Last week Thursday I had my last ever 'hospital-date'. It was really fun and interestingly long. Started at 915 am, went to my GP practice; about 1200 noon went to Frenchay Hosp.; and ended up doing our presentation until 815 pm. Waited for a bus to come along. It was actually 830-ish when I actually managed to caught a bus. Sounds like a long tiring day, but believe me, it wasn't. Not with the things that I did, or rather the person that I did it with =) 2 is always the best number to do stuffs with, or rather almost always.
Long story short, we got on talking about stuffs. Various stuffs. From our homes which is coincidentally enough near seasides to the fact that both our keypads have 2** as the code. She got me thinking about stuffs, and I surely hope I managed to do the same thing to her.
Ever thought about flowers? In Malaysia we have them in abundance. In fact, there is a forest of flowers in front of my house. Along the motorways, abundance. Flowers are must have icons in Tourism-Malaysia adverts. Well I think we Malaysians are an awfully wasteful lot when it comes to flowers, throwing them away, plucking them from trees just for fun et cetera. And that day, I learnt that flowers are something of actual meaning. Ever notice how flowers actually goes from nay to present. Absent in winter and blooms in summer. Colouring the surrounding like the warm joyful season it is nowadays. Suiting dull cold winter and warm joyful summer with their respective colours. I'm sure people do realize that.
But how many of us actually appreciate the 'ni'mah' of this particular type of beauty when it comes to the flowers in Malaysia. Probably some would argue that they aren't as pretty but still... You wouldn't want it to be as barren as the Sahara desert. And what I meant by appreciating is actually thinking of the greatness of Allah...
Then we talked about the Bible. It is much of an argument because when it comes to this issue, I would prefer to stimulate thinking in other people rather than actually slamming their faces with a fact that is actually awkward to them (in other words, da'wah bil hikmah).
I purposely started the conversation by saying that I need to stop working to pray (I was so busy that day that I missed Dzuhur, astaghfirullah al-azim, may Allah forgive my sins). Then she asked me whether daily prayers limits my movement and ability to work. I said no, probably because I have been doing that like forever. And she said that she is always amazed by people with strong faith (which I pray is true in my case i.e. having strong faith). Later on I asked her, since she wasn't a Christian per se, does she actually believe in the Bible. She said some of them. One thing lead to another and we ended up talking about the fact that the Bible is actually an interpretation of John, Mark, Luke etc (can;t remember all unfortunately) of Jesus' sayings. A fact that I have actually already established in my mind. But I simply nodded in amazement to ask her a single most important question of the day (as far as I'm concerned), "then would you say that the Bible is not the word of God per se, but rather an interpretation of "Jesus' desciple" on his words..." And she said yes... And the conversation goes on.
The important thing that I learnt that day was that all the things that I was taught in KMB about Christianity and stuffs are actually of not so much use. Why did I come to such a ironical conclusion? Because the Christians (not generalizing, but from this particular experience, hence I might well be wrong) don't believe their Bible as we believe our Quran. To a certain extent I think is not wrong to say that they believe their Bible as we believe our Hadiths, a narration of someone else on the sayings of someone else (in the case of hadiths, Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.).
What implications does this bring about? In hindsight I deduced that the differences in the Bible doesn't bring much problem to the Christians. Even us muslims we have differences in the interpretation our hadiths, like how to wipe our head in wudhu. Although people might argue that our differences are rather suttle and not on the core issues, same goes with some of the differences in the Bible. For instance, what number of army does Jalut bring to fight Talut? Differences can come with misinterpretation or mis-hearing things, although we should not put off the fact that 'they' (whoever they are) made up the 'facts' in the first place.
Actual conclusion that i can come out with from this particular experience? Focus on the main things; seperti isu ketuhanan nabi isa dan pertentangan bukti-bukti yang ada dalam Bible. Insya Allah.
Alhamdulillah, the day ended well. We ended up finding out that we both enjoyed the seaside view. Huhh, I don't think anyone who has ever seen the reddish sky of dusk by the seaside would dare say that they hate the view of the seaside. Alhamdulillah i am blessed with one.
