Wanna come join my Cell Group?
4th July 2005, Monday
United States' Independance Day and in Singapore, youths are celebrating an exclusive Youth Day which is why the MRT was less crammed up in the morning..well I feel youthful but still devoid of such a priviledge..sigh...
Over the weekend, read Azreal's latest editorial instalment about his 2 days trip at Tokyo (Part 1 & 2)..Man hope my own upcoming trip is not as eventful as his... heehee
There was a "Live 8" concert marathon all over the globe in cities like London, Philedaphia, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Rome etc. going on a 20 hour non-stop marathon featuring the likes of Madonna, Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney, U2, Sting, Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Bjork etc. to create awareness of the poverty and genocide in South Africa and pressuring the G-8 (8 most powerful nations in the world) to help rectify things... I was unaware of it all as the concert went by, perhaps just not one bit interested...
Anyway would like to delve into a very senstitive issue today..RELIGION...
I'm a free thinker despite I had no qualms to condescend to Mom's superstitions and short-lived religious believes time after time, but I just do not have that inclination to follow a religion...
We can go on forever to go over this topic but the gist of the matter is that over the time span of 24 hours I felt I had been ushering into joining a religion indirectly....
Firstly as I have mentioned I had attended a commemoration to my godfather's death anniversary...
My elder cousin is an ardent Buddhist who commit his family to weekly religious lesson; so naturally there were chantings of sutra over the ceremony...which I was beckoned to follow suit but I just felt uncomfortable doing it, fortunately Mom was around to help me out of the situation..
As I was about to leave the same cousin hand me a pictorial book about his religious studies, seemingly implying I should start to follow into the embrace of Buddhism...
Seriously I have strong believes in some of the teaching of Buddhism and even attended Sunday school in the past to inculcate us with the teachings; and my girlfriend was a Buddhist as well; but I don't think I want to commit my precious time to it...and always feel as long as I believe in Buddha and he is within me (and of course steer away from any wrong-doings ), I'm fine....
Later in the afternoon, Kenneth whom reappeared in Benny & June's wedding last week gave me a call...
I was thinking he might be requesting a guys' outing for our management committee, but what I fear most actually happened when he "invited" me to come join his cell group to perhaps see how things are run...No cell groups have no correlation with imprisonment...but it's a group of devoted Christians/Catholics been allocated a group from their respective churches...
Kenneth was from a very well-known church now based on the West (hint: they have pastor whose wife is a Mandarin Popstar); which personally I do not have a very good impression of...
well in fact a lot of my NUS peers and acquitances are actually Christians or in a more discreet term, "they support"....
So I always have to brace myself from perpetual evangelists stepping forward to spread their words about their religion and their beliefs...
Well I'm younger I would be pretty irked and pissed off; now I just told them not to wreck our friendships in coercing me to do things I'm not willing to do...
I always thought Kenneth knew my intentions are clear and for all to see.. "leave me alone when come to such things"...so I was quite astonished when I got his call
He asked when I would be free to join them for their weekly get-togethers which I tried my best to reject in the most subtle way I could conjure...
The main obstacle is that my old Sec. Sch./JC/NUS mate, Kenneth is one would never say "no" easily and would honey-coat his words so well you would say yes....
He was so persistent & seemingly sure that I would succumb to his sweet talks despite the notion of reluctance in my voice...
I said I would really think about it and he said he would call on Wednesday to gather my answer, which really put me in douldrums on what excuses I have to cook up to just turn him down....
Seriously Christianity is perhaps the last recognised religion I would go into...my closest people dread it and personally it's not my cup of tea...
In addition, I would never forget my mom threatening to disown me if I ever was to step into that...how serious it sounds I couldn't measure but since such words sprouted from my Mom's mouth should never taken lightly....
United States' Independance Day and in Singapore, youths are celebrating an exclusive Youth Day which is why the MRT was less crammed up in the morning..well I feel youthful but still devoid of such a priviledge..sigh...
Over the weekend, read Azreal's latest editorial instalment about his 2 days trip at Tokyo (Part 1 & 2)..Man hope my own upcoming trip is not as eventful as his... heehee
There was a "Live 8" concert marathon all over the globe in cities like London, Philedaphia, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Rome etc. going on a 20 hour non-stop marathon featuring the likes of Madonna, Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney, U2, Sting, Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Bjork etc. to create awareness of the poverty and genocide in South Africa and pressuring the G-8 (8 most powerful nations in the world) to help rectify things... I was unaware of it all as the concert went by, perhaps just not one bit interested...
Anyway would like to delve into a very senstitive issue today..RELIGION...
I'm a free thinker despite I had no qualms to condescend to Mom's superstitions and short-lived religious believes time after time, but I just do not have that inclination to follow a religion...
We can go on forever to go over this topic but the gist of the matter is that over the time span of 24 hours I felt I had been ushering into joining a religion indirectly....
Firstly as I have mentioned I had attended a commemoration to my godfather's death anniversary...
My elder cousin is an ardent Buddhist who commit his family to weekly religious lesson; so naturally there were chantings of sutra over the ceremony...which I was beckoned to follow suit but I just felt uncomfortable doing it, fortunately Mom was around to help me out of the situation..
As I was about to leave the same cousin hand me a pictorial book about his religious studies, seemingly implying I should start to follow into the embrace of Buddhism...
Seriously I have strong believes in some of the teaching of Buddhism and even attended Sunday school in the past to inculcate us with the teachings; and my girlfriend was a Buddhist as well; but I don't think I want to commit my precious time to it...and always feel as long as I believe in Buddha and he is within me (and of course steer away from any wrong-doings ), I'm fine....
Later in the afternoon, Kenneth whom reappeared in Benny & June's wedding last week gave me a call...
I was thinking he might be requesting a guys' outing for our management committee, but what I fear most actually happened when he "invited" me to come join his cell group to perhaps see how things are run...No cell groups have no correlation with imprisonment...but it's a group of devoted Christians/Catholics been allocated a group from their respective churches...
Kenneth was from a very well-known church now based on the West (hint: they have pastor whose wife is a Mandarin Popstar); which personally I do not have a very good impression of...
well in fact a lot of my NUS peers and acquitances are actually Christians or in a more discreet term, "they support"....
So I always have to brace myself from perpetual evangelists stepping forward to spread their words about their religion and their beliefs...
Well I'm younger I would be pretty irked and pissed off; now I just told them not to wreck our friendships in coercing me to do things I'm not willing to do...
I always thought Kenneth knew my intentions are clear and for all to see.. "leave me alone when come to such things"...so I was quite astonished when I got his call
He asked when I would be free to join them for their weekly get-togethers which I tried my best to reject in the most subtle way I could conjure...
The main obstacle is that my old Sec. Sch./JC/NUS mate, Kenneth is one would never say "no" easily and would honey-coat his words so well you would say yes....
He was so persistent & seemingly sure that I would succumb to his sweet talks despite the notion of reluctance in my voice...
I said I would really think about it and he said he would call on Wednesday to gather my answer, which really put me in douldrums on what excuses I have to cook up to just turn him down....
Seriously Christianity is perhaps the last recognised religion I would go into...my closest people dread it and personally it's not my cup of tea...
In addition, I would never forget my mom threatening to disown me if I ever was to step into that...how serious it sounds I couldn't measure but since such words sprouted from my Mom's mouth should never taken lightly....
Japanese word of the day: 宗教~shu-u-kyou~ (religion) Does "otakuism" count?
posted by Kei at
3:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home