Not-So-White Christmas

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I've always loved this time of the year as pretty lights go up on houses, Christmas music plays on the radio, and people wear festive colors and exchange gifts and baked goodies to give each other. On the whole, Christmas sort of looked like this in my mind:

However, this year, I found myself not feeling any of this at all. I turn on the radio, and the music just feels overly festive and annoying. And I'm thinking, come on, there is NO such thing as a White Christmas in southern California. Who's ever ridden on a one-horse open sleigh anyway? How do we even know it's supposed to be fun and not freezing cold?! And what the heck are chestnuts anyway?? Christmas is just a dumb holiday that nostalgically cherishes traditions of the Eastern part of the US that have no connection to me whatsoever, and today it's just turned into a big materialistic day of gift-giving.

I know, I know, I need to watch Elf again. "The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear," says this guy:

Instead, I was reminded on Sunday service that Christmas is NOT about any of this at all. Of  course I knew all of this already. Christmas is about Jesus's birth. But in my head I still thought, what's so great about his birth anyway? His birth was not glamorous and pretty as nativity scenes often portray it; in reality Jesus was born in a smelly, dark shed for animals, because people at the inn wouldn't even make room for a pregnant woman. And we're pretty sure he was not born on December 25. Besides Christ's death is more important and central than his humble birth anyway, so what's the big deal then about Christmas?  

I'd forgotten that the birth of the promised Messiah is an amazing sign of God's faithfulness. Christ's birth fulfills all the promises God had made to Israel in these passages and more in the Old Testament-- Gen 22:18, Gen 21:12, Gen 49:10, Isa 11:1, Jer 23:5, Isa 7:14, Micah 5:2, Jer 31:15, and more! The amazing promise is that God loves us so much that he sent a Savior would come take our away our sins. Since God is faithful in fulfilling His promises, what are some other promises He has for believers? 

• And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)
• And this is the promise that He made to us-- eternal life. (1 John 2:25)
• He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelations 21:4)

What God has promised, he will fulfill. Praise the Lord and have a Merry Christmas.

King of Everything

recently hooked on the Sara Bareilles CD.

from "King of Anything"
"Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?



Great song... the only person it does not apply to is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Regarding Christ, it should be:

"Who I care if You disagree,

You are not me,
Who made You (are) the king of any(every)thing.
So (only) You dare (can) tell me who to be,
Who (Because You) died and made you (are the) King of any(every)thing."

Only He is worthy and able to tell me who to be. Indeed, without Him, anything you can try to be is just delusion and self-deception.

Well, to everyone else, I still say...
WHO CARES if you disagree?
:P

In Exile

Early this summer I remember feeling a little bit sad to have to leave for Taiwan so soon after just returning home for a week or so. I looked around my room the last day as I was packing, knowing that I was going to leave the comfort of my bed and the familiarity of my house. Then something clicked in my head. Goodbye, I told my room, you are not my true home anyway. Goodbye house, you have been good to me, but you I will not hesitate to leave you to follow my calling elsewhere. And then I picked up my luggage and left. 

7 weeks later I returned, and for the first time in my life, home felt strange and foreign. Though everything I did returned to normal, I saw my life as from an outsider's point of view. While I lived life normally, my mind was busy making commentaries. And then I left again. 

On a similar note, one of the greatest encouragement I received freshman year was ... a comment on Facebook. It went, "Homesick? Bless you! Been there. Survived that. What is even more heartbreaking is the day you realize that home - and all it represents: security, stability, certainty, a haven of rest, unconditional love, and more - is gone, for good. Of course, it is a painful process of spiritual maturing when you realize that none of those things were ever really found at home. Rather they are, and will always be, found in Jesus! I will pray for you as you take that journey, my sister." 

On yet another note (it's related I promise), 

While this song, In Exile by Thrice, is playing on my headphones, everything I shared above and all of these pictures below flash through my head as I'm walking to campus...

I am in exile, a sojourner
A citizen of some other place
All I've seen is just a glimmer in a shadowy mirror
But I know one day we'll see face to face.

