LIFE is BEAUTIFUL!

WISDOM

To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

THOUGHTS TO PONDER

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.---RALPH WALDO EMERSON
glitter-graphics.com
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.---ABRAHAM LINCOLN
There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.---ALEXANDRE DUMAS
“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones" --- Alexander Solzhenitsyn quotes (Russian novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature (1970), b.1918)
“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.” ---Kahlil Gibran

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Memory refreshed - where I used to live


This is a pretty special day at least, I needed to go to bank for my ATM card replacement. The card is expiring in February and it should be changed. So I went to the branch in Big C, Saphan Kwai where I opened the account years ago. I used to stay in the area, in a sudden I missed everything! The place is no longer totally  the same as the last time I laid my eyes in there, the vendors, the vacant areas, some remarkable places and some buildings I used to drop by and so some special people. 

I remember the last time I left   Saphan Kwai I was in tears. I had a best friend in my old apartment - Mansion Sarasinee in Pradiphat 25, Bangkok who I really loved. He was a seven-year-old boy then, a half-German and Thai who used to live with his dad in the same building as the parents got divorced. I leanrt they used to live in Pattaya before they moved in the apartment. While his dad was busy with his stuff  and sometimes his "gay" girlfriend who owned a beauty parlor in the building, I and Alex used to play at the rooftop of the building of course with the dad's permission, gazing the stars, the city lights, story telling and more. We had so much great times I was undoubtedly attached to the boy I looked for him when I got home from work and in times I was free due to exams, I gladly spent my days with him in the building. 

But time came I had to move due to work, I needed somewhere closer to the university and for some other reasons. He was crying then when I said goodbye the last time I visited the former apartment. I tried hard to be strong and made it appeared I was okay but really ended up  bursting in tears when I reached the bus stop. It lingered how the little boy cried as I walked away.  The moment was just sad that the friendship had to end, and that time I wished he could have another friend he could play with as he was the only child in the building and I could no longer go back.

The feeling was strange today, though I went there primarily for the bank transaction there's something within that moved me in some ways. Perhaps, it's the refreshed of the events and times that used to be part of my routines in there. It made me smile looking at Black Canyon where I had some my meals, Swensens ice cream shop and even the restrooms. :)

I took the moment of stroll and just experiencing the place if that is the exact term, looking at people, the displays and the shops. I felt like  visiting the old apartment but in all the years that passed  I think I don't know anyone in there anymore, even the staff. And then I found out today that the shortcut heading to the building is no longer accessible, it's presently being under construction, it seems like a condominium.

My days have been very slow, I've been badly bruised and having the toughest times. This day at least is kinda different, the feeling isn't all good, it's just  varied from the usual.

Alex and I


Monday, January 30, 2012

Obama's mandating Law AGAINST the Catholic FAITH


No real Catholic is happy with this disrespect on the basic faith. It is surely odd to do things opposing to what one believes, there're coercion in there and  rejection on the fundamentals of what  people adhere to. Laws shape the society and human nature isn't complete without ethics and theology. I wonder if at least the two were considered before mandating this  kind of law. It's human nature to commit mistakes, as it is to desire for goodness and living away from this kind of offense. Someone is oppressing honor. I tell you, as a Catholic this is worth the fight. Here's the story.

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The Catholic Church is fighting mad with the Obama Administration, and nearly every Catholic sitting in a pew this weekend heard the reasons why.
The Health and Human Services Department recently announced it will require all employers (with few exceptions) to provide health insurance to their employees which includes subsidized contraception, sterilization and coverage for abortion-inducing drugs.
This meant that religious institutions, like Catholic colleges and hospitals, or other Christian institutions would  be compelled to violate their conscience by cooperating with that which they believe to be wrong. Currently many of these institutions purchase health-insurance plans which do not provide free coverage of these services. 

To give an analogy, it would be like the government mandating that all delis, even Kosher delis, serve pork products and then justifying it by saying that protein is healthy, and many Jews who don't follow Kosher laws and many non-Jews go to those delis. The law wouldn't technically ban Jews from owning delis, but it would effectively ban their ability to run them according to their conscience. 
Well, the Catholic Church isn't lying down and taking this. 
In thousands of parishes this weekend, Catholic priests read a version of the following letter to their congregation denouncing this decision as an attack on their religious freedom. Each bishop personally sent the letter out, and so there were some local variations. Here's the one read in the Phoenix Archdiocese. Here's another from the Bishop of Trenton.  What follows is from the Bishop of Marquette:


Monday, January 16, 2012

MOTHERHOOD and the Call to Holiness


I came across this reading today. I personally have high respect to  full-time moms. Getting a day busy for the family's needs and even without getting any compensation from it is admirable.  Much as this is a selfless vocation and so doing responsibilities and obligation both for husband and kids. This modern society tends to forget that moms not just grow children but RAISE them. And this can't be done without devotion and time.  Here is the article below I got from National Catholic Register. Trust me, it's worth the read.

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How staying at home helped moms understand their vocation. Jan. 15 issue feature.

