Mother Teresa on Faith

'Why these people and not me? That person picked up from the drain, why is he here, why not me? That is the mystery. Nobody can give that answer. But it is not for us to decide; only God can decide life and death. The healthy person may be closer to dying or even more dead than the person who is dying. They might be spiritually dead, only it doesn't show. Who are we to decide?'

'That is why abortion is such a terrible sin. You are not only killing life, but putting self before God; yet people decide who has to live and who has to die. They want to make themselves almighty God. They want to take the power of God in their hands. They want to say, "I can do without God. I can decide." That is the most devilish thing a human hand can do. That is why we are paying with such terrible things happening in the world. It is a punishment, it is the cry of those children continually coming before God. It is such a contradiction of even ordinary common sense and reason: we spend millions to prolong life of an old person who is more or less dead. And yet there is this young life for the future... I cannot understand. There is no way to express it. We are fighting abortion by adoption. In the same way, I cannot understand capital punishment.'

'Where there is mystery, there must be faith. Faith, you cannot change no matter how you look at it. Either you have it, or you don't. For us, it is very simple because our feet are on the ground. We have more of the living reality. There was a time when the Church had to show majesty and greatness. But today, people have found that it does not pay. They have found the emptiness of all that pomp so they are coming down more to the ground, and in coming down there is the danger that they are not finding their proper place.'

'God has created all things. All the butterflies, the animals - the whole of nature He has created for us. To them He has not given the will power to choose. They have only an instinct. Animals can be very lovable and love very beautifully, but that is out of instinct. But the human being can choose. That is the one thing God does not take from us. The will power, the power to will. I want to go to heaven and I will, with the grace of God. If I choose to commit sin and go to hell, that is my choice. God cannot force me to do otherwise. That's why when we become religious we give up that will power. That is the sacrifice is so great: the vow of obedience is very difficult. Because in making that vow you surrender the only thing that is you own - your will power. Otherwise my health, my body, my eyes, my everything are all His and He can take them. I can fall, I can break, but my will power doesn't go like this. I must choose to give it and that is beautiful.'

'Our expanding knowledge does not dim our faith, it only shows the size of God's creation. Often we cannot understand. I don't know if you have read St Augustine's life: it is a beautiful example. St Augustine was struggling to understand God, to understand the Trinity,to understand the magnitude of God's creation. His human mind could not grasp it. He was searching here and there when he came upon a small boy, who was trying to fill water into a hole in the ground. St Augustine asked him what he was doing and the boy said, "I'm trying to fill this hole with water." And St Augustine said it was impossible. Then the child, who, in truth, was an angel, said, "It is still easier to put the ocean into this hole than for you to understand the mystery of God." And it is true.'

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(pp. 162, 164)

Mother Teresa on Belief

'What we allow God to use us for, that is important. What He is doign through us, that is important. Because we are religious and our vocation is not to work for the lepers or the dying, our vocation is to belong to Jesus. Because I belong to Him, the work is a means for me to put my love for Him into action. So it is not an end, it is a means. Because my vocation is to belong to God properly, love Him with undivided love and chastity, I take the vows.'

'I see Christ in every person I touch because He has said, "I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked, I was sick, I was suffering, I was homeless and you took me..." It is as simple as that. Every time I give a piece of bread, I give it to Him. That is why we must find a hungry one, and a naked one. That is why we are totally bound to the poor.'

'The vows we take make our religious life. Our vow of chastity is nothing but our undivided love for Christ in chastity, then we proceed to the freedom of poverty - poverty is nothing but freedom. And that total surrender is obedience. If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then He must be able to use me. That is obedience. Then we give whole-hearted service to the poor. That is service. They complete each other. That is our life.'

'If you really belong to the work that has been entrusted to you, then you must do it with your whole heart. And you can bring salvation only by being honest and by really working with God. It is not how much we are doing but ho much love, how much honesty, how much faith, is put into doing it. It makes no difference what we are doing. What you are doing, I cannot do, and what I am doing, you cannot do. But all of us are doing what God has given us to do. Only sometimes we forget and we spend more time looking at somebody else and wishing we were doing something else.'

