Minimalism: The Japanese Art of Declutter to Organize Your Home Life (2018) by Kiku Katana, Somewhat REVIEW

 

Minimalism: The Japanese Art of Declutter to Organize Your Home Life (2018)
by Kiku Katana

One of my habits while reading a book is that I also take time to listen to the author’s interviews and/or talks on podcasts and YouTube and, if available, I listen to the audiobook. In this way, I can absorb more information, catch what I might miss when I’m just reading it and figure how the author thinks or the reasoning process. Also, it helps me to know what is his or her main points (if you can find the author’s TED Talks online that would be superb!). If I’m very interested in the subject, I explore other authors or speakers that cover the same topic. Because of this habit (or rather discipline?), I can somewhat figure out either the author is original – in a sense of the way the author expressing the thoughts or ideas not the actual subject itself, for “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) – or just straight-up plagiarizing.

So, what do I think about Kiku Katana’s Minimalism? Well, to put it mildly, she falls in between. Before this book, I’ve read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Fumio Sasaki’s Goodbye, Things, and Kiku draws heavily from these two books. It is not word-for-word or even thought-for-thought similarities but more like paraphrasing ideas and techniques. Although it is very familiar, repetitive, and not-so-original for me, I find that this book is helpful: 1) as an introduction if you haven’t read any of the minimalist books (one of the definitions of a minimalist that I like is someone who “keeping things very simple”); 2) to remind us that we are living in a very consumeristic society that wants more and so we must examine ourselves and control our impulses to be passive consumers; and 3) the approach to extend the philosophy holistically in our lives not just our dealing with things or stuff is seem unique to Kiku for she also talks about health, finance, and food consumptions. Other than that, it is similar to other books (and most of the popular authors are from Japan, the same culture). Understandably, the subject of minimalism is not that broad and straight to the point. If you ‘get’ the philosophy, then, the execution is a matter of context, purpose, and experience.

I own only less than a dozen of plain t-shirts, use a plastic cardholder as my wallet, I don’t watch TV, no wall decoration in my place so far, almost non-active in social media except for LEGASI.tv, only leave essential apps on my phone, no debt except one, etc., I’m not calling myself a minimalist because a) I might change; b) I’m a maximalist when it comes to physical books and motorcycles; c) It should become a lifestyle not just following the trend; and d) although the term ‘minimalism’ (and even ‘essentialism’) first use as an art term*, I found out that the modern-day teachings of it are rooted from the Zen Buddhism (the practice, however, are ancient). This requires discernment. One of the mottos of minimalism is: “Less is more.” But as Christ-follower, my motto is: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). If it seems like I go with the minimalist mentality, it is because it will lead me to contentment 😊💪

#1Book1Week #ServeToLead #LeadersAreReaders #GrowingLeaders #LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain #Minimalism #Essentialism #GodlyContentment #Lifestyle

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THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

 

Pray for Laos: Homeless "Because You Are A Christian"

“Aelen” woke up one night to the sounds of someone burning her house down. Thankfully, she was able to grab her baby son and escape. Unfortunately, it was one of many hardships she’d been forced to face since deciding to leave her tribe’s traditional religion and follow Jesus instead. Many in her village, including her family, perceived the change in her religious beliefs as an offence to their culture.  Many Laotians believe Christianity is an American religion. When someone in the community becomes a Christian, the community worries that the spirits they worship will be offended, and that the community might also suffer ill-effects as a result.

Though she escaped the attempted arson of her home, Aelen’s problems weren’t yet over. A little while later, she visited her sister in another city for a while. When she came home, she found that her father and brother had moved into her home and were claiming it as their own. Aelen went to the local authorities to complain. She then found out that the village headman had even issued her father a new property deed for her home. Further lobbying for justice at the local level and even provincial level hasn’t helped. It looks like Aelen will be forced to leave the village. When she asked her father how he could do such a thing to her, he told her, “Because you are a Christian.”

It’s not just young people who suffer like this.

