Nostalgia

I think I've came a long way since Calgary, 2005. The people that I knew way back in first year could attest to that. I sometimes think back to my old WatCard picture (which, unfortunately, got shredded when I got my grad student version) and my attitude when I first came in. Just another frosh, far away from home, and hating every moment of it. Today, Waterloo doesn't seem that bad.

I don't think it really was Calgary. I have several high school friends that continuously tell me how sucky Calgary is. One is in LA now. The other in Belgium. I think back to our struggles in jr high and high school and realize it really wasn't that bad. All the "end-of-the-world" events is just another memory. Vanessa was in Calgary for a month and was telling me about how people are (Dang. Matt's taller than us now?). Who's married to who (What?! TD got married?!). Who's working where (Wow, how did Noel end up in HK?). News of people that I once stood, walked with and was challenged by, but now just an acquaintance due to time and distance.

I resonate strongly with Jo Wong's post, of how "I don't hang out enough with them" anymore. With time a (slightly) more flexible commodity, I spent some time reading people's thoughts, flipping through Facebook, just to see where that entire crowd is. What people are doing. My CCAC friends. My IB friends. My family friends (actually, I can guess what they're doing...StarCraft II -_-). I think it's easy to be surprised and shocked at where people at home is. But those of us who left Calgary, we've made a few steps forward too. A bunch of us are doing grad school, in Ontario and Quebec. Kevin ended up in NYC. I constantly forget that Jon and Mel Lau are in North York. A few went all the way back to Taiwan/China/HK.

Whenever people ask of my past, I always complain about Calgary. I complain about it being spiritually dead, and that I instantly feel "more spiritual" when I step onto Waterloo soil. I point out that I've grown more in the first 2 years of UW than I have all my life in Calgary. I lament about the lack of community that I've come to know as fellowship. What I don't talk about is those late night MSN chats with Sr Rock upperyears. Or the counselors that tried. The running around with the elementary kids. The joking around in choir practices. The bags of wet grass. The hours in the Industrial Arts shop. The talks in the parks and the malls. Scoffing down the noodles when no one is around to tell us to slow down while eating. Assaulted by mosquitoes at Edworthy park. Tripping on rollerblades at Edworthy park. Spraying water into wound at Edworthy park. Sharing my testimony at Edworthy park.

Calgary was just a set up for the foundations. It felt like an uphill battle, where I was young and foolish (now, just foolish). Where I often wonder "if only I knew what I knew now...". Where I remind myself that's what the upperyears tried to tell me. Calgary, with its environment and people, set the basis for later growth. I am no longer like them, eager for the next Halo night or bowling event, but I would not have grown without them. It was rather interesting then, when my family came over for my Convocation. A bit of a collision of worlds. A slight reminder that I can't maintain contact with everyone. That the stories goes on, with or without us. Waterloo has it's difficulties too. It's just easier to complain about Calgary.

Haha. I wonder how much Calgary people would see this. Funny how one can still get homesick once in a while, after 5 years. Thinking back, but always still looking forward.

Doing not-so-grand things

Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.


Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."


Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. "By all means, go," the king of Aram replied. "I will send a letter to the king of Israel." So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: "With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy."


As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, "Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!"


When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: "Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel." So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."


But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he turned and went off in a rage.


Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. 

- 2 Kings 5.1-14

Interesting passage. Commentators note that...

• Naaman was only awesome cuz God made him so
• The girl in v2 was a captive Jewish slave, but still advertised for the benefit of her master, thus is an example of outreach
• The king can't do anything. Haha. 
• Elisha didn't feel like coming out to meet the general

And now getting to the parts that caught my attention. Having read though all sorts of strange ways that Jesus chose to heal people, the instruction to jump into the local river didn't seem that out of place. Naanman getting angry is also understandable. He's some high up, important official. Yet here, a normal civilian wouldn't give him the respect he feels that he deserves. But the thing that caught my attention was in v13...

Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!"

- 2 Kings 5.13 

If the prophet had told you to do some great thing...

I feel that we're constantly expecting to be handed some great thing to do. Somewhere between exposed too much science fiction and action anime/movies/books/games, and all the epic stories we read in the Bible, one might come to the conclusion that we're all called to do "great things." In fact, it might even be easier to do great things. To have something worthwhile under your belt. Just so I can say "yeah, I did this."

Last weekend, I assembled my first CV (I'm totally sold on LaTeX now. No more Microsoft Word spacing ugliness). CV, short for curriculum vitae, loosely translates to "the course of my life," and essentially is a resume without page limits. It was a mildly entertaining 3 hours while I thought about random things I can stick here (to make up for my lack of publication count). At the end, I had 2 pages worth of volunteering experience. Quite proud of myself...until I started removing all the irrelavent ones. -_-

We live in a society of accomplishments. When I meet someone new, "what do you do as a living?" is a typical first question. "So...what exactly are you researching?" is probably the question I get the most often. We're constantly doing things...and all the better if they happen to be great things. Nothing like a good ego/pride boosting to get one going.

But more often than not, the stuff we do arin't all that great. Especially so in research. In fact, one of the early papers I read was about the importance of stupidity in research (no worries, there's no math or proofs...I'm extremely amused that someone cited it). In real life, great things arin't that easy to come by, because they tend to be hard to pull off, and sometimes you just gotta be at the right place at the right time. 

In God's kingdom, great things don't come that often either. Paul sheds some light on why:

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12.6-10

It's more about God then it is about us. And so when we're sent to do the littlest of tasks, the great things that are achieved are not by our hands, but by God's.

Random conclusion note

Ungrateful people. Aram attacks Israel in chapter 6. -_-