An Anthology of Looking: Switchfoot - Restless

I have always have a thing for Switchfoot ever since they went prominently 'public' in 2002, thanks to the movie A Walk to Remember. My sister Marcia brought the OST cassette, and I think we've played it over and over over like a gazillion times. (I wonder if she still has it?). I brought their A Beautiful Letdown cassette (hey, CDs WAS expensive back then, and still is!) -for no reason I can remember, I brought two-, and have then been downloading their albums freely ;p. 

The highlight of my fan-fare so far I think IS when I went to Bali last August 2012 with my bestie @fennyp to see the guys \^o^/. They are just beyond AHSOME!

Their latest album Vice Verses is really a masterpiece - IT IS!

Well, enough said. Here goes Restless, one of the amazing pieces in Vice Verses.

Written by Jon Foreman
From the album "Vice Verses (2011)" 

I am the sea on a moonless night
Calling falling, slipping tides
I am the leaky, dripping pipes
The endless, aching drops of light

I am the raindrop falling down
Always longing for the deeper ground
I am the broken, breaking seas
Even my blood finds ways to bleed

Even the rivers ways to run 
Even the rain to reach the sun
Even my thirsty streams 
Even in my dreams

I am restless, I am restless, I am restless
Looking for you
I am restless
I run like the ocean to find your shore
Looking for you

I am the thorn stuck in your side
I am the one that you left behind
I am the dried-up doubting eyes
Looking for the well that won't run dry

Running hard for the other side
The world that I've always been denied
Running hard for the infinite
With the tears of saints and hypocrites

Oh, blood of black and white and grey
Oh, death in life and night in day
One by one by one
We let our rivers run

I can hear you breathing
I can feel you leading
More than just a feeling
More than just a feeling

I can feel you you reaching
Pushing through the ceiling
Til the final healing
I'm looking for you

Until the sea of glass we meet
At last completed and complete
Where tide and tear and pain subside
And laughter drinks them dry

I'll be waiting
Anticipating
All that I aim for
What I was made for

With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
Looking for you 

An Anthology of Looking - Moving On

I just realized that I have not been updating my blog for almost a year. The silly thing is: I write emails almost everyday -that is my job by the way-, but never really find the time make the time to also do some writing on my blog.

Well, this is the last day of Movember, so I think: what the hhhh, let's just write again ok!

It seems also providential that this past week I have been on a whirlwind. There were new scars to mend; although I don't think I would be fully healed, and there were also big decisions to make. Although in the end it seems that no decision was made -because I'm still here, that is- I made one of the most difficult decisions in my life so far: which is to make peace with the things that I cannot seem to change at this point, including staying over in Manado. 

It's a dreadful feeling: I always be the one who control my decisions and jump up to new turnings in a heartbeat with only ME in mind, but hey, lookie there Gracie: you have other people to think about. 

So I stay. It took me a week to pick up myself again, to realize that sometimes you don't have to literally move over to move on. 

Good music and good readings and the sky and my sisters helped me through it all. So for the rest of 2012, I would be posting things that helped me through it all. In an instant I want to call this An Anthology of Looking: because I seem to be static, but I always, and would always, looking out for something more.



   

closing Advent, expecting Christmas

So Advent will end very soon and Christmas is just around the corner. I have not given Advent that much thought actually, until today when I saw a twit from a friend (bye Advent, hello Christmas), and it just hit me .....! Surprise surprise, time is running out: between job, cursing over those earsplitting firecrackers and blaspheming over the rascals who lit them every night outside, choir practice, remedy-ing myself over those 90s songs, emails, shop (what's to shop really?), and practically late night sleeps every other night, hello, I totally lost the whole point of Advent (and eventually will: Christmas)...!

But better late than nothing..., so the next 36 hours or so I hope I can make amend, while chanting in my mind this favorite Advent carol: Veni, Veni Emmanuel! This Latin carol is based on the ancient "O" antiphons of the Roman breviary that dates back to the 8th century. I'll keep this in mind for next Advent: the antiphons actually extend over a one week period which finishes on December 24. It kinda reminds me of Simbang Gabi, hemmm....? Ah, and another surprise: the song actually contains a hidden anagram! Details here - from Gaudium Mundo.

Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel,
qui gemit in exsilio,
privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude, gaude; Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

Happy Advent!

Yes, it is still Advent, there is still time you know! :)

these past few weeks....

...are truly the times for self-pittance. for me at least.

on the shortness of life

Maybe I'm naive, but life is short, you know? I mean, someday we're not gonna be here. And if that's the case, I want to spend the time that I have doing something that makes my heart race.

~ Troy Gable, in "The Great Buck Howard"

on rulers >< servants

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

~ Christ the Lord, as per Mark 10:42-45

j.o.b.s. today

i can spend my whole day spitting and hissing about one incompetent ex-colleague who left without giving nowhere near decent instructions to his replacement, but i will ruin my day and this post may color my good image to my future career recruiters, hence i'll just shut up and do my job which i'm excel at, because i know even in this oh so little company i can make a big difference whereas on the other hand incompetent people will not make any difference and will not be any better whatsoever even if they are working on larger companies.

eat that.