An older gentleman, “Keowynn” and his wife and daughter were also recently evicted from their home, in this case by their own son. Keowynn is a key Christian leader in his area and he leads a church that he planted many years ago after he moved to an unreached region as a missionary.

In spite of Keowynn’s faithful example, his oldest son despises his parents’ faith. He also drinks and uses drugs. Much like the prodigal son in the Gospel of Luke, his son demanded his inheritance from his father and said that the house should be his portion. The conflict between the oldest son and the family has been ongoing for at least three years, and on March 15, 2017, the son finally forced his father, mother and sister from the home.

Keowynn and his family are now living under a roof they erected in a rice field. It’s a tough life, but they don’t want to abandon the other believers in their community. They are afraid if they leave, the other believers will become too discouraged and renounce their faith.

Pray: For both Aelen and Keowynn and their families. Other Christians in Laos are assisting them, but it’s difficult to lose home and family. Pray that they and other believers in Laos will stand firm in Christ, no matter what they encounter.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Source: https://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom 

Family is Forever

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it”

(George Moore)

We choose friends based on similarities – we have similar tastes and we like similar things – but we don’t have a luxury of choosing our families. We go for interviews to get a job at work, but we can’t go for interview to be a mother or father or brother or sister to fill the family unit. Friends is a choice, family is what we’re given. And just as we must make the most out of all other things God gives us – our time, physical body, personality, thinking, feeling, experience, our soul – we must make the most out of the family we’ve received.

Before there were pastors, small groups, counsellors, therapists, doctors, there were moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and grandparents. Our family is the only connection we have to our heritage. Honestly, we can end up a friendship or a partnership and replace it with a new one, but we can’t replace our family. (Most of) our family members knows us like no one else does. My mother know my personality, my brother learned that I love movies, and my late father know I loves to read. More than that, they know most of my true personality, my inner identity and authentic behaviour at home. Our family are part of our life’s story. They raised us and they grow together with us. That relationship – family – will never ends. Family is forever.

For all sorts of reasons – both valid and not – people sometimes choose to end relationships. I know this is true especially among young people. I work in student ministry now and I walk together with student-friends for almost 4 years since. I listened to their struggles in relationship (and not to forget my own experiences). You! I’m sure you’ve had family members do or say offensive things to you, and if a friend or colleague or employee or boy/girlfriend acted the way the family member did, you most probably would ended the relationship. But because it was family, you instead invested more – more love, more forgiveness, more patient, more understanding. Because it was family, and because Christ is in you, you choose to let it go, Christ then empowered you, heal the hurt, and move forward.

I thank my Lord Jesus Christ whenever he strengthen me and my family to choose to let things go and move forward on many occasions with one another. Many times I fought, rebelled and talked offensively to my mother and exchanged hurting words and face expressions with my brother, but it doesn’t take a long time for us to get together, eat dinner and chat again. Family conflicts is never beyond repair. As long as there is family, there is love and grace. Family is forever. My God value family more than anything else. After all, God the Father love the Son, and the Son loves us his children and abide in them in the Holy Spirit and God forever want to be with us in his home. Like Father, like Son; like God, we value family and relationship above all. Family is forever.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Living in Light of Heaven (Free Booklets Inside!)

“Then I saw a new heaven and new earth…” (Revelation 21:1NIV)

“Heaven is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God
and of one another in God” (Augustine)

Heaven's gate
[Just a picture okay]

The first time I encountered with Randy Alcorn’s Heaven booklet, I’m falling in love over and over again with the subject of Heaven (or accurately speaking “New Earth”) that he portrait in his writing. He is not writing about how he went to heaven and back again like many junk books available in our bookstores today – he is writing and picturing Heaven the way Scripture describes it – “a bright, vibrant, and physical New Earth, free from sin, suffering, and death, and brimming with Christ’s presence, wondrous natural beauty, and the richness of human culture as God intended it”. Most important of all – God will be the King of this “Holy City, the New Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:2)!

