Multiplicity.

It suffices to say that I'm a complex person. I don't think I know myself as much as I'd like to think I do.

In a sense, all writers are complex because in one moment he or she can inhabit multiple perspectives. Sometimes I find myself lost in that multiplicity. If I give equal weight to the other's perspective, it becomes difficult to justify my own. That makes me behave tentatively in social situations. It might not just be a writer's complex - perhaps it is an introvert's reflex. It's a kind of imaginative buffer where I distance myself from my own thoughts and compunctions, and automatically see the situation from where another stands. It's like inviting an outsider to church one Sunday. Suddenly the music seems too loud, the lyrics too incomprehensible, the gestures too exaggerated, the sermon too insular, the pews too uncomfortable, the crowd too alien. When just a week ago it was familiar running grounds since childhood.

How does one maintain the obstinacy of one's correctness in a situation of conflicting perspectives and contexts? How does one offer advice - without first knowing the weight of considerations hanging on the person - her background, her personality, the social intricacies surrounding that thorny issue? Why are people so quick to give advice?

I am loathe to advise. Or to interfere - unless I know the person and the context well, and they specifically invite me to weigh in. Too often, I've sat on the receiving end of well-meaning but almost always grating advice - and had to endure it out of politeness. But in my head, oh in my head, I am anything but polite.

Another thing I've realised recently about myself is that I'm dogmatic about accuracy. It annoys me to no end when people speculate about issues they know very little about, and go on about it with baseless confidence and assertion. Often times, when I become curt and anti-social in tone, it's because I'm trying to get someone to clarify something they said or to think it through - when it's probably not a big deal to other people. "Tenor is a higher vocal range than soprano! It's tenor, followed by soprano, alto and bass." "That's not what I learnt. Are you sure?" "Yeah!" *Googling* I become the annoying person who reads out the correct definition of vocal ranges from wikipedia. *sullen silence*
Why can't people just say they don't know when they don't know? Why is accuracy such an issue with me?

The other pet peeve (while we're on the subject of my flaws and complexes) is time-wasting. Efficiency is probably the highest on my list of performative priorities. Worrying is a form of inefficiency. Illogical fears are a waste of emotion. Excessive philosophising and talk is to me empty, vapid, useless. "Did you wash the glass first? Is it really clean?" "What if she feels upset because we didn't give her equal opportunity to share?" 'Did you zip the bag? Did you check?" There is valid concern, and then there is excess. People in general err on the side of excess. This internal ticker timer projects externally as impatience, I'm sure. Why do people worry so much? Why are they cautious about so many things? Why do they keep speculating on the intentions of others and their motives? Why are they so fearful about potentially offending someone? What gives? I realise without concrete examples it is very difficult to illustrate this point, without sounding like some inconsiderate, selfish or stoic prig. Worry is often a form of action paralysis - thinking yourself into a muddle, masked as concern for others - and that aggravates me; when people are constrained by fear.

Recently on a Christian group trip, some unexpected dancers came into the restaurant where we were seated and started egging on a young guy to drink and dance with them. They had been invited by one of the hosts without our prior knowledge. The guy drank the wine they offered, and they started to tease him by being too intimate (hugged him while trying to do the cross-handed cup exchange). Some group members laughed and cheered, others were frozen with a look of horror on their faces. The guy smiled awkwardly throughout the experience, his face beet red, as you would expect with someone embarrassed. The dancers then went on to make fun of other male members in the group.
That evening, we found out that the young guy was furious with the rest of us and wanted to skip debrief and devotion. He felt coerced into the situation, and betrayed by the group's response. Betrayed?

My first response was to brush it off (before I found out about the severity of his response) I'm sure he's fine. It's so minor. He wasn't the only one targeted. He played along, who forced him? If he didn't want to, he could have stopped.

