Aisye

Aisye grew up from a branch

just like a sweet little baby

among the leaves in a shade tree

drought, drought

now Aisye became a green one

moon, moon

the bright crescent

a sharp crescent in the sky

and Aisye stared in silence

wind, wind

breeze blowing

and Aisye wept

stars, stars

adorning the night

and Aisye fell a sleep

Soon Aisye sprang up

now she's yellow

and brown

and fall

burn, burn

Aisye smiles

willingness to understand

It is very interesting that in reality, not the sophisticate skills or tricks of dealings with other person which makes someone get connected to each other. First of all, it is about the willingness to understand each as a person. This willingness, is a part of our care to others, a part of our love to them. What kind of understanding? It is to know although very little of their heart and language (the way they express themselves), about their energies and their choices and their perspectives toward the world. Everybody is different and unique. And each has the very right to decide their decision according to their choices. And in fact this is in the heart of our obedience and love (to God): to consciously choose the Life and live in it with a whole heart, to take our cross in humility while trusting God, our strength.

The willingness to understand and embrace others means not to judge and see others by our own perceptions and presumptions (which we supposed to be right and in fact, often not), rather to look into their hearts. It is to stay near and to listen to them without feeling more upright or more knowledgeable. It is to humbly realizing that I just know a little of what I heard or thought about them and I am available to hear more from their own heart's expression. It is to realize that not me, which many times don't have a loving and compassionate heart toward them to judge but we give them up to God's mercy.

But this is by no mean to be conformed in relativistic view of things or to be indifferent. Rather it is to stand in the truth but not boasting in ourself but rooted deeply in God's mercy. This is to speak the truth in love. It is to be firm in doing what we see Him doing, and follow Him at any cost and rejoicing with the heavenly joy when even one who is lost is found.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!

Many Years! The New Serbian Patriarch

Belgrade, Serbia - The Holy Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovac and Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, was enthroned Saturday January 23, 2010, following the Holy Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral church in Belgrade.

News and Picture Source: The Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America Website. (http://serborth.org/012322010.html)

The deep Joy that comes from being in the Will of God

Once more, my heart is moved to reflect on how God's will is perfect in our lives and how the obedience and repentance, the daughters of humility are very meaningful virtues to let it flow into our heart. And in the reading through the Athonite Gerontikon, The Lord let me see how beautiful are the lives of those who turn toward Him whole-heartily; death to the world and follow Him through the narrow and straight way of humility and love in Panagia's garden.

Living in a fallen world with a big possibility of being harmed and experiencing pain has made mankind try their best to flee, escape, mask or avoid those pains. At times, the sting of those experiences of misery and pain may create a bitterness in the hearts and minds and that might make a person forget to love and be still before Him who lovest all.

God is merciful! In His great Love He never leaves us but he come to us and He became one of us and pitched His tent among us and visited us in our weaknesses and misery. He even came down to our lowest state and loved to be with us and to embrace us and to heal us, and He wants us to be with Him. He is The Way, The Truth and the Life. In the union with Him, through the Holy Mysteries, He equips us to live and love Him. He gives us His Spirit to live a new life. Because without The Spirit, man will only live and move based on deceitful fear and desires. And only in Him, we find the purest joy and love; as my dear friend once said, "rest completely in Him, beloved, and let His life be your only joy..." Only in Him we find our true humanity.

Thus, living in His mercy and faithfulness, we have a new relationship with pain and suffering. We put our trust in Him who had endured the most miserable misery to endure- in meekness and obedience. He made the cross into the tree of life. Instead of all rejections and grieves, He stood in love and compassion; He prayed for those who crucified Him and forgave the repentant thief. There always be God's purest love in everything He does and in the way He allows us to go through, yes even though it is narrow and uneasy.

This reminds me of what Fr. John Oliver said in his podcast in Ancient Faith Radio, and I would like to quote that in this post:

Life's disappointments are like the spiritual tune-ups, they help us to take a step back and ask a most important question: "Am I here so that I can get my way, or am I here so that God can use me to get His way?" Usually my way is best [only] for me, God's way is however best for every one. My way makes life favorable for me, but God's way, makes eternity favorable for as many people as possible. I think short term, he deals in long term. My judgment is clouded, His judgment is clear. I want to control even though I don't know what is best, God has control and He always knows what is best. Because I am sinful, my way is sinful; Because God is perfect, God's way is perfect. My way usually involves pleasure but often end in pain. God's way may involves pain but it always end in joy, the deep Joy that comes from being in the Will of God [as witnessed by the lives of the Saints].

