suddensongdelights

by the fire

‘Fifteen thousand dollars for a story,’ an envelope slid upon the hardwood table.

‘No,’ the storyteller whispered. ‘What i give, i give freely, or not at all.’

‘Then give me one for free,’ the masked man answered, returning the envelope to his suitcase. ‘Unless there is something else you wish.’

‘Aye, but the story will be an unhappy one,’

‘I do not mind. Anything but this!’ the masked man waved his arm. ‘I cannot take it any longer…’

‘It was autumn and two leaves hung upon a tree…’

‘What is autumn?’ 

‘It was a time in the old days when the temperature became colder as the earth moved away from the sun…’

‘I see…go on!’

‘And one leaf said to the other: “Oh how cold it has become! What will become of us? All our friends upon this tree have blown away…Oh I am afraid…’

The masked man sat down upon the ground in his immaculate suit, facing the storyteller like a child around a campfire in the olden days. The storyteller wove his tale, animation upon his face, until the end when the last of the leaves fell from the tree.

And then the masked man reluctantly stood up and returned to his own world. His mask removed, he looked like everyone else here in all their perfection. The smooth and efficient world with nothing out of place. 

But not Really

She stood at the top of the tower in the City of Love, and thought about the one she wanted to be with.

He would be tall. Of course, she was tall, so he had to be really tall.

And he would be strong, determined and handsome. And he would love the same things she did, and they would hit off immediately.

She would meet him, perhaps here as well, all alone on top of the tower in the City of Love, thinking about the one he wanted to be with.

She would be tall. Of course, he was tall, and he had enough of the short girls, he had to bend down, you see, just to hear what they said. And soon they left him, because girls like their men to listen to them.

She would be strong, determined and beautiful. And she would love the same things he did, and they would hit off immediately.

And gently, the wind would blow cool autumn air and they would turn and their eyes would meet. 

But not really.

And life went on in the City of Love.

this

http://lindseystirlingviolin.com/lindsey/

meet lindsey stirling, a girl i discovered suddenly on youtube and whom i’ve fallen in love with (haha). she’s a Mormon…

“My violin has continued to bring color and adventure into every phase of my life. I took it with me to NYC when I went on my LDS mission for the Mormon Church.  As I served the people and shared my beliefs with them, I grew to love them so much. I love seeing people find greater happiness as they came to know that there is purpose to life, that there is a Father in Heaven who loves them, and that God has a plan for them. I felt so privileged to share my love and my God given talent of music with so many amazing people.”

sometimes, I wonder exactly what to people mean…when they say something is a cult.

in the Philippines a Mormon girl tried to tell me about her religion. So it was me and my Protestant faith against her Mormon faith against all the Catholics around me. From what I understand, the Mormon faith teaches that one has to do good works to get to heaven…but that’s the length and breadth of my understanding.

http://thepianoguys.com/newstore/

The Piano Guys are from the Church of the Latter Day Saints. I have heard that this be a cult as well. 

Will all these people go to hell because…? 

That’s…scary. People who love God going to hell because they were brought up in this way or that…or were in this family or not…

Muslims too. They know the God most high…don’t they?

I always go back to the story of the beautiful young Tarkaan in CS Lewis’ The Last Battle. In the end, although he was seeking to please Tash, when he turned and saw Aslan he knew that was the one whom he was seeking all his life. 

I always return to this story because…because I think one fundamental truth I feel I forget in the midst of doctrine is that in the end, only God knows who knows Him. 

I hope I know Him. And He has promised that all who seek will find. So I pray that my friends who know Him not will have a seeker’s heart, so that they will seek and they will find the true God, not the ‘God’ of our churches or the ‘God’ of mere doctrine, but the real, true God who does things that the Pharisees think are wrong but in essence is so right. 

Am I blaspheming? I guess only God knows.

Dichotomy

The man was a twicer.

I saw it when he rubbed his nose, twice. and then he took out his handkerchief, and returned it to his pocket. And then he took it out again, just for kicks, and put it back in again.

I licked my ice-cream thoughtfully, ignoring the sticky mess that had formed between my fingers, down the floor and onto the expensive suede boots mother had firmly ensconced me in early this morning.

