Born in the wrong era? No. There is no wrong era.

disclaimer 1: this is in no way related to Mr Lewis' "Mere Christianity" and i dare not claim equality with his writing standard. i just thought that this was a cool name...and i could only wish that someone would write on man as man basically is, based on sound doctrines, as described in the Bible.

disclaimer 2: these are merely my personal views,a nd are not explicit teacings fromt he Bible.

water mill is an anagram for walter lim.
walter lim is a p5 boy from acs primary that i met during the camp.
he's famous among the group leaders for having a very cute face and a pair of very cool oakley specs.
i call him speed king of the bath cos he bathes very quickly. it's like he's here one moment with his towel and toiletries, gone for a while, and then back again with his hair wet and his clothes changed. and his specs give him the extra speed master look. cool kid.
he wasn't in my group but i had a couple of encounters with him over the course of the camp. chatted and lamed around with him usually.
walter lim is also the only student that completed my station in the fear factor activity.

i was a station master in the fear factor activity along with ms lee.
my station was named "iron heart, lungs of steel", while his was "touch fear".
at my station, students had to blow a balloon until it burst. as for the "touch fear" station, students would be blindfolded and were then required to put both hands into a box and leave them there for a minute without squirming. waht they didn't know was that in the box there were baby frogs hopping about in a small pool of water.

if i'm not wrong, these were the 2 stations that most students didn't dare complete. and it left me wondering why.

it was explained during the camp that it was due to sin that we begin to fear because creation is no longer "good" as it originally was.

i thought of it from another angle.
the 2 stations that we took charge of, "touch fear" and "iron heart, lungs of steel", are 2 very common fears and their root fear is in a sense the very same thing.

"touch fear" essentially reveals our fear of the unknown. because we don't know WHAT we will touch, we dare not put our hands in. and what made it worse was that ms lee didn't reveal what was inside and acted like it was no big deal(reverse psychology at work); even when people guessed that frogs were inside, he said nothing and insisted that they be blndfolded. so they guessed correctly but still didn't dare.

as for "iron heart, lungs of steel", it reveals our fear of not being in control. in blowing a balloon until it bursts, there is a build up in the tension felt, until the climax when it burts, then there is immediate relief. the problem lies in the fact that we don't know, and cannot control, when the balloon bursts. some people(girls generally) fear the loud sound, and some, the imagined pain that would be felt, but i think that the main thing is that they are not in contol, and they hate that feeling. kinda like when we are about to receive an injection, we don't know what to expect the pain; the nurse decides.

these 2 fears basically show our resentment of losing our "godhood". as fallen creatures, we desire to live independent of God, as a result, we make ourselves god of our own lives. we hate to give up our control. we hate to not know and trust. all fears, i believe, stem from this.

why do we so fear public speaking?or confessing our feelings to the person we like?
because we cannot control how people will think of us. and because of the many risks of humilation...which is humbling...which also goes against our perceived godhood. we want glory, and in humiliation, we lose that 'glory', we are lowered from our pedestal.
i believe that fear did not exist before the fall because we could completely trust in God. we had 100% assuarance that God was in control of everything and that all we needed to do was to obey.
just that we blew it.

but

one day. someday. all fears will cease.
now. we wait.