what do babies know of god?

I'd just like to share a letter to Neale Donald Walsch from the Conversations with God Newsletter that really touched me:

Dear Neale,

How true what you said on bulletin #146 last week about babies. They come to this world fresh from the realm of God and they know nothing but love until the world teaches them the rest. It made me remember a few years back when I went shopping with my then 4-year old granddaughter. Kasey is so happy to see people and would say hello to anyone she sees. She said hello to 3 heavy set older white ladies and they just looked at her as if she said something wrong. (Kasey and I are from the Philippines.)

About a decade ago, I did some research on miracles. I have a few major miracles in my life that I've kept these many years to myself. I was afraid that when I tell it to someone and they don't believe it, it would feel like something very beautiful is sullied. And true enough when I shared it with someone whom I thought could relate I was quite disappointed. Anyway I learned that people cannot relate to anything they have not experienced. If they do not have any experience of miracle(s) in their life, they cannot relate to it.

And so I decided to do some research to find out if I am alone with this experience or if there are others out there who have experienced miracles in their lives. To my delight, I found dozens upon dozens of great miracle stories.

One of the stories I encountered is about a couple with a 3-year girl and their new baby. Their 3-year-old kept insisting that she'd like to be alone with the new baby. They would always say "No" to her because they were afraid that the 3-year-old might be jealous and might try to harm the baby. When the parents can no longer say no to their 3-year-old as she would ask each day and was quite persistent, they relented and allowed her to be with the baby but left the baby monitor so they can hear what's going on in the nursery from their kitchen. What they heard is this -- the toddler asked the baby: "Tell me about God, I am forgetting." The parents wrote to the author of the miracle book that they could not figure out what that means. Yet, for us, we all can relate to what that means having read the CwG material that you so graciously gifted the world. I just wish I could explain to that couple that this is because babies are new arrivals to Earth from God's realm.

Connie

seeds part 3: paul ferrini

I'd never heard of this guy before I attended the conference, but he was a very inspiring speaker and writer and I intend to purchase some of his books. Here's a really powerful prayer he shared with us during his keynote speech. I think it speaks for itself.

seeds part 2: Bard College

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I decided to go to this conference -- when I saw a picture of Fisher Arts Center at Bard College against a beautiful green lawn. It made my heart sing. While I was there it kept reminding me of the Disney Concert Hall, and unsurprisingly Fisher Center was designed by the same architect, Frank Gehry.

As I said before, the conference was set up in collaboration with Bard College. More specifically, the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard. Their website can tell you about them more elegantly than I can. The founder and director, Dr. Bruce Chilton, did some keynote speeches and workshops at the conference, and he is doing some amazing work in promoting understanding between religions. The institute has done some groundbreaking study on James, the brother of Jesus, and Dr. Chilton is writing a book on the gospel according to Mary (Magdalene). I find his stuff fascinating and plan to read some of it as soon as I finish reading all the other stuff I'm planning to read. :P

I don't have many regrets, but this college makes me wish I'd done my degree here.

seeds of transformation

I just got back this past Monday from a weekend in upstate New York for the Humanity's TeamGathering, in collaboration with Bard College. This will be the first short post in a series of posts about the conference, mostly because I don't have time to write down my thoughts about it all at once :P.

The trip to New York and back was, in a word, challenging, but that was the only down side of the trip. I spent half of Friday at the airport and on the plane, and the other half trying to get to Bard College, since my train was 2 hours late due to some accident that resulted in a fatality. On the way back, my plane was late 3 1/2 hours in taking off due to bad weather. And since I was trying to conserve my vacation time, I had no time to actually visit New York City (flew into Newark, NJ) and go see a musical.

Bard College is located in Annandale-on-Hudson, which is in the Hudson River Valley right next to the river. The college sits in the midst of this unexpectedly gorgeous countryside. Everything was so lush and green; the houses were scattered and surrounded by forests. The route from the train station to the college took me through winding roads that made me nostalgic for the English countryside. What a sight for sore L.A. eyes.

golfing

The good thing about not having blogged in, like, forever is that you can talk about things that are actually interesting instead of trying to think of new comments on everyday stuff. A few weeks ago I played golf for the first time ever, thanks to the generosity of my boss. He made a big donation to a Catholic church in Culver City for their golf tournament and gave everybody that Friday off so we could go play or just take the day off.

