Simply Katherine, a Christian blog

Okay, so to continue sharing my Mrs. L's moments with you, I have to introduce you to a deeper dimension of my life. I'm not saying I have two separate lives but behind all things that I do outwardly (I eat, I sleep, I work, I study, etc.), there's a realm, called the church life , that I'm living in. The church life , just like what it literally denotes, refers to the practical life of the church . That being said about the church , of course, I'm not referring to the brick building I pass by everyday to go to work. I'm talking about the people. T he church life  is like the practical inter-mingled, inter-related, interdependent life of all these Christ-centered people together.  Back to my story. That particular afternoon I was so distraught. There was a fellowship among the responsible ones in the church for a certain matter and the result of that fellowship was carried out. I experienced an inward turmoil because plainly put, I was in a disagre

The other day someone told me about the definition of an offense . You know, she wasn't talking about a legal offense , but more like when you're offended by someone because that person said something unpleasant to your ear, or heart. So I googled it up: "offense definition". I was particularly intrigued by one of the many definitions listed online. of·fense noun  /əˈfens/ Annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principles. I thought to myself: Oh dear, that's incredibly accurate. Many times I'm offended not necessarily because someone did something wrong to me but it's because they didn't do something according to my likings or so-called standards. For instance, someone I know sees me on the street but she doesn't even say hi to me, or a colleague of mine often comes late to an important lunch appointment that I've meticulously set up two months ah

The four matters on grafting (see Grafted! Part 1 for context):  1. With natural grafting, compatibility comes down to the point of the stock and the scion needing to be of the same species. This is an enlightening fact in relation to the creation of man recorded in the Bible. In Genesis 1, God spoke to bring forth living creatures after their kind but man was created in God's image and after God's likeness ( Genesis 1:26 ). In other words, man was created after God's kind, or shall we say, God's species. 2. Cutting implies termination, or some kind of death. In grafting, both the stock and the scion have to undergo cutting, or termination. This parallels with the Bible: Christ as the stock died, was cut, on the cross, and at the time of his conversion, a Christian - the scion - was cut off from his old source of living, transferred to another root system, to be "born again". 3. After the cutting, the stock and the scion

I have a dilemma. I'm not sure what to do with this blog. To treat it as a journal or to explore deep thoughts on faith, existence, and life in general? Some posts in my blog are quite challenging to follow. What say ye? My thought is just to probably do a mixture of both. Okay, so today I want to explore grafting:  "Grafting involves the union of a root system (called the Understock) with a shoot system (the Scion) in such a way that the cambiums are aligned and they subsequently grow to develop one composite plant."   -Lincoln Land Community College Some important tips for successful grafting include smooth cutting so that the cambiums of both the stock and the scion are aligned properly. Cambium is almost like the heart of a plant, it forms the new layers of phloem and xylem - these transport nutrients and minerals from the root system and from photosynthesis to the rest of the plant. Guess what, the Bible has this interesting notion on graf

09:00 A.M.  - Left eye opened. 10:00 A.M.  - Right eye opened. Rolled to the right side. Right foot hanging. Thump! Up and awake. Turned to the left. Sighed. "Po~ wake up! We need to go out soon."  10:05 A.M.  - "Po, let's go." 10:10 A.M.  - "Po, come on. Let's go." 10:15 A.M.  - "Po, hurry up. Let's go." 10:20 A.M.  - "Hey, let's go." 10:25 A.M.  - "Po..." Po rolled her eyes and said, "Can you say something different?" 10:30 A.M.  - Left the apartment. 10:37 A.M.  -  Stuck in downtown traffic! 11:00 A.M  - Ugh! Couldn't find a parking spot to go to the Farmer's Market, so left for Botanical Garden instead.  Bluebonnets 12:00 P.M.   - Yum! Lunch! My fave slice of pizza is Pizza Margherita!  Margherita slice on the left  01:00 P.M.  - We were melting under the Texas' sun after lunch, so we decided to cross the street and get the super re

Seriously, I wish someone would wake me up on time this morning. I think I turned off my alarm while sleeping. I woke up an hour and a half later, missing out on an important meeting. It took me about ten minutes, from bed to the door, out from slumber to real world I went. Good thing, I still made it to the latter part of that meeting. It was a stressful day! Plus I'm a breakfast person so going on empty stomach until noon threw off my system. I think my sleeping pattern needs some re-calibration. Actually so many people around me are either losing sleep or having problem with sleeping pattern these days. I'm not sure why, but for sure, sleep deprivation is a no-no. On that note, let's try to sleep earlier tonight, everyone! I need to.