Randy Alcorn writes in his introduction to Heaven’s booklet:

“Maybe you feel as if you’ve passed your peak, physically or emotionally, and that your best opportunities are behind you. Perhaps you’re burdened, discouraged, depressed, or even traumatized. Perhaps your dreams—your marriage, career, or ambitions—have crumbled. Perhaps you’ve become cynical or have lost hope.

An understanding of the true Christian teaching about Heaven (not the popular caricatures of Heaven) can change all that. That’s why I wrote Heaven, a full-length treatment of the subject that deals with all the questions people ask about this great subject. The purpose of this little booklet is to give you just a taste of the glorious truth about Heaven.

God’s people in ages past had a source of strength and perspective largely unknown to us today: Heaven. It was their central reference point, the North Star by which they could navigate their lives. But in contemporary society, Heaven has fallen off our radar screens.

“Whenever I think about Heaven,” a pastor said to me, “it makes me depressed. I’d rather just cease to exist when I die.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I can’t stand the thought of that endless tedium. To float around in the clouds with nothing to do but strum a harp . . . it’s all so terribly boring. Heaven doesn’t sound much better than Hell. I’d rather be annihilated than spend eternity in a place like that.”

Where did this Bible-believing, seminary-educated pastor get such a view of Heaven? Certainly not from Scripture, where the apostle Paul says that to depart and be with Christ is far better than staying on Earth (Philippians 1:23). My friend was more honest about it than most, yet I’ve found that many Christians share the same misconceptions about Heaven.

Our unbiblical assumption that Heaven won’t be a real, earthly place blinds us to what Scripture actually says. Rarely do we hear descriptions that capture what the Bible portrays as a New Earth with a great capital city made with precious stones; a New Earth that contains trees and rivers, and where resurrected people come in and out of the gates, engaged in meaningful relationships and productive activity.

J. C. Ryle, a nineteenth-century British theologian, said, “I pity the man who never thinks about heaven.” We could also say, “I pity the man who never thinks accurately about Heaven.” It’s our inaccurate thinking, I believe, that motivates us to think so little about Heaven.

As you will see, the problem is not that the Bible doesn’t tell us much about Heaven. It’s that we don’t pay attention to what it tells us”

Read and study the Book of Revelation for a start!

Then, I recommend you to buy Randy Alcorn’s Heaven book or audiobook.

I guarantee you – your life will change
and your passion for God and His glory will be heighten. Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

FREE BOOKLETS

I’m giving away ONLY 3 copies of booklet “Heaven: Biblical Answers to Common Questions” by Randy Alcorn. You are welcome to get a copy of this booklet for yourself as a starter for you to see eternity in a whole new light! Simple, do these 2 things:

1. Comment below “Rich, give me one copy___ (Your name). I want to know about Heaven Biblically. I want to worship God through the study of this precious subject in the Bible. Amen.” 
2. And E-mail me at Motivates4life@hotmail.com or send message to my Facebook your real name, phone no. and your postal address. Thank you

[P.s: Priority for those who had never received any book or booklet from this blog site]

Aku mahu Diterima. Aku mahu Dihargai. Aku mahu Diperlukan. Dimanakah Aku boleh mendapatkan Semua itu?

Melalui pengalaman sendiri, melalui pergaulan dengan sesama manusia, dan melalui pemerhatian and komunikasi saya dengan orang lain (lebih-lebih lagi dengan membaca cerita-cerita kamu di Facebook – Watch out!); saya menyedari dan membuat kesimpulan bahawa setiap kita mengingini hubungan dimana kita diterima, dihargai dan diperlukan. Kita semua kadang-kadang terdesak untuk mendapat perhatian daripada orang lain, tetapi selalunya tidak mendapat seperti apa yang kita mahukan... jadi kita kecewa... dan terus mencuba lagi...

