My sister is amazing. She has reminded me what I thought I learned from Man Alive by G. K. Chesterton but which I realized I had forgotten.

Living is sometimes too big for me. I see all the bad and am frustrated because I can do nothing to change it, so I sigh and say "I will wait for the return of Christ when all things shall be made new". This is true because the world we see is simply a shadow and a twisted reflection of what is to come.

But it is also a world God has created and there is much good in it as well. I forget this sometimes being stuck in the sorrow and stop living in sheer enjoyment of the good God has given me.

This is what my sister reminded me of. Now I will go happily solve some differential equations for homework, dance around my kitchen cleaning, and throw my arms up in the air and sing because God is good and I can see his grace and beauty in the world around me.

se·ri·ous [seer-ee-uhs]
adjective
1. of, showing, or characterized by deep thought.
2. of grave or somber disposition, character, or manner: a serious occasion; a serious man.
3. being in earnest; sincere; not trifling: His interest was serious.
4. requiring thought, concentration, or application: serious reading; a serious task.
5. weighty or important: a serious book; Marriage is a serious matter.

Being serious is usually associated with being solemn or not laughing a lot or something like in definition 2. But to be serious about something means you take do not take it lightly, that you have given it thought.

I call myself a very serious person. A number of people disagree with about this. They point to my hilarity when I eat ice-cream at 10pm, to the way I like to think that elevators are magic, to the way I wave my arms around and sing in the kitchen, and to the way that I laugh and smile all the time. So yes, it is true I do very silly things and you cannot use the second definition of serious to describe me.

But I am truly a serious person if you mean that I take deep thought about things. I am deadly serious about my walk with Christ, about my aim to bring joy to others. So I pretend to be a clown when someone is sad. I take care in the food I cook even if I am singing. Actually I sing because I am having so much fun taking seriously the food I am cooking. And when I decide to eat ice-cream at 10pm, I seriously consider the consequences and whether I will act appropriately in the situation at hand if I allow myself to do such a thing.

Also I am slow to get jokes and puns and I am not quick at thinking them out myself. If I say a joke, it is usually by accident and I am the most surprised. Because I always try to say exactly what I mean and to answer as fully and truthfully as possible (this is harder than it seems because my answers are never simple to explain, so I usually end up just not explaining to save all the time I would need and so the person I would be explaining to would not get bored. See? a long explanation in parentheses for example). Because I am like this, I tend to take what other people tell me as true and therefore I don't always get the jokes and puns and stuff. But since starting work, I have learned to think twice before saying things because some things can be taken in a dirty way, so I have to consider what I am saying even more. But my friends do not think these ways (or at least, they have learned not to take it that way if I say something) so I don't believe they think I am a quiet person.

Ah the only thing I am not serious about, I think, is my manga reading. Except that I call myself an otaku (Japanese word for someone with a nerdy obsession for something, American for someone obsessed with Japanese culture). But I read very light happy things. And I use it to take a break or as relaxation. That is why I think I do not take it so seriously.

So I guess maybe it's just that I think too much...

Also, why am I posting around 2:30 in the morning? Ah, I have been reading manga and stayed up too late. It is definitely time for bed.

I just realized why I would hate to have my sense of taste and smell to go away.

I like cooking and making things taste good...smelling the spices and guessing how to make things taste the way I want them in my head or how to improve something or to figure out what is missing.

That's why I would hate losing this sense so much. I think I'd almost rather lose my sense of hearing or sight rather than this, although those are usually considered the things people would not want to lose the most.

If God made man in his image, then we should be able to see traits of God even still in man although twisted with sin.

We should be able to see things that reflect God's character even in very wicked people like people who kidnap little children for sex slavery and people who torture others for their own amusement. But I always think of reaching out to the victims rather than the wicked (using victim and wicked in a very laymanish manner since technically all human beings have sin and are thus wicked). I thought this would be amusing: someone is called to be a missionary. Oh, to whom are you called? To the Wicked!

Which is true always, although I do not think about it.
So then, my coworkers whom I hope to be a witness to are wicked?
Well, yes.
One of them confessed that he enjoyed instigating pranks. But the pranks mentioned were rather harmful. If one find pranks that hurt others amusing, then they are doing just as people who find pleasure in torturing others. It is the same thing, even though on a different scale.
I guess this must always be the case, since in Matthew, Jesus talks about how even looking at a woman with lust is committing adultery. The sin is all the same, although the magnitude is different. Like a vector. Different magnitudes but same directions.