Then we got wind of how he was completely silent on the drive back to the hotel, furious and very affected. A started being moody to the point of tears - I couldn't understand if she felt like she was responsible, or was just so sensitive to other's feelings that when someone else was upset, she felt upset too. Suddenly I had a crew of emotional people to manage, comfort and counsel. The whole situation just seemed blown out of proportion to me. Perhaps he really did feel forced. If I did something, it'd be because I wanted to do it. If I didn't want to, I'd stop doing it. Who's forcing? What, if you just shake your head and break out of the hug, the group would be offended? No, the group would then know you felt uncomfortable and side with you!

So I found myself in a situation where I had to take responsibility for the event even though it had been foisted unplanned upon us. I had to counsel someone even though for the life of me I couldn't understand initially how something as small as this could trigger such an intense emotional response. Community life is draining because what you see as small, is huge to another. What you perceive as an important issue (accuracy), is to someone else inconsequential.

Most people relate to multiplicity of views (a differing opinion, a jarring perspective), with an emotional outburst. Anger, impatience, sadness, guilt, indignation. But for writers, or people like me, (I don't think I'm the only one?) my response is the recognition of a rational/personality disconnect that needs to be explained. I stay fairly calm, and I approach the issue with a kind of tender distance. I pick apart the strands of what led you to feel that way towards something, while standing on the outskirts myself - preferring not to soil myself with the distorting smear of emotion. That distance is sometimes hard to understand. Others might misconstrue it as a lack of empathy, or an anti-social detachment. Psychologists might recognise it as a notch close to psychopathy - an unfeeling distance.
But the fine line that separates this tender distance from psychopathy is that word, "unfeeling". I know what led you to feel upset, even if I wouldn't feel or respond with that same emotion in the given context. I sense the broken frameworks that might have led you to process something differently. It might be wounded esteem, expectation, pride, or a hundred other reasons. In that sense I feel you - as a post-rational trace; circling back, divorced from the initial blow.

I am not there yet, though. There are many responses I don't understand. There are situations that strain the limits of my empathy. There are so many instances I am aloof, and stay aloof- refusing to process, seeing as tediously minute what to you might be mammoth. There are times the issues loom so huge (like insecurity) I don't have the energy to dare to wade into deep waters. There are even times it is not my place to care.

Coming of age.

Do we ever arrive? Coming of age - becoming- is typically applied to teenagers; but adulting doesn’t ever exhaust that process. Nobody seems to ever fully arrive. We may have clearer or fainter ideas of our goals and where we’d like to be headed; but the moment one milestone clears the other looms ahead. These mountains may make you feel small, or they may motivate your swell so that you can overcome. Oftentimes a mountain is both- inflating and deflating.
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Growth - there is a place for that. Unbridled, and in the wrong places, it becomes cancerous.

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How much you know a person > how much you trust > how much you rely on > physical touch

Apparently the equation to an enduring marriage relationship.

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This is just a record stream of consciousness, like a notebook; sorry that it doesn’t make sense.

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Vision: If space is language, I want to be a linguist. Translating from ideation to sensation. Program to spatiality. Intention to matter. To be a doorkeeper into new worlds of experience.

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Community - what kind are we building?

waiting.

what is february about? it's a period of intense waiting. waiting is disconcerting because it makes you introspective. there is nothing to cloud your vision, to occupy your hands, to distract your mind. so you turn inwards, examine every stone, the letters left out of place, the soiled dishes left unwashed in the sink of your soul.
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life is hard. it gets lonely. it slings fears in your face and watches for your response. it cuts and snares your clothing. branches stick their legs out to trip you. what do we have to conquer it? this amorphous sword called love. and those who are brave wield it boldly. are not afraid to take it out of our coats and fling it around; the more we use it the less gelatine it becomes. the less indistinct. the less wobbly. the substance of love comes from its use.
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 what of love? jesus loves me.  that old childhood refrain. this i know? somehow i find that childhood leaves its marks on us indelibly. the core of each of us; our essences, were marked growing up. what sparks love and hate, fear or envy, pride or joy. those were formed early on. to be loved eternally, by an eternal God, who never leaves my side, although i cannot see him, feel him. he knows me. to be completely loved, and yet not know it? let me know your love. that is all i pray these days. let me know your love. then there is love from fellowship- the imperfect loves of friendship. of family. that though tainted, is at least visible. tangible.
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why do i have so many secrets? perhaps it is because of fear. perhaps a lack of desire to reveal what is precious to people whom i don't care for. to have what is of value demeaned by people i couldn't possibly expect to value it, because i disagree with their vision. yet, don't all of us long to see eye to eye with others on things and issues that matter deeply to us? to have an inner chord struck of deep reassurance, of affirmation, of agreement. that is not easily found.
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writing is a part of me that has always been secret. even when i won a book prize for $6000 only my parents knew. my blogs are hidden and unpublished. my diaries are secret, obviously. cubes - design writing has been public but it didn't contain my soul. just my mental observations. except that article on epic homes, i think. i've written and researched on the singapore river, on gardens, on warehouses, on the magnetic meeting of two strangers. what i really want to write about is the changing atmosphere of entering a new world, and seeing with fresh eyes. an adventure. could i try? i give myself permission to try. forget the public eye. invest in yourself. give affirmation to my own ideas. instead of writing only what i'm commissioned for. be commissioned by love. 
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 i will start writing. even if i'm just staring at a blank page, i dedicate half an hour everyday to writing the short story. 
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 it shall be called "reservoir between two walls."

