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joshuatj@twitter
Heroes season 1 in a week.
Saturday full fledged and Sunday the remaining.
Can’t believe just how addictive the show is…
I wonder what was the factor that got me so addicted.
One important factor will be Hiro Nakamura’s skills,
Time travel always appeal to me.
Is this an inheritance? haha~
Anyway, got it off me.
It’s time to come back to reality.
This show albeit it’s addictiveness,
It did some good to me,
It lead me through some deep thinking.
Oh yes, I’ve recharged.
joshuatj, let’s strive on till the end.
Your passion lies in more than one area.
You can do it!
Your purpose of living is CLEAR.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one
body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with
gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word
or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God
the Father through him.Colossians 3:15-17
yes God, I’ll do everything in your name, by Your spirit, with thanksgiving.
For those who understand chinese,
this article deals with the issue of "Public perception of Chinese Medicine Practice, its origin, and suggestions"
Direct Translation "How was Chinese Medicine Practice ostracized?"
http://ngotcm.com/digest/article.php/28
Great read,
I, for one, a supporter of 中医, agrees with most of the author’s view.
But I not too sure about the point that the author made regarding,
western medicine still stays in the Newtonian age.
Chinese Medicine Practice provides a more comprehensive solution.
It deals with the core of the problem rather than the signs or after-effects of a problem.
Just thought of posting it here.
It’s my GEK1045 "Intro to World Religion" Term Paper,
It’s a long read.
Did it in quite a short amount of time,
it might have been better.
The uniqueness of Religion and
Spirituality
Is there a
difference between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’? It all depends on the context
where we are discussing the issue and how we define the two words. ‘Religion’
according to Patterns is “a system of
meaning embodied in a pattern of life, a community of faith, and a worldview
that articulates a view of the sacred and of what ultimately matters.” (1).
As for ‘Spirituality’, Wikipedia put it as “concerns
itself with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, involving (as it may) perceived
non-physical eternal verities (or even abilities) involving humankind’s
ultimate nature, often contrasts with the earthly, with the material, or with
the worldly.”.
‘Religion’, with its widely ambiguous meaning
is very difficult to define it monothetically. Patterns, while trying to define
‘religion’, adopted the idea of an Open definition (9), that is, the meaning of
‘religion’ depends on the context of where it is defined and why it is defined.
This is further confirmed by a simple search on Merriam-Webster Online, where the
word ‘religion’ itself has multiple meanings, some of them are “a personal set or institutionalized system
of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”, “the service and worship of God or the supernatural” and “commitment or devotion to religious faith or
observance”.
‘Religion’,
considering its patterns, practices, system and believes, can be mere actions
and commitments, without concerning the spiritual-self of a person as all. Therefore,
‘spirituality’, which basically means matters that concerns spirit, is taken so
as to distinct itself from this notion of ‘religion’. But ‘spirituality’ is not
entirely mutually exclusive to ‘religion’. If an open definition of ‘religion’
is conceived, like what Patterns has described it to be, that ‘religions’ are
concrete communities of faith with distinctive beliefs and practices, that
there is no common definition for the wide range of ‘religion’ available, that
there’s no ultimate definiton of ‘religion’ (9), then ‘spirituality’ is possible
to exist in ‘religion’ itself, where the actions and commitments of faith are
truly actions that comes from within, concerns the spirit-self and in a more
personal level. Thus, depending on the context situation, ‘spirituality’ and
‘religion’ can be totally exclusive of each other or in another case,
‘spirituality’ does not entirely equal to ‘religion’ and well exist under big
umbrella of ‘religion’.
Christianity and
Confucianism are very good examples in discussing the differences between
‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’. Christianity is not a mere-‘religion’, with
repetitive religious practices. Meanwhile, Confucianism is no where near
‘spirituality’, with its focus on achieving ideal human virtue (jen) through works (li). Therefore, to understand the differences between ‘religion’
and ‘spirituality’, Christianity and Confucianism are the best candidates.
