Of course, its not the first time God answers prayers. What struck me was how late the realisation of it dawned on me. The answer came gradually and He revealed it in His time and way, but the effect of how it happened and the surprising pace of how it came about was somehow lost on me. I didn't make the casual link from what actually happened to the prayer I prayed, until I it just occurred to me how real the answer actually was.

As I seized the moment that I stumbled upon the thought to give a prayer of thanksgiving, I made another realisation - How inadequate I was in really expressing and surrendering the situation into His care. Reason being that I was similarly inadequate in my expressing and praise of His grace. 

And actually, can such a scenario be any other way? When one speaks to God, as much as you can parallel the relationship to that of a teacher, authority or father - it is different. The One who founded the Earth upon the seas, the One who owns the earth and its fullness, the One who saves...  there are no underlying psychological cover-ups, barriers or secrets because there can't be. 

By that logic, speaking in tongues isn't exactly something of deep spiritual significance as compared to prayer with a sincere heart. Especially if the justification is that it makes you feel closer to God. Because...  it doesn't. We were never close to God in the first place - in our total depravity, in our human natures, we could have never been until there was the Cross. And all Christians should declare their closeness to Him by that sacrifice rather than through speaking in a tongue. Intimacy with God comes from looking at the Cross, internalising the whole hurt Christ had to go through to reconcile the relationship and reflecting on it genuinely. 

The deep ineloquence I sometimes feel when praying.... such a position of humility is always a good mix with the assurance that He understands the words of my heart. 

It is easy to feel frustrated how elusive truth really is. 

It takes effort for someone to say what something really means to him. It is painful to clarify what all the indications and subtleties convey. 

Perhaps what makes relationships between persons work is because they know that what has gone on was real. Its something not a sophisticated mind is explaining, its just something a simple heart is telling - In one's heart, you know how real it was. And even if there are barriers that exist, even if there are things that can't be said, even if certain ends seem unresolved.

I heard many things from many people the past few days - not really to say that anything in particular was very inspirational or uplifting. But in its totality, I was gently reminded about how deeply we are chained to a state of flux. 

A part of me knows that it is unfair to hold onto what will have to move on. But the same part of me is fearful about what would happen if I really let go, doubtful even if such a courage is a possible feat. 

Yet, another part of me knows that there is a courage that I need to summon to make choices that matter. 

 -- The Zahir, Paulo Coelho 

--- Life of Pi, Yann Martel 

I think that this is another reason to believe in the existence of God. 

Religion has been described sometimes as merely something that fills the 'gaps' to life and be the 'easy cop-out' that answers the hard questions like some default trump card without giving an actual answer.

But actually, if one just puts aside all the bias (both a believer's and a skeptic's), put aside all the sentiments that there is a need for a rationalistic struggle, put aside the grappling with pride, honour and faith, if we just pause for a moment and allow silence to speak to us... it would be easy to realise, that deeply within our humanity, we want a resolution. 

And does not need to be as grand as thinking of questions being answered or justice being served.

 It can be just a wish to celebrate a loved one's birthday. It can be as simple as a desire to go back to an old stall you had previously frequented.  It can be as human as knowing that you should say sorry after you did something wrong. It can be as baffling as an urge to ask how someone special is doing even though you know the short answer over words are limited in saying what you really want to know. It can be as painful as knowing that some things have to be said. 

On a side note, the past few weeks have probably been the sweetest few weeks of my life so far.

The teacher watched him silently. He felt both excitement and guilt as impatience slowly overwhelmed him. More guilt perhaps. It was a guilt that took on two forms, loosely clasped together by the smear of his uneasy excitement. 

The first was the abstracter guilt. It was the guilt that arose because of the humbling it had inflicted. It was a guilt that was like the wind, slapping the face of an agnostic into a reasonable belief - strictly, yet gently. It was a guilt that pierced a surrendering sensation into the heart of a prince who has witnessed disease, old age, poverty and death and when that particular prince had he goes beyond an existential joy ride, realizing that one cannot forsake the extremes of pain and gratitude - because one cannot forsake love.

The teacher never thought that he would ever feel such a form of guilt. He never thought so, because he thought that he had already felt it before. He always reminded his students - never water a plant because you feel that you have to. The care for plants and animals are never to be a routine obligation from a higher species to a lower species. One has to understand the universal language, one has to feel the harmony that is provided in cycles and patterns of nature's art, one has to love nature, not because of its beauty nor because of its complexity, but because of its spirit. The spirit of nature which points so strongly at the spirit of the One who wrote down all of it in the first place - and that One who wrote down all of it is also the one who crafted the spirit of man. 

It was the same hand that blew breath into both.

Nature was sufficient, he had argued. No need for the wooden toy cars, the wooden elephants, the wooden houses... the crafts of a mere man should take a back seat to the crafts of the First hands.

"He will only finish, earliest by tomorrow night."

It was this reminder of his second form of guilt that caused the teacher to feel himself close to tears. 

"You don't have to wait for him to finish this piece of course," the owner of the orphanage laughed as she walked to the cupboard to retrieve one of the boy's wooden roses. A rightful gift for an honourable professor, she thought. 

The teacher held back his tears, looked at the owner who was walking towards the cupboard, and then took a last look at how the blind boy was working on his wooden rose and then silently walked away.