2 cents of thought on design

Designers have the power to give form to thought, dreams and emotion. Calling what is not into what is. Creating ideas, turning them into the embodiment of things to come.

Design is about turning dreams into reality, creating hope and life in form.

Design starts with a vision.

God let me start with a good one.

This Present Age.

There is so much suffering.

The world aches and groans under the weight of great suffering, how longer will the rest of us continue living our lives pretending nothing is happening? I wonder. How much longer will we stay where we are, in the face of such challenges and immense suffering that we are only beginning to encounter? We sit at home, listening to our stereos, blogging about all the disaster and writing our obituaries to unknown strangers. Giving out of our convenience, if at all.

How many people have cried out to our Almighty God to save, the one who is willing and able to save, yet has not. It still breaks my mind, my heart and does violence to my theology. We talk about the God who is our Shalom, our riches and our Salvation, our refuge in a time of storm; who loves us more than His very life. How many promises can you claim when your legs are crushed, struggling to swallow from the thirst which traps your very air within the stickiness of your throat? I’ve heard a phrase someone quip,

“Life isn’t fair. Just fairer than death.”

A friend’s child passed away yesterday, and her life was nearly lost too. Oh God, be near. I believe in a good good God, one who would lay down his very life for us, who commends his angels regarding us; who would not even let our heels strike a rock.

I believe that the Gospel, and God’s salvation is not powerless and only comes into effect past the point of mortal death, and that we are not bereft of all other benefit on this side of existence. I refuse believe that the Gospel is a human argument, a product with which we merely retrieve from time to time to clear our own conscience with.

I will not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God, alive and effective in this present day and age. I still believe in the Kingdom of God which and will grow in power and advance forcefully until the age that is to come. Oh God, pour out your power and Spirit upon the Sons of Man in these last days. Do not let us face the world that is slowly crumbling into destruction with the emptiness of human wisdom, but fill us with Spirit and with your power. Oh Father, great in power and mighty to save.

Let me see your goodness and your unmistakable and majesty in this land of the living. Do not let us contently sit here, watching silent and breathless as this world slide away; under this tremendous landslide that tears the land asunder, violently lurching and crushing all in its path. Fill your children with Your Spirit, break our hearts as you break this land. Strengthen us, our Lord, and our God.

O God, do not let my love grow cold.

I would have lost heart, if I did not believe that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. O God be near.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe, and that the kingdom of God is true, alive and effective in this present age and will grow in power until the age that is to come.

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Interesting Picture

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/music/interviews/2009/stevencurtischapman-nov09.html?

I was on Christianity Today reading an interview piece with Steven Curtis Chapman. This interview was a followup on the coming release of His new album, Beauty Will Rise. The album itself has been written in the wake of the death of his daughter; come to think of it I never occurred to me why a funeral wake was called a wake.

Perhaps this is the reason; we experience a wake of a life, leaving. It ripples, shudders and churns through the fabric of our consciousness.

Anyway, I was just reading through the article, and it struck me that he’s gone through something that I have gone through recently as well, minus the tragedy. At a point in time, when the rubber hits the road life comes to a screeching halt and we are forced to examine our faith and are confronted with the sticky closeness, the reality of life and are sometimes left breathless, winded by something that has punched us in our guts.

What struck me the most was the picture he put on the background of his website, on the bottom right corner.

http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/music.htm

I’m not sure if he intended for it to be this way, but it appears that he is about to take a ‘faith fall’ over the edge of a cliff. I’m intrigued because to me like what we are truly doing to ourselves when we profess to be Christians. If we are honestly and really seriously about our faith, we are, for the lack of a better analogy, falling backwards off the edge of a cliff. Trusting that God is there, lest we perish. Maybe this is a better analogy; for those of us who profess to serve, and live our lives by God’s word are already leaping off the edge backwards. That we take the leap at all shows our faith that there is a God (since we realise that we already don’t have a choice); how scared we are tells us how much we trust in God’s willingness and capability to catch us when we fall.

I wonder how high all our cliffs are.

19th July, and still human after all

Hello world. Hello God. It’s 3:12am in the morning, and I’m wondering if I’m still the simple boy I’ve always been. And sometimes foolish. I thought will all my learning and growing and all I’d be a little brighter, but I’m still human after all.

The king is dead

Wow. I never thought I’d see this day.You know everyone’s got to die at some time or another, but the words of one mourning African woman sums it up: “He’s a legend, he’s not supposed to die,”.

I can’t recall exactly when I started to fall in love with Michael Jackson’s music, but it was somewhere between the moonwalks,  riveting rhythms and the coolest music I had ever heard  punctuated by the occasional odd squeal (I’m sure a great giant transforming robot/spaceship/humanoid thing had something to do with it too). I tried my darnedest to swivel my feet in a manner that allowed me to magically glide backwards in my bedroom, but alas to no avail. I never knew why I loved his music (“You’ve been hit bah, hit bah, a smoooth criminal!”), but I sure thought it was the coolest thing on the planet. And for a while, everyone else agreed with me.