Active Passive.

It does seem like daily posts were too much to ask. I have the attention span of a rabbit.  2017 has been a year of risk taking- of learning to make decisions. Of speaking about my work- learning to defend, craft my story. Not there yet for sure. But I'm seeing the importance, not just to be part of a consensus- but to create that consensus. Not just to be well informed, empathetic, but to create empathy- to inform and sketch the outlines of perception. After all, people are gonna judge you anyway. Why not give them a more accurate picture.  And that is only through sharing your story, opening up your narrative. Stringing it together in the first place.  One thing bugging me is- craft the vision, or walk by faith? Lorinne cautioned against a take it as it comes model. HonLeong said in order to chase, there must be something to chase first. If there's nothing, just relax!  Opportunities come from God. In a sense, uncle HL's approach feels much more relaxed and removes fear. Because as a service provider, I have to wait for opportunities. I can put up a website, Instagram, talk about my work. But it's a passive role in that I don't initiate these projects. I can make myself easier to find, but I get found. I seize opportunities as they come- I pitch, share, convince. But I don't cold call and knock on every possible door to ask- hey, you got project? The very thought of that disgusts me.  There are, other aspects where I'm not the passive recipient. Where I can drive. Eg. Workshops. Liaising with MY on the soap project. Research. To categorize knowledge. Administration. Setting up QP systems. Learning computer programs. Refreshing knowledge on A&As. These however have less to do with the core business- of design projects. They are more of the ecosystem around the core- facilitating and enriching the possibilities, the web of ideas.  To wait in hope, to find rest between battles, to attack the day with every given opportunity. 

Doorkeeper.

He asked, "what does being a door keeper mean to you?"

Silence. (6 days and counting)

I'm not being rude on purpose. It just is a very important question to me, and I don't want to give a cursory response.

22 All these, who were chosen as gatekeepers at the thresholds, were 212. They were enrolled by genealogies in their villages. David and Samuel the seer established them in their office of trust. 23 So they and their sons were in charge of the gates of the house of the Lord, that is, the house of the tent, as guards. 24 The gatekeepers were on the four sides, east, west, north, and south. 25 And their kinsmen who were in their villages were obligated to come in every seven days, in turn, to be with these, 26 for the four chief gatekeepers, who were Levites, were entrusted to be over the chambers and the treasures of the house of God. 27 And they lodged around the house of God, for on them lay the duty of watching, and they had charge of opening it every morning.

1 Chronicles 9:22-27.

Being a door keeper means:
1. You hold a key. The key opens and closes doors to the house of God.
2. You greet. You are acquainted with the people coming and going; because you are the first face they meet before they enter, and the last one to lock up and leave.
3. You stand at the threshold. Your duty is to stand at the point of transition between in and out, holy and worldly. To be at the intersection of things.
4. In the bible, the doorkeepers had duties. These included: 
- Watching.
- Charge of utensils for serving.
- Charge of furniture, holy utensils, also over the fine flour, the wine, the oil, the incense, and the spices. 
- Mixing of spices.
- Making flat cakes.
- Preparing showbread.
- Singers: on duty day and night.
You are in charge of the holy things of God.
5. You stand at four gates, facing four cardinal directions. 

