Friday, September 05, 2003
labor day/birthday weekend part 2
we went to d&b's again on friday night and played a really fun game of shuffleboard. we've been wanting to play this game forever now and we finally got to play. it was only me, glenn, mina, danny, and daniel-my friend from high school who went there after the dinner at lucille's as it was late, but we had a good time. oh my goodness, mina and i played that horseracing game again with our butts sticking out in the air and i won this time! but goodness, between that game and the boxing game, i don't need to go to the gym! it's a total body workout.
saturday was a long and tiring day at the scrc convention in the anaheim convention center. i joined the new young adult track of talks that they had and it was good, just that i was so freakin tired from the previous busy week and especially the night before. i was so disappointed actually because the talks in the morning that i was more awake for weren't all that good-they were too vague, speaking only on the surface, just grazing upon the issues that were presented. they spoke about relationships, but they had only an hour to split between 3 speakers, so they couldn't speak in depth. the talks that were really good were in the afternoon but i fell asleep during those sessions.
from what my brother and cousin said, the teen session seemed better with a segment when they invited kids to come up and say "where were you Jesus when..." there was a girl who came up and said, "where were You, Jesus, when i was being raped?" and other kids who said, "where were You, Jesus, when my mom was an alcoholic?" and "where were You, Jesus, when i was beat up by my father?" my cousin said it was very powerful and affected many people. i think the point was to get the kids to let out their frustrations, that it’s okay to be angry with God. i think it’s important for them to know that they can have a relationship like that with God. it brings him closer to their level so that they can think of Him as a friend or person close to them, not just the traditional Almighty Power who made heaven and earth.
when i went to pick up my brother, i saw the end of their sessions and i looked at the pamphlets that they handed out. there was one that was especially striking-it was this business card sized card that had a promise statement about keeping one's self pure and chaste and promising to keep from temptations. and then there's a space to sign it. i'm glad they discussed such things during the teen session. i know i definitely would have benefited from it had they had those talks when i was a teenager.
i think the best part of the convention was the mass in the evening. the community that puts on this renewal convention is a charismatic one-meaning they rely highly on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and they use this convention to renew and rejuvenate people in their spiritual journey through talks, workshops and services. one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of speaking in tongues. if any other person who didn't know what was going on came in, he would've been sooo weirded out, because it just sounds like people are sort of possessed and just speaking gibberish. i felt really disoriented actually at first because i hadn't been in that kind of environment in a long time. but when i experienced it during mass with the whole arena speaking in tongues, oh my gosh, it gave me such a rush-like a warm feeling inside of me. sometimes, i'll just be praying and in the midst of my praying, i'll get the urge to speak in tongues like that, but of course, in the middle of a church, i can't just do that cuz it'd be really weird. but at that setting there in the arena with the thousands of people there, it felt so right and i was glad that i found a place where it was encouraged to pray that way.
the most unifying moment during mass was when the entire arena said the Our Father together. i would pause at some moments just to listen and appreciate the unity that we shared at that moment. it was truly beautiful and inspiring.
saturday was a long and tiring day at the scrc convention in the anaheim convention center. i joined the new young adult track of talks that they had and it was good, just that i was so freakin tired from the previous busy week and especially the night before. i was so disappointed actually because the talks in the morning that i was more awake for weren't all that good-they were too vague, speaking only on the surface, just grazing upon the issues that were presented. they spoke about relationships, but they had only an hour to split between 3 speakers, so they couldn't speak in depth. the talks that were really good were in the afternoon but i fell asleep during those sessions.
from what my brother and cousin said, the teen session seemed better with a segment when they invited kids to come up and say "where were you Jesus when..." there was a girl who came up and said, "where were You, Jesus, when i was being raped?" and other kids who said, "where were You, Jesus, when my mom was an alcoholic?" and "where were You, Jesus, when i was beat up by my father?" my cousin said it was very powerful and affected many people. i think the point was to get the kids to let out their frustrations, that it’s okay to be angry with God. i think it’s important for them to know that they can have a relationship like that with God. it brings him closer to their level so that they can think of Him as a friend or person close to them, not just the traditional Almighty Power who made heaven and earth.
when i went to pick up my brother, i saw the end of their sessions and i looked at the pamphlets that they handed out. there was one that was especially striking-it was this business card sized card that had a promise statement about keeping one's self pure and chaste and promising to keep from temptations. and then there's a space to sign it. i'm glad they discussed such things during the teen session. i know i definitely would have benefited from it had they had those talks when i was a teenager.
i think the best part of the convention was the mass in the evening. the community that puts on this renewal convention is a charismatic one-meaning they rely highly on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and they use this convention to renew and rejuvenate people in their spiritual journey through talks, workshops and services. one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of speaking in tongues. if any other person who didn't know what was going on came in, he would've been sooo weirded out, because it just sounds like people are sort of possessed and just speaking gibberish. i felt really disoriented actually at first because i hadn't been in that kind of environment in a long time. but when i experienced it during mass with the whole arena speaking in tongues, oh my gosh, it gave me such a rush-like a warm feeling inside of me. sometimes, i'll just be praying and in the midst of my praying, i'll get the urge to speak in tongues like that, but of course, in the middle of a church, i can't just do that cuz it'd be really weird. but at that setting there in the arena with the thousands of people there, it felt so right and i was glad that i found a place where it was encouraged to pray that way.
the most unifying moment during mass was when the entire arena said the Our Father together. i would pause at some moments just to listen and appreciate the unity that we shared at that moment. it was truly beautiful and inspiring.
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quotable quotes
-
"To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the
greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks
nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid
suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change,
grow, live, and love."
~unknown
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
~ Abraham Lincoln
"live a life that others will remember years from now, NOT because it pointed to you but because of how it pointed to the One who made you."
~ Mark Hart, the Bible Geek
"we grow up learning to become self-reliant, but really we need to be God-reliant"
"we could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box"
"never wound hearts that love u, never give them the endless pain, because wounded hearts are like roses that never bloom"
"there comes a time when we have to stop loving someone not because that person has stopped loving us but because we have found out that they'd be happier if we'd let go"
