閱讀越悅讀 － 第七天

買這本書的原因很簡單，因為作者是余華。我不是太認識余華，只讀過他的「活著」。不用多說，活著是一個會一直留在心中的故事。

若你在網上找對這本書的評價，你會看見很不同的意見。有些很好的評分，有些說對作者很失望，等；彷彿某些人都對余華就是「期待」著某類型的故事般。我本人卻很喜歡「第七天」這本書，我相信會是另一個，會一直留在我心裏的故事。

讀完這書，我覺得我好像跟很多有著不同經歷的人聊天完一樣。他們的每個故事也震撼著我的內心。雖然，以我的背境和經歷，我無法跟每個主人翁的生命也能感同身受，可是，他們的故事和書中所刻畫的情感，真實地攪動著我的內心。他們的故事是真的、情感是真的、掙扎是真的、那些不公平是真的、那些階級觀念是真的，等等等等都是真的。這樣的故事怎能使人讀畢這書，心能夠平靜下來？無可否認，這本書瀰漫著一份很沉重、很傷痛的感覺，但到最後（第六和第七天），我又不知怎的，從文字裏感受到一份盼望－－－一份期待著、渴望著的盼望。

這書取名「第七天」，作者借聖經的創世記———上帝七天創造天地，講述一個人死後七天的經歷。不禁令有基督信仰的我，把書中所說到的荒誕的事都帶到上帝面前。遇見社會很多荒謬的問題，身邊很多使人抓不著頭腦的事，或許我們在心中有很多問號，但我還是選擇相信，這一切也在上帝的掌權之內。

書背的故事簡介是這樣寫的：
「第七天」就是安息日？！
活著的世界，為什麼比死亡後的世界更令人沮喪、絕望？

閱讀越悅讀 － The Crucified Life

閱讀越悅讀 － The Crucified Life (1)

(...) These questions, and many more like them, are inappropriate. So the question before us, and the question that really matters, is simply, what do you think of Christ? And what are you going to do with Christ? Every question we might ever have can be boiled down to the subject of Jesus Christ. Everybody needs to answer this question of what we are going to do about this man whom God raised from the dead. Christ is the last word of God to humankind.

Some people have been fooled into believing that it was the life of Jesus that saved us. No, He had to die. Some say it was at the death of Jesus that we were saved. No, He had to rise from the dead. All three acts had to be present before we could truly say we have a Saviour we can trust. He had to live among men, holy and harmless, spotless and unveiled. He had to die for man and then rise on the third day, according to the Scripture. He did all three. What the Spirit of God carries back home to the heart the Holy Spirit impales on our consciences, and we cannot escape until we have done something about Jesus.

To those early Christians, Easter was not a holiday or even a holy day. It was not a day at all. It was an accomplished fact that lived with them all year long and became the reason for their daily conduct.
(...) They lived by the fact that Christ had risen from the dead and they had risen with him.
"If ye then be risen with Christ..." The word "if" is not an "if" of uncertainty. The force of the word is "since ye are then risen with Christ." Paul declared in Romans 6:4 Ephesians 2:6-7 and elsewhere that when Christ rose from the dead, His people rose with Him. Mortality rose with Him. Spirituality rose with Him. And this rising from the dead was and is an accomplished fact.

We are always preaching sermons, writing articles and singing hymns trying to equate our country and our modern civilization - or any civilization - with Christianity. It cannot be done. The Christian Church is something apart. It is not black or white or red or yellow. The Christian Church is not for Canadian or Americans or Germans or British or Japanese. The Christian Church is a new creation born of the Holy Ghost out of the stuff of Christ's wounded side, and it is another race altogether.

The Scriptures say "seek" and "set." "Seek... and set your affections on things above" and put off the old ways, forgive everybody in the world and dedicate your time to Him.
Too often, we give God only the tired remnants of our time. If Jesus Christ had given us only the remnant of His time, we would all be on our way to that darkness that knows no morning. Christ have us not the tattered leftovers of His time; He gave us all the time He had. But some of us give Him only the leftovers of our money and of our talents and never give our time fully to the Lord Jesus Christ who gave us all. Because He gave all, we have what we have; and He calls us "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17).

