Dear Introspection,

I'm sorry for my absence these three weeks, I'm sorry that you've waited here patiently for me all these days only to have me pass you by. Meanwhile, I read other updated blogs every day or spend whatever free time I had elsewhere instead of with you.

But I never forgot you. I always had you open in a tab on my browser and I often thought about things that I wanted to tell you.

I will come back and tell you my stories, okay?

Tracing circles in the past

It's good to revisit your roots every now and then. Both to remind yourself of the place that you came from, and that there's always a good chance of landing back in that territory again. Because in the larger scheme of things, you always go back to where you began. Ashes to ashes. Arguably your spirit, that imperishable side of you, wouldn't be the same anymore after a lifetime of relentless shaping, still you return to your origins. But I digress.

I stayed in for lunch today. It's a sort of harking back to the good ol' days of approximately 10 months back, a response to the relentless need to revisit my old hunting grounds with a recent perspective of past events tucked neatly under my belt. The terrain isn't what most would call picturesque. It's rocky and bare and I'm not sure why it's so important to reconnect with it, but it is.

I grew up a lone ranger. In some instances, I don't think I had a choice about that and having grown used to being in that state, in instances where there is a choice otherwise I hardly take the initiative to seek out companionship. My approach is to take it if it comes, but I assume that I'll be by myself.

So, 10 months ago I was prepared to eat alone most lunches for a long, long time. I went out to the courtyard and once drove around Cyberjaya in Lucy, looking for quiet places to go to if I ever wanted to get out. But that didn't happen in the end. I should be grateful, but it came at a price. One that I didn't pay and was hardly aware of then. I'm still digesting it, but the lump isn't going down. Even if I had known I doubt that the outcome would have been any different, but I think it would have made me feel less helpless and alone now. Maybe it's an empowerment thing. I don't like being left out of a relevant circle of knowledge.

Or maybe I'm just being irrationally insecure. Knowing things doesn't always help. That's one thing that I've been learning.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle

An excerpt from a Boundless article about the 2006 Amish shooting in Lancaster Country. The wiki account is here.

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Hope and Healing Among the Amish
by Jenny Schroedel

As the Grandfather of one of the girls prepared her body for burial, he encouraged the young boys around him to seek to forgive the man who had taken his granddaughter's life. "His words came naturally to him because they are the reflection of how he has lived over the course of a lifetime," wrote Gregory Jones in the Charlotte Observer. "They startle many of us who live in the midst of violence, who tend to harbor desires for vengeance, even if we do not act them out violently."

Ultimately, forgiveness is not a denial of wrongs committed, but a willingness to accept that there are things that we cannot undo or even understand. It a deeply humble act, as we offer up the work of executing justice to God. The Amish realize that it is not their job to carry bitterness to the grave. As a child psychologist friend of mine, Russell Carleton, said, "When you forgive someone, their act no longer defines your life."

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I'm having a very hard time digesting past acts, and these words hit me hard.

It's so hard to be humble enough to accept that there are things that cannot be undone or understood.

Sometimes

there are tiny emotions deep inside of you that have to stay hidden because bringing them up to light would kill them.

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you read and re-read things that make you want to cry, even while you're thinking "I shouldn't be inflicting this upon myself. I have no reason to do so."

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Yeah, that's a good question. Why do we keep doing things we don't want to do?

Thoughts in Mt. Fuji

What's a good symbol to represent Christmas?
Sheep, shepherds, Christmas trees: they each have a major presence on the Yuletide scene but I'm trying to think of something that more completely encapsulates what Christmas is about.

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I thought about a backdrop picture of a bunch of people jumping around a star. It's somewhat topsy-turvy.

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I feel lost.

[Out of my depth]

Inadequate would be a better word.