A World of Choice

We are living in a world of choice. We, human, are designed to have free will. We can choose to be holy, or to be evil. We may choose to live, or to die. We may also choose to kill or to love. Of course all will come with the consequences and responsibilities that come with those choices….

I wonder why sometimes the choices are so hard to choose. Sometimes we hesitate too much till it was too late to make the decision. And to hesitate is also a decision by the way.

How hard it is to stay problem free, free of those hard choices.

Sometimes I would take my pick, and stood for it till the end of my life, I know I did it before. Some decision requires me to take my words back later in the future, while some doesn’t even matter when we looked back in the past.

I said this before to someone “I want to live peacefully, quietly”, I really hope it will happen before I really sleep peacefully.

I need time, I just need…. Time…..

Xpher

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Devine Master, grant that I may seek not
So much to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Realized that it is so hard to be St. Francis, though his life is so simple. Everyday he went to the farm, work, eat, pray, yet able to share, to smile, and to forgive.

St. Francis, pray for us.

Christopher.

Be my own boss!

It’s not exactly what the title said. I’m not entrepreneur, I didn’t start my own business. I’m now working for my father. That’s maybe the way to describe my job. Though at times I would say, “I’m the boss, not my father. My father is my subordinate.”

Time flies so fast here. I don’t even count the days, like when I was still in Singapore. Of course, because there’s no date for me to look forward to. My days are filled with “money money money”. Not that I’m obsessed with money, but that’s what my job requires me to.

Let me explain what I’m doing everyday. Give orders, manage the troops (trucks and laborers), go bank and withdraw money, pay “suppliers”, receive orders and send the things, receive money. Maybe one day I can explain one by one

Maybe it’s a cultural shock, I was quite surprised that 600 billions rupiah disappeared within 3 days. Today, 800 billions rupiah disappeared within a few hours, to pay our “suppliers”, though I withdrew at least 980 billions from the bank (from sales of course).

A few weeks ago, when my parents left me alone here, alone I took care of the company. Believe it or not, within 3 days I could speak Bahasa Sasak (the local “dialect” here) quite fluently, although limited to the rice and grain related vocabulary.

There are lots of changes happened in my life since my departure from Singapore, yet I’m home. I don’t feel lost, nor regret of leaving Singapore. There were times when I got upset with my father, and I thought “If you decide everything, why do you call me here? I might as well go back to Singapore, and find another way where I can do things in my own way…”

Yeah, I want to be the decision maker, yet there are things I still lack, experience is definitely the first one. There are times I thought I was right (I think I was really right), yet my “decision” or “opinion” is dismissed with “experience” as an “excuse”. Then again, I think it’s worth waiting one to two years before I really control the whole things.

Regards,

Christopher Heru

The Pope and Infallibility

This is my first post with religious theme, and of course I am talking about my religion, Christianity. This is by no mean a writing which represents any organizations including my Church. All the writings below are my opinion and my belief, equipped with facts I learned. If any of the facts I mentioned is wrong, please do tell me, and if you don’t agree with my opinion, do tell me!

One of the “difficult to accept” doctrines of the Catholic Church is the infallibility of the Pope (in Latin “Papa” which means “father”), the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome. Being infallible doesn’t mean that the Pope does not sin nor the Pope makes no mistake, it is impeccability (answers.com: Incapable of sin, perfect). Being infallible simply means that the Pope is protected by the Holy Spirit when he teaches doctrinal issues, thus what he teaches is always true and binding (must be accepted and obeyed by all). It doesn’t mean that everytime the Pope says anything, it is free from errors either. A teaching is infallible if the Pope intends it to be so, and only on doctrinal issues (church teachings).

Why it is important to have such doctrine? Jesus said that He would build His Church, and the gate of netherworld will not prevail against it (Mt 16:18). Jesus also said that He would be with us always, until the end of time (Mt 28:20). Will Jesus make mistake? No! If Jesus is with his Church till the end of time, will the Church teach something wrong? No! Will Jesus’ Church cease or disappear for a certain period of time, even 1 second? No!

Now the question is, which one is Jesus’ Church? There were so many churches in the world, one claiming to be The True One Church of Jesus Christ. No offense, there were only a few who can claim that the church has existed since the first century, starting from the Pentecost (descent of Holy Spirit): The Church of Christ (commonly called Roman Catholic Church) and the Eastern Orthodox Churches (Russian Orthodox, Orthodox Church of Antioch, Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and others. I apologize for not mentioning all). Only these churches were able to trace their lineage to the apostles, where the Roman Catholic Church traces its lineage all the way to the first Bishop of Rome, St. Peter. Check with historian.

If Jesus’ Church will not teach errors, how is it so? Does it mean everytime a priest, a preacher, or an individual teach in the name of the Church, it is infallible? No! There must be something or someone who is given the authority by Jesus to determine what is true at any point of time. Who is that? The Roman Catholic Church believes that it is the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter is the one given the authority.

Or was it the Bible? It is the inerrant, infallible Words of God. Shouldn’t it be THE authority? Suppose there are 2 people who read a particular passage in the Bible, both pray about it, reflect about it, and come up with different conclusions which is contradictory? Who is right or wrong?

By the way, how do we know that the Bible is the inerrant Words of God? It is because the Pope (the Church) says so. The Bible was consolidated and defined (not written) during the Synod of Rome on AD 382, under the authority of Pope Damasus I. By the way, there were 73 books in the Bible according to the Synod of Rome. How do we know the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (3 persons in 1 God)? It is because the Pope says so. How do we know that the Holy Eucharist is the True Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, not merely a symbol? It is because the Pope says so.