Nicholas Herman, who was commonly known as Brother Lawrence, was a simple dishwasher in the institution where he lived. He said he did those dishes for the glory of God. When he was through with his humble work, he would fall down flat on the floor and worship God. Whatever he was told to do, he did it for the glory of God. He testified, "I wouldn't as much as pick up a straw from the follow, but I did it for the glory of God."
One saint praised God every time he drank a glass of water. He did not make a production out of it, but in his heart, he thanked God. Every time I leave my house, I look to God, expecting Him to bless me and keep me on my way. Every time I am flying in the air, I expect Him to keep me there, land me safely and bring me back. If He wants me in heaven more than He wants me on earth, then He will answer no to that prayer and it will be all over - but I will be with Him over there. In the meantime, while He wants me here, I will thank Him every hour and every day for everything.

The primary difficulty in the evangelical Church is that we have been trying to think our way into God. Nothing could be more futile and frustrating.
It is only through grace that you can have the fullness of the knowledge of God, but of God Himself can no man think. You cannot think around Him, equal to Him or up to Him. But that hunger for Him in your heart will reach out and search until it finds the object of His love, which is God Himself.

____________

while reading this book, I still constantly ask: "yes, but HOW?" and then I am reminded: the question that really matters, is simply, what do you think of Christ? And what are you going to do with Christ?

閱讀越悅讀 － The Crucified Life

"What I mean by 'the crucified life' is a life wholly given over to the Lord in absolute humility and obedience: a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord."

"The crucified life is a life absolutely committed to following after Christ Jesus. To be more like Him. To think like Him. To act like Him. To love like Him. The whole essence of spiritual perfection has everything to do with Jesus Christ. Not with rules and regulations. Not with how we dress or what we do or do not do. We are not to look like each other; rather, we are to look like Christ. We can get all caught up in the nuances of religion and miss the glorious joy of following after Christ. Whatever hinders us in our journey must be salt a deathblow."

"One important point may fail to understand is that the Bible was never meant to replace God; rather, it was meant to lead us into the heart of God."

"Among the thirtyfold Christians, there is much joy that they have been saved but no anticipation of continuing on the journey toward spiritual perfection. They are so happy they are not what they used to be that they cannot see what God wants them to be."

"Quite simply put, a Christian is one who sustains a right relationship with Jesus Christ. A Christian enjoys a kind of union with Jesus Christ superseding all other relationships."

(more to come...
keep praying for God Himself!!!!)

閱讀越悅讀 － 人鼠之間

讀完＜人鼠之間＞一書，心裏的第一個叫喊是「很殘忍」。
擱下手上的書，坐在床上呆了好半天，心中很不好受⋯⋯內心酸酸的⋯⋯
＜人＞很殘忍，同時很真實、很有人情味。
是一本能觸動人心的書。

那天買這本書的原因很簡單，只不過是給那個書名和故事簡介吸引了。今天讀完才到互聯網去找關於這本書的資料，才知道這是榮獲1962年諾貝爾文學獎的作品。這書也曾因「語言褻瀆，帶攻擊性，並有種族主義傾向」被視為禁書。



更多資料：
wiki
博客來

閱讀越悅讀 － 夜行馬戲團

終於再一次讓自己停下來，重拾這本小說好好享受一個晚上了⋯⋯

「夜」是一本充滿幻想、充滿神秘的感覺、充滿藝術的氣氛、能帶我遨遊到一幅又一幅美麗的影像的書。
雖還沒有讀畢，但一段段能使我留連與回味的章節及情感，讓我盡情享受讀這書的過程。

推薦給同樣喜歡讓思想去旅行的你們。

閱讀越悅讀 - The Jesus I Never Knew

Around a month ago, I had the urge and the need to know more about Jesus.
Back at that time, I was reading the Gospels, reading how Jesus came to earth, how people rejected him, mocked him, but he kept doing his best to love these people, to heal these people and to bring these people back to Father God. I just couldn't make sense of it, I just couldn't imagine how a person could love as he did.

Yes, true, Jesus is God, but then, Jesus was also a human with flesh and blood, born from an ordinary family, raised up by an ordinary couple; in another words, he was a human being! I kept wondering how could Jesus do that?

I was amazed by his love and trust for his Heavenly Father. It is so easy for us to picture Jesus as a person with no emotion because he is the "Son of God". However, looking at Jesus' life on earth, I am constantly reminded that he is, like us, a human with flesh and blood, that thorns could go through his flesh, nails could go through his palms and bled... then how could he be so obedient? How did he feel back then? How were his chain of thoughts like? What was in his mind?

We, Christians, always say we want to be like Jesus, how could we be like him if we don't even know him? Indeed, I really really really want to be able to love like him, I pray to be like him...