The basis as
example
The basis of
Christianity lies within ‘spirituality’. Some say that Christianity is about a
close-spiritual-relationship with God (McDowell). But it is not enough just to
have a close-relationship with God but rather it is a whole lifestyle of living
by His spirit as originally intended by God, living for the glofication of God.
This is well connoted by Fowler,
"Christianity is not religion;
it is the reality of Jesus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to
indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the
character of God is allowed to be manifested in man’s behavior to the glory of
God.”
The fact that God’s intention of
wanting to indwell His spirit in man, so much so as to sacrifice His one and
only son Jesus for mankind’s salvation, clearly shows that He really want to
have a proper spiritual-relationship with us. God approaches us first and
besides accepting God’s Grace, as a response Christians express gratitute, awe
and honour to God through daily devotions, prayers, liturgy, and sacraments.
This two-way interaction became the platform in building a consistent
relationship with God. This by itself is spiritual in nature, it is not mere
practices, mundane rituals or rites, rather it is a true eagerness of wanting
to get hold of God more and know God better. It is spurned from within a
motivation to fulfill God’s original intention of us manifesting His character
in the whole.
As opposed,
Confucianism is a nontheist religion where its main focus is set to fulfill the
very notion of human existence. This is done by exercising proper ethical and
morality behaviour patterns, called li.
Confucianism stressed the faithful performance of li; li, if perform well
will create a civlised society and smooth operation of the government and
ultimately achiving the harmony of
Heaven and Earth(Patterns, 283). Everything dwells down to the constant work of
a person to achieve ideal virtue or jen (ren). It doesn’t involve a spiritual sense at all. In fact, Confucious
himself does not regard the Heaven that he believes as a personal being, but
rather as a sacred transcendent reality that gave him his teaching and gave him
protection. His view regarding transcend beings is clearly amplified in his
recorded sayings, “Till you have learnt
to serve men, how can you serve spirits?(Analects 7:20)”. Although
ancestral worship might be a part of Confucianism that deals with spirit, or
rather spirit of the deceased, it has to be known that the sole purpose of
ancentral worship is a li that
cultivates moral values like filial piety (Patterns, 290), provide a proper
channeling of natural feelings, strengthening family ties and provide for one’s
future in the present life and afterlife. In a nutshell, all the four functions
of ancestral worship have nothing to do with the individual spirit-self or
building of a spiritual-relationship. Therefore, it is not profound to state that
the basis of Confucianism is non-spiritual and it can only be classified as a
non-theistic religion.
The way in
achieving the final goal as example
Next, the
differences between ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ are further exemplified by
the way to achieve the final goal in both religions. For Christianity, it is to
live a life that glorifies God in everything that one does, whereas for
Confucianism it is to attain the ideal virtue (jen), through the
practice of moral etiquette li or the
development of ‘personal culture’.
Christians – a
lifestyle of living sacrifice. Living a life that glorifies God in every sense
means for every single thing that Christian do, its intention is to please God.
Other than fulfilling the Great commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and obeying the
great commandment (Matthew 22:34-40), Christians should also fully utilise
their God-given talents (Parable of the Minas, Luke 19:11-28). Talents here
mean everything that a person has, abilities, financial, social status,
relationships, etc. In short, it means everything that a Christian does; it is
done solely for the Glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Muchow said that the true
meaning of “worship is a physical expression of our spiritual relationship with
God”. In fact, Paul in his epistles to the Romans, appeal that a proper
lifestyle of spiritual worship is of a living sacrifice.
“Therefore, I
urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”
(Romans 12:1)
Thus, a Christian lifestyle is both
full of ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’. As maintaining a relationship is of the
spirit nature. But living the everyday life as a living sacrifice in response
to God’s grace and blessings is the physical expression, and it can be consider
as religious in nature. Therefore, through this simple example of Christianity,
it is confirmed that ‘spirituality’ doesn’t equal to ‘religion’ but rather it
can be a subset of ‘religion’.
