Highly sensitive

**Warning : This post may seems insensitive to some but it is based on my personal views and encounters. So, if you do choose to read what I write, please keep your opinions to yourself because my mind is set. There is no God like my God. There is no faith as comforting as the one Lord Jesus showed us.

The religion of fear

Over the last few days, I notice that there is a religion of fear. The fear that their departed ones will go hungry, without shelter, without shoes and etc. Basically, the faith is very basic, i.e. there is heaven and there is hell. There is their version of St. Peter, even. But he is dressed in red and has a red face as well. There was graphic on the 18 levels of hell with all the gory stuffs of humans being decapitated, tongue cuts off and etc. It spells doom for all of those who believe because in our lifetime, we surely have committed at least something from that 18 levels of hell.

So, I thank God that I subscribe to the religion of forgiveness, love and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The religion of crime and punishment

We picked up a lady who was following the hearse. She is a very nice lady, speaking English and full of love. She told us she is very close to the deceased and she had been preaching her faith to him. I told her I too asked the deceased to have faith so that he could feel stronger. But he didn’t. Though, as nice as she was, I am put off by her theories. She said that all those beggars and trishaw riders who are living a hard life brought it upon themselves. And she told us about her own deceased husband who suffered cancer and said it is also his own doing, of indulging in cigarette and alcohol. It left me with some WTF-ing feeling but I am too tired to argue with her. Let her live with her ‘crime and punishment’ theory. Thank God my little boy phoned me while we were following the hearse and I left the hearse and rushed home to be with him, spare me from her preachings, thank you very much.

Again, I thank God for opening my eyes to a religion of forgiveness, peace, acceptance, tolerance and grace.

When I make a comparison of all the three faiths, ie the two I mentioned above and my own faith, I think none of us will be a pain in the arse to anyone if we just keep our mouths shut and don’t push it too hard. Otherwise, we will all be doing a disservice to our own prescribed version of ‘god’.

While others may believe in ‘to live is to suffer’, I rather believe that ‘to suffer is an affirmation from God that we are special and built tougher’. I won’t want to live and suffer simply because it is supposed to. If I have to suffer, I will take it as the chance that God will be with me and that makes me special.

Maybe I must also rant. The lady said that all those funeral rites were a waste of money and could be better spent by donating to orphanages. I told her it was partly my suggestion to hold the elaborate rites because I felt it is better for the children to endure the long funeral rites as their way of letting go and giving them a chance to do their final filial duties as they were not around earlier during the critical stage. (Buddhist funeral rites are far simpler than Taoist rites) But that doesn’t stop her from bla bla bla. Doh!