New Year Rambling

It’s the end of the year 2009 and many of us are in a reflective mood I believe. I am. In fact, I haven’t got out of my reflective mood in 2008 yet. My Muslim friends told me, according to Islam, time goes by much faster when the world is coming to an end. Perhaps the world is really coming to an end if those box office movies on the end of the world are indicative of the current collective consciousness of the world. 2012 is only two years away.

Time is flying and is flying much faster than usual. When I was in college, I remember, I dreaded time passing so slowly. It took a long time to finish one semester and I couldn’t wait to graduate so that I could enter the real world and be somebody. When I started lecturing, it took a long time to finish one semester and I remember how sick I was to see the same students again and again (I guessed my students shared the same feeling).

However, since 2000, one semester just flew by without anyone of us even aware of it. I hardly know my students let alone getting sick of seeing them over and over again. Each time when I announce in class when the next test is going to be, I will inevitably hear grumbling, “so soon ah?” And I am sure many of us still remember how we spent our 2008 New Year Eve like it was just yesterday. The Asian Tsunami in 2004 is as fresh as the taste of Christmas turkey a few days ago. So, perhaps, time flies should be replaced with time zooms!

So what am I saying here…well, I don’t really know. I am just a bit depressed because I know nothing is permanent in this world and time is zooming by me like the speed of light. I can’t do a thing to stop that and I hate the so called wise saying “treasure the moment” because I don’t want momentary but eternity.

I want to be young, healthy, and handsome eternally. I want to hold on to my darling eternally. I want to live eternally…I want my life, my world, the people who are in my life, to stay eternally. Then again, I will get bored after awhile because…eternity is boring. Imagine everything stays the same forever and ever? That’s why heaven does not make sense to me…in fact, heaven can be torturous, living with those Muslim and Christian fundamentalists in eternity?? That is hell!

This is my dilemma; I want eternity and yet eternity appears hellish to me. I asked a wise church man once when I was a naïve teenage boy, “What do we do in heaven?” He answered, “We praise and worship God there.” “Wouldn’t that be boring? Praising and worship God eternally? Wouldn’t God feels bored? Wasn’t that the reason started Him/Her to create this world because He/She was bored? What’s He/She going to do while listening to these crazy Charismatic people jumping, screaming and shouting with their electric guitars, drums etc eternally? I guess after awhile God would have to start creating again, wouldn’t he?” He couldn’t answer me.

My darling told me his New Year resolution this morning during breakfast (we are taking a break in Melaka) and I told him mine. But I know we seldom fulfill our New Year resolution because we usually set goals that are almost impossible to accomplish. We still set resolutions during New Year because we have hope that may be this year we will fulfill those resolutions. And because of this hope, we set our resolutions year after year though we seldom fulfill them. Guess hope is the answer.

But the Bible says, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 3:13) Looking at my darling, I realize love is the one that keeps me going and love is the one that gives me meaning in my life. Then I remember another verse in the Bible, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (I John 4:7-8)

This is my New Year realization; I am with God and God is with me because I love. Marrying my darling this year has brought me closer to God and growing deeper in God because marriage has caused me to love my darling much deeper than before. All over the over world people are looking for love and truly happy people are people who have found love. Perhaps, the Christians are right; we all need God because we all need love and God is love.

So, instead of a New Year resolution, I have a realization. God is love and the ones who love are born of God and know God. We do not need to be religious or dogmatic to be with God; we just need to give love and receive love. Now I understand why loving people are happy and contend people because these people are with God.

Faith, Hope, and Love…..the greatest is LOVE.

Have a Happy and Lovely New Year!

BLISS