In contrary,
Confucianism is totally opposed to the appeal of divinity. Confucious appeal
that human should focus on practicing moral etiqutte called (li) and ultimately attaining high virtue
of human-heartedness (jen). Li practice is applied in the Five
Great Relationship, that is, father-son, elder brother-younger brother,
husband-wife, elder-junior and ruler-subject. All of these practices are
dealing with fellow human and there’s nothing spiritual about it. Besides, it
is stated in the Analects that Confucious when answering his students question,
quoted from an old record saying that “He
who can himself submit to ritual is good.”, then he go on saying that look
at nothing, listen to nothing, speak of nothing, never to stir hand or foot in
defiance of ritual. This implies that Confucianism holds on tight to the proper
execution of rituals and practices and even though it is illogical or one
doesn’t understand, the practices are still to be executed. In short,
everything about Confucianism amplified the mundane and rigid structure of a religious
practices. Thus, in this case, ‘spirituality’ can be seen as totally seperated
from ‘religion’.
In conclusion,
it must be made clear that the definition of ‘religion’ is ambiguous, changes
contextually and provisionally, but the definition that is use in this term
paper adopted a wider meaning of ‘religion’ as stated in the book Patterns of
Religion (9). On the other hand, the meaning of ‘spirituality’ is clear, which
is matters concerning the spirit, including a relationship with God. Another concrete
point this term paper has made is that religion and spirituality, in a certain
context it is definitely different but there are cases where they are not
mutually exclusive, and ‘spirituality’ a subset of ‘religion’. Christianity is
the best example in showing that ‘spirituality’ is a subset of ‘religion’
whereas Confucianism is a clear example of mere-religion totally exclusive of
anything spiritual.
REFERENCES:
Fowler, James A., Christianity is NOT Religion. 1998. <http://www.christinyou.net/pages/Xnotrel.html>.
McDowell, Josh. Does Christianity Work? 1996 <http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/josh/josh2.html>
Muchow, Rick. “The Heart of Worship” Today’s Christian. Feb. 2007.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2007/001/2.27.html
Schidmt, Roger, Sager, Gene C., Arney, Gerald T.C., Muller, Albert
Charles.
Patterns of
Religion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2005.
The Holy Bible, New
International Version. International Bible Society. 1984.
Just finish watching Die Hard 4.0 with friends.
Present were OldMan HuanJin, Raymond, YiYang, HueyFen, LinZhi, XiaoJie, YongLe, YingKang.
Thank you Andrew for the DVD.
The movie is real great.
Especially the scenes where the hackers are in action.
I see a glimpse of what it will look like if ever tan_ce, "iamgod" and "iamgod" godlike friends in US get together.
and ya~ it’s another movie where the theme is about us being too dependant on technology.
I like the part where they actually built a backup server at woodlawn.
That’s very smart.
I like War1ock too, He hacked 5 power station just to get himself online, rotflol. But too bad he "bo chap" things that’s happening around him although he actually can do something.
Thomas Gabriel is a sad case too, he wants to help the country but got crucified instead. Thanks to politics.
But oh well…. he is too extreme in trying to make a point. Nope, nothing can compromise doing evil to make a point in the good side.
Things have to be done, but it must be done through proper means.
Although there are faster ways, but choosing those means losing out some of the other factors involved.
Plot aside, I think the film was shot fantastically (it might not be so, but this is the only Die Hard movie I’ve watched and I actually remember. Besides, I don’t really watch movie, I guess that’s inbuilt in my family.)
If I have the time, I will watch the movie over and over again just to figure out how some of the scenes were shot.
I wonder how those scenes where the bridges, highways… all were film?
I guess you just need to have the budget.
I can almost imagine the satisfaction the director of the film must had have when he watch the premiere preview of the show. Or maybe the script writer, to be able to see your own production, things that got churned out of your brain, being realized. Wow~!!! That’s amazing~!!!
What more can you want.~!
Suddenly the 3months RAG experience came into my mind.
That’s exactly how we feel when we finally see all our hard work being displayed to everyone and we actually WON the BEST FLOAT even.
That, is really a great learning experience~!
Things made out of your own hands,
bit by bit…
nut by nuts,
endless hours of drilling and cutting,
every ounce of your energy,
and you’re not doing it alone,
your team mates are striving together with you,
all focusing on the target that was set in front of you.
