It was after a trip to Africa that M.Gandhi, the great Indian revolutionist, made that statement. He, being unaware of the Apartheid policy imposed by the Britons, intended to visit a church but was politely chased out solely because of his skin colour.
Nearly half a decade later, we observe a very shameful state of matters. Although human rights and discrimination have come a long way since Gandhi’s time, the small actions we Christians make in our daily routines unfortunately reflects Gandhi’s words.
Allow me to give several examples.
I observed the most embarrassingly funny situation while queuing in traffic somewhere on the Penang Bridge. Everyone was in line and waiting for their turn at the toll plaza when from the side, this big car had the most egoistic nerve to cut the queue. This road bully’s rear windscreen had a sticker saying “God is good all the time” with a cross.
Apart from that, I have also seen women wearing a crucifix around their neck and a very revealing, low-cut top. I didn’t know Jesus was crucified in a valley between 2 hills…get my point?
Plenty of ironic incidences also occur in schools. The most prominent of which is students being rude, especially towards teachers. My use of the word “rude” may be a little strong, but in my opinion, no respect for teachers is considered a rude thing to do. Answering back, showing “black faces” when being told off, having hatred and grudges is what I mean.
To my fellow Christian readers,
the things we do everyday are observed by EVERYONE around us. Our behaviour, our outward image, our personality, the things we say and the actions which we take in reaction to something are being invisibly scrutinised. People will judge us based on the way we carry ourselves. No doubt it is wrong to judge, categorize and marginalize people, but we humans cannot help it. It is our nature to have first impressions of others. And very often, unhealthy first impressions of one person lead to other people saying bad things about the rest of us. So be aware that people are judging us. So, show them how beautiful our faith is and all its teachings…and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Laziness...mankind's trademark from birth..
For the entire duration of 2008, I have been feeling really lazy. I'm not entirely sure however whether it is because I really am feeling lazy or that I am feeling pre-occupied. So the question comes down to what I measure my laziness in respect to. Why do I feel lazy? Well, frankly, I’m too lazy to explain…
But for the benefit of those who are dying to know (cue lone cricket sound), I feel lazy because most of the time, I have been failing to complete or submit my homework on time. Here’s the common scenario. The teacher asks us to submit our work on a certain day. That certain day comes, and I either haven’t done it, didn’t bring it, or forgotten it(really forget, not “purposely” forget) and so I am found bargaining a deal with the teacher. If I’m lucky enough, I will copy whatever is due from my classmates before the time is due(and after that feel really filthy about myself for copying). If not, I’ll tell the teacher I have had other school commitments and work out an extension.
Why do I not complete my work you ask? This year has been so full of work for my 4th Form self. It’s been either librarians, scouts, archery (at the beginning of the year) or the biggest headache of all YE!!! (but YE has been the most fulfilling along with scouting). I was also involved in the youth group in church which was also very active. You see, I was the head of Multimedia & Inventory in the library, and the computers just keep getting messed up every now and then. Not only that, I also have had special assignments for the library. Seemed like it was running purely on my toil. (but of course it wasn’t, the is no “I” in TEAM...but LIBRARY has an "I", haha...) Our scout troop seemed equally so. We had activities on and off so many times we just couldn’t bother to count. My explanation on YE is gonna be so long that I decided to make an entire post out of it. So watch out for that post.
With all these commitments, I did not have time to do my school assignments. (Speaking of assignments, I am thoroughly relieved that we were not asked to produce folios this year, could have dropped dead with that load).
I suppose it is partly my fault for not distributing my workload with my other team mates eh? Also my fault, not being organized and not allocating time for different things. Nevertheless, it has been a very fulfilling, experience-filled, new-boundaries-explored, memorable year of activities.
Ps.
I was lazy to correct my style of typing on Blogger’s editor, so I did my post in Word.doc where auto-correct does it for me. Then I pasted it into Blogger. Lazy enough for you?
But for the benefit of those who are dying to know (cue lone cricket sound), I feel lazy because most of the time, I have been failing to complete or submit my homework on time. Here’s the common scenario. The teacher asks us to submit our work on a certain day. That certain day comes, and I either haven’t done it, didn’t bring it, or forgotten it(really forget, not “purposely” forget) and so I am found bargaining a deal with the teacher. If I’m lucky enough, I will copy whatever is due from my classmates before the time is due(and after that feel really filthy about myself for copying). If not, I’ll tell the teacher I have had other school commitments and work out an extension.
Why do I not complete my work you ask? This year has been so full of work for my 4th Form self. It’s been either librarians, scouts, archery (at the beginning of the year) or the biggest headache of all YE!!! (but YE has been the most fulfilling along with scouting). I was also involved in the youth group in church which was also very active. You see, I was the head of Multimedia & Inventory in the library, and the computers just keep getting messed up every now and then. Not only that, I also have had special assignments for the library. Seemed like it was running purely on my toil. (but of course it wasn’t, the is no “I” in TEAM...but LIBRARY has an "I", haha...) Our scout troop seemed equally so. We had activities on and off so many times we just couldn’t bother to count. My explanation on YE is gonna be so long that I decided to make an entire post out of it. So watch out for that post.
With all these commitments, I did not have time to do my school assignments. (Speaking of assignments, I am thoroughly relieved that we were not asked to produce folios this year, could have dropped dead with that load).
I suppose it is partly my fault for not distributing my workload with my other team mates eh? Also my fault, not being organized and not allocating time for different things. Nevertheless, it has been a very fulfilling, experience-filled, new-boundaries-explored, memorable year of activities.
Ps.
I was lazy to correct my style of typing on Blogger’s editor, so I did my post in Word.doc where auto-correct does it for me. Then I pasted it into Blogger. Lazy enough for you?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Carelessness...stupidity or something to brighten up your day?
Carelessness is something we are all familiar with. It is usually caused by our carte-blanche actions which leads us to think we know what we're doing. Incidents range from forgetting to lock the car to melting a toaster in the oven....
In any case, it results in subtle tragic events that make use either laugh at ourselves or utter curses under our breath. This sort of plain-sight stupidity always makes me laugh and never fails to brighten my day. You just can't help smiling from lobe to lobe. However, many a time does this behaviour ensnare me into more work and loads of telling off from the persons involved.
I suppose it's just a little thing that teaches me not to repeat my mistakes. Carelessness defines mankind's perfect imperfection. Besides, we all look super adorable when we do stupid things.
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