By Francis K. Loo
A Convenience Cart
Look at the photo herein. What is the novel about it? What is this? What inspires me to take this snapshot? Look more carefully, and you will not be surprised that my focus is the convenience cart. The ordinary cart we normally use inside a supermarket to carry staff to the till and after that to your car.
Sometimes, if you feel like some extra physical exercise, pushing the heavily loaded cart home is the idea though the concerned corporation will not allow this endeavour.
Then, why is it left there by the main entrance on the sidewalk? It not only jeopardizes the esthetic amenity of the building but also causes inconvenience to the public at large. Is it intended that the City might find it to pick up? Or the supermarket corporation will be informed of its whereabouts to retrieve it.
I think that the one who had committed such a misdemeanour would never have thought about the questions we asked herein before. The main concern is self-convenient– no consideration for the inconvenience to others. (Not to mention any other possible haphazard consequences.)
You may hesitate to conclude that this is only part of human behaviour—the expression of the ego. This is an example of many self-centred interests that are prime in humankind. The main consideration is ‘I’ not you, he, she or it. Let’s go further into this thought: either ‘I or me’ without ‘you’. Or ‘you’ or ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘it’ without ‘I or me’. Can you imagine that this is the real world we’re living in? If it were real what world could it be? It was hell. For sin shall be our master.
What shall we do?
Shall we go on sinning?
The answer obviously is “NO”.
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). In his reply to Nicodemus, Jesus says “Unless a man is born of water and the [Holy] Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:3-7). God saves us not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy. He saves us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he pours out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. (Titus 3:4-6) Humanity ought to contritely repent their sins and surrender selves to God in Christ Jesus. God says:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, and I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ezekiel 36: 26-27).
In Christ, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will express ourselves through love. Love our neighbours as ourselves. And spread the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ’s salvation to others to the end of the world as instructed by Jesus Christ before his ascension. Then the world will become the kingdom of God. Lord, let all your disciples be one in Christ Jesus. There is no more “you” and “I” but “we” together as children of God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
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