Wow~!!
hehehehe… I’m getting a bit too excited already.
But this is really what I feel.
Actually, I feel that the 3 months of RAG really is a great milestone of my life.
It is a simulation of a person’s life, if I may put it.
You have a start when you totally know nothing,
then you play around,
trying to figure out how things work.
Aha, then you reach a stage where your skills are competent.
You can actually produce something meaningful to the accomplishment of your goal.
Then you start doing the job,
bit by bit,
your only motivation is to do it sui-suily and finish it on time.
Then comes the conflicts,
inter-personal, conflict of ideas,
conflict of principles, conflict of opinions…
Eventually, all came to pass..
Then it’s the final mile,
you chiong like mad,
every instance of your brain is just about finishing everything and it’s about the GOAL.
Then D-day arrives,
push-on fight-on.
CLIMAX. put up a great show, win!!
Then resolution… everything start to fade away,
there’re more important things for you to do,
next project perhaps?
continue on…. till the end.
My view is that,
RAG is like a mirror simulation of a person’s life.
born into the world,
don’t know anything,
start to learn stuff, kindergarten, primary, secondary, tertiary….
start to get to know how things work,
start working, and working and working,
all for one purpose,
to accomplish that which has been set for us.
Then the day finally arrive,
where you can proudly proclaim that you did a great job on earth and
go back to where we came from, continue on living with
the original intention of the creator.
Sadly most people don’t even know what is their end goal.
Without the end goal in mind,
how can someone fight on till the end.
Mr. DieHard is a great example,
a simple goal, to save his daughter,
he fights on… till the end.
Without hesitation.
Can we?
What’s your purpose of living?
What’s your goal?
mine? live my life to Glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
12am.
trying to transcode AOL video to something that is of high quality and generic (at least Windows Media Player can play).
Stuck.
Decided to call for help.
First one on the top of my mind —> tan_ce
Talking to tan_ce is like talking to a joshuatj in another parallel universe.
(I can’t think of other words to explain what I want to convey, parallel universe is one that came close, but I don’t believe in parallel universe..)
So this is how I will be like if I didn’t took the road not taken after SPM.
After my 7D in BM, a great milestone in my life, I’ve transformed into the joshuatj who I am today.
Or is it because after SPM my best friend Isaac went off to university while I have not much a choice but to take STPM.
Talking to tan_ce makes me feel very emo nemo…
It’s the FINALLY kind of feeling.
Finally I found someone who has the same frequency. (actually his is much higher, maybe I’m his lower harmonics)
If I have a friend like tan_ce at any point of my life before SPM,
I can say the path that I’ll take will be truly different.
As much as I enjoy doing technical stuff back in church or in school,
(from the view point of the current joshuatj) I am longing for people to resonates with me.
I am longing for someone that is almost at the same level of expertise to work with me side by side.
It’ll be great fun to actually challenge each other at trying to better our skills and at the same time be able to share our thoughts regarding the topic that we like.
Apparently, life as a technical guy is really sad.
It’s almost like nobody understands you.
I’ve never been so transparent with my thoughts and ideas before until the conversation with tan_ce just now. (haha… tan_ce I know you will be reading this~ But this is really what I feel)
I could only explain it as RESONANCE, where the driving frequency equals the natural frequency.
Stanley was my first resonance friend, from std2 till std6.
We’re one of the few in class who actually own a computer and play games on it. I am still searching for the computer game that we used to play together at his house. It’s called SALES, a chinese monopoly (大富翁）type of game where you are sales man trying to sell your products across the map. There are items where you can use to sabo other people. It might well be the infancy stage of 大富翁.
Isaac around the same time too, but our interaction last longer, std2 till F5.
But we got a lapse during F1 when I was in another class, it affects our natural frequency quite significantly. It took us quite some time to readjust. The first work-together was Turbo Pascal. That… was my first programming language, I actually photocopied the book and we learn together. Man.. it’s really FUN back then, we try to out beat each other by learning more.
