怎麼辦? 神啊幫幫我！

我怎麼會又來到這個不知該如何往前走的地步？ 我又迷路了.　我該往哪走呢？　妳無時無刻都在我的意識裡到處亂跑．我心理面對妳懷著這麼強烈的感覺，而我也常常想妳，甚至想到我都覺得自己快要爆了不知是implode 還是 explode?　我真的不知道我該如何行，更不知道我真的想要甚麼． 我有這麼多懼怕，這麼多疑慮，我沒辦法相信我自己，因為我怕我會變心而傷害妳，也傷害自己．神啊唯有祢無所不知，唯有祢能真正看透我的心，也只有祢知道我該如何才好．雖然我迷路了，但我知道永遠不會走丟，祢會一直領著我向前走．信實神我相信祢信任祢．我祈求祢告訴我該怎麼辦怎麼做怎麼走．我不知道，但祢知道．若是妳的旨意，就請祢賜給我更多的愛，醫治我的心，讓我能夠一心一意，不灰心，忠實地愛她與對待她．無論如何，讓我能夠愛，不變心不灰心，一輩子愛那位祢為我預備的夫人．求祢現在給我清楚的意識，讓我能夠明白祢在這方面的想法．我知道祢有為我預備，所以我相信祢，降服於祢．我該現在跟她交往嗎?

I need Your help

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5)

I am at that point where I have been humbled before God’s throne. I know I am weak, I know I’m merely a man created from the dust of the earth, and I know exactly what God means when He says “lean not on your own understanding,” because my own understanding is so limited. I can’t trust myself. I really can’t, because I know I will let myself down. It’s funny, growing up, I’ve heard so many well-meaning people tell me that the only person you can trust in this world is yourself. Well then, in that case I would be royally screwed. There are so many things wrong with me and with my life and it seems like I am powerless to change anything. According to Scripture, if we’re not faithful in the little things, we won’t be faithful in the big things either. I have so much difficulty with even the smallest things, so how am I supposed to do anything bigger? I’ve found that I can’t even love God properly. I must be a terrible bride. And yet, Jesus, you still want me. I can’t trust myself, but hallelujah, I can trust You. Christ in me is the hope of glory. That’s the only way I’m ever going to amount to anything. That’s the only way I’m going to become anything other than a lazy, unfaithful fool who still pridefully thinks he has it all figured out. I don’t know anything. One thing I know, the only thing I know, is that I need Your help Lord God. I need You. I love You Lord, I really do try to love you. But sometimes its so hard, and my love is so weak. But Your love is perfect; You are love. Give me grace to love you more. Help me love you, and love you with all my heart, soul, and strength; help me love you with my entire being. Agape love. I know I can’t do it on my own, I can’t do it by my own strength or my own understanding. That’s why I lean on You. Thank you for being patient with me and pouring out grace and mercy on me time and time again. Thank you Jesus for your death on the cross, so that I am set free from all the fetters of sin and I can come freely into the Holy of Holies and see your face without a veil. I can do nothing; none of the things I’ve been trying to do have been done well, but in You I know I can. By your grace. Set me as a seal upon your heart; never let me go. Keep this song of praise forever in my heart. Keep me forever here in this place of dependence on You, because the day I feel like I can do it on my own is the day I will fall flat. Hear my cry; I know you do.

But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, “You are my GOD” (Psalm 31:14)

Sometimes I might struggle to love You, but I know I was made to be with You. And you will guard me jealously. Yes, guard my heart jealously, O Lord. I know there is so much more for me to learn. There is so much refining and perfecting to be done in me. But surely You are with me to the end of the age. I know that’s the truth and I will hold on to it. I eagerly await the day You return and make all things new and perfect. But in the meantime, I know You will sustain me and give me perseverance to keep going. Yes Lord, make me faithful to You all the days of my life. I pray all these things humbly in Your name Jesus. Amen.

I can’t sleep

Ick, this thing is so neglected. But it seems that lately, most PC blogs have been pretty dormant, with the exception of maybe Sophie’s because she posted today. And Paula’s.

So of all times to revive my blog and grace it with a new post, why now, at … I’m embarrassed to say what time it is because it is so ridiculously late (or early)?? Good question. And against my better judgment, I’m writing this post even though I should be heading to bed. I can’t sleep right now, and I don’t know why. My head is still reeling after another one of those late night, mind-boggling conversations on gchat. Man, seriously, I should quit gchat. Sometimes I think I interact more with people on the internet (i.e. gchat, aim, facebook) than in real life; while that’s not really true for everyone (I do see some people pretty often..), that’s certainly true for some people.

Ok before this post gets completely mired in verbal diarrhea, the real message of today’s post is that I feel like I’m being mentally and emotionally assaulted with something and I just wanted to write that down somewhere. And how does all the rambling about gchat and facebook tie into that? Well, tonight I was talking to certain people on gchat, and stalking others on facebook, and now I’m just a little bit confused. No, not the right word. And this post is probably confusing you too.

hmm.. never mind. Maybe I’ll give that sleep thing a try.