The tournament was played in teams of four, and basically everybody hits their own ball, and then wherever the best shot was we continued playing from there. I had about half an hour of coaching from one of my co-workers before the tournament started, and I did pretty ok considering it was my first time with a club in my hand. Of course, the guys on my team were not great at it either so we mostly joked around and had a lot of fun with it.

The best part about golfing though, is driving around the golf cart. That is as close as you get to pure fun. I loved having the wind in my face while winding around on the narrow paved roads (or on grass). It's like Autopia without the tracks.

long time no blog

Blah. Sometimes when I haven't blogged for a while I can't imagine the random things going on in my life to be worth blogging. But I'll do it anyway. So I guess in December I had an excuse to stop blogging because, well, December is a time for eating lots and goofing off. Then at the start of January I got hooked on World of Warcraft and played for a month while I was job searching. My main is a nightelf hunter named Starbreeze on the Lightbringer server, for those who care. And now that I've started a new job, play time has dwindled, but haven't got time for much else either. So there you go. I'll probably blog again this weekend if I've done something exciting like flying in a cessna.

kinsey

I saw the movie Kinsey this weekend after reading the Roger Ebert review (see link). I was originally going to see Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, but Kinsey is not playing in as many places, so I went to see it first. It's about the life and work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who pioneered research in human sexuality and made sex "normal." Great film, but don't see it if you're squeamish about sex.

what is your song?

I went to a Humanity's Team concert named "Be the Change" yesterday. It was simply amazing. There was a great variety of music and poetry, and all the performers ROCKED. The music just touched me so much and made me so happy to be part of this group of people. I can't wait to get the compilation CD they put together, which is still being made.

Something one of the singers said really got me thinking; that is, every one of us has a song of our own, and what is your song? I've never heard anyone describe self-expression in those terms, but it got me engaged in thinking about what my song is. And, to tell myself the truth, I'm not singing it. In fact, I don't really know what it is. What I do know is that I know what it feels like, because I get this feeling in my chest whenever I think about it, and I know that when I see it I will immediately recognize it.

frustration is good

As some of you may or may not know, I am as of right now pretty frustrated in my work as a self-employed person. Mostly because I still have little confidence in my people skills, and I get scared and talk myself into procrastinating or just not doing anything. However, listening to Conversations with God book 1 these past couple of days in the car has really helped the commute and my mindset. Just today I listened to a passage about monitoring your thoughts. That is, my thoughts, words, and actions create my reality, and what I need to do is have an image of the highest version of the highest vision of myself, and monitor my thoughts to make sure they are always in alignment with that image. Now, I know this already, I just haven't been doing it on a regular basis and instead letting fear take over whenever I'm too scared to talk to someone.

The other thing I am reminded of is that my experience of something is what I say it is, and that "what you resist persists, what you look at disappears." Sure, I am frustrated and wish this being your own boss thing could be easier sometimes, but this frustration and difficulty allows me to really appreciate my success in the future, just as I am proud of myself for having learned how to drive stick even though it was painfully frustrating in the learning stage. If Primerica were easy, I wouldn't value my success as much as I would've otherwise, just as I never really valued my A's in school because they were never that diffcult to get, and even in college they were challenging intellectually but never emotionally.

I also remembered that every new beginning only happens once in a lifetime. Once I pass through this, it will never come again (in this life anyway)! Therefore I give thanks for this time in my life, and for all other moments of frustration, which I love, love, love because they make my successes sweet and ecstatic.

And so it is.

team america: world police

I first thought this movie was kind of cheesy when I first saw a commercial for it, but after I realized it was produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, I just had see it. And I have to say, they didn't disappoint. The plot was suitably sarcastic and provoking, and the songs (all played in the background except one) are just rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. Here's a transcript of the lyrics.

What I really like about Parker and Stone is that they make fun of everybody equally, so no one feels left out and no one can really say which side they're on.