It is great news to know that FM2010 will be released soon. The fantasy of being a football club manager, making a difference with your decisions in a virtual world, having million dollar players under your command as you make your own dream team.
What i enjoy the most of the game is to succeed with a lower tier club on a shoe string budget, developing young unknown players from different regions of the world into million dollar players.
ALL at a click of a mouse button.
ALL decisions reversible.

It gets boring after you keep winning and become champions.
Then the whole vicious cycle repeats itself. You restart a game to play at another lower tier club to bring it into worldwide fame. The outcome of it? Lost of time and sleep.

Which is why i hope i don't hear more of the temptation during this time since i am on my final semester and i am actively looking for a job.(It is pretty sad to be sending resumes like a brochure and have no one contact me.. I always thought i will be head hunted![Too much FM2009 i guess. I've always receive many employment notification without much effort])

It is a rather bittersweet feeling to know i will be graduating in less than 2 months time.
Sweet of which i can finally say good bye to the nightmare workloads without any pay at NUS.
Bitter because.. I will miss the freedom of time.. I will regret at the many activities that i didn't participate of which i would have loved to.. The cheap food in canteens.. I think the biggest miss is probably the friends i made in school... The familiar faces i see wherever i go.. the people i worked with..

As the famous saying goes
"The grass is always greener on the other side"
I wonder now whether the grass is indeed greener on the other side.
Maybe.
The quote should have been continued to become
"The grass is always greener on the other side.. but does it matter? Just enjoy the grass for what it is!"

Got out of bed with a medical condition called "Morning Numbness". This is when you have less than zero will to get out of bed to do work.

Tired, unmotivated and empty.
Arghhh.
Yet i know there are a massive amount of work waiting to be done.

Must.
Not.
Feel.
Numb.

I must operate in BMW(Brain Must Work) mode.
I can't continue with the BNW(Brain Not Working) mode.

Numb numb numb. Numb-mon. Go back to your poke-ball. hur hur.

I was able to enjoy some people's company more lately.
Got to chill and supper with Eeli, talking about ministry, campus and such.
Was able to catch a movie with Cheryl, Josiah and Kah mei. =]

I don't know whether it is me but i am still feeling awfully tired. I have been really sleepy each time i want to head out to hang out with people.
I found that breathing deeply really helps in getting energy. =] And the rememberance of making the sound of Yh.. wh.. (Watch Rob Bell's Nooma, Breathe, to understand what i mean.)
I would love to attribute it to the horrible haze which contributes to this fatigue. However i know it is probably my sleep cycles that is pretty much twisted and the worries plaguing at the back of my mind. Those worries are like computer viruses! They get in and they uses alot of processing power. Worst of all, it is on your 'registry' which makes the day worst.(If you don't undertstand computing, registry is some sort of a list of programmes/codes that your computer starts up with.. so what i meant is that it is always on your head from the waking moment. Computing analogy. haha) On top of that, it is 'read-only' and it replicates('read-only' means you can't delete/remove unless you've got the authority rights. Most viruses replicates[multiplies]).

I don't like it.

Anyway, i was listening to Jars Of Clay just now.
The song Crazy Times caught my eye.
It reminded me of Zhiyong.
hmmmmm...
I wonder how he is doing... =/

I am contemplating about the term Secular and the term Spiritual.
Should our lives be divided among the two?
I read about the term 'Wholesome shallowness' quoted reference from pastor Kong Hee's article cited in these lines ['Christian popular arts are unrealistic, sanitized versions of the real world. Some reviewers even use the phrase “wholesome shallowness” to describe them.' http://www.konghee.com/www/2009/09/wholesome-shallowness/ Taken on 25th Sept]
I was pretty amazed at how sophisticated the term was. However, I didn't quite understand the term at first glace actually.

From Dicitonary.com, the definition given for shallow are:

1.	of little depth; not deep: shallow water.

