Monday, October 15, 2007
Beyond reality
Some men see things as they are and ask why.Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
- George Bernard Shaw
Doesn't that encapsulate this week's sermon by Pastor Kong so well? Now, how shall we shatter preconceptions and challenge assumptions to transcend reality's glass ceilings?
Will time tell?
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As for the CG vision that was discussed the previous cell group, haha I didn't expect what I gave to evoke so much interest. Thanks to all for the affirmation. Here it is (apologies for the week-long delay), my vision of E348 for the next level:
Where everyone plays a part and is treasured,
Where lifelong friendships are fostered and maintained, and
Where potential is developed to excellence.
Well, if anyone has anything to add or edit, please do! If everyone agrees to this, perhaps we can pray for this to come into reality and endeavour to make it both happen, and last.
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Bookcast (Only if you're very, very free...)
I've been spending some time reading general books the past week or so in my free time and shall try to showcase them here:
1)Pigeon Feathers and other stories - by John Updike
(A short story collection by 1 of America's literary maestros)
Excerpt from story Lifeguard:
... But when I study the vast tangle of humanity that blackens the beach as far as the sand stretches, absurdities crowd in on me. Is it as maiden, matron, or crone that the females will be eternalized? What will they do without children to watch or gossip to exchange? What of the thousand deaths of memory and bodily change we endure - can each be redeemed at a final Adjustments Counter? The sheer numbers involved make the mind scream. The race is no longer a tiny clan of simian aristocrats lording it over an ocean of grass; mankind is a plague racing like fire across exhausted continents. This immense clot gathered on the beach, a fraction of a fraction - can we not say that this breeding swarm is its own immortality and end the suspense? The beehive in a sense survives; and is each of us not proved to be a hive, a galaxy of cells each of whom is doubtless praying, from its pew in our thumbnail or esophagus, for personal resurrection? Indeed, to the cells themselves cancer may seem a revival of faith. No, in relation to other people oblivion is sensible and sanitary.
2) Seven Lies - by James Lasdun
(Part political thriller, part meditation on the nature of desire and betrayal. Story of a young man growing up in the former East Germany in the 70s, whose yearnings for love, glory and freedom express themselves in a lifelong fantasy of going to America. Based on Martin Luther's quote: Every lie must beget seven more lies if it is to resemble the truth and adopt truth's aura.)
A novel of the brightest of dreams being entangled in a veb, and the vicious cycle of, deceit. Excerpt:
At any rate, my father wasn't. A few days after his return he was told that he had been removed from the UN team. My father must have guessed that that was to be his last trip; in addition to the usual case of miniatures for bribing Herr Brandt, he had brought with him presents of an especially poignant 'Americanness': a racoon-skin hat for my mother, a New Mexican turquoise pin for Kitty, a calculator for Otto, and for me a set of metal ballpoint pens, each in the shape of a famous American skyscraper. These joined the other knick-knacks and gadgets he had brought home on earlier trips, and because they were now part of a finite series, never to be further augmented, they acquired a hallowed quality in our household. They were sacred relics of a brief, visionary connection with a reality larger than our own; one that had tragically eluded our grasp.
3) A Beautiful Mind - by Sylvia Nasar
(True story, biography, of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into the madness of schizophrenia, and emerging after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Also adapted in film.)
Reading now. Very fascinated by it.
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To Val and Zhinian and all the rest of you, from Pastor Kong's sermon,
2 Corinthians 4:16-18:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Cheers
Charles
i posted this at 12:08 AM
and i have received 2 comments.
This blog is amazing... The intellectual side of charles.. the emo side of ade.. the wise side of zoe, the pretty side of jamie, the musical side of wendy, val and the sincere side of zhinian, the eccentric side of YQ, the pointless side of joseph, the cool side of lewen, the perserverance of terence, the motherly elicia
to those who havent post! please show us ur other side!
as i was reading charle's ultra intellectual post.. i suddenly realise that this blog is so precious to me.... its thru here i see deeper into the lives of e348 and what makes us so special.
This blog is indeed US
Joseph
By 
, at
October 15, 2007 at 3:58 AM
joseph is speaking something that ain't science, nor economics, nor all the cool lame stuff. hah. yea i agree totally. this blog is really so precious. it's somewhere i got to know the most of the cell group members to a deeper level, and share my views.
believe it or not, it's the first glimpse i have of the vision of the cell group (by charles). amazing. yea... i think we really can work towards it and build e348 together.
hey charles. you're really well-read to quote so much. it's no wonder you're an A1 GP student. heh.
nice boooks you've gotten there. lol i'm probably not an avid reafer like you, but yea, i love books. nice to share common interest!
thanks for the verse. it is empowering. =) and all the best to your army days yea? have fun.
you know, you're always so ready to serve, so ready to show the real side of you, i think i gotta learn more from you. and learn to be more patient and longsuffering and so on... haha...
take care.
zhinian
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October 15, 2007 at 11:42 AM