I finally got internet again after moving from my old apartment complex to my super sweet second floor apartment. I now live in a very nice old place with a lot of character. And also a cemetery about 1 mile away that is easy to walk to.

So I walked to it today because it was so nice outside, cool and sunny. It is a large cemetery, at least large to me. I haven't gone around comparing cemetery sizes too much. But there were people born in the 1770's and people born in 1980's. There were babies who lived only two days and old persons who lived to nearly 100. There were also many tombstones of various kinds. Large, small, ornate, rough. Some of the newer ones had pictures on them. And some of the older ones had various vegetation carved on them.

But all the larger stones cost so much money. So why would you spend so much money on your tombstone? So you wouldn't be forgotten? But I don't know your names from anywhere. You are all dead. And the things you said and did are so long ago. And all the times you came home for dinner, and the times you brushed your teeth (or not), and the desserts you ate...no one cares anymore. So then why do I care? Do these things matter? What you did doesn't seem to have any effect on me. But maybe they do. I just am unaware of it. But after all, you did live, and love, and laugh, and have thoughts, and helped people. And although I don't know your names, God does. So somewhere you are all worked into his great dance. I just have such a small piece of it, I can't see the whole. So I will stop trying. It is too tiring and frustrating to be always trying to see what I cannot. And I will look at your tombstones and think that maybe your lives were good ones and now you are in peace and able to see things as I cannot. And you can see how your lives meant something even though I cannot.

Thus, I shall no longer run around in circles in my head wondering what point the little things I do every day mean. Perhaps I shall eat brownies for dessert. Or ice-cream. Or both...

My sister said "I often wonder where I would be if I didn't have Dad".

Now besides the obvious that if our Dad wasn't our Dad, we wouldn't be around, or we would just have a different Dad...or would we not be around?
Because if you are the product of your Dad and Mum, then you could never be the product of a different pair, I think. Now I'm confusing myself.

But supposing instead that it wasn't that he wasn't our Dad but that he died tragically or something, then the question is good.

My answer: possibly dead. Because I very often get stuck in my head and cannot get out myself. I cannot remember why I exist or what the point of the world is. But by God's grace, my Dad is good at preaching the Gospel. And the since the Gospel is the answer to all questions (hold that thought, I need to investigate that statement more) then my confusion about my existence and the rest of the world is answered. So my Dad, being this great dad that he is, is sort of like me, so he understands when I get stuck in my head and then preaches the Gospel to me.

And then I get unstuck from inside my head. Because, you see, when you think that there is a reason outside of yourself to live and that, though the world may seem hopeless right now, there is a time when all things will be made new, that the longing will cease, and the joy shall be fulfilled, then one can no longer wonder about one's reason for living.

But now I am thinking about the statement "joy shall be fulfilled". Now having two thoughts I need to think about more, it is definitely time to end this post.

I think I must look very strange watching "Gosick" tonight. The evil villain makes me so mad I cannot watch him sensibly so I stick out my tongue at him and make rude remarks while he talks. Also I wave my arms around and block his face with my hand. Since I am watching this on my computer with its dying audio, I have my earphones in my ears (it is really the only way to hear properly anymore). Thus you must picture me sitting in the middle of my living room, on the floor, with my piano stool in front of me holding my laptop. There is no sound coming from the computer, just me making weird noises and gesturing wildly.

But in the end the evil villain was killed. I was glad. I found that rather strange. I am not usually glad when even villains die. But since I very much wanted to slap him in the face very hard myself, somehow I was glad. Slapping someone very hard in the face is usually the most violence I can picture myself ever doing. I am still thinking how one can be glad with an evil villain dying when I know my heart has the same potential to wickedness as his did.

That was the second to last episode of "Gosick". And then I watched the last and almost cried. Do you wonder why stories of two people who fight so hard despite losing so much to be together again are so moving? It is because in their trust in one another and their fight to be rejoined we see a picture of something greater. As a Christian, this is our story as well. Thus we trust that the one who loved us is with us and will be with us always. So we fight hard in this wintery life until we see the spring bloom...