had great session with kids today talking through the tough question of "why does a compassionate God allow suffering?" in context of the 67,000 tsnumai deathtoll. It was all the kids could think about and surprisingly we had a very deep, theological discussion. Kids surprise me all the time with their depth of enquiry...keeps me on my toes. Today we had several tough bits like - Are we born in sin or just the capacity to sin? Do children who do not know Jesus go to hell? I talked extensively about Book of Job today to contextualise how Christians ought ot approach suffering. We even touched on the divisions within the church, how religion becomes politicised, how not all who call themselves christian will be recognised by God.
I always thought I would never be able to voice out the hardest truths in the Bible but the kids' questions force me to verbalise aloud many of my beliefs. And sometimes its like hearing it for the first time again.... the truths made more sense than ever and every time I said one, it untangled a problem rather than tangled it up even more. Guess that's how you tell truths from lies....the amount of clarity it brings to an issue. I swear Judgement Day sounds more and more sensible each time I talk about it.
It was great to see, understand and reason out the whole tsunami crisis thing from the perspective of non-Christian 18 year olds.
We will probably be studying Buddhism next....would be interesting to see how modern Buddhist scholars get round the issue of pain, suffering, good/evil, relative/absolute....can't wait. Anyone know any good books? Preferably books written by Buddhists themselves for fairness sake.
After a brief meeting with Stainboy about work, I watched kungfu hustle today with DJDaryl, orangeclouds, SuperGeek, The Notorious T.F.G, MonkeyBoss, Mothman and MadHatter.Actually found myself laughing quite hard in beginning at Stephen Chow's nonsense. Got draggy after a while but pseudo Tarantino beginning, fabulous choreography and stupid landlady scenes made it worth the ticket.
2 more days to 2005.....one part scary, two parts exciting! Bring it on!
off top of head: 6 things to be thankful for in 2004
1: a spiritually maturing, fun-loving DG
2: amazing kids at SOT and the opportunity to discuss with them heavy questions on religion.
3: the greatest girlfriends that share tears, fears, loves together. gal pals ROCK da house.
4: lovely guy friends that disprove the myth that men are just self-absorbed, macho cads
5: a family that keeps trying to bond together despite idiosyncrasies and flaws galore.
6: baby rabbits that sleep in heaps, smiling babies and meow-meows with their swift little legs.
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