Before sunrise
OK, so I've procrastinated long enough, and yet I'm still blogging.
Good Friday was a holiday, and I swore to myself I'd finish my lab reports that day. I was up all night, and finally slept at 7:30am. And yet, no lab reports yet! Sigh, must learn to control my bloghopping/choir forum/Friendster/MSN messenger/good ol' surfing and googling/staring-into-nothingness-while-listening-to-music addiction.
Black Saturday came, and I vowed to finish the stuff before sunset, but then I fell asleep all afternoon! And now, after Diana's small birthday party (organized by Steph.. thanks for the yummy Swensen's ice cream cake!), I have finally decided to give myself an ultimatum.
So it's that's before sunrise. 2:07am now, so that gives me about 5 hours (since sunrise here is at 7) to do 6 pages of lab reports.
I was feeling a bit disappointed in myself too, for not being diligent in my studies (especially since the mountain of work is too BIG to ignore), and at these special times too, these few important holy days, when I'm (presumably) supposed to be more willing to sacrifice my pleasures, more than anything. My attempts to skip meat for all meals, all forty days of Lent (I try to, as much as I can) now seem to lack significance as I could not even control myself on these very important days.
But today I was thinking, that maybe, precisely because of JC's death on Friday and Saturday, the two days I was most yielding to pleasure, that I was unable to sacrifice. They say that upon Jesus death the bad spirits abound and, yeah, maybe they got into me and lured me away from the tasks set for me to do.
Or maybe that's just a lousy excuse to justify my stupidity.
Anyway, hopefully by posting this entry I will be reminded of the ultimatum I have set for myself, and stick to the freakin' job and stop sleeping!
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Easter thoughts
Thanks to Fiona for sending me this inspirational flash presentation about JC's death and the gifts of the cross. Although the craziness of schoolwork and hallwork are no doubt keeping me from observing the solemnity of the Holy Week, I still manage to be thankful to JC for the tremendous sacrifice He's made.
There's this thought that lately comes to mind when I think of JC. It's the "Franny and Zooey" description of him. That's the other (some say better) brilliant story by JD Salinger.
Here's an excerpt I got from here (jump to page 28 though), when big brother Zooey, 26, forcefully confronts sister Franny, 20, about her recent behavior. For weeks she’s been inconsolable, on the verge of an apparent emotional collapse. She refuses most food and is making life miserable for Bessie, their mother. The only thing Franny does is recite the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner” over and over again in the hope that over time, quantity will turn to quality. Zooey is a popular TV actor, and Franny, still in college, was an aspiring actress up until this period of remorse and spiritual seeking.
“The part that stumps me, really stumps me, is that I can’t see why anybody ... would even want to say the prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He’s only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that’s all! Who isn’t he head and shoulders over? Who? .... Who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don’t tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that — but that’s exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God... Who else, for example, would have kept his mouth shut when Pilate asked for an explanation? Not Solomon. Don’t say Solomon. Solomon would have had a few pithy words for the occasion ....
Most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible besides Jesus knew — knew — that we’re carrying the kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we’re all too ... stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff. Why don’t you think of these things? I mean it, Franny, I’m being serious. When you don’t see Jesus for exactly what he was, you miss the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. If you don’t understand Jesus, you can’t understand his prayer .... Jesus was a supreme adept, by God, on a terribly important mission. This was no St. Francis, with enough time to knock out a few [songs], or to preach to the birds, or to do any of the other endearing things so close to Franny Glass’s heart .... How can you miss seeing that!? If God had wanted someone with St. Francis’s consistently winning personality for the job in the New Testament, he’d’ve picked him, you can be sure. As it was, he picked the smartest, the most loving, the least sentimental, the most unimitative master he could possibly have picked. And when you miss seeing that, I swear to you, you’re missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only. To endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness. Not to set up some little cozy, holier-than-thou [meeting] place with some divine personage who’ll take you in his arms and relieve you of all your duties and make all your nasty [pain and heartache] and Professor Tuppers go away and never come back. And by God, if you have intelligence enough to see that — and you do — and yet refuse to see it, then you’re misusing the prayer, you’re using it to ask for a world full of dolls and saints and no Professor Tuppers.”
I like it when Zooey says these things the in-your-face semi-harsh sort of way. After all, I never was a fan of the highfalutin flowered up style of speaking/writing anyway. Here it's raw and direct, and it hit me, made me think.
There. Some philosophical thoughts just in time for Easter! Happy Easter everyone.
