been reading a book about understanding conversations between mothers and daughters and why they are always so fraught with tension and misunderstanding.
The title of the book says it all - "Are You Wearing That?!" heh. Was immediately amused because my mother has said that to me a few times before and that naturally led to a crossfire exchange. I remember I hated wearing skirts and dresses before university and my mother would always give me despairing looks if I walked out of the house in yet another pair of pants.
There was once in JC when I was rushing out to catch a play and just at the door, my mother yells, "GO WEAR A SKIRT!" My 17 year old smart mouth answers back, "FOR WHAT?! I AM LATE!" Then, she delivers the clincher," You want people to think you are LESBIAN is it?!" Of course, that did not go down too well with my 17 year old ego. :) Argument naturally ensues and to save time, I grouchily leave house with dress on and think nasty thoughts of Mother Nazi being 1) evil and always looking down on me 2) anti-homosexual.
At 29, I quarrel a lot less with my mother. It comes with growing up and understanding how human everybody is. I think that's the first marker of being grown-up - realising your parents are not superhuman and perfect, and learning to be more gracious towards them.
I think like the author of the book, I start to see that the stuff that comes out of a person's mouth may be a poor reflection of the stuff that WANTS to come out of a person's mouth.
In other words, there is the Message and then, there is the Meta-Message. Apparently, this is key to understanding women-to-women conversation: one must listen hard to the Message and even harder for the Meta Message.
"Are you coming home to eat?!" , "You think this house is a hotel?!", "You think you grow big now got wings to fly is it?!" and assorted nuggets of typical furious chinese mother-daughter exchanges can be translated as a sadder "I miss you. I am scared you don't like me or care for me anymore. Why are you so cold to me?"
Learning to concentrate on the Meta Message - the unspoken volumes of thought that get lost in translation - really helps cover a multitude of harsh exchanges.
If anything, it has stopped me from reverting to my 17 year old self that sees my mother as the Moral Police, the Weight/Dressing Nazi, Incessant Nag. :) It has helped me concentrate on seeing her as a human being hoping to communicate to another human being - one that she helped bring to life by a strange twist of fate.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Christians and Politics
We have been studying 1 Samuel these few weeks in bible study. Honestly, Old Testament studies always freak me out a little because of all the historical references. I can never remember the names, places or one gagillion Levitical laws. Sometimes the OT feels so out of my depth. But everytime we actually study it, I am reminded that OT is not so much about history and factoids. It's about understanding God and His view of the world, the status quo and - as always - the state of our hearts.
This is a great little article about the inherent ickiness of Politicised religions.
I am uncomfortable when politicians talk about God as their ultimate supporter. I don't really like the way American politics is shaping up into a trash-talking, brow-beating fight between the Christian Democrats and the Christian Republicans - each wanting Jesus to be their Homeboy, so to speak. It seems as pointless to debate about whether Jesus is Right wing or Left wing as it is to debate about whether God is a Man or a Woman. The answer is THAT'S NOT THE POINT! geez. Jesus' concerns go beyond our political parties. God is a Self beyond the notion of gender. When we try to compartmentalise Jesus or God to fit our social and political agendas, something crucial is lost along the way.
This is not to say that Christians should be apolitical and not care a bit about what is happening in the world. In fact, I think Christians ought to do their best to take some serious interest in what's happening in global politics, economics and cultures. For anyone who lives in an information-rich developed nation, there should be some rudimentary grasp of world affairs at least.
I understand if Christians are clueless about stuff happening around the world - but really, if we know we are ignorant, we can do two things...
a) we can start educating ourselves since if we profess to care about the world, it helps to put money where your mouth is and take some teensy first steps towards understanding how it REALLY works
b) we can stop shooting our mouth off like we know alot when we don't! nobody expects you to be a know-it-all. Its better to humbly admit we are not that well read in a certain world or societal issue instead of making our minuscle knowledge sound like a PHd Thesis.
I went to a service where I heard a pastor say quite benignly, "The Middle East is the product of Abraham's mistake with Hagar. All those problems we have there now - terrorists, Muslim fundamentalists, bombing - are all one man's mistake. So let's be careful in our lives....etc etc"
My dad - a non Christian - also told me how pissed off he was when he went to a church and heard some Christians chitter on about the Middle East being all violent because they were non-belivers. Before I became Christian, I remember being brought to a church where the minister declared the Kobe Earthquake killed off so many Japanese because they did not believe in Jesus. I was in my early teens - a bit of a navel-gazing ninny - and even then, I thought, "what the $*?#$????"
