"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi
On my school walls, hangs four posters I designed in the vain hope of inspiring my kids. I love a good quote - beautifully crafted words, punched with the right attitude, stylishly delivered, served with chutzpah. Gandhi's quote is one of my favourites because it reminds me that change starts with one small decision in one small corner. This David in a dohti outlasted his Goliath colonial masters in a game of who blinks first.
The Tim Chester book (Good News For the Poor) I have been reading has come to a particularly challenging chapter. He pointed out that the Bible never focuses on the multitude of ways to evangelise or the number and type of social initiatives that churches ought to have. The Bible just focuses on mindsets and attitudes - it just demands that the Church lives in a godly loving manner as befitting their new identity as Kingdom of God citizens and priests. The Church changes the world by changing the culture - It becomes a society that hints at heaven...where widow and orphan is cared for; where riches are shared; where the poor are given due respect; where a King will eat with the Damned...
Paraphrasing Gandhi somewhat, we have to live changed lives if we want to see change in this world. But how do we do so knowing our human limitations?
I have been learning how much I need to change within myself since TissueAunty and TissueJunior (her son) started to clean my school last week.
They have been a great source of encouragement. Jnr. has been particularly cute: last week, he paused several times in his obsessive polishing of scuffmarks to remark gently in Chinese, "God is a mysterious God isn't he? Don't worry, we won't let you down. We will clean this place very beautifully." He even chided his mother for wanting to leave early for a doctor's appointment because they had not managed to deliver on their promise to turn my floors into The Mother Of All Clean Floors. (They eventually went for the appointment after many assurances from me that I was not going to get angry with them about a half-clean floor)
The diligence and dignity that they went about carrying out their work was really poignant and moving. They wanted so much to be recognised as good, worthy workers not pitiful charity cases. They wanted to be seen as fellow human beings, fellow worthy citizens.
I realised that very often when I gave to the poor I gave in a middle class way: Have some cash, have some food, but you will never be in my Social Circle. I realised my offers to throw cash at the problem, buy them clothes, or pay for their cab-fares was demeaning them some how. It's not wrong per se to donate to the poor but it does not really "Strengthen the Weak" in the long run.
Strengthening the Weak in terms of helping the poor, means praying for them, empowering them, giving them a voice, educating them, associating with them, eating with them, talking to them like normal human beings. - Basically not treating them like charity projects.
I am scared. I realise it was easy when Tissue Aunty was just in "charity project" stage where I had a safe comfort zone still. Now, I am in a discomforting zone in daylight, away from the fumes of the road, no longer privy to the option of walking away and feeling good about myself.
Caring for someone does not mean caring in spurts - just enough to make me feel generous; not enough to actually make a longterm difference.
Sitting next to her in church service, I was acutely aware that when she was temporarily homeless, she smelt unwashed and sour. Hearing her jovially invite me to come to her home for her son's birthday party, I was acutely aware of my hesitancy to say "Yes thank you!". Knowing that she wanted to come more often for service, I was acutely aware that I did not want to "hang out" with her that much or feel responsible for her every week.
I became acutely and suddenly aware of how I wanted to minister to the poor on my own terms: Please be a certain way, please don't ask me to be more involved in your life, please oh horrors, don't ask me to become your close friend!
There you go the not so glamourous truth about reaching out to the marginalised. Theorising passionately about noble ministering to the poor is all well and good. Practicing is the clincher that tests your pretty words and living-room convictions.
Verdict: What a shallow horror I can be! I want to be a far better better person than the one I was thinking those thoughts.
Am I discouraged or depressed at these new insights into my depravity?
No, thank God literally! :)
My hope of "Being the Change I wish to see in the world" does not lie in my twisted mind, black heart and reluctant will.
My hope lies in knowing God is working within and through me. While I remain in Him, He will strengthen my mind, lighten my heart and be the force behind my will to do all these new, scary things that He asks me to do.
As for now, I have PROFOUND new respect for my Saviour Christ who sat, related and supped with the underdogs of society.
I bet they smelt. I bet they could not speak properly. I bet they clamoured for him to come to their homes, to share their hospitality. I bet nobody else wanted to hang out with them.
He did it. He loved them and helped them see they were precious and worthy of fellowship.
I bet He washed their feet.
One day, I wanna be just like Him.
How sweet to know that He whispers across the heavens, barely audible through the ink and paper of the Bible, "Trust me...and you shall someday. Meanwhile trust, obey, love and wait."
May His Kingdom come and His will be done indeed. :)
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Finding Happiness
Last night, I got a poignant message from an old friend: "When do you think I am happiest? Is happiness part of a Christian living?"
The message had an air of nostalgia. My old friend has always struggled with finding happiness and feeling whole. Sadness about past mistakes and regrets clung onto him like a vice. In his most morose moments, he would ask me if I would turn up for his funeral or write him a eulogy. At on point, he had a semi-serious death wish.
The only thing that kept him moving one foot after another in his life somehow was his almost foolhardy trust in Jesus Christ's love and grace. He depended on it so much for his life to mean something. He clung on to Christ's promises that somehow he mattered. When I stood next to him to sing praise songs, i remembered how much feeling he put into the words and how much yearning for hope was etched in his upraised face and palms.
When you think about it, it's crazy. How can the touchy-feely claims of some ancient Jewish madman actually give confidence to anyone? How on earth does knowing Jesus help anyone through their life?
I don't need much to be happy - I just need a friend, a meaningful conversation, a good dream, some random cute stray animal or beautiful Italian sunshine, pretty colours, and I am blissed out.
But this Happiness is a strange, fickle thing. It runs away sometimes when you want it to stay. No matter how much you cling on to it, it slips eel-like away. Happiness can be found in things of this world to a certain limit. After all, there is much that is given to us on this earth that is good.
Pastor Chris talked today about how children tear through their carefully wrapped gifts gleefully, sometimes recklessly, so fixated on the joys of the gift within, without a care for who the giver is. Who cares whether it is Daddy or Grandma who bought me the latest PS2? But when we grow up, we start to realise the best part about the gift is actually the giver. In our adulthood, we have slowly learnt that sometimes we get presents that we do not really like, or cannot really appreciate for now, or gifts that fall short of our high expectations. But nevertheless you honour the giver because you have recognised that the giver's intentions were always more important than the gift. If we want to find real happiness in the gifts we have been blessed with in our life, we need to lift our heads from our mad scramble to give thanks to the giver - God.
At the tuesday fellowship, somebody read an anti-Psalm 23, to make his point about why he was a christian. He said writing the antithesis of the famous Psalm / Serenity Prayer showed what life without christ was like.
"The Lord is not my shepherd.
I shall always want.
I cannot find those green pastures
I will not find the still waters
My soul is unwhole, unrestored
I wander down paths of unrighteousness
Yea, as I walk through that valley shadowed by Death,
I do fear evil:
for nobody is with me;
Nothing comforts me.
Nobody prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies:
Nobody blesses my life and the cup of my life is drained empty.
Surely horror and wrath shall follow me all the days of my life
and I will dwell outside the gates of heaven for ever."
I agreed with him. WIthout God, this would be my life as well and it would be a very dark realisation indeed.
God does not make me happy.
He makes me whole, he restores me, strengthens me and puts a fountain of life in me where there could only have been darkness and despair.
No, God does not merely make me happy. He makes me profoundly Joyful. This Joy sits within me, like a fountain of life, a pool of amazing living water - it underlines everything that makes me happy with even greater clarity; it cushions and overwhelms everything that threatens to put fear and sadness in me.
I am happy, optimistic, tickled plenty of times. I am unhappy, lonely, sad, pessimistic and morose some of the time. But the joy stays deep within, sturdy, unassailable and un-understandable. It goes beyond simple happiness or sadness.
The message had an air of nostalgia. My old friend has always struggled with finding happiness and feeling whole. Sadness about past mistakes and regrets clung onto him like a vice. In his most morose moments, he would ask me if I would turn up for his funeral or write him a eulogy. At on point, he had a semi-serious death wish.
The only thing that kept him moving one foot after another in his life somehow was his almost foolhardy trust in Jesus Christ's love and grace. He depended on it so much for his life to mean something. He clung on to Christ's promises that somehow he mattered. When I stood next to him to sing praise songs, i remembered how much feeling he put into the words and how much yearning for hope was etched in his upraised face and palms.
When you think about it, it's crazy. How can the touchy-feely claims of some ancient Jewish madman actually give confidence to anyone? How on earth does knowing Jesus help anyone through their life?
I don't need much to be happy - I just need a friend, a meaningful conversation, a good dream, some random cute stray animal or beautiful Italian sunshine, pretty colours, and I am blissed out.
But this Happiness is a strange, fickle thing. It runs away sometimes when you want it to stay. No matter how much you cling on to it, it slips eel-like away. Happiness can be found in things of this world to a certain limit. After all, there is much that is given to us on this earth that is good.
Pastor Chris talked today about how children tear through their carefully wrapped gifts gleefully, sometimes recklessly, so fixated on the joys of the gift within, without a care for who the giver is. Who cares whether it is Daddy or Grandma who bought me the latest PS2? But when we grow up, we start to realise the best part about the gift is actually the giver. In our adulthood, we have slowly learnt that sometimes we get presents that we do not really like, or cannot really appreciate for now, or gifts that fall short of our high expectations. But nevertheless you honour the giver because you have recognised that the giver's intentions were always more important than the gift. If we want to find real happiness in the gifts we have been blessed with in our life, we need to lift our heads from our mad scramble to give thanks to the giver - God.
At the tuesday fellowship, somebody read an anti-Psalm 23, to make his point about why he was a christian. He said writing the antithesis of the famous Psalm / Serenity Prayer showed what life without christ was like.
"The Lord is not my shepherd.
I shall always want.
I cannot find those green pastures
I will not find the still waters
My soul is unwhole, unrestored
I wander down paths of unrighteousness
Yea, as I walk through that valley shadowed by Death,
I do fear evil:
for nobody is with me;
Nothing comforts me.
Nobody prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies:
Nobody blesses my life and the cup of my life is drained empty.
Surely horror and wrath shall follow me all the days of my life
and I will dwell outside the gates of heaven for ever."
I agreed with him. WIthout God, this would be my life as well and it would be a very dark realisation indeed.
God does not make me happy.
He makes me whole, he restores me, strengthens me and puts a fountain of life in me where there could only have been darkness and despair.
No, God does not merely make me happy. He makes me profoundly Joyful. This Joy sits within me, like a fountain of life, a pool of amazing living water - it underlines everything that makes me happy with even greater clarity; it cushions and overwhelms everything that threatens to put fear and sadness in me.
I am happy, optimistic, tickled plenty of times. I am unhappy, lonely, sad, pessimistic and morose some of the time. But the joy stays deep within, sturdy, unassailable and un-understandable. It goes beyond simple happiness or sadness.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Thou Shall Not Commitee
Friday, August 19, 2005
A Tuesday To Remember
Since there was no bible study this week, me and HKGal took the chance to visit the interdenominational group I had met a couple of weeks back at SonicFest. FunkyArchitect had invited me to pop by the first time I had a chance.
This group is really a prime example of an emergent church - it's a motley collection of people of all types from all over the world : A Filipino Jamie Aditya (MTV VJ) lookalike youth pastor and his psychologist sister;
An American independent film-maker turned missionary to the Singaporean American schools; a Polish backpacker who just could not get enough of the group even though he was non-christian!;
Several 'starving' local film-makers, photographers and musicians;
etc.
Multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-denominational. Quite a interesting take on what the first churches must have looked like.
There must have been close to 30 people there that night. We started at 8pm and ended near 1am. It has been a really really long time since I worshipped, spoke and prayed this way - with a whole room, without any need for restraint, without any fear of people feeling uncomfortable.
That night was "Share Why You Are a Christian Night" and it was such a powerful collection of individual, spontaneous testimonies. As one room - half of which were complete strangers! - we wept and laughed together at the sharing of multiple stories from real life.
Why follow Christ indeed? Some said because He was Love. Some said because He made so much sense. Some said because He did NOT make sense - Grace is a totally ridiculous concept by human standards! Some said because He was just...too amazing to say no to.
Some simply fell in love with Him. Some literally had an Old Testament style miracle deliver them from their disbelief!
It was really encouraging to discover in all their disparate reasons for being a Christian, the common thread that God is a entity who reaches out to us in a myriad of ways, far beyond human understanding and human limitations.
I shared about what the TissueAunty incident taught me. I loved God simply because He is Right, the rightest right I knew. He is the God of Justice, the one who looks out for the weak and oppressed far better than any human ever could.
As I told the story, my words choked and I started to cry. I never realised how much Truth that encounter had cemented in me: I really wanted to see the day when His Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in Heaven.
I used to be indifferent to those words but now those precious lines of the Lord's Prayer have become my greatest source of inspiration and hope. I never realised how much that particular aspect of the Truth meant to me until I shared it with the group.
I miss charismatic-style gatherings: That intimate gathering of people around you, all praying and praising with such conviction, force and unabashed joy that you could feel a piece of Heaven; The way they unashamedly grip your shoulder or clasp your hand or cradle your head as they prayed for you, conveying a hundred nuances of feeling the way only a human touch can convey;
It has been a long time since I had someone pray an encouragement over me with such conviction even before they knew i was in need or what I needed to be encouraged about. HKGal and I were definitely moved to tears many times at the open love of these perfect strangers.
I was grateful to see how uplifted and more convicted my own prayers for others became in such a setting - where other people's prayer literally put courage into your own praying tongue. Among a crowd like that, hearing prayers like that, you could not help but find a stronger voice for your petitions to God.
When we sang to God that night to close the day, I could not stop the Hallelujahs from spilling out.
This is a truly blessed group. God is doing some amazing things within their ministry.
This group is really a prime example of an emergent church - it's a motley collection of people of all types from all over the world : A Filipino Jamie Aditya (MTV VJ) lookalike youth pastor and his psychologist sister;
An American independent film-maker turned missionary to the Singaporean American schools; a Polish backpacker who just could not get enough of the group even though he was non-christian!;
Several 'starving' local film-makers, photographers and musicians;
etc.
Multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-denominational. Quite a interesting take on what the first churches must have looked like.
There must have been close to 30 people there that night. We started at 8pm and ended near 1am. It has been a really really long time since I worshipped, spoke and prayed this way - with a whole room, without any need for restraint, without any fear of people feeling uncomfortable.
That night was "Share Why You Are a Christian Night" and it was such a powerful collection of individual, spontaneous testimonies. As one room - half of which were complete strangers! - we wept and laughed together at the sharing of multiple stories from real life.
Why follow Christ indeed? Some said because He was Love. Some said because He made so much sense. Some said because He did NOT make sense - Grace is a totally ridiculous concept by human standards! Some said because He was just...too amazing to say no to.
Some simply fell in love with Him. Some literally had an Old Testament style miracle deliver them from their disbelief!
It was really encouraging to discover in all their disparate reasons for being a Christian, the common thread that God is a entity who reaches out to us in a myriad of ways, far beyond human understanding and human limitations.
I shared about what the TissueAunty incident taught me. I loved God simply because He is Right, the rightest right I knew. He is the God of Justice, the one who looks out for the weak and oppressed far better than any human ever could.
As I told the story, my words choked and I started to cry. I never realised how much Truth that encounter had cemented in me: I really wanted to see the day when His Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in Heaven.
I used to be indifferent to those words but now those precious lines of the Lord's Prayer have become my greatest source of inspiration and hope. I never realised how much that particular aspect of the Truth meant to me until I shared it with the group.
I miss charismatic-style gatherings: That intimate gathering of people around you, all praying and praising with such conviction, force and unabashed joy that you could feel a piece of Heaven; The way they unashamedly grip your shoulder or clasp your hand or cradle your head as they prayed for you, conveying a hundred nuances of feeling the way only a human touch can convey;
It has been a long time since I had someone pray an encouragement over me with such conviction even before they knew i was in need or what I needed to be encouraged about. HKGal and I were definitely moved to tears many times at the open love of these perfect strangers.
I was grateful to see how uplifted and more convicted my own prayers for others became in such a setting - where other people's prayer literally put courage into your own praying tongue. Among a crowd like that, hearing prayers like that, you could not help but find a stronger voice for your petitions to God.
When we sang to God that night to close the day, I could not stop the Hallelujahs from spilling out.
This is a truly blessed group. God is doing some amazing things within their ministry.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Vanity Thy Name is Blogger
Blogging has become a Singaporean phenomenon not unlike bubble tea, pork floss buns and portuguese egg-tarts.
Bubble tea was fun, novel and tasty when it first arrived. People who discovered it first felt proud to have found a delicious new treat. But a good secret cannot stay secret for long - Word spread, popularity caught on and whoosh before you know it, bubble tea everywhere! Happy Cup! Yummy Cup! Bubble Cup! Etc. Cup!