'We waste out time thinking of tomorrow and today we let the day pass and yesterday is gone.'

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(pp. 158-159)

Mother Teresa on Prayer

'You should spend at least half an hour in the morning, and an hour at night in prayer. You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer, and prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of mind to Him. "I love you, God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now." Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers.'

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(p. 167)

Mother Teresa on Death

"Death is going home, yet people are afraid of what will come so they do not want to die. If we do, there is no mystery, we will not be afraid. There is also a question of conscience- "I could have done better." Very oftern as we live, so we die. Death is nothing but a continuation of life, the completion of life. The surrendering of the human body. But the heart and the soul live for ever. They do not die. Every religion has got eternity - another life; this life is not the end; people who believe it is, fear death. If it was properly explained that death was nothing but going home to God, then there would be no fear."

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(pp. 161)

Mother Teresa on Love

"The poor must know that we love them, that they are wanted. They themselves have nothing to give but love. We are concerned with how to get this message of love and compassion across. We are trying to bring peace to the world through our work. But the work is the gift of God, eh?"

"People today are hungry for love, for understanding love which is much greater and which is the only answer to loneliness and great poverty. That is why we are able to go to countries like England and America and Australia where there is no hunger for bread. But there, people are suffering from terrible loneliness, terrible despair, terrible hatred, feeling unwanted, feeling helpless, feeling hopeless. They have forgotten how to smile, they have forgotten the beauty of human touch. They are forgetting what is human love. They need someone who will understand and respect them."

"The poor are not respected. People do not think that the poor can be treated as people who are lovable, as people like you and I."

"You know, the young are beginning to understand. They want to serve with their hands, and to love with their hearts. To the full, not superficially."

"Love can be misused for selfish motives. I love you, but at the same time I want to take as much as I can, even the things that are not for me to take. Then there is no true love anymore. True love hurts. It always has to hurt. It must be painful to love someone, painful to leave them, you might have to die for them. When people marry they have to give up everything to love each other. The mother who gives birth to her child suffers much. It is the same for us in religious life. To belong fully to God we have to give up everything. Only then can we truly love. The word 'love' is so misunderstood and so misused."

"A young American couple told me once, "You know a lot about love; you must be married." And I said, "Yes, but sometimes I find it difficult to smile at Him.""

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(pp. 159)

Tuktuk trip: a conversation with one of my students

In our trip on the boat to Tuktuk, I was involved in a conversation with a student of mine. The main topic of our talk was the life after graduation. What I sensed from him was that he faced it with pessimism rather than optimism. Negative words were common in his answers and statements. I seemed to me that he lacked the courage and self-confidence to enter the next thrilling phase of his life.

I developed empathy for him and I wanted to help him. I explained to him that I too had similar feelings and anxiety when I was graduated. I told him that such feelings are normal for they who are to start a new part of their life. It's common because there's no one who knows what lies ahead in the future. But what should not happen is that we became overwhelmed by them. I told him that it's the time to raise our own confidence, courage, optimism and faith. Without them, life ahead will be much more difficult and tougher to live. There is no easy way in a competitive life. It is good so that we'll have good reason to always learn and improve ourselves. Comparing ourselves to others in such a competitive atmosphere is a good way to wisely measure our own quality. But it should not also demoralize ourselves. I told him that a good dose of egoism is healthly in a competition. In such condition where demands are so high while supply of good jobs are hard to find, it's not bad to give much care to our own preparation rather than being worried about other competitors. Why cares about them? I'll care about them after I win. At this point, I share to him some of my experiences in having interviews, psychological tests and other harsh competitions where I succeeded and also failed.

In the end of the conversation, I didn't see great improvements to his initial condition. He still gave me excuses and unnecessay worries. Finally I stressed to him that if he kept that pessimistic point of view in life, I was sure that he was in the verge of becoming a loser. I told him not to quit before trying. Never quit. The principle is just to give your best and let God do the rest. I knew that it might sound a cliche but what can I say more than that? That's the truth, baby. To the extreme, even God cannot do anything to help them who do not want to help themselves.

I wish you good luck, my dear student. Welcome to the alumni club.

