Eugenia

You know you are positively botanical when

Random Girl: Hi, my name is Eugenia.
Me (to myself): like grandis? or polyantha?

Hur. hur.

Will you take me as I am

[Talking]
Christ through faith
I talked to a cat the other day
And he was like;
"Man I really wanna come to Christ
But I gotta clean my life up first, get my sins together"
I told em, I used to think that way too
I thought I had to change myself before I could come to Christ
But Christ changed me
Let me tell you my story, it starts like this

[Verse One]
It's 5:46 in the mornin', tossin' and turnin'
Chest burnin', sermons in my head keep reocurrin'
Havin' visions in my head of a kid
Cryin' at the feet of the Father, for all the wrong things that he did
Now I'm sweatin' in my sheets can't sleep
My mind keeps tellin' me I'm six feet deep
Don't remind me, even though I'm still alive I can't tell
The way I'm living my life I feel I'm going to hell
God they telling me I should accept you
That you had to leave the world, cause the world left you
Reason I can't change, like a mystery to me
So I make believe there really is a heaven for a G
Even though they say you loved the world so much, you shed ya blood
God I feel I'm too messed up for love
They tell me come as I am but I smell like smoke
My whole lifes full of sin cause it's all I know
The bible told me that you died for my sins
If I believe in Christ, it'll save me from the end
But I'm scared to ask you, to save me my heart
So evil, I got thoughts, that's full of hatred hurtin' people
I thought at first I had to clean up my life
Now I'm hearin' I just need to cling to the light
I'm ready to do it, but Lord I pray you understand
My life is a mess, will you take me as I am

[Chorus]
Will you take me as I am
I know the way I'm living is wrong
But I can't change on my own, trying to make it alone
I wonder, how could you love me when my life so ugly
But you came down and died for me

Will you take me as I am
I know the way I'm living is wrong
But I can't change on my own, trying to make it alone
I wonder, how could you love me when my life so ugly
But you came down and died for me
Will you take me as I am

[Verse Two]
I'm sick and tired of trying to me the man, my daddy never taught me to be
I'm grown up now, life ain't what I thought it would be
I made many mistakes in my past I can't fix
Now I'm staring at this crusifix tatted on my wrist
Is it true what they telling me, am I just crazy
Did ya bleed on the cross, for my sins to save me
But why would ya die for me
My whole life I've been working for Satan, while He fed lies to me
And now I'm hearing too much, trying to get a true touch
Of a love that can change me, I'm all screwed up
Figure Hell is what I deserve
But your word says we all fall short so I guess we all outta burn
Teach me I wanna learn
How you could save a wretch like me, before death says it's my turn
I think I finally understand
No matter my past, you'll still take me as I am

[Chorus]

[Verse Three]
My father had a few last words to give
I be telling people the reason to live
The reason to die, united with the King in the sky
This life is passing us by, I got no reason to lie
You'll never give the world enough, they'll hunger for more
They figure there ways are nuthin to the wonderous lord
More security than the man that left you
More love than the moms who kept you
He'll always accept you
Be everything your supposed to
Let Christ rule ya heart, mind, body and soul cause He chose you
And if the world don't know you
It don't matter you're Gods child and he'll never disown you
Ya purpose on earth is far from worthless
That's why ya glorified like ya life's been purchased
And it don't matter if the world don't seen us
We still mean the world to Jesus

[Chorus]

[Talking]
Yeah, we're saved by grace through faith
It's not works
Ain't nuthin you can do, ain't nuthin I can do
That could get us this grace salavation that we got man
It's only Christ
So if you feel like you gotta clean yourself up
Before you can come to Him
Forget it
Just come to Him
He'll take you as you are, and he'll change YOU
From the inside, out

Face to face with the cross

It's been on my 'to read list' for ages, but I am finally reading Ravi Zacharias' Cries of the heart.

And this is especially poignant in light of us finishing the book of Mark in church this week.

"When we come face to face with the cross, we have a choice to make: We either recognise its implications and bring ourselves, our passions, and all that we are, to be crucified with Christ so that we might live within the sound of His voice and the feel of His heart, or we walk away from the cross and live feeling alienated from God. But this is where the lie comes in- believing that we can be close to the Father without dying to ourselves. In Christ's own ministry this was impossible. We hear so much about "coming to Christ." We hear too little of being crucified with Him. When we come to Him with all our past baggage, nothing will change if we do not let that old self be crucified."
-Ravi Zacharias (2002), Cries of the heart

Her name is Umi.

While we go gaga over Yasmin Ahmad's (who incidentally, is Malaysian) Think. Family. Funeral ad, our northern neighbour has got cool ads of her own!

Christ and Culture

Having observed, and been part of the strange unexplainable passionate wave of football frenzy and fever that was Man U Liverpool last night, and being amused at the number of people cursing the new Facebook layout, (ironically through the FB status update function itself), I thought it was entirely apt for church to start on the 'Christ and Culture' series of sermons.