Eventually I lose. He went on to VISUAL BASIC, then C++ then 3D Studio MAX…. the rest is history. I didn’t even know how to use VISUAL BASIC. I was too busy with my computer games back then.
ok, digress a bit… the fact that the text that i’ve typed up to this point are still here is truly God’s GRACE!
this is what happen, I’ve decided to save the post after such a long entry and as I click SAVE, the pop-up windows gives me this MIME error and I thought, "jialat, all my thoughts are gone~~!!" you know, inspiration to blog always comes just once. There was another time where something similar happen, but that time I was not so fortunate as I didn’t manage to recover the text, and end up having to re-type the whole post again… SAD :’(
But anyway, I decided to keep on refreshing the page, hoping that something will happen. After a few minutes, nothing work out. Then I thought, maybe I should do a quick search on Google and see if there are anything which I can do to recover the text. I started off with these keyword "text field lost recover". The first link irrelevant, try second link, read some of the stuff, learned that CTRL+SHIFT+T is actually a shortcut to re-open closed tabs. Then I decide to try refreshing the pop-up page a few times more, aha~ by God’s Grace, it work~ apparently there’s something wrong with friendster server and my request to SAVE the post didn’t get through, but it’s still somewhere in my computer, most likely lying in one of slots in my RAM.
I’ve digress too much from the main topic.
Coming back to where I stop, resonance friends.
After Isaac it’ll be JennHan, that was totally unexpected.
Till today I still don’t understand his sudden change of attitude towards me.
After JennHan it’ll be HockSiang, that’s upper6.
But it’s no longer about technical stuff (eventually we get to discuss about cameras after he worked in a camera shop during the holidays.).
Most of the time we’re debating over philosophical topics, religious topics (which eventually he told me not to mention God anymore in my arguments because i always hold on strong when I mention God in my arguments that he can’t really talk me out of it.), DirectSales (after STPM), Moral Issues…. basically everything under the sun, other than technical stuff.
Maybe that was when I started to change,
I was thrown into an environment where I have to make new friends from scratch.
It’s called surviving skills. I became more adaptive to changes.
Try to fit in to the community, but being joshuatj, his family upbringing background, there’re not many compromises, because he is quite firm in his principles. But generally, he soften quite a bit just to try to fit into the clique.
No more technical skills resonance friend to share my thoughts.
Besides, I really focus very very hard in my studies, I still remember I was enrolled in THREE Physics Tuition Classes. That’s seriously insane in other people’s perspective.
But after the 7D experience, I really want to test my capability of doing "STUDIES".
Apparently my STPM result is a good conclusion to my TEST. :p
I know I can EXCEL if I really put in my maximum effort.
Yeah, my technical skills really do grow, but that’s because I decided to took up Computing as my fifth subject in STPM. My reasoning was "since I’ll be playing with the computer all the time, might as well use this opportunity to really brush up my skills. With more time spending on the computer for school work, I can also reduce my gaming time, which is GOOD!! (at that point of time, I’ve already realised that GAMING is actually a waste of time, efficiency in learning is very very low. Most of the time you will be training very hard to be able to master the GAME, which in reality, is quite useless. )
Next up will be the BEST friend who has a phase difference of PI where I met during the five weeks of 2006. It was a mind boggling experience. It was also my very first time where I felt that I’m completely helpless and surrender totally unto GOD. Apparently everything went on smoothly and just got news that a superposition has just happened to this BEST friend of mine.
NUS, I’ve met quite a lot of near resonance friends, but most went into a plateau stage after a while or small spikes of resonance occasionally.
Ya, I am beating around the bush.
But I’m paving the path, trying to explore and explain why is my old passion burning.
Somehow when I talk to tan_ce, my old passion burns once again~
I asked myself why? plainly because I’ve found a great companion to do so together.
So what’s my old passion?
It’s the FREEDOM to JUST do technical stuff and forget everything about being a socially acceptable, an influential person, a person who impact lives with his life, a leader… everything.
The key point is to JUST learn and DO technical stuff, spending thousands of hours learning video editing, photography, archiving, understanding hard to understand physics, chemistry, biology, maths principles, truly learn about audio and PA systems, read tonnes of BOOKS… etc.