GAH! oh don't even get me started on listening to some Christians talk/write about poverty, homosexuality, economics etc. Don't pontificate when you don't know that much. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The more we read about what serious academics - both secular and Christian - have to say , the less likely we are to offer quick-mix, instant-pour answers that offend anyone with some discernment. We become acutely aware of how big the issue is, and how much work there is to be done in human hearts, minds and hands. We see why God needs to convert the very nature of a Man, in order to stop the vicious cycles we see in our civilisations.
The kind of problems we have in the world today warrant some genuine attention and respectful study. No matter what station we have in life, we owe our fellow human beings basic respect of the depth of what they are going through. It is only proper and humble to do so. Nobody expects easy answers. Nobody expects us to be PhDs. But definitely, few can tolerate a PhD wannabe with a Big Fat Know-It-All Answer. Least of all, the people going through the difficult issues - the poor, the homosexuals, the AIDS victims, the divorcees, the states struggling with terrorism or the victims of natural and man-made disasters.
k. getting off soap box now.
This is a great little article about the inherent ickiness of Politicised religions.
I am uncomfortable when politicians talk about God as their ultimate supporter. I don't really like the way American politics is shaping up into a trash-talking, brow-beating fight between the Christian Democrats and the Christian Republicans - each wanting Jesus to be their Homeboy, so to speak. It seems as pointless to debate about whether Jesus is Right wing or Left wing as it is to debate about whether God is a Man or a Woman. The answer is THAT'S NOT THE POINT! geez. Jesus' concerns go beyond our political parties. God is a Self beyond the notion of gender. When we try to compartmentalise Jesus or God to fit our social and political agendas, something crucial is lost along the way.
This is not to say that Christians should be apolitical and not care a bit about what is happening in the world. In fact, I think Christians ought to do their best to take some serious interest in what's happening in global politics, economics and cultures. For anyone who lives in an information-rich developed nation, there should be some rudimentary grasp of world affairs at least.
I understand if Christians are clueless about stuff happening around the world - but really, if we know we are ignorant, we can do two things...
a) we can start educating ourselves since if we profess to care about the world, it helps to put money where your mouth is and take some teensy first steps towards understanding how it REALLY works
b) we can stop shooting our mouth off like we know alot when we don't! nobody expects you to be a know-it-all. Its better to humbly admit we are not that well read in a certain world or societal issue instead of making our minuscle knowledge sound like a PHd Thesis.
I went to a service where I heard a pastor say quite benignly, "The Middle East is the product of Abraham's mistake with Hagar. All those problems we have there now - terrorists, Muslim fundamentalists, bombing - are all one man's mistake. So let's be careful in our lives....etc etc"
My dad - a non Christian - also told me how pissed off he was when he went to a church and heard some Christians chitter on about the Middle East being all violent because they were non-belivers. Before I became Christian, I remember being brought to a church where the minister declared the Kobe Earthquake killed off so many Japanese because they did not believe in Jesus. I was in my early teens - a bit of a navel-gazing ninny - and even then, I thought, "what the $*?#$????"
GAH! oh don't even get me started on listening to some Christians talk/write about poverty, homosexuality, economics etc. Don't pontificate when you don't know that much. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The more we read about what serious academics - both secular and Christian - have to say , the less likely we are to offer quick-mix, instant-pour answers that offend anyone with some discernment. We become acutely aware of how big the issue is, and how much work there is to be done in human hearts, minds and hands. We see why God needs to convert the very nature of a Man, in order to stop the vicious cycles we see in our civilisations.
The kind of problems we have in the world today warrant some genuine attention and respectful study. No matter what station we have in life, we owe our fellow human beings basic respect of the depth of what they are going through. It is only proper and humble to do so. Nobody expects easy answers. Nobody expects us to be PhDs. But definitely, few can tolerate a PhD wannabe with a Big Fat Know-It-All Answer. Least of all, the people going through the difficult issues - the poor, the homosexuals, the AIDS victims, the divorcees, the states struggling with terrorism or the victims of natural and man-made disasters.
k. getting off soap box now.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Kids say the darndest things...
had the funniest conversation with this 2 year old girl last night - who is REMARKABLY articulate for her age. I love talking to kids. They can make the most rubbish of topics sound cool. Best of all, they have not started to develop any form of self-censorship, layers or impressive airs. Its just therapeutic and pretty relaxing talking to them....you need almost no effort to engage or draw them out. They are just dying to talk.
Exchange one:
Kid: Yesterday I go zoo.
Me: REALLY?! I love the zoo. What did you see there?
Kid: Monkey.
Me: What did monkey do?
Kid: He fall down. He say ooh ooh ah ah.
Me: Wow. DId you see birds?
Kid: Ya.
Me: and what sound did bird make?
Kid: Ooh ooh ah ah.
Me: That's the monkey sound lah. Birds sound like this.
