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alleluia.

 

dear lord,

i am but a worm:

born from the womb into this world wounded with sin;

bound was my will with no hope for salvation within—

why save me out of the entire world?

 

why would you, o lord?

descend from heaven where all was perfect—

take on a form that greatly lacked,

carry the cross, let scourged your back—

for sinners like me who are everything but that?

 

you died so that we may live;

poured out love with the last you breathed.

so broken souls are now retrieved;

so hope comes to who believes—

to what do we owe this grace received?

 

you who calmed the raging seas;

the one the prophets spoke about;

for whom stones would cry out;

in whom God was well-pleased—

for me?

 

i am unholy;

yet you clothed me.

we were unworthy;

yet you played surety—

how can this be?

 

yet it was.

alleluia.

 

---

 

merry christmas.

do all who walk eventually run?

do all who walk eventually run?

how shall i know if i run, or if i merely walk?
what is running?
how does it look like, what would i look like?
and if i ask, does it mean that i do not run?
for those with eyes on the wreath,
this would seem like the silliest question
(but still, take heed lest you fall).
but for us who are less athletic and more ordinary,
how do we know, what shall we do?
and if the exhortation is simply, ‘run, you fools, run!’
does it mean that there is no room for simple folk,
or do all who walk eventually run?
in such a way that the struggles of our youth grow obsolete,
in such a way that we will never need to ask?

from the future #1

i googled, ‘dear me’.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

(Philippians 4:6–7)

—

hey you,

by now, you’ve probably seen a few stories tell about how people receive from their future selves a letter detailing their various regrets and telling their younger selves to not repeat the same mistakes as they did.

this won’t be one of those letters.

things are alright. and that is why i am writing you this letter.

i’ll be honest. life gets harder. work will sometimes get suffocating, longing will sometimes lead to loneliness. along the way, you are going to make mistakes; things will not always go to plan; and some measure of suffering here and there is inevitable – but remember this:

‘all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.’

God is good, and things will be alright.

when your problems seem overwhelming, remember the cross; when your hardships prove to be agonizing, remember the hope of eternity.

  do your best to watch yourself – do not let yourself be conceited, do not let yourself feel entitled, do not be cynical. instead be gentle, be humble, and be patient. there is no easy or magical way to Christlikeness; change will not come overnight. the mortifying of sin is a continuous, conscious, and very often arduous endeavour – a battle every step of the way.

i know you. you can be stubborn and sometimes slow to learn. and despite your initial enthusiasm you so often stray away. but as you mature and continue to better yourself, i want you to be encouraged of your hope.

doubt yourself, but trust God. with wisdom, think ahead and consider the lasting consequences. seek and listen to advice, even if you ultimately cannot take them. when caught up in moments, treat yourself to a healthy dose of introspection. last but not least, do not rush into things as and when your heart sings; instead, be willing to wait.

that’s all i have to say for now.

whether you will ultimately be disappointed with who you are when you get to where i am will depend (humanly speaking) completely on you.

so who are you going to be?

---

Q

why i write what i write

i googled, ‘writing on paper’

when the heart can’t quite keep up with the mind,
what do the limbs reach out to find?

—

is the writer’s person a direct reflection of what he/she writes?

i hope not.

if you have a history of writing, at some point in your life, you have probably looked at the things you wrote in the past and thought, ‘gosh, what was i thinking? how could i possibly have written that? what was wrong with me!? GAH!!’ we didn’t think much of it back then (we probably even thought we were SO COOL!), but sometimes we look back and find ourselves spirited away to Cringe-Land.

as people, we are, for the most part, constantly changing – struggling, growing, and maturing day on day.

” 98% of the time, we feel ‘alright’, “

the writer’s person is the culmination of every experience they have had; the takeaways from the people they have met, the weight of the things that they have done or left undone, the highs and the lows that they have gone through.

in contrast, what a writer writes is often a snapshot of a moment in time.

i seldom write about that 98% that is probably a more accurate portrayal of who i am (okay, maybe the percentages are not so extreme…). instead, it is in the 2% in which i am not ‘alright’ that most often find my heartstrings tugged, that i feel compelled to chronicle my sentiments.

 what did the writer feel on that one day, that one moment? like a photo, each writing captures merely a single point in the writer’s imagination, especially if they were written in short spans of time. but as we put down the pen (or as is often the case these days, the keyboard), we gradually revert to being just ‘alright’. as the moment bids us goodbye, yesterday’s despair may begin to seem irrational today, and who’s to say if today’s euphoria won’t be seen tomorrow as intoxication?