The pain, disappointments and sorrows may seem always be there in our earthly life, but remember Him who said,
"Come to Me, all [you] who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. "For My yoke [is] easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV)

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!

Psalms- Tehilim :)

I love the fact that the wonderful prayers of Psalms have a place in daily Orthodox prayers. And ever since, by the mercy of God, I started to love this poetic and great book to pray. The more I read it, the more love I feel toward this book. Therefore, I am so glad when my friend offered to give me a copy of Hebrew Tehilim to read and I accepted that joyfully!

I had never learned Hebrew before, so it was a little bit challenging to read the Hebrew alphabets. But praise the Lord, I start memorizing the alphabets and also the vowels and read some of the chapters with the guidance of Learning Hebrew book and also the audio format. It's very fun to learn to read it, because I really love to learn languages (although, sometimes not very consistent in learning :P ).
Because it is an interlinear version, it allows me to learn word by word transliteration behind the Hebrew text and that makes me more keen to learn it. It has been a great experience :D. Glory to God!

טוֹב, לְהֹדוֹת לַיהוָה; וּלְזַמֵּר לְשִׁמְךָ עֶלְיוֹן
לְהַגִּיד בַּבֹּקֶר חַסְדֶּךָ; וֶאֱמוּנָתְךָ, בַּלֵּילוֹת

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High;
To declare Thy loving kindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness in the night seasons,
(Psalm 92:2-3).
Ameyn!

Friend matters

Working in the library sometimes give me a very good chance to see how people interact, smile, laugh, and express their feelings and thought through my desk in the CAC (Closed Access Collection) room. From there I learn a little bit about the uniqueness of each person in dealing with circumstances. And the more I realize that in reality, we can not simply live simply looking for pleasant things and seeking for the most comfortable ones. Inevitably, we deal with the things which are uncomfortable and unpleasant in our days which God allows in his wisdom. He is all love and ever good. His wisdom and love surpasses my weak and lame understanding which sometimes 'skewed' that is to prefer pleasure than the edifying but uncomfortable moments.

Eventually, I want to thank God for the things which He has done so awesomely and yet in my limitation I could not see nor understand. And actually living together with friends and having some interactions and sharing has provided me great opportunity to learn from each other, to see my own weaknesses and the goodness of others :). As it is said in Proverb 27:17:
[As] iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. (NKJV)

Lord have mercy! Grant Thy unworthy servant O Lord to deal with my brothers and sisters which Thou has sent me in peace and love. Lord, grant me humility and compassion to care, to involve and to give myself to Thy beloved ones, since they too have so many needs and struggle, but Thou has called me to help them according to the Love which Thou hast upon me. Amen!

He is all Love

An elder said:

We should not put God in difficult position. He is all Love. God does not like to see us unhappy. What should God do then? Any time we are given grace abundantly, we boast; if we are not given this grace, we are unhappy, even despairing.

Soon after we begin to try[to live the spiritual life] we get tired. Even if we go astray, this can be a helpful experience for us, because it is not only in order to humble us that God sometimes withdraws His grace from us. This in fact is exactly how a man is humbled. Then when God's grace is given back to him again, he sees that he has grown in self-knowledge, and realizes that he cannot rely on himself, but he needs God's help.

It is like a baby: as soon as he is able to hold his mother's hand, he tries to walk. He takes big steps and thinks that he is doing just fine, imagining that he is walking on his o[w]n. If this continues, the child becomes dependant, because if we hold his hand all the time, he gets a false sense of security and then tumbles when he actually does attempt to walk by himself.

Sometimes the Devil manages to use us to tempt our brother. When we pray for God to give us love, God then might allow a brother to become ill so that we may be granted an opportunity to show our love when the sick brother asks for help. The sick one might ask you, 'Bring me some tea, bring me this, bring me that...' In this way God will test both your love and your patience.

Sometimes God withdraws the grace from our superiors, and they speak to us abruptly. This tests us, to see if we will judge or not, we who have previously asked Him to give us the virtue of restraint from criticism.

***

(Quoted from: An Athonite Gerontikon, Chapter XIII: On Discernment of Thought and Spirituality, p. 136)

Ever Good

During the day, I stayed for a while and reflect on how much goodness the Lord has done for me, the unworthy one. Indeed, how merciful are You, O God! And a very beautiful Psalm sounding there in my heart,

It is good to give thanks to Yahweh,
to play in honor of your name, Most High,
to proclaim your love at daybreak
and your faithfulness all through the night
to the music of the zither and lyre,
to the rippling of the harp (Psalm 92:1-3 JB)


Lord, have mercy! Grant my heart strength not only to recall Your wonders and kindness, but also to praise and glorify, to love You all of my life. You know well the weaknesses of Your servant. You have commanded us to love our neighbors as You love us, but many times I don't have a loving heart. Only to You O Lord, I hope and in Thy Goodness I trust, change my heart O God to love!

