25/05/2015

I went to Adam Road Presbyterian Church in the morning with Jontotan. I got there NOT-late which was rather miraculous, and was plunged almost immediately into one of the most lovely praise and worship segments of my life.

Behold our God
You are me Anchor (Based off Psalm 27 - my favourite Psalm! And Auntie Sheila's favourite Psalm as well!)
You alone can rescue (which I remember singing at the IBNO conference too)
Still my soul be still
In His Time (One of my favourite hymns after Be Thou My Vision - which reminds me of when Weiming asked me what my favourite hymn was and I said BTMV and he burst out "BEEEEEE THOU MAAA-III VIII-SIONNN")

The sermon was on Esther - on how in Esther's situation crisis was reversed to celebration, and the condemned Jews were saved from a state sanctioned massacre through seeming 'coincidence' (i.e. God's sovereign and merciful plan), and likewise, how our own death sentence because of sin has been reversed to eternal life because of Jesus' descent from Heaven to earth and even to death on the cross.

Philippians 2:5-11

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

After the sermon, I met some of the other youth in their church. Alicia, Jontotan's sister, is learning sign language to help the deaf in her church. There was a guy who recognized me from Track and Field Nationals, and another who is going to study Literature probably in the UK as well. There was an older man who was from GBC, and a girl who played the flute which she kept in a thunder-proof case, and another girl who used to be from SCGS as well and is studying medicine.

On the way to the Library after work, I got quite lost despite promising I wouldn't, but I managed to meander my way to the library, following my heart as well as my in built book radar. I passed by a trishaw and the raffles hotel which has a gravel porch and porters in turbans and seems to belong to a bygone day.

After lunch, the family and I watched TRIBES by Pangdemonium. A play about how a family adjusts and does not adjust to their deaf son - a play about empathy. We had a good laugh over how the Mum in the play and Mum shared so many idiosyncrasies, and also about the fact that our ex-neighbour Sue was acting in it and walked on stage in her bra (at which point Tim turned to look at me with a 'help-get-me-out-of-here' look on his face)

But the play also made me think about how much we often lack empathy for others. I know I do - I get impatient so easily, when my Dad tells me something he has told me so many times before, when people keep making fun of vegetarians, when when other people have also had a long and tiring day... It's so difficult to have empathy when out hearts were made so selfish. Jesus, please make me kind.

After that, I finished reading the Mill on the Floss and the ending made me feel so heavy.

"Oh, it is difficult, — life is very difficult! It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us, — the ties that have made others dependent on us, — and would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in Paradise, and we could always see that one being first toward whom — I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other. But I see — I feel it is not so now; there are things we must renounce in life; some of us must resign love. Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly, — that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. Love is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be poisoned. Don't urge me; help me, — help me, because I love you."

This part just rent through me like a knife, but it is so true. Our happiness should not - can not - be our first priority. We must live beyond ourselves.