The inevitable problem was 2 pronged :
One, in a bid to jump on the bandwagon, many vain people started selling crap-tasting, cheap rip off bubble tea, which put off lots of people who were curious late-comers into the phenomenon.
Two: many people who were always put off by the idea of bubble tea got even more peeved because the disgusting stuff was actually getting such attention. Adding fuel to the fire was that landmark report about ho bad bubble tea was for ya...those teeny black starch balls apparently were hyper calorific! Disgruntlement and diatribes ensued. The backlash of bubble tea hit - and tons of bubble tea shops found themselves closing. People moved on to Roti Boy. But the truly yummy bubble tea shops remained, as did those who always loved it for what it was, and genuine bubble tea lived on forever, quietly ever after.
ok my starting point, is that....that's what I think about blogging.
The medium is not the message: There are vain bloggers, wannabe bloggers, prejudiced bloggers etc. but there are genuine ones, honest ones, and entertaining ones. Intrinsically, blogs like paint, pixels, poems, songs are just repositories of people's personalities. One cannot judge the medium by the message. They are separate.
But is blogging a vain thing?
why of course, yes, it is!
But so is one's entire existence, every action, every word, every breath we breathe is vanity, vanity, vanity. Blogging, acting, singing, making music, writing poetry, having intelligent conversation, playing games, playing sports etc. etc. - all are mediums for Vanity to rear its nasty head.
Pride haunts everything we do because of our earthly, ungodly predisposition towards sin. So what are we to do?
Recognise we are intrinsically vain, pray for humility
Never let your guard down. Always be prepared to edit what you said.
Always be prepared to admit a wrong. Be responsible.
Know that with blogging, you intrinsically give up privacy and like it or not, you gotta balance the need for self-expression together with the need to edify and encourage.
As Mad Eye Moody would roar," CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!!"
My cybername is neonangel. I am a blogger. I am vain.
I like an audience. I like being patted on the back. I like seeing comments on my pages. I try to curb it but vanity taints my every post - sometimes 5% vanity, sometimes 90% vanity, but aiyah, always got vanity one lah no matter what! When will my blogs not be vain? Wellllll, if God decides to be funny and sets up blogging points in heaven, then yeah, maybe Post-2ND COMING then....no more vanity in my blogs.
meanwhile, just as I love bubble tea still...so do I love blogging. It has brought me new friends, new insights, and new openness with old friends who open up in the blogging medium in ways that they never did in the normal talking-in-real-life medium.
It's a cool medium, but one fraught with many responsibilities to consider.
Blogs are not private things. They are by nature public, exposed and tied to an outside world that calls for an answer to what you say and what you do.
But then again, so is the entire Christian life. :)
PS: Red Milk Bubble Tea kicks so much ass on a hot day. Peach Yogurt Sunrise Bubble Shake also macham shiok.
My fave bubble tea takeaway is the one just outside Orchard Emerald. $1.90 goodness plus free tissue. whoo.
Bubble tea was fun, novel and tasty when it first arrived. People who discovered it first felt proud to have found a delicious new treat. But a good secret cannot stay secret for long - Word spread, popularity caught on and whoosh before you know it, bubble tea everywhere! Happy Cup! Yummy Cup! Bubble Cup! Etc. Cup!
The inevitable problem was 2 pronged :
One, in a bid to jump on the bandwagon, many vain people started selling crap-tasting, cheap rip off bubble tea, which put off lots of people who were curious late-comers into the phenomenon.
Two: many people who were always put off by the idea of bubble tea got even more peeved because the disgusting stuff was actually getting such attention. Adding fuel to the fire was that landmark report about ho bad bubble tea was for ya...those teeny black starch balls apparently were hyper calorific! Disgruntlement and diatribes ensued. The backlash of bubble tea hit - and tons of bubble tea shops found themselves closing. People moved on to Roti Boy. But the truly yummy bubble tea shops remained, as did those who always loved it for what it was, and genuine bubble tea lived on forever, quietly ever after.
ok my starting point, is that....that's what I think about blogging.
The medium is not the message: There are vain bloggers, wannabe bloggers, prejudiced bloggers etc. but there are genuine ones, honest ones, and entertaining ones. Intrinsically, blogs like paint, pixels, poems, songs are just repositories of people's personalities. One cannot judge the medium by the message. They are separate.
But is blogging a vain thing?
why of course, yes, it is!
But so is one's entire existence, every action, every word, every breath we breathe is vanity, vanity, vanity. Blogging, acting, singing, making music, writing poetry, having intelligent conversation, playing games, playing sports etc. etc. - all are mediums for Vanity to rear its nasty head.
Pride haunts everything we do because of our earthly, ungodly predisposition towards sin. So what are we to do?
Recognise we are intrinsically vain, pray for humility
Never let your guard down. Always be prepared to edit what you said.
Always be prepared to admit a wrong. Be responsible.
Know that with blogging, you intrinsically give up privacy and like it or not, you gotta balance the need for self-expression together with the need to edify and encourage.
As Mad Eye Moody would roar," CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!!"
My cybername is neonangel. I am a blogger. I am vain.
I like an audience. I like being patted on the back. I like seeing comments on my pages. I try to curb it but vanity taints my every post - sometimes 5% vanity, sometimes 90% vanity, but aiyah, always got vanity one lah no matter what! When will my blogs not be vain? Wellllll, if God decides to be funny and sets up blogging points in heaven, then yeah, maybe Post-2ND COMING then....no more vanity in my blogs.
meanwhile, just as I love bubble tea still...so do I love blogging. It has brought me new friends, new insights, and new openness with old friends who open up in the blogging medium in ways that they never did in the normal talking-in-real-life medium.
It's a cool medium, but one fraught with many responsibilities to consider.
Blogs are not private things. They are by nature public, exposed and tied to an outside world that calls for an answer to what you say and what you do.
But then again, so is the entire Christian life. :)
PS: Red Milk Bubble Tea kicks so much ass on a hot day. Peach Yogurt Sunrise Bubble Shake also macham shiok.
My fave bubble tea takeaway is the one just outside Orchard Emerald. $1.90 goodness plus free tissue. whoo.
Return of the Queen
welcome back alto!!!!!!!!
gal you have been missed - short as the time was. haha.
supper this week or what. retro pic of me and the Notorious T.F.G (Tolkein FanGal) to commemorate nice day.
Plus MrsBear is in labour!!!! whoowhoo! :)
Breathe, Bear, breathe!
gal you have been missed - short as the time was. haha.
supper this week or what. retro pic of me and the Notorious T.F.G (Tolkein FanGal) to commemorate nice day.
Plus MrsBear is in labour!!!! whoowhoo! :)
Breathe, Bear, breathe!
Sunday, August 14, 2005
happy belated birthday singapura part 2
21 people gather at DaMooMan's turf.
interDG hijinks ensue. :)
tons of fun.
interDG hijinks ensue. :)
tons of fun.
Friday, August 12, 2005
happy belated 40th birthday singapura
forgot to blog a patriotic national day birthday wish. it's a early sketch of the Misadventures of Lil Red Dot.
LOOOVE ya Singapore for being the one land where I can order a kick ass teh si -siu dai bing-da bao. $7 low fat, hold the cream, to go Frappacinos be darned!!
LOOOVE ya Singapore for being the one land where I can order a kick ass teh si -siu dai bing-da bao. $7 low fat, hold the cream, to go Frappacinos be darned!!
La Bimbo
Love this funky avatar maker! The guy version of it is just as funky.
Over-glamourised icons but ah well, what to do lah. Such cute outfits they had, I swear it was as good as shopping in a store. I am so loving the bunny and kitty in the icon. cute until can die ah.
In reality, am definitely more like the big mouth chor lor icon 2 posts below. Am a true blue St Nicholas convent girl okay don't play play.
This one macham too polished and perfect lah - like SCGS girl like that.
But it's hard to resist such pixel prettiness. Prettiest avatar maker I have seen so far. Heehee
Over-glamourised icons but ah well, what to do lah. Such cute outfits they had, I swear it was as good as shopping in a store. I am so loving the bunny and kitty in the icon. cute until can die ah.
In reality, am definitely more like the big mouth chor lor icon 2 posts below. Am a true blue St Nicholas convent girl okay don't play play.
This one macham too polished and perfect lah - like SCGS girl like that.
But it's hard to resist such pixel prettiness. Prettiest avatar maker I have seen so far. Heehee
Hypothetical letters from christian singletons :P
There's an interesting post from Kaif. He wrote a hypothetical letter to Christian Girls on behalf of Christian Guys that he knows. Interesting stuff as you can tell from the quote :"....I don't know where to begin. While your Godliness attracts me, sometimes it scares me. I always hesitate when i ask myself "Can I match up to your Godliness?" or "Am I Godly enough for you?" The reason why churches are so filled with girls is because girls generally take God more seriously than us guys"
Do the guys really think that way?
Well, to add to
V's nicely worded hypothetical reply :) , here's my irreverent take :
"Heya Christian Guy,
I know you are a regular Joe Sinner. Guess what? It takes one to know one. I am not a shining paragon of goodness either.
It's no secret that you struggle to like women for more than their looks. Actually, Thank you for the encouragement that you are persevering to change that aspect of you. You don't know how much it means to us girls. Really. What we witness in a image-mad society can be really discouraging to us girls so knowing that there are some guys who are trying to change that is pretty good to hear.
As for your being intimidated by our zealousness or commitment to ministry, don't be. The Christian life has never been about godly doing but godly being. It does not matter to God if someone is serving in 4 zillion ministries while the other has yet to decide which ministry to get into. The important thing is whether both have their hearts sincerely set on changing their lives to do godly work. There is no superduper checklist to fulfill except one - do you believe there is a God who can change you? do you believe there is a Christ who can save you from your long struggle against yourself?
If God is doing His good work in you, one day you will be leading and serving God as you imagined you ought to be. Trust Him. Don't worry about "losing out to the girl" in minstries....it's not important. He will help you be that Godly Man you wish you could be.
Also, your fear to ask a girl out is understandably real. But that sneaky little Bible declares "Perfect Love drives out fear". If you understand how eternal God's love is, and you trust this love will brace you against anything life throws at you, then what's going out on a limb to ask a girl out in the larger scheme of Things To Fear In Life? :)
Seriously, remember that same Love of God has saved the girl as well - if she truly is as godly as you think she is, she will not be scared of dealing with any changes to come in the friendship you share as well. Even if rejection ensues from your decision to ask her out, God's love will protect you both from irreparable harm. Truly.
Just one last offside remark - many of the girls are MORE than happy to be asked out. So, if you have already ensured you are asking the girl out for the right reasons, what are you waiting for?
The ball is very much in your court. It has been for a very long time.
Go for it, man. We are all rooting for ya.
And if you need help from any of the gals to help out with your prospects (prayer, godly advice, date etiquette and fashion tips hehheh ), we are all a call away i am sure. :)
In faith,
The SIngle Christian Girl Collective"
Hehheh. That was fun. MGSR-y (TM The Moth) but fun.
Do the guys really think that way?
Well, to add to
V's nicely worded hypothetical reply :) , here's my irreverent take :
"Heya Christian Guy,
I know you are a regular Joe Sinner. Guess what? It takes one to know one. I am not a shining paragon of goodness either.
It's no secret that you struggle to like women for more than their looks. Actually, Thank you for the encouragement that you are persevering to change that aspect of you. You don't know how much it means to us girls. Really. What we witness in a image-mad society can be really discouraging to us girls so knowing that there are some guys who are trying to change that is pretty good to hear.
As for your being intimidated by our zealousness or commitment to ministry, don't be. The Christian life has never been about godly doing but godly being. It does not matter to God if someone is serving in 4 zillion ministries while the other has yet to decide which ministry to get into. The important thing is whether both have their hearts sincerely set on changing their lives to do godly work. There is no superduper checklist to fulfill except one - do you believe there is a God who can change you? do you believe there is a Christ who can save you from your long struggle against yourself?
If God is doing His good work in you, one day you will be leading and serving God as you imagined you ought to be. Trust Him. Don't worry about "losing out to the girl" in minstries....it's not important. He will help you be that Godly Man you wish you could be.
Also, your fear to ask a girl out is understandably real. But that sneaky little Bible declares "Perfect Love drives out fear". If you understand how eternal God's love is, and you trust this love will brace you against anything life throws at you, then what's going out on a limb to ask a girl out in the larger scheme of Things To Fear In Life? :)
Seriously, remember that same Love of God has saved the girl as well - if she truly is as godly as you think she is, she will not be scared of dealing with any changes to come in the friendship you share as well. Even if rejection ensues from your decision to ask her out, God's love will protect you both from irreparable harm. Truly.
Just one last offside remark - many of the girls are MORE than happy to be asked out. So, if you have already ensured you are asking the girl out for the right reasons, what are you waiting for?
The ball is very much in your court. It has been for a very long time.
Go for it, man. We are all rooting for ya.
And if you need help from any of the gals to help out with your prospects (prayer, godly advice, date etiquette and fashion tips hehheh ), we are all a call away i am sure. :)
In faith,
The SIngle Christian Girl Collective"
Hehheh. That was fun. MGSR-y (TM The Moth) but fun.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
TissueAunty and StutteringUncle
made 2 new avatars! here is the unglam, chor lor one and then there is the glam glam one for later. meanwhile...posting the big mouth one because...it's a nice day! :)
++++
met TissueAunty again after work and I told her how our DG prayed for her on National Day. :) She was really delighted! She laughed and said, "No wonder today get up so happy!"
She started sharing with me about how God was looking out for her - apparently some other person walked past her at the crossing and offered her a place to stay for $250 (compared to her present place at $700). The problem was that she was short of $50 to make up the first month's rent.
Now, the moment she named the $50 I knew this was totally God being funny, 'Cos on National Day, Island and me were talking about how to get TissueAunty a better job.
Charity, after all, has a limited effect. - everyone at the end of the day wants dignity and a sense of ownership and pride about their life. We could not just keep visiting ad hoc and bringing her freebie dinners. It would affect anyone's esteem at the end of the day to just receive and receive without being allowed to give back.
One option we examined was getting her to come clean my school once a week for market rate of $5 per hour....so we calculate calculate, came up to $50 a month.
So hearing the magical coincidental number 50, I told Aunty she did not need to be pai seh about borrowing money, she could earn it instead by helping me clean the school since I rarely had the time to do so myself.
After our first meeting, I tried calculating various scenarios of how much she makes an hour selling tissue. $1 or $2 per hour? The gap in earning power really literally chills my snotty middle class mind. Like Island mentioned in her blog, the thought that it took her 11 years to pay back a $3000 debt just floors your imagination. It brings tears to your eyes that what could have taken you a month to earn, took 11 years for another to rake up. Let's not even talk about the bigwigs who earn $3000 just drawing a single breath. gah.
ANYHOW, THAT WAS NOT THE COOL PART.
Cool part is after I talked to her, I crossed the road to take a 12 and was promptly stopped by a strange man. Now I have many many stories of meeting strange men on streets with bizarro stories, so I was a little wary of this one.
He was in his 30s, and spoke as if he had a speech defect. Every word that tumbled out sounded like it was crafted with supreme effort. He stuttered quite badly and it came out as heavily accented English smattered with Chinese. Despite all that, there was no mistaking what he was saying.
"Sister, who do you believe in? Are you Christian?"
"Yes I believe in God. Why?"
"You go church?"
"Yes I go ARPC."
"Good. good. I see you talk to the auntie. I always stand here. John 3:16. God tell me to talk to non-christian. Tell everybody about John 3:16. Tell people about God"
"That's great, uncle. The aunty there also Christian."
"Ah good! good. Then I talk to someone else. God bless you sister."
"God bless you too, uncle"
He continued standing at the crossing, contented. I was glad. Glad that he had found the one God who would not judge him for his awkwardness, his stammering strangeness. Glad that he found the God who could see something in him that nobody else in our perfectionist society could...a God who chose this guy of all people to share the gospel.
That man - like TissueAunty - had conviction, heart and a gutsiness that went beyond intellectual BIble smarts. That is sure sign of the Spirit of God working its way in the faithful believers.
Sometimes when I look at people like them, I understand another dimension to "Blessed Are the Poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God"
Compared to the rest of us, these poor people whom we pity....they are the ones who see the hope of God with the greatest clarity. They understand with every fibre the need for His Kingdom to come and HIs will to be done.
We have so much to learn from the boldness and endurance of the poor in the face of suffering!
P.S. Anyone who can offer Aunty a part-time cleaning job, let me know ya?
P.S.S. Aunty is coming with me to church this Sunday! Wah Piang eh. Whoohoo!