(I start to make ah-beng chirping sounds from side of mouth. Kid stares in astonishment)
Me: (in conspiratorial whisper) Shhh. Don't tell anyone. I am a bird. Do you believe I am a bird?
(Kid nods and stares in wonder, grinning like mad)
Me: I am not a human. I am (pause for dramatic stage whisper) BIG BIRD. GASP! you believe?
Kid: Ya.
Exchange two:
Me: So what school do you go to?
KId: Yakult School.
Me: Yakult school? You mean they give you Yakult to drink there?
Kid: (nods happily)
Me: Wow. you are lucky. You really like yakult huh.....Do yoooooou like Yakult better than......hamsters?
Kid: Ya.
Me: Shall I give you a Yakult...or a RABBIT?
Kid: Yakult.
Me: Yakult.....or ELEPHANT?
Kid: Yakult
Me: Yakult.....or GIRAFFE?
Kid Yakult
Me: Yakult or......CAT?
Kid: Yakult
Me: Is there ANYTHING you possibly want more than Yakult?
Kid: (thinks seriously for a while) Sugar.
heh. the sugar industry has successfully indoctrinated this kid. What is it about yakult that obsesses every kid?
Exchange one:
Kid: Yesterday I go zoo.
Me: REALLY?! I love the zoo. What did you see there?
Kid: Monkey.
Me: What did monkey do?
Kid: He fall down. He say ooh ooh ah ah.
Me: Wow. DId you see birds?
Kid: Ya.
Me: and what sound did bird make?
Kid: Ooh ooh ah ah.
Me: That's the monkey sound lah. Birds sound like this.
(I start to make ah-beng chirping sounds from side of mouth. Kid stares in astonishment)
Me: (in conspiratorial whisper) Shhh. Don't tell anyone. I am a bird. Do you believe I am a bird?
(Kid nods and stares in wonder, grinning like mad)
Me: I am not a human. I am (pause for dramatic stage whisper) BIG BIRD. GASP! you believe?
Kid: Ya.
Exchange two:
Me: So what school do you go to?
KId: Yakult School.
Me: Yakult school? You mean they give you Yakult to drink there?
Kid: (nods happily)
Me: Wow. you are lucky. You really like yakult huh.....Do yoooooou like Yakult better than......hamsters?
Kid: Ya.
Me: Shall I give you a Yakult...or a RABBIT?
Kid: Yakult.
Me: Yakult.....or ELEPHANT?
Kid: Yakult
Me: Yakult.....or GIRAFFE?
Kid Yakult
Me: Yakult or......CAT?
Kid: Yakult
Me: Is there ANYTHING you possibly want more than Yakult?
Kid: (thinks seriously for a while) Sugar.
heh. the sugar industry has successfully indoctrinated this kid. What is it about yakult that obsesses every kid?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
where were you in 1984?
I was in front of the computer screen and television a lot. :)
Just did a random cut and paste up job from google images based on the theme "STUFF I WATCHED/PLAYED IN THE 80S/90S".
how many do you recognise? :)
Just did a random cut and paste up job from google images based on the theme "STUFF I WATCHED/PLAYED IN THE 80S/90S".
how many do you recognise? :)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
a house divided
Talking to a few people about their Bad Moments and Experiences with some local churches/cell groups made me reflect on my own feelings about the matter.
Sometimes the stories are horrible. It makes you stop and say, "How could a Christian say that to you?!" You know, the kind who would tell you at your beloved grandfather's funeral that it was your lack of faith that caused him to die painfully.
Although Christians have been changed by Jesus' love, all of us are very much works in progress. Becoming a Christian is really about a first step of admitting we need God. Christians then spend their entire lives letting God in to rework their inner heart, to substitute all the rotteness within for something more beautiful.
We need God's wisdom to illuminate how badly we need Him to reshape our ethics, our choices and our lives.
...Which is why realistically speaking, Church can still sometimes be a depressing place. Christians can still sometimes be depressing to hang out with. We are all not made perfect yet and only will be when He returns.
I am sure I must have depressed someone out there. By neglect, by compacency or by conscious avoidance.
Pride teaches us to cocoon ourselves in the lovely warmth of self-righteousness. There is this incessant -sinful- need to prove ourselves better, cleverer, more generous than another.
I am at my worst behaviour when I get so wrapped up in my own needs and agendas that I block off all desire to empathise. There are seasons where I consciously distance myself and wallow, and refuse to think outside of my own self.
Every year I learn more about how sophisticated and tough Love is. I am taught again and again why Love takes a lifetime to learn.
Its not something we learn by theory or mugging a bunch of verses. We only see how incredibly difficult Love is when we attempt to apply it consistently and realise how intrinsically inconsistent we are.
