happy valentine's

I am probably one of the last hold-outs who don't believe there are that many born differences between men and women that people like to make fun about, given we all hail from the same human stock and share the same fundamental working of body and soul, men or women. Now that I am in my early 50's, however, I am admitting that men and women do behave differently in many ways, manifested and perhaps reinforced by the many different roles we play in years. I'll leave it to my dear wife to tell what roles she perceives me playing, but here are those she impresses on me from day to day:

A Rule Setter 

There might be plenty of good food in the refrigerator, but if you think they are for pleasurable random consumption, you are wrong. "The bbq meat is for dinner, the cake is for breakfast..." Snatch the wrong thing, and you hear that rule repeated over and over again.

A Mother

Remember President George Bush Sr. once said he never likes broccoli and would not have eaten it if his mother did not force him to? One day after I raised my occasional complaint about some vegetables I don't really like to eat and she gave me the usual "eat you should because they are good for you" lecture, I suddenly realized I was in poorer plight than old George, because he finally can eat whatever he likes without his mother's presence, but I still can't.

A Vigilante Environmentalist

"You forget to turn the light switch off again..." even though I only do it once in a hundred times.

  

A Health Alarmist 

One latest piece of health science finding (or hearsay), or a spike in her blood pressure will trigger a new round of health panic and (verbal) commitment to healthful habits again. 

An Absolute Conformist

"Nobody has done it this way before," she'll always object whenever I suggest some innovative way of doing things. If we have children, none of them will grow up to be another Thomas Edison, I don't think.

A Good Citizen 

"Don't drive too fast," she'll say,

with Pragmatic Reasoning

"lest you get caught by the police (and pay a hefty fine)."

Joking aside (one thing I am not sure of is if she's a humorist or not. I'll be in big trouble if she's not), I personally think the following lyrics from the song "She's Always a Woman to Me" by Billy Joel makes the most apt description of what a woman is: (to hear the song, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZeGnV43ys&feature=related )

She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes.
And she can ruin your faith with her casual lies.
And she only reveals what she wants you to see.
She hides like a child, but she's always a woman to me.
She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you.
She can ask for the truth but she'll never believe.
And she'll take what you'll give her as long as it's free.
Yeah, she steals like a thief, but she's always a woman to me.

Oooh, she takes care of herself.
She can wait if she wants, she's ahead of her time.
Oooooh, and she never gives out, and she never gives in,
She just changes her mind.
And she'll promise you more than the Garden of Eden.
And she'll carelesly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding.
But she'll bring out the best and the worst you can be.
Blame it all on yourself, 'cause she's always a woman to me.

Oooh, she takes care of herself.
She can wait if she wants, she's ahead of her time.
Oooooh, and she never gives out, and she never gives in,
She just changes her mind.
She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel.
But she can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool.
And she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree.
And the most she will do is throw shadows at you,
But she's always a woman to me.

Yes my wife is always the ultimate woman to me!!

Happy Valentine's!

rick's tweets iv

Another batch of Pastor Rick's "tweets of wits" to share with you: 

My dad's old cliche for saving money: "Use it up; wear it out; make it do, or do without!"

John Stott's joke on why he never married: "I'd rather want what I don't have, than have what I don't want!"

No one can control your emotions without your permission. Who are you allowing to ruin your day?

Some things must be believed BEFORE you can see them. Ask any architect, artist, entrepreneur, or athlete.

To discover the will of God you don’t know, do the will of God you do know.

If you always feel comfortable reading God's Word, you're either not reading ALL of it, or you aren't letting it sink in.

Just as night conceals earth but reveals the universe, your dark times can reveal truths about God you wouldn't see otherwise.

Heresy is often the over-emphasis of a single truth while ignoring other truths.

As I baptized his parents, a child asked me "When can I get 'advertised' for Jesus?" That's baptism!

You don't have to be a giant to slay one. You just need to shoot straight. Remember David.

Use your head in managing yourself. Use your heart in managing others.

Celebrities, like poor photographs, are usually overexposed and underdeveloped.

If you think God is your co-pilot, you're in the wrong seat.

Being busy proves nothing. It's WHY you're busy that reveals the real you.