I shared some of these thoughts in my oikos (small group), and my small group leader introduced this book to me: The Jesus I Neve Knew by Philip Yancey. I am more than half way done now and would like to recommend this to you.

Here is (part of) one of the chapters that captures my mind a lot:

A Revolution of Grace

As my class in Chicago read the Gospels and watched movies about Jesus' life, we noticed a striking pattern: the more unsavory the characters, the more at ease they seemed to feel around Jesus. People like these found Jesus appealing: a Samaritan social outcast, a military officer of the tyrant Herod, a quisling tax collector, a recent hostess to seven demons.

In contrast, Jesus got a chilly response from more respectable types. Pious Pharisees thought him uncouth and worldly, a rich young ruler walked away shaking his head, and even the open-minded Nicodemus sought a meeting under the cover of darkness.

I remarked to the class how strange this pattern seemed, since the Christian church now attracts respectable types who closely resemble the people most suspicious of Jesus on earth. What has happened to reverse the pattern of Jesus' day? Why don't sinners like being around us?

I recounted a story told me by a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago. A prostitute came to him in wretched straits, homeless, her health failing, unable to buy food for her two year-old daughter. Her eyes awash with tears, she confessed that she had been renting out her daughter --- two years old! --- to men interested in kinky sex, in order to support her own drug habit. My friend could hardly bear hearing the sordid details of her story. He sat in silence, not knowing what to say. At last he asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. "I will never forget the look of pure  astonishment that crossed her face," he later told me. "'Church!' she cried. 'Why would I ever go there? They'd just make me feel even worse than I already do!'"

Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church, I told my class. The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome. How did Jesus, the only perfect person in history, manage to attract the notoriously imperfect? And what keeps us from following in his steps today?

Someone in the class suggested that legalism in the church had created a barrier of strict rules that made non-Christians feel uncomfortable. The class discussion abruptly lurched in a new direction, as survivors of Christian colleges and fundamentalist churches began swapping war stories. I told of my own bemusement in the early seventies when the redoubtable Moody Bible Institute, located just four blocks down the street from our church, was banning all beards, mustaches, and hair below the ears of male students—though each day students filed past a large oil painting of Dwight L. Moody, hirsute breaker of all three rules.

Everyone laughed. Everyone except Greg, that is, who fidgeted in his seat and smoldered. I could see his face flush red, then blanch with anger. Finally Greg raised his hand, and rage and indignation spilled out. He was almost stammering. "I feel like walking out of this place," he said, and all of a sudden the room hushed. "You criticize others for being Pharisees. I'll tell you who the real Pharisees are. They're you [he pointed at me] and the rest of you people in this class. 85 You think you're so high and mighty and mature. I became a Christian because of Moody Church. You find a group to look down on, to feel more spiritual than, and you talk about them behind their backs. That's what a Pharisee does. You're all Pharisees."

All eyes in the class turned to me for a reply, but I had none to offer. Greg had caught us red- handed. In a twist of spiritual arrogance, we were now looking down on other people for being Pharisees. I glanced at the clock, hoping for a reprieve. No such luck: It showed fifteen minutes of class time remaining. I waited for a flash of inspiration, but none came. The silence grew louder. I felt embarrassed and trapped.

Then Bob raised his hand. Bob was new to the class, and until the day I die I will always be grateful to him for rescuing me. He began softly, disarmingly, "I'm glad you didn't walk out, Greg. We need you here. I'm glad you're here, and I'd like to tell you why I come to this church.

"Frankly, I identify with the Chicago prostitute Philip mentioned. I was addicted to drugs, and in a million years it wouldn't have occurred to me to approach a church for help. Every Tuesday, though, this church lets an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter meet in the basement room we're sitting in right now. I started attending that group, and after a while I decided a church that welcomes an AA group cigarette butts, coffee spills, and all—can't be too bad, so I made a point to visit a service.

"I've got to tell you, the people upstairs were threatening to me at first. They seemed like they had it all together while I was barely hanging on. People here dress pretty casually, I guess, but the best clothes I owned were blue jeans and T-shirts. I managed to swallow my pride, though, and started coming on Sunday mornings as well as Tuesday nights. People didn't shun me. They reached out to me. It's here that I met Jesus."

As if someone had opened an air lock, all tension discharged from the room during Bob's speech of simple eloquence. Greg relaxed, I mumbled an apology for my own Pharisaism, and the class ended on a note of unity. Bob had brought us back to common ground, as sinners equally desperate in our need of God.

