Never satisfied!

Do you believe that every minute in our lives is something new? Actually we never do something twice in the same way and moment. This statement shows that human beings are not something fixed. We are always in the proces of becoming more than before. Shortly, we want to realize our ideal. We call this process as self-realization. So, we are never satisfied in our lives because we always want to realize our ideal and also the fact that everything is changing. First of all, everybody has their own ideal. An ideal is the state of nature of human beings. In the simple word an ideal is a self-realization that we should reach in our lives. In reality, it is possible to grasp an ideal completely. We are just able to approach it. At this moment we are never satisfied because everything that isfulfilled in our lives is only one step from reaching the self-realization. For example, this year I must have a nice car in order to satisfy my hobby. After one year of having a car, I will have another desire to have a house. After I have house, I will want to have another thing. In addition, everything is changing. So, we are changing too. "Never satisfied" is one of the natures of human beings. Our development we are enjoying now is the result of an unsatisfied willingnes of human beings. We can not imagine if our ancestors had felt self-suficient and enjoyed their horses for their transportation; we would have never had cars, trains or planes. Until now, we have never been satisfied and because of that we have developed in many fronts. What we experience in our ordinary lives is enough to show this reality.

Pictures from Chicago

I spent my weekend in Chicago to celebrate the deaconate ordination of Petrus. Here are some pictures taken by P. Kun SJ.

This is our new deacon. Tante Imelda and Andrea are preparing lunch for us.


Petrus is ready to serve while Wawan eh...blessed are you among women.

Just guess! What are they doing? Congratulations to Petrus!

Nick, Nita, Mike and Gaby...and Petrus between two angels.

Habemus Papam

Finaly we have a new pope, Cardinal Josep Ratzinger was elected as the 265th pope. He was an outstanding man from Germany. He worked so many times with John Pul II in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A couple days before election many people predicted who would be a new pope. I myself had no idea about that but I was sure that Holy Spirit will show us God's will. Perhaps many people will be disappointed but as christians we should trust in the providence of God. God can use everything to change the world. We can trace the history of church when Cardinal Roncalli (John XXIII) was elected as a pope. He was too old to be a pope so a lot of people worried about his ability. But...he was the pope who promulgated the vatican counsel II that brought a tremendous change in Catholic Church. I do believe that Jesus Christ is always with us. Jesus said, Io sono con voi.

You must be born!

I think a lot of people know how many states there are in the United States, how many countries there are in the world, who is the most popular movie star in Hollywood. These are ordinary questions we find everywhere. Or we, as christians perhaps know very well how many letters St. Paul wrote or how old Jesus was when he began his ministry. Many people know many things. Certaintly, to know many things in our lives we need to train ourselves. No more than that, we try to have the best education to understand the world. As christians, actually we should not worry as much about education, but we should question ourselves about what Jesus wants us to do ? One thing that we do not know exactly sometimes is what God wants us to do. If I ask this question to you right now could you answer it or would you need time to think and reflect on it ?. It is obvious that we know many things, but sometimes we forget something important in our lives that is God’s will. In the Gospel, we have just read about the confusion of Nicodemus. Nicodemus knew many things because he was a teacher of Israel. Nicodemus knew about spiritual life, but it was not a guarantee that he knew what Jesus meant. Jesus and Nicodemus seemed to have different point of view. When Jesus said, ‘You must be born from above’ Nicodemus was thinking about a nativity about how a mother bears her baby. Nicodemus asked ’How can this happen ?’ I think it is reasonable to ask questions because what Jesus said is confusing. We would think like Nicodemus and ask, what does ‘you must be born’ mean ?When Jesus said ‘You must be born again’ HE is talking about our spiritual lives. Our lives should be led by divine grace and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are infused at Baptism and enhanced by the sacrament. Jesus’s words also portray our limitations in our spiritual advancement. To understand what God is teaching us we need to keep at bay our selfish appetites and our inclinations of pride. We must let God Himself take part in our lives. That means we need to be free with our points of view that cloud our view knowing God’will. Nicodemus seems to cling to what he knows. That’s why he does not understand what Jesus is teaching. This actually happens to all of us in our lives. In our lives sometimes we have the same tendency to rely solely on our own understandings and perceptions. We are so sure of our capacity to know many things, even God’s will. In this case we are acting as if we were God himself because we control completly our lives in our hands. We do not let God lead our hearts. We are too confident that we will be able to know completely what we should do in our lives. Consequentl,y we do completely what we want and not what God wants. As a follower of Christ, Jesus is our model and the pattern in our lives. Our daily lives are manifestations what we believe. So, when Jesus says ‘You must be born again’ he is reminding us to rely on God’s Will, to think the same as Jesus thinks. This is our life goal as a christian, to show the likeness of Christ. Let’s train ourselves to know God’s Will in our lives.

