Nikmatnya Liburan - A Satisfying Holiday

Di musim libur lebaran tahun ini, aku memutuskan untuk tidak pulang ke Mojokerto karena waktu liburan yang lebih singkat dan harga tiket yang melambung. Pada awalnya aku berencana untuk menikmati liburan dengan bangun siang, bersih-bersih kamar dan nonton maraton film serial di Netflix, Iflix dan Viu. That's the meaning of enjoying life for me - so shallow..

Akan tetapi rencana tinggal rencana, ketika di hari Selasa malam jam 21.30, sepulangku dari kantor, teman serumahku mengajakku jalan-jalan ke Bandung bersama saudaranya. Dan aku mengiyakan.
Dalam waktu 1 jam, kami sudah membooking tiket travel Jakarta - Bandung di hari Kamis siang, satu malam penginapan di Lembang (memilih yang termurah - Rp.260.000,- per malam) dan tiket kereta api Bandung - Jakarta di hari Sabtu siang.

Ini untuk pertama kalinya kami bertiga pergi bersama-sama ke luar kota dalam rangka liburan. Di Bandung kami akan menginap di rumah tanteku, adik mendiang papa. Aku terakhir menginap di rumahnya belasan tahun yang lalu, dan untungnya tanteku tidak pergi kemana-mana liburan kali ini.

Kristy, sang inisiator liburan adalah penentu jadwal liburan kali ini. Selama 4 hari aku menjadi penonton interaksi kakak adik yang hanya berbeda usia satu tahun ini. Aku tidak punya saudara perempuan, jadi aku tidak pernah merasakan kecerewetan timbal balik yang hanya dimiliki antar saudara perempuan. Terkadang membosankan tapi seringkali lucu. Saling mengomentari pakaian yang sudah dipilih untuk dipakai, dan berakibat kerelaan menunggu salah satu untuk mengganti pakaian,

Kami tiba di Bandung hari Kamis 14 Juni 2018, pukul 17.20, empat jam perjalanan dari Jakarta. Setelah menginap satu malam di Bandung, di hari Jumat pagi kami naik transportasi online dari Bandung ke Lembang. Kami menginap di Imih Enin, penginapan sederhana yang terletak beberapa km di luar kota Lembang arah Cimahi. Lokasinya beberapa meter masuk gang di sebelah tempat outbound yang cukup besar, sehingga mobil kami sempat terlewat dan harus putar balik.

Penginapan ini dikelola keluarga, tempatnya cukup bersih dan kami disambut oleh kafe yang nyaman untuk nongkrong di bagian depan. Ada tiga kamar di bagian atas dan tiga kamar di bagian bawah. Kamar kami di bagian bawah, kami harus menuruni tangga yang ada di sebelah dalam kafe.

Tujuan pertama kami hari itu adalah Dusun Bambu, hanya sekitar 3 km dari penginapan. Pesanan taxi online kami langsung disambut dan kami sampai di Dusun Bambu sekitar jam 12.30. Pengunjung sudah cukup banyak yang antri dan kami langsung makan siang dahulu sebelum mulai menikmati atraksi di dalam Dusun Bambu.

Seiring langkah kami menelusuri Dusun Bambu, aku menyadari satu kenyataan. Sometimes happiness is as simple as a pure satisfaction of knowing that you have taken a good photo shoot of yourselves.

Dan tampaknya itu adalah salah satu tujuan utama para pengunjung tempat wisata zaman sekarang. Kami harus sabar mengantri di lokasi background yang instagramable, dan harus cepat-cepat mengambil foto sebelum rombongan lain datang dan mengisi background yang kami pilih. So, I go with the flow, learn how to do an interesting pose, which is quite difficult for the "stiff me". Untungnya aku punya dua orang kaki tangan yang dengan senang hati memberitahuku ketika poseku terlalu biasa atau jujurnya jelek abis.

