UFC on My Mind

I have only started watching clips of UFC this year. McGregor and the spotlight he is receiving was exciting to watch. I was thinking about picking up martial arts next year when I have more free time, perhaps learn a couple of moves.

A good friend suggested Jiu Jitsu, as he was deep into it, jokingly saying we should compete someday. I said “jokingly” not only because he has been at it for years, but also because he was much bigger than me.

In watching all the martial arts competitions, there always were tiers, weight divisions for competitors. I am sure there are those that can overcome height, weight and even reach simply by technique and agility, hence the great appraisal for McGregor when he became champion of two different weight divisions, but it was all to a certain extent.

I am not short in Korean standards, but simply average height. I wanted to be taller, even still, but God hasn’t quite shown me a way to get taller yet. I wanted to be bigger and faster, to be greater among people, but as a medical student, I knew I have passed that day and age of growth. No matter how strong I would get, there would be somebody bigger and faster than me to outdo me.

I guess I got a bit frustrated and even angry at God. Why did his beloved people sit at the end, watch all the others reign fury upon the world?

Well, they story of David and Goliath was precisely the answer to my question. God overcame such limits, such barriers for men. The seemingly impossible was done with the help of God. I cannot say I know all the backstory to such magnificent wonder God had shown, but just the fact that it has been done provides enough encouragement to a man like me. God does provide. He does help us overcome our seeming giants. 

Becoming than Being

It’s been a while since I had any goals, just slowly floating across to distant islands, simply waiting out the storm, the waves. My mind would come up with all kinds of wonders, perhaps seen only in dreams. As the clouds scattered, however, all my dreams became visible, only some miles away on the land afar. Though the current may push or pull, I sought to become than be. A dream in sight, a goal in mind, desire of the heart. 

The World as Will and Representation – Arthur Schopenhauer

“The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity…all laughter then is occasioned by a paradox…this, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous.” 

Arthur Schopenhauer – The World as Will and Representation.

I often respond with laughter to situations that do not seem fitting. Tragedies, betrayals, even to news of death. It is not a crazed manic laughter, but more so a scoff. 

High expectations meeting reality, finding incongruity. 

On the other hand, however, a joyous laughter should be found in low expectations met with great reality. 

I'm still hoping to find that joyous laughter in being in the presence of God, the glory that could not have been possibly expected in this life. 

애증

왜 그런지 모르겠지만 자꾸 보게 됩니다.

그렇게 자주 싸웠고, 서로를 헐뜯었고,

이해할 수 없는 거대한 벽을 사이에 둔 마냥

서로의 다름 가운데 고통스러움을 매일 느꼈는데

그래도 자꾸 눈에 띄입니다. 눈에 계속해서 밟힙니다.

마음이 울리며 신경이 쓰이는게 너무나도 싫습니다.

이쁜 거 하나 없는 너이지만 괜히 한 번 더 보고 싶어지는

그런 이상한 하루.

Children of Men - Miracle Cease Fire

Children of Men (9/10) Movie CLIP - Miracle Cease Fire (2006) HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBzWTIexszQ

I remember seeing this movie back in high school. That was 10 years ago. I was reluctant in the choice, but a good friend of mine suggested it and pretty much pulled me into the theaters. The movie was fantastic, but I remember complaining about the movie for not being as action-packed as expected. It did leave me to my thoughts for days.

10 years older now, I found much more meaning in the movie. The clip is probably one of the most powerful scenes I have seen in movies.

It is also interesting while depressing to see how the movie still shines a message necessary in this day and age.

Warmth

I see fire. I see a blazing fire burning deep inside of you, in your eyes especially. The passion for Christ burns and I admire that. But it seems to devour everything around you. All the flaws, the imperfections are target for criticism. Perhaps something need to be burned, but more people need protection than burning judgment. Maybe you only need just a little wood, enough to contain the fire, have it simmer to gently light up the place, providing warmth for comfort. Jesus did not come with a blazing sword, rather, a loving embrace.

What is Real?

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves.” Hebrews 10:1a

Sometimes, I feel like philosophy was simply a study on the systematic search for God. In this short video on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the narrator explains a concept of the real world versus the shown world.