Tuktuk trip: e-commerce of traditional Batak handicrafts

Yesterday morning, my friends and I took a two-hour walk around Tuktuk. In the journey, we passed some galleries that displayed the traditional Batak handicrafts. I take a chance to talk with a man who owned a gallery. He said that after 1997 the number of the foreign tourists coming to Tuk-tuk suffered an unfortunate decline. It directly affected their sales and income. The condition seemed not yet fully recovered to the condition before the crisis. The golden era has gone for years and the people looked like almost losing hope.

Is it still possible to change the sad situation? I think it's not impossible as long as all of the people and the government officials are willing to pay the price. Now I come to the most practical question. What can I do to help them with the IT knowledge and skills? I quickly remembered one word: e-commerce. I need to find out whether professional e-commerce websites for these traditional Batak handicrafts have been created and operated. If not, then I see this as a good opportunity to create a professional e-commerce website to promote and sell the unique and exotic hand-made Batak products to the world. It's not easy to build it from scratch but it's also not impossible. What I need is time, a bunch of money for research and gathering data, a good dose of persistence, dedication, and patience as well as help from my students to be my coworkers. Or maybe I can assign this as a project for the course of second year project. But I think it's too long because it will take place next year. So?

Tuktuk trip: This is my Father's world

During my trip, I remember several times I mumbled or sang in my heart or loudly a beautiful song I knew, "This is my Father's world." The beautiful scenery, the mountains, the fresh air, the vast lake made me thankful that God has so kindly blessed Indonesia, particularly Batak people such a wonderful blessing. The song taught me that God created the world and God is always in control. Actually the teaching from the song will be far more inspirative when it's sung in a seemingly chaotic world, a harsh world where people may hardly find the sovereign God at work and still invincibly holding the full control.

I think with wise care taken to the rich resources, together actually Batak people should be able build their life toward a prosperious one. But why Batak people in the Batak hinterland are still considered poor people? This is a question that may become a research topic for master or doctorate thesis. But based on a surface observation, one of the answer is the failure of the people and the local governments to realize and utilize all the potentials with which they have been richly blessed for the goodness of the community. Then this answer can lead to another question? Why do they fail to do that? I don't know the sure reason but I think a leader with a pure heart, vision and ambition to work hard to bring his people to higher level of life quality should be able to see what others can not see. Armed with deep knowledge, experiences, wise advisors, and guidance from God, I'll bet he can do it. Now another question arises. Do Batak people have leaders like that? I assume all of you know the answer.

This is my Father's world
And to my list'ning ears
All nature sings and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas
His hand the wonders wrought

Lyrics: Malbie D. Babcock
Music: Franklin L. Sheppard

Trip to Tuktuk Samosir

This afternoon I've just come back from my trip to Tuktuk Samosir with my students and some colleagues. We spent three days and two nights in the very beautiful place. I enjoyed the time and the view very much. But not only that. Such moments of solitude in a worldly heaven has helped me refreshed my mind and body. I also come home with many ideas and reflections to be written in my weblog. After this, all blogs from my Tuktuk trip will be published under the introductory title "Tuktuk trip."

Eureka (again)

I've tried to commit myself to write a research paper every month. Last month I produced a paper on how we can learn to plan and build a quality school from Stanford, MIT and Caltech. Now after thinking for days, at last a good idea for this month's paper came into my mind last night. I'll tell you after I've finished it. Oh my, I haven't shared to you important points from my small research last month. I will.

How to hold effective meeting?

There is something about which my position is crystal clear. I hate long, floating and boring meetings. I really hate them so much. In every meeting in which I am involved, I always dream of making it highly efficient. There are some things to do to make future meetings efficient.

• As a chairman, always prepare beforehand the agenda and the objectives of the meeting. State clearly what the desired output of the meeting is.
• Besides those things, you'd better prepare the alternative feasible solutions to the problems to discuss. It will help you succeed in ending the meeting faster and more smoothly. But never share them to the audience in thebeginning of the meeting. They will see that a new dictator has come to power and he is now speaking to them.
• The next thing is to stick persistently to your agenda and objectives during the meeting. Tell them in clear and brief statementsto all participants, no more than five minutes, so that they have a clear direction and guidance why and what they meet for.
• After the five minutes are over, give a limited longer time to the floor to express their ideas. Be a good moderator and meeting manager during the process. Lead the conversations and the brainstorming. How to do it? All I know is the more you practice, the better meeting chairman you'll be. There's no other way I think, except you are a god. Sometimes playing as a little stern dictator in a meeting is a good thing.
  