We are so rotten in places we have never conceived.
When I was not a christian, I did think of myself fairly highly - nice, generous, good, kind etc. When I became a christian, all those pretty lies were shattered by God's standards of holiness. Of course, God is the ultimate expression of Love - after He shatters your lies with the Truth, He proceeds to build you up, this time on firmer foundations.
The Christian walk is about God moving within us, lighting up the dark twists and turns of our very souls, showing us evil where we never thought could exist. No Christian can say with a straight face that he is a good person - God inspires us to recognise how bad we are and how much we need to be good.
If I had one wish about the Church, I wish I could help make Church a safer place for people to be honest about their badness. I wish I could take away that idea that in Church, you must put up a front of "I am good", "Everything is fine", "I got it going right."
I do wear that front at times because it seems so much easier and safer too. Its safe because when you feel like you are screwing up your life and feeling lousy about your sinful behaviour, I find it hard to trust that another party will listen without prejudice.
At times, I find it difficult to believe I will not be judged. So you keep things within. You don't share or talk until you sorted everything out. 'Cos you don't want to even let yourself be slighted by some guy offering you his Big Fat Thesis about Why You are Wrong and Do Not Realise It, and Let Me Tell You Why I am Right. It's incredibly painful to listen to because it is so unhelpful.
You just wanna say: Look, pal, God has already done a pretty good job showing me exactly what a rotter I am. That's not your job okay? Just let Him be my Judge. You just keep encouraging me on to turn back to Him.
Its not that I don't want people to tell me what I am doing wrong. Its that its not what I need at that time to drive me towards goodness, repentance and God. I just need a reminder that God is there, God is just and God is good. That reminder is enough to make me want to repent and try to change.
I just need grace. I need love. I need a friend.
Not a sermon. Nor an apologetic. Nor a judgment.
And its awful, depressing and sad to feel that way sometimes among Christians.
If you cannot confess your sins and wrongs in Church, where else can you go?
Putting the argument to myself - what have I done that makes it safe for others to talk to me about their own wrongs? How do I make my presence, my cell group a safe place for confession? A safe place to unload a burden?
Church should be a safe place for bad people to come home.
Maybe that just means listening without prejudice, being honest without being rude. Maybe it means not being too quick on the trigger with an easy answer. Maybe it just means being quiet, holding someone's hand, watching over them and just saying, "I don't really understand what you are going through. Help me understand. I want to help."
Maybe it just means knowing when to just be still and know that He is God. Together.
In the Book of Job, when Job experienced a horrible bout of suffering and crossed dangerously into the territory of questioning God, his four friends gave him 20 odd chapters of 'godly' sounding advice and pontification. The message was "Job, you are an IDIOT. you are UNGODLY. Repent."
I am always struck by the surprising turnaround when God appeared on the scene. God was greatly displeased with Job's talkative, Scripture thumping friends. I don't think God thought Job was pure and perfect in his response. God held Job into account for his presumption to question God. But its always humbling to remember God came down very hard on Job's unwitting friends for not supporting Job and judging him.
Sometimes it might be good to remember we could very well turn into one of those guys.
At least that's gonna be something I want to stick in my stubborn ass head anytime I feel the urge to sermonise someone in need.
Let God judge. It is not our place. It is not my place.
Sometimes the stories are horrible. It makes you stop and say, "How could a Christian say that to you?!" You know, the kind who would tell you at your beloved grandfather's funeral that it was your lack of faith that caused him to die painfully.
Although Christians have been changed by Jesus' love, all of us are very much works in progress. Becoming a Christian is really about a first step of admitting we need God. Christians then spend their entire lives letting God in to rework their inner heart, to substitute all the rotteness within for something more beautiful.
We need God's wisdom to illuminate how badly we need Him to reshape our ethics, our choices and our lives.
...Which is why realistically speaking, Church can still sometimes be a depressing place. Christians can still sometimes be depressing to hang out with. We are all not made perfect yet and only will be when He returns.
I am sure I must have depressed someone out there. By neglect, by compacency or by conscious avoidance.
Pride teaches us to cocoon ourselves in the lovely warmth of self-righteousness. There is this incessant -sinful- need to prove ourselves better, cleverer, more generous than another.
I am at my worst behaviour when I get so wrapped up in my own needs and agendas that I block off all desire to empathise. There are seasons where I consciously distance myself and wallow, and refuse to think outside of my own self.
Every year I learn more about how sophisticated and tough Love is. I am taught again and again why Love takes a lifetime to learn.
Its not something we learn by theory or mugging a bunch of verses. We only see how incredibly difficult Love is when we attempt to apply it consistently and realise how intrinsically inconsistent we are.