But I know that I can do all things but not all things are beneficial.
It might seem that having the freedom of doing all the things that you really like is the WAY everyone should take~ FOLLOW your HEART! FEEL… that sort of thing.
Apparently our heart is deceitful and following our heart isn’t the BEST way to do things.
Somehow, somewhere in my heart there’s this something else that keep motivates me to continue my strife towards the current joshuatj 2.0 direction, instead of the old path that joshuatj ver. alpha took.
See a need, fill a need~
Somehow, somewhere sometime I’ve decided to take up the responsibility to make a difference~!!! That?…. CHANGES everything else~!
Awww…. Can’t sleep.
Been rolling on the bed for one hour.
Decided to blog until I feel tired.
in three hours time, there a test for "Principles of Continua", first test of the semester.
A lot of things goes by in my mind while I was rolling on my bed.
First there was this brilliant idea for a skit, it could even be made into a film.
It’s about the journey of sanctification of a person in a Christian family.
A lot of fresh idea flashes across my brain, inspired by one of the video I saw online, it’s a skit about salvation and God’s Love.
Next, I have a brain visual rehearsal of what I will be saying during Work Plan presentation later tonight.
First I’ll start off with my vision for EusoffWorks, very simple,
EusoffWorks = "Captor of Eusoff Memories"
External Direction? "Capture every single moment of Eusoff in action, process professionally and disseminate efficiently"
Internal Direction? "Ensure the continuity of the committee, in passion as well as in technical skills."
Then I’ll introduce the work plan, I’ve just drafted it a little while ago, it’s full of events and projects.
Next I’ll fight for the 34 members which I’ve submitted.
After which I’ll briefly mention the current state of the equipments, with 1 ancient video camera (existed since 1992), 1 handy camera (works according to its mood), 1 damaged HDV video camera (viewfinder out-of-focus and LCD screen malfunctioned), 1 entry-level DSLR (with 2 malfunction lenses) and 1 working prosumer camera.
Therefore, unless we have more WORKING equipments we’ll not be able to execute our work plan with full capability.
Oh well… nope, I didn’t thought of so much details when I was rolling on the bed, I’ve modified some of it after I’ve start typing.
Hmm… another thing that came across my mind was the Mission to the South 2005 production, that was by far the best Drama production COL have made.
I try to recall the scenes of the production, I can only remember the beginning and the end. I remember I was the mamak stall boss ^^.
But that was really challenging, it sort of force my powerpoint skills to the max and that was my second time doing big-scale video editing (with KenL’s help of course).
The first big scale editing will be the Marriage Renewal Vow in 2004.
Powerpoint skill-wise will be 49th Diocesan Anglican Youth Camp(Chinese) in Melaka D’Village, December 2004.
We won Best Drama Award.
49th AYC and the Mission to the South 2005 sort of pave my path for my STPM Computing, it was an easy A for me.
But I am nothing in comparison to tan_ce, this smart IT guy from Setiawan.
He’s now in Computer Comm., helping JJ with Eusoff server, he’s in EusoffWorks as well.
His self-learn skills might be comparable to XY’s rate.
Incredible!
The other day, I just ask him to help me in trying out this new video transcoding software that I’ve found online. In just a few days, he wrote me a program to simplify the archiving task. Now, the archiving people just have to drag&drop and click START, everything else is automated. speechless……
I think tan_ce knows more about CoDec and transcoding than me.
Oh well, this post will get longer and longer and longer…
I should really get some rest…
I wouldn’t want to be late for a TEST again.
Oh yes, now I am the Head of EusoffWorks.
Just had the first meeting with my main comm.
They are a bunch of great people!
There are the perfect people for the job that is ahead of them.
They have adequate skills for their particular area.
Me? I always wanted to just do my part, archiving and maintenance of the room.
But the reason I’m in this current position of a leadership post in a technical committee is really God’s grace.
My skills are nowhere compare to the people that I have in my main comm.
I’ve just picked up photography 2 years ago, and video should be around the same time as well.
The only thing that I have, which is exactly what drives me to work even harder, is the vision that I have.
