o v e r f l u o

"God is not calling us to go to church;  He is calling us to be His church... the hope of the world."   –Craig Groeschel Groeschel isn't saying that we shouldn't go to church. What it means to me is: There is no point going to church if we are not being  the church, if we don't make the church what it is supposed to be – the hope of the world.

The song in my head this morning as my fingers ran over the black and white keys of the nord.

One thing I learnt from the movie Frozen is that sometimes, it's the very thing we keep away from, that could heal us. Queen Elsa has the power to turn things to snow, but it is a power she cannot control. After near-fatally accidentally hitting her sister Anna with ice, Elsa's parents keep her away from the world, including Anna. Elsa lives in solitude and sadness, telling herself to not feel, because that is what seems to trigger her powers. It is only after a whole crazy situation of her majorly losing control, endangering her country, running deep into the woods to hide, and hitting her sister's heart with snow, that they discover the solution – that to control her powers, Elsa requires love – the very thing she was deprived of because she was kept away from people and discouraged from feeling. The very thing that we keep away from, is what could heal us.  The funny thing is, long ago when young Elsa and Anna were playing with snow before Anna...

"The medium is the message", said Marshall McLuhan. I didn't always agree with that. But I think I understand it better now. Nowadays, many of us use multiple platforms – face-to-face, instagram, facebook, blogs, phone calls. While some spam every message on every medium, others choose what messages to place on which medium.  The writing changes at times, because we write for our audience. Even if it is just an audience of one. Like my mom, for instance. When I message her, there are no "lols" and "btws", because it would probably take longer for her to process them. So I write proper, for her. I appreciate some doses of inspiration. But I admit, sometimes it gets tiring to keep seeing the same posts over and over again. Then it stops. And a month later, those posts pop up again when someone rediscovers them. (Still, good job with sharing the love, buzzfeed, huffingtonpost, viralnova and more.) We are not so much creators of content, as curato...

"In the space between yes and no, there is a lifetime.  It's the difference between the path you walk  and the one you leave behind,  it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are."  –Jodi Picoult --- Shots of fireworks in Kuala Lumpur at end 2013.

^ Eating from bowls we made at Bendigo Pottery.  The bowls are proportional to our usual food portions! ^ --- We are back in Melbourne!  Being with family and friends in Singapore and Malaysia was great and it was loads of fun catching up with everyone and just being... myself in my "old world". But after 5 weeks away, I was looking forward to being back here in Melbourne, back to the life I have recently gotten used to, where it's Ian and me in our home on the hill.  It's nice to know that this place has so quickly become home.  Singapore will always be the place I grew up in and the place my family of origin is. Even if I haven't found a full-time job here (but would really like one – I'm itching to get learning and going) and don't have the same big community of friends,  I am glad to have otherwise settled quickly in Melbourne, my new home, with my new family of two.