2.	lacking depth; superficial: a mind that is not narrow but shallow.

3.	taking in a relatively small amount of air in each inhalation: shallow breathing.

4.	Baseball. relatively close to home plate: The shortstop caught the pop fly in shallow left field.

I reckon that he simply meant 'wholesome lack of depth'. Isn't it contradictory to say a lack of depth to be anything near 'wholesome'? I don't understand why people use such terms to create such difficulties in life for understanding. Especially when it doesn't even make sense. Isn't it similar to saying "The bright darkness".
One word.. "What?"

Putting that aside, my take on how some people try to compartmentalize their lives?
You should read up on how the term 'hypocrites' came about. The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "play-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy - May not be the best reference but always the most readily available)

For whom were Jesus angry about?
The Pharisees, spiritual people' during that time.
To whom did Jesus's heart goes out to?
The TaxCollectors and prostitutes, the sinners during that time.

One knows that he is not perfect and is repentant in his heart.
One does not bother and continue to preach a talk that even he can't follow.

Would you listen to a governor talking about being frugal when his/her lifestyle is extravagant?
Would you listen to an alcohol addict about self-mastery when he/she is still in his addiction?
Would you listen to a holy person teaching moral standards when his/her life is full of deceit and debauchery?

Likewise,
Would you listen to a Christian when he/she does not know how fallen away he/she is and does nothing about it?

If the comedian Russell Peters can stick truth to his audience through humor saying this phrase 'Be a Man! Do the Right Thing'
In the same breath i tell you, 'Be a human being, Do the right thing'.

What's the difference between humans and animals?
Are we not more than dogs, where even they know how to do the right things from time to time?

Attending Vinoth Ramachandra's talk about Integral Mission has become a checkpoint for me to reflect my life.

He broke the terms 'Integral Mission' for us.
Firstly, this is not what we do(Not a project) but what we are. Something that we have already. It is not some project. It is something that has already been around from the past.
So what is Integral Mission?

Mission as what Vinoth further Explains comes from the latin word "Missio"
Which also meant 'To be sent'
We can see that what we(refering to Churches and Christians in general) is about the church or ourselves doing something; yet if we trace in the olden text to how the people in past use it, it is about God and what he does.

How do we 'missio' if we don't even know the bible well enough? If we don't read from Genesis 1 to Revelations 22. So what does God do? In Genesis we can see that it all begins NOT with us but with God's(Father,Son and Holy Ghost) involvement of the World. It is apparent that throughout from the creation to the end, he was involved with 3 main activities- Creating , Sustaining and Loving the world.
We can now see how the story has gone from putting us(Adam and Eve) in the couple to cultivate and care for the world, to how he involved himself with us(the human race) despite our disobedience of cultivating and caring for the world.

The End will be of Jerusalem coming down from Heavens onto the Earth and that the Kings of the Earth will be bringing their cultural treasures to worship the one sitting upon the throne. So in other words, this place that we are on now will be the place for eternity! HEAVEN IS COMING DOWN TO EARTH. We aren't going to heaven when we die.Salvation is not going to heaven when we die, it is when work becomes worship to the lord. We can see that eternal life starts not at death but at the time when you believe in the Lord. The World will be transformed to what God intended it to be, healed from its brokeness and ugliness. The World will be something that is pleasing to the Lord.

The Lord is also concerned about the world, the things he has made and he wants to liberate them from the dominion of sin and the devil to restore it under his rule.

The theory is then contextualize with our lives as Students. Before we can first do Missio, we have to first be disciples of Jesis. And what is discipleship to God?
Discipleship is about learning about God's will for every area of my life.

He also brought up a point that there is nowhere in the bible that mentions the noun 'Evangelism' or even 'Social Actions'. Which means projects that do all that, rather it was mentioned as how it just comes out from their everyday living of what they do.

2 Questions was thrown
1st : "What difference does being a Christian make by way you are studying of your faculty(law,business..Computing?)
2nd: "How should you think as a Christian about your faculty?"

