Underlined library books, pencil holders, John Ortberg
Borrowed a book from the library the other day. This is what almost a whole chapter looked like:
Amazing right? Don't really know if the underlining and "starring" makes any use when you do it this much! Actually, I like it when I borrow books and find that someone who borrowed it previously, had made marks on it. Because it generally makes for easier reading, especially when you're trying to do research from many books, and it's no fun to sift through them all.
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This is what part of my desk at home in Melbourne looks like. (Hi Dawntan!)
Yes, those are my pencil holders (or rather, stationery holders). It's not that I'm too poor to buy pencil holders - I like these! See, the top flap of the Pocky one is even useful to put an eraser in. ha. Yes the one on the left is a toilet roll. I always look at toilet rolls and wonder how I can make something out of them. And I finally have. I guess it comes with all those making-things-out-of-scrap when we were young, the whole recycling thing - you could make an animal's legs, or cut it for a pig's nose, I dunno. Those rubber bands around it are from when I buy green veg from the supermarket - they use these rubber bands to bunch the veg up!
That's a mooncake box on the right. I brought a mooncake box full of stationery (excluding the paper stuff) to Melbourne! haha. I have even more now. Because I lent my 22 coloured pens for OCF men's night, and I got another 30+ markers in return. And of course when I return to Singapore, I will stock up on more. Well, mainly the paper stuff. A Muji trip is a definite! I'll be home, I'll be home, I'll be home in a month!
The purple post-it behind says, "dear hui, please stop drawing!"
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The life you've always wanted
John Ortberg
Because I am finite human being, I have to use direct means to guide your thoughts. I must express ideas in words so you can hear them or read them. I need to vie them some physical form in order to communicate with you.
But God does not. God can directly guide my thoughts without the aid of intervening sounds or images.
C.S. Lewis was getting at this idea when he wrote, “If your thoughts and passions were directly present to me, like my own, without any mark of externality or otherness, how should I distinguish them from mine? … you may reply, as a Christian, that god (and satan) do, in fact, affect my consciousness in this direct way without signs of “externality.” Yes: and the result is that most people remain ignorant of the existence of both.”
Here is the vital point: God may be speaking to you – “effecting your consciousness,” to use Lewis’s words – while you “remain ignorant” of the fact that this very thought is coming from God.”
So it is possible that God may speak to us and our thoughts may be guided by him without our knowing that it is God’s guidance.
Amazing right? Don't really know if the underlining and "starring" makes any use when you do it this much! Actually, I like it when I borrow books and find that someone who borrowed it previously, had made marks on it. Because it generally makes for easier reading, especially when you're trying to do research from many books, and it's no fun to sift through them all.
--
This is what part of my desk at home in Melbourne looks like. (Hi Dawntan!)
Yes, those are my pencil holders (or rather, stationery holders). It's not that I'm too poor to buy pencil holders - I like these! See, the top flap of the Pocky one is even useful to put an eraser in. ha. Yes the one on the left is a toilet roll. I always look at toilet rolls and wonder how I can make something out of them. And I finally have. I guess it comes with all those making-things-out-of-scrap when we were young, the whole recycling thing - you could make an animal's legs, or cut it for a pig's nose, I dunno. Those rubber bands around it are from when I buy green veg from the supermarket - they use these rubber bands to bunch the veg up!
That's a mooncake box on the right. I brought a mooncake box full of stationery (excluding the paper stuff) to Melbourne! haha. I have even more now. Because I lent my 22 coloured pens for OCF men's night, and I got another 30+ markers in return. And of course when I return to Singapore, I will stock up on more. Well, mainly the paper stuff. A Muji trip is a definite! I'll be home, I'll be home, I'll be home in a month!
The purple post-it behind says, "dear hui, please stop drawing!"
--
The life you've always wanted
John Ortberg
Because I am finite human being, I have to use direct means to guide your thoughts. I must express ideas in words so you can hear them or read them. I need to vie them some physical form in order to communicate with you.
But God does not. God can directly guide my thoughts without the aid of intervening sounds or images.
C.S. Lewis was getting at this idea when he wrote, “If your thoughts and passions were directly present to me, like my own, without any mark of externality or otherness, how should I distinguish them from mine? … you may reply, as a Christian, that god (and satan) do, in fact, affect my consciousness in this direct way without signs of “externality.” Yes: and the result is that most people remain ignorant of the existence of both.”
Here is the vital point: God may be speaking to you – “effecting your consciousness,” to use Lewis’s words – while you “remain ignorant” of the fact that this very thought is coming from God.”
So it is possible that God may speak to us and our thoughts may be guided by him without our knowing that it is God’s guidance.
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