Review: "The World According to Anna" by Jostein Gaarder [Migrated Post]

"Are you an optimist? Or are you a pessimist?" 

"I don't know. Perhaps a bit of both. What about you?"

"I'm an optimist, Jonas. And do you know why? I think it's immoral to be a pessimist."

"Immoral?"

"Pessimism is just another word for laziness. Of course I worry. But that's different. A pessimist has given up."

Jostein Gaarder, author of the 1991 classic Sophie's World, commemorates the 20th anniversary of its publication with this haunting tale that features an equally inquisitive protagonist.

The name's Anna, and she's deeply bothered by global warming. Her sixteenth birthday looms, and visions from the future begin to appear more in her dreams more frequently and more vividly than ever. They're so intense she believes they're all real, sort of acts like a message telling her to do something about its revelations, that is, the hopeless state of the world in 2082 when her great-granddaughter, Nova, can no longer enjoy the natural wonders of the world. Despite her sincere concerns, the parents thought she's just imagining things and, instead of listening to her at all, sent her to Oslo for a clinical checkup.

Review: "Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe" by Max Lucado [Migrated Post]

"A barrier had been broken. Beneath the hard, painful surface of her recollection were layers of healing truth. God had never left her side, not even for a moment."

Max Lucado is the author of dozens of books that have gone to become major bestsellers. With over 92 million copies sold and having penned close to 100 books, the prolific author also ministers at the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas. His gift for storytelling is so apparent on each and every mission he sets out to do, it's no wonder in 2005, the Reader's Digest dubbed him "The Best Preacher in America."

My first Max Lucado book was given to me just before leaving the States for good after finishing my studies there. It was on the very last day, right when I was carrying my luggages to the taxi. You'd never guess who it was from - my landlord. I suspect she's a clairvoyant, but anywho, she gave me the thin, 64-page book, "He Did This Just For You" that so many have found life-changing. I think I only got around to it a couple of years or so later, and I remember on the night that I binged on it, I cried helplessly in my room. It was the day I realized I have a father I never had. Had I not receive this seemingly random gift from my landlord, I'd never really see the biblical God as that personal. Fast forward some time toward the end of 2016, I was in the local bookstore as usual and I found this Max Lucado fiction. I grabbed it impulsively because I know there's a higher chance I'd finish a fiction than a nonfiction book, and also because the preamble caught my instant attention at the time I bought it:

"What if you could ask God anything? What would you ask? And how would He answer?"

A Fairly Ordinary Friday [Migrated Post]

Today was a fairly ordinary day. My husband took the morning off his job to accompany me to go meet someone for something I’m working on. I’m so grateful it wasn’t a time-waster for him, because when I confessed my fear, of having him feel his time went wasted, he told me he actually got much out of the time spent accompanying me. God works in amazing ways.

Then, as the day went by, the husband got funnier and funnier. In ways that only he can, in ways that only I find funny.

First, we made a pit-stop to a mall in Jakarta that is well-known for its insane crowd and lack of parking space:

“Yg punya ni mall uda kyk beli byk mobil buat diparkirin disini cuma buat bikin org lain kesel ga dapet parkiran.”

“Nyari parkiran doang susah buanget sih, udah kyk muterin Jakarta aja.”

*Baru turun mobil, langsung notice ada parkir kosong pas di depan mall entrance*

“Yahh harusnya muterin Jakarta sekali lagi deh – Instaregret.”

Yeap, I know it doesn’t even sound funny at all. But he has this way of speaking that is slow and so relaxed even when he’s complaining, to a point that it’s nonchalant. The part where he said, “Instaregret” was so funny, I knew I had to record this down somewhere. The whole parking-spot search experience was a joy to me only because of him.

Then later at night, after dinner, I sat down and have my usual Scripture study time. I read the second part of Pocket Fuel’s series on rest, and discovered the famous Frederick Buechner quote that I wasn’t familiar of before. After reading Lizzy’s devotion and meditating on the Word, I began sharing what I received with my husband as per usual. I began with the Buechner quote:

“Life is grace.
Sleep is forgiveness.
Th—”

“My tummy is comfortable.”

*Instant switch from serious mode to chuckles, heart melted*

As usual, he interrupted me, but he was standing straight and pressing his belly against my face as he was finishing what turned out to be a co-written sentence-slash-poem of our own, so I’m not bothered an iota by his interruption.