We are so rotten in places we have never conceived.
When I was not a christian, I did think of myself fairly highly - nice, generous, good, kind etc. When I became a christian, all those pretty lies were shattered by God's standards of holiness. Of course, God is the ultimate expression of Love - after He shatters your lies with the Truth, He proceeds to build you up, this time on firmer foundations.
The Christian walk is about God moving within us, lighting up the dark twists and turns of our very souls, showing us evil where we never thought could exist. No Christian can say with a straight face that he is a good person - God inspires us to recognise how bad we are and how much we need to be good.
If I had one wish about the Church, I wish I could help make Church a safer place for people to be honest about their badness. I wish I could take away that idea that in Church, you must put up a front of "I am good", "Everything is fine", "I got it going right."
I do wear that front at times because it seems so much easier and safer too. Its safe because when you feel like you are screwing up your life and feeling lousy about your sinful behaviour, I find it hard to trust that another party will listen without prejudice.
At times, I find it difficult to believe I will not be judged. So you keep things within. You don't share or talk until you sorted everything out. 'Cos you don't want to even let yourself be slighted by some guy offering you his Big Fat Thesis about Why You are Wrong and Do Not Realise It, and Let Me Tell You Why I am Right. It's incredibly painful to listen to because it is so unhelpful.
You just wanna say: Look, pal, God has already done a pretty good job showing me exactly what a rotter I am. That's not your job okay? Just let Him be my Judge. You just keep encouraging me on to turn back to Him.
Its not that I don't want people to tell me what I am doing wrong. Its that its not what I need at that time to drive me towards goodness, repentance and God. I just need a reminder that God is there, God is just and God is good. That reminder is enough to make me want to repent and try to change.
I just need grace. I need love. I need a friend.
Not a sermon. Nor an apologetic. Nor a judgment.
And its awful, depressing and sad to feel that way sometimes among Christians.
If you cannot confess your sins and wrongs in Church, where else can you go?
Putting the argument to myself - what have I done that makes it safe for others to talk to me about their own wrongs? How do I make my presence, my cell group a safe place for confession? A safe place to unload a burden?
Church should be a safe place for bad people to come home.
Maybe that just means listening without prejudice, being honest without being rude. Maybe it means not being too quick on the trigger with an easy answer. Maybe it just means being quiet, holding someone's hand, watching over them and just saying, "I don't really understand what you are going through. Help me understand. I want to help."
Maybe it just means knowing when to just be still and know that He is God. Together.
In the Book of Job, when Job experienced a horrible bout of suffering and crossed dangerously into the territory of questioning God, his four friends gave him 20 odd chapters of 'godly' sounding advice and pontification. The message was "Job, you are an IDIOT. you are UNGODLY. Repent."
I am always struck by the surprising turnaround when God appeared on the scene. God was greatly displeased with Job's talkative, Scripture thumping friends. I don't think God thought Job was pure and perfect in his response. God held Job into account for his presumption to question God. But its always humbling to remember God came down very hard on Job's unwitting friends for not supporting Job and judging him.
Sometimes it might be good to remember we could very well turn into one of those guys.
At least that's gonna be something I want to stick in my stubborn ass head anytime I feel the urge to sermonise someone in need.
Let God judge. It is not our place. It is not my place.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Bella Italia!
ITALY WON THE WORLD CUP! WHOO! :)
I admit I am not much of a soccer fan but I do love watching people watch soccer. Have always tried to make it a point to catch the final match for World Cup.
Avidly gaming to stay awake, at 2am I met up with L at the National Library to watch Italy go up against France on a BIGBIGBIG Sony sponsored screen. :) It was pretty cool - hundreds of Singaporeans were there (including many school age kids...me thinks there will be many absentees today on scholl registers). Hans stayed open all night and the library threw open its toilet doors. Best public screening EVER.
How fabulous was those final penalty kicks? Everybody was screaming away at the library. Couple of German tourists were waving a big German flag for kicks. :)
Me loves Italy even more after the match. I luuuuuurve Buffon. That's one hot goalkeeper. And i dont mean his looks, k. (Although tis quite true that I find the dark, swarthy Italian look much hotter than the blond Gaellic look - In fact, P and I were musing this afternoon about the merits of Luke Skywalker vs Han Solo, Legolas vs Aragon, Cyclops vs Wolvie - I always ended up picking the swarthier, darker eyed of the two. LOL.)
Poor Zidane. That headbutt will go down in football history. and he was so cool in the first half too. :_(
Meanwhile, whoohoo! Italy rocks! So looking forward to Italy trip part 2.
I admit I am not much of a soccer fan but I do love watching people watch soccer. Have always tried to make it a point to catch the final match for World Cup.