The religious studies minor and the pseudo-philosopher/social sciences student in me found the sermon today rather introductory and underwhelming, which is not a bad thing. Being a sermon and not an academic talk, I thought the content and illustrations provoked a deep enough challenge for us to really reflect and consider how the postmodern culture and technological revolution has influenced the world and especially the way we relate socially.

Indeed, there are so many influences of our lives today that so subtly influence the way we live and conduct ourselves, that if we do not deliberately make a conscious effort to be aware of culture's influence and authority, they could so easily become a competing voice against that of Christ in the way we think, communicate and conduct ourselves.

My fear is that far too many followers of Christ do not engage culture head on, simply because it is too complex and seemingly academic. The result is they adopt a 'Christ against Culture' attitude which dichotomises religion and life, or simply dilute the Christian faith into a crystal clear, black and white faith.

I pray against this, and as the song goes, may the mind of Christ our Saviour, live in us from day to day.

--

The religious studies minor and pseudo-philosopher in me could not resist, and headed straight to Bookends for D.A. Carson's Christ and Culture Revisited. And by the time I was queuing for my Nasi Lemak, I was into Richard Niebuhr, Max Weber and Clifford Geertz's definitions of culture in Chapter 1. And *tada*- the first quoteworthy passage:

"Second, Niebuhr is fully aware that all human understanding is necessarily partial and interpretative- or to use the contemporary category, all human knowledge is necessarily perspectival. Human finiteness, let alone human fallenness, warrants this assessment. Postmoderns, especially American postmoderns, tend to give the impression that every thinker who came before them, not least those nasty moderns, were all under the delusion that genuine human knowing was absolutist. Quite frankly, this assessment of modernism is, in many cases, a caricature: modernist though he is, Niebuhr is thoroughly aware that human knowledge is partial and perspectival. Yet he wisely avoids the extreme post modern position that concludes that knowledge of the objective is impossible. We may say some true things inadaquately, even if we cannot say anything adequately, that is with the knowledge of omniscience, with omniperspective. Despite the calumnies of many postmoderns, Niebuhr is not the only modern who is conscious of human limitations."
- D.A Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (2008 Edition, pg. 10-11) (emphasis mine)

Indeed, how we tend to swing to either extreme of absolutist modernism or relativistic postmodernism.

This is the closest I am since I graduated to missing school.

--

And if you really want to know, I think it was United's ('our') lapses, rather than Liverpool's dominance that cost the game, and aren't you already getting used to the new Facebook layout?

Milliions, Slums, Dogs and me

Having ranted about Hollywood's and our culture's preoccupation with sex outside marriage/ homosexuality and about the rarity of commitment today in my last two entries, it was a refreshing surprise to have watched two really enjoyable, yet wholesome in value movies the past week.

The first was Slumdog Millionaire, which I thoroughly enjoyed for its choreographic brilliance. Having really enjoyed Danny Boyle's previous film, Millions (2004), I was surprised at how disparate the two films were in style. While the plot I thought was ordinary, I really enjoyed the unique lomographic journey and tight pacing that made the film so fun to watch. And it's like Bollywood meets City of God (2002).

The second film that really made my weekend was Marley and Me. While more normal in terms of mis en scene, Marley and Me stood out really for its strength of story and wholesome values. With most of Hollywood cashing in the myth of 'Happily ever after', making a film about what it means for a married couple to work life out together, to stick through thick and thin, about weathering through post-natal depression must surely seem like productional suicide.

But that's precisely what Marley and Me did, and it was refreshing to have thoroughly enjoyed a film that promoted the good wholesome values of commitment to love and family. It was a little surreal after the film to have enjoyed something so counter-cultural.

More films like Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me, please.

And newsflash, my favourite theologian now has a blog, and he agrees the plot of Slumdog was ordinary. *beams*

Slow to become angry

One of the most frustrating things about using an iBook G4 is that iPhoto takes forever to load and use, the Facebook exporter doesn't work and I can't multitask while waiting because it just takes up too much RAM memory.

The result is that I have been spending the last three hours sorting out my month's photos and am still not done, a task which i am sure would take significantly less time on a newer, faster, better Mac.

While it is all tempting, I am reminded much of society's problems today is really a result of this whole 'discard and upgrade' Zeitgeist. It's all about the self, if it takes too long, I'll simply get a faster better one. If if looks good, I'll buy it.

Is it any wonder then that commitment in relationships is such a rare commodity nowadays and that divorces and broken relationships are on the rise? If I ain't happy, I'll just bail out and find someone else. If we quarrel, we'll just spilt and go our separate ways.

While upgrading your iPOD may be a different ball game from divorcing your wife, perhaps the heart of the issue is the same. It's a desire to satisfy one's self and put one's interests above that of others. And perhaps if we start by showing a little more patience to our technological devices, it'll translate into patience in the way we treat our loved ones.