The End of the Ten Commandments

You know those rules so often cited by traditional moralists (Christians, Jews and Muslims) as a code for morality? They're called the Ten Commandments, as I'm sure you're aware, and to be honest they're a bit old.

They were apparently given to Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt, back when Egypt was run by Pharoahs. That's a very long time ago. Why should we still go by laws that some guy with a beard chiselled out of stone thousands of years ago? Do you think thousands of years from now people will stop at stop signs?

Here follows a systematic analysis of each command, and its irrelevancy.

I am the Lord you God.
Thanks God, but I already have someone running my life. He's called Me. And I'm fine. The fact that I am not responsible for my birth and that I have no idea why I exist is irrelevant. Sorry to disappoint you. Or not.

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
Can I have one behind you? See, even the language is outdated. Not to mention I'm way to evolutionarily advanced to bow down to some god somewhere. Excuse me, I have a football game. Bye.

Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
Sorry, what? You mean, I shouldn't swear? Can I swear if I don't use your name? Or maybe I shouldn't look in the mirror admiring myself while I swear? Anyway, Hollywood's been swearing for a while and I see no massive earthquake in the vicinity. It's cool to swear, okay.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it.
Excuse me? I'll rest when I want to. Not to mention resting so much is just lazy. You think the Chinese rest for one seventh of their lives? Well, they seem to be taking over the world.

Honor thy father and they mother.
Isn't that a bit exclusive? I mean, in the first place it assumes that I have a father and a mother. What about Lilly from Modern Family? How is she to honor her mother? Also, most fathers seem to be a bit absent from the scene. Kinda difficult to honor a guy you've never met. Not to mention, the whole idea of honoring someone else draws attention away from your own rights.

Thou shalt not kill.
Fair enough. But everyone knows it will be bad for their reputation if they start mowing down their neighbours. It's just bad for society in general. Naturally, the size of the person is important. The smaller, the more okay it will be to kill the person. Tracing a life back to its origins, by the time the person is still inside the womb, its not a person anymore. It's wrong to kill a pregnant mother, but it would not have been wrong to kill her a few years ago, when she was still in her own mother's womb. It's kinda obvious.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.
That's not really any of your business. I will sleep with whoever I want, whenever I want to, whether they you like it or not. Don't come at me with 'that could also be bad for society', that belongs to a different paragraph altogether, which is now closed. F*** society. I got my rights. And my rights always trumps those of anyone else. If people could let go of all these restrictions everyone would be a whole lot happier. No I haven't done any studies to prove it.

Thou shalt not steal.
Not from me, anyways. Most people who steal do so cos they need to. It's just a product of a dysfunctional society. Would you punish those who respond in the way they are forced to do. Also, taxes. Some say this whole stealing thing applies to tax-evasion. I say, why pay if you're smart enough not to? Survival of the crafty.

- I wrote this blogpost sometime last year, and to be honest I'm quite impressed with it. I don't know why I didn't publish it...

behold, a blog post

Soft, what light through yonder window shone, a slice of cake appeared.

I didn't come up with that myself, it's from Honest Toddler.

I can explain my absence: busyness, and lack of self-confidence, and lack of interest. (I wonder whether I should say that? - case in point)

Reasons I don't think I'll blog much in the near future:

• other goals, e.g. playing flute and piano. I am at present sacrificing precious flute-playing moments in order to type these words.
• Silence is often a better choice. I think I used to value my opinions more highly than i do now, and was quite eager to share them with the world out there. Now, however, having been proven wrong agan and again, I'm not too sure of my grip on reality. (Hence lack of self-confidence). Knowing that the Lord has worked much in my heart that I am really greatful for, maturing and relaxing and such, I am probably more likely to write things of value now than I used to, but my confidence is a bit knockoed by life. I am not even sure that I am less confident now rather than less interested. But I think I am.
• On second thoughts maybe I will. I just thought of a great reason to blog: to testify to what the Lord does in my life. Only, I don't neccesarily want that to be public. Telling of revelations I have received without revealing deep struggles and issues I carried will only sound all hoity-toity and 'I'm so spiritual'. But it might not, if I'm just honest without telling everything. In fact, I think this is a brilliant reason. Here goes...

