Of Eggs and Bunnies

I am concluding a week of astinence from all forms of meat in my diet. It has more or less reduced me to having one main meal a day but on Day 7 - it doesn't seem to bother me at all anymore.

"Why are you going vegetarian?" asked Mandy earlier on in the week. And it has been something I have been pondering on as I prepare myself for the biggest feast in the Christian calendar of Easter ~ the Resurrection of JC from the dead. Having began this "ordeal" by likening it to the Hindus shaving their heads and breaking coconuts in return for favours asked (Seeking Divine Intervention was how I had put it), I have come to realise that it is not so much of what I am asking, but what I have received so far.

I have always had this up-and-down relationship with my religion. There are days when I am full of praise and then there are days when I could look at the heavens and curse and swear, asking in my loudest voice WHY?! I used to think that if I lived faithfully by His Word, I would be spared all misery and misfortune. But then again, God never promised us an easy life ~ at the core of it, as said by the priest in my church ~ We have to take the good WITH the bad. 

I am currently sitting on a panel of judges for an essay writing competition with the title - The Best Things in Life, and 15 essays in (ranging from an UMRAH pilgrimage, to Money and Internet), I have come to reflect and realise that the Best Thing is Life is the human ability to Adapt, Evolve and Survive. For without these 3 elements, we would never progress or grow. But most important, we would not be Living as we ought to be.

As it was reported in an article today - "Now the professionals of prayer are praying, saying mass. Everybody prays: popes, archpopes, bishops, archbishops, excellencies, eminences, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and yet Jesus Christ sends us an earthquake," said Francesco Pagani, an aged survivor sitting in one of the emergency camps in Italy's earthquake disaster zone. Reading that line made me want to go up to that old man and say ~ at least you're still alive!

It may sound so self-righteous of me, and I do beg your pardon for having that line of thought. But it is the truth in the end. Despite all the hard luck, pains and suffering, HIS life was indeed spared.

And so as we head towards commemorating the day when a mortal person broke ranks and exposed himself to be God the Son as the be-all-and-end-all way of opening his mortal peers' eyes to his divinity, let us also celebrate the fact that WE are ALIVE today.

May the Peace of the Risen Lord be with one and all this Easter!