Last weekend, a famous pastor named 張茂松, from Taiwan, visited our church, and delivered two sermons. He was a very passionate and powerful speaker, and over the course of about 3 hours or so (Saturday and Sunday), gave each of us much food for thought.
I won't elaborate on everything he said, partly because he said so much, and partly because I don't really remember all of it. I had a notebook and pen poised to take notes; but he was the sort of person who, when he is speaking, you can't really tear your eyes from him. I'm sure I stopped blinking at one stage, because by the end of the Sunday sermon, my eyes were watering and felt like they were going to pop out of my head.
One thing he that he spent some time emphasising, though, was his view that we ought to be encouraged to think big. "Dream a little bigger!" he yelled at us, projecting his booming voice toward the row after row of "young people" in our church. "Expand your horizon! Aim a little higher! Dream big!"
It was a challenge one couldn't much argue against, so then I asked myself, what is my dream?
Well, if you are a reader of my other blogs, you would know that I once had a fancy that I was going to build a hospital. You might also know that when I was a child I wanted to be a writer. There has been various other "dreams"... but perhaps the most pervasive was the half-formed hope that I would, one day, pen a book. I don't mean a blog that some unfortunate soul stumbled upon, I mean a book that actually gets printed, read, and, hopefully, help and encourage people.
Later, after the services, my mentor asked me what my dream was. Feeling kind of silly, I didn't really want to tell him, but a sermon like that made you bold. Or at least, bold-ish. I confessed that I wanted to write a book, or perhaps a few books.
"What kind of book?" he asked.
"I don't really know." I replied, feeling wretched. The world doesn't need another self-help Christian book, there were already millions out there. I'm not creative enough for fiction, and not knowledgeable enough for non-fiction. As such, I don't even have any ideas. The only thing I do have is this pervasive ill-conceived notion to help people through writing.
Hoping to at least rectify the situation, I told him about my (other) blog, and how it once attracted the attention of a nobel prize laureate (oh how I love that story).
"Well, I think it's a great idea. And I think you should start with your blog." He said. Typical mentor.
So, this blog is the answer to that challenge from the Taiwanese pastor with the enormous presence and booming voice. I made this new blog to be separate from my old one, which contains mainly random thoughts. Into this blog, I will write things that are a little more serious, a little more personal, all invariably related to my faith, things that I might otherwise want to publish in a book. If I ever get to.
Oh, and, lastly: my other blog is http://supersida.blogspot.com/ . If you are curious about the Nobel Prize laureate story, click here. I love that story, because, if nothing else, at least it justifies my otherwise frivolous attempts at writing.
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