lets be practical/feeding time

foods to beat depression:

walnuts- bcos they have omega 3 fatty acids
fatty fish, i.e. mackerel, bluefish (what??), wild salmon, tuna - also bcos of omega 3 fatty acids
low fat dairy, skimmed milk, yogurt, low-fat cheeses- for vitamin D and protein :)
whole grains (complex carbohydrates that help the body release serotonin) eg. brown rice!
green tea <3 de-stress
turmeric? ooh
dark chocolate (small pieces at a time tho)
SOY PRODUCTS muahahhaha yey
essential antioxidants:
beta-carotene: broccoli, carrots, pumpkin, spinach, sweet potato
vitamin C: blueberries, broccoli, grapefruit, kiwi, oranges, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes
vitamin E: margarine, nuts and seeds, vegetable oils, wheat germ

okay.

cultural captivity

A lookinsideyourself identity, is
1) Incoherent
our feelings are mixed up, we want and do not want at the same time
2) Unstable- we're always changing
"[therefore] you're always a fool, you're always an idiot, you're always a jerk"
3) Illusory (to say that my identity comes from my inner feelings)
because of #1
therefore, the identity you project stems from the feelings you choose
and the feelings we choose? the norms we okay are shaped by the culture that we are in- we reject things inside us that society shuns, we say that's not me! based on the moral grid (what is ok and not ok) based on what our culture applauds and locks up. Truth is we are saints and sinners at the same time
4) "I've got ten seconds to justify my existence" vs. I know who I am in God. Man has become the measure of all things, including himself, and that is a crushing burden.
"What do you want to be in the future?"
5) Excluding
success pitted against the next man
but yishanhaiyouyishangao so which shan are you really?

where does your self worth go when people let you down?
only if you have the esteem of someone you esteem will you have self esteem
only if you have the adoration of someone who adores you - that's heaven

he used the example of a deck of cards- your identity is like a deck of cards, but is Jesus at the top of the deck? Actually I think God is more than the top card, because what is the top card but just another card like the others. God is print on all the cards and if your whole deck is a God-printed deck, God is in control of all aspects of your life, then he is truly on top.

Moksha

The word ashram (also ashrama) comes from the Sanskrit root srama which means "to toil", the a prefix indicates the negative, thereforeashram means "not to toil".

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ashrama


Sage Markandeya's Ashram and the Milky Ocean
Folio 5 from the Durga Charit
Attributed to the "Durga Master"
Jodhpur, ca. 1780-90
48.3 x 129.5 cm
Mehrangarh Museum Trust

http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/GardenCosmos/GardenCosmos.htm 

crushing

on days when things feel too much to bear :)
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Rejoice in the Lord always! And again I say rejoice!
Rejoice! Rejoice! and again I say rejoice!

tyvm to sunday school songs + Audrey Assad :') #soulcomfort

i have found a way to beat sunday night blues

Souls of men, why will ye scatter
like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
from a love so true and deep?
Was there ever kindest shepherd
half so gentle, half so sweet,
as the Savior who would have us
come and gather round his feet?

There's a wideness in God's mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind.
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal he will not own.

Pining souls, come nearer Jesus,
and O come not doubting thus,
but with faith that trusts more bravely
his great tenderness for us.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word:
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our Lord.

---

Words: Frederick William Faber, 1862

mmmmm

+

Hang(in)g there

Jane

混血儿

Brothers and Sisters

Far off hymns and funeral marches sound the same again
My ears are worn and weary strangers in a strange land
And I need a new song
I need a new song

And all I am is breath and vapour and shadows
And all I have is what I need, this I know
That I need a new song
Yeah I need a new song

Waiting in the night for you Lord
Burning in the sky for you, you ohh

Prayers and aching in my body, in my lungs
Swear the bones around my heart are coming undone
Cause I, I need a new song
I need a new song

So I'm waiting in the night for you Lord
Burning in the sky for you, you
Waiting in the night for you, you
I'm burning in the sky for you

Words are failing
My melodies falter
My voice is breaking
My heart is burning
'Cause blessing and honour
Glory and power
Praise and worship
They belong to you

I need a new I need a new
Need a new I need a new
Need a new I sing a new song

Need a new I need a new
Need a new I need a new
Need a new so I sing a new song, yeah
I need a new I need a new
I need a new need a new
I need a new so I sing a new song

Far off hymns and funeral marches

All I am is breath and vapour and shadows
And all I have is what I need and this I know

Interesting

The spinning-wheel enables us to identify ourselves with cores. The millionaires imagine that money can bring them anything in the world. But it is not so. At any moment death might come and snuff them out…. Losing one's life…is not the same thing as shedding 'self'. One has to learn to efface self or the ego voluntarily and as a sacrifice in order to find God. The spinning-wheel rules out exclusiveness. It stands for all inclusiveness. It stands for all including the poorest. It, therefore, requires us to be humble and to cast away pride completely. (H, 13-10-1946, p. 345)

but
it is not the True solution

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for ours sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Still I'd love to buy a pair of charkha earrings... :)

Clinging

God , I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king of the mountain. I haven’t meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans. I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content. Wait, Israel, for God . Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always! Psalm 131 Message Version

O Lord , my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.  But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.   O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 131 ESV

cullings

1 Samuel 1:1-1:8

84 I have chosen to discuss Hannah's prayer after Daniel's to remind both myself and you that we shall never outgrow the need of childlike prayer for personal needs.

85 One year Hannah left her food untouched. Tears welled from her eyes as she stared at the meat. Her appetite had gone. Even Elkanah's tender assurances of love could not remove the load of depression that crushed her.