• If other issues outside the plan are arised during the meeting, write them down but never discuss them in the meeting you are now having. Focus on your mission.
• If you have come to the limit of discussion time, urge all the people to come to a conclusion. This is one of the best time to lay your cards open and share the alternative solutions you havepreviously prepared. Always remind yourself about the decisions you want to achieve from the meeting.
• In the nearly closing time, check whether you have all your goals fulfilled. If yes, it's time to give all the participants your wide smile and dismiss the meeting.

Preparing and chairing a highly effective meeting is an important skill. It can be learned only by continual practices. And I think if you succeed, you'll become one of the leaders of the majority party: the republic of uneffective meeting haters.

Smallville

I spent some of my time in the last couple of days to enjoy watching several episodes of Smallville, the renowned TV program on Superman. There were some things of the program that really made impressed.

• I am sure that the production team must have planned the story for a long-term production. Each episodes I watched was cleverly linked and as a viewer, I could always see the linking thread. More nicely, they successfully created the episodes to follow an increasing level of tension to reach the climax. And they did it so creatively. Hey Indonesian sinetron producers, I think it's very good for you to take a stint at Smallville high school :)
• What I loved most is the script. Yeah, it's so great. The statements are so perfectly designed that may make Smallville episodes an excellent instrument in learning how to communicate, negotiate, intimidate and to win friends. I learned so much from it especially on how to express my feelings and thoughts wisely to the girls. Thanks Lana, Chloe, Lex and Clark! You are great actors.
• The real and daily relationships between people are finely portrayed in the episodes by the casts. I learn more on the relationships of parents and child, husband and wife, employer and employee, friend to friend, a person to his/her couple, and so on. It's far from what is pathetically performed by Indonesian sinetron artists in their sinetron episodes nowadays.
• I'm impressed and touched by Lana. O boy, she is a complete girl. Or have I been in love with her? Phew. If yes, then I must compete with Superman. Mm, I'll call Gatotkaca and Jaka Tingkir to help me :) the Indonesian heroes against USA's...
• Five for Fighting is absolutely right with their song. It's not easy to be a Superman.
  

Independent yet without freedom

Today is the independence day of Indonesia and I'm thankful for that. We are now an independent nation but I'm not sure if we have enjoy the true freedom. In fact, many people of Indonesia still don't live their lives as free people. It happens not only to those who come from low level of economy but also to that of high places.

So, what is the characteristics of a person of freedom? Here are some, according to my simple thoughts.

• He has no fear of telling or acting based on the truth. Truth is a safe haven.
  
• He enjoys the confidence and dignity as a citizen of his nation. He shows no signs of inferiority in front of foreigners. He is proud of his nation eventhough it's not flawless.
• He believes that what he does and says always affect other people's life, little or much.
• He is fully responsible for his deeds and speeches. Blaming others is not his style.
• He values honesty and integrity as the most important qualities one needs to acquire.
• His desire is to give more and more, not to gather and collect as much as he can for himself. Greedy is not found in his dictionary of life.
• He is open to critics and appreciates corrections. He hates yes-men but he loves friends who rebuke with love. Nevertheless, he can respond wisely to insults.
• He clings to the principle that his destiny is in his hand by the will of God. If possible, he won't let anyone makes a decision for him.
• He pays respect to others but it doesn't mean he always agree with them. He is not hesitant to present his thoughts from his point of view.
• His belief is that he can do nearly anything if only he wants to do it badly enough. He is not a friend of timidity and is not easily intimidated.
• He believes to the potential of himself and his fellow people.
  

That's all for now. Am I a free person now? That's where I'm heading to, for sure.

There is no other way to become a truly free person than by becoming a true servant of God everyday.

I'm back

It's been 12 days that I've spent without writing any single blog. During the time I experienced good times and also bad times. I also met and contacted with a number of interesting people. Now what I need to create is the momentum and drive for writing again.

