Sunday, October 20, 2013

7 Quick Takes Friday - Vol. 20


- 1 - 

Last night me and Paul saw three little kids and their father in adoration room. The oldest boy was around 8 or 9 years old, the second girl was around 7 or 8 years old, and the youngest girl was around 4 years old. Three of them prostrated themselves in front of Our Lord for quite some time. The youngest girl stood up and was about to walk around the room and the second girls said, "No, pray!" So the youngest girl prostrated herself again =P then the youngest girl walked to her dad, who was praying, and asked, "Papa, papa, what's that?" (pointed at the Blessed Sacrament). The father said, "It's Jesus." The little girl walked closer to the Blessed Sacrament with her kneeler and just stared at Jesus. Then the two girls and the father were leaving the room, the second girl said, "Ge ge (elder brother in Chinese), let's go!" The boy was sitting looking at Jesus for a while before he followed them out.

It was very heartwarming to see how these little kids learned to visit Jesus from their parents. I tried to imagine the little girl's admiration towards Jesus during my prayer since last night. Sooo...what's the right word, plain? Innocent? :) Very beautiful!

- 2 -

I wrote a post on religious climate in Singapore and Indonesia, joining Jen's link up on religious climate in various countries. As I mentioned, Indonesia is not under Shariah Law. The major religion is Islam, but we are not a Muslim country. Interestingly, actually when the founding fathers of our nation discussed about the ideology that we want to use for nation, there was a discussion to put the first principle as "Indonesia is under Shariah Law." However, they decided to use "We believe in One God." We have five principles (Pancasila, Panca = five, Sila = principles) as our ideology. Atheism is kinda not accepted.

- 3 -

Related to point 2, there's something interesting about "free-thinker-ism" in Indonesia. While in Singapore people openly acknowledge that they are free-thinkers, in Indonesia if you are a non-practicing Buddhist/Christian/Islam/etc, you will still say that you are ______ (your religion that your parents teach you). Just that you may say, "I'm Christian-IC (Only on my IC, but I'm not practicing)" They won't say that "I'm free-thinker".

- 4 -

My books that I ordered have not reached!! >.<

- 5 -

Recently, I've been amazed by how courtship means different things for different people. I take it for granted that me and my circle of friends have principles that the person whom you are attached to has a potential to be your future partner. Even if we are not sure if we are going to marry that person, we 'evaluate' our relationship and our partner based on criteria that we have in mind for a spouse. Our effort to get to know each other is also based on an end-goal that we want to work towards marriage.

Apparently, some guys may not think 'that far'.

- 6 -

The more I learn about children, the more I've found how parents' values and upbringing are very important. Parents can't stop growing and learning. Last year I found a vacancy as a case manager in a hospital for women's psychological well-being. I was not shortlisted for interview, but I remembered that I really wrote there that my interest in women's psychological well-being was influenced by my interest in children.

In fact, some studies showed that mother's depression may affect children's cognitive functioning. Other studies also showed how father's play behavior with the kids tends to be more adventurous (e.g., throwing kids to the air!) and this helps the kids to have courage to explore their surrounding too. So I found it very depressing to see how so many psychological evidences showed the importance of each parent, but at the same time, in the name of 'psychology', some people try to advocate parents with homosexual tendency' (two mothers or two fathers) to have right to adopt children.

- 7 -

I've been transcribing observation videos for my work for the past week. It's quite amusing =D But I need tea to keep me awake in the afternoon while transcribing the videos.

More quick takes at Jen's blog!!! :)

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