P/S - our patient that day has numbness of her left face, loss of pinprick and temperature sensation on her right side of the body, and this all happen with sudden onset. Also has horner's syndrome on her left eye. On examination her glossopharyngeal arches deviates to the left. Pretty simple differential diagnoses aint it? =)
Long story short, we got on talking about stuffs. Various stuffs. From our homes which is coincidentally enough near seasides to the fact that both our keypads have 2** as the code. She got me thinking about stuffs, and I surely hope I managed to do the same thing to her.
Ever thought about flowers? In Malaysia we have them in abundance. In fact, there is a forest of flowers in front of my house. Along the motorways, abundance. Flowers are must have icons in Tourism-Malaysia adverts. Well I think we Malaysians are an awfully wasteful lot when it comes to flowers, throwing them away, plucking them from trees just for fun et cetera. And that day, I learnt that flowers are something of actual meaning. Ever notice how flowers actually goes from nay to present. Absent in winter and blooms in summer. Colouring the surrounding like the warm joyful season it is nowadays. Suiting dull cold winter and warm joyful summer with their respective colours. I'm sure people do realize that.
But how many of us actually appreciate the 'ni'mah' of this particular type of beauty when it comes to the flowers in Malaysia. Probably some would argue that they aren't as pretty but still... You wouldn't want it to be as barren as the Sahara desert. And what I meant by appreciating is actually thinking of the greatness of Allah...
Then we talked about the Bible. It is much of an argument because when it comes to this issue, I would prefer to stimulate thinking in other people rather than actually slamming their faces with a fact that is actually awkward to them (in other words, da'wah bil hikmah).
I purposely started the conversation by saying that I need to stop working to pray (I was so busy that day that I missed Dzuhur, astaghfirullah al-azim, may Allah forgive my sins). Then she asked me whether daily prayers limits my movement and ability to work. I said no, probably because I have been doing that like forever. And she said that she is always amazed by people with strong faith (which I pray is true in my case i.e. having strong faith). Later on I asked her, since she wasn't a Christian per se, does she actually believe in the Bible. She said some of them. One thing lead to another and we ended up talking about the fact that the Bible is actually an interpretation of John, Mark, Luke etc (can;t remember all unfortunately) of Jesus' sayings. A fact that I have actually already established in my mind. But I simply nodded in amazement to ask her a single most important question of the day (as far as I'm concerned), "then would you say that the Bible is not the word of God per se, but rather an interpretation of "Jesus' desciple" on his words..." And she said yes... And the conversation goes on.
The important thing that I learnt that day was that all the things that I was taught in KMB about Christianity and stuffs are actually of not so much use. Why did I come to such a ironical conclusion? Because the Christians (not generalizing, but from this particular experience, hence I might well be wrong) don't believe their Bible as we believe our Quran. To a certain extent I think is not wrong to say that they believe their Bible as we believe our Hadiths, a narration of someone else on the sayings of someone else (in the case of hadiths, Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.).
What implications does this bring about? In hindsight I deduced that the differences in the Bible doesn't bring much problem to the Christians. Even us muslims we have differences in the interpretation our hadiths, like how to wipe our head in wudhu. Although people might argue that our differences are rather suttle and not on the core issues, same goes with some of the differences in the Bible. For instance, what number of army does Jalut bring to fight Talut? Differences can come with misinterpretation or mis-hearing things, although we should not put off the fact that 'they' (whoever they are) made up the 'facts' in the first place.
Actual conclusion that i can come out with from this particular experience? Focus on the main things; seperti isu ketuhanan nabi isa dan pertentangan bukti-bukti yang ada dalam Bible. Insya Allah.
Alhamdulillah, the day ended well. We ended up finding out that we both enjoyed the seaside view. Huhh, I don't think anyone who has ever seen the reddish sky of dusk by the seaside would dare say that they hate the view of the seaside. Alhamdulillah i am blessed with one.
P/S - our patient that day has numbness of her left face, loss of pinprick and temperature sensation on her right side of the body, and this all happen with sudden onset. Also has horner's syndrome on her left eye. On examination her glossopharyngeal arches deviates to the left. Pretty simple differential diagnoses aint it? =)
