life is becoming an aching tooth. i need it filled, or else removed.

Ramblation 05

A woman shortly dies after discovering that her husband has cheated on her. She goes to heaven. There, she's greeted by St. Peter who tells her that the only thing she needs to do to pass the gates is spell "love". She spells it L-O-V-E and is received by everyone in heaven. Several years pass and her unfaithful husband dies. It so happens that St. Peter needed to take a break from guard duty so he asks the woman to stand at the entrance and require everyone who wants in to simply spell "love"; at their success, they may be granted permission to enter. So she stands at the gate and in a matter of minutes, is greeted by her husband who hugs her and tells her he has missed her. She hugs him back and tells him that as a rule he has to spell a word in order to enter heaven. He asks "Um. Oh, well okay... What do I have to spell?" Her answer: "You have to spell Czechoslovakia."

Bitterness is like socks that continue sucking water into my feet long after I stepped into the puddle. It dries only by saturating other things. It's the grease left behind in a bucket of Chicken N' Rice. It's when I leave the conversation angry and I sit in a darkened corner, relishing in the fact that I've been hurt and they know it and feel bad. Knowing that they feel guilty gives one a sort of power: the power to manipulate, and that's what makes self-pity a sin.

I think songwriters who compose while they're high are just like athletes who play while they use steiroids, and almost worse. They are similar because their abilities are not due to themselves; their abilities are due to artificial stuff that gives them what I think is an unfair advantage over other people. When songwriters write while they're high they are describing experiences that most people have no conception for. What is actually just obscure and often meaningless is taken to indicate great depth of thought. The poetry in his work is an accidental result of imbalanced chemical reactions.

Then again, I say this while having Ben Harper and Bob Dylan on my playlist. So I'm a hypocrite. But, fortunately being a hypocrite doesn't undermine arguments. They just make em harder to make with a straight face.

How I did on my LSAT

I seriously began studying in mid-July for a September test. I did not enroll into a $1,000 prep-course for preparation. I bought 2 LSAT books instead. $54 in total, I think. On the day of the test, I ate cereal. (The night before the test I was facebooking until 11 pm). I took two bathroom breaks during the test. I skipped half the analytical section, putting 'D' straight down 12 answers. I was tired. I spaced out for five minutes during one of the logical reasoning sections. As a result of spacing out, I had to put down 'D' down 5 questions I may have otherwise answered. I was unable to finish the last question on that section, and left it blank because of time. They cut me off in the last line of my writing section. It read "This is why you should choose the second site as the..." and it got cut off by time. But I still got 160 out of 180.

Therefore, God exists.


(I'm being facetious. And it may annoy you how Christians are always attributing good stuff to God and bad stuff to themselves. But I do that sort of thing too. As I experience day-to-day life, I always get the sense that I'm alone, that no matter what happens, it happens because of how I respond to situations. And yet, when I look at my life in retrospect (as opposed to looking at it as it unfolds) I always feel that God has weaved my life together. He's interweaved my life into the lives of others. He has hurt me with people who slam doors. He has brought me happiness with people who love. I already believe in God independently of what happens to me. But as a result of my belief in God, I see (or think that I see) patterns of his works, like fingerprints left in the ash.)


By the way, if you should take the LSAT in the future, follow this rule: When in doubt, go with "D". Don't go with "C".

Is This What We Call a Spiritual Experience?

Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me

The above is a part of a love poem addressed to God. That's right. Not to a human lover, but to God. And it wasn't written by some postmodernist-infected emotionally unstable teenager, but by John Donne of the 16th century. Look at the sexually-charged language he uses here. Ravish, Enthrall, Imprison. To top of all this, John Donne was one of the most influential Christian poets and preachers of his time.

I think alot of Christians have, intentionally or not, misled people into stereotyping an experience with God. We talk much too much about the rare moments of up-lifts that we create a demand for it. Alot of Christian contemporary music talks of being captivated and drowned in love, wafted away into endless pleasures. One song speaks of a conversion event, after which, "Next thing you know, I'm high and flying, I'm a brand new man." Another one says something like "I can feel someone praying for me now." These statements unintentionally place in the minds of its listeners criteria of a religious experience that never is the norm.

I think some Christians' longing for God to ravish them masks a deep sense of desperation. They're unsure of their salvation, they feel guilty because of the lifestyles they're in and they need a fix. I know this because I've done it too. I remember long nights when I begged God to do something awesome and purge me of all doubts. I remember willing myself to tears in hopes that I could convince myself that I was experiencing God. These nights left me dry and cold and cynical.

Edit:

I left this thought unfinished intentionally, perhaps to let others to chime in.

I don't feel as I did here, or there. It's safe to say that it has all dried out. I remember myself and the things that I said and I feel embarassed. You may have forgotten what we said. That's just as good. We've crossed the threshold. Better let our past go into old photographs to be stashed in a shoebox among a dozen. Soon you will be a memory and, eventually, the ghost of a memory. Tomorrow I will wake up and I won't remember.

I envision one day we will bump into each other on a busy street. Scales will not fall from our eyes. I'll apologize as I reach to pick up your books. You, if I know you well enough, return an embarassed smile and say "No, I'm sorry, it was my fault!... Thank you!" A quick smile and we reassume our lives. I tune into my headphones and skim through the Times. You won't look back. And you will shrug off the vague uneasiness one gets when she thinks she has seen a ghost.