Now that I’m older and older, I begin to rediscover the mastery of the King of Pop, his ridiculously talented performances and getups. Part of the appeal of his singing came from his incredible expression of whatever he was singing. It wasn’t merelysinging; it was like watching the best movie in the world, listening to a tragedy, vocal gymnastics, soap opera and disco pop drive all in one. He sounded like he was totally convinced by what he was singing, passionately bringing every straining bit of his tongue, vocal chords and throat to bear on every single note. And he put his heart in it. Like he was emotionally involved in everything he did. In doing so, we belived him that we were not alone, it didn’t matter if you were black or white and that the man in the mirror was a terrible person. He sounded like he was singing to each and every person over the world personally through the radio, and whatever he said had to be true, because it sounds so perfectly right. What talent he had, what mastery he held!

One day at a time, we lives our lives. One day at a time, life is slipping past us. We all have to die some day, I hope to die in a manner worthy of the life I’ve been called to live. I don’t think I’ll ever be as talented as Michael Jackson, nor as immensely popular and slightly reconstructed. Michael Jackson had built himself a never Neverland where he would never have to grow up, lately I’ve be looking towards some where a little more permanent than these frail, human trappings. I hope that I’ll live the good life, run like a man intent on winning, and fight a good fight.

“I’ve got a home in gloryland that outshines the sun”

Rest in peace Michael, I hope that you’re somewhere kinder, in a gentler place.Your music lives on, and will continue to inspire legions of musicans to come.

And nothing hurts more than hope. Yet hope we must, for that is what will make us human. I will hope till my heart bleeds, till the walls cave in, till the mountains fall on me. I will continue to hope with a desperate hope that cries out to its maker, that cries out for the hopelessness and despair in this world. How are you today world? 5 cars have spectacularly collided in front of my apartment today, leaving debris on the road, a taxi on the pavement and people and dreams in pieces. Someone’s baby girl  in this country is sick with cancer, in excruciating pain and has a 40%-50% chance of living. Her mother is desperate for help, doing everything she can for her daughter.

Why?

.

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest

Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like you love me

Break my heart for what breaks yours,

Everything I have for your Kingdom’s cause

As I walk from earth into eternity

How much longer must we wait? How much more are we going to stand and watch?

O Magnum Mysterium.

O Magnum Mysterium.

I’m moving house, which has not been altogether alien experience shuffling between various apartments of questionable quality in Australia; however, this one seem a little disturbing for several reasons. My parents seem to haveplan to insidiously assimilate me and my future family into their home, and start their own little fifedom in the north of Singapore. something which I am strongly opposed to.

There is nothing wrong with living with your parents, to a point. There can only be one man of the house, and a house should be run as such. A man should leave and cleave, establish his own household. I wish I could have a plan and a vision for my home, but for now this is all I know; when I start my life with my wife when I find her, it will be stars rambling over the deep blue ocean sky, warm nights spent pondering the mysteries and forgetting them the next instant, and amber sunlight filtering through our conciousness connecting our souls in the shade. I would want my home to be one of light, laughter and joy. Maybe I need a little more forging still; I sense my trial in fire has begun and I need to forge my way through this one alone before I can begin to provide rock solid shelter and leadership for someone beside me.

I wonder what the plans You have for me, and if I could have a glimpse of them, then I wouldn’t be on the edge of the seat gripping it till my knucles bleed, with tears of sweat rolling down my heart and my life on the limb furthest away from the edge of the cliff.

Meanwhiles:

Is this the life I signed up for? I’m so tired I can barely frame my thoughts. Life is again on the cusp of some vital happenings, but I hope I won’t be so tired and dull I won’t see it when it before it happens. Everything is changing and happening, stories and prophecies just hanging on this side of the thread, waiting to spill over unto and into wonderful fruition.

Perhaps a hiatus is in order, time to get a different job, learn different things and really get into things I’ve been wanting to do seriously for a while. The last thing I want to do is to meander around aimlessly while being driven by a storm. I’ve been able to attend talks by a bunch of really impactful speakers over the past week, all of whom have set my mind ticking about life and all its mysteries.

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans for a hope and a future, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.”

“I will never leave you nor forsake you; I wil not leave you or abandon you.”

Be still oh my heart, lest you get carried away in your foolishness. O Magnum Myesterium. So what. I know who holds all the plans.

Reign In Us

You thought of us before the world began to breathe
You knew our names before we came to be
You saw the very day we’d fall away from you
And how desperately we need to be redeemed

Lord Jesus come lead us
We’re desperate for your touch

Oh Great and Mighty One with one desire we come
That you would reign that you would reign in us
We’re offering up our lives a living sacrifice
That you would reign that you would reign in us

Spirit of the Living God fall fresh again
Come search our hearts and purify our lives
We need your perfect love
We need your discipline
We’re lost unless you guide us with your light

We cry out
For your love to refine us cry out
For your love to define us cry out
For your mercy to keep us blameless until you return

So reign please reign in us
Come purify our hearts we need your touch
Come cleanse us like a flood and send us out
So the world may know you reign you reign in us

Reign In Us

Starfield

Flying Over Concrete Skies

The thunder of wind streaking by

Rain forming a sheet of droplets over my eyes

Pressing its grains into my body

As I rush onwards

I avoid the cars as I rush on through the rain, my clothes flapping haphazardly in the wind. The maddening drone of the engine drowns out all thoughts in my mind except the ones which keep me alive, my tiny eyes narrowing further to squint through the fog and lights.

Arms around my waist

Hiding from the wind

Shivering slightly

It’s been a while.