Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

O My Father, I have moments of deep unrest -- moments when I know not what to ask by reason of the very excess of my wants.
I have in these hours no words for Thee, no conscious prayers for Thee.
My cry seems purely worldly; I want only the wings of a dove that I may flee away.
Yet all the time Thou has accepted my unrest as a prayer.
Thou has interpreted its cry for a dove's wings as a cry for Thee, Thou has received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Thy Spirit.
They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what to ask.
But Thou knowest what I ask, O my God. Thou knowest the name of that need which lies beneath my speechless groan.
Thou knowest that, because I am made in Thine image, I can find rest only in what gives rest to Thee; therefore Thou hast counted my unrest unto me for righteousness, and has called my groaning Thy Spirit's prayer. Amen.

Rev. George Matheson (1842-1906)

It’s amazing how time sometimes doesn’t make a difference… and everyday I discover anew how merciful God has been to me and how blessed I am.

It’s amazing how people don’t change… and even if they do… there’s a part of them that you always see in them… where time doesn’t erode… no matter how experiences change us. And that is the part in which you hold most dear. The part that you look out for every time you see that person… that part you identify as what makes them unique to you.

And that unique part only becomes more and more dear to you, when you look around you and see the world changing before your very eyes. When all day you rush to meet deadlines and move on to new ones… where the people you meet change everyday… where relationships become more and more ephemeral… where you move from one hobby to another without blinking an eye.

It’s funny how, I look back and see all the bonds of friendship forged over time, left behind as other commitments came and dominated life. You forget that once… these people were one of the few who understood what you stood for, who carried you through the tough times, who were there making the good times, who watched you grow… who stood by you even when you were stupid, immature and utterly selfish… before you got jaded by the ways of the world.

And I regret it…

But how? (as they say… life goes on…)

Yesterday, after reading the notes left by friends in my yearbooks from Adriatic, I began to understand that heartache… is… physical. Pure unadulterated pain. (Is it sorrow or regret? Nostalgia or something deeper?)

To the salutations of amore sempre, te queiro, bellisme don’t cry… I find that deep in our consciousness is inbuilt… the ideology of “forever”… friends forever, love forever, stay that way forever… we’ll meet again… someday… I’ll always love you.

And the joy of rediscovery… is ever more bittersweet… and the pleasure of seeing old friends is sometimes so intense that it hurts... irony. But I want so bad to steal every minute of the time rediscovering the person and seeing that unique part in them… that time stops… for that one moment.

It could be the way they smile, or the way they talk, or the way they carry themselves, hold themselves, tease you, care for you, appreciate you and are sooooo much “themselves” in “that” way… that you can’t help but smile… grin… laugh…

Yes.

I’m drunk…

Drunk with love. :) and I don’t care… haha… I’m in love… I’m in love with life… with ALL the people in it…

I’m soooooooo glad I met with Jo, Shujuan, Weiqi and Weileen today… sometimes I forget why life is meaningful.

And to be really clichéd … I say… its LOVE.

We don’t appreciate it enough… or say it enough. And when you come face to face to it… it’s so overwhelming that my heart fair overflows with it… haha…

So while circumstances change, interests change… we all change – there is only one thing that is constant.

And so to all the people I love… I just have one thing to say:

Amore Sempre.

“Even our countries are very faraway from each other, our hearts are very close.”

Let the silence speak to our hearts.