All these are not complete with the other word. INTEGRAL
He further explained that integral means Integrity.
And Integrity means Someone that is not divided.
Someone without a compartmentalized life.(A life is divided to the secular and to the holy. Extreme example is a sunday Christian, a subtle example is a christian that is christian with christian and not the 'usual christian' with a non-christian)
Someone of integrity lives a life of consistency, with no contradiction. To be what he/she speaks.

He referred to us to the Gospels. He challenged us(university students) "You are Christians aren't you?! Don't you know what the gospel say!? What was Jesus angry about?! Give me and example!". The students was taken aback and someone replied in an unconfident tone- "Oppression" and he cited how Jesus was putting down this teacher of the law on how he oppressed the people with laws he can't walk and impossible for the person he was putting down. Vinoth then made a loud statement : "Jesus was angry about the theologians right? The 'Moral' people, the lack of sensitivity, the HYPOCRISY! THE RELIGIOUS ARROGANCE!"
When he said that, I looked at the people around us and even myself.

He then asked "What did Jesus pray about? He prayed that you will be ONE, that you will be united and you will love each other!"

Why are we dividing each other?
Look at the church now, look at how we are competing with each other we those fancy buildings and how we divided ourselves with denominations(like how many? over a thousand?) and even pride ourselves with being proud of being a (for eg.) 'methodist'(i am one.). How is there anymore credibility in the message of being united when we bring it to people and how WE as a church are divided. What sense is there to have 4 churches on the same road?
We need to first obey Jesus and then preach to the others. We must first LIVE it out before we Preach.
We sings song about being broken hearted for what breaks God's heart. Are our hearts even broken when we look at the division and the disunity of the church. Are our hearts even broken when we try to stand up for something but we can't because we are no longer credible? Are our hearts even broken for the inactions of injustice?

I've taken this from Grace's Note about this Lecture.
"What are you preaching to people? What is the gospel you are preaching? The gospel is about Jesus right? And you are inviting people to come and look at this Man, to respond to Him, to become His disciple. So you're saying "Even as I am following Jesus, even as I am learning day by day what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, so come and join me"

Now if they see that you're not at least desiring to follow Jesus, you don't have that hunger you're not a learner, you're not also seeking to bring your life more and more under the Lordship of Jesus. If they're not seeing that, they will only see you in a position of superiority, telling them to become what you are not. And that is seen as arrogance, it is arrogance isn't it?

So sometimes integrity means telling people I don't have all the answers. I don't know the answer to this question you are asking me, but I'll go and find out. And you wrestle with that question and then the next week you go and tell them, "Oh this is what I found out" You're not pretending to be someone you're not. But so much of evangelism is about pretending to be someone or they're not.

So real evangelism, or really communicating the gospel is something that has to be real, something that is genuine, authentic, it has to be part of the sharing of your life to other people. And your whole life is open to be scrutinized, examined by the whole campus, and by your family and by your neighbours.

What is it that drives you from the time you get up til the time you go to bed? What is it that motivates you? Why are you studying? What are your ambitions? Who do you mix with? What kind of friendships do you have?

In all these ways we are communicating the gospel of Jesus. And people are watching. "

==========================================================================
He ended off his lecture with a dialogue to clarify any questions.
The above is just what i digested and took away. I added some of my own points on top of what he said.
==========================================================================

Thus comes my reflection.
A question that disturbed my soul.
The most basic questions.
"Are you truly a Christian?"
"Are you doing what a Christian are suppose to be?"
"Where do i go from here with mission/Evangelism?"
"How do i reconcile this message with my church?"

An article was written about what he said on the Varsity Christian Fellowship Perspective December 2008 on the National Conference he spoke at. http://fessingapore.org/uploads/files/perspective/2008/PerspectiveDec08.pdf
I've quite a bad quality recording of this talk.
Approach me if you want it.