonese, all I had to do was go to http://del.icio.us/popular/cantonese and I was able to benefit from all the best sites that others had found. A must-join site for the web savvy (in my humble opinion).

Flickr.com to host my pictures and give me a snazzy flash badge showing a random selection of my latest pictures. Again no membership required to see the pics, and has a nifty, ajax-powered interface. Other good alternative services include yahoo photos, fotki.com, etc.

LibraryThing is a new social book management site. You create an account and enter books you have, or want, and it organizes them all into a shelf for you. Searchs Amazon and other major libraries for book info. So as you can see on the side, I chose to have a badge that shows 3 random books off my librarything shelf. This site also has all the social networking niceties - tagging, ability to see other users that have books in common, ratings, etc.

StatCounter.com offers a no frills simple web counter. Can be set to visible or invisible.

As for me, I may finally give up on working on my own private website. I still am looking for a way to somehow have "articles", which are clearly differentiated from blog posts, and then have them tagged, organized, and linked on the side as well. Something tells me I could somehow superimpose another blogger.com page with its dedicated del.icio.us account to achieve this.. hmm.. *trails off*

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Faith and Culture

For this Friday I have been planning a movie night for Together Under Grace (TUG), the university/career fellowship at Chinese Alliance Church. I had recently seen a movie that really impacted me called Changing Lanes. I felt it would be great to show, but had some hesitations. Some Christians are definitely sensitive to things like crudge language, violence and that sort of stuff in movies. The question arose - what sort of movie should be shown at church?

This drives to much deeper issues that I've been thinking about - how should Christians interact with culture? Should we shy away from things that some Christians deem as offensive?

Then the deeper issues get into what is art/music and what is it good for. Consider a movie, which is offensive to some, but helps the viewer grow or think in a new way. Is this worthwhile to watch?

I tend to be more liberal when it comes to these issues. I'm glad someone made Saving Private Ryan, showing some of the violence and horror of WWII. Mostly because I think the film did a good job of showing the human stories, and that really impacted me. I don't know, some movies like 8mm, which delves into pornographic sex and severe violence - well I didn't find that very beneficial at all (I recall viewers walking out on the movie in the theatre).

I think we need need to be on the forefront of engaging and influencing culture. This can't happen without interacting with modern culture, and rubbing shoulders with the world. However, this should never be at the expense of our personal devotion to God, nor the cost of causing our brother to stumble.

Any thoughts?

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How I roll

Its been a busy time (but good) time since I've been back. Its good just to catch up with people. Its strange - when I'm unemployed and not in school I'm remarkably productive. Lots more pet projects I'd like to get rolling as well.

My main two objectives right now are job hunting and finishing up work for my Biblical Exegesis course I did at the Schloss. In our day and age, job hunting seems to have boiled down to hours and hours spent in front of the computer, going through various websites and then making lists, and writing emails to each company. I have one good prospect coming up, we'll see if something comes of it.

I've been motivated to read more these days. I've really been craving fiction, just recently read Stephen Lawhead's Byzantium, then Harry Potter books 1 to 3, Joy Luck Club, some Grimm's Fairy Tales, and found myself a copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at a used book store yesterday. Oh for those who are into books, check out this cool new service LibraryThing, which is sort of a social community site where you can enter your entire library of books, have wishlists, compare your library with others, etc. Its quite sweet, just enter the title, author, or ISBN, and it searches major sites (primarily Amazon) and then enters all the info for you. I tried entering a few books, its really easy. Check out the few books I have on my page so far here. I plan to use this as a list of books I've used/read, regardless of whether I own it or not. I've been looking for awhile for a nice way to keep track of books, and this looks like the ticket.

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Home

There and back again... got back Wednesday afternoon. "Sweet Home Alabama" has been stuck in my head. I can truly say Winnipeg is my home. Some former Winnipeggers have different sentiments (see the song One Great City! by The Weakerthans).

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Toronto

Well I arrived in Toronto Wednesday night, a rather tiring trip. It took me a bit over 21 hours from the time I left Ross' house in Oxford until I walked in the door of my sister's apartment. I should consider myself fortunate though, the day after I left, this happened, delaying/messing-up all flights from UK->North America. The bottom picture in that news article was the airport I flew out of (London Stansted).

Its been good for me to relax here. Cambridge was very busy and tiring. Oxford was great as I visited Ross. I quite like England, hehe birthed a new dream, albeit most likely a pipe dream. Oh, to have an EU passport... hehe.

Now I'm lounging around, had breakfast a couple hours ago, spent some time emailing/surfing, and now going to read some Harry Potter. Its not a glamorous life... but I'm okay with it :P I don't have any big plans for Toronto really, other than spending time with my sisters. Going to hit up a couple musems, also there's an international dragonboat festival I think we'll check out. Some friends here to see also, but generally it'll be pretty laid back I think. Jen also has a djembe, cello and cajon which I can entertain myself on :D

It'll be good to have this week to transition into going back home. Lots to reflect on, for my experiences at the Schloss, my time in Cambridge... and the job hunting and road ahead. Back in Winnipeg this Wednesday!