Video on “What is Real? (Plato’s Allegory of the Cave) / 8-bit Philosophy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDaSgyi3xE

It is quite interesting to see how many of the thoughts and questions delivered from famous philosophers are parallel to many of the verses in the Bible. The world that we see, according to the Bible, is simply a reflection, a mere shadow of what really is. This place is what is temporary. This is the so-called Beta phase. What is real shall be soon, the coming of His kingdom.

As to answer the question of the narrator in the video, yes, we will. We will soon lose our shackles of perception and truly see God in his throne.  

The Hound Of Heaven by Francis Thompson

The Hound Of Heaven by Francis Thompson

I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears
From those strong feet that followed, followed after
But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat, and a Voice beat,
More instant than the feet:
All things betray thee who betrayest me.

I pleaded, outlaw--wise by many a hearted casement,
curtained red, trellised with inter-twining charities,
For though I knew His love who followe d,
Yet was I sore adread, lest having Him,
I should have nought beside.
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clange d bars,
Fretted to dulcet jars and silvern chatter
The pale ports of the moon.

I said to Dawn --- be sudden, to Eve --- be soon,
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover.
Float thy vague veil about me lest He see.
I tempted all His servitors but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him, their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue,
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind,
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue,
Or whether, thunder-driven,
They clanged His chariot thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet,
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following feet, and a Voice above their beat:
Nought shelters thee who wilt not shelter Me.

I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of Man or Maid.
But still within the little childrens' eyes
Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me.
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair,
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
Come then, ye other children, Nature's
Share with me, said I, your delicate fellowship.
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning with our Lady Mother's vagrant tresses,
Banqueting with her in her wind walled palace,
Underneath her azured dai:s,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice, lucent weeping out of the dayspring.

So it was done.
I in their delicate fellowship was one.
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies,
I knew all the swift importings on the wilful face of skies,
I knew how the clouds arise,
Spume d of the wild sea-snortings.
All that's born or dies,
Rose and drooped with,
Made them shapers of mine own moods, or wailful, or Divine.
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the Even,
when she lit her glimmering tapers round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
and its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine.
Against the red throb of its sunset heart,
I laid my own to beat
And share commingling heat.

But not by that, by that was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah! we know what each other says,
these things and I; In sound I speak,
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor step-dame, cannot slake my drouth.
Let her, if she would owe me
Drop yon blue-bosomed veil of sky
And show me the breasts o' her tenderness.
Never did any milk of hers once bless my thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase, with unperturbe d pace
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
And past those noise d feet, a Voice comes yet more fleet:
Lo, nought contentst thee who content'st nought Me.

Naked, I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke. My harness, piece by piece,
thou'st hewn from me
And smitten me to my knee,
I am defenceless, utterly.
I slept methinks, and awoke.
And slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours,
and pulled my life upon me.
Grimed with smears,
I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years--
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst like sunstarts on a stream.
Yeah, faileth now even dream the dreamer
and the lute, the lutanist.
Even the linked fantasies in whose blossomy twist,
I swung the Earth, a trinket at my wrist,
Have yielded, cords of all too weak account,
For Earth, with heavy grief so overplussed.
Ah! is thy Love indeed a weed,
albeit an Amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must, Designer Infinite,
Ah! must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it ?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust.
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver upon the sighful branches of my
mind.

Such is. What is to be ?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds,
Yet ever and anon, a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity.
Those shaken mists a space unsettle,
Then round the half-glimpse d turrets, slowly wash again.
But not 'ere Him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal; Cypress crowned.
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether Man's Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest,
Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit,
Comes at hand the bruit.
That Voice is round me like a bursting Sea:
And is thy Earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me.
Strange, piteous, futile thing;
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of Naught (He said).
And human love needs human meriting ---
How hast thou merited,
Of all Man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot.
Alack! Thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art.
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save me, save only me?
All which I took from thee, I did'st but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy childs mistake fancies as lost,
I have stored for thee at Home.
Rise, clasp my hand, and come.
Halts by me that Footfall.
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
Ah, Fondest, Blindest, Weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest.
Thou dravest Love from thee who dravest Me.