ignasius heri satrya wangsa

Simplicity of happiness has been wrongly devoted to the maxim of ecstasy. Loud laughter has been so busy with emptiness of mind. It's a togetherness......but full of dreaming hopeless and creating nothing instead the unconscious words of alcoholism. The party must be over......and...it is not too late. (MATERIALISM ON HAPPINESS)

Bennet Cerf relates this touching story about a bus that was bumping along a back road in the South. In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man's flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he thrust the flowers into the girl's lap."I can see you love the flowers," he explained,"and I think my wife would like for you to have them. I'll tell her I gave them to you." The girl accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the gate of a small cemetery. (from Chicken Soup for the Soul)

There is a good market for simplicity these days, but one can't help wondering if it is really simplicity that is being promoted. Books and magazines that tell people how to live simply often promote a new for of consumerism. Gurus of organization equate simplicity with tidiness. The kind of simplicity that removes clutter from the soul has more to do with poverty of spirit and a contemplative attitude than with orderliness and a taste for the classic. Spiritual simplicity, like material simplicity, depends on the skill of knowing when to let go of what is useful to make room for what is essential. It doesn't take the deprivation of material poverty, but it does take something akin to poverty of spirit. (JANE KOPAS)

There is no absolute HAPPINESS as some parts of it must be shared to conscience towards sadness of "poverty". There is no absolute SADNESS as some parts of it must be shared to conscience towards happiness of "hope". But .... there is a "safe" zone between them..... we call it as "idealism". (for July 20, 2009)

Defining in today’s context of salvation is not easy as the world now is full with materialism. To think using materialism way is to think everything measurable, practical and instant. Materialism paradigm can easily be traced by the irrational consumption of symbols. Satisfying need is intended to have better social status and to accumulate “more” or in a very economic term “investment”. Therefore, the consumption is emotionally-driven and unlimited one. It must be a hard effort to convince that God is still exist in that euphoria of symbolic consumption. It needs a better and logical explanation that there is an optimism related to the role of God in making better world in the future. Satisfying explanation may be in the matter to know the fact that world need something better. God is about goodness and refers to something ideal. He could be in a very abstract form or a real one. He will be very abstract for those who are used to think simply in a materialism way. Those who are quest...

When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach much more importance to the things around you because your survival depends upon them. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in difficult situations. And you accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life....you see only the beauty of them, and ....you feel happy to be alive... (PAULO COELHO)

I very much concern on reflective thinking session as the medium or tools to make better understanding to the definition of God. Reflective thinking is very effective in terms of the way to questioning my existence to this life. Life should be able to be questioned instead it will be a very “dead and meaningless” one. Questioning life is also questioning myself with all strengths and weaknesses. The “quality” of my reflective thinking is questionable to deal with strengths and weaknesses I should work out. In certain cases it is very hard to adjust with flexibility….the same with adjustment in the new atmosphere or environment. Sometimes it is like an “allergic” syndrome to greet the coming of “newness”. Experiencing from my past when I came here as the only “foreigner”. All my fellows here are Filipinos with well-placed attributes in their own cultures, characters, exclusive solidarity, etc. What I feel as excluded person is that the feeling of lonesome, painful…and that being “in des...