It's been quite the weekend of introspection, meaningful activity and personal assessements.
That's the other lovely part about December....the fuzzy wuzzy quotient skyrockets.
Saturday was a back to back doozy of meaningful activity:
10-12pm I led a discussion with my kids about "What defines a mature person?"...it was nice to see them step back a little and assess what they felt defined feeling "more grown up".
12pm -2pm I studied the first and second chapters of CS Leiws' seminal "Mere Christianity" with my favourite ex-kids in our first ever book club. Tough, philosophical stuff like "Is there a moral law? Isn't it just our instincts? Isnt it created by society?"...but i think they did a great job chewing on the material. We concluded on a nice note of the need to balance out intellectual discussion of right and wrong with a real understanding of how it works in real life in our hearts and lives.
2:30pm - 445pm me and kids rushed down to help Boys Brigade distribute Christmas gifts to the old single ah peks and aunties on welfare. Have never visited the floors of one-room flats of old people in the Chai Chee area before....imagine an almost dorm style arrangement for the elderly singles where you have whole corridors of one-room flats dedicated to them. It was actually rather heart-warming to see the old men watching out for each other with great earnestness, calling out affectionately, 'Oy open door, dont sleep already!" They wanted to make sure every one of their neighbours got their allotted bags of household stuff and groceries. I think the Chai Chee flats are a wonderful example of people-centric urban planning. The smiles of the oldies when they saw us simply carting the bags into their sparse little flats was so radiant, you think we were delivering diamonds instead of rice, oil, soap powder etc. One said warmly, "Wah so good, this year we get two bags." His gratefulness for so little, his humbleness in needs.... lots of lessons in there.
Had a nice talk with the Boys Brigade captain about the work BB tries to do. What a difficult ministry. Support teaching boys to lead meaningful lives! Support BB!
5-7pm Went straight to church for service and after that, a Christmassy dinner at a really fabulous Wallpaper-ish appartment. Got back past midnight and stayed up a bit preparing brekkie for cell retreat.
+++++++++++
Sunday, our cell group took advantage of a kind elder's offer of his swanky Balinese-y home for our humble annual retreat. Typically, a cell group retreat is a time of stilling and quieting ourselves to consider the year....the group's development and direction as well as our personal development and direction. Not as clinical sounding as it appears of course!
What I found most moving about cell retreat today was the honesty of emotions in sharing. It takes courage for people to open up and be willing to be made vulnerable in front of others. It was lovely to see that courage growing in our cell. I could not help but be all girly-teary about it...I love seeing the hand of God in the life of a person, the comfort and healing He offers to those who know HIm and live in His Truth, resting in His Love.
What was so amazing was how many of us began the year with questions, doubts, emptiness or troubles. Yet at the end of the year we stay sustained, hopeful. Though all of us have miles to go before we sleep, it was encouraging to know this :
On the simple wings of a hope, a prayer and Love sincerely offered by God and Neighbour, we can go on running that proverbial 1Paul-line race. There in lies the hope of the Christian life...that somewhere somehow a being mightier than all in Creation cares enough to carry us through our little lives.
had to rush off at the tail end of retreat for a 5pm-9pm presentation at the Youth Connect initiative I am involved in.
it was quite cool to see our workgroup's discussions getting a bit more concrete. February apparently is the week where we will present it at a ministerial, gah-men level....phwoar. dont playplay.
more later, before i forget what i wanted to capture about cell retreat.
eyes starting to shut down. The crazy weekend is kicking in my sleepy shutdown mode. zzzzz time.
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