Fundamentals of Caring

 Timely reminder that there is so much good in this world if we could only keep it simple. This movie (and the book it is based on) shows us how much better this world could be if only...

Gift

 I am spreading my wings much further than I've done before. It's harder and freeing at the same time. There is so much more to try out, so much more to do. There will come a day when this will be it and it will define me.

We are Liverpool - You Will Never Walk Alone

Humanity

Didn't think I'd ever get back to posting but this breaks my heart. Every single time.


This is not a discussion about your political inclination. It's just basic humanity. It's irrelevant and I don't mean to stoke any political debate. A government should be taking care of the poorest and the least among us. These stories are heart-wrenching. I fear anything that is done from now on will be too little, too late.

On a personal note, I find it hypocritical to be grateful for what I have. It's just not right.

Dave Matthews Band Live at Fiddler Greens - Done.

Off the bucket list but I get the feeling it isn't my last time. Now if only the man would come to Red Rocks.

I'm just winging it. 

Like everybody else.

I've been in a dilemma, whether to mourn for what I've lost or be grateful for what I have. It doesn't matter, it's not in your control. Heard this from someone I'll probably never ever meet but it's true.

"It's chaos. Be kind"

While on that topic, much recommended, do watch the "Kindness Diaries" - Netflix

Screwtape Letters: Chapter 14

Screwtape Letters is one of my all-time favorites. Chapter 14, probably the best one Lewis has written. Here goes:

My Dear Wornwood,

The most alarming thing in your last comment of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of "grace" for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation! This is very bad.

I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection. "By jove! I am being humble", and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear. If he awakens to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt - and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour an proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.

But there are other profitable ways of fixing his attention on the virtue of Humility. By this virtue, as by all others, our Enemy wants to turn the man's attention away from self to Him, and to the man's neighbours. All the abjection and self-hatred are designed, in the long run, solely for this end; unless they attain this end they do us little harm; and they may even do us good if they keep the man concerned with himself, and, above all, if self-contempt can be made the starting-point for contempt for other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty.

You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he already has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is  to make him value an opinion of some quality other than the truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to becomes a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible. To anticipate the Enemy's  strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the, fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it that he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love - a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neigbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away from His left.

His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man's mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forget about it, than he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instill either vainglory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy's side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame. You must try to exclude this reminder from the patient's consciousness at all costs. The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient's mind a doctrine which they all profess but find it  difficult to bring home to their feelings - the doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the colour of their hair. But always and by all methods the Enemy's aim will be to get the patient's mind off such questions, and yours will be to fix it on them. Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased, Your affectionate uncle

Screwtape

I wish I had a friend like Jeff Goldblum.

Things will never be normal again. There will be a new normal that we'll need to get used to. The process will be heart-wrenching.

I feel deflated but inspite of that, I haven't lost hope. Through the misery, I see a lot of good in this world. The good that I don't deserve but I still experience. There will be a void in our hearts but the rest of it will be filled with hope. Hope that one day it will be alright. This too shall pass.

For now, I am here to grieve.

Liam

He had his Mother's eyes, his Dad's lips. His Mother's fingers, his Dad's face. His Mother's nails, his Dad's limbs. He would have made a great footballer. He was perfect in every way.

He was our first-born.

May 10th, 2017. Thank you for giving us those precious moments. We'll see you again.

Gentle Reminder

I've been playing some of my best football in quite sometime now.
I can just hang out with friends.
I've been learning a lot, both biblical and practical.
I'm looking forward to an important event in the not too distant future.
Arijit Singh is a phenomenal singer...and so is Dave Mathews.

Rest doesn't matter. It's all good.

Note to self: You need to get back to practicing the guitar.
  

Some of the stories coming from Syria are heart-wrenching. It's so difficult to fathom what they are going through. I wonder how long this will continue and how people are alright with the world we live in today. I know this post doesn't provide any solutions but I just wanted to write something. I don't understand what level of hatred one needs to reach to be ok with this. It's probably not human.

Played football twice on the same day. Don't remember the last time I got to do that. Aah! Simple pleasures.

I'll be the first to confess that I don't share the same level of faith as others do. It's easy to say I surrender everything to Christ but this journey teaches us what surrender really means. Most times I feel I cannot reach that level. But it's not about me. It's about Him in the end.

I have the humility to accept I don't know much but I do know that I wish this world was a better place to live in. I am thankful to God that he has made me a generally happy person but at times it becomes very difficult to ignore/disregard the problems people go through. And I am not talking about mundane stuff. Serious cancer stuff, man. I hate to say it but I don't understand how something good can come out of a 7 year old suffering from cancer. But He knows. He suffers with her and He is good. That's worth hanging on to.

Back to back champions!

Way, Way Back

Watch this movie. The one-liners are ... And not just Sam Rockwell's. I have already watched it three times (because I get HBO). Don't expect a lot from the movie but you'll like it. Especially if you are like me, pointtless.

Arijit Singh. Mesmerizing. Talent.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/offbeat/so-bad-that-it-s-good-skip-the-movies-watch-these-hilarious-reviews-516831?fb

Ok the PJ level might be too low for a few but it's exactly my level. Sorry, but enjoy!

I love Jesus. Such an awesome guy. And He also happens to be my savior. I still have so many questions, but He is smart so no worries there.