That doesn't seem to make personal sense to me, God. 

2 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 
Isaiah 22:22

Please reveal your understanding on this.
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What do I want to start doing, stop doing, and continue doing?

2017. The Thing.

Wow. Not a single post in 2016.

I was contemplating starting a new blog somewhere, lost in the Internet of things, unsearchable. Then I remembered there was this space.

And in light of 2017 - fraught with new anxieties, new hopes, the turmoil that is an existential crisis - I have decided to continue this blog, daily. To resolve, to complete, to push myself further. Rather than to open a new box of candy, and leave it rootless, endless, abandoned.

I have many abandoned children. They are thoughts, lying tangled in a box - strings that are half unfurled, undone, knots that lie untied.

Questions of: what am I doing, really? Who am I? What is the ultimate vision I want to pursue? Where do I exert my will, energies, focus? What is this end goal I need to hone into?

Is it in writing? Becoming a fiction writer?
Is it in art? Honing my photographic skills, creating a photographic travel commentary?
Is it in design? Hustling for jobs and partnerships to grow this practice?
Is it in missions? Doing the community some good, building the kingdom?

2016 - God laid it out for me. I spent March to December finishing up the tasks he literally placed into my plate in February. 9 months. It was easy, compared to the start of this year. This year he doesn't seem to want to do the plating. But what will he have me do? Firstly, stop meandering.
I am frustrated for many reasons, but chiefly because there is a sense of an unarticulated vision.
Without vision, people perish. That is painfully true. I feel it in my bones.

I CAN pursue many things, but not all things. I believe if I set it out - I can find ways, with God's favour, to accomplish them. But the hardest thing ever is to SET IT OUT. To sketch the outlines, the shape, mass, form of what this Thing is. This next season of my life - this next chapter. It seems pivotal, epic, almost. Jesus started his ministry when he was 30. Here I'm doing a freak out. When maybe his was somewhere on a mountain with God, alone, before the sky turned light.

Maybe He had a freak out there. Maybe in his freak out he heard a voice say - You are my Son. Boom.

I need that boom. Because the Thing is not just a thing. It is closely and inseparably tied, in the deepest of places, with my identity. Yeah yeah, my identity is in Jesus. I am a daughter of God. But He also prepared good works in advance for us to walk in them, right? What you want, you have to go get. There is a co-walking involved; and I don't think this existential crisis is a bad thing. In fact it is essential to anyone who wants to lead a life that makes sense. That has purpose. It is asking yourself the big questions that nobody has answers to, that nobody can find except you - that causes the freak out. And not asking them doesn't solve anything. It doesn't do you any favours. Coasting along doesn't ANSWER anyone. And Coasting Along seems to have been the tagline for 2016.

I had a taste of what it was like to start a company. Wow, entrepreneur. To finish 2 high profile projects that were featured in the newspapers. To have my name and quote appear in the newspaper.
Hah. So. what.

I am grateful. This is not a lack of appreciation for the insane opportunities that have been given. I have said THANK YOU GOD countless of times, in private and public. This is about the next page. This is about resolving and finding the ends of the string balls that have gotten all knotted and tangled. And tidying the mess that is in my soul - the unanswered questions about what my deep gutted core purpose in life IS.

GOD HELP ME.

Why do you labour?

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labour for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.

Isaiah 55:1-3

affair with words

Found this in my phone. Nicole said I should write more- I do write, except they are mostly snippets while on the go. I store them in some secret cupboard and forget about them. Until I unearth them again - in this case, five months later since November last year. Am quite pleased with the find, rather like finding dusty coins under the bed. Or greeting familiar friends in the form of thoughts that once flitted through my brain. Here goes.

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I have a secret obsession with words. I write them with calligraphy pens, type them with a vintage typewriter shipped from 1941 Canada, read them in solitary whispers on my bed. 

