Unanswered Questions

Every day I ask a lot of questions. From simple questions to complicated  questions. I ask when Jakarta traffic could be as smooth as during Moslem holiday. Why a person drives while holding a scissor. What can I do to make my life more enjoyable. Why my mom got sick while she should be enjoying her old days. Why an 8-year old boy, the only children of the family got rare bone cancer. Why despite of all the bad precautions printed in the add, people still buy cigarettes and smoke whereever they want.

Some questions have easy answers, others are not that easy. Sometimes I make up my own answers. Maybe the lady holding scissor while she drove was on guard against possible intruders during traffic jam.

The questions about people habits or action are more difficult to answer.  Humans are not computers. Computers can always come out with logic solution, even after we type the most complicated algorithm. Most humans are not that logic.

Although people complain about Jakarta's daily traffic jam and yearly flood, they still throw rubbish into the river, reluctant to use public transportation, drives against the flow, ignore the traffic signs. People still buy cigarettes and smoke in public area despite all the printed add about what smoking could cause. How it affects their own health and the health of all the innocent non smokers around them.

So maybe the answer is because humans can always do whatever they want and not whatever necessary. My logic is different from other people's logic. Hopefully there would come a day when people can consider others' perspectives with open mind and makes decision based on the best interest for themselves and others.

When the questions are about sickness, life and death, I really raise my hands. So many why and there were never any satisfying answers. Keep craving for answers only leads to frustration.

We do not need answers to continue living. Some answers make me understand others better, while other answers only evoke more questions. So I'll try to live with unanswered questions. Keep the questions linger in my mind, while making the best of what is ahead of me.

I just wait patiently, maybe the answer would pop out someday. Or if not than I will make peace with them, till one day I got the chance to ask them personally to THE ONE who creates my whole world.

Isaiah 55:8 MSG

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God ’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Living Between The Icebergs

I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. A city with two seasons only, either rainy or shiny. The only times I see iceberg are only in the James Cameron's movie Titanic, TV news, and magazines.

Iceberg is a massive body of floating ice that has broken away from a lacier or ice field.  Most of an iceberg lies underwater, but because ice is not as dense as water, about one ninth of it remains above the surface (source:www.dictionary reference.com).

The seen part of an iceberg is only one ninth of its actual size. Most of its part is hidden under the water. Sometimes I feel that humans are just like icebergs. We only see or interact with a tiny part of its actual shape during our daily lives. There are so many unseen parts that we never know about people living around us.

Judging a person by his or her appearance is the easiest way to satisfy our curiosity. Sometimes we even conclude person's personality just by seeing their single response in certain circumstances. A young administrator lady in my office just joined our company for around six months. She has cheerful attitude, keen on the details of her job. Who would have thought that she just lost her mom one month ago...and since her father died long time ago, now she is a single parent with four younger sisters, the youngest was only 8 years old.

A colleague of mine cannot fully concentrate in her job for the past four months. She came late to the office and came back early. She had her own struggle as her only son was diagnosed with rare bone disease and now underwent a long healing process through  healthy food and herbal medicines.

My housemate is an independent girl, a music and vocal teacher. She is not the type of a talkative person who will share her days on every occasion. She likes to listen to music through her headphones or doing so many things with her blackberry and laptop. I need to respect her "individuality", although sometimes it means just two sentences conversation with her in the morning or evening after work. Hence I embrace the times when she is willing to share her feelings with me.

My former boss had an autistic son. She had her own business that required so much of her times. People may only see the little time she spent for her boy during the day, but they didn't see the hours she spent early in the morning and evening praying and hugging her boy.

There are so many unique person around us. I still learn not to label them because of their appearance or seen habits. There are eight ninth parts that we haven't seen yet...and they may surprise us a lot!

 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 - New Living Translation)