Pic taken from: http://fineartamerica.com/

Banyak cerita tentang remaja yang sanggup melakukan sesuatu yang pelik dan merbahaya untuk mendapat perhatian daripada rakan-rakan, dan ramai daripada kalangan orang yang bekerja sanggup melakukan sesuatu yang tidak beretika untuk mencapai kejayaan agar dapat tergolong dalam orang-orang elit yang istimewa. Kita mendengar dan membaca (malah mungkin mengenali atau pernah mengalami) mereka yang bertungkus-lumus untuk mencapai kejayaan duniawi kerana mereka mendengar dusta yang mengatakan bahawa nilai diri mereka terletak pada kualiti dan tahap kemampuan mereka sendiri. Atau, pernahkah kamu mendengar tentang remaja atau orang yang keseorangan yang sanggup menjual badan mereka untuk mengalami hubungan intim and untuk mengisi kekosongan di dalam hati mereka kerana mereka mahu diterima, dihargai dan diperlukan oleh orang lain?

Bagi orang Kristian yang betul-betul sudah mengenal Kristus, semua cubaan sebegini hanyalah perbuatan yang sia-sia sahaja. Ini kerana Tuhan Yesus sendiri sudah menerima, menghargai dan mengingini kita sebelum dunia dibentuk. Kita ialah milik Tuhan, kita bermakna bagi Dia dan kita sudah diterima oleh-Nya ke dalam Kerajaan Allah kerana kematian Yesus di kayu salib. Tidak lagi kita perlu bertungkus-lumus untuk mendapat perhatian orang lain – Tuhan telah memilih kita – bukan sahaja menjadi hamba-Nya, malah menjadi sebahagian daripada keluarga Tuhan. Di dalam Al-Kitab ada tertulis, “Ketahuilah bahawa Allah Bapa sangat mengasihi kita! Dia amat mengasihi kita, sehingga kita diakui sebagai anak-anak Allah dan memang kita anak-anak Allah” (1 Yohanes 3:1).

Rasul Paulus lebih radikal apabila dia menulis inspirasi Roh Kudus tentang bagaimana kemurkaan Tuhan telah dibenarkan dengan kematian Yesus di kayu salib. Dia menyatakan bahawa Yesus telah menyelamatkan kita daripada semua dosa kita dan Yesus telah memulihkan hubungan kita dengan Tuhan apabila kita menerima Yesus sebagai juruselamat dan Tuhan kita. “Kita pun bersukacita kerana apa yang sudah dilakukan oleh Allah melalui Tuhan kita Yesus Kristus. Melalui Kristus, kita sekarang dijadikan sahabat-sahabat Allah” (Roma 5:11).

Kesimpulannya: melalui Yesus Kristus, kita sudah diterima, dihargai dan dimiliki oleh Tuhan. Kita bukan sahaja menjadi hamba-Nya, malah kita dianggap Tuhan sebagai anak-anak-Nya sendiri – dan lebih rapat lagi, kita sekarang sudah menjadi sahabat-sahabat Allah.

THINK BIG START SMALL. GO DEEP

A short Story about Trust

“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust:
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” (Psalm 91:4KJV)

A story…

A distressed believer once said to a Christian counselor,

“It’s hard for me to trust God when everything looks dark.”

The man replied, “Well, brother, if you can’t trust someone when he’s out of your sight, he isn’t worth much. So, too, if you can’t trust God in the dark, you really don’t consider Him trustworthy.”

Then pointing to a baby chick that had just taken refuge beneath a large hen, he added, “See that little chick hiding under the wing of its mother? As long as it’s there, it can’t see anything, but it’s still protected and secure.”

Opening his Bible to Psalm 91, the counselor continued,

“Notice it doesn’t say ‘under His wings shalt thou see’, but ‘under His wings shalt thou trust.’”

A Story that remind me of…

A poet by unknown;

Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee,

Trust Him when thy strength is small,

Trust Him when to simply trust Him

seems the hardest thing of all.

Trust Him, He is ever faithful,

Trust Him, for His will is best,

Trust Him, for the heart of Jesus

is the only place or rest.

A Story summary…

THINK BIG Think the promise of God. START SMALL Start put things in God’s hands; place your trust under His wings. GO DEEP Go to the place of rest – the only place, the heart of Jesus.

Click the Title to Read

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