There I was. At the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, quietly enjoying the Vienna Boys’ Choir serenading a hushed, reverent audience basking in their unique brand of symphonic vocal ballads and serene “sacred Austrian hymns”.

As I sat there soaking in the harmonies from the boys’ melodious voices, wild images invaded the peace and quiet of my mind. For wild explosions of a completely different kind of vision burst into my my mind’s eyes and ears as I saw a rowdy group of street hip-hop artist descend onto the stage and start to harmonize themselves along with the Vienna Boys Choir..

Can you imagine that? Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, not really. But reading Blue Like Jazz (after only started reading the book over the weekend, I am now almost done with it) has sometimes been really uncomfortable. Like this morning. I picked up the book and read about Community. Miller described in the chapter how he hated to live with others because he is so full of himself.

As I read, his story reminds me of my own brokenness. I am in community. I live with my family. There is also a boarder in my house. I work with people around me, but oh how much I prefer to be by myself. Read the rest of this entry »

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Technorati Tags: blue like jazz, donald miller, spirituality, loneliness, community, anger, relationships, fatherhood, prodigal son, father, grace

I have only one brother. No sisters. We were very close growing up. He was about five years older. We used to play football daily (or soccer as most of you calls it) as little kids. When I was about five, some other kid in the playground made fun of me, and my brother beat him up. I looked up to the guy. Growing up, he was my hero.

Mom used to introduce her two sons to everyone: “One is a genius and the other one just tries very hard.” And, to me, she often says, “You can’t do anything, and whenever you try you just make things worse!” I never took that as Mom being mean. It was just her way of encouraging me to try harder. I think Mom just wanted to make sure that I continue trying hard and not give up. In any case, she often describes my brother as the smarter of her two sons, but she also often says of him that he is lazy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Technorati Tags: life journey, brother, drug addiction

Initially when I wrote my earlier piece, I was thinking about my ability to express certain kinds of emotion. I was thinking that I used to cry a lot at one time in my life, and then I went through a long period when I apparently lost the ability to cry. It was so bad that there was a time when bad things were happening around me, for example, the death of my mom, when I lost the ability to cry. Then, apparently, years later, I seemed to regain this ability to shed tears again.

Reflecting further on the post and also the comments from my readers have helped me think through a little more about the issue. I now realize that my expressions of sorrow during that time were mostly triggered by other people’s suffering. Read the rest of this entry »

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Technorati Tags: crying, emotions, depression, spiritual healing, tears

Just read this entry on Cat’s blog about crying. She shared about her bottled-up and mixed-up emotions welling up in tears:

I felt ridiculous for some time but realize that with all that I’ve gone through, this crying was no big deal. It’s just my emotions having built up and finally releasing over so many years. I always held in my sorrow and anger…and now at times it comes out in spurts like temper tantrums and crying fits.

I relate to what she says about crying. When I was younger, I used to cry easily and often. Then one day, I stopped. Maybe because I realized that crying doesn’t really help the situation. Or maybe because I found that crying doesn’t ease the pain. For a long while I just didn’t cry. For instance, I couldn’t even cry when my mom passed away. I yelled, I screamed, but the tears didn’t flow. Not easily anyway.

Then a few years ago, I started to sob like a baby. Read the rest of this entry »

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Technorati Tags: crying, emotions, depression, spiritual healing, tears

A while ago, at a gathering of parents of teens at my church, we were talking about how to relate to our teens. Someone shared that as parents we need to talk to our kids about what is right and even if they don’t appear to be listening, what we tell them today will come back to them.

Someone mentioned that even though they are now grown up and have left home for many years, that their mother still talked to them as if they were still at home and a teenager! Everyone nodded and laughed in agreement.

I interjected wryly, “Yep! Don’t I know it! My mother too still talks to me … and she died more than seven years ago!” Read the rest of this entry »

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Technorati Tags: mom, mother's day, memories

I live in a household of three teenagers, two of whom are growing young ladies, and along with my wife, of course, go through that “time of the month” which sends their moods into wild swings. With hormones raging, mood swings and the usual hustle bustle of a busy household, often we tend to get in each other’s ways. That means we have to learn how to hold the peace. That’s right. I mean “hold the peace” which also involves “holding our peace” sometimes. By “holding the peace” I mean being in a position to maintain sanity and peace when the situation can easily erupt in cantankerous confusion with much ugly yelling, screaming and name calling.

Today was one of those days. It has been brewing for a little while. It actually began a few nights ago when two of my teenagers were in disagreement. When they were younger, I used to have this urgent need to step in right away and end all fights. Often my ending the fight did not resolve any underlying issues. However, it did get rid of the temporary problem. However, I have learned that this is not the wisest way to deal with the problem.

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This morning while blog-hopping I came across the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) Quotient test, and decided to spend 5 minutes completing it. Unsurprisingly, I came back with a high score (which blogger doesn’t feel that rush of ego-boosting adrenaline when faced with a favorable survey score even if it is not quite true?), but truth be told, I had a hard time filling in the answers to that test!

I mean, to most of the questions I encountered, I needed a third, sometimes a fourth answer! Because I had to choose between the only two options available, I chose the one that most likely describe my situation but in reality I cannot even say 51% of the time though, because the phrase “well… it depends…” came up in my mind so often!

Later on in the day, I was having a conversation with my colleagues, and I told them I had taken such a test only this morning and I came so close to Dr Phil it was scary! One of my colleagues immediately said, “Well that’s just like you, though!” So, although I have vindication and sort of validation, I still don’t think I am really that high in my EQ score. Unless of course it is some kind of average, and it is a comparative/subjective kind of scoring. Perhaps just as IQ tests do not measure all of a person’s intelligences, so also does EQ not measure all of a person’s emotional intelligence.

Read the rest of this entry »

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