More will join a political protest than be a witness since it's far easier to demonstrate FOR Jesus than demonstrate Jesus.

To develop friendships, stop trying to be interesting & just be interested in others.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

You can't fall when you're on your knees.

Blaming God for evil is like blaming the sun for darkness.

To be truly Christian, you must begin with Jesus, not anyone else. Jesus interprets Paul & all theologians, not vice-versa!

My goal has never been to save the world but to make sure everyone in the world knows there is a Savior.

if you are going to san juan capistrano (again)

In memory of a couple of guys I used to hike with, and in celebration of the spotless driving record I have kept since, this is a re-run of a writing I did 3 years ago:

Go down south on Interstate 5, get off at Ortega Highway, turn inland for about 7 and a half miles, you will see the Caspers Wilderness Park. Drive in, park your car, enjoy a great hiking with sunny California blue skies and rocky chaparral hills.

On your way back on Ortega Highway, go past the I-5, the first traffic light you'll meet is at a street named Del Obispo. Make a hurried left turn, drive a couple hundred yards down the road, turn right into a Sizzler Restaurant, enjoy a hearty salad bar lunch for only $6.99, if you call the manager by his name and told him you had called him earlier and he agreed to give you and your pals that special discount. 

Two weeks later you receive a letter from some P.O. Box in North Hollywood. It's an official looking paper with 4 color pictures in the center: 1) A driver with a hiking cap that looks like me; 2) The back sight of car with a license plate that looks like mine; 3) A blue Highlander (that looks like mine) right behind the demarcation line of a traffic intersection, with a left-turn light shining red on the corner; 4) That blue Highlander turning left in the middle of the intersection, with that same left-turn light still shining red. The heading of the letter says: NOTICE OF VIOLATION--Automated Red Light Enforcement System.

And that will cost you $366; $423 if you choose to go to the traffic school to avoid the penalty point.

So, like my wife chastised me with glee: What's the hurry, man. Slow it down, brothers, especially when you are in San Juan Capistrano, near the intersection of Ortega Highway and Del Obispo Street (see Google map: http://bit.ly/w5jYqo).

San Francisco (the song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehn516SMBzI&feature=related)

If you're going to San Francisco 

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair 

If you're going to San Francisco 

You're gonna meet some gentle people there 

                         . . .

San Juan Capistrano (Ivan, I am still waiting for you to sing this for me)If you're going to San Juan Capistrano

Be prepared to part some money there

If you're going to San Juan Capistrano

You're gonna meet some hidden camera there 

Time moves ever so stealthily... whiff... another 3 years have just gone by...

While retrieving this old writing of mine, I did some fact checking and found:

* The Sizzler at San Juan Capistrano is no longer--it closed business some time ago

* The San Francisco online video is still there, but preceded/shadowed with advertisement now

* And who would have thought, we just bought a new house in the city of San Juan Capistrano a couple weeks ago!

meditation

I became seriously interested in meditation about 10 years ago after reading the book "Transcendental Meditation" by the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the namesake movement world wide and one-time "spiritual mentor" of the Beatles during the 1960's. Though fascinated by what it says–TM is such a wonderful thing it is the cure-all panacea for personal happiness and world peace–I decided to go cautious on it, being aware of the trappings such mythical practice might bring. I reasoned if all roads lead to Rome, as the religious-equal-righters like to say, then there ought to be something similar in Christianity. So I started Googling (back when Google was not a verb yet) the key words "Christian meditation" over the net, and voila! I did find something.

Called "contemplative prayer" or "centering prayer," the contemporary Christian meditation has its roots in Christian mysticism that was practiced by the monks and hermits in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century AD. It has theological grounding and many practitioners throughout Christian history but somehow got lost or obscured by the Church in the past few hundred years. It was rediscovered and revived by a few modern mystics and Catholic monks such as Thomas Merton, John Main, Thomas Keating et al. since the 1950's and had become movements of their own, with seminars, retreats, publications and meditation groups all over the world today.

