網誌
2006年1月21日 上午5點26分56秒I cry out......
Jan 21, 2006 Saturday
Lord, you know that it's really a hard time for me.
The deadlines for applications have already passed, but I am still pondering what should I write, what do I really want to be and to do in the prospective grad school.
Plus all the eye-opening experience in Mississippi and gender discussions, which occupied my thoughts and, sadly, also robbed my time avilable.
Plus all the emotional stirring, jealousy, pain and inner heartbreak just because I still cannot let go of my crush on her, whom I see everyday. I know that I am making myself a big liar when I said the intensity level has come down to 15-20% from the peak in November -- the desire and longing for relationship is still there and I just cannot deny it anymore.
Plus loneliness when I discovered I am still an outsider among InterVarsity friends and making deep friendship is just so difficult, just because of who I am, how well I speak and act. Perhaps I am too pessimistic or antisocial, but why...... Why?
Plus my Mom's deafening phone call...... oh well. I am glad that she is so concerned about me, my living and my plan, but it's also a tremendous source of pressure. I am sure that she can't fully understand the hardship I am really going through. What I can say is just a pretending "I am OK", and talking about peripheral or logistical stuff around family but can rarely get to the deepest of our relationship can carry. Imagine what will happen when I "courageously" declare to my parents that following God is above money and everything, which my fellow brothers and sisters are committed into? How much have they sacrificed and how much pressure have they beared so that I have all the privilege to what I have right now? How much should I pay back to, or at least, be considerate about them?
Plus...... I can't count. There are burdens of inequalities and injustice in this world that upset my spirit. But with all the struggles, pressure and pain above crushing my spirit, do I still have strength to do anything with them?
Lord, help me!
Save me from this place!
Rescue me and deliver me!
In such of desperation and hopelessness,
I know that I have nothing I can rely on but you.
Nobody may understand me, but you know me thoroughly.
You heart is close to me, and your footsteps never leave me.
*** ***
I cry out
for you hands of mercy to heal me.
I am weak,
I need your love to free me.
Oh Lord, my God,
my strength in weakness,
come rescue me Oh Lord!
You are my hope!
Your promise never fails me,
and my desire
is to follow you forever.
For you are good,
for you are good,
for you are good to me.
For you are good,
for you are good,
for you are good to me!
2006年1月20日 上午4點09分37秒Why?
Why do I come to Bucknell? Why am I in InterVarsity? Why do I fly from far away and spend four years in this nowhere place?
I lose hope. After a brief rapture of excitement and merriness, everything grows dark again and what is left is mere emptiness and sorrow.
I am lonely. I can never get into their culture, their world, no matter how much I try. I am an outsider.
Why make friends? Why play around shallow humor and meaningless conversations? Why not just be anti-social? Why not just be by myself?
Why dream for relationship? Why wander in mind for fantasies?
Why pretend that I am fine? Why keep an image of faith as solid as rock while I am actually full of unbelief? Why not just follow the world?
But Lord, you created me. You love me and died for me. Why?
Why is it so painful to be your follower? Why must I deny myself and bear all these burdens? What should I really deny? What should I really bear? Who am I when I do these? Christ indeed dwells in me and lives through me, but then who am I?
Oh Lord, where are you amid all these turmoils?
2006年1月12日 下午3點02分20秒Calmness in the midst of the storm......
January 12, 2006 Thursday
In Waveland, Mississippi
As I kept driving during Christmas break, the trip came out that Brittany couldn't host me, so it was kind'of meaningless to pass by Gretchen's house as well. After having several most wonderful days of this break with Stacusa and Bender, I headed back to Lewisburg, prematurely.
Then I fell into my little world again, struggling to find meaning, purpose and purity. In spite of Ed Smith family and Tom & Jamie's heart-warming hospitality, I was poor and hungry, in every aspect of life.
After a few days of rest, it came more driving: all the way down through that narrow, scary I-476 by myself and picked up Matt in Philly. Some reminiscence of the people, places and events during that six weeks, which totally transformed my life: downtown Philly, Spirit & Truth, Ayuda, the kids...... looking back to the present self, I am lost...... Where am I heading to right now? Will I follow the steps of Ben, who is also a CS major? Where is my root of life?
Then everybody, about whom I struggled in my heart, showed up. It was expected and yearned for, I admit, shamefully or not. However, it was such a confusing and perplexing time. Everything got stirred up, and I almost lost control on myself...... how could I spend the next seven days with them? I would probably get crazy.