I live in a small apartment so everything in the apartment revolves around me and Po, my sister. But last night, as I was about to go to bed, my trip to Yosemite last summer came to memory. I've always been a city person, didn't get to travel beyond urban that much. So when I went out to witness the grandeur of nature, I was awestruck. Yosemite Tunnel View The Dome Mono Lake Tufa @ Mono Lake Mammoth Mountain Tenaya Lake, Tioga Pass Tuolomne Meadow Tioga Pass I remember driving through Tioga Pass. I held my breath everytime I made a turn. To the left, it was high rocky wall and to the right, a deep cliff. I quickly realized I was just a tiny speck of matter, an extremely vulnerable existence indeed. The grand, majestic mountains humbled me; the vastly open expanse above was going to swallow me alive. So breathtaking, so awesome, so magnificent, yet the Creator is more interested with a little creature, called man. The sun, the moon, and t

I can't exactly remember the sequence of all my conversations with Mrs. L. But I think my first long conversation with her was about my grandmother. Mrs. L asked me how my grandmother was doing: her health and her Christian church life. Actually until today I'm still not clear how my grandmother and Mrs. L met. I only know my grandmother loves to send her bird's nest (an Asian delicacy for health). But that day I told Mrs. L that I had not talked to my grandmother for several months. I had a very tight schedule, was busy with life, and my grandmother lived in another country so making a phone call was always difficult. Mrs. L smiled and told me, "Oh, your grandmother would be so happy if you call her. This is how older people are, they're just happy when their grandchildren talk to them. Your grandmother misses you." There I was, thinking that she would teach me a very spiritual lesson in life. Yet it was so simple, so human. I couldn't explain it w

Many of us like to tune in for lots of things in the radio: news, music, etc. It's quite impressive to realize what's, literally, in the air surrounding us. Radio waves everywhere! We can't see it, we can't touch it, we can't smell it, we can't taste it, and when somehow floating in the air, we can't hear it. We need a particular instrument to actually receive radio waves. So in a radio, there is a receiver. Without the receiver, none of the radio waves from the air could be received by the radio. So it is actually possible for something to be real (existing) even though we can't use our five senses to substantiate it. Today I was checking out some quotes from a website . I think it's quite interesting to read some of the quotes concerning the existence of God from other Christians such as Goethe, C.S. Lewis, and so forth. You should definitely have a look. But I would like to approach the existence of God from another angle. The Bible says that

Continuing from Conversations with Mrs. L's Introduction , Mrs. L invited me to come by her house any time I wanted to. So I did, actually I did several times just to say hi but I had been wanting to sit down and have some conversations about the multi-faceted human life. I've learned throughout the years that we, the younger generation, need to learn shortcuts in life lessons. One of my friends told me that he wished he could be let alone so that he could learn from his own mistakes. I'd say, yes, on one hand, there is no way we can bypass making mistakes but on the other hand, why not learn from the older ones and have a head start in things? We need not repeat bad history. Mrs. L is a dear and mature Christian. I went to her house, sat on one of her chairs in the living room, and asked her, "Mrs. L, can I visit you more often and spend some time with you?" She paused, she was hesitant at first because she was not sure with what kind of heart I asked her t

So on the last post, I guess you have to have a flash player to play the slideshow. Sorry about that, since the post would be a little harder to follow without it. Anyway, moving on. More findings from a booklet called "There is God": The human heart pumps 72 times a minute, or 40 million times a year, while awake or asleep. Every day an adult heart pumps blood through 100,000 miles of blood vessels, enough to travel around the world 4 times. It pumps enough blood to fill 2,000-gallon tank car every day. If one were to pile up the red blood cells in his body, the height would exceed that of Mt. Everest 5,000 times. The nose inhales air 17 times a minute. Everyday it has to process about 14,000 liters of air. In addition to adjusting the temperature of the air, it also has to temper its humidity and filter its dust. A man-made machine that will handle all these three functions might weigh 100 lbs. Let's make up a some-million-years experiment. So here it is:   -