Oxford - Ross and I outside the famous Eagle and Child pub,
where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to meet to discuss books/ideas.

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Live and plugged in Cambridge

I scarcely believe its only been a week since I left the Schloss. I'm in full swing and halfway through my time serving with the Cambridge International Outreach.

Coming here was tough. The Schloss is a place where theres tons of visitors already, so each person there has to strike a balance between having a comfortable circle of friends, yet also meeting new people.

What basically happened was I left that community on a Sunday morning, and by Sunday afternoon I was surrounded by the new Cambridge Int'l Outeach (CIO) team, 40 people from all over. Everyone else was very excited and everyone was getting to know everyone, however I was still coping with the idea of leaving the Schloss community. So it was tough, I wanted to retreat... I am getting used to it now. Community is important - after getting more comfortable with the team it has been easier for me to extend myself and start to open up more to the int'l students (which is the whole point of the ministry lol).

The days are busy here, the weekends we have more time off, but my average day look like:
Wake up around 9:30 (staying with a host family), bike over to our main HQ, we have a time of singing and then someone teaches from a bible passage (we're going through 1 John), then morning tea, then a seminar teaching us about different cultures, then lunch, then prayer time, then afternoon activities (sports, flyering, getting to meet int'l students and invite them for evening events), coffee break, small group discussions, dinner, cafe setups, then we open up our 2 cafes. Int'l students come and we hang out with them, get to know them, host optional bible studies, etc. We close up at 11:00, clean up, debrief, and I bike back home around midnight. Five days of this in a row and I was really ready to have the weekend off.

Cambridge is a beautiful city, a lot of history, and plenty of sites to see and things to do. The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival is on, so we went to see Hamlet in the gardens of the famous King's College here which was neat.

Cambridge is interesting, mostly a university town, so there's tons of students. However during the summer most of the regular students leave, and what happens is Cambridge has many language schools that then open up, with people from all over the world coming to study and learn English. Many are only here for weeks at a time, its quite an incredible thing to see - and all the multinational friendships that come out of that. So all sorts of bizarre mixes of ethnicities are seen.

I have to go - miss you all very much.

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Bye...

Going in 5 hours. Off to Cambridge for 2 weeks, Oxford for 3 days, Toronto for 7 days, then home!

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End is coming

4 more days to finish up everything before I leave the Schloss. So much to reflect on, both on my time here and to peer at the steps ahead. I think leaving always involves sadness :(

Sat in for a couple lectures on a course "Building Christian Communities", had some really interesting content. We often remember that after the fall people long for a reconciled, perfect relationship with God, but perhaps we often forget that we also long for reconciled, perfect community. It was who we were made to be - so the course looks at how do we understand, approach, and then pursue community. Certainly my time here has really influenced my thoughts on community, and renewed my hopes of bringing some community-mindset back home as well.

Oh also check out My Google Calendar, hm seems like Google's always cooking up something cool. Google's set of web services is simply unbeatable. I can manage several different calendars, and download others. So I have my own personal one (which I linked above) which I can share, I could have a work one, Canadian holidays, Christian holidays, all color coded, and can be overlayed on each other. I can also create events and send out invitations and all that jazz. Basically small companies could easily move over to Gmail and Google Calendar to replace a shared Microsoft Exchange Server setup. Nutties. Haven't made the switch to Gmail and Google Calendar? Its worth it to make the switch.

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When things come to an end

*glances uneasily at watch*

4.5 days left.

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Where did you come from where did you go

Its been quite awhile since I last updated, its good for me to pause and try to sum up where I am and where I'm going. I leave Schloss Mittersill in 12 days, and I don't think I'll be back anytime soon. Since my last update its been a nonstop rollercoaster ride as summer is the busiest season here. I have often tried to summarize what life at Schloss Mittersill is like - well in many ways the summer is very un-mundane. The summers especially, as we have groups constantly in and out.

Arts Conference (pics)- We just finished up the busiest conference of the year, in which I took full part as a delegate but also helped out with music and audio/video setup each day. An amazing conference - gathering musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, actors, writers from Europe and North America. It was such a moving time to really consider the gift and calling for artists to be creative in our world. I think our culture totally doesn't appreciate the arts - its just some nice hobby to do, but not really important to the larger scheme of things. One of the speakers pointed out the first occurence in the Bible where we are told of someone being filled with the Spirit was actually the artist God commissioned to work on the tabernacle (Ex 35). It was great, there were workshops on painting, acting, percussion, musical arrangement, sculpture, etc. Highlight for me would be playing in a worship team with a amazing guitarist, cellist, percussionist and a jazz pianist (3 of which made a living as a musician).

Other thingies - Hard to summarize the past couple months, but a few highlights: Been doing a fair amount of hiking (pics1, pics2), and learning more about enjoying the beauty of nature. World Cup (pics) was a big thing, and especially neat as so many different nationalities come through and its interesting to watch the Swedes play with actual Swedes in the room, or Germans, Dutch, Brits, Poles, etc. As I'm the one doing technical setup for a lot of these groups that come through, I get more of an opportunity to actually get to know them. Neat opportunities come up out of that, a Swedish confirmation group of around 35 invited me to lead their worship night on their last night at the Schloss, it was a special experience and I've been really thankful to be a part of what God's doing with these groups.