Milwaukee in action

St. John Evangelist Cathedral

Downtown Milwaukee.

Saat kumerenung

Hari ini aku lelah sekali. Rasanya ngantuk terus. Lalu aku bertanya: Adakah Engkau peduli? Seperti hari kemarin?
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“Mereka sujud menyembah kepada-Nya, lalu mereka pulang ke Yerusalem dengan sangat bersukacita” (Luk 24:52). Tuhan aku ingin mengenal Engkau lebih dekat lagi agar aku bersuka cita dalam nama-Mu.

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“Akulah pokok anggur dan kamu ranting-rantingnya” (Yoh 15:5). Di mana terletak makna hidup? Yesus mengajarkan bahwa makna hidup bukanlah pada diriku sendiri. Kalau toh pada diriku berarti aku sudah cukup diri. Buktinya aku senantiasa mencari dalam diri dan aku tidak mendapatkannya. Aku hanyalah ranting sementara Yesus pohon, pokoknya. Bagaimana mungkin aku dapat berjalan sendiri? Semakin kusadari Tuhan besertaku, membimbingku sekalipun aku tidak menghendaki-Nya, sekalipun aku mengabaikan-Nya bahkan sekalipun aku menolak-Nya.

Jogging nih....

Setelah absen berbulan-bulan akhirnya aku dapat sedikit olahraga. Langkah pertama adalah jogging di sekitar rumah. Oh..lelah sekali rasanya belum lagi nafas yang ngos-ngosan kayak kuda aja. Trus udah gitu banyak lagi yang liatin mungkin karena daku pake kuning-kuning. Daku memang pakai kaos pemberian Alfredo yang kuning sementara celana nike daku juga kuning. Sampai di jalan ternyata bayak juga orang yang jogging. Jadinya asyik. Tetapi tadi malem badan ini rasanya pegal-pegal dan pagi harinya jalan tertatih-tatih. Semalam di ajak nonton film Robot. Ini mah untuk anak-anak tapi luar biasa asyiknya. Ceritanya sangat sederhana tapi pengerjaannya memakai teknologi canggih. Pulang nonton langsung tidur pulas. Minggu ini rencananya daku mau jogging setidaknya tiga kali seminggu. Memang terasa bedanya setelah berolah raga pikiran ini semakin jernih dan tidak sumpek lagi. Jadi bagi mereka yang sumpek lebih baik olah raga. Jogging itu murah meriah.

happy birthday

Today is Agung's birthday, my close friend. I spent eight years with him. First time I met him in 1996. I was in the same class with him when we studied in Magelang. After that we moved to Jakarta and we continued our education in Jakarta. He is a funny guy, I can say the funniest friend I've ever had. Last year we went to Bali and Lombok together. Now he is in Paris with Hebry. His family looks like my own family. I wanna pray for him. Happy birthday guy.....

I'm a PROCRASTINATOR

Talking about bad habits is always interesting for me. Do you have any bad habits which you consider bad habits? I'll say a lot.....first of all, I'm a PROSCASTINATOR. Proscastinator means someone who waits till the last minute to his or her work. The best idea always comes at the last minute. A couple years ago I used to smoke, I was trying to cut down and fortunately I was able to quit smoking, stopped cold and turkey. About smoking or drinking liquor once you start, you can't stop.

Here are the bad habits we ussualy have:

1. Biting your nail

2. Cracking your knuckles

3. Grinding your teeth

4. Picking your nose

5. Snapping your fingers

6. Playing with your hair

Which bad habit do you have?

Television

I like watching TV. I can not blame parents who cannot control their children in watching TV. Here is my opinion I just presented in my class a couple days ago.