I roll them around my tongue, under my breath, in imaginary mental conversations. I like them too much to spill them out on the ground, in front of people who waste them. 

Words are potent, like drugs. The more you abuse them, the less effective they become. 
Some people are addicted to the sound of their own voice. As though they were stones cast to fill a void, ringing and resounding in the cavernous emptiness. But those are just echos- the shadows of words that have no real substance.

Sometimes words become disconnected from your voice. When that happens they become powerless, or merely peripheral- like noise. The disconnect happens not between the tongue and the throat, but deeper- between your mind and your conscience. They cut your teeth before cutting your heart.
 
Sometimes the disconnect happens when the felt has not found its way into your consciousness. In those cases it is not your fault. We are all searching, blundering, through the darkness, for a rope that will draw us out. Sometimes we take shortcuts - clinging on to another's rope - instead of finding our own. That is known as a cliche. It may be degrees away from what we truly feel, but it is within easy reach. It gets us out onto safe terrain quickly, but we don't realize we left a part of ourselves behind. That part which is your own, your voice, your unction, your beating, bleeding humanity.

Words are precious, so they are spare. I taste them, so well that sometimes the moment passes, and they are left unsaid. 

They become heavy, in those moments when the shadow falls on their demise. They stayed with me, and died in me.

Stillborn. 

he walked in

he walked in

when the early afternoon light was warming my room. 

in my drowsy state of sleep I thought my brother had come home. 

my throat was sore, nose congested- all I knew was I felt unusually sleepy after breakfast and prayer. 

He walked in and stood on the right side of my bed and bent over, lightly touching his forehead to mine. 

His hand was on my arm, as though checking my temperature 

I did not have the fever. His palm was warm against the crook of my arm. 

Sleep pulled up over me again like a blanket. 

I woke up in the dream, aware that someone had just come into my room, and I had proof (a tweezer in my hand?)

I woke again, in the exact same position on the bed, with my room as it was in the dream. 

The sore throat was gone. 

Seed.

This seems to be a season of articulation.

My architecture professor once taught me that logic should be projected to its natural conclusion. That meant that if I was studying certain phenomena, say, the premise that rent is related to the dynamism of a city, I should follow that course of thought right through to its final manifestation. Or if I thought that the constant reshaping of the Singapore River to straighten its boundaries was a psychical and physical reflection of Singapore's obsession with efficiency, could I draw out that line of logic and project its future form 50 years down the road?

Another way of looking at this is to consider a seed. I've heard it said that humans often over estimate what we can do in a day, and under estimate what we can get done in a week. To further that thought, we often fail to estimate what is the accumulated outcome of 365 days of thoughts, choices, actions and words in a year. Every day exists in seed form: it is the microcosm of a lifetime of accumulated actions. Boredom is a state of unfocused activity, which leads to aimlessness. Stagnation too, is a form of non-action.

That makes me question the way I choose to live out my days. It makes me wonder about the weight of each moment, which I am often unconscious of. I live in an uncharted fashion, depending on the amount of energy I have to expend. Work occupies so much of my time and energy, after which I feel like I just want to hide in my bed and recuperate. Other instincts wrestle for my attention - the desire to maintain friendships, to explore and do something exciting, to make and create something with my hands, to attend some event or watch a show that could inspire me, to spend time with family.

What would be a more conscious way of living? (It's difficult to avoid sounding like a tree-hugging hippie.) The main components of life are unlikely to change: the cycles of work; ties of friendships and family; interests which are always relegated to the extra-curricular. So surely what must change is my attitude towards each of these things; or the way in which these are carried out, through a process that is more life-giving. It is rethinking the value of the 'mundane'- a word splattered with pessimistic undertones of ennui. It is questioning and finding purpose for the everyday, in its most predictable and banal sense. It is seeding my goals within the soil of the everyday, and realizing that gratification is a fruit in its season. It is enjoying work, and not treating it as a necessary evil. It is appreciating the simplicity of daily rituals, and being grateful for the small.

Otherness.

Strangeness alienates. But it also fascinates. Without the concept of the other we have no concept of our self. 