Comings and Going - Many friends have left me at the Schloss, as there has been so much change within the Schloss Community. Sadly I know that in 12 days I will be the one that leaves. Its been a great time for me, from here I'll go to Cambridge for a 2 week student outreach, then visit a friend in Oxford for a couple days, and then fly to Toronto to visit my sisters. I'm sad when I think about leaving, yet excited for the steps ahead. The theme of the Arts Conference will stick with me, as a calling to what it means to really follow Jesus, whether in an artistic or just a broader sense. What he calls us to is a long obedience in the same direction. Here I am, getting ready to end another chapter, may it all be obedient in God's direction.

I've uploaded a bunch more pictures on my flickr page.

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Innovation

Here's a couple innovative online music radio ideas:

http://www.pandora.com

Called the music genome project (clever), you enter an artist or song that you like, and it creates a station based on that. From there it chooses songs that it thinks you'd like, and even tells you why, lol. You can provide further feedback on whether you liked its choices and it'll adapt.

http://www.musicovery.com/

A focus on discovering music - you can choose two categories, Ambience or Dance, and choose options within there. The neat mapping it provides is cool. You can specify the decades that you'd want the radio to play from, or just choose the genre from the bottom of the "remote" there. Neat things include specifying mood (energetic, calm, positive, or dark) and increasing or decreasing desired tempo.

Enjoy ;)

Other interesting links I've come across are always posted up on my links page: www.allantan.net/links, served up by http://del.icio.us/.

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Pure and Simple

There's a reason I like endurance sports like running or cycling - the simplicity and purity of the aim. I can momentarily leave the complications of my life and pour all of myself into this one thing. Its tiring, there's times when you want to quit - but there's unfettered freedom in willing one thing.

Danish philosopher/theologian Søren Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing." I so easily complicate my spiritual life into a list of a thousand things to do and a thousand things to learn. Motives begin to convolute and often corrupt. I have been reminded by God - that as a Christian I am to will one thing: to know and love God more.

I think when I learn to view all the aspects and areas of my life I can enjoy that same freedom of pouring all of oneself into biking 40km for example. The freedom of living for a single aim, indeed, purity of heart is to will one thing.

The full text is available online here [religion-online.org]

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On Accomplishment

A great excerpt from a book I'm currently reading that I think is worth sharing. Its talks about different phases of leadership development, but you don't need to know the phases to grasp the core of what Clinton is saying here:

The amazing thing is that during Phases I, II and III God is primarily working in the leader (not through him or her). Though there may be fruitfulness in ministry, the major work is that which God is doing to and in the leader, not through him or her. Most emerging leaders don't recognize this. They evaluate productivity, activites, fruitfulness, etc. But God is quietly, often in unusual ways, trying to get the leader to see that one ministers out of what one is. God is concerned with what we are. We want to learn a thousand things because there is so much to learn and do. But he will teach us one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways: "I am forming Christ in you." It is this that will give power to your ministry.

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Could be

It was the frequent theme of all my parent teacher interviews. "Could be" - specifically "could be doing better". I suppose each teacher felt it was the right thing to say, but all of them together created a sort of cloud above my head - "I could be, but I wasn't".

I've been having a terrible time trying to do my research papers here. All the struggles and personal torment I encountered during university all have come back.

Its not that I can't apply myself - I think I apply myself wholeheartedly (indeed 一心). Those who knew me better would know that I perhaps overpassionately get into whatever subject/topic that holds my fancy. What I can't seem to do is apply myself wholeheartedly to a specific given task.

The current paper I'm working on (or I should say not working on) could really be done in a matter of hours. I don't find anything particularly hard about the subject matter or creating an outline or anything - but I can't seem to do it. I am however, doing a bunch of other productive things (with noticable vigor) - just not things productive to the task at hand: my overdue paper.

Its a funny thing to struggle with one's personal demons of the past. I've never really been able to put my mind to my studies, or when I took piano lessons. I could have short bursts under pressure (otherwise known as cramming), but the sustained work ethic just never developed. Many tasks - of which I had the potential to complete well - were never completed or else completed poorly. It is a very frustrating, discouraging thing.

I think for a long time I just felt like something was wrong with me - I couldn't 'work' like how others worked. I'm starting to accept the fact that I do work and think very differently from most people. I still need to learn how to apply myself to something like a paper - something requiring long-term, systematic work ethic.

Here's to learning hard lessons about oneself.

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Pursue your goals

A human being's highest achievement is
to let God be able to help him.

(Søren Kierkegaard)

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Ideas

Been thinking about ideas, and how good it is to always be exposed to new perspectives, thoughts, ideas, etc. Last night had dinner with a Canadian IVCF worker who's been visiting Central Asia regularly, an Uzbek medical student studying theology at the Schloss, a Russian speaking Ukranian theological student, and a British medical student currently working for the Christian Dental and Medical Fellowship. Its so enriching to encounter different ideas, perspectives, cultures, etc.

