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You just have to see as many battle scenes in order to have the insight that Chris Hedges has. As a reporter, he went from El Salvador to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, West bank and Gaza, Sudan and Yemen, Turkey and Iraq, Bosnia and Kosova. He’s see too many of brutality, death, honor and shame, win and loss, liess, and more lies. 

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shalowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war’s appeal. 

…

many of us, restless, and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness and divisiveness. 

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War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the  ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but also meaning. And tragically war is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning. “

If Chris Hedges is correct, the process also apply to those who do the humanitarian work. May be we think that we are too small, and so does our world. The greatness can be achieved through reaching a big goal, a impossible goal, such as that of eliminating violence and pain. how funny it is that two opposite actions can be rooted  in the same source: that of searching for meaning.

Voices shall be heard?!!

I’m probably too old-fashioned to go back to the book of Exodus, since we are living in a democratic society, where everyone’s voice shall be heard.

But in the time of exodus, there is not much room for discussion. God spoke, Moses led, and the Hebrews followed. They thus crossed the red sea, conquered their enemies. But problems came as discussion began. How come we have so little food? How can we do this, how can we do that, this is not possible. They forgot that their God is the creator who turned nothing into the universe. They wanted to be heard, their complains went up to the Lord, and thus they wandered in the desert for 40 years till the generation died. If then Moses was trying to be political and let all voices to be heard, all issues to be discussed, more generations had probably passed out in the desert.

we cannot save the world

When it comes to the issue of poverty and slavery, we often simply think that money will help to solve the problem. Months ago, a African economist in her new book cried for white men “not to give money to african”; The article that I found in Christianity Today “Redeeming Sudan’s Slaves” raised a similar issue: are we really helping?

I do not deny that we are all trying to help, seeing the pictures of the african babies left with skin and bones, watching people dying everyday. Maybe their lives will be better because I am doing this or that. We are all born with a desire to be needed, to feel significant in others’ lives, to become a hero or heroine.

It is not wrong to want to help. But it won’t help if we think we know better what others wanted. Jesus said that the one who helps the needs is the one who gives drink one he’s thirsty and provides food when he’s hungry. But most often we neglect what the needy really need and give them whatever we think we need based on our own culture in our society and life experiences.

Often we are too arrogant to see that at times we are more needy than those who are poor and hungry in Africa. We think we know better because we do not lack food or drink everyday. We think years of schooling makes us smarter than those who never went to school. all of our thinking is based on the ideology that is rooted in the western world of capitalism. We argue that Africans shall stop piercing their girls for the sake of human rights. At the same time, our people open piercing/tattoo salons as preserving our rights to look “beautiful”. We “provide” the poor with food that they need, but our health food stores sell recipes for “deep cleaning”/”juice fasting” formula.

I’m clearly not advocating for giving up giving or helping. However, after all, we need to realize that we all bow before the creator to receive his mercy and grace. no one is better than the other, and no one can save the other.

internal righteousness

Before we look at the macro and cosmic scene of nations and communities, I think we need to look inward. The whole message of the palm sunday is that Jesus came with riding the authority, power and humility, there are some who rejected him, some who accepted him, within a week they were going to crucify him, and righteousness became a personal matter then and it is a personal matter now.

Righteousness is internal, self-aggrandizement is fatal, obedience to known-truth is crucial, and responsibility is personal. — Ravi Zacharias

a note from Chuck Swindoll

We live in a culture that expects women to have perfect looks, perfect marriages, perfect children, and perfect careers, treating anything less with disdain. In more than four decades of ministry, I have seen the heartache caused by these false expectations. Every single one of us—male or female—is drowning in an unrelenting flood of fear, self-doubt, tasks, demands, and pressures. Believe me; even those who exude an air of confidence and poise secretly struggle with feelings of anxiety and inferiority.
But God never intended for us to remain caught in this emotional riptide. The apostle John offers a lifeline: “We know and rely on the love God has for us. . . . Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:16–18 NIV, emphasis added).

God’s love alone can calm the raging storms of worry and the thunder of inferiority in our lives. His love alone can be our strong rudder when fierce winds blow. His love alone can serve as our reliable compass when we lose our bearings. His love alone can be our safe harbor when we just can’t continue sailing on.

democracy and dictatorship

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.
Charles Bukowski
US (German-born) author & poet (1920 – 1994)

Surrender

I’m now 30, engaged, in school, working, and confused.
many many years ago i read the story of rich young ruler and it hit me. i got scared because i feel that Jesus was too demanding and i was afraid that He might ask me to do the same thing.
i’m buying a home, getting a car, is going to marry a lovely person and will probably have kids. and i am scared. i find myself pushed into a mirrored corner and i see myself, a rich young ruler.
i thought that i could give some of my time to work in the field, do something for the poor and advocate for the weak. a contemporary non-violent activist, as i would call myself.
but no, i am now faced with two choices: walk away feeling depressed, or accept the offer of selling all, giving up everything, not just a couple months of field work and laying on a comfortable couch afterwards.
i don’t know what to choose. if i’m very honest to myself, i do know what to choose but i don’ t have the courage or faith to choose that. i need help.
as i begin to open a new page of my life, i find myself settling for something steady, easy and comfortable. i am however not at peace with myself since i clearly know this is not what He intended me to be… surrendering is such an easy thing to say but a hard thing to do.

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

I decided to write about Human Freedom for my midterm after wavering between several topics.

For years I have this love-hate relationship with assignments. I love the process of it, the thinking and digging into humanity and various text, the looking to find stories behind all those dusty books. I also hate the feeling of fear, fear of failing, not being able to match up, not earning an A.

Last Sunday I challenged my kids to think deeper when they fail and when they get hurt. What is the cause of it? Is it really the bad grade or insult from friend? what is behind all those causes? was it I, myself that’s hurting me? the fear of rejecting, the sadness from not being able to be recognized, the sore of feeling not good enough, we interact with the world, perceive what happened, internalize it, and the interaction sometimes creates poison.

I’m here to talk about freedom, not writing a paper.
“Free was the single most common adjective used”.
are we really free? what is the meaning of freedom? we are bounded within a set of rules of culture, limitation of our nature, power of hegemony. so where is freedom. If freedom is to be able to choose what we want to choose, we have limited amount of choices. maybe sometimes we don’t want to choose, but we have to because we don’t have any other choice… does that mean, humanity does not have the option for complete liberty since human are living within the boundary of its universal culture and nature?

the unexpected…

i ate two pieces of bread at home today. later i got hungry again and went to get more. My kitchen was dark and i turned on the light, coz I want to make a grill cheese sandwich. then I saw grayish greeny powder on the bread… =O

Midterm Paper

I finally started working on my midterm paper for “communication and culture”. I also have my final paper topic on mind, which is:

The main focus is on violence and effectiveness of communication. How this one person was able to call on the evil from all youngmen’s heart. I was able to find similar videos about the culture revolution in china, about how the entire nation was turned into madness through pure worshipping of one man by the teens. They are powerful tools of violence. History is good at repeating itself, just look at India and Africa…