So in a sense we are all strange to each other. In coming into your space and encountering your thoughts, I discover the alien. The unexpected. Isn't that what conversation is? A series of random tosses that always ends up different from the linear ping pong that goes on in your head. Part of that is because one can never fully anticipate what the other is capable of saying, thinking and articulating. 

So friendship is this weird game of ping pong. Where the tables are constantly shifting. But that line remains. That line between your court and mine, where your half and mine meet. 

Mystery is essential to maintaining a true friendship. If I fail to surprise you (at turns by bits of information, humour, stories and sparks of personality that you did not perceive in me previously), it means I have become predictable and stopped growing as a person. There is no space of otherness for us to meet and spar at anymore. The tables are removed, so to speak. Old couples are romanticized as being able to predict their other half's next word; at knowing their pasts and the way he or she would react to certain news. But if that really were the case they'd all be bored to death. 

Otherness is an essential space. It is the gap within which we are fully ourselves. Our inner desire to be understood leads to the shrinking of this space, while our contest to maintain truth inwardly stakes the boundaries. Within these poles, our terrain is negotiated. If we expand this space by revealing too little, empty loneliness creeps in. But if we give up our preferences to rote responses, if we cease to be other, we lose our selves. 

#2AMTHOUGHTS. 

SF vs NF Ramblings.

Woke up. Read a bit of victory in the wilderness. Got distracted. Read a friend's blog. Thought about the many things to write about. Tried to switch on laptop to play insanity workout video. Computer did not boot. Did insanity workout on ipad. Showered. Had breakfast. Shipped imac into my room. Figured out how to backup my computer. Transferred things from my computer to the imac. Took 2 hours. Set up Time Machine on my laptop. Has been syncing for the past 2.5 hours, and it's only 60% done. Transcribed an interview. Pottered about on taobao.

Is that how an SF's blog would read like? In essence? (Assuming here a lot more run-on sentences like haha omg and then the computer took damn long to boot I almost died waiting so save me already because I have verbal diarrhoea)

And an NF's?

Wilderness. That has been going on so long I'm not sure what to look out for anymore. How would the ending of the status quo look like? I have no grid to imagine it with. It has been almost a comfortable place. That's the problem, isn't it? I'm constantly dealing with almosts- I'm almost okay. I'm almost certain I'm in the right place. I'm almost sure it's coming to an end, and that all of this gray matter has been for some purpose, yet unrevealed.

(Taking a seemingly random, unexplainable leap in thought)
Reading Ayn Rand has jarred something deep within me. It started with an appreciation for her craft. The way she writes is so logical, so precise, and so calculated that reading it feels effortless. The narrator is invisible - but what flows from her pen are sentences that are palpable. It's equal to being inside the protagonist's head and heart; feeling the torment of Francisco's struggle, digging in the pits of Dagny Taggart's emotional strain (that's what love is, the pits.)

Reading Ayn Rand's guide to writing fiction, and appreciating the expert magician's adroit grasp of subject matter. She knows her tools, and she lays them out with such clarity and perception it makes me believe I can do it too. After that, I launched into the heart of Atlas Shrugged- and one particular paragraph caught at my throat.

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil—he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy—all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man’s fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love—he was not man.

Man’s fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he’s man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.

It's like traveling with a kin on a journey, and finding out mid-way that you were heading in different directions all along.

What exactly is sin? If a creature with no knowledge of good or evil ate of a fruit - what exactly was 'wrong' about it? How could he know? Was he even capable of reason?

I started asking persons whom I thought had the answers, and one who gave me a specific definition for sin - a lack of trust in God.

Much to say, and too little time - have to continue in another post to give this tangle its due.

Rags.

Spent hours cleaning my room today. There's been a spate of renovation around the house, digging up dead dust bunnies and immortalizing insects onto the walls by painting them.

Anyway, my table was covered with dust and I ran out to the yard to grab a rag from the rag pile. Came into my room, and as I was wiping the slate clean I was hit by this memory. Of a lady I met in China, who worked as a kitchen cook. She was six months pregnant, and she had a toddler constantly running around the kitchen as she prepared meals. You can imagine the state of hubbub the kitchen was constantly in, with oversized woks and pans capable of dishing out grub enough for twenty.

