marco baylon

the web is bringing power back to the people.

at magaling. magaling si (sina) obama.

Obama steps into Democracy 2.0 future

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President-elect Barack Obama has taken his boldest step yet to usher in a new era of interactive government, opening a public forum for suggestions on the website of his transition team.

Change.gov, Obama’s official website until he takes office on January 20, invited users late Tuesday to submit their views on health care, drawing an immediate barrage of hundreds of comments and triggering a lively debate.

….

“This is a terrific start on fulfilling Obama’s promise to make government more open and participatory,” Sifry wrote on techpresident.com. “This is a big deal.

“When you consider that for the last eight years, the occupant of the White House has essentially told the public ‘you get input once every four years, after that I’m the decider,’ this is huge.

“Before our eyes, we are witnessing the beginning of a rebooting of the American political system,” Sifry said.

whether or not obama or his team will actually read the comments, respond, or (gasp!) act – this thing that they did shows that they are, at least, proactive in keeping their promise. that they want to listen to the people.

ano kaya kung meron din ganito sa pinas? diba, honesty and transparency sa government natin? and also a chance for us, yung mga regular na tao lang tulad natin, to do something good for our country?

sana meron. sana talaga. kung meron susuportahan ko yan. seryoso.

after 3months…

at narita airport :)

(this is a reply to Yuklid’s post, “Everybody sees, not just God“)

an awe-spiring post bro! i agree with you man, everybody sees.

it reminded me of a quote, said at the beginning of dc talk’s “what if i stumble”

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians – who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
(Brennan Manning)

If you know any atheists, agnostics, those who are against christianity, or even those who just don’t care – you can ask them. more often than not, they have had bad experiences with christians. or sometimes they have some sort of beef with the system. or, like you said, they know christians who don’t walk the talk.

and yes, i’m guilty of this too.

and it’s sad, really.

the hard part, i think, is balance. because we want to be good. but we don’t want to be ‘too good’… right?

see, inasmuch as carnal christians turn people off, i noticed there’s another group that turn people away from christianity – the “holier-than-thou” christians.  (if you were afraid of offending people, i think i am offending more people than you, hahaha)

before i go on, i will be the first to admit that i have been accused of this. years ago, somebody called me a “self-righteous prick”. and it hurt. i was still a very young christian then. terribly on fire, but a little too quick to burn people. that shocked me, because i thought i was trying to win people over to Christ… and ended up doing the opposite. (i dont know if people still think this about me. if they do, it’s probably not bad enough for them to tell it to my face, haha! but i hope they do)

i’ve seen a couple videos in youtube made by atheists defending/explaining their faith… er… belief? conviction? facts and theories (there we go). the videos is for a different story. what’s interesting for me are the text/video replies. by christians.

some are hostile, with fighting words, judgemental. some are sweet and ‘flowery’, and full of churchy jargon. it’s rare that someone will reply with love, with conviction and with sense.

how do we find the balance? how can we be firm in our faith, but still be understanding? and should we tolerate? or, how can we be ‘in the world’ but not ‘of the world’?

i think the answer is in the life of Christ. by observing how he dealt with people. by looking at his heart.

loving the sinner, hating the sin.

am i making sense?

everybody sees, that’s why what we do matters. that’s why how we think matters.

thank you for this post bro, i am encouraged. and challenged. i pray that our hearts will continue to grow to be more and more like Christ.

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12:1-3

amazing. inspiring. challenging.

there are lots more great sites / videos about him online. you know what to do : )

(this is a reply to Aoo’s post, “Erratum” posted Nov 7, ‘08 12:36 AM)

What defines ‘making the most’ out of my week?
(or my day, month, or my year for that matter.)
im not quite sure myself. at least, not right now as we speak.
we all know that busyness doesn’t mean you’re productive.
and conversely, inactivity doesn’t mean you’re lazy.

which calls for a restatement of the question into:
are you making the most out of your week?

the last question is especially for me ey? i’m deeply touched, my friend. my previous post was actually inspired by this. it started as an introduction for this post. but it turned out to be too long, so i decided to separate it. okay, so let me try to answer your question…

you’re right when you said that busyness != productivity. and conversely, inactivity != laziness. so it’s very hard to answer your question without defining first what “making the most out of” means.

i think of it in terms of sulit and sayang. we all know the feeling of these two words – there are days when we feel sulit yung araw, and some days that we feel sayang yung araw. i think the criteria for this is based on two things: worth and purpose.

every action / inaction has worth. and there is perceived worth and actual worth.

let’s see: reading a book, chores, sleeping, working, chatting, praying, playing sports, surfing the web, playing games, watching tv, commuting, hanging out, doing your quiet time, keeping up with the news, brushing your teeth. yep, they all have worth.

perceived worth is up to you – it’s easy to justify what we do. perceived worth is different for every person (what’s worth a lot to you may mean little to your parents, like computer games,) and can change over time (as you mature, or as events happen in you life, your priorities may shift.)

actual worth is more objective. it’s still actually subjective. but actual worth can be measured, kinda.

actual worth depends on purpose.

if you know your purpose, you will have a better idea of the worth of each your actions / inactions. worth of actions leading to your purpose is high. actions that don’t directly affect your purpose has so-so worth. while actions that lead away from your purpose has negative worth.

of course, because of time and energy constraints, the actions we can do in a day are bound by those two things. the tricky part? some actions take so much time but have very little (or negative) worth. this is bad.

and so, we can actually derive the day’s worth as

The summation of the worth of every action done on that particular day

Please… allow me to geekify:

D = Σ(AW)

where:
D = Day Efficiency
A = Activity (includes inactivity)
W = Worth

(hahaha! sorry, i just had to do it! i’m still refining the formula though. kailangan kase percentile yung value ng D. and also dapat defined yung formula for W)

AND SO IN CONCLUSION.

Yes. Yes I did make the most of my week.

HAHA!

How ’bout you bro?

nothing beats sincerity and honesty among friends.

its a risk to open yourself up like that to people. making yourself vulnerable. letting them see your struggles. your questions. your doubts. your weaknesses. but i tell you, it’s a liberating and rewarding experience. no more masks. no more secrets. no more pretending.

sure – not everyone will like you for who you are, scars and all. most people gravitate toward strength and confidence. and that’s what we try so hard to project to the world. even to our friends. and then we fail (everyone does). and then the questions come (most people choose to ignore them). then pride creeps in. before you know it – you’ve become tired, miserable, confused.

what most people don’t realize, is that for Christians, our weakness makes us strong. because we only realize our weakness through failure. and we fail because we are tried, because we are tested. and the tests and trials come because our God desires to perfect us. just as metal is refined through fire.

our weakness makes us strong because it makes us realize that the God of all universe is working on us to make us a better person. our weakness makes us strong because God won’t allow us to remain weak. He loves us for who we are, but He loves us too much to let us remain as we are.

and your real friends are like that too.

be real. and you will find other people who are real too. they are the ones you should keep. as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.