When television was created for the first time the function was to give information vividly and quickly. It was very useful because everybody was able to know news from other places. Time went by very fast, and technology has run rampant. Now, the function of television has changed not only to give information but also for entertainment. Television channels grow rapidly every year and show many kinds of entertainment. Almost every family in the United States has a television set. It is easy to find many things on television. Apparently broadcasters realize that children are a market. Children like to spend a lot of time to watch television, and this is the best occasion to publish many advertisements. Now television raises a new problem especially regarding violent programs. In the name of benefits, many television channels show violent programs. Television programs are something shown publicly so everybody is able to get them easily. Who can control them? The problem now is that violent programs on television definitely have influenced so many children to be crueler in their daily lives. According to many experts in psychology, violent programs on television destroy our children with so many reasons. So violent programs on television must be erased. Many psychologists believe that there is a correlation between viewing television violence and children’s aggressive behavior. Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others when viewing so many times violation shows on television. As children grow and develop, they can be easily influenced by what they see and hear especially by television. Children imitate something from what they watch. If they watch television programs with so many violent actions they tend to imitate them. Children may be more fearful of the world around them because of watching television that provides a lot of violence. The brains of children are like pieces of paper that are ready to be written on. They absorb quickly what they see and hear. They cannot distinguish if something is bad or good. If children watch violent actions on television they may think that it is something real, so it is no problem to do something that they have seen on television. Because of watching television too much, children have lost an important thing in their lives: that is socialization (National Institute of Mental Health, 1984). In watching television, there is no active contact with others. It looks like “passive contact” without thinking between children and television programs. Watching too much television can also take away time from reading, studying, learning, playing and doing exercise. Television can also show alcohol and drug use, smoking, and sexual behavior before children are emotionally ready to understand these issues and practice good decision-making. Actually children need to have playmates and play naturally face-to-face. From communication between them, they learn how to treat other properly. Even though it is clear that there is a relation between viewing television violence and children’s aggressive behavior, many broadcasters refused to acknowledge it. According to them, there is not enough evidence to prove that television violence is harmful. In addition, they mention that they have the freedom to sell their products publicly. The main problem is not the violent program itself, but the fact that parents do not keep their children from watching television. The influence of violent programs on televisions is very obvious. Aletha Huston, a psychologist from the University of Kansas states, “Children who watch violent programs on television were more likely to hit out at their playmates, argue, disobey class rules, leaves tasks unfinished, and were less willing to wait.”(Violence on Television, 2005). George Gerbner, from the University of Pennsylvania, showed that television programs contain about 20 violent acts each hour and also that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place.(Violence on Television, 2005). Leonard Eron, from the University of Illinois, found that children who watched television violence too much when they were in elementary school tended to show a higher level of aggressive behavior when they became teenager.(Violence on Television, 2005). Dr. Eron is talking about the influence of watching too much television on real-life. The negative influence of watching violent actions on television is terrible so it is unreasonable to say that there is not enough evidence that television violence is harmful. Talking about violence on television programs is something urgent. It involves our next generation. Perhaps we blame parents who cannot manage their time to accompany their children in watching television programs. Or we think that there is no problem actually with television programs if parents play their own roles in accompanying their children when they watching television. But, we must be aware that many parents in the United Stated are very busy to work. Because of this fact, they cannot always control their children every time. In addition, the reason that the broadcasters have the freedom to sell their product publicly is something unreasonable. Should we let our next generation become crueler by letting something dangerous for our children? Finally, violent programs on television must be erased. This is the essential thing we must do right now to keep our next generation. Otherwise, we are going to destroy our children.

Asyik

Akhirnya winter time is over! Setelah tiga bulan terkurung oleh dinginnya cuaca Milwaukee, kini daku boleh bergembira. Cukup banyak alasan untuk bergembira. Pertama daku bisa main di luar, bisa jogging atau main soccer di lapangan. Kedua daku bisa keluar kunjungi teman and tempat-tempat wisata. Winter lalu daku sungguh-sungguh overweight. Bisa dibayangin badan ini melar sampai 12 kilo. Konsekuensinya daku membelanjakan banyak uang untuk celana....(serem banget). Celana yang lama terpaksa digantung untuk musim panas nanti. Urusan berat badan memang sensitif dan daku baru sadar pentingnya menjaga kesehatan setelah nonton "Supersize Me", sebuah movie tentang seorang yang menggugat McDonald karena telah membuatnya tidak sehat setelah makan selama sebulan fast food "supersize" di Mc Donald. Yah..daku punya kebiasaan buruk eating too much. Di Sacred Heart School daku bisa pilih apa saja mulai dari sausage Poland ampe sphagetti Itali bahkan kadang sate Indo made in Amrik. Diet sekarang menjadi pilihan utama! Sekarang saatnya untuk organize myself, bongkar kamar pindah ke tempat yang lebih ada cahaya dan membuang kertas-kertas tak berguna serta mengabadikan beberapa file penting dikomputer. Semoga!

John Paul II

John Paul II passed away at 02.37. I was so sad. He is my idola in my life. He really sacrificed his whole life solely for glorifying the Lord God. He was the man of God as well as the real sign of Jesus's presence in the world. The world is mourning and weeping. We have lost the best messanger of peace, a person who always speaks loudly about the dignity of the human beings. His death was peacefuly surrounded by thousands people who were praying for him. He wanted to die with his beloved flocks entire the world. May Almighty Father accept his soul at your right hand just as you have promised to everyone who trusts in you.