life can be so cold

i was on the train yesterday, to join the weekly badminton session at thomson cc. living in the east, i felt like i was on a quest, travelling half the island. just that instead of sword, i carried a badminton racket. well, anyway, there was this guy sitting beside me inside the train, doing essay questions while referring to this tiny brown book.

glancing surreptitiously, i found out it was the bible he was holding, and the questions he was doing went like 'what do you think jesus would say to ', or 'what do you think of the '.

i found it interesting. when i studied religion when i was young, we were just given stuff to remember. we just read off the cream of the holy quran but never really read the actual God's words in it. there certainly never been chance to question or to really think and digest any particular religious affairs during the classes. we recited the holy words in its original text without knowing the meanings.

so when there's a turmoil following the blasphemous and offending cartoon published by the danish newspapers and several european countries thereafter, i was not totally surprised.

there were mixed reactions. some decided to burn flags, other boycott danish products, some burnt embassies, some initiated cartoons on holocaust, some started to harass danish ppl, and some even threatened their safety.

the levels of how the muslim intrepreted and then reacted to the event are largely different. it just showed how divided we are in terms of religious understandings. we were easily influenced under the name of so-called religious acts because the understanding of the religion itself is shallow. we follow some religious personnel sometimes ever so blindly rather than the words of God, which we never really digest in our lives.

seeing the mess of the world affairs now, i think it totally fits when mariah carey sang her 'fly like a bird' number in the 48th grammy awards last thursday. it was such a powerful gospel performance, and i loved it when she ran all over the stage and waved her non-microphone hand like a maniac 'coz i can totally feel that she really felt the song. i've been playing that clips over and over again and enjoyed the tingling sensation all over my spine during the gospel peak.

madonna's performance was nothing spectacular, mainly because i've seen her performing the routines during mtv europe awards sometimes back. other than purple leotard she donned this time, and she no longer wore the USD20,000 diamond eyelashes, the rest were exactly the same. you'd think a creative performer like her would do sth different considering how global our tv programs are.


...ed