I am a nomad, a wanderer

I have nowhere to lay my head down

There's no point in putting roots too deep when I'm moving on

Not settling for this unsettling town.

My heart is filled with songs of forever

The city that endures when all is made new

I know I don't belong here, I'll never

Call this place my home, I'm just passing through.

I am a pilgrim, a voyager

I won't rest until my lips touch the shore

Of the land that I've been longing for as long as I've lived

Where they'll be no pain or tears anymore.

My heart is filled with songs of forever

The city that endures when all is made new

I know I don't belong here, I'll never

Call this place my home, I'm just passing through.

Growing Up with Toy Story

        I am a generation that has grown up with Toy Story. I mean how many kids of the generation now actually play with toys like the ones in the movie? They've probably got their hands all over Nintendo DS's and iphones or whatnot. The first movie I ever watched in the movie theaters was the first Toy Story when I was five. (I shared this with some kids at my church today, and without knowing it, completely revealed just how old I am! The first Toy Story came out even before they were born!) My dad always likes to remind me saying, "Do you remember your first time watching Toy Story in San Diego? Do you remember how just how excited you were? And how you couldn't stop telling me, "爸爸， 爸爸！我現在真的很開心!" I do remember that day...  it was complete childhood bliss. I don't even know if I understood what was going on, but my eyes were glued to the enormous screen and I loved it... and I know for sure that baby's head on spider legs still creeps me out until this day.

       One main reason why I say I've grown up with Toy Story is that Andy and I (and most people my age) are similar in a lot of ways and share the same stage of life right when each movie came out. His toys have a life of their own. I'd always imagined my toys to also have a life (so I would always put all my stuffed animals together so they wouldn't get lonely during the day). As I grew older I would at times feel twinges of guilt for not playing with them as often anymore. As Andy grew up, so did I... all the way until Toy Story 3 when Andy goes to college and so am I in college.

       And so yesterday I also watched Toy Story 3 with my family in theaters... 15 years after my first movie ever. Emotions of warmth came back as I saw those familiar Toy Story characters again. Words cannot describe the pure awesomeness of that movie. But I'm so much older now than the 5 year old kid who couldn't sit still in her seat out of excitement. The Toy Story series have come to a close and in the same way my childhood days have ended. Inevitably everybody grows older. But the ingenuity of the whole movie is that you never have to loose a childlike spirit of imagination and wonder. Cheers to you Toy Story. A blog post can never do you justice.

about something beautiful

     You can say that I’ve been searching for something true and pure my whole life. Something that wasn’t fake, fleeting, or as Holden Caulfield puts it, “phony”, but something that was real, lasting, and good… something beautiful. (hence the name of this blog)

     That just sounded so cliché that I could barf. But it’s true; this was a serious endeavor of mine. The quest started some time in late middle school or early high school when I started to become cynical about everything. I grew tired by the world around me. There had to be something more worthwhile than popularity at school, making friends to climb the social ladder, fake smiles, ostracizing “uncool” people, joining clubs you couldn’t care less about just to look good on college applications, or learning useless facts just for a test.

     So I tried to find this beauty in many places. I found solace in the uninhibited beauty of nature. In closer, more sincere friendships. But I knew even those things weren’t ultimate. I was a very impressionable kid, and every wind of philosophy I heard seemed appealing. Being a skeptic, I didn’t trust anything except for my own reason and experiences. So in my mind, if we could never be so certain about the future, the best motto to live by then is carpe diem—to make the most out of what we know for certain, which is today. All I have to do is believe in myself and live up to my potential. In short—WOOHOO I‭ ‬WAS JUST A PRODUCT OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM. I only trusted in myself and even started to doubt the existence of God.

     I cried the day I realized that the most beautiful thing I was looking for was with me all along, yet I’d been on this grand quest. It was so simple: Jesus dying on the cross for me. But only then did it hit me that Jesus dying on the cross for my sin was the greatest example of unconditional love—love poured upon me that didn’t depend on who I was or what I did and never ceased with time… that is something TRULY beautiful.