(...) Reading about Jesus' assorted dinner companions, I search for a clue that might explain why Jesus made one group (sinners) feel so comfortable and the other group (pious) feel so uncomfortable. I find such a clue in one more scene from the Gospels that brings together Pharisees and a blatant sinner simultaneously. The Pharisees have caught a woman in the very act of adultery, a crime that calls for the death penalty. What would Jesus have them do? they ask, hoping to trap him in a conflict between morality and mercy.

Jesus pauses, writes on the ground for a moment, then says to the accusers, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." When all of them have filed away, Jesus turns to the cringing woman. "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" he asks. "Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."

This tense scene reveals a clear principle in Jesus' life: he brings to the surface repressed sin, yet forgives any freely acknowledged sin. The adulteress went away forgiven, with a new lease on life; the Pharisees slunk away, stabbed to the heart.

Perhaps prostitutes, tax collectors, and other known sinners responded to Jesus so readily because at some level they knew they were wrong and to them God's forgiveness looked very appealing. As C. S. Lewis has said, "Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger."

(...) In short, Jesus moved the emphasis from God's holiness (exclusive) to God's mercy (inclusive). Instead of the message "No undesirables allowed," he proclaimed, "In God's kingdom there are no undesirables." By going out of his way to meet with Gentiles, eat with sinners, and touch the sick, he extended the realm of God's mercy. To Jewish leaders, Jesus' actions jeopardized the very existence of their religious caste system—no wonder the Gospels mention more than twenty occasions when they conspired against Jesus.

(...) At times, I do not find it easy to believe in the love of God. I do not live in poverty, like the Christians in the Third World. Nor have I known a life of rejection, like Shusaku Endo. But I have known my share of suffering, a fact of life that cuts across all racial and economic boundaries. Suffering people also need grace-healed eyes.

One terrible week two people called me on successive days to talk about one of my books. The first, a youth pastor in Colorado, had just learned his wife and baby daughter were dying of AIDS. "How can I possibly talk to my youth group about a loving God after what has happened to me?" he asked. The next day I heard from a blind man who, several months before, had invited a recovering drug addict into his home as an act of mercy. Recently he had discovered that the recovering addict was carrying on an affair with his wife, under his own roof. "Why is God punishing me for trying to serve him?" he asked. Just then he ran out of quarters, the phone went dead, and I never heard from the man again.

I have learned not even to attempt an answer to the "Why?" questions. Why did the youth pastor's wife happen to get the one tainted bottle of blood? Why do some good people get persecuted for their deeds while some evil people live to healthy old age? Why do so few of the mil-lions of prayers for physical healing get answered? I do not know.

One question, however, no longer gnaws at me as it once did, a question that I believe lurks behind most of our issues with God: "Does God care?" I know of only one way to answer that question, and it has come through my study of the life of Jesus. In Jesus, God gave us a face, and I can read directly in that face how God feels about people like the youth pastor and the blind man who never gave me his name. By no means did Jesus eliminate all suffering—he healed only a few in one small patch of the globe—but he did signify an answer to the question of whether God cares. 

Three times that we know of, suffering drove Jesus to tears. He wept when his friend Lazarus died. I remember one dreadful year when three of my friends died in quick succession. Grief, I found, is not something you get used to. My experience of the first two deaths did nothing to prepare me for the third. Grief hit like a freight train, flattening me. It left me gasping for breath, and I could do nothing but cry. Somehow, I find it comforting that Jesus felt something similar when his friend Lazarus died. That gives a startling clue into how God must have felt about my three friends, whom he also loved. 

Another time, tears came to Jesus when he looked out over Jerusalem and realized the fate awaiting that fabled city. He let out a cry of what Shusaku Endo has called mother-love: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." I sense in that spasm of emotional pain something akin to what a parent feels when a son or daughter goes astray, flaunting freedom, rejecting everything he or she was brought up to believe. Or the pain of a man or woman who has just learned a spouse has left— the pain of a jilted lover. It is a helpless, crushing pain of futility, and it staggers me to realize that the Son of God himself emitted a cry of helplessness in the face of human freedom. Not even God, with all his power, can force a human being to love. 

Finally, Hebrews tells us, Jesus "offered up .. . loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death." But of course he was not saved from death. Is it too much to say that Jesus himself asked the question that haunts me, that haunts most of us at one time or another: Does God care? What else can be the meaning of his quotation from that dark psalm, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 

Again, I find it strangely comforting that when Jesus faced pain he responded much as I do. He did not pray in the garden, "Oh, Lord, I am so grateful that you have chosen me to suffer on your behalf. I rejoice in the privilege!" No, he experienced sorrow, fear, abandonment, and some-thing approaching even desperation. Still, he endured because he knew that at the center of the universe lived his Father, a God of love he could trust regardless of how things appeared at the time. 