P.S.S.S. Doing this ministry to Aunty thingamajig is actually making me a lot more open-minded and warmer-hearted about ministering to my own mother. I think God is being his usual sneaky self here. More on this another time...
++++
met TissueAunty again after work and I told her how our DG prayed for her on National Day. :) She was really delighted! She laughed and said, "No wonder today get up so happy!"
She started sharing with me about how God was looking out for her - apparently some other person walked past her at the crossing and offered her a place to stay for $250 (compared to her present place at $700). The problem was that she was short of $50 to make up the first month's rent.
Now, the moment she named the $50 I knew this was totally God being funny, 'Cos on National Day, Island and me were talking about how to get TissueAunty a better job.
Charity, after all, has a limited effect. - everyone at the end of the day wants dignity and a sense of ownership and pride about their life. We could not just keep visiting ad hoc and bringing her freebie dinners. It would affect anyone's esteem at the end of the day to just receive and receive without being allowed to give back.
One option we examined was getting her to come clean my school once a week for market rate of $5 per hour....so we calculate calculate, came up to $50 a month.
So hearing the magical coincidental number 50, I told Aunty she did not need to be pai seh about borrowing money, she could earn it instead by helping me clean the school since I rarely had the time to do so myself.
After our first meeting, I tried calculating various scenarios of how much she makes an hour selling tissue. $1 or $2 per hour? The gap in earning power really literally chills my snotty middle class mind. Like Island mentioned in her blog, the thought that it took her 11 years to pay back a $3000 debt just floors your imagination. It brings tears to your eyes that what could have taken you a month to earn, took 11 years for another to rake up. Let's not even talk about the bigwigs who earn $3000 just drawing a single breath. gah.
ANYHOW, THAT WAS NOT THE COOL PART.
Cool part is after I talked to her, I crossed the road to take a 12 and was promptly stopped by a strange man. Now I have many many stories of meeting strange men on streets with bizarro stories, so I was a little wary of this one.
He was in his 30s, and spoke as if he had a speech defect. Every word that tumbled out sounded like it was crafted with supreme effort. He stuttered quite badly and it came out as heavily accented English smattered with Chinese. Despite all that, there was no mistaking what he was saying.
"Sister, who do you believe in? Are you Christian?"
"Yes I believe in God. Why?"
"You go church?"
"Yes I go ARPC."
"Good. good. I see you talk to the auntie. I always stand here. John 3:16. God tell me to talk to non-christian. Tell everybody about John 3:16. Tell people about God"
"That's great, uncle. The aunty there also Christian."
"Ah good! good. Then I talk to someone else. God bless you sister."
"God bless you too, uncle"
He continued standing at the crossing, contented. I was glad. Glad that he had found the one God who would not judge him for his awkwardness, his stammering strangeness. Glad that he found the God who could see something in him that nobody else in our perfectionist society could...a God who chose this guy of all people to share the gospel.
That man - like TissueAunty - had conviction, heart and a gutsiness that went beyond intellectual BIble smarts. That is sure sign of the Spirit of God working its way in the faithful believers.
Sometimes when I look at people like them, I understand another dimension to "Blessed Are the Poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God"
Compared to the rest of us, these poor people whom we pity....they are the ones who see the hope of God with the greatest clarity. They understand with every fibre the need for His Kingdom to come and HIs will to be done.
We have so much to learn from the boldness and endurance of the poor in the face of suffering!
P.S. Anyone who can offer Aunty a part-time cleaning job, let me know ya?
P.S.S. Aunty is coming with me to church this Sunday! Wah Piang eh. Whoohoo!
P.S.S.S. Doing this ministry to Aunty thingamajig is actually making me a lot more open-minded and warmer-hearted about ministering to my own mother. I think God is being his usual sneaky self here. More on this another time...
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
happy again
things to make you feel better after a moody funk:
1: watching young christians pray fervently and rejoice enthusiastically at Fest of Praise.
2: Thanks Rust for just listening without prejudice :)
3: watching johnny depp ham it up in charlie and the chocolate factory with HKGirl.
such a fun show :)
4: a really sweet prayer/encouragement email from AgentOrange, all the way through the tapped
wires of Beijing.
5: national day frolics - ultimate frisbee, captain's ball and a really good dinner
Ever since meeting Tissueaunty, I have been thinking about the homeless people who kinda stay around my office area. I wonder what stories lie behind their over-browned weather beaten skins. I realise that if you smile at them, they drop their mask of suspicion and quite readily smile back.
Been reading Good News For the Poor by Tim Chester also. Stirring stuff that helped shift my focus away from memyselfandi back to God's plans. The wisely written book puts together a very strong case for Gospel-centred Christian social action - which is a cheem way of saying why anyone who calls Jesus Lord ought to start actively looking out for the lepers, poor, sick, downtrodden and heartbroken all around. No hiding behind excuses like 'Faith is a private thing', 'the poor we will always have with us so why bother' etc. escapist nonsense.
Was surprised and saddened to find out in the book that at the time of Rwanda's horrific genocide, Rwanda was considered the most Christian African nation, the one with the "most successful evangelising movement". Tim Chester's point was that many of Rwanda's converts were not clear on the impact of the gospel on their lives. They felt the private faith and the private salvation but did not make the connection to public action or public demonstration of their beliefs. Hence, one too many Rwandan Christians stood by as Hutus slaughtered Tutsis and Tutsis avenged themselves on Hutus. Not unlike how one too many German Christians stood by in silence as Nazis first discriminated and later slaughtered Jews by the millions.
There were many good Rwandan Christians and German Christians of course who took political action but unsurprisingly, the world chooses to remember those who stood by, blinded by their arrogance and pride in their own saftey. How could people who read about the good Samaritan ever doubt the call to action? Jesus was the Christ who kneeled to wash the feet of his disciples, supped with the marginalised and fed the poor.
Chester cited a beautiful quote from GK Chesterton about the worth of every human being.
Chesterton declared that human beings were not equal like the way human rights activists imagined.
Human beings are equal the way pennies were equal. Some were bright, some dull, some used, some fresh, some scarred. But irregardless of their individual state, their worth came from the fact that every one of them bore the stamp of a King, a sovereign who vould vouch for their value.
We all, like coins, bear the stamp of a King to end all Kings.
The begger in the alley way, the aunty who sells tissue packs to pay the rent, the friend you treasure, the mother you quarrel with, the waiter who wipes your table, the fellow church member you sit beside...the faded imprint of His Majesty is there. In some, the imprint is far more discernible than others.
So What are you going to do about it once you see the mark of God on someone?
And can others see the indentation of Christ on your face when they look at you? Or does your face resemble every other person's look of indifference?
1: watching young christians pray fervently and rejoice enthusiastically at Fest of Praise.
2: Thanks Rust for just listening without prejudice :)
3: watching johnny depp ham it up in charlie and the chocolate factory with HKGirl.
such a fun show :)
4: a really sweet prayer/encouragement email from AgentOrange, all the way through the tapped
wires of Beijing.
5: national day frolics - ultimate frisbee, captain's ball and a really good dinner
Ever since meeting Tissueaunty, I have been thinking about the homeless people who kinda stay around my office area. I wonder what stories lie behind their over-browned weather beaten skins. I realise that if you smile at them, they drop their mask of suspicion and quite readily smile back.
Been reading Good News For the Poor by Tim Chester also. Stirring stuff that helped shift my focus away from memyselfandi back to God's plans. The wisely written book puts together a very strong case for Gospel-centred Christian social action - which is a cheem way of saying why anyone who calls Jesus Lord ought to start actively looking out for the lepers, poor, sick, downtrodden and heartbroken all around. No hiding behind excuses like 'Faith is a private thing', 'the poor we will always have with us so why bother' etc. escapist nonsense.
Was surprised and saddened to find out in the book that at the time of Rwanda's horrific genocide, Rwanda was considered the most Christian African nation, the one with the "most successful evangelising movement". Tim Chester's point was that many of Rwanda's converts were not clear on the impact of the gospel on their lives. They felt the private faith and the private salvation but did not make the connection to public action or public demonstration of their beliefs. Hence, one too many Rwandan Christians stood by as Hutus slaughtered Tutsis and Tutsis avenged themselves on Hutus. Not unlike how one too many German Christians stood by in silence as Nazis first discriminated and later slaughtered Jews by the millions.
There were many good Rwandan Christians and German Christians of course who took political action but unsurprisingly, the world chooses to remember those who stood by, blinded by their arrogance and pride in their own saftey. How could people who read about the good Samaritan ever doubt the call to action? Jesus was the Christ who kneeled to wash the feet of his disciples, supped with the marginalised and fed the poor.
Chester cited a beautiful quote from GK Chesterton about the worth of every human being.
Chesterton declared that human beings were not equal like the way human rights activists imagined.
Human beings are equal the way pennies were equal. Some were bright, some dull, some used, some fresh, some scarred. But irregardless of their individual state, their worth came from the fact that every one of them bore the stamp of a King, a sovereign who vould vouch for their value.
We all, like coins, bear the stamp of a King to end all Kings.
The begger in the alley way, the aunty who sells tissue packs to pay the rent, the friend you treasure, the mother you quarrel with, the waiter who wipes your table, the fellow church member you sit beside...the faded imprint of His Majesty is there. In some, the imprint is far more discernible than others.
So What are you going to do about it once you see the mark of God on someone?
And can others see the indentation of Christ on your face when they look at you? Or does your face resemble every other person's look of indifference?
Monday, August 08, 2005
a little fall of rain
Woke up feeling a little sad today.
Need prayer. Cute rabbit will have to do for now to jumpstart a grey morning before I go to find peace in God, before busy-ness muffles all this.
Old fears and old lies take a long time to go away.
Like any addiction - drugs or alcohol etc, once the devil's untruths have had their ugly way with you they stay with you for life. Charismatics call these spiritual strongholds.
Christ's truth and His perfect love do indeed drive out fears. So while your old addictions don't have the same fierce grip on your heart and mind and strength, they still remain your Achilles heel.
Something to always watch over. Something to always be vigilant over. Something you know is not insurmountable but nevertheless tiring to keep fighting.
"You again? My favourite mistake? Haven't you had enough yet. Be gone."
You just get better at saying no to indulging in your poison of choice.
Mine happens to be pretty dumb but then again, I suppose there is no such thing as a wise addiction is there.
Your hope is that in the Second Coming, when a fallen world is swept away with a divine force and fury, your battle finally stops. and you get rest.
meanwhile, i am a little tired. and i hate waking up with sticky salty eyes that drive my contacts mad.
and sometimes, i do hate being changed by God enough to understand the folly and uselessness of whining and complaining.
You no longer have the luxury of ignorance. You recognise it is a luxury that you should never have anyway. Those who know better, have to stay better, do better, have to lead and not lag.
There is no retreating to the shallow comfort of whining when there is so much real needs out there. Your whining only makes things worse and discourages those in need.
You do not bitch to God. You do not shake fists at Him. You do not weary the Lord like they did in Malachi with indulgent hypocrisy. Once you understand what He has done for you, you don't ever be an ass about it. You know you have to be like Job, not Job's wife who invited him to curse God in his pain.
You stay strong, even in the midst of your sharing of your own struggles, you constantly check your words and watch your tone - because even in your sorrow, you will worship God and help others see why we must.
i wish i was not so weak. i think my fears are stupid, indulgent and worthless. But they are real. And its humiliating to know even stupid fears can have such a talon-like grip. i hate being reminded of my weakness.
But there you go. Once I think that, the Christian paradox kicks in - if i have never been so weak i would have never embraced how strong my Saviour is. I would have never understood His might and grace.
To quote Tissue Aunty, "Know Jesus, heart not pain already. Learn to smile." Life goes on, things may still hurt, fears may still poke up uninvited, but most of the time, life in God is amazing, joyful and peaceful.
His peace is the bedrock in your heart that no pain or fear can ever hope to pierce through and take root ever again.
what's my addiction? It's senseless.
It does not matter. It will take too long to get into and will distract from the main point I am trying to find while writing this blog entry.
What's important is that it too shall pass with a fallen world. I stake my life on that.
So a hope and a prayer will always be in my heart. And it's just a matter of waiting for the Day when all things are going to made right.
Robert Frost once wrote
"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"
I have loved those lines for a very long time.
Rest will come.
In a little while....just a little while.
Need prayer. Cute rabbit will have to do for now to jumpstart a grey morning before I go to find peace in God, before busy-ness muffles all this.
Old fears and old lies take a long time to go away.
Like any addiction - drugs or alcohol etc, once the devil's untruths have had their ugly way with you they stay with you for life. Charismatics call these spiritual strongholds.
Christ's truth and His perfect love do indeed drive out fears. So while your old addictions don't have the same fierce grip on your heart and mind and strength, they still remain your Achilles heel.
Something to always watch over. Something to always be vigilant over. Something you know is not insurmountable but nevertheless tiring to keep fighting.
"You again? My favourite mistake? Haven't you had enough yet. Be gone."
You just get better at saying no to indulging in your poison of choice.
Mine happens to be pretty dumb but then again, I suppose there is no such thing as a wise addiction is there.
Your hope is that in the Second Coming, when a fallen world is swept away with a divine force and fury, your battle finally stops. and you get rest.
meanwhile, i am a little tired. and i hate waking up with sticky salty eyes that drive my contacts mad.
and sometimes, i do hate being changed by God enough to understand the folly and uselessness of whining and complaining.
You no longer have the luxury of ignorance. You recognise it is a luxury that you should never have anyway. Those who know better, have to stay better, do better, have to lead and not lag.
There is no retreating to the shallow comfort of whining when there is so much real needs out there. Your whining only makes things worse and discourages those in need.
You do not bitch to God. You do not shake fists at Him. You do not weary the Lord like they did in Malachi with indulgent hypocrisy. Once you understand what He has done for you, you don't ever be an ass about it. You know you have to be like Job, not Job's wife who invited him to curse God in his pain.
You stay strong, even in the midst of your sharing of your own struggles, you constantly check your words and watch your tone - because even in your sorrow, you will worship God and help others see why we must.
i wish i was not so weak. i think my fears are stupid, indulgent and worthless. But they are real. And its humiliating to know even stupid fears can have such a talon-like grip. i hate being reminded of my weakness.
But there you go. Once I think that, the Christian paradox kicks in - if i have never been so weak i would have never embraced how strong my Saviour is. I would have never understood His might and grace.
To quote Tissue Aunty, "Know Jesus, heart not pain already. Learn to smile." Life goes on, things may still hurt, fears may still poke up uninvited, but most of the time, life in God is amazing, joyful and peaceful.
His peace is the bedrock in your heart that no pain or fear can ever hope to pierce through and take root ever again.
what's my addiction? It's senseless.
It does not matter. It will take too long to get into and will distract from the main point I am trying to find while writing this blog entry.
What's important is that it too shall pass with a fallen world. I stake my life on that.
So a hope and a prayer will always be in my heart. And it's just a matter of waiting for the Day when all things are going to made right.
Robert Frost once wrote
"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"
I have loved those lines for a very long time.
Rest will come.
In a little while....just a little while.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
a life between crossings
So, today started on a bit of a downer - got into a minor raise-voice-to-make-a-point kind of tift in the morning and felt subsequently angsty. (Re: Oolong rabbit endorsed blog below). I felt pretty crummy and weepy for about an hour - before combined prayers of friends I SMSed started doing their mighty work. Felt strengthened and chastened enough to be humble and made up with XXXXXXXX over lunch.
I have never seen her say grace before over a meal. I have never seen her say grace before - period. So that kind of told me that she must have felt bad too about the tift. That was a very assuring sign to me that whatever angst was going to come up between us again could be continuously dealt with as long as we both had God in our lives and the Holy Spirit working to change hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
I thought that was it for God's little lessons of the day
BUT that was not even the best or most touching part of the day.
My God is the original smarty pants - he always knows how to hammer down a point. He got Game - tricksy He is, my Saviour Lord.
Morning emotional angst had really exhausted me and by the time I finished teaching at 930pm today I was pretty tired. After horsing around with a stray cat, I crossed from Bugis Junction to Bugis Village to take a bus home.
To get to Bugis Village from Bugis Junction, you have to cross one traffic light, wait at an island in the middle of the road and cross a second traffic light. Often at this island this time of night, I would see a little old woman just sitting there, selling tissue paper from a raggedy pink plastic bag.
She is a pitiful sight - The island is full of endless human traffic but nobody ever stops to patronise her. a) It's a narrow island. you feel pressured by the anxiety of the other people. If you stop, you may hold up the flow of people b)people are usually moving too fast and are too anxious to catch the bus on the other side c) when she sits, scrawny little thing that she is, visually she is literally out of people's sight. It's subsequently very easy to not make eye contact. She easily becomes part of the urban scape, the wallpaper of the city.