Without going through much of the "Spiritualese," Christian meditation, in essence, is a form of prayer. It is the ultimate form of prayer in that after we exhaust our heart and mind seeking and getting acquainted with Christ, the only way left to share and express our love and gratitude with God is through a way of silence. It is the opening of our whole being to God beyond thoughts, words, and emotions, a total self-surrender that frees us from making ourselves or even our relationship with God the center of the universe. 

Unlike Eastern meditation, Christian meditation does not emphasize the technique or methodological part of the practice: No yoga-like sitting or breath counting, for example, though it does not oppose to them either. Neither does it aim at entering the dissociative, "all nothingness" state of mind. The emphasis instead is on the intent to be intimate and rest in the peace of God's presence.    

So here is the simple practice guideline from the World Community for Christian Meditation website I've been following for the past 9 years or so:

Sit down. Sit still with your back straight. Close your eyes lightly. Then interiorly, silently begin to recite a single word – a prayer word or mantra. We recommend the ancient Christian prayer-word "Maranatha". Say it as four equal syllables. Breathe normally and give your full attention to the word as you say it, silently, gently, faithfully and above all - simply. The essence of meditation is simplicity. Stay with the same word during the whole meditation and from day to day. Don't visualise but listen to the word as you say it. Let go of all thoughts (even good thoughts), images and other words. Don’t fight your distractions but let them go by saying your word faithfully, gently and attentively and returning to it immediately that you realise you have stopped saying or it or when your attention is wandering.

I do this for 30 minutes every morning before breakfast, then read my daily devotional, then do a short (voiced) prayer. Then I get on to my daily life.

And I haven't gone insane so far :)

* If you are interested, here are some books related to contemporary Christian meditation:

"Open Mind, Open Heart" by Thomas Keating

"Seeds of Contemplation" by Thomas Merton

"Intimacy with God" by Thomas Keating

"Jesus, the Teacher Within" by Laurence Freeman

"The Cloud of Unknowing" by anonymous 14th century English mystic

halloween fun & tribute

Halloween humor...

Q. What do skeletons say before they begin dining?

A. Bone appetit!

Q. What monster flies his kite in a rain storm?

A. Benjamin Frankenstein.

Q. What do you call a skeleton who won't work?

A. Lazy bones.

Q Why do mummies make good employees?

A. They get all wrapped up in their work.

Q. Why are there fences around cemeteries?

A. Because people are dying to get in.

Q. What's a vampire's favorite fast food?

A. Guy with very high blood pressure.

Q. Why did the vampire subscribe to the Wall Street Journal?

A. He heard it had great circulation. 

Q. How did the priest make holy water?

A. He took some tap water and boiled the hell out of it.

For the more serious minded...

The origin of Halloween can be traced back to a Celtic festival in pre-medieval Europe, as well as a Pope decreed day of remembrance for all the saints that had died for the Church, hence the name "All Hallow's Day," and "All Hallow's Eve," or Halloween. It had since been influenced by various pagan customs and ultimately become a secular and much commercialized party day in North America and around the world. Some Christians avert celebrating it due to its "ghoulish" nature, for one thing. However, the day ought to carry some historic significance for all Christians, if not for the whole Western world: It was on this day, almost 500 years ago, the Protestant Reformation movement that split the Christendom into Catholic and Protestant camps, all got started: 

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a German priest/theologian, posted his famous 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg, a little town in today's eastern Germany, to display his objection to the "indulgences" the Church was selling. An indulgence was a printed permit or coupon with monetary value of personal confession of sin. The idea was sinners could buy indulgences to release them from divine punishment, or "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs," went the commercial jingle of the day. The Church used such "fund raisers" to collect revenues to help rebuilding St. Peter's basilica in Rome, or as political payback by some local bishops to Rome for their clergical assignments. Though Luther's intention was to dispute and argue the subject within the Church, copies of these theses got spread quickly throughout Europe (making the controversy one of the first in history to be fanned by the printing press) and unleashed a reform movement that would eventually effect all political and social structures of the Western world.

Besides objection to the indulgences, Martin Luther had many other theological differences with the Roman Church of the day. His studies of the Bible, especially the epistles of St. Paul, had led him to the conclusion that Christ was the sole mediator between God and man and that forgiveness of sin and salvation are effected by God's Grace alone and are received by faith alone on the part of man. This point of view turned him against scholastic theology, which had emphasized man's role in his own salvation, and against many church practices that emphasized justification by good works.