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

heart to listen, heart to keep, heart to do

Drops of the rain soon will make a parched land mould
to be a gentle and plow-able one
to be sown with a well dried seed
until its shoot comes up under the warmth of morning sunshine

The patience of still river
flows meekly through the little water channel
reaches its roots and nourishes the new planted

The flamingo sees how the nature work quietly
but his heart filled with warmness that he begins to sing
a loud song telling a wonderful story

Be still, be still wholly in the good soil, O seed
hidden under the ground
that you may not over-exposed to the heat of Sun
keep silent there, worry not
because the Good Soil nourishes you with the best goodness

It is below there, in the low part
unseen, hidden in lowly place
so that you might spring a new sprout
a new one with young green leaves
does have a strong and deep root by the streams of water

***

HOMILY on the Most-holy Virgin, the Theotokos by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also (Luke 2:35).
Who on this earth could even closely compare with the Lord in patient endurance of suffering except His Most-holy Mother? The elder Simeon, adorned with snowy hair like a white swan, prophetically foresaw her future sufferings and likened those sufferings to a sword piercing her soul. One sword had pierced her soul when the righteous Joseph doubted her at the time of her pregnancy; the second, when she had to flee to Egypt before Herod's sword; and the third, fourth and many, many others when she saw the hatred and intrigues of the Jewish elders against her Son day in and day out during the whole time of His preaching and miracle-working among men. But the sharpest sword pierced her soul when she stood beneath the Cross of her Son and Lord. This sword was foreseen and prophesied to her by the holy, aged Simeon. Majestic and moving was her silence, beneath which she covered all her pains and all the wounds of her heart as with a veil. In the twilight, all these countless pains that had accumulated in her most pure heart shone as an inextinguishable flame of faith and hope in God and dedication to God. This handmaid of the Lord, unsurpassable in nobility! She saw herself clearly in God's plan for the salvation of mankind; she read about herself in the prophets; she spoke with the angels-God's messengers. Therefore, all that came upon her, joy or pain, she knew came from God. She was not jubilant in her joy nor did she murmur in her pain, but rather she remained silent and laid it all up in her heart.
O Most-holy Virgin Theotokos, help us that we may be, like thee, submissive to the will of God.
To thy Son and Lord, through thee, be glory and praise forever. Amen.
(Quoted from http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/my.html?month=December&day=29&Go.x=7&Go.y=15).

To thee, the Champion Leader, we thy servants dedicate a feast of victory and of thanksgiving as ones rescued out of sufferings, O Theotokos; but as thou art one with might invincible, from all dangers that can be do thou deliver us, that we may cry to thee:

Rejoice, thou Bride Unwedded!

Time to come back with sweet memories

I have just arrived in Jakarta with the fragrance of sweet memory of Solo is still in my mind! I really enjoyed my trip and praise the Lord once again for the opportunity. And by the way, now I am heading to the 6th semester of my study, thanks be unto God!

The dorm is not yet very crowded, since some of us are still in their hometowns. It's very good to see them again in a new readiness to welcome and share life's experience together. Just like what Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) said "A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair." :D. That was one among other things which moved my thought during my trip in Solo given that I was in a new setting and place, where there exist again another opportunity to get to know other persons and become their friend. And that made me think of my 'how to relate' pattern. In my weaknesses, I realize too often what were in my past, in my childhood still have enough if not strong influence in my lack of social skill. Yet, again and again it is very great to trust The Lord and rest in Him, asking always His mercy knowing that I am very insufficient but He is Almighty thus let His Love be perfect in my weaknesses. And ... Happy new year, my beloved friends and readers!

Glory to God for still allowing me to live the new year in His mercy. I am enjoying very much reading An Athonite Gerontikon: Sayings of the Holy Fathers of Mount Athos, an awesome book to read in the beginning of this year sent by a friend of mine! And still under the shadow of great feast of Holy Nativity of Lord Jesus Christ, it has been a great and solemn week. I would say, "Happy Holy Nativity! Selamat Hari Natal! С Рождеством Христовым!" to everybody!

Lord, have mercy!