Avidly gaming to stay awake, at 2am I met up with L at the National Library to watch Italy go up against France on a BIGBIGBIG Sony sponsored screen. :) It was pretty cool - hundreds of Singaporeans were there (including many school age kids...me thinks there will be many absentees today on scholl registers). Hans stayed open all night and the library threw open its toilet doors. Best public screening EVER.
How fabulous was those final penalty kicks? Everybody was screaming away at the library. Couple of German tourists were waving a big German flag for kicks. :)
Me loves Italy even more after the match. I luuuuuurve Buffon. That's one hot goalkeeper. And i dont mean his looks, k. (Although tis quite true that I find the dark, swarthy Italian look much hotter than the blond Gaellic look - In fact, P and I were musing this afternoon about the merits of Luke Skywalker vs Han Solo, Legolas vs Aragon, Cyclops vs Wolvie - I always ended up picking the swarthier, darker eyed of the two. LOL.)
Poor Zidane. That headbutt will go down in football history. and he was so cool in the first half too. :_(
Meanwhile, whoohoo! Italy rocks! So looking forward to Italy trip part 2.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
And now for a cute break...
Am lazy to find photos to load into flickr. But I think blog is in bad need of a cute picture break. Thought I should blog first cute (non fluffy animal) pic I could find in archives. AND well....who can say no to a cutie wutie coochie coo like Baby Naylor? :)
awwwwwww....me likes the little heartbreaker.
Babies are God's way of telling us He doesn't think we are that screwed up yet. Apparently its still worth it to keep that human baby factory going. :)
Cutie Cutie cUTIE! Pinch yer chubby cheeks then you know!
awwwwwww....me likes the little heartbreaker.
Babies are God's way of telling us He doesn't think we are that screwed up yet. Apparently its still worth it to keep that human baby factory going. :)
Cutie Cutie cUTIE! Pinch yer chubby cheeks then you know!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Hard lessons
TissueAunty's saga has taken on a new twist. I got a call from her son saying they had trouble paying the rent and they were going to get evicted if they did not pay by 7pm that night. I thought if I could speak to the housing agent directly I could find out more about the situation and reason it out.
It turns out the agent herself sympathised with the family but the owner of the flat was quite no-nonsense and unsympathetic because in her view, the TissueFamily (TF) was nothing but trouble - messy, late in their payments and unreliable in their word. They had apparently promised to pay by a certain time but kept delaying and delaying and hence had broken trust with the owner. The rent and PUB bill for the month was up and that was that.
I offered to bail the family out by paying the rent first. The TF was grateful and I made them promise to pay the PUB bill at least on the alloted date. I stressed to them how they could not give the landlord any reason to mistrust them anymore. TF repeated that they would be getting their pay on that day and could definitely pay.
So anyhow, today was the alloted date. TF had actually called me in the day quite happily telling me they got their salary and were going to pay. But at 9pm, I got a distraught call from the harrassed agent wailing that she did not want to take charge of their account anymore because TF kept delaying the appointed time to meet and deliver the money. She was frustrated and fed up with being the middle man between an unreliable tenant and an unreasonable landlord. I think she was appealing to me once more to take up the bill.
I admit - I feel really frustrated and irritated now with the TF - I don't like the thought that now that I am involved, I cannot ignore their plight. I have to help them as my neighbour. But how do I do this for the long haul? I find myself thinking the same thoughts as the agent - What if next month and the month after that is the same thing? I cant keep bailing them out, I cant keep paying their rent for them. That cant be the solution - can it?
Her problems have now become my problems. The agent now has me on speed dial. And I had to talk with nasty landlord as well. I am officially INVOLVED. ha. Precisely what I asked God for - great. Now what?
Beyond the idealistic fervour of prayer after moving sermons about "love your neighbour", when given a chance to do so and having to confront that said neighbour may not consistently uplifting and fun to love - what do we do? what would Jesus do?
I am trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that something happened and thus they have not been able to meet the agent. But I am sorely tempted with the thought of getting angry at them, bailing out, telling them I cannot do this any more, drawing the boundaries etc. But I am haunted by a constant question - is it right? I know it is practical...but is it right? is it right? is it God's way or mine? What's wrong with the picture? Is it me? I am shocked too by my own anger, impatience and irritation - it is there, at the edges, waiting. If I dont figure out the godly answer to this little conundrum, I am gonna breed some self-righteous hullabooloo within.
This whole 'get-personally-involved-with-the-poor' mission I have taken on is really teaching me some super hard lessons in the cost of grace and hands-on love thy neighbour. Making me solidify my theories. So so so so much harder when you apply ideals to real life!
Its a real education - a regular PhD in theology of sorts! ha.
