Sivin Kit’s Garden

It was a pleasant morning to sit in front of the sea and spend some time praying, meditating and writing.

Today will be important to re-orientate myself back to life in Kuala Lumpur.  The 3 days 2 nights in Port Dickson was refreshing.

While driving back on the Port Dickson- Seremban highway, a flash of inspiration sparked in my head.  It’s called “the ABC of making us miserable people” - Getting stuck in the state of Angst, wallowing in Bitterness,  priding our Cynical posture towards issues, people and life.  It’s only natural to go through these 3 phases in episodes of life, or our overall life journey, so denial is not what I’m talking about.  But when it’s the over arching themes of the way we life then we will be miserable indeed. We might start there, but we must not stop there.

I was reminded by a friend on a healthy self-understanding.  The need for solitude after intense times of community is part of the rhythm of one’s service in the church (I’d include that in any work or task). Good to see how she guarded her heart by choosing to enter into that.

People like companionship.  Being lonely is a scary. But often once we get connected with people whom we are comfortable with or are available, we might lose touch of other important aspects of human relationships like the rhythm of corporate worship, prayer and the other spiritual disciplines.

There’s more talk about social witness these days, which is a good sign. The reactionary nature in us tends to downplay the more “traditional” aspects of the Christian life such as the spiritual disciplines I mentioned above.  It’s labeled as being “religious”.  I think there’s some truth in that if the spiritual disciplines are not see in the wider context of spiritual transformation. What I’d getting at is, for long term authentic social witness and change to be meaningful as a Christ-follower, being in communion with him and in community with fellow imperfect Christ-followers is part of the package

It’s amazing how we can “freeze” time and look back at the various experiences of our past.  Walking through the episodes allows us to notice things we may have missed. Spending a little time reflecting on the specifics in the context of prayer suddenly opens up new lessons for future practice.