Danny ChaiAre people worried that me and Dave are angry at each other? Someone asked today whether we’re still friends. Of course. We just get angry at each other on these thoughts pages, not in real life. I love David. We have a love hate relationship though. I love him, he hates me.
Come on, David. By the way, this netmind thing, kind of inconsistent. I don’t know if everyone’s been getting all the updates. Anyway, come on David. You’re right, I’m sometimes falsely humble, but when I really think I’m right I pretty much say it. You’re saying you admit that you think you’re right? Go back and read your pages, hypo-boy. Every other sentence, is like, but I’m pulling this out of my butt, or but I don’t know anything. Yeah, that clearly demonstrates that you think you’re right. Come on, Hong.
But you are right that I misunderstood you. Kind of. And you’re right about all you said, but it’s like, what I’ve always disliked about that philosophy is that, you know, at Stanford, most people are good at many different things. So like, which one of them do you do? People have never really given me a good answer. Like, if people say, don’t just be a cog in a business machine, that’s fine, but then, what am I supposed to do? Be a musician? People say not necessarily that either (most notably my mom). So it’s like, I feel like people are telling me what not to do without telling me what I can/should do, and that’s hard. When it comes down to it, I feel like when people are telling me what I shouldn’t do, they don’t tell me what I should do, but if what I chose to do was be a pastor or a missionary, that would be ok. Do you see what I’m saying? I don’t know if this makes sense.
But David’s right of course. I just don’t know what to do. As always in my life. The other day though I was playing piano and really, playing piano gives me incredible joy. I’d love to do it. The thing is, and I’ve written about it before, is that I’m good enough to know that I’m not good enough. Does this make sense? Like I’m smart enough to know I’m not brilliant. I’m sure other people who don’t know better think I’m pretty good, but really, there’s no way I could hack it in the real music world. Anyway, just rambling.
Anyway, I forgot to mention something last time. I was writing how I like Experiencing God because what it really is is reminders of simple truths, and I need/want that more than anything. So at church recently, the crazy thing is that I have often been getting more out of the children’s message than the EM service. The sermons in the EM service, I don’t know, there’s always this pressure to be wise or clever or something. Whereas with the children’s service, it’s just make one clear point in an amusing way and get out. I like that, because it’s something I remember, and I always need to be reminded of simple truths. Hmm. Maybe it means my spiritual life is at the level of a 6th grader. I’ll have to think about that.
So for example last week Pastor Eugene talked about the passage where the Pharisees, trying to trap Jesus, ask him whether they should pay taxes to Caesar or not. Very tricky question. You say know and you’re a political insurrectionist. Say yes and you’re submitting to God, not man. Err, man, not God, sorry.
As usual, Jesus saves the day and says, whose inscription is on this? Caesar’s they reply. And he says Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s. Pastor Eugene didn’t say any of this, I just recapped the story we all know.
So his message, he reads the story, then gets out a bunch of coins. he asks whose picture is on it, and gives it to the kid who gets it right. You know, he tries to do amusing stuff like that. Anyway, his message is simple. The inscriptions on coins are all about the government, and we give to the government what is theirs. So what are we inscribed with? We’re made in the image of God. So we give to God what is God’s namely, us. And that’s it, that’s the point. I liked it.
I have to say, though, that KCPC has been a lot better these past 3 weeks. In fact, I’ve consistently come home encouraged. This pretty much rebuked me – I started Experiencing God during that time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence – I think I wasn’t getting much before in large part due to my messed up heart. But anyway, church has been very good for me lately.
Also, I’m in love. Love is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I’m melting just thinking about it. Anyway, I highly recommend it.