Jesus' response to suffering people and to "nobodies" provides a glimpse into the heart of God. God is not the unmoved Absolute, but rather the Loving One who draws near. God looks on me in all my weakness, I believe, as Jesus looked on the widow standing by her son's bier, and on Simon the Leper, and on another Simon, Peter, who cursed him yet even so was commissioned to found and lead his church, a community that need always find a place for rejects.

閱讀越悅讀 - Hana's Suitcase

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years(sssss), an university friend gave it to me when I was still in school. I didn't open it until today... Once I started the first pages, I couldn't stop, I just have to cry out: "SUCH A GOOD BOOK!"

I feel stupid for not reading it until today, I wonder whether anything would have changed in me for all these years if I have read it then? (thinking...) but it's ok, because I believe that I wouldn't have appreciated it the same way.

Apparently this Hana's story is very popular, again - I didn't know until I finished the book and start writing this post. I won't say much about the book content here, because you can easily find information online, and I encourage to do so.

This book is a true story that takes place on three continents over a period of almost seventy years. It brings together the expereinces of a girl and her family in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and 40s, a young woman and a ground of children in Tokyo, Japan, and a man in Toronto, Canda in modern times (intorduction P.V). It is not the first time to read about or watch about Adolf Hitler wanted to rule the world, and his brutal acts to eliminate Jewish people from the face of the earth. However, it is the first time I feel this incident is actually related to us - but not just a far history. While I was reading the book, images from the movie The Pianist kept coming into my mind; I believe it was the combination of the words of Hana's Suitcase and the images from The Pianist that brought this  Jews' horrible past experience so deep into my heart this time.

What touches me the most is the song that Hana likes to sing called "Stonozka":
Her life is not a piece of cake.
Imagine how she suffers when
She walks until her tootsies ache.
She's got good reason to complain.
So when I want to cry the blues
I just recall the centipede.
Consider walking in her shoes
And then my life seems sweet indeed.
I can imagine we, as Canadians in modern time, sing this song when we are to whine for boss being too mean, working hours too long, TV programs too boring, not having enough sleep, and you name it. However, I can never imagine how a 12/13 years old girl, who was forced to separate from her parents and her only brother, could sing this song when she was boarded onto the darkened rail car until there was not an inch of room left in the train, with no air, no food, no toilet for a day and a night. (.... how............)

Here I want to share with you a scene from The Pianist

閱讀越悅讀 - 魔女的約定

「我真的累了，生活啊，可否給我一個跟小舞的一樣的休假？」
這是我看完這本書後，發自內心的一句話。

魔女的約定是一本寫給小朋友的書——情節是、文體也是，所以我認定這是寫給我的書。今天，一口氣看完這本書。簡單清新的內容確實地帶我離開煩囂，進入「魔女」所住的令人嚮往的自然簡單生活；感覺蠻舒暢呢！

我跟小舞一樣，我們都有生活的什麼想要逃避，可是，我們也知道休假終有一天要過去，現實總不會輕易地讓我們逃避過去的。面對生活（魔女修行）實在是一個窮我們一生的學問呢！

哎喲！怎麼說呢？看完這本書的感覺就是迫不得已要回到現實的那種難受、那種捨不得，還有那不知從何而來的一份遺憾．．．這本書一定是有什麼魔法呢！太不可思議了！怎麼這麼簡單的書卻有這麼令人動心的力量？

閱讀越悅讀 - 紙牌的秘密

你可曾覺得自己不屬於這個年代，甚至不屬於這個世界？
你又可曾覺得自己與身邊的人或事也總是格格不入？
我的答案不是曾經，而是經常。
我總會問：是我有問題嗎？還是世界有問題？
怎麼上帝要造我這個奇奇怪怪的、孤孤單單的人，但又要強迫我活在群體之內？
上帝為何要創造這個世界？是祂太悶了吧？想要我們跟祂玩一個一生也玩不完的捉迷藏？還要我們跟祂猜一生也找不著答案的燈迷吧？
上帝真風趣，總愛跟我們開玩笑．．．是這樣嗎？