Funny how that island works as a microcosm of our busy, busy selfish lives on the bigger island of Singapore eh?
Though I have seen her many times, I have never stopped to talk to her or buy tissue from her. I have always felt a little bit guilty about it. Worse, I knew I ought to have felt a whole lot more guilty. Feeling moved from my morning defensiveness about how I use my money for charity, I felt charged to break the habit of just walking past her. If I claimed I was using my money wisely as God intended, I damn well better live up to my claims one hundred percent, anyone, any time, anywhere, any context.
Fishing out $2, I asked her in broken Chinese, "Aunty, your tissue how much?" She handed over 5 packs with a small smile. Feeling convicted to go futher than just buying tissue, I continued asking her about whether she had eaten and how she was feeling. I could barely hear her response because of my bad command of Chinese and because of the never ending flow of people and roaring traffic all around us.
I could grasp bits and pieces:
-she had been poor and struggling since 12
-she only ate once a day.
-she stayed in Woodlands and was looking desperately for a cheaper place to stay.
-she owed $3000 in rent;
-she had a son who had been kidnapped when younger and subsequently, he was so psychologically affected that he could not find a stable job
-she worked as a cleaner in the morning and sold tissue here at night
-she felt Singaporeans were very evil-hearted for constantly calling the cops on her to report her for selling tissue paper illegally.
The conversation went on for a while. Feeling tired from stooping, I sat next to her like a fellow vagabond. Thank goodness for pants.
I managed to garble out, "Aunty, you very amazing. Your life is so difficult but sometimes when you speak, I see you still can smile. You very strong ah Aunty!"
That's when she hit me with the clincher, "That's only because I found God." Turns out her poor, permanently unemployable son, also has found God.
Thrilled, I immediately cried, "Aunty! Wah! You know Jesus ah? I am so happy for you!" She broke out in a big grin, "Of course! Before that ah, Aunty everyday cry and cry. Heart very pain. Know Jesus already, Know how to laugh!" She suddenly batted my arm with a buddy-like affection, "You ah.....I also wanted to ask you if you know Jesus!" We giggled at our mutual Christian nerdiness.
It was the most unnatural of pairings, a oddball fellowship - a tiny piece of heaven.
Bizarrely, as the conversation carried on, it almost seemed like we were not sitting on a dirty concrete island between traffic. The way we were laughing and bantering (even with my horrible 'tehhh' bimbo Chinese), it seemed like we were hanging out like a couple of Bugis Junction ah-lians. She kept punctuating her points with playful little punches to my arm.
I bought her a drink and some groceries from 7-11 since no food stalls were open. Apologising for the lack of proper food available, I asked her if she wanted anything else. She kept saying, 'AIyah you spent so much money already. Aunty Pai seh."
It came up to $12 - hardly a fortune to me but it must have been princely to someone who only ate once a day and could not even buy water for herself. So I bumbled," But Jesus help me earn money to buy you food what. Must one. Must one. Aunty don't need to pai seh lah! We all then pai seh, never help you." She laughed and asked me to help her find a Chinese-English Bible for her to read.
Scribbling my name and phone number, I told her I would definitely bring her one together with food more healthy than 7-11 crap. I told her to visit ARPC's mandarin ministry if she could. She seemed rather happy about it and asked me what time I went for service. Hugging her, I told her Jesus loved her very much before running for my bus.
I wish I could have prayed with her but my lousy Chinese might have ended the night in heresy. :) So instead on the bus home, I prayed for her and thought:
Thank you, God. Thank. YOU.
Thank you for being the God who looks after lives that fall between the cracks. You have your ways of finding and saving even the most lost and ignored. Thank you that their salvation and provision does not depend wholly on us - your fickle followers.
Thank you for helping me earn enough money such that I don't have to blink at buying food, water or even a Bible for one in need. Thank you for that honour and privilege - that I can have enough to feed myself, contribute to my family, contribute to church and still have more than enough to give away to those in need.
Thank you for reminding me I have more than enough to give away. I must never ever forget that - I have enough. More. Than. Enough. No matter what others may think or tempt me to believe. It's not how much I earn. It's how I use what I earn. And use it for others I must.
Dang it. He has such a knack for teaching lessons in the strangest places. Now if only he can make my Chinese better....guess that's why the charismatics speak in tongues. heehee.
If you ever find yourself on that same island crossing at Bugis between 9pm -12am on a weekday, say hi to the little old lady and buy a couple of tissue packs.
Tell her God sent you.
It will give her a big kick. : )
I have never seen her say grace before over a meal. I have never seen her say grace before - period. So that kind of told me that she must have felt bad too about the tift. That was a very assuring sign to me that whatever angst was going to come up between us again could be continuously dealt with as long as we both had God in our lives and the Holy Spirit working to change hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
I thought that was it for God's little lessons of the day
BUT that was not even the best or most touching part of the day.
My God is the original smarty pants - he always knows how to hammer down a point. He got Game - tricksy He is, my Saviour Lord.
Morning emotional angst had really exhausted me and by the time I finished teaching at 930pm today I was pretty tired. After horsing around with a stray cat, I crossed from Bugis Junction to Bugis Village to take a bus home.
To get to Bugis Village from Bugis Junction, you have to cross one traffic light, wait at an island in the middle of the road and cross a second traffic light. Often at this island this time of night, I would see a little old woman just sitting there, selling tissue paper from a raggedy pink plastic bag.
She is a pitiful sight - The island is full of endless human traffic but nobody ever stops to patronise her. a) It's a narrow island. you feel pressured by the anxiety of the other people. If you stop, you may hold up the flow of people b)people are usually moving too fast and are too anxious to catch the bus on the other side c) when she sits, scrawny little thing that she is, visually she is literally out of people's sight. It's subsequently very easy to not make eye contact. She easily becomes part of the urban scape, the wallpaper of the city.
Funny how that island works as a microcosm of our busy, busy selfish lives on the bigger island of Singapore eh?
Though I have seen her many times, I have never stopped to talk to her or buy tissue from her. I have always felt a little bit guilty about it. Worse, I knew I ought to have felt a whole lot more guilty. Feeling moved from my morning defensiveness about how I use my money for charity, I felt charged to break the habit of just walking past her. If I claimed I was using my money wisely as God intended, I damn well better live up to my claims one hundred percent, anyone, any time, anywhere, any context.
Fishing out $2, I asked her in broken Chinese, "Aunty, your tissue how much?" She handed over 5 packs with a small smile. Feeling convicted to go futher than just buying tissue, I continued asking her about whether she had eaten and how she was feeling. I could barely hear her response because of my bad command of Chinese and because of the never ending flow of people and roaring traffic all around us.
I could grasp bits and pieces:
-she had been poor and struggling since 12
-she only ate once a day.
-she stayed in Woodlands and was looking desperately for a cheaper place to stay.
-she owed $3000 in rent;
-she had a son who had been kidnapped when younger and subsequently, he was so psychologically affected that he could not find a stable job
-she worked as a cleaner in the morning and sold tissue here at night
-she felt Singaporeans were very evil-hearted for constantly calling the cops on her to report her for selling tissue paper illegally.
The conversation went on for a while. Feeling tired from stooping, I sat next to her like a fellow vagabond. Thank goodness for pants.
I managed to garble out, "Aunty, you very amazing. Your life is so difficult but sometimes when you speak, I see you still can smile. You very strong ah Aunty!"
That's when she hit me with the clincher, "That's only because I found God." Turns out her poor, permanently unemployable son, also has found God.
Thrilled, I immediately cried, "Aunty! Wah! You know Jesus ah? I am so happy for you!" She broke out in a big grin, "Of course! Before that ah, Aunty everyday cry and cry. Heart very pain. Know Jesus already, Know how to laugh!" She suddenly batted my arm with a buddy-like affection, "You ah.....I also wanted to ask you if you know Jesus!" We giggled at our mutual Christian nerdiness.
It was the most unnatural of pairings, a oddball fellowship - a tiny piece of heaven.
Bizarrely, as the conversation carried on, it almost seemed like we were not sitting on a dirty concrete island between traffic. The way we were laughing and bantering (even with my horrible 'tehhh' bimbo Chinese), it seemed like we were hanging out like a couple of Bugis Junction ah-lians. She kept punctuating her points with playful little punches to my arm.
I bought her a drink and some groceries from 7-11 since no food stalls were open. Apologising for the lack of proper food available, I asked her if she wanted anything else. She kept saying, 'AIyah you spent so much money already. Aunty Pai seh."
It came up to $12 - hardly a fortune to me but it must have been princely to someone who only ate once a day and could not even buy water for herself. So I bumbled," But Jesus help me earn money to buy you food what. Must one. Must one. Aunty don't need to pai seh lah! We all then pai seh, never help you." She laughed and asked me to help her find a Chinese-English Bible for her to read.
Scribbling my name and phone number, I told her I would definitely bring her one together with food more healthy than 7-11 crap. I told her to visit ARPC's mandarin ministry if she could. She seemed rather happy about it and asked me what time I went for service. Hugging her, I told her Jesus loved her very much before running for my bus.
I wish I could have prayed with her but my lousy Chinese might have ended the night in heresy. :) So instead on the bus home, I prayed for her and thought:
Thank you, God. Thank. YOU.
Thank you for being the God who looks after lives that fall between the cracks. You have your ways of finding and saving even the most lost and ignored. Thank you that their salvation and provision does not depend wholly on us - your fickle followers.
Thank you for helping me earn enough money such that I don't have to blink at buying food, water or even a Bible for one in need. Thank you for that honour and privilege - that I can have enough to feed myself, contribute to my family, contribute to church and still have more than enough to give away to those in need.
Thank you for reminding me I have more than enough to give away. I must never ever forget that - I have enough. More. Than. Enough. No matter what others may think or tempt me to believe. It's not how much I earn. It's how I use what I earn. And use it for others I must.
Dang it. He has such a knack for teaching lessons in the strangest places. Now if only he can make my Chinese better....guess that's why the charismatics speak in tongues. heehee.
If you ever find yourself on that same island crossing at Bugis between 9pm -12am on a weekday, say hi to the little old lady and buy a couple of tissue packs.
Tell her God sent you.
It will give her a big kick. : )
no money no honey
WARNING: angst alert.
am breaking out of my normal Care-Bear mode just to indulge in minor ranting. am also blogging a picture of Oolong - my fluffy waffle-balancing rabbit hero - to defray angsty rant-y blog entry.
Good to remember that you can be happy with very little - even a waffle balancing rabbit makes me happier than 500 gazillion Louis Vuitton bags or whatever logo-ed crap it is that people want these days.
whatever happened to the days when it was a proud thing just to be making "an honest living"?
hate feeling ashamed that I don't make as much "as I deserve to", or "as I ought to". Just because people with the same amount of education and opportunity as me are earning $10,000 a month does not mean I have to.
Am not a hotshot lawyer or banker or star insurance agent; I can't afford my own flat - ok lor. i don't feel bad about it, why should someone else?
Man, it hurts when someone you love hints that you are earning loser pay.
there is so much pain and suffering in the world and in the community around us. The last thing I want to be made ashamed about is how I am not earning as much as my peers - pui!
I got more things to be ashamed about ok....like I am rude to my mother, I am not praying enough for others, I am not thinking enough about others, etc. etc.
It's not how much I earn.
It's what I do with what I earn hor.
It's whether I handle what I earn wisely. That one you can nitpick about.
grrrr. ok. feeling less pissed and less down. rabbits are cute. i have made up with offending party and apologised for getting pissy.
forgiveness is always good.
See yet another nice thing that you don't need $10,000 a month to buy.
bah. end of angst.
return to smiley self.
am breaking out of my normal Care-Bear mode just to indulge in minor ranting. am also blogging a picture of Oolong - my fluffy waffle-balancing rabbit hero - to defray angsty rant-y blog entry.
Good to remember that you can be happy with very little - even a waffle balancing rabbit makes me happier than 500 gazillion Louis Vuitton bags or whatever logo-ed crap it is that people want these days.
whatever happened to the days when it was a proud thing just to be making "an honest living"?
hate feeling ashamed that I don't make as much "as I deserve to", or "as I ought to". Just because people with the same amount of education and opportunity as me are earning $10,000 a month does not mean I have to.
Am not a hotshot lawyer or banker or star insurance agent; I can't afford my own flat - ok lor. i don't feel bad about it, why should someone else?
Man, it hurts when someone you love hints that you are earning loser pay.
there is so much pain and suffering in the world and in the community around us. The last thing I want to be made ashamed about is how I am not earning as much as my peers - pui!
I got more things to be ashamed about ok....like I am rude to my mother, I am not praying enough for others, I am not thinking enough about others, etc. etc.
It's not how much I earn.
It's what I do with what I earn hor.
It's whether I handle what I earn wisely. That one you can nitpick about.
grrrr. ok. feeling less pissed and less down. rabbits are cute. i have made up with offending party and apologised for getting pissy.
forgiveness is always good.
See yet another nice thing that you don't need $10,000 a month to buy.
bah. end of angst.
return to smiley self.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
the simple life
reading some random blogs has been a sobering insight into little sadnesses and unspoken cries that constantly happen around you. How awful it is that your life can go on being so...normal and peaceful...even as others face their shadowy valleys. How wicked it is to feel that barest smudge of "wow, i am glad it is not me" that betrays the terror of your own sinful heart.
If I am ever tempted to feel proud or arrogant of the relative stability and happiness I have found in my own walk, I must remind myself to love, to sympathise, to empathise. I must remember to be still, be quiet and try and hear the needs around me.
Because i remember my own share of dark lonely hours - Where it was just me, God, a sleeping city and the open sky to weep to. These moments are always at night, when things are quiet and dead. Where removed from all the noise and cacophony we surround ourselves with, you are left naked with your own thoughts. And you suddenly understand the one nasty fact of a fallen world: no matter how many lovely friends you have, there are some moments where you are going to be alone and nobody else can follow you no matter how much they desire to. And you know this kind of existential loneliness is not the loneliness that will be solved by any normal human being you can conjure - family, friend, husband.
These are the moments where you most keenly feel the need for God - the invisible God, the sweet mystery you secretly sense behind every flower bud and distant star, the One who speaks straight into your heart the tiny whisper of hope that we cling to in despair: You matter. I love you. You will get through this because you are Mine Own. You don't see me. You don't understand me. But you will understand this - I love you. And if you understand this, live your life in rememberance of Me. Love Me. Love Thy Neighbour. Love with everything you have. Because You are Mine.
So this is my life:
I wake and rise to a life I never earned.
I try to remember to praise. I give thanks.
I work. I teach children to think, to find depth and beauty in the world, to see a big picture beyond.
I remember lives that cross my way. I try to figure out why they cross my way.
I try to meet needs. I try to love. I make mistakes.
I wound. I bite my tongue. I apologise. I talk. I laugh.
I dream and hope and fear. I place all these dreams, hopes and fears into His hands.
Sometimes they come true. Sometimes they don't.
I sleep and find rest in a grace and peace I never earned.
that's all that is important to know at the end of days. It is a simple life.
I hope I continue in that simple life. I hope more people find that simple life.
So tonight - in the stillness of 2am - I want to remember the weary and the broken-hearted, the ones who despair late at night beneath the smile they put on in the day, the ones who keep their pains hidden:
I cannot offer you anything but a hope and a prayer and a promise: there is a God who can be all these things that I cannot be to you and yours. I want to be there for you but I will be found wanting and pathetically, woefully inadequate. But God won't and never will be insufficient. He loves, He remembers. And for that, so will I try to do so for the rest of my days. That's my promise to you. Hold me to that promise. Please.
If I am ever tempted to feel proud or arrogant of the relative stability and happiness I have found in my own walk, I must remind myself to love, to sympathise, to empathise. I must remember to be still, be quiet and try and hear the needs around me.
Because i remember my own share of dark lonely hours - Where it was just me, God, a sleeping city and the open sky to weep to. These moments are always at night, when things are quiet and dead. Where removed from all the noise and cacophony we surround ourselves with, you are left naked with your own thoughts. And you suddenly understand the one nasty fact of a fallen world: no matter how many lovely friends you have, there are some moments where you are going to be alone and nobody else can follow you no matter how much they desire to. And you know this kind of existential loneliness is not the loneliness that will be solved by any normal human being you can conjure - family, friend, husband.
These are the moments where you most keenly feel the need for God - the invisible God, the sweet mystery you secretly sense behind every flower bud and distant star, the One who speaks straight into your heart the tiny whisper of hope that we cling to in despair: You matter. I love you. You will get through this because you are Mine Own. You don't see me. You don't understand me. But you will understand this - I love you. And if you understand this, live your life in rememberance of Me. Love Me. Love Thy Neighbour. Love with everything you have. Because You are Mine.
