bad day

yesterday i wasn't having such a good day. i had to wake up early on a monday morning...rush through a workout and then rush through my hour-long commute in the morning in order to make it to my training session at work on time.

i did make it on time. our first lecturer did not. overall the morning wasn't too bad. i was restless but i made every effort to listen. but then our last lecturer was also late. and our lunch got lost. i was feeling a bit light-headed and tired.

well after work i had to go to teach bible study, as i do on mondays. one attendee had already sms'd me to say he couldn't make it. i toyed with the idea of cancelling, as i wasn't feeling that up to it anyway...but before i knew it, it was 4 o'clock and i'd neither cancelled nor prepared. well, i thought, no problem, i'll just quickly go over my notes for the chapter were studying.

as you can guess, i didn't have any notes. or at least not with me. there is a lady named laverna who is truly an angel. a pet project of hers a couple of years ago was to put a lot of study materials online. i checked out her website to see if there was anything on the study we were doing.

the chapter was revelation 16 - the seven angels and the seven plagues that finish God's wrath.

we don't often think of God as being wrathful. and yet we shouldn't forget that though God is a deity of love and mercy, He is also pure and just. He cannot condone those who suppress His truth and oppress His people - and it is against those these plagues are poured out. but you cannot understand this chapter without going way back into the old testament, and studying leviticus 26 - the blessings and the curses. someone may look at this chapter and feel uncomfortable about the harshness of it, but again, it's something that must be taken into context. the context of God revealing Himself to an entire nation, of rescuing them out of slavery, sustaining them in the desert, and performing miracle after miracle in their sight. of His longing to create, out of that nation, a priesthood of people who would then carry His love to the rest of the world.

as i started driving from work i was feeling worse and worse. my throat was feeling dry and scratchy and my skull felt tight. and already my stomach was feeling weird from the late lunch/heavy lunch. i really didn't want to teach that day. but i went through it anyway and i covered about half of the chapter, talking about how each plague tied back to something in the old testament. one of my friends was really amazed by it. he's been studying for about a year and ready to get baptized soon, and after the study was 0ver i was really blessed by his enthusiasm for studying the scripture and also the fact that he's already sharing his faith in God and in the bible to his family. i'm so proud of him. it kind of made the whole day worthwhile.

it's amazing how God can do that.

i'm hoping He'll do it again today...

the world's shortest personality test

Your Personality Profile

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise. Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself. You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books. You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life. You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world. A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

life, the universe, and everything

everyone has the same question, at some point in their lives, if not for a large part of it. ph.d.'s in philosophy spend their entire lives on it, physicists wonder about it too.

why are we here?

i can answer that question. not because i'm wise but this just what i've learned, through everything that's been good or painful in my life. i'm not that old i know...but i think when i am older, when i've reached the twilight of my life, my perspective on this will only have deepened, not shifted.

so what is it? it's to give of ourselves.

oh, this may sound ridiculous to some, overly naive, overly simplistic perhaps. but i know with absolute conviction that this is truth.
we are here to have a purpose and a meaning. an interconnectedness. to affect each other, cause reactions...in a good way. to live to learn to grow...and give.

if vocabulary were cleaner i'd say it was all about love. but the word "love" is murky. it's hard to always conceptualize love as it should be - pure and unselfish. therefore i say "to give", for that is love in it's purest form. giving of yourself to your world, to your family, to your friends and to that one you love the most. to your creator. to complete strangers.

and by no means does all this giving mean self-sacrifice! hardly. for it's also accepting what the world has to offer. without shame or reservation.

this is a universal principle: active love. i believe all of creation is built on this foundation and our lives have no true meaning until we recognize it.

i cannot say that i've come to live this way fully. certainly not. but now i understand what it means to live, what it means to be a part of this world. and my goal will always be that my life be in harmony with this principle.

john donne once wrote that no man is an island. that when someone dies, not to ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for you. that's not meant in a morbid way, just to mean that we all have value to each other, whether we recognize it or not. but i think we'll never live our lives fully until we do.

Orientation

The other morning I met about a hundred people all at once. I can't say I remember all of their names, but I was extremely impressed to be in that room in such company. A hundred people all with the drive to make a difference in the world by addressing and improving specific health concerns all over the world: in every race, class, age group and cirumstance.

One man works for an NGO in Delhi in social marketing for population control. Another a physican who works in the ER of a small hospital outside of Philly. Pediatricians, internists, oncologists. A woman who works for the Red Cross, another for CARE International. Others work in various African countries to help stop the AIDS epidemic. A research nurse, another clincial research coordinator like me. An employee of a pharmaceutical company. A lawyer, a lobbyist. Goverment workers employed in various agencies such as the National Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. Pathologists.

Mothers with grown children and mothers with babies. Young fathers and older ones. Singles in their late twenties, newlyweds. Military veterans, or the spouses of officers. One man traveled from Niger to support his wife. Others flew in from Singapore, India, Azerbaijan. Canada. New Mexico, New York, North Dakota. Botswana.

All with different backgrounds, different histories and environments. Different goals. Different reasons for coming together in the same room. But all with one purpose - to help people and peoples live, and live better. I don't know what I'm going to be learning in the next couple of years. I just know this is the first time I feel like I'm going to be a part of something that matters, and that it matters that I'll be a part of it. I know I'll be learning a lot from these people that I've described, and from others as well. And I sincerely hope that I'll be able to put all that into good use, for the improvement of public health.

Borders

I wish to roam the planet at will. And not virtually, either.

I want to eat chocolate in Ireland, Greek food in Greece. Laze on a houseboat with my love, and sail down the Nile with him too. Visit the Incan ruins, Stonehenge. Wonder at civilizations long gone. How did they live? What did they believe, fear, hold sacred? What were their legends and what did they eat?

I have a thirst in me to see the world. To see, taste, meet, experience this planet. I don't think I can leave this life until I have. I want to visit the childhood home of my best friend in Ghana. I want to stand on a ledge over a canyon in Wyoming. Drive from Silver Spring to San Francisco and then decide if we want to come back.

I'm not saying I'm a wanderer. I need to nest just like any woman. Have a little house and garden and library of my own. Kids and dogs running around, with me and my love running after them. But why is it so hard to see our own world while we're busy earning a paycheck, buying groceries, and commuting through traffic? Because of safety reasons we cannot go where we want when we want without adhering to regulations. Because of cost we cannot even do that whenever we want to. There's bills to pay and fees and futures to plan for. We need security. I need security. I'm like everyone else.

But want to see the world, too.