It reminds me you of the bigger picture. Let me give you an example - in Canada you don't ride with strangers and you always buckle your seatbelt. Well in Uzbekistan it is quite the opposite - in Uzbekistan any car is a potential taxi. That is, if you need to get anywhere you just flag down any car, and see if they'll take you were you need to go. Everyone does it, its not an especial source of crime, although one always needs to exercise common sense. There's a convention of how much they charge and how much you pay, but they'll take you were you need to go. A few do this full time, but for the most part, most are just ordinary people. The idea being if someone is going where you're going anyway, you can help each other out. Oh, and its illegal to wear a seatbelt in the rear seats.

On that note, a couple other interesting ideas and perspectives I came across today:

-Video of King of the Hill's take on megachurches

-A great article by the author of InternetMonk.com titled "Wretched Urgency" tackling the question - is Christianity about converting people?

Ideas are powerful things. What we think matters.

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Empty chairs and empty tables

I'm looking at my passport... my D visa for Austria expires on July 23rd. I've looked into the different possibilities, and the only way for me to stay longer would be to apply for a student visa, a lengthy and complicated process.

The Schloss has gone through its share of legal difficulties, mainly being that the Schloss (classified as a hotel in the Austrian government's books) cannot have people volunteering there for free (apparently smells too much like slavery without income tax). As of right now, all the volunteers have ceased cleaning/dishes or anything involving serving paying guests. Those who are from the new EU countries were able to become employed. Austrian law just doesn't allow for volunteering in the same way so many other countries do.

It is a sad change for the Schloss - the volunteers contributed so much to the ethos of the place - people from around the world coming to volunteer and create this international community. For now however - this volunteer program is over. Most of the volunteers have had to change their plans and are returning home sooner. Just a couple days ago a good friend left, and now the flood of people leaving begins.

It is fortunate, and perhaps God's providence, that my responsibilities are not affected. This is because my responsibilities involve serving the community and staff, not paying guests. In some strange way, I already am, and will be the last 'volunteer' for some time to come.

I am not sure what to do, if I should pursue a student visa and stay longer, or else return home in late July, a mere 2.5 months away. I do know that within a month, there will be a lot of empty chairs and empty tables.

Saying so many goodbyes here is hard - there are many that could have become very good close friends, if we had but more time. Still we can enjoy the time we do have together, late night theological discussions, napping on the hill in the afternoon sun, or lazy frisbee days...

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Reflections after a Short Term Missions Trip

(Our team with the IFES workers in Sienna, Italy)

Got some of my pictures from my trip to Italy up now:

   Check em out on FlickR

Thought I'd share some reflections after the trip:

Synposis:
We visited two cities (Siena and Perugia) and worked with the local IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) chapter there, known as GBU (Gruppi Bibblici Universitari). We helped with doing questionnaires to evangelise, gave handouts to let people know about the group, and hosted 2 International Student nights, with games/food/testimony. We were also there to encourage and bless the workers there, so time was spent to pray and Bible study together. We spent 6 days in these 2 cities, and then took a day and a half to sightsee and we went to Assisi (home of St. Francis) and Florence (went to the Uffizi there).

Setting:
As we know, Italy is the home of the Vatican, so there is an extremely strong Catholic ethos about the society. There's cathedrals all over the place, and often even in the main city piazza where everyone hangs out. The Protestant evangelical church however is quite weak, and also quite divided. There is no longer a native Italian financial support for IFES. What is happening now is that other countries are supporting people as missionaries to work in Italy. The team working in Siena and Perugia were made up of a Korean family, and two gals from England and the States. Almost all the native Italians I met had some experience with the Catholic church when they were young, but all stopped going for some reason or another. Italy also has a lot of foreign students, our International Student Night in Perugia included students form Isreal, Palestine, Tunisia, Japan, Korea, China, Netherlands, Albania, and others I can no longer remember.

1. Who's changed?
For a short term mission, I think it started to sink in that the one who is mosted change would likely be me, not the people I was reaching out to. Short term missions don't allow much time for creating real relationships. Rather I think how I was stretched in terms of culture, comfort zone, boldness, etc. That is not to say that I don't think God could use the things we did there, but really I think a large part of the experience was how it changed me, us as a team that went.

2. Linguistics
Language matters. It was a struggle for us as a lot of the people we encountered spoke very limited English, or didn't want to make the effort to try to communicate with us. Fortunately we were able to get in touch with a good number of internationals who spoke english. I am motivated again, if I want to work more in the Chinese church in Canada, I gotta get a move on learning Cantonese, and hopefully down the road, Mandarin (with this as my main help right now). So ditiching German lessons to accomodate this.

3. Approaches to Evangelism
We quickly realized we were all comfortable (or uncomfortable) with different styles of evangelism. The native Italians there were very much into random evangelism, very public things such as setting up in the main piazza (with dozens of people around), doing a skit, and then preaching the gospel right then and there, as far as their voice would project. It would seem that relational evangelism is the current trend in North America, so it was good for me to see something different. It was stretching for me, I kinda think I could get comfortable with being willing to go up to strangers - hmm but "could" and "will" are 2 very different things.