East Coast Life

Hello, faithful readers. I apologize that I haven’t been updating this regularly during this trip, but I guess I grossly overestimated the amount of free time I was going to have on this trip. I have to say, there are just too many places to see and things to do here. But, since I’m writing this post at 3am in New York City, sacrificing my much needed sleep (I slept through part of a Broadway show tonight… who does that?! How annoying!) I feel like that should be adequate compensation.

As I reflect on my past week in Boston, I feel like I have much to say about that place. It really is a charming city, because it’s so quaint. That sounds derogatory, but I mean it in a good way. It really has an old-world charm that is more characteristic of a European city than an American one. There were times when I felt like I was in Europe, no joke. New York, on the other hand, is crazy. This city just moves along at an absolutely frenetic pace. On my very first day in New York, the first place we went to was Times Square, which as I’m sure you’ve heard, is complete chaos and easily overwhelms the unwary visitor. I think that may have shaped many of the impressions that I have about New York. And it’s certainly not what I expected; it’s not as glitzy as you might think. Don’t get me wrong, there are some parts of NYC that are super nice, but most areas are actually downright grungy. I have much more to say on this subject, but it’s late and I’m tired.

One thing is for sure. I think I’m ready to go home.

P.S. I tried to upload some pictures, but it was taking forever so I gave up. Too bad.

Home

As some of you probably know, I’m spending my spring break (with a few days I get from finishing finals early) in Boston and then New York. In fact, I’m already in Boston right now. I’d like to write some reflections and updates about my trip as I go, so here’s the first one.

Now, you might be thinking, why is the first post of the trip called “home”? What a weird name for a post that’s about a a fun trip? I agree with you. Why would I title the introduction to my trip “home”? In fact, why should I be thinking about home at all when I should be on vacation? Well, you see, coming to Boston has made me appreciate LA that much more. And that’s what LA is to me now: home.

What a strange thing to say. After all, I didn’t grow up in LA; I actually didn’t grow up in California at all. My parents don’t live in California, so whenever winter and summer break roll around, I head out to Asia to “go home.” So what in the world am I doing trying to claim LA as my home? Am I not only a conformist, but also a poser?

Well, no. I still embrace all my other hometowns as well: Taipei as my birthplace, Chicago (Naperville to be exact) as the place where I was raised, and Beijing as the place where I lived and grew up through my adolescent years. And these homes will always have a little place in my heart. So how does LA fit in with all that? I haven’t even been here for 2 years. Interestingly enough, I have no idea how that happened either. Somehow, LA just slowly snuck its way into my mind as “home.” I actually hated LA when I first got here. I had originally expected LA to be some sort of sunny paradise, the same “California dream” image that most outsiders imagine when they picture California. Oh how wrong I was. I discovered to my chagrin that LA was nothing of the sort. Well, that’s a bit harsh; LA does have a lot going for it, and it certainly is a lot warmer and sunnier than most of the other places I’ve lived. But its not quite what I imagined initially. There were a lot of areas in LA that were just downright grungy, the traffic was a nightmare, the beach wasn’t that close, etc. So, during my freshman year, with my dreams completely shattered, I became really disillusioned about LA. I pretty much hated it, and I couldn’t really appreciate anything. All I wanted to do was move somewhere else. But you know, God has this sneaky tendency to make us content and satisfied with what He has given us, as I soon found out. Starting at the beginning of this year, i.e. fall quarter, God began to diminish my dislike and I really began to appreciate the different aspects of this city, including its quirks and imperfections. Now fast forward to this Wednesday morning, when I was sitting in the terminal at LAX waiting for my flight to Boston. I was staring out the window, and the scene that presented itself to me was .. well, LA. And it wasn’t even the pretty part of LA, with the hills or the ocean or something along those lines. Instead, all I could see was a large stretch of tarmac and a lone building in the background, framed by a party cloudy (and probably very polluted and hazy) morning sky. But something stirred in me, and I looked proudly on this piece of land that had become my home. Hold on a minute, did you just call that home? What the heck? Oh wow, I did. Umm….. how did that happen? Like I said before, I think God wanted to make me content with the blessings He has given me, and I see now that LA is a blessing to me. And even though my family doesn’t live there, and I’ve only been here for a short time, its home for me, and I think coming to Boston has really helped me reach that conclusion and embrace it. I mean, Boston is quite nice and everything, but LA is home.

I can’t help but think that maybe that’s a lesson God wants us all to learn, and of course not just so that we can make up our minds about where we want to call home. No, I think God wants us to learn to be content with what we have and with what He has given to us. I think once we can do that, we can begin to see those things as the blessings that they really are. In the end we inevitably realize that God definitely knows what He’s doing, and truly every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights.