This photo was taken in several attempts to ensure that the background was clear & everyone looked decent

Akan tetapi highlight yang paling mengesankan bagiku bukan pada bertambahnya data base PP (Profile Picture) hasil dari berpose selama 3 hari. Tetapi pada kebersamaan yang kami rasakan. Hari pertama Lebaran, 15 Juni 2018, adalah hari ulang tahun Kristy. Pagi itu kami menikmati sarapan lontong sayur di kamar dan saling mendoakan yang terbaik untuk Kristy - teman serumahku selama 8 tahun yang akan melepas masa lajangnya tahun ini.

There are moments that so easily forgotten but there are also special moments that stay in your heart forever, and this would be one of that special moment.

Love and Justice

We often heard that God is love and just. These two characters of God can not be separated. My question is which character precedes the other. Will God uphold His justice first before He show His love, or will He show His love first before He establish His justice?

In the Old Testament, God showed His justice to the nations or people who were against His words, which I sometimes felt too harsh. Maybe it was the culture back then to destroy or be destroyed. Whenever Israel worshiped God, they lived prosperously, whenever they turned their back from God, they lived miserably. The cause and the consequence was so clear back then.

In the New Testament, it feels like God through Jesus showed His love and compassion over justice. Jesus challenged the crowd which include the honorable teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, who brought a woman caught in adultery to throw the first stone at her.
He said," Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone."

Should this happen in the Old Testament, the law clearly said that both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death. And come to this, I wonder why the crowd who brought the woman to Jesus, did not brought the man as well?

At the end Jesus said to the woman," Go and sin no more." This is the justice that Jesus taught.

Even Jesus was the victim of injustice. How He was pronounced guilty and sentenced to tortures and death sentence over false accusation. The God Himself seemed helpless over the word's unjust system. 

That is what I feel recently when terrorists detonate bombs over three churches in Surabaya exactly one week ago. How to see God's justice when thirteen people died while they were on their way to worship God? A parent lost their two cute little boys. A mom with one toddler and a 10-month baby lost her husband. When the pastors and churches said that we have to forgive the bomber and even pray for them, this heart still could not be consoled. Where is Your justice Lord? Why the good party seems to be always losing? Can we defeat this evil over prayer and forgiveness only?

At the cross Jesus prayed for His accusers. He said,"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." These people who commit these horrible acts, don't they know what they are doing? They have been so brainwashed, they live for one purpose only, to reach heaven by suicide bombing targeted to public places. They think they know what they are doing but actually they don't know what they are doing. There are no religions in the world teach their believers to kill people in order to get to heaven.

Jesus died at the cross after He forgave the people who have crucified Him. After His resurrection, Jesus did not take revenge to these hypocrites, like the story line in the Hollywood movies. Where is the justice Lord? Do I have to wait until I reach heaven to see if justice has been served? I am not that patient, and of course I pray that I still have a long life to live.

God's justice is sometimes so hard to understand,  just like it's so hard to understand His love. How Jesus showed himself to Paul who persecuted Jesus's followers from town to town, showed His love and mercy, and in turn changed Paul from a murderer of early Christians to a martyr for the Gospel.

That is His way of justice - always love and forgiveness first, and then justice will take its own form.

Dear God,
Gives us strength to forgive and show kindness
To people who don't understand what they are doing
To somehow enlighten them that heaven is a place of love and joy
Not a reward of hate and terror

I Hear God Says

Hearing what God says to us human is truly a privilege.The supernatural being, the creator of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and the unseen personality talking to us human. The unseen characteristic makes the conversation between God and human a private matter. I have never known anybody who has broadcast a recorded conversation between him or her with God, so other people could then verify if they truly hear from God.

We could hear so many voices in our head. I  could hear at least two voices at subsequent time. And until today I had troubles differentiating whether it's my own inner voice talking to each other or the Almighty voice talking to me.

