Merry Christmas 2015, my friends

My wife (Hay J) bought a Cinderella DVD at a COSTCO store recently.  It is a heartwarming fairy tale familiar to us since our childhood of a household drudge to become the queen of a kingdom. She likes this particular version being played by real people rather than a graphic animation.

This movie was beautiful indeed. The dance scene of Cinderella and the prince in the ballroom of the palace was to me a center piece of the movie so expensive and adorable that we have watched a couple of times already and probably we will more in coming days. Cinderella had time only till midnight. That was the time  she received from the fairy god mother which was so real to me. We all have a limited time in this world.

As the midnight clock ticks, the beautiful carriage crumbles back to an old pumpkin; horses, rider, and guards back to mice, duck, and lizards again. Cinderella changed back to a poor ragged girl. But Cinderella was happy to have had such a real dream though short.

We are now at the sunset of our lives. We still have our ballroom dance going on in our memory live and unforgettable. We feel our lives short and void as Cinderella might have felt but we are happy for our lives granted as her ballroom dance.  At the year end, you have a great time. Merry Christmas and Happy New year.  -Ke & Hay J. (December 23, 2015, KYP)

Decended into Hell

Descended into Hell
The Apostle’s Creed is the essence of the Christian faith. Legend says that on the first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended, Apostles started to pray with the creed. But the Rome in 4th century is said to use it to educate the new Christian converts. I recite every morning the creed in my prayer.

I noticed that a version of the creed translated into a different language is missing one verse as compared with the English counterpart. The missing part is ‘descended into Hell.’ I know not whether the original Hebrew or Latin version includes this verse.  Anyway, all Jesus narration on  of conceived by the Holy Spirit, descended into Hell to rise again, and ascended into Heaven is included in the creed, in which ‘descended into Hell’ is probably the lowest point and a scandal to Jesus in the eyes of men not to be remembered. However, the creed is understood as a whole in the realm of faith.

The Holy Saturday (the day after the Crucifixion) was the day God was dead from the human perspective. It was a dark, dark day. The Apostles who followed Jesus was devastated. We cannot imagine a world without God even for one day. Our whole hope would have gone into void. No hope, no life. This one day is like a thousand years in darkness. Many bad things can happen in one day as we know. I do not know what Jesus did on that day when they were helpless in the dark abyss.

I have had days I felt like in darkness without light falling into the bottomless pit alone several times in my life. Fear was my worst enemy.  I lost the hope I had, the hope I probably picked up on the street on false promises. But only after the hope was broken asunder, I often found the true hope looming up on high. It is a transformation from false hope to true hope. We are in Hell as long as we are in fear enchanted by false hope.

We often find the darkness in us and try at any cost to hide it out of the fear of exposure only to fail. Jesus cried at the Cross not for Him but for us, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ The night before, He prayed, 'Not my will, but thine be done.' Jesus died alone for us. Nevertheless the experience of dark abyss could be a part of life’s journey for us to suffer and overcome each and every day.

The Resurrection has taken place only after Jesus ‘descended into hell.’ The resurrected Jesus had the incorruptible body. God be praised for this revelation. (May 11, 2015, KYP)