Category Archives: Daily Scribble

My random thoughts of the day.

Daily Scribble

Easter Vigil

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The Church has many masses in a year, the regular Sunday mass, special occasions like church festivals, days of significants, Christmas or Easter.  Among all the masses, the Easter Vigil is the longest mass of the year.  Jesus was crucified and buried, his fellowers is waiting patient for his raise of death.  Unlike normal mass that has only 3 readings, the Vigil has 8 readings and a Gospel.  In additional, new adult Catholics are also baptised in the Vigil after studying the catechism since last September.  The mass is 3 hours long and it’s starts at 10p.m.  I think it’s a small miracle that I did not fall asleep.

Pat is the sponsor for her friend’s baptism.  Since I am married with Pat, I am also a co-sponsor.  Ada is our first god-daughter, although she is only a few years younger than us.  It is a joy to see some one baptism and joined the family of the Church.  When Ada shows up in Pat choir a few years back then, I image she would eventually drift away to join the more youth protestant church.  Somehow to me, she doesn’t look like the type of people would become a Catholic.  The profile does not fit but I guess there are always exceptions.

I felt very peaceful in the Easter Vigil.  3 hours passed surprisingly fast without even feeling bored.  The first 3 readings was in darkness, the ceiling lights are turned off and we can only rely on the candle in our hands.  Watching the candle fire dance in my hand and listening to the Latin chants gives me a mystical experience.  My mind is drawn to the fire along with all my worries and let the worries burn in the flame.  I didn’t pay much attention to the reading nor the homily, athough some words slip into my ear from time to time.  My mind was wandering, thinkings pop up and go.  All my worries, angers, expectations and contemplations flashed across my mind, until all my thoughts are exhausted.  When the priest is preparing the eucharist, my mind was almost empty and sort of in a state of mediatation.  I felt the Easter Vigil had gave me strength to live through the suffering in life.

Daily Scribble

Good Friday Retreat

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I am not a good christian according to the Church’s standard.  I don’t like going to church every week, although I don’t mind.  Actually, I don’t even agree with the teaching that christians should go to church every week.  However, Christmas and Easter are the two occasion that I believe all chritian should go to church.  It is OK not go to church on normal days, but not on these two important days.  That is the mininium requirement of being a christian.

Last night I went to a Good Friday retreat.  The event was for young adults and the topic is on suffering.  Father Justin had a talk on what suffering can benefits us and we can embrace suffering for Jesus.   We listened to a suffering story by surviving POW prisoner in Vietnam and did a group sharing.  Other than the presentation of the core message, there were also the usual activities of any retreat, like an ice breaker, Rosary, praise and worship.

The message of the night is about the usual  fuzzy warm feeling about God’s love.  We did not talk about the question of why suffering exists.  I can see a positive altitude on  suffering can help us coup better with suffering, especially those we can do nothing to change.  It is true that suffering may benefit us, but it still does not explain why it should exists in the first place.  It seems suffering has no intrinsic value but only instrumental value, it only serves the function to bring us closer to God.  However it does not follow that is the only way or the best way.  An almighty God should able to accomplish the same task without suffering.

One popular church saying is that God will not let us suffer that we cannot take.  Maybe those who survived the suffering can thank God for the test to make him a better man, but what about those who can’t make it out.  The POW prisoner did not regret his horrible experience in the POW camp that brings him closer to God.  But what about his fellow prisoners who never get home.  There over 2500 American soldiers captured by Vietnamese, after 5 years of in prison, only 300 are still alive, the mortality rate is over 80%.  It is undisputed that those only who have faith can survive the suffering.  But where is the meaning of the suffering of the dead whose life are lost in vain.

The take home message of the retreat is that suffering can make us a better person and closer to God.  I do agree with this message, especially when it applies to others.  There must some people really bothers you in your life, they did not intended to hurt you but it happens there are faults in their characters.  If they can become a better person and closer to God, their problems, and yours, should go away.  In this case, wishing them to suffer is not out of hate nor revenge, but sincerely for their own good so that they can learn some lessons from God.

Daily Scribble

Alumni Gathering.

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I have been thinking about whether or not I should go to the Appleby Alumni gathering.  I went to this highschool for two years when I first came to Canada.  I didn’t have much tie with the school nor did it leave me a very good memories.  I don’t even keep in touch with any classmates from those days.  Somehow, I don’t feel I like the school very much.

It has been many years since I graduated and the Alumni is having a gathering in Vancouver.  I decided to show up thinking maybe I will make some useful connections.  After all, it’s a school graduated a few Canadian prime ministers, and the alumni network suppose to be pretty useful.  It turns out not many people shows up in the gathering.  Other than the school staff traveling from Oakville to Vancouver on his way to visit his daughter, there are only a few old guys and a lady who is working as a school teacher.  I do met the president of the biggest construction firms in town.  Too bad that I am not a civil engineer.

I have been out of touch with the school and I didn’t make any effort to stay connected.  It is nice to hear some news about my teachers.  Most of them are still around and my least favorite one is gone.  New buildings are popping up here and there.  The dinning hall has become a new library and my old residence has been rebuilt.  Maybe I should pay a visit to the school when I go back to Toronto next month to see how much it has changed.

I enjoyed a relaxing evening with snack and drinks, chit-chating old school days with fellow alumni and listening to life stories of the old men.  The alumni gathering is gives me a different exposure to the many faces of life.  I don’t get to know people from this kind of social circle very often.

Daily Scribble

horace.org spring renovation

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Winter is over, spring has come.  Time is passing fast, a quarter of the year already over.  One of my new year resolution is to renovate my website.  It is about time to start my spring renovation project.  Just like any other project, renovating horace.org is temporary endeavor with an end time.  I have to list the scope of work, a clear objective and a feasible work plan.  If I do not have any plan, this project may drag on forever and never get done.  Here is the first cut of my work plan:

  1. Update wordpress to 2.7.1 – done
  2. Install useful plugins and widgets to aid my work and enhance the presentation of the site. 
  3. Change the theme and give the website a new look.  I should not repeat the mistake of creating a theme from scratch like last time.  It is too time consuming, I should install a ready made theme and custom it for my taste.
  4. Manage the categories.  I will split category to have a better organization of my blog entries.  I shall finally fill in the category description.
  5. Update the links on my blog.  It is very out of date.
  6. Add tags to old articles to aid reader navigate my site.
  7. Update the static pages in the site and finish writing the information page.
  8. Changing the books and anime page to a database format (considering)
  9. Install a wiki to use as a knowledge management system for my philosophy studies.

Daily Scribble

Multitasking

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I know someone who are very good at multitasking. They can do many things at the same time. I found that I can’t really multitask very well. I can only time-slice my tasks. When I am working on one task and want to switch to another task, I have to put down the on-going task first. I can swap tasks back and forth but it takes quite some time for me to get back on to an effective working state of the task. I found that it is easier to swap between tasks if the tasks are very different. I think human brain operates like a computer, it has different processing units dedicate for each type of tasks. The same type of tasks use the same processing unit. If you switch from one task to another, you have to first unload the old task and then load the new task to the processing unit. That can explain why my idea for writing blog entries dry up in the past few days. I have an 2000 words philosophy essay due on Tuesday. My processing unit for writing is blocked out by this demanding tasks.