The problem is not that I CAN NOT do it, but that I DO NOT WANT to do it.

Am I a good final project advisor?

Mmm, I don't really know, but I think I am not. This is the first time for me to be a final project advisor and I learn a lot. I'll tell you what I've learned next week.

Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth

One of my biggest questions is what made Adolf Hitler to be a monster, killing 6 million Jews? One day I visited the campus library and found two books on Hitler, a thick one and a thin one. I remembered the question and I picked up the thin book.

These are what the book told me about Adolf Hitler.

• Seeing the photograph of his infancy, Adolf Hitler was a sweet baby. If you were able to go back to the past and meet him as a toddler, I don't think you'll have enough courage to slaughter and kill the tiny future-beast in cold blood.
  
• As a child, he never felt the true love of his father, Alois. He used to get harsh treatment from the father.
• He loved his mother, Klara. She always find ways to protect her children from the anger of his husband.
• He was a brilliant student in primary school and junior school. But he performed very poorly in senior high school.
• He was a quiet boy and a loner, but he loved to play Americans and Indians with his peers. A preparation for becoming a Fuehrer? Mmm, I dunno.
  
• He was a dreamer, an acute one. He aspired to be an architect but failed to enter the Academy in architecht because he was considered not having enough aptitute for the discipline. He prentended that he were an architect student, spending his time drawing and wandering in Vienna.
  
• He hated the city planning of Vienna. He wanted to destroy it all one day and rebuild it according to his own design. He truly had that chance when he came to power.
• He was very lazy, so lazy that he always wake up late in the morning all his life.
• He lost his savings due to poor financial management and he lived as a tramp for quite a time. There were many mornings when he went the five or six clocks to beg for a soup from a convent which situated only a few doors from the apartment where he resided as a young gentlemen two years before.
• Another charachteristic of the later Hitler already discernible in childhood and youth was his difficulty in making long-range decisions. As a boy he was unable to accept the fact thata series of small decisions, made or postponed, ultimately amounted to a major decision. (p. 155)
• He was highly influenced by a cheap racist magazine called Ostara.
• None of his teachers posed very strong influence on him.

Apparently my question above has not found its sufficient answer from the book. Maybe I should borrow and read the thick one. But what I learn quiet a lot from the book, two are as as follow.

• Never underestimate anyone, be he/she your student, your pupil, your maid servant, your driver, anything. You'll never know what he/she will become and you'll never know what he/she will do to you when you are already old and they are in their peak performance.
• Don't underestimate the potential of influence your actions and speeches have to others. They may be better or worse individuals. Make sure you choose the right one.

Source:
Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth
Bradley F. Smith
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace
Stanford University
1967

Be part of the solution

In the mailing lists in which I am member, I find an interesting habit. It is not rare to get emails that share only the negative sides of something, full of critics. For example, they complain about the corruption, the lack of teachers, the increasing number of children with malnutrition, and the scarcity of gas. But when I look for any practical solutions they may offer, I seldom find them. I am not sure whether this is a typical characteristic of Indonesian people, but I guess we won't make significant progress if all of us are used to sharing problems only, without smart solutions.

Instead I offer alternative habits as follow.

1. Get used to stating on your opinion that something is not good and must be changed. Many people might have taken it for granted and see it normal.
2. Don't just stop only pointing errors. Get used to presenting solutions which can be easily applied. Give samples of the phenomena you desire. Provide corrections to fix the errors.
3. In giving solutions, for Indonesian context, make it a habit to focus on our own circle of influence. For example, putting our hopes on the government may instead make us lose hope. We'd better think of practical things that we can do with our own hands.
4. Be part of the solution. Giving solutions is good, but the best thing is we contribute something practical to the solutions. For example, a clever child from a very poor family can not continue his study to high school. What we do on hearing this is that we propose a movement to raise funds to help the boy. Not only that, we give ourselves as part of the solution by giving some of our money to initiate the movement.

That's the solutions I suggest to the problem of being problem-oriented, not solution-oriented. It's up to you whether you wanna take it or not.

Talk does not cook rice.
-Chinese Proverb