After all, its terrible to appreciate what we have only after its gone.

Late Night Talks

Have you ever found yourself having a conversation that was completely unexpected and unanticipated? About a topic that seemed like the last thing you would want to talk about and share with people, much less that person you’re talking to? One moment you’re completely prepared to reject the question, or make up some bogus story that sounds convincing but leaves out all the juicy details that actually matter. But your wily conversation partner suddenly throws a curveball at you, making some vague references to “building your friendship” to try to make you talk. And then you find your resolve failing, your confidence waning, and next thing you know, you find yourself inexplicably drawn into the conversation, pouring your heart out and spilling your guts about every last relevant detail you can recall. Somehow it seems so wrong, and the whole time you’re wondering what was going on, and why you were having this conversation in the first place, but then again, it seems so right. Then you slowly realize that you’re actually enjoying the conversation. You find that somehow, it is oddly satisfying to share your stories with this person, this person who is so easy to talk to. And you keep talking and talking, like you’ve opened up a floodgate and you can’t stop the momentum of the water rushing out, until finally, you’ve reached the end of the story and in the process, it seems like you’ve laid your whole life bare before the other person, your soul exposed to their scrutiny. And yet, it still remains oddly satisfying. They offer you their take on the matter, and even though they arrive at the same conclusions you have already reached, as pleasing to hear or not-so-pleasing to hear as they may be, you derive a strange sense of satisfaction from hearing them anyway. It’s almost like having your thoughts confirmed and validated, getting their stamp of approval to think the way you do, because you’re not just crazy, someone else thinks the same way too. Nonetheless, they stubbornly refuse to divulge anything to you that you don’t already know, and the questions that you still have remain unanswered. And the facts that they have told you may not be the things you want to hear. But that’s ok. And though they pretend to be wildly funny by teasing you with some unwarranted, backhanded insults that make you wonder why you’re still friends with them, you realize at the end of the night that they were right about one thing at least. Somehow, through all the talk, a connection had been forged between you, laying the foundations for a promising new friendship. And you realize just how far you’d made it from their initial first impression of you, all but certain that you two would not get along well. Oh how wrong you were, my friend.

Late night chat partner, this one’s for you.

The Overture

I’ve decided to start a blog of my own. After seeing so many other people in PC keep blogs, it just seems natural for me to follow suit. It seems like blogging is now the thing to do, and who am I to refuse to join the bandwagon? You may call me a conformist if you like, but deep down, you know you want to start one too. In my defense, I’ve been wanting to do something like this for quite awhile already; I’ve always wanted a place where I could give a voice to my thoughts and let them be known. I suppose one reason I never got around to doing this was because I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with exposing the thoughts of my soul to public scrutiny. Or perhaps nobody will end up reading my blog, in which case they will remain essentially private. That’s fine, it’s your loss, hahaha.

But now that I’m doing this, I have decided to use that as the theme for my blog. Hence, I’ve titled my blog “The Pipeline” to convey the idea that this blog is a way for me to bring out my thoughts from within. Which also explains the tagline/description. Hopefully you’ll agree with me that the picture is a very dope visualization of that concept. As for why its jasonplee.wordpress.com, well, that’s a good question. I thought about not making a wordpress at all, but reviving my xanga, but I felt like my xanga was much too adolescent, and I wanted a clean break from that in order to start anew. In keeping with that, I decided against coming up with a cool, clever, and catchy (a.k.a. corny) ID in favor of simply jasonplee. I feel like that is fitting because it needs no further embellishment. It conveys ME, in a simple yet poetic, poignant, complete, and undiluted way.

I guess another reason I didn’t want to commit to doing this was precisely that: I wasn’t sure if I would commit to it. I didn’t want to start a blog only to have it become an e-junkyard, a useless waste of space on the internet that I had ceased to update and people had long since forgotten about, like my xanga. Hopefully I’ll update my blog relatively regularly, although this post is already taking me a surprisingly long time. It really does take time to be witty hahaha. Not that this particular post was supposed to be witty.

I also struggled a bit with what I should title this particular post. I wanted to call it something akin to “The Beginning” or “Introduction” or something along those lines, but couldn’t think of a satisfying way to say that. Finally, I decided on this particular title as a somewhat nostalgic tribute to all my years of classical music.

There’s a belief out there that some the greatest creative achievements in art, music, literature, poetry, etc. are conceived while the author/composer is in some sort of rut. In other words, people are most creative when they’re emo. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, but I am in a somewhat emo mood at the moment. No, scratch that, emo isn’t the right word for it; it doesn’t accurately describe what I’m feeling. I’m just being pensive. I don’t doubt that it is very possible for people to produce brilliant works while they’re happy too. Hopefully I’ll have a lot of those kinds of posts.

And for the record, I’m not just being a conformist. My thoughts are still my own and there’s nothing conformist about that.

Now with that, let the journey begin.