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Passion ... PassiTon??

Giggle wrote today ...

Wonder if you read about the case in Beijing, China, where a male teacher kicked and hit his student with a steel bar before throwing her out of a fourth-floor window to her death (Sep 26, ST)? How did you feel about it? I am totally disgusted with his behavior!! How could he do such a thing? I began to wonder if he went into this teaching profession with passion at all???

Don't you agree that it's easy to just keep a job and do the routine, but to do it well and to do it with love, it requires passion - and that's what makes the difference!

I've come across many teachers, pastors, church workers, Christian ministry staff, etc who are either very passionate about their job or not at all. You can tell - very easily, by the words they speak, you know if they are full of life and excited about sharing their lives. Sadly, sometimes, we enter a profession because that seems to be one of the "best" choice out of all the choices, and as a result, we accept the job because it's a job - perhaps more so because we need the income to survive, and not because we love what we are going to do.

I believe it's the same when it comes to learning, as a student - do we see learning as a chore or we are passionate and excited about new things we can learn and discover, besides enlarging our knowledge base.

Someone once shared with me that if you add a "T" in the word passion - it becomes passiTon (aka Pass IT on). It can be passing the passion of life on, or it could be passing the passion that Jesus (aka the "T" in the passiTon) has brought into our lives and hence becoming a living testimony for Him.

When we are passionate about what we do, we will make sure we do it to the best of our ability - not shortchanging ourselves, others and God. Accept the challenge from God today to live your life with passion - and do what He commits to your care with that excitement and love. The end goal? That He be glorified through our lives!

Code of honor and shame

Giggle wrote today ...

3rd visit to the doc - haha, really broke all my past records - never seen a doctor so regularly before. Well, thankfully, doc says I'm recovering a lot better than when I saw her last week - cough and cough until I can't even speak a sentence without being interrupted by the cough =P so no more MC - yey! but some more medicines =(

Anyway, was sharing with my lecturer how I felt so inspired every week after her lectures that I had reflections which I could blog about (she visits my blog too =) and I think I'm getting her curious about what I'm going to blog about for now ... haha =)

Well, today's lecture was on "code of honor and shame" and she was highlighting how different actions and words, status of the person, etc, during Jesus' time were interpreted according to this code. I haven't received the full set of notes from my subject rep. yet so I can't recall all the details but what struck me was the code for women during Jesus' day ...

For a women to be considered honorable, she must be someone that is shy, timid, not loud, not sexually aggressive (aka not one who takes initiative to say to a man "I like you"), etc. My! I wouldn't be able to fit in to that kind of society - haha, I'm definitely someone who will not be classify under "honorable" =) I can be quite loud (as in vocal) ... when something tickles me, I can really laugh heartily and loudly ... I believe in women having our rights and speaking it up ... I can be bold if I believe that's what I need to do ... so now you see =) Well, come to think of it, I think a lot of us, modern women, wouldn't be able to fit into the society of Jesus' time. *wink*

Besides, during Jesus' time, an honorable woman would be someone who's spoken of in relation to another person (probably her husband or someone in the family that is also honorable) - that's why widows are so marginalized in those days. No wonder God has to say in James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Jesus turned the entire "code of honor and shame" topsy turvy - because all these are "obstructing" the expansion of the Kingdom of God! On many occasions, we find Him speaking to women, healing women, helping women. Aren't we thankful that our Savior is not a sexist and one who loves all He created with equal love, concern and care? Aren't we thankful that Jesus dared to challenge the legalistic ways (and legalism) of the leaders in His days when the issue at heart is not so much ritualistic living as opposed to living with compassion? Thank God for His teachings to the disciples which we can receive in our modern day as well. Thank God for freeing us from all these bondages of sin, legalism, etc.

Am I talking sense? Haha, I'm really brain-dead for now, esp. after such a long day and also without my notes - either I'll write another post on something similar in days to come, or I'll add on to this entry. Thanks for reading thus far =)

Syncretistic contextualization ... ??!!!???

Giggle wrote today ...

Dead-meat! I can't figure out head and tail about what my lecturer wants in the response paper that is due this week!!

According to the handout given, syncretistic contextualization seeks to accommodate various cultures, religions, and ideologies by selecting the best insights of all of them and evolving a faith that goes beyond any one of them - seems easy to understand yet difficult ... ?!?! =(

Worse still, got to use this contextualization method to apply it to one of the Chinese festival. Help, God? What to write? How to apply? What does the lecturer want? This lecturer is known for his very strict marking - maintaining consistenCy. I heard he will even fail his students!! Dead-meat! =(

Well, God does help lah - He sent people whom I can speak with to get better ideas about this syncretistic contextualization thingy ... giving me some ideas what they think this lecturer is expecting based on their experience ... advicing me how to approach this paper and so on ... BUT I've got to get everything together, and hopefully, I can write sense into the paper and generate out a paper between 500 to 800 words!!

OK, I'm claiming James 1:5 from God, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." I just hope that the inspiration will flow as I work on the paper, and the next prayer is that I don't fail the paper =) Help, Lord!

To all my classmates who are struggling with the same paper - all the best too!