Suraj Reddy's blog on Jesus, Gaming & Technology. Gamer Handle: String
Growing up, I was deeply worried about my destiny – about what was going to happen when I died. I was also on a quest for meaning – which one of the gods I worshiped was real?
I Craved Change.
Many of you know I am a Christian, but don’t know why or what it means to me.
This is my story.
Question: Does this resonate? Do you/did you crave change? What’s your story?
LifeChurch.tv is doing a series on having Margin in our lives – I wrote a poem last fall when I didn’t have internet, and I think it fits in perfectly.
A Day Without Internet
A day without internet feels FREE.
No email to worry about, all wires unplugged.
Disconnecting is easy, and I can be fully here.
Although it won’t last, a part of me wants it to.
Oh well, I guess that’s what sabbaths are for.
Hmm… maybe I should start observing!
Other things I learnt:
-Texting is actually useful.
-I can sleep in time!
Your thoughts?
In my last post, I confessed that I was not deeply moved for Haiti.
Bloggers helped change that – Anne Jackson shared about Haiti, and reading the comments left behind by people who were moved moved me.
Sandi’s blog post about Haiti helped nail the following to my heart:
“How can you take a nation of people who have nothing and give them less”
For some reason, apart from all the pictures, that one thought connected deeply. If this had happened in Canada or the States, it would be a lot easier for us to recover. But for Haiti, the disaster is exponentially worse because of the state of their nation.
I don’t think it will ever be too late to help.
Question: What moved you with regards to Haiti?
Lately I’ve been watching episodes of Life – recently I watched an episode titled “Did you feel that?”, where in several earthquakes hit LA, and characters popped the question, “Did you feel that?” whenever the earth quaked.
On Tuesday, “the worst earthquake in 200 years” hit Haiti, “followed by 12 aftershocks“. Here are some shocking pictures. Over dinner, Woody (my house-mate) asked me if I felt it for those in Haiti, which led me to consider this question in a different light.
“Did you feel that?” – Did you feel for the people who went through a calamity the likes of which we only see in the movies? Buildings wiped, 100,000 dead, family members missing, dreams and hopes shattered.
I had to say, no, I did not. Deep down, my heart was not moved. I knew I should be moved (Matt 9:36, Matt 25:40, Col 3:12). I prayed and did other things we’re expected to do. But deep down, no, I didn’t feel it.
To me this shows how self-focused and narcissistic we can be – aka, if it doesn’t directly affect us, we don’t care. However, despite our feelings, we should help – my friend Paulman wrote towards that end.
Question: Does this resonate?
Lately I’ve been forced to rely on my laptop a lot. A/V glitches during presentations, videos freezing and sluggishness led me on a hunt for a new laptop. Yesterday I went out to get a Mac. But I succumbed to a PC. Here’s why.
I wanted a laptop that:
I was willing to compromise for a Macbook because it’s made by Apple – it should theoretically work flawlessly, and could dual boot Windows. I wouldn’t be able to use it to take notes in class, but I could compromise and go back to physical notes – Apple had me sold. Almost. I walked into an Apple store, played around with the 13″ Macbook Pro I wanted to buy, did some performance testing, and then made a decision. I couldn’t do it.
The Macbook was twice as expensive as its PC counter-parts, and did not impress me enough to warrant the price. I settled for a HP tx2 because it features:
Apple Tablet:
I could wait for the rumored Apple Tablet, but I needed a portable that was also powerful and could be used in a performance setting – the Apple tablet seems geared to be a secondary device. Being a student, I can’t afford to get 2 devices, especially when a convertible such as the tx2 exists.
I have a strong appreciation for all things Apple (The iPod touch I own totally pwns) and do hope to get an Apple computer someday… just not yet.
Question: Are you a Mac or a PC? What’s your #1 reason?
Prayer – talking with God – is huge, but in my life I’ve noticed that we can talk about the importance of prayer, but not apply it in our lives.
I’m definitely inspired in this category by my Muslim friends who make it a practice to pray 5 times a day. Being a Christian, we’re not forced to pray, and so we can definitely slack in this area of our lives.
However, I’ve been greatly challenged, moved and inspired to pray continually by the continual application of prayer at Winter Conference – I was pleasantly surprised that we’ve had moments of prayer at every one of our main session meetings so far. Back on campus, there’s prayer meetings every weekday. Today I helped organize a live online question and answer event, and the staff present prayed before and after the event, something I would have easily ignored to do.
So thank you WinterCon for the great example.
Question: What do you value and prioritize that is hard to apply in your life?
There’s tons of conferences out there – Urbana, Catalyst, Gospel Coalitions, Hillsong, Tech Conferences, _________ Conference, the list is endless.
WinterCon (short for Winter Conference) is a conference designed specially for us – the “us” being University students from across Canada with a desire of drawing closer to God.
I’ll be aloof @ WinterCon for the next few days, and so will be using the #ewc09 twitter hashtag – it’s usually annoying when I don’t know what a hashtag is about, so hopefully this post serves as a good intro.
I’ll leave you with the promo video for WinterCon.
Question: If you’ve attended conferences before, what’s your favorite and why? If you haven’t attended a conference before, which one would you like to attend, and why?