Someone in the adjacent kitchen (yes, there were two separate rooms) screamed out for a rag to wipe the hob with. Seeing a white rag stashed between the edge of two pots, I grabbed it and started moving towards the other kitchen. At least, it used to be white before being splattered with brown dirt marks and absorbing a perpetual yellow stain throughout.

The cook came rushing after me and said, "No no no, not that rag!" And stuffed a deep brown rag into my hands instead. "This, is for wiping the baby's face."

I was flummoxed, but I hope it didn't show on my face. That yellowed, grubby rag was for wiping the baby's face ?!?!?! (The exclamation marks were quite literally exploding in my brain like National Day fireworks.)

So today, I was cleaning my table. I was thinking about the pile of rags in my yard, all of which are considerably clean, unyellowed, and possibly quite useful for cleaning many a child's precious face.

Who would have thought a rag could get one so soddy sentimental.

Rest.

Paul Manwaring's message. Entering His Rest: Recreating the I Am in me.

"I'm putting my boots on." "Those boots are for crushing cancer."

Prosperity with purpose- the supernatural in the wilderness is to sustain us. the supernatural in the promised land is to advance us.

God told Moses, "You will not enter into my rest."

Promised land is the supernatural + natural. The supernatural working with the natural.

Thats what Moses did not enter into. Why?

Two instances of interacting with rock, two actions.

Exodus 17:8 - Hit the rock the first time, water came out. He did what God told him to do.
Numbers 20:8 - Second time he hit it, it caused him to miss the promise land.

"Take the rod, assemble the congregation, TELL the rock to yield its water."

First time he meets God in the burning bush, he encountered the I Am. I am the I am. And God showed the I Am that is in him. The sign that it is I who have sent you. You'll know its me because you'll come back and worship me on this mountain.

That's the place he hit the rock. Serve - you'll worship and serve me at this mountain.
The second time he served himself.
He forgot who he was.
The first time he did what God wanted him to do.
The second time - God said, 'speak to the rock."

Could it be that Moses was commissioned to be the voice? 
"Go to Pharoah. Tell him to let my people go!"
Moses didn't trust his voice. Stammered and asked Aaron to be appointed instead.
Moses asked, "What if they won't believe me or listen to what I say?"
God said, what do you have in your hand? The staff - throw it down and it becomes a snake.

The rod is the fall back for the voice. The voice is the first.
Speak. and they'll believe you.
If they don't, there's the fall back - the rod.

He'd seen this rod work before. The second time, he used what he'd seen before. That's not faith. Not obedience in moving with faith.

That's when we fail to enter into his rest.

Rest isn't inanimate nor stationary. Rest is not a destination. Rest is not a place we arrive at. 

Exodus 4: If they don't believe your voice, use the rod.
"If they will not believe you, or heed the voice of the first sign, they may heed the voice of the latter sign."

If you are striving right now, if life is stressful right now, no rest right now -- you may have forgotten the I Am that's in you. There's the piece of the I Am in you.

Rest is about re-creating. On the 7th day, God rested. He recreated. He recreated himself on the 7th day. ("to give new life or freshness to")

Worship is recreating the I Am in me.

Recreate the I am in us for the next year.

When we lose sight of our promises, then we lean back on what we've seen before, instead of leaning into the unseen.

Hebrews 3:11 - I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.
Hebrews 4:1 - Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. (mixed with faith)
Hebrews 4:8 - God gave Joshua rest on every side. Yet that verse says, "if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on." Joshua knew of a greater Rest.

Rest is not a place. Not an arrival point. Not a kicking back.

Rest is where we take our identity and promises, and we move forward in faith into what we cannot see. When those three get separated, thats when we cannot enter rest.

We need to refresh ourselves in worship, in the sabbath day, in the sabbath experience of looking at his face and looking at the I am in his face that is represented in my life. We need to see that.

We need to be recreated in his presence, then we need to remind ourselves of the promises of what he has said and then we need to step in faith.