So this is my life:
I wake and rise to a life I never earned.
I try to remember to praise. I give thanks.
I work. I teach children to think, to find depth and beauty in the world, to see a big picture beyond.
I remember lives that cross my way. I try to figure out why they cross my way.
I try to meet needs. I try to love. I make mistakes.
I wound. I bite my tongue. I apologise. I talk. I laugh.
I dream and hope and fear. I place all these dreams, hopes and fears into His hands.
Sometimes they come true. Sometimes they don't.
I sleep and find rest in a grace and peace I never earned.
that's all that is important to know at the end of days. It is a simple life.
I hope I continue in that simple life. I hope more people find that simple life.
So tonight - in the stillness of 2am - I want to remember the weary and the broken-hearted, the ones who despair late at night beneath the smile they put on in the day, the ones who keep their pains hidden:
I cannot offer you anything but a hope and a prayer and a promise: there is a God who can be all these things that I cannot be to you and yours. I want to be there for you but I will be found wanting and pathetically, woefully inadequate. But God won't and never will be insufficient. He loves, He remembers. And for that, so will I try to do so for the rest of my days. That's my promise to you. Hold me to that promise. Please.
the emergent church
Saturday night, I checked out Sonicfest with RockclimberGrrrl and bumped into FunkyArchitect (from that dinner initiated by M) and his cell group. We had a fun time going out for supper - again, like the time I met M, I found myself among a group of strangers who were kindred thinkers/feelers, on fire about their Christianity. Around me was an architect, a voluntary school dropout turned freelance theatre practitioner, a motion graphics artist and a former hearing aid sales guy.
It was really encouraging and fun to hear them spout endlessly, fervently and effortlessly about God. It was a fascinatingly varied discussion: the impact of unconscious racial/cultural segregation on Singaporean Christian thinking; the effectiveness of God's choice of metaphors in the Bible; using design thinking processes to drive the way we think about evangelism etc.
The interesting thing about this cell group is that it is an interdenominational, informal gathering of creatives, fringe people and curious non-Christians. They are committed to their own mainline churches but have got together in this alternative cell group to discuss questions and issues that may not see the light of day in conventional churches.
It's a pretty cool thought: that the Body of the Church is operating on so many levels. There are those who specialise in holding the fort, expounding on theology, holding onto the Word in the Mind; then there are those who specialise in communicating the Word through fervour, Heart and emotion; then there are those who specialise in communicating the Word through the Strength of their actions...cool stuff.
It may be too easy for conservative churches to jump at judging these emergent churches as renegades, non-conformists, who just want to defy traditions and question truths. But that would be doing many of these emergent churches a great injustice. Their desire to rethink and reassess the integrity of their Christian walk within their communities is very genuine and heartening. The people from the emergent churches I have come across are as serious about making their walk right with God as any sober Bible-believing stoic. The difference seems to be expression?
The Emergent Mystique
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/011/12.36.html
"Yet recently McLaren has started to sketch the outlines of his vision of a postmodern church. He sketches a big circle labeled "self," a smaller circle next to it labeled "church," and a tiny circle off to the side labeled "world."
"This has been evangelicalism's model," he says. "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved'—in old-style evangelicalism—or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs. Once your needs are met, then we think about how you can serve the church. And then, if there's anything left over, we ask how the church might serve the world."
He starts drawing again. "But what if it went the other way? This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son. Inside that circle is another one, the church, God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world. And inside that is a small circle, which is your self. It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."
________________________________________________________________
The Emerging Church, Part One
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week845/cover.html
"It can't be simply defined; it can't be simply categorized. And it's causing no end of frustration for people who'd like to have tidier boxes. This is the way they want it because they believe the gospel should have a local expression."
It was really encouraging and fun to hear them spout endlessly, fervently and effortlessly about God. It was a fascinatingly varied discussion: the impact of unconscious racial/cultural segregation on Singaporean Christian thinking; the effectiveness of God's choice of metaphors in the Bible; using design thinking processes to drive the way we think about evangelism etc.
The interesting thing about this cell group is that it is an interdenominational, informal gathering of creatives, fringe people and curious non-Christians. They are committed to their own mainline churches but have got together in this alternative cell group to discuss questions and issues that may not see the light of day in conventional churches.
It's a pretty cool thought: that the Body of the Church is operating on so many levels. There are those who specialise in holding the fort, expounding on theology, holding onto the Word in the Mind; then there are those who specialise in communicating the Word through fervour, Heart and emotion; then there are those who specialise in communicating the Word through the Strength of their actions...cool stuff.
It may be too easy for conservative churches to jump at judging these emergent churches as renegades, non-conformists, who just want to defy traditions and question truths. But that would be doing many of these emergent churches a great injustice. Their desire to rethink and reassess the integrity of their Christian walk within their communities is very genuine and heartening. The people from the emergent churches I have come across are as serious about making their walk right with God as any sober Bible-believing stoic. The difference seems to be expression?
The Emergent Mystique
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/011/12.36.html
"Yet recently McLaren has started to sketch the outlines of his vision of a postmodern church. He sketches a big circle labeled "self," a smaller circle next to it labeled "church," and a tiny circle off to the side labeled "world."
"This has been evangelicalism's model," he says. "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved'—in old-style evangelicalism—or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs. Once your needs are met, then we think about how you can serve the church. And then, if there's anything left over, we ask how the church might serve the world."
He starts drawing again. "But what if it went the other way? This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son. Inside that circle is another one, the church, God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world. And inside that is a small circle, which is your self. It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."
________________________________________________________________
The Emerging Church, Part One
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week845/cover.html
"It can't be simply defined; it can't be simply categorized. And it's causing no end of frustration for people who'd like to have tidier boxes. This is the way they want it because they believe the gospel should have a local expression."
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Living On A Prayer
I finished work at 11pm tonight. I kind of like working late at my office - when nobody is around on my floor, I gamely leave the glass door open and play my CDs loud as I please. As I cleared up papers here and there and prepared to lock up and leave, I found myself looking out again towards the new National Library, which was also in the process of closing up for the night. My office is directly opposite the LIbrary - I get a pretty good view of the people walking around the upper floors.
I feel some kind of kinship with the new library. 3 years ago, when we first moved School of Thought into this building, the library was nothing but a gigantic brown construction site, all boarded up and enclosed. From the street level, you could not tell the mess that was going on inside. From my sixth floor perch, I could see everything within. As I slowly found my feet building the school, I found myself spending many a late night alone, looking out at the construction site.
For months, it seemed like nothing was happening. Nothing obvious at least. In architecture, you learn that the foundational work takes the longest. It takes months to analyse the soil condition, test the loading it can take, decide on the best piling system to use. For months, while I worked, so did a whole army of construction workers, industriously digging away, sinking pile after pile in what seemed like unending labour.
There was some kind of comfort in staring over all that foundational work. I felt the parallel in my own life: I was building a school, making sure all the foundations were right, trying not to do anything wrong, fretting about making mistakes, wondering about it's place in my walk with God.
Lying beyond the library site is an old church. There were many nights where I would stand at the window, staring at the cross on its steeple and feeling somehow comforted that it was there - watching over the construction work, watching over me, watching over my school. I would press my hand to the glass and pray out of sheer need. I gave the school and myself over to Him. I prayed for guidance, for comfort, for confidence. I would thank God for keeping the school going despite my lack of experience, despite my lack of anal managerial skill or razor-sharp business acumen. I would pray for fear to go away. I would pray and pray for a sign to show me what this was all about. I would tell God to take everything and shape it into whatever form He wanted for I truly felt lost so many times. I only knew how to deal with things day by day, with nothing more than hope in His wisdom. I wanted so many times to be lazy, to be half-hearted, to be irreponsible.
So tonight, as I looked out at the library in its pristine, whiteness, glowing peacefully in the night. I thought of how far it had come from its muddy beginnings - without structure, without foundation, without any thing that might hint at its beautiful future except for a bunch of blueprints conceived by some architect. Faithfully, construction workers trusted in that blueprint, trusted in that architect and just built their hearts out. Somehow the small work that was done each day added up.
I remember once the foundations were laid, the superstructure of the Library went up so fast I was astonished. I remember coming to work one day and being really shocked to see the first few columns soaring triumphantly from the ground. From there, the next few months was BAMBAMBAMBAM - column, floor, panelling, cladding. The speed was amazing. The heights the building reached was astonishing. For months, I could not grasp the scale of the building that was evolving before me with such blase ease.
When I look at the library, I see a metaphor of my work in the school. It comforts me.
I trust someday I will see the true form it will take on, far from its muddy beginnings, far from the capabilities of the singular construction worker.
Thank you God for being my visionary. I owe you too much to conceive.
I feel some kind of kinship with the new library. 3 years ago, when we first moved School of Thought into this building, the library was nothing but a gigantic brown construction site, all boarded up and enclosed. From the street level, you could not tell the mess that was going on inside. From my sixth floor perch, I could see everything within. As I slowly found my feet building the school, I found myself spending many a late night alone, looking out at the construction site.
For months, it seemed like nothing was happening. Nothing obvious at least. In architecture, you learn that the foundational work takes the longest. It takes months to analyse the soil condition, test the loading it can take, decide on the best piling system to use. For months, while I worked, so did a whole army of construction workers, industriously digging away, sinking pile after pile in what seemed like unending labour.
There was some kind of comfort in staring over all that foundational work. I felt the parallel in my own life: I was building a school, making sure all the foundations were right, trying not to do anything wrong, fretting about making mistakes, wondering about it's place in my walk with God.
Lying beyond the library site is an old church. There were many nights where I would stand at the window, staring at the cross on its steeple and feeling somehow comforted that it was there - watching over the construction work, watching over me, watching over my school. I would press my hand to the glass and pray out of sheer need. I gave the school and myself over to Him. I prayed for guidance, for comfort, for confidence. I would thank God for keeping the school going despite my lack of experience, despite my lack of anal managerial skill or razor-sharp business acumen. I would pray for fear to go away. I would pray and pray for a sign to show me what this was all about. I would tell God to take everything and shape it into whatever form He wanted for I truly felt lost so many times. I only knew how to deal with things day by day, with nothing more than hope in His wisdom. I wanted so many times to be lazy, to be half-hearted, to be irreponsible.
So tonight, as I looked out at the library in its pristine, whiteness, glowing peacefully in the night. I thought of how far it had come from its muddy beginnings - without structure, without foundation, without any thing that might hint at its beautiful future except for a bunch of blueprints conceived by some architect. Faithfully, construction workers trusted in that blueprint, trusted in that architect and just built their hearts out. Somehow the small work that was done each day added up.
I remember once the foundations were laid, the superstructure of the Library went up so fast I was astonished. I remember coming to work one day and being really shocked to see the first few columns soaring triumphantly from the ground. From there, the next few months was BAMBAMBAMBAM - column, floor, panelling, cladding. The speed was amazing. The heights the building reached was astonishing. For months, I could not grasp the scale of the building that was evolving before me with such blase ease.
When I look at the library, I see a metaphor of my work in the school. It comforts me.
I trust someday I will see the true form it will take on, far from its muddy beginnings, far from the capabilities of the singular construction worker.
Thank you God for being my visionary. I owe you too much to conceive.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Neonangel: Girl Genius
Reading a line from some random blog about "This is your life - are you where you should be?"
made me recall some seriously off-tangent careers I have contemplated half-seriously somewhere in my short life. Delusion can be a powerful thing.
TOP 3 WOEBEGONE CAREERS THE WORLD IS GLAD I NEVER TOOK UP:
1. Fashion Designer
At the height of primary school, I was the creme de la creme of the paper doll making world. I actually bought a USBOURNE book about entering the fashion industry. At Pri 5, I designed a hideous pink dress with oh so hip cut-out shoulders inspired by Psylocke's costume from the X-Men. Entered it in a competition that obviously nobody else participated in. The monstrosity got sewn and I made my friend wear it and model it. I am evil. It was that ugly. I also attempted a few *koff* cutting-edge looks in my teenage years - day-glo socks, cut-outs in my pants, scrawling "hip!" on my tee-shirt in glitter paint, peace signs, and worse - wore headbands for 2 years straight like I was a hippie, oh horrors horror upon horrors. I have an awful photo somewhere of me attempting to copy Debbie GIbson's look circa Electric Youth. You would think the mirror would have been nice and just broke the news to me that I was not looking remotely cool. :)
2. Broadway singer / musical playwright genius
early Secondary school - I contemplated being not just any Broadway singer...I wanted to play Jean Valjean. Yup you got that right. Who cares if I was female, chinese and not that great a singer to boot. I had a grand time memorising all his lines. Don't even ask about the CRAP musicals I supposedly wrote. They were basically ripoffs from stuff I heard but padded with new CRAP lyrics and some pretty lousy plots. Oh yes, every musical I "wrote" involved war, unrequited love and many people dying dramatically on stage. I have an inner drama queen. She is evil.
3. Superhero Comic creator
I proudly co-created an X-men offshoot called "Class X" together with a fellow nerd in RGS. We were so darn proud of our creation we actually showed it to our vice principal. "Class X" shockingly made it to 3 issues - and it was so cutting-edge that it had every conceivable stereotype and archetype in them. I lost the first 2 issues and today, evidence of Class X's existence lies buried under my bed in the form of "Issue 3 - Attack On the Mansion!"
There is a reaaaaaalllllllllly brilliant sequence in there of a hacker who manages to encrypt so much information that the computer blows apart a room. Wow. Talk about logic.
"Class X" was thinly disguised teenage fantasy - the heroines of the team were of course alter-egos of me and my friend. It was an excuse to invent cute alter-ego boyfriends. If this was Nerds Anonymous, I would confess my codename was Spitfire, I had the funky power to manipulate molecular structures and I had the coolest boyfriend ever. He was Gamer - the team leader who managed to trick aforementioned hacker into blowing apart the room. My friend only dated the team strong man, some Greek hunk. I picked personality and brains over money and brawn even back then okay. Don't play play.
Sigh. I am such a nerd.
Cut me and I bleed pure, unadulterated nerd.
See it's a very good thing that i ended up a teacher. The world is safe from day-glo cut-out fashion collections.
made me recall some seriously off-tangent careers I have contemplated half-seriously somewhere in my short life. Delusion can be a powerful thing.
TOP 3 WOEBEGONE CAREERS THE WORLD IS GLAD I NEVER TOOK UP:
1. Fashion Designer
At the height of primary school, I was the creme de la creme of the paper doll making world. I actually bought a USBOURNE book about entering the fashion industry. At Pri 5, I designed a hideous pink dress with oh so hip cut-out shoulders inspired by Psylocke's costume from the X-Men. Entered it in a competition that obviously nobody else participated in. The monstrosity got sewn and I made my friend wear it and model it. I am evil. It was that ugly. I also attempted a few *koff* cutting-edge looks in my teenage years - day-glo socks, cut-outs in my pants, scrawling "hip!" on my tee-shirt in glitter paint, peace signs, and worse - wore headbands for 2 years straight like I was a hippie, oh horrors horror upon horrors. I have an awful photo somewhere of me attempting to copy Debbie GIbson's look circa Electric Youth. You would think the mirror would have been nice and just broke the news to me that I was not looking remotely cool. :)
2. Broadway singer / musical playwright genius
early Secondary school - I contemplated being not just any Broadway singer...I wanted to play Jean Valjean. Yup you got that right. Who cares if I was female, chinese and not that great a singer to boot. I had a grand time memorising all his lines. Don't even ask about the CRAP musicals I supposedly wrote. They were basically ripoffs from stuff I heard but padded with new CRAP lyrics and some pretty lousy plots. Oh yes, every musical I "wrote" involved war, unrequited love and many people dying dramatically on stage. I have an inner drama queen. She is evil.
3. Superhero Comic creator
I proudly co-created an X-men offshoot called "Class X" together with a fellow nerd in RGS. We were so darn proud of our creation we actually showed it to our vice principal. "Class X" shockingly made it to 3 issues - and it was so cutting-edge that it had every conceivable stereotype and archetype in them. I lost the first 2 issues and today, evidence of Class X's existence lies buried under my bed in the form of "Issue 3 - Attack On the Mansion!"
There is a reaaaaaalllllllllly brilliant sequence in there of a hacker who manages to encrypt so much information that the computer blows apart a room. Wow. Talk about logic.
"Class X" was thinly disguised teenage fantasy - the heroines of the team were of course alter-egos of me and my friend. It was an excuse to invent cute alter-ego boyfriends. If this was Nerds Anonymous, I would confess my codename was Spitfire, I had the funky power to manipulate molecular structures and I had the coolest boyfriend ever. He was Gamer - the team leader who managed to trick aforementioned hacker into blowing apart the room. My friend only dated the team strong man, some Greek hunk. I picked personality and brains over money and brawn even back then okay. Don't play play.