I have to confront some awful truths about my own attachment to money and my own ideas about personal responsibility and fairness.
Am more and more aware I can never deceive myself that I am "nice". NO, I am certainly not "nice" - I have many more lessons to learn about
true humility, integrity and patience. I am sure there is something I must learn and change - but what?
I dont have my thoughts straight yet. But off the cuff - yeah, it is damnably frustrating. MIssionaries to the poor have my greatest respect.
Gonna read a new book I got about missions to the poor - hopefully it is less airy fairy theory and more on practical application. Post more when I sort out my thoughts.
Meanwhile....ARGH! >:( and GAH!
It turns out the agent herself sympathised with the family but the owner of the flat was quite no-nonsense and unsympathetic because in her view, the TissueFamily (TF) was nothing but trouble - messy, late in their payments and unreliable in their word. They had apparently promised to pay by a certain time but kept delaying and delaying and hence had broken trust with the owner. The rent and PUB bill for the month was up and that was that.
I offered to bail the family out by paying the rent first. The TF was grateful and I made them promise to pay the PUB bill at least on the alloted date. I stressed to them how they could not give the landlord any reason to mistrust them anymore. TF repeated that they would be getting their pay on that day and could definitely pay.
So anyhow, today was the alloted date. TF had actually called me in the day quite happily telling me they got their salary and were going to pay. But at 9pm, I got a distraught call from the harrassed agent wailing that she did not want to take charge of their account anymore because TF kept delaying the appointed time to meet and deliver the money. She was frustrated and fed up with being the middle man between an unreliable tenant and an unreasonable landlord. I think she was appealing to me once more to take up the bill.
I admit - I feel really frustrated and irritated now with the TF - I don't like the thought that now that I am involved, I cannot ignore their plight. I have to help them as my neighbour. But how do I do this for the long haul? I find myself thinking the same thoughts as the agent - What if next month and the month after that is the same thing? I cant keep bailing them out, I cant keep paying their rent for them. That cant be the solution - can it?
Her problems have now become my problems. The agent now has me on speed dial. And I had to talk with nasty landlord as well. I am officially INVOLVED. ha. Precisely what I asked God for - great. Now what?
Beyond the idealistic fervour of prayer after moving sermons about "love your neighbour", when given a chance to do so and having to confront that said neighbour may not consistently uplifting and fun to love - what do we do? what would Jesus do?
I am trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that something happened and thus they have not been able to meet the agent. But I am sorely tempted with the thought of getting angry at them, bailing out, telling them I cannot do this any more, drawing the boundaries etc. But I am haunted by a constant question - is it right? I know it is practical...but is it right? is it right? is it God's way or mine? What's wrong with the picture? Is it me? I am shocked too by my own anger, impatience and irritation - it is there, at the edges, waiting. If I dont figure out the godly answer to this little conundrum, I am gonna breed some self-righteous hullabooloo within.
This whole 'get-personally-involved-with-the-poor' mission I have taken on is really teaching me some super hard lessons in the cost of grace and hands-on love thy neighbour. Making me solidify my theories. So so so so much harder when you apply ideals to real life!
Its a real education - a regular PhD in theology of sorts! ha.
I have to confront some awful truths about my own attachment to money and my own ideas about personal responsibility and fairness.
Am more and more aware I can never deceive myself that I am "nice". NO, I am certainly not "nice" - I have many more lessons to learn about
true humility, integrity and patience. I am sure there is something I must learn and change - but what?
I dont have my thoughts straight yet. But off the cuff - yeah, it is damnably frustrating. MIssionaries to the poor have my greatest respect.
Gonna read a new book I got about missions to the poor - hopefully it is less airy fairy theory and more on practical application. Post more when I sort out my thoughts.
Meanwhile....ARGH! >:( and GAH!
Sunday, July 02, 2006
adultery exposed - a guy's take
i got an interesting forwarded email lately and have been musing about how many responses it got from guys who agreed with what it said. It offers a pretty interesting look at how men get seduced. AND it also deals with that age old debate among us ARPC gals about whether you should just settle for any "godly" guy or be more stringent. heh.
Any male (or female of course) blurkers wanna offer their take?
btw, am changing some of his comments to protect his identity. :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Here's a surprising fact I discovered - In the many divorce cases I have seen, the women responsible for breaking up marriages and families were not as physically attractive as the wives. I used to be a big fan of a marriage counseling book on the different needs of men and women but this threw the theories of that book out the window.
What I found was this. Men have two very deep, very primal emotional needs. Women who choose to meet these needs become irresistible to men. The needs are:
1) to feel happy with who they truly are when they are with a woman
2) to know that this woman is truly happy when she is with them.
But what usually happens after marriage?