I think of this and I think of the many times that people have hoped to be the magic spark that will snap me out of a depressive spell. They see me zone out or my expression change...and they try to smile and make merry hoping to chase the dark clouds away. You know the irony is, what actually helps more is someone to sit in the dumps with you. At least for a while. "Damn sian right", Jinks said to me the other day. That helped- brought me back to earth, to realizing that yup life just stinks sometimes. But that's only a short term solution...living in the pits forever doesn't cut it. But when we're all in it together, who will pull us out?

85 Hannah's plight is touching. But its very ordinariness raises the question: Why should so trivial a matter need to be recorded? Why should it form the opening bars in the long symphony of Israel's greatness?...In the long story of kings, battles, sieges and the exploits of the great, it tells of a God who cares for the poor and the downtrodden, of a God to whom no hurt is too trivial to demand his care. God is indeed the God of the sparrows and the lilies.

86 Hannah took the initiative and God responded. Is this really the way it was? Does Hannah's prayer represent an exception to the rule? Who caused her to be barren ("the LORD had closed her womb")? Who allowed her to be subject to ridicule - and why?

Hannah's child was to be an unusual figure in history. He was by sheer moral and spiritual power in one lifetime to cleanse idolatry from Israel, to exalt the only true God throughout the realm and to establish a monarchy.

Unusual circumstances were needed to produce such a man. Greatness was to be formed in a special mold. From early childhood Samuel was to be subject to the influences of worship, of Eli's moral guidance and o the voice of God. When in her desperation Hannah vowed that any child born to her would be given back to God, she little knew the consequences her vow would have. But God knew. He had allowed her too come to a pitch of desperation for this very reason.

2 Corinthians 12, Isaiah 6, John 21, Exodus 14-15

87 He may change the course of history through your pain, but you may never discover its wider meaning

88 What you can always experience is a deepening relationship with him. For you may be sure that the pain has a purpose in your own life. It is divine surgery that, if you respond to it appropriately, will heal and correct defects in your Christian growth. But it is essential that you respond with trust in the mercy and goodness of God. No bitterness or rebellion must be permitted to cloud your vision of him even when he seems not to answer. Otherwise the pain designed to enrich and deepen your relationship with him might have the opposite effect as you allow yourself the luxuries of self-pity and doubt.

89 "Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (Jas 1:17) It is essential that we recognize what we own him. Otherwise his gifts will bring us no joy. Samuel, I am sure, was a lifelong joy for Hannah

I almost didn't cull these lines. Probably because they seem so counter intuitive. If pain is a mountain, it seems natural to congratulate oneself  when you make it to the top; good job Hannah for surviving another day; good job Hannah for hanging in there. Oh how I cringe. Atop a mountain how can one still have eyes for oneself, are we so blind to what lies below and above and beyond! Any triumph through pain can only be greeted with how marvelous are Your ways how good you are to us, Heavenly Father. These are words I am still learning to say.

90 As Christians we often make two mistakes. We moan fluently to people around us. This may be the lesser evil. Friends can be counted on to take a certain amount of moaning. But we are to bring our griefs to God, and it is here that we ail so lamentably. We come to him. That is to say, we exercise faith. We believe he is, that he is there, so to speak. We also believe that he can hear us. But our far of God and our reverence for him inhibit us. Can the God of the heavens really care about my little affairs? (Does a mother care about a three-year-old's scratched finger?)

91 But to tremble and to be struck dumb need not go together. Great as he is, he is also tender and gentle. And since he is aware of the subtlest nuance of pain in our hearts we need not hide it from him. We may be angry or resentful toward him, but whether our resentment is justifiable or not, it is better expressed than hidden. Does it shock you, once you see him, to see how horrendous your thoughts really are?

91 Peace came to Hannah. Eli's words of comfort were God's way of telling her that he had heard. Weeks might pass before she became pregnant, but for her the issue was settled.

91 But there are other times when it is harder for me to know that peace. No flood of assurance flows through my limbs and lifts me to my feet. I am asked, "Can you trust me?" "Yes, Lord," I will answer. "Then trust me and leave the matter with me. You now who I am." And with that I have to be satisfied

This is my favorite part but also the hardest - we think that trust is based on favor; I trust you because I like you. Not entirely, trust is based on knowing that He is Good and he loves us
(Romans 8)

Excerpts taken from John White, People in Prayer, Inter Varsity Press, 1977

was he singing to a girl or a place?

this way back from sec 3/4
miss this song

this

:'(
breaks my heart
what I said to Sharon on newyearseve- I don't want to be a normal Christian

for all my gals out there

“This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive.
Love is not possessive.
Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
Love is not touchy.
Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.” 
― Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman

honesty smells like

<food poisoning in Mumbai 15th Dec>

Being sick
I think I've written about this before, this helplessness wretched state by which you know that your body has been invaded, and is not captive by an insidious malignant foreign force that is in you so much that it is you. And you rail and rail against losing that last shred of self control - but the poison spreads, and dictates your consumption, expulsion, the very climate of your being. The worse thing about being sick is not having any assurance that you will get better. In desperation, the primary urge to grab hold of a light at the end of the tunnel can drive people to do crazy things. In that place, the patient is (hopefully) no fool, and knows that the sick cells will not/cannot disappear overnight. Healing takes time, yes; they merely want to know that everything is going to be ok. To have someone to hold them and stroke their hair and speak in a still small voice, that they love them. I want to be at home, with my mum. It makes the pain so much more bearable - instead of this dim room where my friends care but to a point, or don't know how to comfort me. Perhaps they don't even think that I need it. Am I asking for sympathy? Not exactly, love goes beyond, to real empathy, to holding your hand and standing right by you till the end. Can I be that friend- that certain person.