I live, I die, I live again!

In the movie "Mad Max Fury Road", a slave was about to give his life to the master as a kamikaze would give his life to the Japanese emperor. In order to gain inner strength he was repeating: "I live, I die, I live again!". 

His master is an evil one. He enjoys power. In a desert future planet Earth, water is a very scarce resource. The master has water, thus he has power. He seems generous as he gives water to the slaves, but enough to keep them alive, to keep them subjugated. When giving water, the master yells from a mountain to the crowd under him: "I am your redeemer!".
A simple glance of the master makes the kamikaze slave to feel as a chosen one, as a very special slave, as the one who is chosen by the master to a sacrificial mission. As he fails his mission, he is almost to kill himself in sorrow, but he recovers his mind when he receives affection from a beautiful girl. He becomes a traitor.
In the film, all slaves are bald and dresses in the same way. They are pictured as dumb guys that have a very narrow reasoning. They are brain washed.
Well, any similarity with Christianity is a mere coincidence, I guess.
Anyway, why am not this dumb slave? Am I not a brain washed man?
In some sense, I am this dumb slave and I am brain washed. I do not think that is natural for any human being to abandon his own interest and seek the Master's interest. It is necessary some Master's intervention in my brain to make me believe.
By other hand, I know my Master is good and the only one who is worth of praise. He is indeed the Redeemer because he really gives water to me in this desert world. But he created this living water by his sacrifice. He was crucified to make me alive, to make me drink and be satisfied.
Jesus changed the way I look my city: Sao Paulo. How can I see such beauty now, here in Sao Paulo, as in the photos I am posting? I am a paulista, but I have been hating this place for a long time... how can I say it is MY city? Here goes another photo from the "Ponte da Cidade Universitaria" at the end, taken in the morning:

Identity

When I was adolescent, I was bullied in school. I was the best pupil in class, Japanese descendant, with heavy glasses. Almost everyone seemed stronger than me. Since my childhood, I did not know to deal with others. In fact, my parents did not have almost no relationships outside our family. Now it seems to me that I was really a great target for bullies. Everyone seemed to make fun of me calling me by other names, yelling when looking at me, confronting me and even physically harming me. I had no friends. Who in the world would stand by my side? It was hard times.

I saw my enemies and I had a thought: I will have a bright future because I will study hard. I will get good scores to be approved in a good faculty, but they will have a dark future.

And so it happened.

I decided to create a name for myself, to have an identity, to be respected by my intelligence. I enjoyed very much chess, perhaps to show how good I am (although in faculty, I knew some others much better than me).  As I graduated, it was like I have proved my point: I have won. 

At that time, I was a dumb guy: I felt superior to others who graduated by inferior schools. I was very arrogant.

Now, I think that I accomplished too little in life. I have always chased my self interest. I have always thought what great thing I could do to benefit myself. 

I am quite sure that after my death, my name will be forgotten in years, or in less than one year.

I took this photo today.

I am like a shadow in this world. The few achievements of my life that may survive my death, will not be really my achievements. May the Lord work on me.

Doctor Doug

A physician is supposed to have a noble character: sacrifice himself to save lives that are dying. In this real world, physicians are generally very proud of themselves and demand respect from others. My daughter was born with a serious problem. We were appointed by many others physicians to the same surgeon. It was very strange how he negotiated the price. He told us: the price is this one, in dollars (our currency is real), take or leave it. I told him that he was very well regarded, thus I would pay it. But something seemed very wrong. In fact, if I could go back in time, I would not take the same decision. The surgery was not a success.
Yesterday night we went to the doctor Doug' s house. He is a member of our church. His life is the opposite of most physicians. He has a lot of histories to tell in his old age. He was graduated from one of the most prestigious faculties, post graduated, became a professor in this same faculty. Thus, he was in position to be a physician for the wealthy, but somehow he was eager to help people in general, that are generally poor. So, he had to work for public institutions. He treated prisoners with tuberculosis,  took students to aid others in under living conditions, discovered that a famous clinic, devoted to in vitro fertilization, was also in the abortion business and left his job, among many other histories.
I asked myself: what is the secret behind those stories?
I would like to say that is Jesus. But he made a lot of things before knowing Jesus.
In some way, his secret is some kind of inner motivation provided by the Lord. Dr. Doug is eager to help others wherever he is. In other words he does not calculate the pros and cons. For him, helping is not a way to earn money. I must learn this.

I have just taken this picture in the university this morning.

Choose

Today I took around 10 photos: some in the morning going to the school and some in the afternoon. I chose this one:

It is similar to the one I took yesterday, but here I managed to take the few minutes of the twilight. I was just leaving the faculty by bicycle when I remembered I had forgotten my documents. Therefore, I had to lock my bicycle again and return to my room. I wasted some minutes, but this delay was very important to this photo. Had I arrived at this point some minutes earlier, I know this photo would be very different because the colors in sunset varies a lot. Thus why is this photo on the blog? Is it because the Lord made this happen? Is it because I chose this one among many? Both answers are correct: the Lord made it, I made it.

Chosen

A lot of people was locked in the traffic jam while I was taking this picture:

If nothing happens by accident, I was chosen to do it. It is really a privilege, as a paulista, to appreciate the sunset, the job of my Creator. I may see things in a different way, when I believe that God is really taking care of me. For instance: today, a guy that I have never met before provided me an account with root privilege in a machine with GPU/cuda. Certainly, my Lord takes care of me. If nothing happens by accident, my Lord is taking care of me even when I am not publishing scientific papers.

As time goes by

It is a music in the Casablanca movie. Really, time flies. When I see pictures from our children, I ask: where were I? Certainly, I was wasting time preoccupied about things that did not mean anything to me while I should be with my children, my family. You know?! I always think that I have good priorities in life, but it is not really true. I know what are the good priorities but I do not put them in practice the way I should. Help me Lord to accomplish it!
Today I walked with my 2 younger children: Ken and Juji to a shopping center nearby. I took this picture when coming back:

Sao Paulo

5 minutes before the photo I showed you yesterday, I took this photo:

The sun is over "Joquei clube" and its image is reflected over Pinheiros river. It is really very difficult for some "paulista" (the one who lives in Sao Paulo city) to recognize his city by this photo. As I said yesterday, my life is much better than 10 years ago, although I live in the same city, same house, with the same wife. I am quite sure that only a few people saw this sunset yesterday because we are always in a rush. The Holly One drew this sunset to me. Why? Because He loves me.