A very short testimony of God's love in my life: I have a lot of peace. I have way more patience with people than I used to. I am aware of my imperfections, though admittedly not very aware of my sinfulness (yes yes, it's self-righteous I know but I'm not going to try and fix this by finding fault with me, I already do that automatically). Lately I've been coming to terms with the fact that I'm not perfect, and I don't need to be. Both of these are/were quite hard to accept, also that I won't ever be. But the process of practicing to accept this and reminding myself of this is a really good place to be. It's really quite very liberating.

I've also been realising lately that I have wonderful, wise parents, and that following their advice brings great blessing. Oo, now doesn't that sound mature... Anyway, it's such a relief to be able to get advice from them to follow. I hope I'm not following them too closely because I don't trust my own judgement and it's so much easier when they make decisions, but it's so much easier and peaceful. Naturally when I disagree I make my opinions known, often in disrespectful ways which I only realise was wrong several days later...

This blogpost went in a completely different direction to what I expected... :)

count the cost

...for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.

depths of glory

when you enter the depths
of despair
and you keep going deeper
fearing the bottom, fearing eternity

when you cry
out
and there's no answer
you need

when you fear
the end
and no end

when thoughts assail
attack
dissemble
your mind

hold on to the one
who will never let go

when your head goes under
know you will
look up

when you light flickers
know you will
alight again

when you lose your grip

                           don't!




hold on
cling

grind your teeth
clench your fists
sob

hold on to Him.

hold on to Him
for he will                    
                               never
                                                                   never
                                                                                                              never

                                                                              
                                                      

                                                                 let go.

I wonder if things will be different this semester? Aside from subject matter.

I wonder if I will stress more or less. I hope I will worry less. What's the use, right?

I wonder if I will freeze less. My fingers are really cold as I type this because it only occurred to me right now as I type this that I may in fact close the windows in this room (not mine) which are wide open. But I'm not going to because a) that requires getting up and b) I'm almost done. Waste of useful energy, what.

I really really want to go on another outreach thingy. Soon. Soon. Emphasis on soon. You get the idea, right?

Any suggestions on raising funds will be welcome. As well as the funds themselves, haha...

I worried today. About whether 'tis honourable to change my degree from Education to Languages. The reason I worried is because it seems a bit selfish to change, seeing as how I would benefit from the change, but may be able to offer more to others in the short term if I don't. But long term it may be better to change. That just occurred to me as well. I love it when my brain follows the lead of my fingers and starts moving a bit. As opposed to freezing a bit, as they are still doing because my brain is not being insistent enough about the windows.

Siam

fun[k]y feelings

Feelings are weird. Mine are anyway. I think most people's are.

I feel so happy lately. When I think of going on a year journey one day (see www.gcex.org ) I feel even happier. In fact I suddenly finally understand why people say they feel as if they will burst. You get filled up inside with some immaterial insubstance that rises into your throat and escapes through your ears. I don't know where I get this random stuff from but it fits my mood.

(Moods are even weirder).

Getting back to feelings. I feel so excited. I feel like bouncing around. And nothing happened. Okay, I did have a cup of coffee this morning. Maybe it's the people I'm with. But it can't be the people, cos some of them upset me. Or annoy me. Or both.

Last night they had the cheek to watch a  movie about people who freeze on a sky-lift. I was super annoyed. Like super-super-super. The people in the movie were starting to take their fear out on each other and saying heartless things to each other, and I started getting really worked up for the same reason. That was a very effective movie emotion-wise. I wonder what it's intention was?

This morning I was still annoyed with the guy who chose the movie. But I was annoyed with him because of his personality as well. That episode is my main motivation for writing about feelings.

For about a week now I've been trying to understand this silent wonder, wondering about who he is and what he thinks about and then bam, can't stand the sight of him anymore. So I forgave him for his personality. He was the second person on this expedition I had to forgive for his/her personality. It's stupid to get annoyed with people because of who they are.