That made me cuddle him much alright. Until later, after I finished sharing, I made a point to him that God is so amazing as He worked out every tiny problem from every aspect of my life and not just one problem in one area, so much so that my sleeping problems are gone. I no longer need sleeping pills to sleep for the past 2-3 weeks (I’m a perpetual insomniac for the past year). And he said, “Yes, I have been noticing that for quite some time, too,” smiling.

And then he went on:

“Kamu tuh ga bisa tidur gara2 kebykan pikir. Makanya babe, kamu harus lebih kyk aku, biar ada masalah2 ga enakpun, otaknya bisa kyk hoisom.”

You see, hoisom has been our running inside joke from way back before we got married.

Thing is, back then, he had always felt he’s unneeded because I never want to ask for his help. See, it’s not that I’d never want to ask help from him, just that the whole asking-for-help thing was a problem for me. I don’t like to burden people. So I always respond to people asking for help that are too burdensome for me by placing the burden on myself quietly until I literally wanted to kill myself because no one person truly knew anything about me. I know it sounds crazy but, being able to do it all made me feel useful for people. How dumb was I to look back now and see how exploitable one can be when you place your own value based on your abilities, which can be taken away instantly by just one accident, and go on labeling yourself as a creative by expanding that range of exploitability. Stupid, stupid.

So anyway, back to the point. Back then, whenever he offered to help and I kept ignoring/rejecting, there was this one time when he simply reacted like a little boy, turning sideways on the edge of the bed and pouted, then said, “Ya udah deh aku emang ga guna, huhuhu, mendingan aku jadi sea cucumber aja deh!!” And just like that, like a little Frenchie pup that begged for attention with hardly any effort but the nature of its uber-cute, wrinkly face, I was laughing so hard because it was so cute, and I kept shaking him so he would turn back to face me again, but he just stayed still and kept on his edge and continued deprecating in his perceived uselessness. I kept laughing and kept shaking him while he kept pouting and elaborating on how much of a sea cucumber he is, and that sea cucumbers, or hoisom, as the Chinese-Indonesians call it, are useless, just floating along from side to side in the deep sea all blubbery, all limbless, existing in all its good-for-nothingness.

So there you go, a simple day yet a memorable one. I’m so thankful, God is so good.

It’s apparent that I have no particular purpose in posting all these seemingly useless information but to keep our legacy that I know will stay. I don’t know if it’s just me spending more time with God now so it’s easier to see things from His perspective and be able to notice the little moments I often overlook, OR just the fact that there are so many little moments He planned and fitted in one day to make me smile, which doesn’t come everyday.

All I can say is, it’s been a great day.

Love, Stace

The Most Intimate Way to Spend Time With the One You Love [Migrated Post]

The World According to Anna by Jostein Gaarder, pages 181-182

She is sitting in a spaceship with the Arab boy. They have won an international award recognizing their efforts on the planet’s behalf. The prize is twelve orbits of the earth.

There are just the two of them in the tiny cabin. They don’t need to worry about anything technical: the shuttle is steered and controlled by computers; all they have to do is sit back and enjoy the trip. 

They look down on their planet. Both of them have seen photos from the Apollo mission more than a hundred years ago. The globe is unrecognizable now. It is much more obscured by clouds and storms. This tallies with their experience on the ground. The planet that looked like a bluish-green marble now has more in common with a colorless ball of wool.

Despite all the clouds, it is still a spectacular feeling to be in space, and they can still glimpse some green, brown, and blue patches between the cloud systems. That’s Africa, and there’s India, China and Japan . . .

What surprises her most is the silence. All she can hear is her friend’s breathing. She thinks she can also hear his heart beating. Or is it hers?

The boy is looking at her and smiling. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. She is embarrassed and turns away towards their planet. She looks at the world which created her and wishes she could change the subject by saying that she comes from a beautiful planet. It was beautiful, once.

No one on Earth can see them now. They are completely left to their own devices, and to each other. Being in a little spaceship is perhaps the most intimate way to spend time with someone you love, she thinks.

Up here in space, day and night last only a couple of hours. But they have seen twelve sunsets and twelve sunrises, and above the clouds the sky is always blue.