Then, in the midst of the storm, a sudden calmness appeared. Through the eye of the hurricane, I could look up and see the clear blue sky, just like what Waveland had probably experienced four months ago. It was deeply inspiring, breath-taking and transcending, up to the highest star in the sky, the most powerful heat of the flame. They -- however beautiful, charming, attractive -- are not important anymore. The down-to-earth labor, dusty hands, muddy feet, exhausted joints and muscles showed that we are mere flesh, prosper in a while, then wither and we are no more. The deceptive imaginations are finally revealed.
Lord, thank you. Show me yourself in the midst of the storm.
2005年12月26日 下午8點13分41秒Crazy Christmas......
December 26, 2005 Monday
4th day of my roadtrip
Staying with Matt's family during Christmas. Ate lots of Lasangna, Antipasto, Anchoves, and of course, candies!
Went to church service twice(one at Christmas eve, one at Christmas Sunday). Played lots of fun games. Received lots of Christmas present, including a huge 3-flavor pop corn can. Slept a lot. Watched a movie full of fantasies......
Brought four books to read on the way(three from IVP -- "FUFI" book, "Good News for Injustice", and "Equal to the Task", and one for 3rd world development class next semester). The "FUFI" one is finally done, while all others are going through the second thirds......
More people to call...... Really can't wait to see Stacusa and Bender. However, will Brittany respond to me in time?
What a crazy Christmas......
2005年12月22日 下午11點43分53秒What the merry Christmas~~~
December 22, 2005 Thursday
3 days before Christmas, 21 hours before my 2000-mile roadtrip
Every year, Christmas always gives me a hard time.
Well...... it's already much better. Compared to 4 years ago, it was full of conflicts and unhappiness when I had Christmas with my host family in Buffalo. Now, I've built a much broader and stronger friendship network. I'm so welcomed to travel around the states in east coast, pretty assured that there are always some friends willing to take me. I tried very hard to adjust to the Christmas culture in US, except that I am still very skeptical and critical to the shallow merriness, social rituals, and utterly materialistic consumerism.
Still, Christmas is a very perplexing time for me. I know that I could never have a place here where I was born, raised, culturally aquainted and socially supported for 17 years, with all the high school buddies, parents, relatives and extended family surrounding me, like most of my friends have. I somehow feel jealous of them, I admit. I don't understand their enthusiasm towards what they regard the biggest holiday in the year, their yearning and their time spent on fanatic shopping for family and friends. I just have a hard time feeling in my heart that they are important, no matter I am a Christian or not. Who cares about Jesus's birth more exlicitly than the Santa Claus coming to town? Ask an American kid about that!
Perhaps this season serves as a reminder to me that I am still an alien. I don't belong to here. My English can be so fluent that a 800 GRE verbal score is a supereasy task for me; my friends can be so many that I just can't stop saying hi around campus; my achievement can be so great that a PhD, well-paid job, relationship & marriage, family and reputation are all satisfied to the uttermost. But in the solitude, under the quiet night, the immense loneliness overwhelms me. The loneliness is so great that my inmost being, with genuine humanity and sexual desires ("sexual" here refers to not just physical needs, but a more holistic(physical + emotional + social) needs deep in man/woman's personality as a sexual being --- adopted from "Equal to The Task"), steers my mind towards false images of intimacy with her (or multiple "her"s). Of course, in this imagery process, lust, selfishness and objectification are unleashed. Sin becomes inevitable. After that, a even greater loneliness comes back, but life must go on...... So I get up again from that private, contaminated place, make up myself as a brillant and promising Bucknell CS major, a sociable "Keamercules" or "Energy Sword", or a spiritual dorm study leader in InterVarsity. Still, the wonderful girls in my dream are so distant. I am not speculating, but in their world full of friends, "I am just an alien", a nice but strange guy from another side of the earth. Relationship? Impossible.
I remembered the intense feeling when Laura held my arm closely as we walked back together on that snow day! The intimacy is so close to reality! The minds grow cold, however. "Oh Keami I am not your type," she said, "You knew too much Bible." It's not about the Bible, it's about me. I am not the type of this world too.
Perhaps I write too much...... Am I crazy? Am I too pessimistic? I am just a lonely Chinese young man with a wandering heart, lo. I don't belong to this world. I know that my home is in the heaven, where my ultimate satisfaction will be found. Life is a sojourn --- that may be the most meaningful experience I will get from the upcoming 2000-mile roadtrip reaching through from New England to Tennessee. I just want to know how long will these expectations and turmoils be until the roadtrip of my life is over.
Lord, when will I come home?