A personal thought :Suffering

"Martha and Mary: In today’s Gospel, Jesus is asserting that while it is good to serve the needs of others, it is more important for us to discover why we serve others. Do we serve to express our love for Our Lord? The deepest and the most meaningful way to live our lives is to love and serve God more wholeheartedly."

Fr Philip Heng, S.J. (21/07/07)

Our own suffering, no matter how insignificant or mundane, small or trivial - could be even the pain of enduring anxieties and struggles students may have during the course of an examination, our everyday burdens of putting up with things we dislike doing, the hurts that stem from the thought that injustice had been done towards me, the moments you become lost and in the lurch of what to do, when times become unbearable and out of control - may well in fact be a blessing in disguise.

There were many awkward moments in my course of life when I felt a permanent surge of compassion, a sudden paradigm change after waking up one morning from a restless but deep sleep during which the day before had been somewhat torturing. This ‘phenomena’ let me to a conclusion that through our own sufferings we begin to see the sufferings of others (and to take a step further) thus we can be more effective in playing an instrumental role of easing the affliction of our neighbours, and to serve as a channel of peace, bringing solace to others.

Thinking in depth (by reflecting and observing people around me, and the life stories of notable figures from the past and in the present), I find that there is obviously something to this life changing suffering. If previously a person’s heart may be stone cold, suffering may well in fact be the flames which melt the snow to a warm loving embrace.

Therefore, on this journey, like many other great people or simple people alike, had gone through, we must be brave enough to face suffering head on, enduring the pain rather then running away from it, treating it as a friend rather then an enemy. This response to suffering I feel, makes the difference in my life, changing curses into blessings and transforming the pain caused by suffering into purified love.

Jesus had endured immense suffering on the cross for love of us. Let us take up our own crosses and follow him, doing the same to our neighbours.

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dreaming

dr Mahathir's birthday is on the10 of July.. which also happens to be my birth date..hehe i'll make him my role model today.. first and foremost. he is a medical doctor.. he has writen many articles in his younger days... and some books as well.. and he had made a difference in society and the world.. Looking back at his legacy.. i must say that he truly fulfilled his life's mission.. so cool!

The Thinking Alphabet (mind stimulator)

To Speed Observation and ordinary Thinking

What
Who
When
Where
Why
How

To Stimulate creative thinking

Cause
Effect
Similarity
Contrast
Past
Future
Compare
Combine
Associate
Rearrange
Substitute
Write

Other Uses

• As a reminder
• To stimulate concentration
• To think around a subject and size it from different angles

(The success Journey)

Questioning :

1. Stimulate interest
2. Stimulate thinking
3. Induce proactive learning
4. Strengthen memory
5. Form natural hooks
6. Increase recall
7. Helps you to focus (important for creative daydreamers)
   
8. Encourage active listening

Through questioning we emulate the natural learning abilities of a child which must never be forgotten as we tag along through more advance and complicated information. This is the reason for the fast learning speeds during the child's first few formative years. Thus i will stress on this natural learning abilities of QUESTIONING and MIMICKING.

Steps to put it into practice
Start with small steps - formulating questions which are simple to answer .

Take the opportunity to find out every word which is unclear, in the dictionary (do not skip out of laziness). This will increase essential understanding of the subject

To ensure you know your stuff or to keep check on what you are reading, question yourself, especially on the highlighted key points.

From retreating to witnessing - united as one in Christ

There is two main points I will touch on; going for the retreat before missionary work and the reason for participating in the retreat program of the Divine Retreat Centre, Porta.

The idea of going for a retreat before missionary work is to first retreat or to take a break from one’s own lifestyle and routine to reflect on his own life in God before actually taking up a mission to make a difference for others. For example, Christ retracted himself to the dessert for forty days and forty nights, fasted and resisted the devil’s temptation before he started his public ministry work – in other words, it was a retreat time before missionary. Another example is in the garden of Gethsemani where Christ spent his last hours with his heavenly father, and saying: “take this cup of suffering away from me, but may thy will, not mine be done” – before the period of his passion, his ultimate mission and “the cup of suffering”, which is to die for the sins of the entire human race.

Thus in a retreat, we can be renewed spiritually by resting with the Lord, far from the rat race of our everyday life style, tune ourselves in God’s frequency and thus be empowered by the zeal of the Holy Spirit such as that of Pentecost, where the disciples of Christ - being afraid, like a sheep without his shepherd – were being empowered by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire resting above their heads (and thus leading to the conversion of 3000 people).

Besides that, this could also be the time where we develop our essential communication skill and basic human relationship (similar to our PPD class… ABAH!!) by listening to (and communicating with) our fellow retreat participants (complete strangers but our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ… ABAH!!!) and due to the fact the retreat has many Indian participants ( and many international ones as well) we can familiarize ourselves to a certain extend, the local culture or taste, their worries, anxieties, difficulties, needs… etc before we undertake a missionary work locally.

Then the question may arise… why Porta? Besides the reason mention above (familiarization to local needs), in the Divine Retreat Centre of Porta, retreats are conducted every week (7 days retreat) for the whole year and for many years it has bore abundant fruits in building the spiritual movement in the Church. For more information visit www.drcm.org (or simply google: Divine Retreat Centre). I assure you this program is more towards charismatic, bread of life, or Grace church style than that of the traditional liturgical catholic style (therefore there will be praise and worship, the word of God, gifts of the Holy Spirit…etc) . It is definitely a worthwhile spiritual experience which I am challenging you to go in faith (which I’m doing too).

Another point (of why porta as the idea place for the retreat), which I really desire to stress, is the need for an understanding between protestant and catholic Christians. This is an opportunity to work for unity as we focus not on our difference, but on our similarities, the same mission of being warrior’s of Christ, cross bearers (take up my cross and follow me, says the Lord!) and thus his witnesses, an instrument of His LOVE; “to feed those who are hungry, to cloth those who are naked, visit those who are in prison… etc”. Therefore I urge you to “muhibbah” with us in this program, dispel prejudices and thus we are able to communicate effectively and witness effectively for our beloved one God in three persons. In this, I am frequently reminded of how Jesus Christ our savior, for the sake of reconciling man to God, incarnated from God to become one of us. Likewise to reconcile us together – at least on our level – we must imitate Christ and experience likeness and spirituality of one another, come down to each others level and communicate effectively.

Finally, if we can swallow our differences and be united as one body of Christ; if we can walk hand in hand and affirm one another, then our mission of being witnesses for Christ and our mission trip would be a success. Without this, our approach towards missionary work would be meaningless and thus this would simply become an adventurous holiday….

Discipline and creativity... its relationship

DISCIPLINE LIMITS CREATIVITY;
BUT WITHOUT DISCIPLINE, CREATIVITY IS MEANINGLESS!!!

(to be continued)