The Joy of Being Sick

So I've been quite ill the past few days. Started with a horrible seafood lunch that wasn't fresh,and before I knew it, I was out running to the toilet for some liquidation. In accounting terms, as I am learning in business school, there was some serious LIFO (last-in-first-out), followed by FIFO (first-in first-out). If you're not an accountant, and don't get the joke, don't worry one tiny bit. Just know that it was a double-dose of suffering!

It is not my intention to go into excruciating details on the time and location of my discretions, but to reflect on the amazing ability of sickness to bring us back dead-centre on what matters most to us. 

As I lay in bed with a churning tummy, wondering when I would get down to some serious sleeping, I prayed. I've been reading Philip Yancey's "Prayer". It has given me much comfort as I struggle in the materialism of business school. There is a God. He hears us; no, he WANTS to hear us. Above all the din of accounting, economics, modeling, organisatonal behaviour, and what-nots, the silence of a God listening in breaks through the sweat of a diarrheatic moment -- silent, not moving, clutching my belly, in the middle of the night.

I prayed to get well. But only after I learn more about praying, and putting first things first.

A Moment

Life's made of moments -- the most important being the present. In my struggle to make sense of the situation, I find myself looking to the future too often, and the past more frequently than I should. I wished some things were as they were when we were back in Singapore -- the comfort and support of families and friends. Trusted people who can help us through the daily grind. People we know. If the past holds no solace, then I look beyond, to the future... of the kind of room that Benjamin would have, and the kind of things I would do back in the workplace. In short, I engage in escapism -- anything but the present.

Ruth and I like this photo I took of her standing in Crissy Fields one cold morning. The stately Golden Gate in the background, and it seemed as if she was all alone; and me, the photographer, sipping the moment with her. I could feel myself "present". It was a nice place to be, to be present.

Be present. Tomorrow, when I go to my classes, I need to be present. I have only today. Jesus tells us the same message -- who knows about tomorrow? Today, what difference can I make? What peace can I find? What friend can I make? In other words, how can I be alive in the moment of the present -- and not be spirited away into the past or the future...