4. Heart for the Lost
Its too easy to totally immerse oneself in Christian circles. I consider myself guilty of this.

5. Hospitality
Finding places for 9 people to sleep is not easy. It was so heartwarming to see the Christians simply open their homes and fridges to us. I don't think we do hospitality particularly well in North America. I'd love to offer my couch my day (when I have my own place). Its neat to see other people with grand visions of hospitality (check out couchsurfing.com)

6. Time Alone
Spending a week of constantly being shoulder to shoulder with your teammates, whilst stretching yourself to talk and interact with strangers takes it toll - my introverted side was starved by the end of it of the week. I pretty much didn't want to be around anyone. Heh, funny thing is some suggest for my personality type (INTP), one way to love me is to encourage me to spend time alone. Its important, and it keeps me healthy.

Final Thoughts:
-Short term missions are very good in expanding one's vision, but I think the better work is done by those there longterm. Similiarly then we need to understand our homes as a mission field. But then on, perhaps we shouldn't label a place as a "mission field", everywhere is a mission field.
-The countryside of Italy with its rolling hills is really beautiful. Vineyards, olive trees, quiet homes, trees blossoming... it was really beautiful.
-I've been reminded of the Great Commission, I think I've become too Christianized in terms of living almost solely in Christian circles, I'm convicted to find a balance of knowing what it means to live within and bless believers, yet to be reaching out to those who do not yet know God.

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Awhile...

It's been awhile since I wanted to post something. Just in terms of updating, it's been a busy month of April!

Cole's notes of my doings of the last month:

-finished my 3rd course - Old Testament Theology. Had the pleasure of learning under Carl Armerding, who's expertise in Biblical knowledge is pretty evident as he's one of the OT contributors to the NIV translation. Amazing to learn more about how it all fits together - from what God was doing with Adam to what he did with Jesus Christ.
-got a month before the next course, so time to work on all my papers for the 3 classes I've taken (lectures done, papers not started)
-went to Italy for a week mission trip to work with the 8 other students here to the local IFES student ministries in Siena and Perugia, a fuller report will be coming. Also had a chance to swing by Assisi and Florence
-Experienced my first houseparty (happened to be the Easter one) here at the Schloss. It was a great time, observed my first Passover (Seder) meal, the students put on an excellent Passion walk, a series of dramas in various parts of the castle/garden to reenact the Passion week.
-considering http://euroleadership.org
-don't think I'll ever do a masters in theology, I like theology in small doses, not to the same extent as the theology students here, perhaps I'm just too pragmatic.
-been trying to figure out what IS me. Thinking more about where I want to go in the future more precisely, hopefully more to come on this too.

What a weak post - I do not at all hold that I am merely a sequence of unfortunate and fortunate events, but I just don't have the energy to expound on any of my experiences recently. Oh yeah, I think I really tired myself out this month too, going to slow it down a bit.

So hey, actually there is my high reflection: If you stress yourself out, you just dry up and really don't have the energy or joy that allows for a more meaningful, reflective existence. Yup.

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I could try...

Things have been busy, haven't updated my blog in awhile.

Started my 2nd course for credit here - History of Christianity. Quite an interesting course, tracing Christianity from around the 2nd century up to current times. All sorts of interesting topics - mostly on the various foul-ups and corruption of the church throughout the ages. I suppose we shouldn't be so presumptuous as to suppose we the modern church has got it all together. The bulk of my mark is a research paper - I'm planning to do mine on tracing early Protestantism in China.

This coming Wednesday I leave on a week long mission trip to Italy - where we could be coming along aside and working with 2 IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, of which IVCF is part of) groups in the cities of Perugia and Sienna. We'll be working the booktable, hoping randomly meeting with students, and hosting 2 international student nights. I'll be taking care of the music side of things, as well as helping plan the international student nights. I'm quite excited, myself and 8 other people from the Schloss are going. 9 people - with 7 different nationalities, just to keep things challenging ^_^

I'd like to share more about some of the stuff I've been thinking/learning about, I suppose I simply haven't had to energy to put anything like this together... oh well, soon.

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Food for thought

Today's email from Christian Quotation of the Day was:

On the one hand, in matters of the spirit, nothing fails like success. On the other hand, in matters of the spirit, nothing succeeds like failure.
Os Guinness (b.1941), Dining with the Devil: the Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity [1993], p.89

Worth thinking about...

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Lest we forget...

The topic on my mind has been history, looking specifically at the instance of World War II, but really history in general.

Life is a story. History an even bigger story. If you want to understand me, you need to understand my story. Why am I so afraid of being embarrassed? Know my story and know the answer. And if I want to know myself better, my parents, my upbringing, then there's some stories I need to know too.

Want to know some of the most important lessons about life and who we are as humans beings? Know the story and know the answer.

For Christians so much of our understanding of God through history in the OT and NT is about understanding story. Not just that X and Y happened - you need to read into a story to understand the characters and were the story is going.

Upon completing a history course here, after visiting an actual WWII concentration camp, reflecting on my complete lack of knowledge of my family background - I have really been deeply changed. History - the big story - is something to be learned, loved, learned from, and what helps us write the next page of the story.

