Beyond imagining

Moonlight streamed into a poet’s bedroom. When asleep, the poet dreamt of a charming silver world. Hills tipped with silver light, birds with silver beaks, everything touched with silver. Then the poem ‘The Silver World’ ends with the stanza:

'But I was glad when I awoke
And peeped this morning through the pane
To see no more a silver world
But find my golden one again.'

We often talk of ‘dreams’—whether waking daydream or of sleep time, as something sweet and desirable. But just think, can any of those dreams be better than reality? Or, say, a landscape painting. However great the artist, can the painted picture be as good as the real scenery?

And to think that the scenery is still so beautiful despite human beings destroying this earth for so many centuries—how beautiful it must have been when it was newly created! And if the reality of this world is so much better than our most fantastic wishful thinking, how much more the world beyond! A country singer sings about heaven as:

'Made by God alone
According to His perfect plan…'

How beautiful such a place must be!

In the story The Silver Chair, one of the Narnian Chronicles by CS Lewis, the wicked witch abducted Prince Rillian and kept him imprisoned underground. With her magic powers she made him forget his family, his people and his country. Aslan the Lion sent a girl, a boy and a marshwiggle to rescue him.

The prince came back to his senses, he and his rescuers were about to escape. Then the witch tried her tricks to make them doubt the existence of any world beyond the dark underground. She made them feel that the country above ground with its sun, trees, grass, moon and stars, and Aslan himself, were only dreams.

Puddlegum the marshwiggle made a sane reply: “Suppose we have only dreamed …. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well it strikes me as a pretty poor one…. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side….”

Just like it’s difficult to explain the real world above ground to those living in the underworld, it’s hard to imagine the beauty and glory of heaven. Same with the terror and horror of hell.

The truths revealed to us are too wonderful for human invention. The nature of God and his plan of salvation for mankind through Christ are all beyond our imagination.

‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’—Bible.

Welcome, new decade!

So the new year's here. And a brand new decade. Welcome!

We read that many expecting parents wanted their babies to be born on 1.1.11. Well, our next wedding anniversary falls on 11.1.11. Neat, isn't it?

A new year is a time to look at the past and the future. The last decade was a time of a lot of changes and movements for me. A large part of it accompanied by deep sorrow that still continues. But also much joy and blessings.

As for the future, i look to it with hope. Not because of circumstances, but because of Christ who's in charge of my life. It's such a thrill to think i'll live for eternity with him in heaven. That because he loves us so much, he gave his life to save us all.