Luther also condemned the vow of celibacy and, as a former monk, he married a former nun that he helped escape from a convent in 1525, when he was 42 and she was 26. By all accounts theirs was a happy marriage, with 6 children. One of their descendants was Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany after World War I and before the Nazi takeover.

Another great accomplishment by Luther is his translation of Bible from Latin to German language. He is not the first one to do such work, but is by far the greatest according to historians and literary scholars. The Luther Bible contributed to the emergence of the modern German language and is regarded as a landmark in German literature.

According to American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, these are Luther's most important theological insights:

1. Humankind is entrapped in the ancient temptation to play God (Genesis 3:5), violating the first of all divine commandments, "You shall have no other gods."

2. Liberation from this original sin comes through faith of at least two people ... one who tells another of Christ as the source of freedom from sin, and one who, so addressed, affirms faith in Christ alone.

3. The Christian life is one in which, though we are sinners by nature, we are at the same time saints by God's grace and love.

4. The Christian life is lived in two realms that belong equally to God ... church and society. This calls for Christian commitment to education, fair economic practices, and a life of mission to the ungodly.

holy wholesome

I came to know the word "compartmentalization" well during the 1970's or 80's, when stories of late president John Kennedy's philandering ("womanizing" in today's term) scandals began to surface. "How could a person of such presidential caliber act so ludicrously irresponsible at the same time," marveled the journalist when reviewing many of the former president's outlandish escapades. "Through compartmentalization," he concluded.

That certainly threw a bad light on the word. Viewed more neutrally, though, the word could simply mean segregating things into different categories so they can be handled accordingly. And don't we all do that lots of the time: we prioritize things to do, we don't talk shop after work, we put on different hats to play different roles our job or family duties require, etc.?

Social scientists tell us civilization only begins when man does not have to spend all his time growing his own food, making his own clothes, and other living basics, but is able to concentrate on a certain "trade" that provides specialized service to others, and vice versa. Thus, an organized society where everyone has the luxury to develop and refine their specialty and that in turn propels the society to ever more advanced stages.  

Today we live in one of the most, if not the most, organized societies in human history that values tremendously each person's specialty. Our education system encourages people to find and develop their talent as early as possible to become as great as possible in their chosen field. I remember the movie "The Fugitive," where the fugitive tries very hard to explain to the detective that he is really an innocent man, and the detective's short, no-nonsense reply to that is "I Don't Care," because his job, and his job alone, is to capture him as a criminal. It is a line intended for the dramatic, of course, but deep inside I think we all give a silent consent and even some admiration for the professionalism it displays. The term "generalist" has almost become a dirty word in our specialist dominated society: If you are good at everything, you are good at nothing.  

But are things as separable as they seem, and even if they are, isn't the value of the whole greater than those individually? How do we "separate sin from the sinner" as if sin were just like a cancerous tumor we could easily remove from the patient with one swift cut? And when the boss compliments his employees as great talents (i.e., specialists) that contribute to the success of the company, isn't he the biggest generalist-in-charge who reaps the greatest benefits of the company?

I have done computer programming half of my professional life, and one thing I have been reluctant to do is to use those "object-oriented-programming" languages for my projects, not the least because I am usually the single person who creates and maintains the code, therefore has no need to make it "object-able," meaning portable and reusable, following the strict structural rules decreed by OOP. Rather, since I know every piece of my code, I can tinker and reuse them as I need in more efficient way than if I ever write them in OOP language.

But then I started programming Android apps and I was forced to use the biggest OOP language of them all--Java--and I very quickly understood the benefits of OOP and why the whole industry has been pushing it for decades. Through OOP structure, it has created a tremendous, reusable library that takes care of all the nitty-gritty of the low (device drivers) and the high (user interface) of application programming. No longer do you need to tailor-program in the particulars of individual hardware pieces or reinvent the nicest user interface of the world. They've all been done and sitting in the library for you. All that is required of you is your creative application idea and calling these components from the library into action. I am now a firm believer that one day everyone will be able to write a smart phone app to implement a good idea of his/her own, because the supporting tools will have been made so easy.