In all my young life, I had met a grand total of 9 twicers. That is a huge number, considering that there are very few twicers in the world, and I had only lived 10 years. I saw my first twicer a few weeks after my 4th birthday at a beach party held my actress mother. 

It had been another actress lady, an ugly, heavily made up Hollywood wannabe who had had more plastic surgery than most and whose surgery had been rather less than successful. I noticed her immediately, she was lost in thought standing in the water in her red bikini and patterned sarong, the waves swishing around her feet. I noticed her careful way of lighting her cigarette twice, and strangely, the light flickered out and allowed her to light it a second time. I noticed also how she fingered her watch strap always, twice. 

Of course I could hardly have known her as a twicer then. However after meeting my second twicer two months later, this time a young and pretty waitress at the Deli in town who always rubbed my head (twice) and who would say (twice) “darling darling, why how very very lovely to see you today? See you today? So what shall we have today? Have today?” And she would offer the tray with my favorite burger to me twice, one moment it would be on the table and the next it would be in her hands again and then it would be on the able.

I stared curiously at my mother to see if she had noticed anything strange about the pretty waitress. That was when I discovered the existence of the Seers.

Of course I invented that name myself. 

Once I had ascertained that my mother had never seen a twicer before, I realized that twicers could only be seen by some people, one of whom was people like me who saw them exactly as what they were and sometimes they could be seen by people who normally didn’t see twicers but at certain moments could see them.

I found one of those people in a little boy called Andrew I met when my mother was on holiday in Egypt. The twicer in question was a big and rather fat American tourist with binoculars and a sweaty red face. He was doing everything twice. It was disconcerting to watch. Since at this point I had already settled in my mind what twicers did and how it looked while they did it, I just stared at him lazily, mentally noting to write down in my dairy exactly what this twicer did when I watched him before he would suddenly disappear from my sight, as twicers tended to do.

At the corner of my eye, I saw his son staring at him too. The boy had on a blue checked shirt and was as plump as his father was fat, and his eyes were bulging out of his head. 

So I decided, there were the Seers and the occasional Seers. I wasn’t sure if everyone could potentially be a Seer or it was just some people who could See once in a while.

Possibly only when a real Seer was present, perhaps.

—Dichotomy, FZ

Stay

I’ve been in kl since last Tuesday. Planned to stay for a shorter period but somehow ended up here alot longer than expected. Well, it is the last time I can stay home for such a long time, unless somehow things change and I give up my job and return to kl.
I am pensive about this change. Life is most definitely changing and I really have no idea where I’m going. On one hand, I feel great joy being at home with my family. On the other hand, I also feel that somehow I have to let go and live my own life now.
It’s a rather confusing feeling. I guess life is full of these.
Still, nothing beats family and I’m awfully glad to have a group of people who accept me no matter what and whose house I may gatecrash whenever and whatever.
Mom is very tired because of company work, and to some extent I wonder if I should come and help out and forget about Singapore and architecture. After all I really want to start my own company one day and since the company is a young one I bet there is much I can learn.
Still, perhaps a couple of years in a company not ‘family’ might do me good. There’s always threat of being fired after all, not like family where they couldn’t disown you. Haha.
Anyway, I’m glad i’m home today. One never really knows what one misses until one doesn’t have it anymore.

dear twenty-something self

Twenty-something self,  I wish I’d known that growth often comes through pain.  Embrace suffering as a necessary path to manifesting your talents and calling. Only those who have been wounded by power learn to wield it responsibly. Forgive the people you have been wronged by, those who have misunderstood you and stop blaming your parents the church and the economy. Conflicts in your relationships, failure and disappointments are gifts to help you become more grounded, aware and in touch with your limits and potential. You will soon discover that you are less whole than you realize, filled with more capacity for love than you can imagine and in greater need of salvation than you will ever know. Expect to feel deeply fulfilled and at times, utterly abandoned.  Life is a cycle of of consolation and desolation, receive both as means of grace, leading you toward becoming fully human.

-via

Just Neil

It’s easy to get work. But people who KEEP work in a freelance world – and more and more it is freelance – it’s because their work is good and because they’re easy to get along with and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three.

Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver on time. People will forgive the lateness of the work if it’s good and they like you, and you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.

—Neil Gaiman

I suspect i have to be always on time and make sure it’s always a pleasure to hear from me….

lol