freewheelin.

i feel like i just took a huge tumble. and i'm free falling!
not in a bad way, not in a good way either. for once, i seriously don't know where i'm going
please catch me somewhere!

on little silly prayers...

sometimes i pray about the most trivial and stupidest things like things that are barely life changing. things like.. it was my last night in Kedah and i hadn't had my favourite dish (called dua pan) from a particular stall that i'd been dreaming about since i was still in spore. but i was too paiseh to make my uncles drive out in the middle of the night to buy it (they only open during supper time!). so I half-wittingly prayed to God for it to appear on the table that night. strangely, while i was showering my father hollered from outside to ask if i wanted dua pan. of course i said yes la. and he said "there's a bowl waiting for you downstairs!" my aunt had brought some back on her way home from her mother's place. so my dua pan really appeared on the table that night!

but i didn't know what to think! i just passingly whined a prayer out and it didn't matter THAT much whether i had my food or not. and it's not like some big magical thing that happened. it is an easily logical and very happen-able coincidence. but then, i did ask God and it came true. i couldn't decide if i was amazed it. so sometimes God pampers us haha. anw my point is that i often have a tendency to negate small coincidences and answers to prayers (that i even forget about).. deep down there's a small voice saying "it can't be!" because something so small and silly can't qualify for God's magical quality. but i reasoned and thought that if I believe in a God who is in absolute control of everything that happens in every millisecond, and even bothers to know the number of hair on the head of every human being, how can a bowl of dua pan appear on a table without His knowledge?

i'm reminded of an entry in ODB on feb 9 titled God Incidents. when i read that a week ago i thought about how true it was that God often intercedes in sensible and coherent ways... rather than magical marvels or big spectacles that we naturally associate with God-size.

yeah the dua pan was grrreat! (:

Design by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

we did this poem for literature class this morning. Frost is a famous pastoral poet and one of his favourite things to do is to take the intricacies of nature, tangible or not, as a prism for deeper thought. in this poem he writes about a white moth, a white spider, and a white heal-all (a flower) that were found together. all three of them are abnormalities because moths, spiders, and heal-alls in white are rare. and the chances of them being actually found on top of each other puzzled him. as he appreciates the fine details of the tiny insects, he contemplated whether things do happen randomly, or whether there is a creator behind all these. if there is a design, shouldn't there be a Designer (with a big D) behind it?

what surprised me more was the way my obviously Christian lecturer used this poem as an opportunity for some not very subtle evangelism. whenever he sees a cockroach, a fly, or some other gross insect at home, he never kills them. he would admire how beautifully made they are and how astounding the compound eye of a fly is. HAHAHA. anw, like Robert Frost, he's so captured at the finest designs of living things in our world (and so am i!). he shared his personal opinion that if there is creation, there has to be a Creator behind it. a design has to have a Designer behind it, and it's God. especially so if we notice how designs of the tiniest things are actually so astonishing.

of course I agree with him and identify with his passions. I admire his effort and courage to share this with the class and his colleagues (they were sitting in his lect too) and put up his opinions about Designer Creator God big on the screen. it hit home that no matter where we are - whether in a secular or Christian environment - we are in ministry and carrying His banner, especially if we know that it is where God means for us to be. there are other Christian profs who evangelize in their classes too!

I'm really enjoying this course more n more. i'm looking forward to the film and books (: nevermind waking at 6.30am. it's worth it (whenever i can actually get up and drag myself to sch on time)! literature in the early morning is a strategic time. it is like why Jesus does His quiet time in the morning every day. it is when minds are usually the freshest and not polluted by the heat and happenings of the day. aiyah, i should have taken a literature minor!