Sigh. I am such a nerd.
Cut me and I bleed pure, unadulterated nerd.
See it's a very good thing that i ended up a teacher. The world is safe from day-glo cut-out fashion collections.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Harry Goes To War
finished Half-Blood Prince a week ago...definitely better than Order Of the Phoenix in terms of plot control. One more book to go....probably have to wait 2 more years. At least, in October I can look forward to Mark Millar's Ultimates 2 and George Martin's Feast of Crows!!!!! Wah lau, wait so long....
Liked:
-Tonks and Lupin. I have a soft spot for a suffering side-hero getting the girl. :)
- Snape, Voldemort and Draco's character evolution. The baddies are finally getting some 3 dimensional treatment
-a more mature Harry. Thank goodness he stopped SHOUTING.
Disliked:
- well....apart from stylistic problems I have with Rowling's type of writing....I generally enjoyed the book. Good, quick, trashy read that did not make me roll eyes...unlike *koff* Dan Brown.
Liked:
-Tonks and Lupin. I have a soft spot for a suffering side-hero getting the girl. :)
- Snape, Voldemort and Draco's character evolution. The baddies are finally getting some 3 dimensional treatment
-a more mature Harry. Thank goodness he stopped SHOUTING.
Disliked:
- well....apart from stylistic problems I have with Rowling's type of writing....I generally enjoyed the book. Good, quick, trashy read that did not make me roll eyes...unlike *koff* Dan Brown.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
a beautiful mind
2 weeks ago, I met M for the first time over coffee - we were hooked up by a mutual contact who felt we had to meet due to how similar our interests and agendas were regarding youth outreach. I was looking for a contact to bounce of my CIvics Education idea. M apparently was the "rainmaker" to talk to.
Anyhow, M turned out to be pretty much my kind of girl - gregarious, doped up on enthusiasm and talking in that kind of vocabulary only network-mindmap-abstract-thinking people use. She was also a proud, happy Christian. All that added up to a really cool breakfast meeting where we exchanged some sketchy ideas about radical, bold, alternative Christian outreach. Straight after we prayed together to end our breakfast, she started jotting down names on a little Post It.
See, M thinks in connections, amazing spiderweb-type thought processes. She makes immediate, mental links between people and causes that she knows. So straight off the bat, she was listing down every Christian that she knew who might be remotely keen on the stuff we were talking about and was already involved in some kinda cutting-edge independent ministry of their own. "We really should all meet just to see what can come out from a collective conversation of like-minded people." M declared, "You free for dinner in 2 weeks, Thursday?"
FAAST FORWARD to this past Thursday night, at the Book Cafe, I met a breathtakingly dynamic group of Christians who were natural social activists at heart, if not in name. I was struck by how all of us spoke in the same lingo and vocab of network-mindmap-abstract thinking. Usually when asked to explain my raw ideas to people, I have to work at trying to rephrase, quantify and simplify my thoughts into something that sounds workable and coherent. But in this crowd, people got it in a snap. Phwoar. That was cool! M really knew how to put like minds with like minds.
It was amazing how much energy these people put into their words, their passion for their ideas and the verve and conviction was so visible. The opening ice-breaker round of introductions was a simple, spontaneous "Hey let's take out interesting stuff from our bags to introduce ourselves". The table instantly filled with a collection of truly funky stuff - a UN Report, Henri Nouwen's Wounded Healer, a book on evangelising to the Postmoderns, a syringe-pen bought from CanTeen(an NGO for teens with cancer), postcards for 'Text In The City' creative writing competition etc. It was pretty telling of the crowd. Thankfully, I was currently reading some book on PAP Politics and another theological book instead of some trashy girly magazine. haha. Otherwise, it would be a pretty sad display on my part. :P
The group comprised of: (I will go by professions cos it is telling of what were their main skillsets)
1. The Architect
- funky dude who runs a non-denominational cell group for anyone with questions for Christians; a ministry for creative types, artists, theatre people etc.
2. The Suit
-cool gal who does branding, corporate strategy and ministered to families
3. The Missionary
- had left a high flying banking job to find her missionary future. just did Borneo, Acheh. Going to teach Burmese English in Malaysia. And in a few months, heading to LAS VEGAS for missions.(of all places!)
4. The Rainmaker - "M"
- consultant on various boards for various arts, youth, community activism; attached to UN Women's group; thinking of running a company encouraging business ethics
5. The Dreamer
- consultant on many of the same projects as M. Started Dream Factory, a group that assisted the realisation of young people's dreams and hopes
6. The Artiste
- theatre practioner with a ministry of using drama as a communication tool; currently a project creator at a local organisation that supported international community building.
7. The Teacher
-that would be me.
I thought it was cool...we were kinda like a mini Christian G7, debating about how to deal ideally and practically with pressing international issues. We concluded the night's fruitful sharing and super encouraging discussion with a good prayer.
It was really edifying to find a kind of collective Mind in this group, that was hard at work at putting their God-given Intellect for God-given purposes. We joked about how we could form a bizzare kind of Christian Thought Collective - a collective mind that worked to create methodologies, technologies, processes, and programmes for the use of the Church in these turbulent postmodern times.
You know what...I think it might actually happen. Wow. God works amazing stuff in people.
Just when you thought Singapore could not get cooler, it just did. Who would have known such dynamic, doped up on intellectual pursuit and high on enthusiasm types were just around the corner? There is much much hope for the Church to come :)
Anyhow, M turned out to be pretty much my kind of girl - gregarious, doped up on enthusiasm and talking in that kind of vocabulary only network-mindmap-abstract-thinking people use. She was also a proud, happy Christian. All that added up to a really cool breakfast meeting where we exchanged some sketchy ideas about radical, bold, alternative Christian outreach. Straight after we prayed together to end our breakfast, she started jotting down names on a little Post It.
See, M thinks in connections, amazing spiderweb-type thought processes. She makes immediate, mental links between people and causes that she knows. So straight off the bat, she was listing down every Christian that she knew who might be remotely keen on the stuff we were talking about and was already involved in some kinda cutting-edge independent ministry of their own. "We really should all meet just to see what can come out from a collective conversation of like-minded people." M declared, "You free for dinner in 2 weeks, Thursday?"
FAAST FORWARD to this past Thursday night, at the Book Cafe, I met a breathtakingly dynamic group of Christians who were natural social activists at heart, if not in name. I was struck by how all of us spoke in the same lingo and vocab of network-mindmap-abstract thinking. Usually when asked to explain my raw ideas to people, I have to work at trying to rephrase, quantify and simplify my thoughts into something that sounds workable and coherent. But in this crowd, people got it in a snap. Phwoar. That was cool! M really knew how to put like minds with like minds.
It was amazing how much energy these people put into their words, their passion for their ideas and the verve and conviction was so visible. The opening ice-breaker round of introductions was a simple, spontaneous "Hey let's take out interesting stuff from our bags to introduce ourselves". The table instantly filled with a collection of truly funky stuff - a UN Report, Henri Nouwen's Wounded Healer, a book on evangelising to the Postmoderns, a syringe-pen bought from CanTeen(an NGO for teens with cancer), postcards for 'Text In The City' creative writing competition etc. It was pretty telling of the crowd. Thankfully, I was currently reading some book on PAP Politics and another theological book instead of some trashy girly magazine. haha. Otherwise, it would be a pretty sad display on my part. :P
The group comprised of: (I will go by professions cos it is telling of what were their main skillsets)
1. The Architect
- funky dude who runs a non-denominational cell group for anyone with questions for Christians; a ministry for creative types, artists, theatre people etc.
2. The Suit
-cool gal who does branding, corporate strategy and ministered to families
3. The Missionary
- had left a high flying banking job to find her missionary future. just did Borneo, Acheh. Going to teach Burmese English in Malaysia. And in a few months, heading to LAS VEGAS for missions.(of all places!)
4. The Rainmaker - "M"
- consultant on various boards for various arts, youth, community activism; attached to UN Women's group; thinking of running a company encouraging business ethics
5. The Dreamer
- consultant on many of the same projects as M. Started Dream Factory, a group that assisted the realisation of young people's dreams and hopes
6. The Artiste
- theatre practioner with a ministry of using drama as a communication tool; currently a project creator at a local organisation that supported international community building.
7. The Teacher
-that would be me.
I thought it was cool...we were kinda like a mini Christian G7, debating about how to deal ideally and practically with pressing international issues. We concluded the night's fruitful sharing and super encouraging discussion with a good prayer.
It was really edifying to find a kind of collective Mind in this group, that was hard at work at putting their God-given Intellect for God-given purposes. We joked about how we could form a bizzare kind of Christian Thought Collective - a collective mind that worked to create methodologies, technologies, processes, and programmes for the use of the Church in these turbulent postmodern times.
You know what...I think it might actually happen. Wow. God works amazing stuff in people.
Just when you thought Singapore could not get cooler, it just did. Who would have known such dynamic, doped up on intellectual pursuit and high on enthusiasm types were just around the corner? There is much much hope for the Church to come :)
Thursday, July 21, 2005
sin city - postscript on heroes and antiheroes
postscript to thoughts on heroes and antiheroes:
just got back from watching Robert "From Dusk Till Dawn" Roduiguez's take on Sin City. I remembered first coming across Frank Miller's graphic novels when I was in secondary school.
I remembered skimming through the cannibal sequence at 15 and finding it gruesome enough for me to try and blank it out from my head. I like his eye for black-and-white ink art but well...let's say watching the movie reminded me again of why I blanked out so much of his plots in the first place.
Much as I admired his linework, I could never bring myself to buy a copy of Sin CIty to keep. I just never pictured myself re-reading his stuff again and again. I do own Miller's Batman classic The Dark Knight Returns - that was great story-telling. If you loved Batman Begins, much of it was inspired by that and Miller's other Batman classic, Year One.
Back to Sin CIty and why I don't own a copy: It's not so much the over-the-top sex and violence thing but more because I found the whole macho-man-rescuing-tough-oversexed-dames thing a little trite after a while. His villains were the stuff of stereotypes at heart - the crooked politician, the sanctimonious hypocritical religious figures. His antiheroes and antiheroines were always these bizarre cariacatures, living a caricature of a life. It was like he deliberately pushed the mark of film noir to its extremes, just to see how ridiculous he could get. His anti heroes and antiheroines are a smudge away from absolute villainy.
Miller was my first encounter with graphic novellists that "push the boundaries" through flagrant depictions of sexuality and over-the-top violence. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and to a certain extent early Neil Gaiman did it too. In the comics world, these writers and artists are regarded as a heroes for doing so. Their works are hailed as "brave" and "cutting edge".
I would rather heap those accolades on graphic novellists like Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman or Craig Thompson frankly. Sacco's graphic novels drawn directly from the battlegrounds of Palestine, Bosnia and Afghanistan are brave in every sense. Not only do they boldly speak what no politician dares to speak about, they are documented straight from the mouths of the victims - all information collected at great mortal risk by Sacco himself.
Thompson and Spiegelman's bravery is of a different sort. Thompson's Blankets and Spiegelman's Maus are autobiographies - attempts to courageously capture their most fragile and painful memories in pen and ink for others to connect with.
Sin City is a movie that deserves to be watched solely for being the most successful translation of graphic art to screen to date. The use of lines, angles,shadow and light was truly watershed-stuff in the 80s. But as for the rest of the movie, it's hardly cutting edge or brave stuff. There are one or two inspired moments of dark humour but overall, I think even Miller would admit hat he himself has written far better stories.
just got back from watching Robert "From Dusk Till Dawn" Roduiguez's take on Sin City. I remembered first coming across Frank Miller's graphic novels when I was in secondary school.
I remembered skimming through the cannibal sequence at 15 and finding it gruesome enough for me to try and blank it out from my head. I like his eye for black-and-white ink art but well...let's say watching the movie reminded me again of why I blanked out so much of his plots in the first place.
Much as I admired his linework, I could never bring myself to buy a copy of Sin CIty to keep. I just never pictured myself re-reading his stuff again and again. I do own Miller's Batman classic The Dark Knight Returns - that was great story-telling. If you loved Batman Begins, much of it was inspired by that and Miller's other Batman classic, Year One.
Back to Sin CIty and why I don't own a copy: It's not so much the over-the-top sex and violence thing but more because I found the whole macho-man-rescuing-tough-oversexed-dames thing a little trite after a while. His villains were the stuff of stereotypes at heart - the crooked politician, the sanctimonious hypocritical religious figures. His antiheroes and antiheroines were always these bizarre cariacatures, living a caricature of a life. It was like he deliberately pushed the mark of film noir to its extremes, just to see how ridiculous he could get. His anti heroes and antiheroines are a smudge away from absolute villainy.
Miller was my first encounter with graphic novellists that "push the boundaries" through flagrant depictions of sexuality and over-the-top violence. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and to a certain extent early Neil Gaiman did it too. In the comics world, these writers and artists are regarded as a heroes for doing so. Their works are hailed as "brave" and "cutting edge".
I would rather heap those accolades on graphic novellists like Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman or Craig Thompson frankly. Sacco's graphic novels drawn directly from the battlegrounds of Palestine, Bosnia and Afghanistan are brave in every sense. Not only do they boldly speak what no politician dares to speak about, they are documented straight from the mouths of the victims - all information collected at great mortal risk by Sacco himself.
Thompson and Spiegelman's bravery is of a different sort. Thompson's Blankets and Spiegelman's Maus are autobiographies - attempts to courageously capture their most fragile and painful memories in pen and ink for others to connect with.
Sin City is a movie that deserves to be watched solely for being the most successful translation of graphic art to screen to date. The use of lines, angles,shadow and light was truly watershed-stuff in the 80s. But as for the rest of the movie, it's hardly cutting edge or brave stuff. There are one or two inspired moments of dark humour but overall, I think even Miller would admit hat he himself has written far better stories.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Holding Out for a Hero
The blogosphere is ablaze with debate over the actions of two of their most high profile bloggerati.
At a recent convention, a controversial female blogger bared her breasts in public to take photos with another popular male blogger. 2 other popular female bloggers, XX and MS took offence, wrote about it, and subsequently faced a slew of ugly condemnations. Basically, people were going on about how cool and brave the flasher was and "who are you to judge any way, you **** "
what struck me was what XX wrote:
"... Flashing your breasts wouldn't make you a unique, or as so many idiots described, BRAVE (I find it so ludicrous I almost cried. In the past, bravery is when you fight dragons. Nowadays, you just flash a boob and you are so F***ING brave) person..."
Sad but true. It's really telling what deeds get associated with bravery and heroism in our modern culture.
Many kids i teach today have no clue who Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Sun Yet Sen, Doctors Without Borders are.
We have forgotten to teach children that courage and heroism is sometimes founded upon quiet, dignified decisions of integrity, responsibility and righteousness.
Small decisions made by simple people can turn the whole world around as demonstrated by all the above examples. Small, simple decisions made with the right values have the power to generate tangible solutions the world needs.
We cannot allow heroism to be primarily associated with bigness, fortune, daredevilishness, glitz and grand gestures. There are kids who think Hitler, Stalin and Mao as a heroes because they were "cool" and "powerful".
This is not a far stretch for a culture that champions anyone who simply "dares to be different" and "pushes the boundaries of society" - never you mind whether "different" is in itself a good thing, or whether certain boundaries in society are worth keeping.
What is true heroism then? Dr Michael Pucci in his essay "Heroes and Anti-Heroes" put it better than I could:
".....But everyone knows superpowers alone do not make the hero. Any comic book kid will tell you that superpowers can also make a villain. I have never heard a better expression of this error of thought than a line from the young Lex Luthor in the Superman series, Smallville. "I don't want to do good things," he says, "I want to do great things." That subtle tradeoff of goodness for greatness is the slippery slope......
....What we need are more small heroes who do good. We forget that it doesn't take much to be a hero these days. Just doing the right thing, makes you shine like a light in the dark and bite like salt on the tongue. Just being faithful to your spouse, to your word in your dealings, makes you stand out more than a man in a stretch suit and cape.