Luckily I have never heard God's voice telling me to do things not according to His Words. At the end of last year my emotion was unstable. I felt lonely, detached from friends at work and not in the mood of sharing anything to my few close friends. I happened to know that my previous group at work (some of them had resigned) had Christmas dinner together without me. I know it was only a simple matter, but at that time I felt it was such a big deal for me, because I enjoy talking with them and as far as I remembered I have no problem with them. I felt rejected and questioning myself. What was wrong with me that my favorite friends didn't want to hang out with me. I am asking God that question and was so sad.

That time I heard Him saying,"You should just be happy for them. I always love you no matter what."
Then slowly my insecurity start waning. Now it's okay with me, my self worth does not depend on other people's reception to me.

There are many other small occasion when I have a very good hunch that it was God's voice talking to me, telling me to be more patient, to give certain amount to the church, reminding me that my best investment was not in buying gold but in giving to my mom.

Hearing God's voice always give a peace mark in my heart, a warm feeling that makes me smile. Knowing it is my Father who loves me enough to speak to me.

Spending so many years at church, I always felt confused when some person who seemed so close to God could hear totally two opposite things. Sometimes I thought maybe they served different God, because God, You could not contradict yourselves right? I can never know any satisfactory answers. Anyway it was never be my business, who am I to judge?

Just like when Peter asking Jesus what would happen to John. And Jesus answered," If I want him to live until I come again, what's that to you? You-follow me."

My only concern is what I personally hear from God. I pray that I will always be able to differentiate the voice of my heart with the voice of my God. His voice is not loud. I could never be able to hear His voice in the midst of my tantrum and anger. Only after I calmed myself, His voice started to comfort me, giving new perspective in seeing things.

Continue speaking to me God. And please speak louder if my ear is too thick to hear Your voice.

The Last Lecture - A Book Review & Personal Reflection

So this is my first blog writing after 5 years dormant. I dedicate this first writing to a book review of "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. This is my first book I finished reading in 2018 out of around 20 books lying on my desk. Hopefully I can reduce the pile by half this year, so I could buy new books by the end of 2018.

 I bought this book at Big Bad Wolf last April 2017. It was not too thick and I thought the content was interesting. It told a story of a dying professor. In August 2007, he was diagnosed of terminal pancreatic cancer and only got three to six months to live. At that time Mr. Pausch was only 47 years. He had a lovely wife, a girl of his dream, two boys age six and three, and a baby girl of just eighteen months. He was an award winning teacher and researcher, and from his book I got impression that he was a popular lecturer among his students.

The 206 pages of the book was his published final lecture. The title is "The Last Lecture - lessons in living". This was a dying professor gave lessons in living. Mr. Pausch or I would refer to him as Randy died on July 25th, 2008, around 11 months after the doctor told him that his last treatment did not work and he only got three to six months to live.

The book consist of six chapters. The first chapter talked about his decision to give his truly last lecture at his university. The last lecture took place on 17 September 2007.  A decision that was first opposed by his wife due to his limited time. The second chapter detailed his childhood dreams and how in so many ways he managed to achieve his dreams.

Chapter three was about how he embraced his short live and all the lessons he had learned so far. The title of chapter four was "Enabling the dreams others". Chapter five consists of thirty practical wisdom of daily life, personal and work. The final chapter was about his dreams for his children and his love of his life. Randy's closing sentence in his last lecture was,"It was not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

If you only had a short time to live, what would you do? This question was written at the back cover of the book.

So my answer is, I will reflect - just like Randy did. I have tried to remember what was my childhood dreams. And to my surprise, I could not remember what my childhood dream was. The dream I finally recalled was at the second year of high school I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But I was not accepted in the medical faculty that I aimed. So I just dropped it. Then my next dream was to work in United Nation to help others. So far my career path and professional skill was so far from my dream job.

However, unlike Randy I still have time go after my dreams one way or the other. Nevertheless time is short and life is unpredictable. I still believe, just like Randy said that if I lead my life the right way, the karma - or I rephrase - God's destiny for me - will take care of itself. The dreams will come to me.