Just got back from HUC CF Camp yesterday and I was really blessed by the amazing experience and the many lessons that I've learnt. I really want to thank the organizers, the participants and most importantly, God, for surprising me beyond my expectations.
Finally I have time to sit down and type out part 2 of this amazing series. Hope you liked part 1 as much as I enjoyed typing it out.
Today I shall talk about
Reading Life
Each person's life story is like a book. When you meet someone new, and you start learning about the person, you are actually reading chapter 1 of the person's story. However, chapter 1 is only the surface of the person's life. If you do continue to be friends and spend quality time together, you'll start going deeper into the person's book and learn more about the person's past experiences, future hopes, desired relationships and wishful expectations. The more you read a person's life story, the closer your relationship tend to be with the person.
However, there is always a catch when it comes to reading. For one, it is not a sure thing that you will be able to remember exactly what happened in chapter 1 after some time. Thus, you have to go back and read from the beginning again. Some people never get past chapter 1 because of this. Some people are a little more fortunate when they only need a little prompting to remember everything.
Another problem is this: with over 6 billion books to read in the world, how do you know which books to choose? With limited memory, a person should only be able to juggle between 10-50 books of which about 5-10 have been read deeply. This brings us to the horrible truth: you cannot be close friends with everyone. But it doesn't give you any reason not to keep in touch with each other!
The third problem is that a person's book is never completed till the person is dead. This means that you have got to keep reading the books you have commited to because chapter 1 might change at any given moment. This also complicates matters when we are trying to juggle between the other books. Even in death, the person's book can never be read perfectly, because the only person to be able to read everything is the person him or herself.
The last, and hopefully most obvious, problem is this: you can only read a person's book if he or she permits you to. Some people can be read to a certain point, after which you find that it is impossible to turn to the next page, or that if you do turn the pages you find the words to be blurred, blackened and visually unreadable. People can close their books over you for many reasons: insecurity, lack of trust or even miscommunication. Sometimes the person him or herself would not even know why it happens.
Reading life is exciting, and if you are like any other human being who needs relational experiences, you want to be part of the book that the person is writing. You want both of your stories to be intertwined and connected, like a huge web. It takes a lot of effort to keep the web strong and secure, so learn to read the stories of life. Most importantly, learn to open your book to yourself, not being afraid of what people think of you. Because if you do so, you'd only be yourself.
You'd be you.
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