Recently, the Women at NBCU (a marketing firm for NBC Universal) study found that 66% of moms said they would rather be a stay-at-home parent than a working parent. Additionally, the majority of employed moms (53%) feel that, while financially they need to work, they would prefer to be stay-at-home moms.

Long before she was married or even pregnant, Vicky Stone intended to be a stay-at-home mom. It didn’t work out that way. When she and her husband had their first child, her career was taking off. They had just purchased a house and couldn’t give up the income or benefits. “I think it came down to me being too young and selfish at that time,” she admits. “I couldn’t see the big picture.”

By the time she was pregnant with her fourth child, she had risen to the position of assistant county administrator for Camden County, N.J. She enjoyed the work but felt the overwhelming need to be at home with her children. “Working was coming at the cost of spending time with my family. I needed to re-evaluate my priorities.”

So she left the workforce and never looked back. Now, with seven children, ranging in age from 5 to 16, she knows she made the right choice. She discerned motherhood as her vocation and learned the unique way it sanctifies everyday life.

“God calls each and every one of us to holiness, but being a mother is a special blessing. Being a mother one is able to be his instrument in creation, his hands, as we help our children in all they do,” she says. “We demonstrate his love in our unconditional love for our children — and all of this carries through to not only our own children, but to all.”

Other Catholic women have faced similar challenges and discernment.

When Michelle Reitemeyer was working as a civil engineer, she believed she could balance both a large family and a demanding career. Married at 24, she had her first child at 27. She wanted to stay home, but, like many families, they simply couldn’t afford to lose the extra paycheck: “The reality was that we owed a ton of money from our private college education, and we hadn’t been overly prudent in how we spent our spare cash in our early marriage. I managed to keep my paycheck, but finagled fewer hours in the office and two days working from home.”

This approach didn’t work out too well, and a month before the birth of her second son, she made the decision to stop working and turn to motherhood full time. “Often, a woman works just to pay for childcare, and it makes no sense,” she explains. “Not in my case. Had I poured myself into my career, I could have made a lot of money. I was on an upward path, especially once my company added a commission to my base pay a few months before I quit. But, enticing as that was, I am an old-fashioned girl. I had dreams of waving goodbye to the kids as they left for school, spending my day cleaning the house and baking cookies, greeting them with smiles when they got home, and just having this perfect Leave It to Beaver life. I didn’t want other people to change my babies’ diapers, feed my babies bottles, or help my children with their homework.”

Mother of six Margaret Berns, on the other hand, always knew she would stay home to raise her family. “In fact,” she says, “I told my husband so on our first date. (The fact that he stuck around for a second date was very encouraging.) This is it for me: Raising my children is the most important thing I will do.” She left her job as a teacher in a small Catholic high school upon the birth of her first child.

Heather Price was also working as a teacher when she decided to leave her job to stay at home. Teaching is “probably one of the most family-friendly careers there is,” she says. “I loved it until I was a mother — then the joy paled to nonexistence. I decided to focus on my family when it hurt so much to drop my oldest off at her aunt’s so I could go to work. It seemed hypocritical to be teaching other people’s children and leave someone else to take care of my own. Then No. 2 was born when No. 1 was only a year and a half old, and the work to get out the door was just overwhelming. Between prepared-food costs, gas costs and day-care costs, I wasn’t making any money.”

Now Price is pregnant with her sixth child, and she and her husband are committed to “the spirit of sacrifice. I would love to make annual trips to France or even take graduate-level classes in art history or French; even a solitary trip to the grocery store, however, is a luxury. Sometimes I feel like I live in a cloister, with my only influence being through prayer, but I don’t know that I’m comfortable with that comparison. Those courageous women have made far greater sacrifices than I.”

For Berns, the call to holiness comes from “the love that I show my children and husband. Theoretically, this love will increase exponentially when my children leave the house — the ripples will expand; the faith will be shared. That is my great hope: that my children will all be emissaries of the King and will be inspired, not hindered, by what they’ve learned in our home.”
Some new mothers, however, find the image of the vocation doesn’t always match the reality. How can children be the means for a mother’s sanctification if they only make her irritable, tense and exhausted? Reitemeyer learned gradually that things do get better with age and experience.

“There were many evenings I wept while nursing a little one to sleep,” she admits, “and prayed to Mother Mary for the grace to be gentle and patient and kind. I still have a long way to go, but, certainly, I find it much easier now to speak softly or slow down to a child’s pace or laugh before scolding. Motherhood, well done, has no room for selfishness, impatience, sloth or cowardice. Every day brings new challenges that require exercising one or more virtues, and to boldly face another day is to get a bit stronger, better, holier. Certainly, there is the possibility of failure, of becoming apathetic, of remaining selfish and self-centered. And, surely, as the mother goes, so too will go the family, and thus the world.

“Holy women will tend to raise holy families, and since the family is the fundamental unit of society, the more holy families there are, the better our society will be.”

For Stone, the call to holiness in her vocation reflects the call of God to mankind. “When we become filled with his love,” she says, “we see others as his children. And just as we want to help our children attain their full potential, you can see how God wants all of his children to attain heaven. We feel the call to help others, as we should, on our path to walk alongside us as we strive to be more pleasing to him.”

Thomas L. McDonald is a catechist in the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.