     And then I read Romans 8. End of story.

     I didn’t “find” this beautiful thing by myself however. God found me. 1 Corinthians 1:20-4 says, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." And that’s how I got completely owned. Whatever inch of pride I had left was destroyed. I couldn’t even “find” my way to God or somehow use my own intellect to conjure up and understand the gospel. I don’t have a crazy life-turned-180 testimony, but I can tell you that God’s grace is powerful if he can save someone as rebellious, skeptical, and free-minded as I was.

     I’ve been rebuked a lot since then. As for my recurring cynicism, I’ve learned that I’m not here to judge people, but to love those around me. But no matter how many times I sin, it all comes back to the simple, beautiful truth: God’s love for me exemplified by Jesus on the cross.

     I think I’ve just shared my whole life story in this one blog post. Just to let you know, I didn’t intend for it to be that way. All I wanted to do was to explain a little more of the meaning behind the name of this blog. Now that I think the purpose of my blog is now finished, FAREWELL forever. Just kidding. While Christ being ultimate, there are still a lot of beautiful things in this world to write about. I’ll probably post again soon.

the fall of creativity

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Digging up those middle and high school creative writings is always an amusing experience. I stumble upon the most ridiculous stories and bleak poetry from those emo, angsty teenage days. Here is something particularly interesting that I came upon.

Long before I ever watched the Bourne series, I conjured up and wrote a short story about a killer wrestling with his guilty conscience and then unexpectedly apologizing to the loved ones of the people he killed. So when I finally saw Bourne Supremacy last semester and on came the scene where Bourne found Neski’s daughter and apologized to her for killing her parents, I was thinking…. wait… this seems familiar for some reason… ohh yeahh, I wrote a story like this in 8^th grade! Here is an excerpt of the beginning and ending of my short story, if you care to read what is possibly the apex of all my creative literary achievements. (Sadly high school and college had squelched all those creative tendencies in all forms of writing since then.)

            “It was damp and dark in the cave. Memories flooded in his mind… Screams filled his head, those of a woman. The woman. Her face of pain and grief was imprinted in his mind forever. The screams of a dying man. The soft cry of a baby. The yelling of the police. Dazed pictures of blurred red. Again the woman’s face. Swiftly, something took over him. Was it an earthquake? No, it was only his head that was making him dizzy and sick. He noticed his trembling hand that gripped the pistol. It slowly slipped from his hands, and he turned and ran. There was silence, only the dashing thuds of his footsteps, or was it his heart?

            And suddenly, the pictures were gone. All was black and silent in the cave as was his black coat and facemask. It was cold. He bunched up and hid his face in his arms, looking down.

            “Why couldn’t I take it this time?” he thought to himself. “I have killed before and ran away without even thinking about it, but why did this time make me dizzy and disgusted?” The shaking picture of the red, red that was spilled everywhere seized his mind. “Why do I feel pain?” Now the woman’s agonized face popped up, while the cry of the baby echoed in his ears. His memories had answered all his questions for him. Before, he had only killed at pitch dark, where there was only a soft blast and the man was still and dead and alone as he quickly pilfered his wallet and snatched the suitcase of cash. This time, he’d only shot his victim on the shoulder, and to silence him, he fired more and more until blood gushed out like a river. The police came and hovered around and he shot out more to escape. One bullet had landed on the baby.

            “I killed a baby, I killed a baby, god damn, I killed a baby. An innocent, precious child.” What had he become? Slowly he slouched into a troubled sleep.