 

my archives testify that i tend to be more moved to write by negative rather than positive emotions, but that doesn’t mean i, as a person, am always gloomy! every person has their own way of facing their lows; some people play video games, other people play music, i just happen to write. people say ‘time flies when you are having fun,’ and to some degree, that applies here as well: i’m not as mindful of the times when i’m happy and engaged – i just keep going; on the other hand, sorrow slows me down and sometimes forces me to stop, invading my thoughts at every opportunity. writing has become a way for me to think through and resolve my inner conflicts, for my mind to convince my heart. which is probably why http://www.flounderinglion.wordpress.com is usually not a very happy place, haha!  😦

 

in the end, i have to confess that i am, more often than not, a selfish writer – i write to vent, to channel my emotional energy elsewhere; to reprimand, encourage, or warn myself; to journal progression, to track my thoughts, to make memorials of certain incidents, and sometimes just because i think it would make a good story. if anyone likes what i write or feels benefited by it, that’s great, and i’d be happy to talk with them about it! but half the time (and probably more), i write knowing the target audience is me.

perhaps i should not speak for all writers, but at least, this is why i write what i write in the manner which i write.

—

i’m mostly alright.  🙂

Q

its knot heart

i googled: ‘knot heart’

to find a smile  because  it just seemed
perfectly befitting of  you , whether red or pale;
the hesitation in your words  are  your warm, hearty thoughts;
a  clumsy kind of  beautiful , careful and real.

and i’m just a fool.

—

read your own advice.

Q

what do you want?

i googled: ‘mirror’.

 

it’s overdue – i have to ask you this,
and soon enough, so you will not regret.
what do you want?

you tell others this:
you like the philosophy of law;
the ideas behind it all:
how its very concept was birthed,
and what purpose it served;
how our forefathers saw it a necessity,
and what it has become in our society.

you ask if law should be subservient to man,
or doth it have a greater purpose to serve?
shall it be clay to pottery in our hands,
and shaped according to need across the lands?
or shall it be a bulwark against our own deviance,
as we slowly descend into decadence?

your answer is laid bare.
but you walk on, laissez faire.

‘what can i do?’
you asked.
so, too, a thousand other kindred spirits.

i will not give answers to you,
but i will continue to probe you:
to have you in earnest thought,
to not walk out of a fight unfought.

what do you want?

---

an empty mirror, viewed directly, leaves a palpable sense of unease.
it’s probably because that is an impossible sight,
but perhaps, it is also because the thought of losing sight of ourselves scares us.

Q

lacrimosa

there once was sunshine.

but the sun hid her face and was not seen again.

then, it rained.

without ceasing, it rained.

every day for a week, it rained.

sometimes more, sometimes less.

until the sun finally peeked out from over the clouds.

shifting her eyes, she shyly scanned the earth;

as if checking if it was okay for her to come out now;

as if wondering if anybody missed her at all.

her peeping was met by his gazing,

from under an umbrella, on a raincoat.

there was no averting his eyes;

there was no way to retreat.

she had lost – she was found.

he cleared her doubts,

dispersed her clouds.

and her radiance poured out.

in one eternal moment,

he had her disarmed,

and she had him enthralled.

—

#fiction
no need to overthink.

to have less

i googled ’embracing the rain’.

the mid-day naps which invariably end abruptly with headache and listless sitting on the bed, accompanied with thoughts along the lines of:
‘what am i doing with my life?’

the immediate and uncontrolled urge to plug the holes in conversation known as ‘silence’ and speak things which have not received adequate thought in sobriety, culminating in the mind, as is always the case, a few moments later than it should have, as regretful sentiments of:
‘why did i say that?’

the need for security and avoidance of blame; as if by being uncertain and ignorant, the liabilities that far too often stem from a lusty desire to sound erudite can be absolved by prefacing with:
‘i don’t know, but i think…’

the brooding thoughts of enmity, the breeding ground of contempt; pride that wants us to stand tall indignantly when we should stoop down with humility and seek forgiveness and reconciliation; pride that gently whispers in our ears:
‘i deserve better than that.’

the moments of distrust in the things that have been revealed; the thoughts and senses which are still haunted by the spectres of old known as skepticism and cynicism, making them dull; causing the eyes to see but not perceive, the ears listen but not hear, and the mind to know but yet still struggle to believe, inadvertently disparaging His work with doubts of:
‘how can i possibly know?’

 

all these, i confess.

all these, i pray to have less.

fly me to the moon

i googled ‘fly with the moon’.

 

why do you do this in such a roundabout way?  
it’s not like we haven’t already met, 
so why didn’t you just give it to me face to face?

have you heard the story about icarus?
in his excited stupor, he soared into hubris
as he flew too close to the sun.
his wings melted and he fell,
despairing as he perished;
i’m really happy to have met you,
but i don’t want to fly to my sun,
too carelessly, too closely, too soon, 
and risk suffering the same fate.

the frog and the bird

Hey buddy, do you mind?!
Why are you jumping up and
down non-stop anyway?

I met a really beautiful Cardinal recently,
she’s a Painted Bunting.

And what does that have to do
with you jumping around?

Birds live in the sky.

… And we frogs live in the pond?
What’s your point, buddy?

We don’t live in the same habitat.
I asked her if she would meet
me on land, but she refused.
She said she was uncomfortable
leaving her habitat of the sky.
So I was thinking…

‘Maybe one day I will be able to jump as high as she flies.’

—

Note: in reality, only the male Painted Buntings are considered beautiful; sexual dimorphism is prevalent in birds, and the males are usually more colourful and vibrant than their female counterparts.