But there were bad Popes, big liars, sinners, even the current Pope made mistakes? Hey, the Pope is human just like us. Again, back to the first argument, the Pope is not impeccable, he is only infallible when he teaches doctrinal teachings. He won’t be infallible when he is teaching economy, astronomy, mathematics, etc. There are many sinners in the Catholic Church, in fact all human are sinners (with some exceptions like Christ Himself, and His Mother). There are a lot of bad priests, some bad bishops, and some bad Popes. Thankfully there weren’t many of them.

Check the following URL for more details on Papal Infallibility.

http://www.catholic.com/library/papal_infallibility.asp

Cheers,

Christopher Heru

16 December 2008 – Lijiang 2

Lijiang is a very small town. After roaming around for 1 day, you’re more or less finished with the city part. The most beautiful part of this small town is the surrounding, thus we traveled a distance (1 hour trip by bus) to the mountain to see the scenery. It was called the “Jade Dragon Snow Mountain” (玉龍雪山).

On the way, we dropped by a few places: jade & jewelry shop, lamma temple, and magical spring.

In front of lamma temple, I saw a group of old ladies (grannies) dancing and singing traditional song (I believe so, as I don’t understand it). From a distance I took pictures of them, and one of them noticed it. Soon they were asking for “donations”, as it is for old ladies in their 60’s or 70’s. I think they were shouting at me saying something like “you have taken photographs of us, now you need to donate certain amount of money”. Hey, it was scary, I won’t want to take photographs of old scary women, and still need to pay for it . Please, be realistic! A while later we had lunch near the place, needless to say, they were there again, “performing” the same “battle cry”. I didn’t even bother to go closer to them.

We went to the temple for the god of nature. They have unique culture. They believed that nature and human are siblings of different mothers. They were fighting against each other to inherit this earth when their father passed away, and god of nature won. However humans weren’t able to live without the nature, thus god of heaven facilitate the reconciliation between them so that humans would be able to co-exist with nature.

God of nature was upset that humans cut the trees, killed the animals, and even poluted the environment. Therefore, facilitated by god of heaven, humans will give sacrifices in forms of incense and other offerings to the god of nature for allowing them to co-exist in this earth. Therefore everytime there’s draught or any natural disaster, they would offer sacrifices to the god of nature.

Again, some of the writings there proved to me that their English isn’t up to the standard. I would at least make sure that some informations which I carved on the stone for visitors to see are proofread.

“…. They two wanted to marriage… He was been locked in home… The girl sent him several letters but whithout response….”

No, I didn’t mistype the above quotation.

After dinner, we went to the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The scenery is beautiful. Took a few pictures there, I asked the tour leader to help me to take my photo. The mountain’s highest peak is about 5500+ meters, and the peak is covered with snow. Not sure whether it is still covered with snow during summer. According to the locals, there were 1500+ people conquering Mt. Everest, while no one conquered the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain yet, although consulting wikipedia, there was one American expedition conquering the mountain.

For golf addicts, there is a golf range somewhere near. Might be interesting to golf on 4000+ meters altitude (or 5000+ meters, not sure the current altitude).

We watched a performance by Naxi people (minority race in China). It looks simple performances, yet when it was performed by so many people, with various traditional costumes, with the snow covered mountain as the background, it was great.

The tour leader asked us to meet at 2.30 pm, so I assumed that it was after the performance. However when the performance finished, my watch showed that it was 2.45 pm. I rushed through the crowd (there must be hundreds if not more than a thousand people watching the performance) to the meeting point (just outside the performance “theatre”). I thought they would be waiting for me only. By the way, as I’ve mentioned, the tour leader and the tour guide spoke Cantonese all the time, and the tour leader only spoke to me using English with Hong Kong accent (I needed to strain my ears to understand his English) after the briefing, thus I was concerned that I mistook his instruction for us to leave the performance just before the last show. I felt short-changed if it was the case, as we paid for the full performance, and usually the end of a performance will be the most interesting part. Later I found that a few people really left the show half way (15 minutes before the end of the show), but most still remained in the theatre (including me ).

After the show, we took the cable car to somewhere above (not yet the peak of the mountain). After cable car, we were still 15 minutes walk away from the destination, although we were given the choice of walking or take the golf car (and pay separately of course), I walked through the forest.

According to the tour guide, we were supposed to walk slowly, as we were on the high altitude (5000+ meters above sea level), thus we could get altitude sickness if we walk fast. We were supposed to eat chocolate too, needless to say, I ate lots of chocolate along the trip… Btw when I registered for the tour, the sales representative told me that I need to bring along chocolate, I would need it when we went to the mountain. I was thinking either “YES!!!” or “I would have eaten without you telling me!”…

During the slow walk through the forest, I prayed. God’s creation was so wonderful, beautiful, and I was thankful for the opportunity to witness the beauty and wonder. Sometimes you need to walk slowly to appreciate the beauty of the nature, to thank all the grace you’ve been given.

Later at night, we went to see another performance (for additional 180 RMB). It was a dance performance showing the culture of the ethnic minorities: Naxi, Bai, Lisu, Miao, and Yi. There were a few interesting tradition in these cultures, can’t remember which is which.

In their culture, women are the head of the family (matrilineal). Women would work in the fields, take care of the children, do the housework. It would be humiliating and embarrassing if a woman ask the help of the husband to do any of the work. I’m starting to consider migrating to this region, I wonder what the men do.

There was a tradition where man and woman can sleep together without marriage. The man would stay in the woman’s house for the night, and go back to his mother’s house during the day to work. The children belong to the woman’s.

Phew, it’s a long day… tomorrow is Dali. I was so excited about it, thinking about the series “Demi God and Semi Devil”.

Cheers

Christopher Heru