Consider WWII - I think most of us born after WWII simply cannot understand it. How could such a thing happen? Estimates for total casualties lies between 50 and 60 million. The number is really too hard to understand. Try doubling Canada's population and then killing everyone. Still the question begs, how did it happen?

As with most stories, nothing is a complete surprise. Take centuries of antisemitism, add economic anxiety, nations scared of war because of WWI, add some propaganda, some extremist beliefs and rulers, and there it came. Accepting that WWII happened as a progression of events and decisions makes it worse - because good people (and I think Christians as well) could have acted in ways to prevent the horrors that unfolded.

Those involved in atrocities - many of the soldiers from different nations - were they just incredibly evil people? Again I don't think so - the tales of how on Christmas during WWII, the American soldiers could hear the Germans singing Silent Night.

We need to start to see - the story of history is so vital in learning about who we are as humankind. Likewise our smaller individual stories that we have written and are still writing - these are forming who we will become. The events leading to WWII began a very ugly story... The challenging question is this - what story are we writing? One historian writes a great statement, this is from when he explains how the stage for WWII came into being:

"Each of us is shaping the background history of tomorrow" (Chaim Schatzker

I could go on, about the horrors, heroics and heartwrenching parts of WWII. I just finished watching a 10 part HBO series called Band of Brothers, based on the experiences of Easy Company, a paratrooper company that was dropped behind enemy lines on D-day. The brotherhood, the suffering they endured, the men who were broken by war, those who persevered... All these stories tug at my heart...

Life is a battle. We need brothers, and I am thankful for mine. Corporal Carl Lipton of Easy Company, during an interview of his experiences in World War II, quoted Shakespeare's St. Crispen's Day Speech:

From this day to the ending of the world we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. (Shakespeare)

Here's to our stories, and the brothers who shed blood in the unglorious trenches of life by my side.

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Maybe this time I'll finish it...

Why the change in color? To make it fit better onto my new website.

Yah I purchased www.alllantan.net awhile back and started working on it. I have a lot of ideas, but hopefully I'll actually be finishing it more than my former website.

I don't have much done yet, you can check out my pictures and sign the guestbook if it so pleases you tho :)

I'm currently taking a course on the importance of studying history, last couple days have been looking at World War II. I have to admit, I'm quite ignorant of the events and the world situation. It blows my mind to consider the things that happened, but today's class reminded me of the scarier part - the holocaust was not some farfetched surprise. We reaped what was sown. Antisemitism did not magically spring up when Hitler was appointed chancellor... no things had been in motion for centuries. What that also means is that things could have been changed long before the extermination of around 6 million Jews.

Tomorrow we take a field trip out to the Dachau concentration camp, just north of Munich. Its crazy to think of the horrors committed just a few hours drive from where I am. Or even the place I am now... part of the Schloss's history was that it was used by the German SS during WWII, and Himmler himself had some operations here.

I think I'd like to write something about history soon, but need to reflect and think somemore first... perhaps this Lord of the Rings quote sums and warns us well:

The world is changed: I feel it in the
water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it
in the air...Much that once was is lost,
for none now live who remember it...

...and some things that should not have been forgotten...were lost


"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Santayana)

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A new page

Hm has factors of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Must be a flexible year? :P

I always longed to sing this song on the right occasion, funny how fitting it is for how I actually feel right now. I find it such an honest song - yet uplifting, ah to not cop out on life! I am the second man now...

Click to listen: http://www.allantan.net/Switchfoot_TwentyFour.wma

Twenty Four by Switchfoot

Twenty four oceans
Twenty four skies
Twenty four failures
Twenty four tries
Twenty four finds me
In twenty-fourth place
Twenty four drop outs
At the end of the day
Life is not what I thought it was
Twenty four hours ago

Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You
And I'm not who I thought I was twenty four hours ago
Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You

Twenty four reasons to admit that I'm wrong
With all my excuses still twenty four strong

See I'm not copping out not copping out not copping out
When You're raising the dead in me
Oh, oh I am the second man
Oh, oh I am the second man now
Oh, oh I am the second man now

And You're raising these twenty four voices
With twenty four hearts
With all of my symphonies
In twenty four parts
But I wan to be one today
Centered and true

I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You
You're raising the dead in me
Oh, oh I am the second man
Oh, oh I am the second man now
Oh, oh I am the second man now
And You're raising the dead in me

I want to see miracles, see the world change
Wrestled the angel, for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You
And You're raising the dead in me
Twenty four voices
With twenty four hearts
With all of my symphonies
In twenty four parts.
I'm not copping out. Not copping out. Not copping out.

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Swing of things...

I've almost been here at the Schloss for one month now. Its been good so far, although I have my moments of homesickness for sure... So what have I been up to? I find the list getting long, one thing is I don't want to be overambitious, yet the Schloss is a place where lot of opportunity comes a knockin'

Coursework - Just finished a course on marriage/family/sexuality, and starting Biblical Exegesis tomorrow. The prof teaching is an amazing jazz pianist who I'm working with for music/worship stuff. Going to feel weird, haven't been in school for a long time.