The yellow sun came up and he aroused also. He lifted his head up, pulled off his black facemask. Out shook a young face of a teenager with brown hair framing around it. It would have almost been a fresh, lively face if it hadn’t been murdered and hardened at such a young age.  Blinking in the bright sunlight, he looked around him. There was a dark cave or ditch of some sort, well hidden from the rest of the evil civilization and the hated, uncaring people it possessed. He caught a glimpse of his black attire, and all the memories flooded in again. He forcefully fought them away, but it was his sudden realization of his hunger that chased those thoughts away. In his awakening, hunger roared at his stomach. Nearby, tattered bag of random items he had stolen was sadly lying. He rummaged through it and found a wallet. In it was a small pack of strong mints. Through his hunger, the murderer fairly chucked the whole box into his mouth. As the mints were burning through his tongue, the memories came again. This time, it was only that woman, that poor, poor woman with the shattered look on her eyes. He had killed her husband and her baby. Another life ruined liked his own…

[Skip to the ending of the story where he goes to apologize to the woman] 
Now he was face to face with the plain brown door [of the woman’s house]…Trembling hands that once gripped a gun now trembled more violently as it lifted to push the doorbell.

            A small woman with straight brown hair creaked open the door. Although quite beautiful, her skin now had a tint of gray.

            “Hello, Ms. Would you like to purchase some candy to help…” Her eyes met mine now. A scream let out.

The woman dashed in, fumbled the phone, and dialed 911, thought for a while, then slammed the phone down.

“If you want to kill me like you did to my baby and my husband, you can do it now. I haven’t much to live for anyway.”

Silence.

He stood there and his brain froze. She knew who he was…

“How did you know…?”

“How do I not know the eyes of my baby’s killer? Your eyes are imprinted in my head forever.” she said calmly. “ But I couldn’t imagine you to be so young. You can shoot me now, or else the police will be arriving.”

Neighbors were pacing around in a frantic outside now as they heard the scream and now saw the police cars arriving. Hubbub swarmed all over outside. The police quietly pushed the neighbors away as they circled the house.

In the quiet gray room of the house, he was just standing there as the memories came back in a slide show this time, piece by piece. It was silent but peaceful in the room. Outside was a world of havoc with sirens and frantic yells.

“So aren’t you going to shoot me now? Or what else did you come here for?”

“I’m… sorry.” Before tears could bulge out, the murderer dashed right out the door leaving a shocked woman standing in the room.

He ran right out, dropped his gun, and stood there while the bullets silently and slowly drained life out of the young, fresh-faced teenager.” The End.

I think sharing and posting this short story is much more for my amusement value than for your own personal value of how much you even care about this. But what more is a blog than a channel for self-absorbed musings and to spit out fiercely rebellious statements that won't amount to anything? As I see it, a blog is just the height of one’s own narcissism. But that’s ok! Ever since those English teachers told you to write concisely and clearly using concrete details and omitting the first person “I”, the creative and expressive side of writing was already all but destroyed. That is why the advent of the personal blog, a medium for self-expression, is then so crucial to keep people like me sane.

I am rambling. But I hope you do enjoy the story written by 8^th grade Sandra. I have to say I was a rather morbid kid. But all I can say now is  that Jason Bourne completely RIPPED OFF of my story. Just kidding. Jason Bourne would totally own any murder story I can come up with. He pretty much rocks. In fact, he's probably watching you right now.

I feel like blogging only when it's after 2 am

Every morning I wake up to find a cup of a mysterious orange-brownish concoction sitting on the counter glaring at me. My dad makes a mean shake every morning by blending everything and anything supposedly healthy. Every morning I am forced to pick up this cup, place it to my lips, and gulp this viscous mixture as it oozes down my throat. After I chug it down, I wash out the remaining bits with gulps of fresh water but there is no way to get rid of the pungent taste that still permeates my mouth. The drink immediately fills up my stomach and steals away all my appetite for cereal and milk, toast and tea, or whatever breakfast I had otherwise planned on and looked forward to eating. This is what I wake up to every morning when I'm back home, when I finally decide to drag myself out of of bed at around 11 am.

Every morning, my dad wakes up at 8 am to make sure his family starts the day with something healthy. He carefully washes and chops up all the organic fruits and vegetables he had picked out earlier that week from the market. He had studied up and learned to do all this from a book on nutrition that he had been reading for months. He patiently prepares everything and makes 3 cups; 1 for himself, 1 for mom, and 1 for me, and then rushes off to work.

Every morning I wake up to my dad’s cup of love for me. No matter how much it makes me gag, I still drink it every morning.