紙牌的秘密一書基本上是以一個童話故事來問以上的問題，這是我愛上這本書的原因。
「 紙」同樣不是一個令人驚心動魄的故事，可是，這是一本使我欲罷不能的書。
「 紙」更是一本寫給成年人的童話故事！
喜歡！！！羨慕！！！
___________________________________

老爸覺得自己是一張小丑牌。
〔．．．〕
小丑和他人完全不同，是一個不起眼的聰明傻子。他不是梅花或方塊，也不是紅心或黑桃。他不是八也不是九，他不是國王也不是傑克。他是局外人。他和其他花色的撲克牌被擺在一起，可是他不是裡面的一份子。因此，小丑牌即被抽走了，也不會有人記得他。
〔．．．〕
地球人怎能在世界各地走來走去，卻從沒想過好好地問自己：「我是誰？我從哪裡來？」你怎能夠對世間的生命視而不見，把生命的存在視為理所當然？

閱讀越悅讀 - The Eyes of The Skin

It is NOT a Christian book. though its cover looks like one!



This is a book I highly recommend to all artists who are seriously interested in creating.
This book is written by Juhani Pallasmaa, one of the most distinguished architects and architectural theorists in Finland.
I have read this book a several times, and have picked up to re-read again very recently. I actually just put down the book one minute ago, and my heart is beating fast because a loud voice in my mind keeps repeating: "IT IS ALL UNFOLDING!"

I got this book back in university, when I was doing my final thesis. I have to say that my thesis was mainly based on and inspired from this wonderful book. It talks about haptic architecture (art), existential experience, and how art and architecture should relate intimately to the centre of the world, to us and to our full body. Reading this book again, I finally understand why I feel so unsatisfied everyday, and more and more disappointed and discouraged everyday working and living in this society.

"The inhumanity of contemporary architecture and cities can be understood as the consequence of the negligence of the body and the senses." (p.17)
(I would add "the inhumanity of modern human")

Sadly, along these almost-6-years working in architectural firms which are heavily depended on and controlled by Canadian developers, I have forgotten what I had been strongly believing in when I was fresh and young in architecture (in life). Thinking back, my thesis centered on the investigation on one’s personal experience with an architectural space, and on how architecture speaks to its users in their own language. I believed that a significant architecture should direct an existential experience in the space thus evoking a sense of belonging and intimacy. At the end of my final thesis presentation, one of my professors told me that this should be a topic to be kept on investigating for the rest of my life. Of course... I did not remember that either...

Today, reading the book again, thinking about it again... I am thinking that maybe it is even something further! Maybe it is not just about art and architecture - it is about relationship - relationship with people around us, relationship with incidents happening around us, or even relationship with God. I cannot forget what my ceramics teacher told me: "Don't look, feel! Communicate with your clay!" When we have our desires and ego over one thing or over a person, the relationship destroys - nothing will turn out well.

"[...] many of the architectural projects of the past 20 years, celebrated by the international architectural press, express both narcissism and nihilism. [...] The narcissistic eye views architecture solely as a means of self- expression, and as an intellectual-artistic game detached from essential mental and societal connections, whereas the nihilistic eye deliberately advances sensory and mental detachment and alienation. [...] It is impossible to think of a nihilistic sense of touch, for instance, because of the unavoidable nearness, intimacy, veracity and identification that the sense of touch carries." (p.22)

"We are inside and outside of the object at the same time. Creative work calls for a bodily and mental identification, empathy and compassion."(p.13)

Isn't relationship the same?
That's why I said: it is all unfolding; it is all related, can't we see now?

I can keep on writing from here - one insight, endless related topics... but I think I should stop and go back to read now!

Last but not least, "how would the painter or poet express anything other than his encounter with the world?" (by Maurice Merleau-Ponty)

Now, think!

閱讀越悅讀 - 我的不完美

剛剛看(＊)完一本書，劉若英的我的不完美。
這不是一本什麼文學經典，也不是什麼令人驚醒的作品；只不過是一本散文．生活小品。
名人所出的書總是給人一份沒信心的吧？可是，我喜歡它！因為這是一本很誠實，很有心的著作。
書的內容如其名———我的不完美；處境的不完美、生活的不完美、社會的不完美、性格的不完美、愛情的不完美．．．還可以繼續列下去呢。

看這本書，你或許找不到一個正確的人生道理，更不會學懂認真的生活方式。那又如何？我認為只有那些不懂得生活的人，才會在生活中的任何一個範疇中也要去「學習」生活。實在是一種病態。
在「我」的文字間，我看見一個活生生的人的故事、一份又一份有血有肉的情感。沒有造作的文筆、沒有深造的研究；動人的章節便是如此簡單！