Worship Stuff - Got a chance to work with a really cool program called mediashout.com which basically replaces using Powerpoint for song lyrics, scriptures, songs/pictures etc. Also since my arrival we're starting up having 2 worship teams to rotate for Sunday services. Its cool, my team has a Bulgarian dude who's doing some lead guitar, I'm doing rhythm guitar and vocals, a Brazillian gal is playing piano and a Vancouver gal is singing with me. Also we're switching to daily chapel this week, so we'll have 20 mins of scripture/prayer/singing every morning now.

IT - Since coming here theres been enough tech support stuff to do around here. There hasn't been anyone to fix up stuff in awhile, so a lot of little things, so-and-so can't print, some MS Active Directory user admin, hoping to do some work with revamping the Schloss' online registration and setting up MS Exchange server here.

Extracurricular - Hmm well I have about 6-7 books I'm reading right now... yeah I'm one of those who can't stick to one book, rather its like food, I like to choose what I'm in the mood to 'eat' each day. Notably, reading Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), The Christian Imagination (GK Chesterton), Life Together(Bonhoffer), Emotional Intelligence(Goleman), and Hind's Feet on High Places(Hurnard). Also started German classes today - I figure it'd be cool since I'm here longer to actually learn some German. Wanna learn? Found a good tutorial site by BBC here. Hmm hoping yeah to learn some jazz piano, improve guitar, read more, eh my usual list of hobbies.

Fun Stuff - All work and no play makes Allan a dull boy. Hoping to go skating/sledding (attn Canadians, we're the only ones who call it 'tobogganing', which frankly is just a pain to spell :P) soon. Its too warm right now, but they have a 14km sled run here! Man that blows my mind. Also got a chance to take a day trip out to Venice, Italy just two days ago, I'll have some pics up soon. But yah just getting to know people here, which is much of the fun.

So that was sorta s brief summary of what I'm up to... I miss you all lots! I feel very far away.. so maybe knowing what I'm up to makes me feel like I'm more connected or something... or something... take care everyone!

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To think about it...

Wandering through the library here at the Schloss you come across all sorts of interesting books (this one happened to be signed by author and originally gifted to one of our OT profs here), randomly picked one up and came across this quote:

A human being's highest achievement is to let God be able to help him.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Yeah I really like it. I tend to fall into a mindset of thinking I have to do this and this, I need to change myself in this and this way, etc. When really after one becomes a Christian, the highest achievement may be making ourself available for God's help. This may include not having a hard heart, willingness to change, openness to God's sovereignty, etc.

Really interesting wording though, "let God be able". "Let" to me means some level of consent. Now "be able" means to suggest that we have some say in what God can do in us. Consider in Mark 6 (link), it is that our amount of faith can limit what God can do in our lives.

Consider the Isrealites during the exodus and the quote rings even more true. What did the Isrealites need to do? Part the Red sea themselves? Make their own manna? No - they needed to let God be able to help them, and to this end they often failed.

I hope I aim for the highest achievement

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Imagine

A quote that has always impacted me is:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

We all find ourselves in different circumstances, and being human we believe certain things are possible and certain things aren't, given our circumstances. Herein lies the power of imagination. For God, what is impossible? So why is it that we only perceive reality with such limitations?

Imagination

noun 1. The faculty or action of forming ideas or images in the mind. 2. The ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful. (Oxford Compact)

We've been given the gift of imagination - the ability to conceive of a reality unlike our own. There are those dreamers and visionaries who are able to imagine great things that could be - and even sometimes those things once imagined come true.

I still struggle with understanding how much stock we should put into the things we can imagine. The struggle being:
a) If humans are sinful, then our imagination are sinful as well. We consider that the human heart is deceitful - thus we should be very cautious in our imaginings?
b) If God has redeemed us and given us a new heart and Spirit - well then perhaps its about time we started really exploring our imagination. In Genesis 2:19-20(link) we are seen that part of God's job was to use his own creativity and to name the animals - that we were included as part of God's creating process (throughout the Bible we see that God was keen on doing things, and then naming them). So if we really submit ourselves and give our imagination over to God - it may be our strongest ally.

Lately I've been leaning towards b) more. Been reading up on some G.K. Chesterton (this book) who's a Christian author, musician, etc you name it. He is a strong supporter of using our imagination, and the important of stories and fantasy.

I get a feeling that modern Christianity seems to suppress imagination, or is at least quite wary of dreaming/fantasy. I'm inclined to think that creativity cannot exist without imagination. I'm also inclined to think we were created to reflect God's creativity - hence why humans pursue arts/music/other types of expression really.

Hm just thinking of this now - if our perception of the world is very limited, then how else would God expand our perception other than through expanding our imagination? So what I mean is suppose you observe some situation - isn't our perception affected by our belief in God, what God can do, what we can do, what hope is there, etc etc? Isn't this some sort of spiritual vision/imagination?

Maybe the great visionaries of the past and present simply imagined more...

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Here at last!

Arrived safely back at Schloss Mittersill and been here exactly a week now. Finally getting settled in, as I got pretty sick when coming, and then it was the weekend, so now finally getting into the groove of things. A few pictures to share with you all.

