What's your flavour?

Have you ever thought about how do we tell the difference between sweet, sour, salty and bitter?

I vaguely remember a picture of the tongue showing the location of the four taste buds. Sweet and salty near the front, sour buds on the sides and bitter on the very back of it. Always thought where on the tongue the material lands is the answer, apparently not so..

The correct answer is how the material reacts chemically. Salt, for example, allowing sodium ions to enter the taste buds. A chemical reaction releases calcium ions which then send the message to the nerve cells and finally a signal to the brain that it's salty.

Now and then, what kind of material are we? What reaction do we release? Do we send the sweet signal to people's taste buds? Sourness? Or even bitterness?

It's certainly naive to think that we're definitely sending the sweet signal; only when we land on the "problem-free" areas. The essence of sweetness will only take place when we release "His love" to the lifes of those who are hurting, dissapointed and problematic. Don't you agree?

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses is flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men”

Matthew 5:13 NKJV

To be a better me

Sitting behind me in the bus this morning were an old man and a young woman. The old man asked the young woman what time it was. She took her mobile out of her handbag and said "It's 10 to 9". He thanked her and told her how efficient it was nowadays where everyone has a mobile and no need of watch.

Later on, he continued the conversation by asking her whether she watched the Beijing olympics. They chat for a while on how glamorous it was. The conversation switched to paralympic after a while. Apparently she didn't watch the paralympic so the old man started telling her a 'lil bit of story.

He said "There's a young man who won the gold medal in butterfly stroke swimming championship. And guess what, he has no arms!". The young woman was surprised and so was I. I was trying to imagine a butterfly stroke swimmer without arms back then. "Moreover", he continued. "... that swimmer is a record-breaking machine. Everytime he race, he finished the race by few seconds faster."

I won't qualify myself as a sport person but I do know a few seconds difference does matter in sports. But what I do not realise before is the effort to attain those few seconds. For this man who has no arms (after doing some research I then know his name is Igor Plotnikov) to actually become faster by seconds must've meant sweat and tears. Not mentioning his opponents are those who are disabled but still has their arms attached.

How about us then? How much effort are we willing to put to be a better person? To change ourselves is surely a great challenge for anyone to take. Yet Christians swore themselves to be just like Jesus. Now, what have we done to be closer to that goal? Can we put more effort to gain a 'lil bit more patience? Are we willing to die to our flesh to be a 'lil bit more compassionate to those difficult people?