Which is why I believe, this is trully God’s calling.
Somehow, God had planned this all along, he put unto me a passion to treasure moments, great moments of life.
He had planned that I will pick up videography and photography skills at the right moment.
He had provide me a place in Eusoff, that I may join EusoffWorks, a platform to realise the dream the he had gave me.
I’ve just prayed and tell God about my current situation.
And as I was doing my daily devotion, I came across Psalms 51:17
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
It is not a coincidence, it is definitely divine.
I know I am nothing before you Lord!
Break me and mould me and use me as your vessel,
that I will be sensitive to your voice.
Lord, the road ahead is full of obstacles but
I know that you are always on my side supporting me!
Thank you Lord for the the race that you’ve marked out for me,
I will run the race but I know that it is not by my might nor my power,
but it is only through your Spirit, Lord!
Thank you Lord.
In Jesus most precious name I pray, Amen.
My primary calling? Engineering Science (The fact that I got into NUS and into ESP was also a divine case. I am truly blessed! - read my old archive posts for more info)
But unfortunately, I have been unfaithful in managing my studies.
I shall buck up and work harder to fulfill my primary calling.
I will always remind myself that whatever I do, I do it to glorify God.
My secondary calling? To be the "captor of memories", blessing others with video and photography archive.
Of course, I should not forget that my calling to bless Eusoff Hall, transforming it to be a place where God’s blessings are so much that it will overflow to other halls, then eventually to the whole of NUS, finally blessing Singapore.
It may sound like a big dream, but I have faith in God and his plans for Eusoff Hall.
Thank you Lord!
I may have said this before in this blog,
but my dream is very simple,
"To archive life"
Olden days, people write diaries to record their daily life,
Some paint their thoughts on beautiful paintings,
some prefer poems,
some express their feelings through songs,
for joshuatj,
I prefer photo and video.
It will be great if I can archive every single event of life, my life, your life, everyone’s life.
It is just different when you are laughing together with a group of friends over some inside jokes and watching the same scene playing over again through video from a different perspective.
It enriches our memory of the event.
It’ll definitely be a great story - history.
Our memory might deceive us, sometimes we might just jumble up a few events.
BUT, video and photography is objective, it provide us with the most honest documentation (archive) of what happen.
Nothing else can beat the kind of enlightenment when you watch yourself in a third person’s perspective. It’s a completely objective perspective.
You will be able to see things where you would not notice otherwise,
certain gestures, the way you speak, your responses to certain actions, some good, some bad..
My first attempt to realize my dream will be "Project 6th ASOD"
(ASOD = Anglican School of Disciples)
With a borrowed SONY Handycam and a few miniDV tapes, I’ve managed to archive a 5 weeks theology training camp.
Every single day, every single moment, every single laughter, every single tears, every single reaction….
ALL of them (at least I’ve tried) into Video.
The project was 95% done, there’s still a part of our Evangelistic meeting left unedited.
It was burned into 6DVDs, every single video file in VCD MPEG-1 format, 5 weeks,
priceless memories!
Back to the present, once again, I’m going to do something similar in Eusoff Hall.
I’ve taken up the Head of EusoffWorks, and the objective of the committee coincide with my DREAM.
This time it’ll be different, I have 34 people working with me, a proper committee structure, a still-developing SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), great senior adviser, great friends with overflowing IT skills..
I pray that God will empower me that I will be able to instill my passion to my members!
Besides realizing my dream, in the end, I will get a group of close friends with the same interest and passion.
Great future ahead.
EusoffWorks experience shall provide me with enough knowledge and experience and my next platform, ultimately, will be the CHURCH.
Somehow, God has place this BURDEN (not in the negative sense) unto me,
somehow I enjoy the process of being the person behind the scene while building up others, the Jonathan Spirit, yes I have,
somehow watching the small little smile of the targeted audience or knowing that the audience really did grow through the simple simple effort, makes everything worthwhile.
This, I suppose, is called blessings!
I suppose this is my purpose, my race and
I will obey and continue to strive towards the narrow door!
March on joshuatj!