The now wintery town of Mittersill

Currently working out of a sound booth. Really
slick sound board on the right there, should
be learning to get the hang of that while here.

The winter sunsets are really beautiful
if you catch em on the right day

Well got plenty of work ahead for me to get going on. Should get back to my normal updating, waiting for an interesting topic to come to mind. Cheers

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Lessons from Learning Cantonese

Most of you know one of my latest hobbies is trying to relearn my Cantonese (mostly using this site). Its part of my 5 yr plan to hopefully learn conversational Cantonese, conversational Mandarin, then either reading/written simplified/traditional. I'd like to see myself in some type of full time Christian ministry one day, and I think they'd be valuable assets. It'll be a long road tho, so we'll see if I carry it out to the end or not.

One thing if I find about Chinese is that the characters and literal meanings are quite interesting, at times funny, critical and profound. So in Chinese there might be two characters that together mean "smoking" for example, but if you look at the literal translations its quite interesting. If I knew how to write and read I think it becomes even more interesting, as each word is construction with characters adding even more meaning. Heres a few examples:

食煙 sik yeen - "to smoke". Literal translation "eat smoke". haha

小心 siu sum - "to be careful". Literal translation "little heart"

有心 yau sum - "to care for". Literal translation "have heart"

龍蝦 loong haa - "lobster". Literal translation "dragon shrimp". Hm well I guess if you combined a dragon and a shrimp, haha.

On a more political side of things (with the upcoming election), my mom was teaching me that the character that can be used for politician or ruling is 管治, of which the first character has two "mouth" characters (the box). Meaning well, politicans can say one thing, and than another thing later.

One of the profound ones that has influenced me lately is the term for "relax" or to "put at ease". Its 放心 "fong sum". The literal translation for this is "release heart".

Wow - this lines up so much with what it means for us as Christians to trust and believe in God. I get so easily worked up about something - usually when something doesn't go my way. I want it so bad - it eats away at me. Its time like that we need to give up everything before God, lay down our burdens, and release our heart to its Maker. I don't know what's best, He does. I don't know tomorrow, He does.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -Matthew 11:28-29

Leaving in 72 hours...

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Choice

Lately I've been thinking about choices a lot... the power of them... and also the privilege of them. Its an area of controversy I admit, I don't pretend I have all the answers... but let me intro this a bit:

I often hear people attribute circumstances, situations, relationships and all sorts of things to God. As a Christian myself - I have a firm belief that God exists and is an active part of our world. The question surrounding the controversy then is - how active is God's will versus our own choice?

The extreme positions on either side are both unbiblical:
1. We are simply God's puppets (1 Chron 21:10 for one example)

2. We are the sole creators of our fate (Prov 19:20)

I think at times I've erred by drifting towards either above positions... which leads me to problems:
1. If I'm a puppet, then I can absolve myself of any and all responsibility. God had arranged it that way... God did this... hence sayings like "she must be the one"... haha.

2. If I'm the sole creator of my fate - well then I don't have faith to look for God's work in the world - I only see a web of human choices. Human choices are ultimately sinful too - so this view doesn't allow room for God's redemption in our world.

But there are strengths and things to be said for these two positions too:
1. Bono said "The more you know, the less you believe". Jesus also tells us that a childlike faith is important. Perhaps we need to attribute more things to God - yes we make choices but God is orchestrating all of them in the beautiful symphony of His universe...

2. There positions strikes me as realistic and truthful, but probably because it suits my temperment. I think we should have a healthy perspective of what our choices are, and their effects. I really like the quote: "Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character for it will become your destiny." We do a lot of things and make a lot of choices without knowing it, we should know that we reap the results of those decisions, although God can and often does redeem them in some way.

Ah to find balance...

On a more personal note, I have but 17 days left before I leave for Austria. Its been a ride... part of me feels like I've only come back home (got back Sept 22) and I'm already leaving again. I'm off to www.schlossmittersill.org. I'll be doing computer/music stuff while hopefully auditing some courses. I'm quite excited, but also sad to be leaving family and friends... my home. I guess I made a choice... or did I? :P

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I don't know

To err is human, to moo, bovine.

I have often wondered: as humans, should we ever be surprised to find that we're wrong or have committed some fault of some sort? It would seem doing wrong, or being imperfect (what Christians would call "sin") pervades everything we do. Whether a simple miscalculation when adding numbers, to hurting someone close to me - it seems my very nature to do so.

One would think the resulting attitude would then be of humility. In arguments or disputes we should be unsurprised and quite expecting to find ourselves with at least some fault.

My experience (and I would be as bold to suggest others' experiences as well) is quite different. I tend to assume I am right, and it is others that are at fault. On a deeper level there is insecurity - its not that I'm unaware of my faults and proclivity to do wrong... perhaps in the resultant shame a conflict emerges. I want anything but that shame, so I'll try to become perfect, to always be right - anything to avoid facing the brokenness and sinfulness of myself.

Maybe salvation has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself
Where you gonna go... salvation is here

-Dare You to Move by Switchfoot

I've often gone in search for adventure and battle... I do not need to look far though. Trying to learn this - what does it mean to see myself truely, to accept who I am, and to pour that before my Maker?

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