And forget power. It requires no more superpowers than that of a humble hotel owner to carve a bright ray of hope in the wicked darkness of genocide. The hero of the events captured in the film "Hotel Rwanda" was most shocked by the fact that everyone all over the country was not doing the same thing he was, harboring people in anyway they could against the slaughter. His heroism was to him very ordinary, and so it should be. "
(the rest of the article about heroism
can be found in http://www.vantagepoint.com.sg/crossroads.html)
At a recent convention, a controversial female blogger bared her breasts in public to take photos with another popular male blogger. 2 other popular female bloggers, XX and MS took offence, wrote about it, and subsequently faced a slew of ugly condemnations. Basically, people were going on about how cool and brave the flasher was and "who are you to judge any way, you **** "
what struck me was what XX wrote:
"... Flashing your breasts wouldn't make you a unique, or as so many idiots described, BRAVE (I find it so ludicrous I almost cried. In the past, bravery is when you fight dragons. Nowadays, you just flash a boob and you are so F***ING brave) person..."
Sad but true. It's really telling what deeds get associated with bravery and heroism in our modern culture.
Many kids i teach today have no clue who Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Sun Yet Sen, Doctors Without Borders are.
We have forgotten to teach children that courage and heroism is sometimes founded upon quiet, dignified decisions of integrity, responsibility and righteousness.
Small decisions made by simple people can turn the whole world around as demonstrated by all the above examples. Small, simple decisions made with the right values have the power to generate tangible solutions the world needs.
We cannot allow heroism to be primarily associated with bigness, fortune, daredevilishness, glitz and grand gestures. There are kids who think Hitler, Stalin and Mao as a heroes because they were "cool" and "powerful".
This is not a far stretch for a culture that champions anyone who simply "dares to be different" and "pushes the boundaries of society" - never you mind whether "different" is in itself a good thing, or whether certain boundaries in society are worth keeping.
What is true heroism then? Dr Michael Pucci in his essay "Heroes and Anti-Heroes" put it better than I could:
".....But everyone knows superpowers alone do not make the hero. Any comic book kid will tell you that superpowers can also make a villain. I have never heard a better expression of this error of thought than a line from the young Lex Luthor in the Superman series, Smallville. "I don't want to do good things," he says, "I want to do great things." That subtle tradeoff of goodness for greatness is the slippery slope......
....What we need are more small heroes who do good. We forget that it doesn't take much to be a hero these days. Just doing the right thing, makes you shine like a light in the dark and bite like salt on the tongue. Just being faithful to your spouse, to your word in your dealings, makes you stand out more than a man in a stretch suit and cape.
And forget power. It requires no more superpowers than that of a humble hotel owner to carve a bright ray of hope in the wicked darkness of genocide. The hero of the events captured in the film "Hotel Rwanda" was most shocked by the fact that everyone all over the country was not doing the same thing he was, harboring people in anyway they could against the slaughter. His heroism was to him very ordinary, and so it should be. "
(the rest of the article about heroism
can be found in http://www.vantagepoint.com.sg/crossroads.html)
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Snobs R' Us
ARPC is a great church - I stay in it because I think it has humble leadership. a pretty genuine community of earnest believers, a constant desire to walk the straight and narrow. I am glad too that we have a head pastor who has stated numerous times that we need to make sure we do not get too cocky about the progress of our church. I stay in this church because he has plainly stated that the moment he and the leadership start going down questionable paths, the congregation should not hesitate to leave.
Like him, I understand and fear that the greatest danger of being in a "good, Bible-teaching, godly" church is when you get too caught up in your own glamour of being a "good, Bible-teaching, godly" Christian.
Snobbery (aka Pride) is a sneaky thing - it creeps up in your words and actions insidiously. Dismissive words come just a little too quickly to the tongue, what started as opinions spiral slowly into diatribes and rants, labels start replacing names and faces. We can get snobbish over "Christians who just don't get it" and before we know it, we have adopted the "Holier Than Thou" attitude so many of us hate.
I speak as one who knows the Dark Side. (cue: heavy Darth breathing). I know I am not a nice person. I know I have ugly things to say. I try hard to keep it in check and mince my words into finer things. While some may think it self-censorship, I prefer to see it as self-control. Sometimes I am successful sometimes I am not. It's really quite scary to spend a day watching and weighing out what comes out from one's mouth. Try it and you have a profound new respect for the BIble's warnings about how the little rudder of a tongue can steer one's whole life into nasty little directions if one is not careful. Extraordinary things can tumble out of that wretched little tongue of ours that we wish we could retract.
Over the weekend, FunkyMonkey mentioned that it was very disheartening to hear Christians complain. How can a Christian bow his or her head in grace and say "Thanks for the food, Lord and everything you have blessed us with" and yet follow that up with complaints about the quality of food served? Or the quality of the hotel rooms during a church camp? Music ministries across different churches tussle constantly with the desire to play beautiful, professional standard music and coping with voluntary musicians who offer much heart but little talent. How do you cope with Christians who voice out complaints about fellow Christians in church? Do Christians have a right to criticise each other's quality or type of ministries?
We cannot and should not blanket ban critique. There is a time and place for a well-timed word of truth. Critique definitely helps us perfect our tasks. It may also help us take a more careful look at our selves and what we are doing. There is a time and place for a well weighed out, fairly balanced word - as long as that word is delivered with the focus on building up not just a "ministry" but to build up a "person".
There in lies the problem - Building up ministries is easier, I think, relative to building up a person. Theoretically, you can perform a music piece, run a Youth group, answer theological questions to perfection of the Nth degree as long as you plough in the requisite hours. That's if we look at these ministries at a purely "task" level. If we look at ministries as what they are meant to be - a building up of human hearts, minds and strengths for God's purposes - then we witness a far harder task.
Human beings are tricky tricky things. They need to be handled with finesse, sensitivity, caution, gentleness, kindness, firmness, justice......so many many many factors. Not to mention the crappy fact that you yourself are one of these tricky tricky human beings!
Jesus summed it up best by telling us simply to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves". Love is a very heavy word. It is weighed down by the tyranny of expectations, the fraglity of hopes and the yearning for fairness. Worse. we are expected to be this careful about the way we love with all people - the ones we gravitate to and the ones we rather not deal with.
Till this day, I have come across two guiding principles which have helped me in my tenuous walk towards a kinder, more godly, more grown-up faith.
one: Love + Justice
Through out the Bible, the themes of Truthful Justice and Love run parallel. In a way, they are symbiotic creatures. You cannot have one without the other. Both give each other meaning. Justice without Love is a monstrous, cold creature that upholds rules and regulations to the point of injustice. Love without Justice is ignorant folly, hand-holding people down a path to hell strewn with pretty lies. Somehow in our daily walks we have to balance out both in all that we do.
two: Ba Ba Black Sheep
Mike Raiter once shared this story when asked what he would do when Christians disagree with Christians. A family wanted to sing together at a church camp. The 16 year old wanted to do jazzy Hillsongs type songs. The parents wanted good, old-fashioned hymns. The 3 year old wanted Ba Ba Black Sheep. The whole family ended up singing Ba Ba Black Sheep even though it was below their capabilities. But they picked that song because it was the one song they could sing together for now.
Should the family continue singing BaBa in every church camp? Of course not...with each year and with the family's help, the 3 year old would have advanced on to more complicated tunes, expanding the repertoire of what the whole family could sing together. The constant theme though was that They Wanted to Sing Together As Long As They Possibly Could. A church should prize unity among the body.
These have been encouraging principles for me to keep in mind. Encourage...what a word...it means to put courage into someone. We seldom stop to think of why the word encourage is written the way it is. We need to put strength and courage into each other more often. By doing so, we tell them, what you believe in about God's ways....is worth it...and it works. The Christian walk is hard enough without your fellow racers taking the wind out of your sails.
A well-placed word, a timely compliment sincerely offered can sometimes cement a ministry, build a church far more profoundly than a dozen chastisements. Sometimes it may be worth it to swallow down words of criticism for another day, another time or after one has put a lot more thought into reshaping those words in more edifiying form.
Like him, I understand and fear that the greatest danger of being in a "good, Bible-teaching, godly" church is when you get too caught up in your own glamour of being a "good, Bible-teaching, godly" Christian.
Snobbery (aka Pride) is a sneaky thing - it creeps up in your words and actions insidiously. Dismissive words come just a little too quickly to the tongue, what started as opinions spiral slowly into diatribes and rants, labels start replacing names and faces. We can get snobbish over "Christians who just don't get it" and before we know it, we have adopted the "Holier Than Thou" attitude so many of us hate.
I speak as one who knows the Dark Side. (cue: heavy Darth breathing). I know I am not a nice person. I know I have ugly things to say. I try hard to keep it in check and mince my words into finer things. While some may think it self-censorship, I prefer to see it as self-control. Sometimes I am successful sometimes I am not. It's really quite scary to spend a day watching and weighing out what comes out from one's mouth. Try it and you have a profound new respect for the BIble's warnings about how the little rudder of a tongue can steer one's whole life into nasty little directions if one is not careful. Extraordinary things can tumble out of that wretched little tongue of ours that we wish we could retract.
Over the weekend, FunkyMonkey mentioned that it was very disheartening to hear Christians complain. How can a Christian bow his or her head in grace and say "Thanks for the food, Lord and everything you have blessed us with" and yet follow that up with complaints about the quality of food served? Or the quality of the hotel rooms during a church camp? Music ministries across different churches tussle constantly with the desire to play beautiful, professional standard music and coping with voluntary musicians who offer much heart but little talent. How do you cope with Christians who voice out complaints about fellow Christians in church? Do Christians have a right to criticise each other's quality or type of ministries?
We cannot and should not blanket ban critique. There is a time and place for a well-timed word of truth. Critique definitely helps us perfect our tasks. It may also help us take a more careful look at our selves and what we are doing. There is a time and place for a well weighed out, fairly balanced word - as long as that word is delivered with the focus on building up not just a "ministry" but to build up a "person".
There in lies the problem - Building up ministries is easier, I think, relative to building up a person. Theoretically, you can perform a music piece, run a Youth group, answer theological questions to perfection of the Nth degree as long as you plough in the requisite hours. That's if we look at these ministries at a purely "task" level. If we look at ministries as what they are meant to be - a building up of human hearts, minds and strengths for God's purposes - then we witness a far harder task.
Human beings are tricky tricky things. They need to be handled with finesse, sensitivity, caution, gentleness, kindness, firmness, justice......so many many many factors. Not to mention the crappy fact that you yourself are one of these tricky tricky human beings!
Jesus summed it up best by telling us simply to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves". Love is a very heavy word. It is weighed down by the tyranny of expectations, the fraglity of hopes and the yearning for fairness. Worse. we are expected to be this careful about the way we love with all people - the ones we gravitate to and the ones we rather not deal with.
Till this day, I have come across two guiding principles which have helped me in my tenuous walk towards a kinder, more godly, more grown-up faith.
one: Love + Justice
Through out the Bible, the themes of Truthful Justice and Love run parallel. In a way, they are symbiotic creatures. You cannot have one without the other. Both give each other meaning. Justice without Love is a monstrous, cold creature that upholds rules and regulations to the point of injustice. Love without Justice is ignorant folly, hand-holding people down a path to hell strewn with pretty lies. Somehow in our daily walks we have to balance out both in all that we do.
two: Ba Ba Black Sheep
Mike Raiter once shared this story when asked what he would do when Christians disagree with Christians. A family wanted to sing together at a church camp. The 16 year old wanted to do jazzy Hillsongs type songs. The parents wanted good, old-fashioned hymns. The 3 year old wanted Ba Ba Black Sheep. The whole family ended up singing Ba Ba Black Sheep even though it was below their capabilities. But they picked that song because it was the one song they could sing together for now.
Should the family continue singing BaBa in every church camp? Of course not...with each year and with the family's help, the 3 year old would have advanced on to more complicated tunes, expanding the repertoire of what the whole family could sing together. The constant theme though was that They Wanted to Sing Together As Long As They Possibly Could. A church should prize unity among the body.
These have been encouraging principles for me to keep in mind. Encourage...what a word...it means to put courage into someone. We seldom stop to think of why the word encourage is written the way it is. We need to put strength and courage into each other more often. By doing so, we tell them, what you believe in about God's ways....is worth it...and it works. The Christian walk is hard enough without your fellow racers taking the wind out of your sails.
A well-placed word, a timely compliment sincerely offered can sometimes cement a ministry, build a church far more profoundly than a dozen chastisements. Sometimes it may be worth it to swallow down words of criticism for another day, another time or after one has put a lot more thought into reshaping those words in more edifiying form.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
feet of clay
have been trawling the net looking up all the blogs on the NKF thingee, am feeling conscience stricken. I woke up today wondering how TT Durai was feeling somewhere across the island - was he dreading facing another day of public fury? was he depressed? was he blase? and it got me thinking about how tragic the whole story was.
Durai was truly visionary and i have no doubt that he sincerely believes he is doing the right thing. But sincerity is not enough, it's more important to examine what you are pouring all that sincere belief into. Somewhere along the line, the original vision of NKF must have gotten lost.
At any rate, the man like anyone of us has feet of clay. His mistake happened to be big, public and extremely costly. He got found out. Let's just focus on what we can do to repair the big mistake instead of...i don't know...photoshopping his head on some animal or something. That's just kicking a man when he is down....and boy, is he down.
I guess I have had enough of reading nasty comments and malicious jibes about him. I have definitely passed my own snide little comments or had bitchy giggles about him in conversations with friends.
So cos of little Mr Conscience (aka Holy Spirit) pricking away, i must declare i cannot be yet another one in the masses throwing stones at the guy, severely tempted as I am. After all, if this happened to a friend, I would not treat him this way. Why should I feel any more justified at flaming him or making fun of him just because he is a public figure / big time "fat cat' CEO? cannot lah....my conscience is prickling.
To put it bluntly, (though i hate how cliche this has become ) what would Jesus do?
He would be a lot more firm and unyielding about the wrongness of Durai's actions but he would also be a whole lot more gracious and kind than I have been.
In my opinion, NKF should be held accountable to all the points raised. Durai should make a public apology and deliver a good explanation once and for all. But yeah....I am personally drawing the line for myself at having a good laugh or feeling all righteous at his expense.
Durai was truly visionary and i have no doubt that he sincerely believes he is doing the right thing. But sincerity is not enough, it's more important to examine what you are pouring all that sincere belief into. Somewhere along the line, the original vision of NKF must have gotten lost.
At any rate, the man like anyone of us has feet of clay. His mistake happened to be big, public and extremely costly. He got found out. Let's just focus on what we can do to repair the big mistake instead of...i don't know...photoshopping his head on some animal or something. That's just kicking a man when he is down....and boy, is he down.
I guess I have had enough of reading nasty comments and malicious jibes about him. I have definitely passed my own snide little comments or had bitchy giggles about him in conversations with friends.
So cos of little Mr Conscience (aka Holy Spirit) pricking away, i must declare i cannot be yet another one in the masses throwing stones at the guy, severely tempted as I am. After all, if this happened to a friend, I would not treat him this way. Why should I feel any more justified at flaming him or making fun of him just because he is a public figure / big time "fat cat' CEO? cannot lah....my conscience is prickling.
To put it bluntly, (though i hate how cliche this has become ) what would Jesus do?
He would be a lot more firm and unyielding about the wrongness of Durai's actions but he would also be a whole lot more gracious and kind than I have been.
In my opinion, NKF should be held accountable to all the points raised. Durai should make a public apology and deliver a good explanation once and for all. But yeah....I am personally drawing the line for myself at having a good laugh or feeling all righteous at his expense.
Revenge of the SiPH
Do not underestimate the power of 3 full pages in the almighty Straits Times for 2 consecutive days, young jedis. Fear the SiPH as they rake NKF's tattered reputation over the coals. I almost feel sorry for TT Durai.
Apparently, vandals have gone crazy, spraypainting "LIAR" all over the NKF building's gates. NKF has also been getting a rush of abusive phone calls. hiyah....that's just not nice. can understand the sentiment but well...there are better ways to get NKF to wake up its ideas. And I totally think NKF needs some major "waking up of ideas" The backlash is swelling....scarys yah.
in the spirit of fairness: here are 3 links, one positive, one negative and one balanced about the NKF debacle
From Oikono, one of the very rare posts defending the NKF
http://oikono.blogspot.com/2005/07/in-defense-of-nkf-ceos-compensation.html
Some well reasoned observations from John Lim about the debacle
http://please-take-your-pap-smear-test.blogspot.com/2005/07/nkf-my-little-commentary.html
...and a pretty funny and super-salty diatribe on NKF from superuglyfrangipani:
http://nonfriction.blogspot.com/2005/07/when-i-grow-up-i-wanna-be-ceo-of-nkf.html
this has given me some interesting food for thought in the light of my waffling over whether to turn School of Thought into a social enterprise, set up a non-profit branch of SOT, or keep it for profit and just independent non-profit projects on the side.