Some of us haven't hit the rock. We haven't tested his word, where we do what he said to do and see that it happens.
Some of us keep hitting the second rock with the first rock's instructions. We're frustrated because its not working as for the first rock - we're not entering into rest, and we're confused and not sure why its not working. That's because we've forgotten the I Am that's in us.

The first rock is kindergarten year. When God says something and it happens.
The second rock is where we need to be walking out of who we are and not just what he said. We don't make formulas out of what said once, taking it to the next rock.

I will walk in the identity of who I am.

Joshua did not give them rest though God gave them rest on every side. Joshua knew there was a greater promise land.

Jesus Christ is the beginning of the greater promise land. How sad if we miss it! Or fail to enter it! Walk in faith and enter his rest.

Some of us are tired and weary because we forgot we had an encounter when the I Am said something to us.

The Psalmist said, "One thing I ask, that I may see, that I may dwell and look on the face of God." I don't think that meant living in church every day.
He meant to live in the constant awareness of his presence, to meditate on him, refreshed, rested, recreated by his beauty, in his presence. Its a way of life. Rest and recreation is a way of life.

The next leg of the journey is different. When Moses parted the red sea, God split the waters. They walked through on dry land. When Joshua crossed the Jordan, the priests walked into the waters and stood.

In the next phase, you are called to just stand. Stand in the middle of the water - in the awareness of who you are and what you carry. The priests were carrying the ark of the covenant.

Stand in the knowledge and presence of the I Am you are carrying in you.

Moses with his attitude - he might have been shuffling and trying to figure out what to do.

Priests stood, and the waters parted. That's rest.

All we need to do is stand, and the waters part.

You're carrying I am. When you stand in worship - look for the I Am that is in his face, that is in you.

If you don't carry it, no one else will. It's your piece.

Find your piece of the I Am.

Don't forget it. Don't make it a formula "I'm gonna hit rocks all the days in my life."

Step up to the next level - know that the I am I carry is actually sufficient.

Don't lose sight of the promise. Of the promise land. What is your promise?

Take the prophetic word, and with it, fight.

The prophetic word is the Offence, not the Defence.

It's not just a shield for fear. The prophetic word is your sword.

And, be Obedient.

The tangible being married to the intangible - I have a word, and I need to do something. The doing something ended up with another result. Putting on boots let him be free of cramps and aches.

You don't need love on your honeymoon. You don't need hope when you've won the lottery. You don't need faith when you see it.

You need love for your enemy. You need hope in the wilderness. You need faith when you have an impossible situation and don't know what to do. 

If we're waiting for what we can see, then we'll be waiting a long time.

You'll know its me because you will come back to this mountain. You'll see that I Am happening in your life. See the I am when you worship and serve him on this mountain.

The supernatural in the wilderness is to sustain us. The supernatural in the promise land is to advance us.

The surgeon says, "Holy Spirit, show me where to put the scalpel." That's their I Am. That's them knowing who they are and what they can do. That's them stepping into rest and recreation.

It is the place of convergence in our lives. Where I Am and faith is fully manifested, comes into alignment and we see more than we can ever see.

You may be at a place where you can't find peace, tired. Find your prophetic word. Put your boots on. Do something by faith. Remember who you are.

Mind Walks

Writing is an art form.

It is mine.

I can't always travel, can't always photograph

don't always get to sing

nor draw and paint -

Can't dance to save my life

(even in the embarrassing solitude of my own room)

But I can dream.

My mind takes walks on a frequent basis,

"Be Present" is a particularly difficult axiom to follow

Because if the mind is always present,

where do my thoughts go?

In the utter swirl of recall, memory and postulation -

thoughts leap frog across an entire lily pond before I catch myself.

And the only way to make sense of it, sometimes,

Is to write it down;

the sinking of a thought with a weighted stone

so it can touch the ground.

Distance

How strange, after all this time being silent, to encounter your words- it feels like i'm intruding on your thoughts.

Like i woke up and found myself trampling all over the rice sacks
grains scatter,
and i have nothing to pick them up with.