It seems we've come close to reaping the fruition of the Industrial Revolution then, from the day when we try to make individual machines work to the day when an assortment of machines can coordinate to work for us; from the day when we each have to bury ourselves in tedious bits-and-parts job to the day when we can raise our head and look around to see what fun things we can do for the day. Machines working for man, not the other way around, isn't that the end goal all along?

Indeed it would be foolish today to try to compete raw human intellect with that of computers' when IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue had beaten our world chess champion and artificial intelligence machine Watson had overpowered our Jeopardy wizards on TV, and a 10 year old with a smart phone at hand can Google anything anyone wants to know and become an instant walking dictionary. It would be like a professional racer trying to out-run a motor vehicle when the latter was first invented in the early industrial age.   

But the human mind in any case is more than the combination of discrete functional blocks of memory, logic making, image processing, etc. that we architecture our computers to be, but something transcendent, vague but substantive, that morphs into intangibles such as intuition, passion, love and wisdom. Back in the "Fugitive" movie, the detective doesn't shut off his conscientious mind like a computer turns off its logic gate from 1 to 0 after saying those steely words, but keeps observing and ruminating, then concludes, not without a pinch of "gut-feelings" blended in with his cool logical analysis, that the man is innocent, and then determines and moves to help and nab the real fugitive with him.

And we all applaud and exhilarate in our heart, because we now know the detective does care, after all, as we all do, about justice being served, innocent people rescued. And his compassion, tenacity, guts and wits earn even more respect and admiration from us than that cold hard professionalism we saw earlier.   

Larry Bird, one of the greatest athletes in NBA history who led the Boston Celtics to 3 time championships in the 1980's, was called "simply the best" by the Time Magazine in one of its cover stories. Yet Bird said of himself, "I don't shoot the best, I don't rebound the best, and I sure don't have the quickest feet on defense..." But he knows when to shoot, when to pass, and when to magically intercept a ball... all things combined, a wholesome way of playing that makes him the best of the best.

So, let's continue to pursue the best we can with our innate talent, but remember deep down inside we are not that different; use machines, but don't think like one; set and let the Calendar program remind us of things to-do, but do them creatively. Be wholesome, as our Father in heaven is wholesome... as it is said somewhere something like that :)

word play

Hope you find the following English "word play" amusing:

Q: What will happen if the DOW average falls any further?
A: They'll add an N to the end of it!

Q: What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?
A: "Dam."

Q: What do prisoners use to call each other?
A: Cell phones.

Q: What do you get from a pampered cow?
A: Spoiled milk.

Q: What do you call twin policemen?
A: Copies.

A neutron goes into a bar and asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender replies, "For you, no charge."

Two atoms are walking down the street and they run into each other. One says to the other, "Are you all right?" "No, I lost an electron!" "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm positive!"

If Olivia Newton John married Wayne Newton, then divorced him to marry Elton John, she'd be Olivia Newton John-Newton John.

There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Arbitrator: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's. (Arby traitor)
Counterfeiters: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets. (Counter fitters)
Heroes: What a guy in a canoe does. (He rows)

Now it's Chinese word play time:

「夫」對「天」說：「我總算盼到了出頭之日！」
「熊」對「能」說：「怎麼著窮成這樣啦？四個熊掌全賣了！」
「丙」對「兩」說：「你家什麼時候多了一個人，結婚了？」
「乒」對「乓」說：「你我都一樣，一等殘廢軍人。」
「兵」對「丘」說：「兄弟，踩上地雷了吧，兩腿咋都沒了？」
「王」對「皇」說：「當皇上有什麽好處？你看，頭髮都白了！」
「口」對「回」說：「親愛的，都懷孕這麽久了，也不說一聲！」
「也」對「她」說：﹕「當老闆了？出門還帶秘書！」
「日」對「旦」說：「你什麼時候學會玩滑板了？」
「果」對「裸」說：「哥們兒，你穿上衣服還不如不穿！」
「由」對「甲」說：「你什麼時候學會倒立了？」