愛是開在懸崖邊的花朵
採摘它需要捨命的勇氣
離開 也一樣

用什麼融化自己？
悔恨嗎？
用什麼融化記憶？
時間嗎？
用什麼融化你？
我僅有的生命．．．．

終究有一天我將靜靜的躺下

請帶著微笑的站在我身邊

我會帶著我們滿滿美好的記憶

飛向充滿白色花朵的天際

雖然我忘記過誓言

但起碼我是那麼用力的愛過

雖然你曾傻傻的等過

而我們曾經一起

認真的哭過

相信過承諾

請你一定要微笑．．．

因為那是我最喜歡你的樣子

請你不要為我哭泣

因為那會讓我非常擔心

你為我在大雨中奔跑過

我蜷在你的懷裡哭泣過

對著天空大喊你的名字

在心裡默禱對你的祝福

我亂亂的頭髮

你惺忪的雙眼

我們

這就是我們

也只有我們

後註：
＊朋友總愛說「讀」書，我依然堅持是「看」書。
對我而言，讀的一定要是學科書。讀書不是享受，讀書是責任。
看書是自由的，享受的，快樂的。

閱讀越悅讀 - 心裏的夢田

快樂是不堪聞問的鬼東西，
如果不相信，請問自己三遍––––––
我快樂嗎？

傷心沒可能一次攤還，它是被迫的分期付款。
即使有人有本錢，在這件事上，
也沒有辦法快速結賬。

---三毛

書．電影．生命

這幾天，我繼續閱讀敲打天堂的門。古巴。今天（剛剛），一連氣看了兩部電影 ––––– 韓國片：The Way Home（trailer)，西班牙片：The Volver (trailer)。

一個又一個的故事實在令我不知所措、難以啟齒，亦令我有點黯然。
家家有本難念的經，生命中究竟有多少無奈、多少身不由己？
我此刻的無言，請見諒。何況，生命故事這回事，彷彿也不由得我們多言商議及批評。或許我們只可各人自行感受一下。

(...)一九四九年中國解放前後，父親耳聞目睹左鄰右里遭遇的政治傾軋，感到此地不宜久留，就趁著到香港奔喪時，在五三年輾轉來到古巴。（...)二〇〇六年，父母說這幾年古巴生活愈來愈苦，什麼都沒有。（...)老夫妻這幾十年沒有回過中國，毋親的親人全都在此，而父親則沒有經濟能力完成這趟漫長旅程。畢竟，他是為了逃避當年家鄉的共產主義政治而來的。命運給他開了個玩笑，這大輩子投進另一個轟轟烈烈的社會主義建設去。(...)他們以為這裡（古巴）是資本主義的天堂，誰知抵達不久，古巴就發生革命，然後一生被困在此。他們沒有經濟能力經常回家，而中國這幾十年的變化很大，有好多人再也不知何處是家。

Vamos bien！我們活著，活得好好的！（古巴人的常用句）
這句話究竟是樂觀還是悲觀？

閱讀越悅讀 (一）敲打天堂的門。古巴

沒想到第一本在〔閱讀越悅讀〕分享的書並不是甚麼文學作品，而是一本旅遊書 –––––– 敲打天堂的門。古巴

我買這本書的原因很簡單，是因為古巴是一個令我很感興趣的地方。有好幾個國家是我夢想的旅遊地方；西班牙是無可取代的第一位，而古巴當然是榜上有名。可是，這兩個地方皆是不會容易被父母接受的旅遊地點（唉．．．）。直到今天，我還是沒有到過西班牙，也沒有去過古巴。我喜歡這兩個地方是靠著（又或許是因為）我對她們少之極少認識；靠著相片，我喜歡那裡的建築、街頭、文化，甚至語言。可別笑我呢，我曾經學過西班牙文，但是只怪自己是個語言白痴—————一塌糊塗。

實不相瞞，我尚未讀畢這本書，但是我已急不及待要跟你們分享。在閱讀這本書的過程裡，我實在無法不回想、檢討及藐視自己，在北美這個既富庶又奢侈的地方，我們究竟怎樣生活著。

衣食住行，作者選擇用「食」開始這本書。人們都說古巴人沒有甚麼飲食文化；哪會沒有呢？不講究單調乏味正是見証著古巴生活、經濟、政治的文化！在沒有選擇的情況下，誰管講究不講究？乏味不乏味？

