The time is now

The time that's lapsed since the last post was the most recent lap of crazy, stress-filled days. What's happened? Let me try and recall... I went to Singapore twice. Once by bus and another time by train. I was sick for three weeks. I got admitted to hospital and discharged for what is until now still a mysterious 'viral illness.' I got better just in time to fly to to Australia and attend a conference. Oh, and lest I forget that 'fly to Australia' is easier said than done, there was the nightmare of cutting through a forest of government red tape to make it to the airport.

But, this time, I can truly, truly say it's OVER. I presented my last paper for the year there. I sat through three full days of heavy molecular talk of which I understood 1% (mostly in the CONCLUSION slides). I caught another flu and coughed my way home. But I'm glad to be home and I'm glad there are NO MORE CONFERENCES. This weekend I'm going to Tasik Chini for some mission work, which is the second trip in 2 months, but I think I'll enjoy this one since I'm not organising it.

The best rest I got the last two months, I have to admit was on the hospital bed. And a few days in Brisbane before the conference. Tonight is a quiet night. It's unbelievable, it's sacred. It's been months and months and months since. Tonight baby is soundly asleep. Joan is studying for a test. And I'm blogging... Who'd have imagined I'd get a chance to blog?!

But hang on a minute. Before I start blaming anyone or sounding like a victim. It's all my own doing. I forget that I'm in control and I decide how I want to live and how I want things to be.
If I want time to rest, I make time to rest. If I want time to read, I make time to read. Why should I have to degenerate into a soul-less surgery-performing, paper-churning, research-designing soul-less machine? For whom? And for what? I decide how.

Today I have a boy who is calling me 'eddieeee'. He's not even seven months, six if you adjust for his premature birth. And Ethan is calling me 'eddieeee.' I have no words for how amazing it is. And it comes at a right time. My boy is calling me into the moment and coming into the present. He's helping me take the leap. Into the moment. I don't want to be so wrapped up in problems and anxieties to lose the full import of this. I want to be able to enjoy and absorb the meaning of what's happening in real time. A child has called me daddy. He is my own and I am his. So pure, so trusting, so effacing in his emotions.

Sigh... Children have everything to teach us, everything that we have unlearnt and buried with layers of skepticisim, pessimism, and realism. Children have everything to teach us and we have everything to relearn.