Wondering which way is the cleanest foundation to build upon....at the moment I am leaning towards doing independent non-profit projects or setting up a second non-profit organisation under SOT. The Social enterprise thing is very new and quite tricky to think through I think. But I think it's safe to assume I am never gonna be getting $25,000 in salary with a 12 month bonus. darn. :)
Apparently, vandals have gone crazy, spraypainting "LIAR" all over the NKF building's gates. NKF has also been getting a rush of abusive phone calls. hiyah....that's just not nice. can understand the sentiment but well...there are better ways to get NKF to wake up its ideas. And I totally think NKF needs some major "waking up of ideas" The backlash is swelling....scarys yah.
in the spirit of fairness: here are 3 links, one positive, one negative and one balanced about the NKF debacle
From Oikono, one of the very rare posts defending the NKF
http://oikono.blogspot.com/2005/07/in-defense-of-nkf-ceos-compensation.html
Some well reasoned observations from John Lim about the debacle
http://please-take-your-pap-smear-test.blogspot.com/2005/07/nkf-my-little-commentary.html
...and a pretty funny and super-salty diatribe on NKF from superuglyfrangipani:
http://nonfriction.blogspot.com/2005/07/when-i-grow-up-i-wanna-be-ceo-of-nkf.html
this has given me some interesting food for thought in the light of my waffling over whether to turn School of Thought into a social enterprise, set up a non-profit branch of SOT, or keep it for profit and just independent non-profit projects on the side.
Wondering which way is the cleanest foundation to build upon....at the moment I am leaning towards doing independent non-profit projects or setting up a second non-profit organisation under SOT. The Social enterprise thing is very new and quite tricky to think through I think. But I think it's safe to assume I am never gonna be getting $25,000 in salary with a 12 month bonus. darn. :)
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
the $600,000 question
NKF is getting majorly skewered in the local news reporting about the ongoing trial of NKF vs. SPH. Have never seen such full at verbatim reportage of court exchanges before. NKF is not coming out looking good from this at all....several times, Davinder Singh was quite cutting and straight for the jugular in his line of questions towards the NKF CEO.
But yup, the big $600,000 question is: is it right stewardship of public funds for a charity to award its CEO a $600,000 a year pay package, 12 months bonus, business class privileges and access to 2 cars? Is it right for the same charity to not make more of an effort to reveal the actual figures of its expenditure? Is it right for a charity to not correct a significant mistake in figures of actual people helped? I accept the NKF's acknowledgement that some things ought to have been done better. But the fact that all these mistakes only came to light in court is pretty damaging to their integrity.
The NKF is one of the non profit sector's biggest success story, its controversial adherence to business sector values and methodologies has been a big reason why they have come so far.
But one cannot help but wonder how far can a non-profit charity play by for-profit rules and not come out looking slightly murky. It's just like how religion and politics cannot mix - religion inevitably comes out looking dodgy. I do find it disturbing when a CEO of a charity starts talking like a corporate, focusing on corporate language like "branding", 'privacy" etc. For the same reasons why I find it disturbing when preachers on the pulpit start adopting the talk of a top sales man or self-help guru. The juxtaposition is just too....jarring.
I wonder how NKF intends to salvage its reputation after this. They need to do something fast and significant to recover from this. It will be pretty sad if they did not even attempt to explain themselves more clearly to the public who has supported them so earnestly. For their sake, I really hope they come out better from this.
But yup, the big $600,000 question is: is it right stewardship of public funds for a charity to award its CEO a $600,000 a year pay package, 12 months bonus, business class privileges and access to 2 cars? Is it right for the same charity to not make more of an effort to reveal the actual figures of its expenditure? Is it right for a charity to not correct a significant mistake in figures of actual people helped? I accept the NKF's acknowledgement that some things ought to have been done better. But the fact that all these mistakes only came to light in court is pretty damaging to their integrity.
The NKF is one of the non profit sector's biggest success story, its controversial adherence to business sector values and methodologies has been a big reason why they have come so far.
But one cannot help but wonder how far can a non-profit charity play by for-profit rules and not come out looking slightly murky. It's just like how religion and politics cannot mix - religion inevitably comes out looking dodgy. I do find it disturbing when a CEO of a charity starts talking like a corporate, focusing on corporate language like "branding", 'privacy" etc. For the same reasons why I find it disturbing when preachers on the pulpit start adopting the talk of a top sales man or self-help guru. The juxtaposition is just too....jarring.
I wonder how NKF intends to salvage its reputation after this. They need to do something fast and significant to recover from this. It will be pretty sad if they did not even attempt to explain themselves more clearly to the public who has supported them so earnestly. For their sake, I really hope they come out better from this.
40 years of The Little Red Dot
To commemorate the upcoming national day celebrations - This is a pic of WatermelonGal's patriotic platter of fruit from last year's farewell party for C+C Lawyer Factory.
I love National Day. When I was a kid, I thought We Are Singapore was the best ever national day anthem. Then again it could have been the pretty cute guy they got to sing the opening lines in the premiering video.
Was thinking it would be fun to do a National Day Celebration Party. We can dress up as our favourite Local Symbols/Stereotypes - Merlion, Singapore Idol, saarabat stall uncle, prata man, mat rocker, trishaw rider, the old multi-tasking, harmonica-blowing busker who wears clogs, Sir Stamford RAffles, Rich-ACS-Boy, SmartyPantsRJCBoy, BrashConventGirl...the list of possibilities is endless.
We can eat all our favourite local dishes - da-pow from our favourite hawker centres. Play retro music again (haha) since it is about 40 years of celebrations. and for doorgifts, everybody gets a nice pack of erasers to play eraser game.
haha. which reminds me i once drew a set of cartoons about The MIsadventures of The Little Red Dot...about a snooty know-it-all little pea-sized dot who plays bureaucrat. must try and dig them up and post them in the spirit of coming August....
I love National Day. When I was a kid, I thought We Are Singapore was the best ever national day anthem. Then again it could have been the pretty cute guy they got to sing the opening lines in the premiering video.
Was thinking it would be fun to do a National Day Celebration Party. We can dress up as our favourite Local Symbols/Stereotypes - Merlion, Singapore Idol, saarabat stall uncle, prata man, mat rocker, trishaw rider, the old multi-tasking, harmonica-blowing busker who wears clogs, Sir Stamford RAffles, Rich-ACS-Boy, SmartyPantsRJCBoy, BrashConventGirl...the list of possibilities is endless.
We can eat all our favourite local dishes - da-pow from our favourite hawker centres. Play retro music again (haha) since it is about 40 years of celebrations. and for doorgifts, everybody gets a nice pack of erasers to play eraser game.
haha. which reminds me i once drew a set of cartoons about The MIsadventures of The Little Red Dot...about a snooty know-it-all little pea-sized dot who plays bureaucrat. must try and dig them up and post them in the spirit of coming August....
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Parenthood
3 friends of mine are having babies at the same time - SpotstheBear, Tenuvil and SheofTheUnpronounceableName. MrBear took this shot of me staring at the bigness of MrsBear's bump.
I wonder what kind of mother I would be. Would I live up to my own ideals of godly parenting - ever supportive, cultivating etc? Would I find the time to slowly teach my kid not just how to love God, love others but throw in some funky art, lit and cooking lessons into the mix? Or would I just degenerate into becoming a naggy shouty, caning harridan?
For that matter, given my swinging (*koff*) single status, I wonder whether I will have the chance to find out. :)
Part of growing up into adulthood has been the recognition of how difficult and thankless a task parenthood must be. Growing out of adolescence and walking closer to Christ has helped me to understand the need to treat my parents with more grace, more love, less blame.
For a short time last year, struck by guilt that I was not putting my money where my blathering mouth was concerning Christian service to the community, I started tutoring at ChildAtStreet11. This was a month or so before I got hooked into the whole youth consultation exercise.
It was a cool little latch-key centre for children from poor, single parent families. The centre in effect was playing parent to these kids in their crucial growing up years where their real parents could not afford to because of pragmatic bread-butter issues. Most kids had a father stuck in rehab or prison and a mother who was working horrendous hours as a cleaner or checkout aunty etc. blue collar maximum hour minimum wage job.
From 10am to 1pm, I did a standard routine with my attached kids - check if they did all their school homework, order them to rewrite sloppily done corrections neatly, try hard to teach new things, make sure they bathe, scould them if they play with water in the bathroom, sit down and eat lunch with them ensuring they finished everything, talk to them about school.
It took me a while to realise I was not their tutor. I was their part-time, makeshift mother. And the mother routine was at times mundane, the kids sometimes got irritating in their slowness to grasp apparently simple concepts, the kids could also get nasty when they could not get their way.
I remember being frustrated at one kid's slowness and saying to her, "I repeated this 5 times already, are you listening or not?" The swift way in which hurt shaded her eyes and turned her away from me was really heart-breaking. It took quite a lot of apologetic explanations, bribery and coaxing to earn back her favour and trust.
It was a real tiny insight into the toughness of being a consistently fair, firm, loving parent.
But more than that, I realised that somewhere along the line, my parents did all that for me and for the life of me, I cannot recall a single bit of it. All that crucial foundational building stuff they did was just too mundane and banal to sear themselves into my little childlike brain.
Brush your teeth. Don't cheat on your tests. Don't anyhow spend money. Spell "Cat". 2 + 1 = 3. Cannot quarrel with Korkor. Say hello to Uncle, Aunty. Check if next week got test to study or not. Got problem must tell!
Somewhere they did all that. And without that, I would not find myself doing all that I do today. It's quite poignant to think of all that effort gone into my life even before I understood or appreciated it fully.
It's a reflection of our relationship with God our original parent as well.
How very 1 Cor 13 - "Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known".
I may not have the most perfect of parents. But I have parents who cared enough to bring me up to a good 28 years of life, and teaching me the most banal things that I take for granted. That is enough to be grateful for. The rest of what they have done for me is icing on the cake.
I wonder what kind of mother I would be. Would I live up to my own ideals of godly parenting - ever supportive, cultivating etc? Would I find the time to slowly teach my kid not just how to love God, love others but throw in some funky art, lit and cooking lessons into the mix? Or would I just degenerate into becoming a naggy shouty, caning harridan?
For that matter, given my swinging (*koff*) single status, I wonder whether I will have the chance to find out. :)
Part of growing up into adulthood has been the recognition of how difficult and thankless a task parenthood must be. Growing out of adolescence and walking closer to Christ has helped me to understand the need to treat my parents with more grace, more love, less blame.
For a short time last year, struck by guilt that I was not putting my money where my blathering mouth was concerning Christian service to the community, I started tutoring at ChildAtStreet11. This was a month or so before I got hooked into the whole youth consultation exercise.
It was a cool little latch-key centre for children from poor, single parent families. The centre in effect was playing parent to these kids in their crucial growing up years where their real parents could not afford to because of pragmatic bread-butter issues. Most kids had a father stuck in rehab or prison and a mother who was working horrendous hours as a cleaner or checkout aunty etc. blue collar maximum hour minimum wage job.
From 10am to 1pm, I did a standard routine with my attached kids - check if they did all their school homework, order them to rewrite sloppily done corrections neatly, try hard to teach new things, make sure they bathe, scould them if they play with water in the bathroom, sit down and eat lunch with them ensuring they finished everything, talk to them about school.
It took me a while to realise I was not their tutor. I was their part-time, makeshift mother. And the mother routine was at times mundane, the kids sometimes got irritating in their slowness to grasp apparently simple concepts, the kids could also get nasty when they could not get their way.
I remember being frustrated at one kid's slowness and saying to her, "I repeated this 5 times already, are you listening or not?" The swift way in which hurt shaded her eyes and turned her away from me was really heart-breaking. It took quite a lot of apologetic explanations, bribery and coaxing to earn back her favour and trust.
It was a real tiny insight into the toughness of being a consistently fair, firm, loving parent.
But more than that, I realised that somewhere along the line, my parents did all that for me and for the life of me, I cannot recall a single bit of it. All that crucial foundational building stuff they did was just too mundane and banal to sear themselves into my little childlike brain.
Brush your teeth. Don't cheat on your tests. Don't anyhow spend money. Spell "Cat". 2 + 1 = 3. Cannot quarrel with Korkor. Say hello to Uncle, Aunty. Check if next week got test to study or not. Got problem must tell!
Somewhere they did all that. And without that, I would not find myself doing all that I do today. It's quite poignant to think of all that effort gone into my life even before I understood or appreciated it fully.
It's a reflection of our relationship with God our original parent as well.
How very 1 Cor 13 - "Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known".
I may not have the most perfect of parents. But I have parents who cared enough to bring me up to a good 28 years of life, and teaching me the most banal things that I take for granted. That is enough to be grateful for. The rest of what they have done for me is icing on the cake.
sarong party boys
chromodomo's sarong party was hilarious. i think retro music does a lot to get a crowd of 20-30 somethings going.
i think this photo captures which gender had more fun wearing skirts.
i will not spill the beans on who was the happiest skirt-wearer but suffice to say at one point, i saw him skipping across the room with his hands daintily holding up the sides of his skirt like a proper maiden.
hee. :)
i think this photo captures which gender had more fun wearing skirts.
i will not spill the beans on who was the happiest skirt-wearer but suffice to say at one point, i saw him skipping across the room with his hands daintily holding up the sides of his skirt like a proper maiden.
hee. :)
Sunday, July 10, 2005
i like the new Dove Shampoo campaign that uses real life girls as models. It's about time someone outside of the Body Shop admitted the truth that real women come in all different shapes and sizes. All the girls looked good. Today's newspaper did a cover story of the girls and I liked how the Indonesian girl credited her parents focus on her body as a gift from God as the root behind her self-confidence.
We Christians need to take back our culture. We should not be part of the saboteurs of human dignity and human self-respect. Our lives, our bodies are gifts from Our Maker. We should be the last people to follow the world's lead and put down people about their looks, their age, their incomes, their career prospects etc. externalities.
The worldly culture might teach us to whine about turning 30 (40, 50, 60 etc), looking fat, having crappy bosses, life being boring etc. etc. I think it's about time Christians stood above the maddening crowd and demonstrated a new inspiring perspective about all these things. Culture is built on the collective way we behave, believe and the things we say. How little we help people around us when we affirm the world's ways with silly throwaway comments.
Turn 30 (40, 50, 60) with pride and pleasure that the Lord has brought you through 3 decades of life.
Respect and treat your nasty ass boss with a dignity that can only have been inspired by Heaven. Make peace with and treat honourably the body that God has given you as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Stand up to the things that you fear instead of running away.
Make tough decisions simply because they are the right decisions to make.
Let your tongue shout out a whole new perspective to things instead of perpetuating the shallow, hedonistic, fear-mongering aspects of modern culture that we have today!
We Christians need to take back our culture. We should not be part of the saboteurs of human dignity and human self-respect. Our lives, our bodies are gifts from Our Maker. We should be the last people to follow the world's lead and put down people about their looks, their age, their incomes, their career prospects etc. externalities.
The worldly culture might teach us to whine about turning 30 (40, 50, 60 etc), looking fat, having crappy bosses, life being boring etc. etc. I think it's about time Christians stood above the maddening crowd and demonstrated a new inspiring perspective about all these things. Culture is built on the collective way we behave, believe and the things we say. How little we help people around us when we affirm the world's ways with silly throwaway comments.
Turn 30 (40, 50, 60) with pride and pleasure that the Lord has brought you through 3 decades of life.
Respect and treat your nasty ass boss with a dignity that can only have been inspired by Heaven. Make peace with and treat honourably the body that God has given you as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Stand up to the things that you fear instead of running away.
Make tough decisions simply because they are the right decisions to make.
Let your tongue shout out a whole new perspective to things instead of perpetuating the shallow, hedonistic, fear-mongering aspects of modern culture that we have today!
Thursday, July 07, 2005
somewhere i have never travelled
came across this while trawling online. I had forgotten how much I love this poem.
I first heard it read aloud by Ron Perlman playing the Beast in a short-lived tv series called Beauty and the Beast, where a modern monstrous-looking man-beast (Perlman) falls in love with a beautiful reporter in modern day New York.
I don't entirely get the imagery sometimes but i like the mood and the tone. I think there is something in there of the intense way human beings interact with each other and the way we open each other up to new understandings and perspectives. On the surface, the poem seems obviously skewed towards the emotional intimacy you find in a romantic relationship. But I think there is more behind it.
__________________________
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e.cummings
I first heard it read aloud by Ron Perlman playing the Beast in a short-lived tv series called Beauty and the Beast, where a modern monstrous-looking man-beast (Perlman) falls in love with a beautiful reporter in modern day New York.
I don't entirely get the imagery sometimes but i like the mood and the tone. I think there is something in there of the intense way human beings interact with each other and the way we open each other up to new understandings and perspectives. On the surface, the poem seems obviously skewed towards the emotional intimacy you find in a romantic relationship. But I think there is more behind it.
__________________________
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e.cummings
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