當我繼續一頁又一頁的翻著看時，我的心開始自責起來了。我是一個基督徒，每天當我們享受美味的食物前，我們總會祈禱感恩。可恥的是，我多次親耳聽見自稱虔誠的基督徒在祈禱感恩後，反目厭棄批評眼前豐富的食物，甚至把之拋掉不吃．．．難道當食物變得足夠時，飲食講究便一下子變成一種學問與美德嗎？太可恥吧？！

(...)每次，離廣場好遠就已經看到人群拿著各色各樣盛器式推手車朝同一方向匯聚，興致勃勃，滿臉期待。
(...)這是一個（物種）最集中（活動）最自由（形式）最多樣化（色彩氣味）最豐富的時刻，人們最純樸的需要與快樂在這裡相遇：最簡單的一個眼神，是盛滿香蕉番薯酪梨的菜藍子，是小貨櫃裡的一堆雜亂的日用品...需要和快樂原來就這樣簡單。喜歡跟熟食攤的廚師聊天，因為他們是廣場上最有象徵意義的角色：尊重食物。(...)

北美的基督徒，北美的人啊！我們要怎樣生活呢？由飲食開始細想吧，可以嗎？

閱讀越悅讀

（哈哈哈哈！請別笑我傻，我太喜歡這標題的取名。究竟應該是越讀越悅讀，悅讀越閱讀，還是閱讀越悅讀呢？ 哈哈哈哈！還是閱讀越悅讀的好！）



對我而言，閱讀是一種娛樂、休息、學習與經歷。我曾經聽說過：若不能負擔起去旅行的話，閱讀與看電影會是很恰當的代替方法；我挺認同這個說法啊。

從移民到加國後，我開始愛上閱讀；是否可稱得上為「愛上」呢？應該說是由那時起，我有了閱讀的習慣。起初只不過是想要打發時間，漸漸變成習慣，然後喜歡上聽（看）故事，跟著我開始享受閱讀的過程， 最後我更愛上創作自己的故事呢。

我較年輕的時候最常看的書是瓊瑤（那時我大約十四、五歲）。那時我還有一個願望，便是擁有瓊瑤全集，哈哈！可是，當時的我還需要父親金錢的全力支持，而他偏偏不太支持我看瓊瑤的書，所以我的少年願望就此落空。我還記得我最喜歡的是她的「窗外」；當時的我已把這小說重複看過兩、三次，而這卻是令我落淚的第一本小說呢！可是，十多年後的今天，我再一次重拾起這本曾經令我一再落淚的書，感覺是．．．很不一樣．．．故事變得不再真實了，然而它也不再令我感動了。我想時間令我改變、經歷也令我改變不少，少年時那天真簡單的信念也消失了；我想確實是「少年不識愁滋味，愛上層樓，愛上層樓，為賦新詞強說愁」。今天，我細望著書架上十多本瓊瑤的小說時，雖然感覺不同了，但我還是珍而重之，不竟它們印記著我的少年，也同時見證著爸爸對我的遷就（多反對，還是買了十多本）。

我維持閱讀中文書的時間並不長。之後為了同時學習法語及英語，英文與法文書、 英文與法文電影及電視劇成為我當時的「娛樂、休息、學習與經歷」。最初當然是痛苦的（是！是痛苦的！）後來漸漸習慣了，然後我又為自己在英文小說堆中找出「最愛」。哈哈！那時，我迷上了 Agatha Christie 的懸疑小說。而總是喜歡樣樣也集齊全套的我，當然也希望擁有 Agatha Christie 新版的全集。可是，願望也是沒成。 （嘻嘻！）回想起，已經好一段時間沒有看她的書了，不知道若我現在再讀她的書，會有甚麼感覺呢？

這便是關於我少年時閱讀的二三事。雖然現在我常為到停止閱讀中文書之結果而緊緊於懷，但還是珍惜及嚮往那些經歷。今天，我再一次重拾兒時的望想，（不是擁有瓊瑤或 Agatha Christie 全集!!）而是要成為一個跟她們一樣能帶給人回憶的作家！而邁向這個望想的第一步是閱讀更多 ——— 學習更多、經歷更多！透過「閱讀越悅讀」這個新標題，我希望能分享更多關於閱讀的二三事，及跟你們分享一些我喜歡的書。此刻，我依然是那個喜愛「集齊全套」的人；我今天的願望是，在這過分繁忙的時代，集得更多更多更多喜歡享受閱讀的人。期望我們也能由「閱」讀變成「悅」讀啊！