The dude comes home after a hard day's work. The first words out of his wife's mouth are a torrent of complaints. And when it comes to Sunday morning, it usually gets worse. The wife is usually the first one up. She'll lovingly prepare breakfast, help pack the kid's stuff and all that.Then barge into the bedrooms of the rest of the family yelling at them that they're gonna be late for church. And after that the wife feels so frustrated and pissed off at why everyone else in the family is grumpier than her even though they got more sleep than she did.
To the dude, married life is a series of minor catastrophies. He is fighting fires day-by-day and he gets tired.
This, ladies, is a dangerous situation. But it's even more dangerous if there are issues that need to be worked out. If the wife is unhappy with the dude over his job, or his pay, or his hobby. And she regularly makes it known by complaining or nagging at him about it. And he gets even more tired.
'Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.' (Pro 21:9) "Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife." (Pro 21:19)
When we dudes look at you and decide that we wanna have a dating/courtship relationship with you, we usually are looking out for red-flags, warning signs that tell us the future problems we're gonna have with you when we get married.
And if we actually propose to you, we do so knowing your problems and hang-ups. We look at them and say "Hey, I can live with them." And we foolishly shrug our shoulders and assume that you ladies look at our problems and hang-ups in the same way too, that if you agree to marry us you're cool with who we really are, warts and all.
That's why, sisters, nagging and complaining about us hits us so badly. It hits us at our core emotional need for acceptance. If the woman I love and choose to spend the rest of my life with is so dissatisfied with me, there must be something really wrong with me. How then can I be happy with being who I really am?
It's kinda like rejection from parents - if the people who brought me into this world think I'm lousy, I must be lousy.
And at this point, any woman who can meet our core needs is gonna affect us powerfully. Hey, it may not even grow to the point of adultery. But doesn't it offend your very sensibilities that it's another woman who makes your husband feel good about being himself, and not YOU?
And if this other woman is genuinely happy when she's with your husband, he's gonna look at her seriously. Even if he's still loyal to you, if he's gotta choose between spending time with you (and hearing you nag) or spending time with her (watching her smile and laugh) who do you think he's gonna choose?
And don't let the marriage vow deceive you into thinking you can get away with emotionally abusing your husband. I had to confront this woman who discovered that her husband, a serious believer, loving father and a husband with a heart of servanthood, fell in love with another woman. It was only his love for God and his children that kept him from actually committing adultery with her.
I had to be the one who told her "If you've been threatening him with divorce at every quarrel (from within the first 3 months of marriage) and constantly telling him how marrying him has totally ruined your future, your hopes, your dreams and your life, how do you think he's gonna feel about anyone who's happy when she's with him?"
I plead with you, don't ever let your marriage go there. Because you know after every quarrel he's wondering why he married you instead of her. He'll be wondering how much longer he can put up with this. And he's gonna be praying "God, deliver me from this marriage!"
Guys, please recognize the power of the two needs I mentioned. You need a woman who makes you happy to be who you really are. And who is truly happy when she's with you. This is the type of woman you WILL love as you love yourself.
On your side the responsibility is this: NEVER commit yourself to a woman who doesn't fulfill these needs, or even worse, is dragging you down in this two areas.
I don't care if she's a pastor, super-model or worship-leader, I don't care how many church meetings, prayer meetings or bible-studies she goes to each week, I don't care how much she's "improved" (God, that word makes me cringe to the very core of my being!) since you first got to know her.
If she makes you unhappy about being you, or you can't see regular evidence that she's happy when she's with you (and don't lie to yourself guys), leave her.
Now.
Because it may be that this woman is unable to fulfill your core needs because of who she is as a person. And if you put her in a position where she HAS to fulfill them even though she can't, you are not being fair to her, putting on her a burden she can't carry.
And if you meet a woman fulfills all these needs for you, recognize this: she's like water to a thirst you may never realized you had. So before you totally lose all ability for rational thought, get a couple of good brothers-in-Christ to check her out and look out for danger signs that you're most probably gonna miss, because you're too deeply in love.
And sisters, when you look for a husband, I plead with you, don't just look for a godly man. Seriously, they abound. Look for a man for whom you fulfill these needs just by being you.
Because if you can fulfill those needs, you WILL respect your husband, as God commands. Effortlessly. It takes genuine respect for who your husband truly is as a person to make him happy to be himself when he's with you. And to be happy when you're with him.
Junk the angmo-nised cookie cutter approach to relationships and marriage that you'll get by browsing the Christian bookshops. The books that get sold there make you believe that marriage is meant to be hard work, and you need to learn 5 love languages, 5 needs of men and women and go through one year of devotionals on becoming soul mates.
After all the experiences I've been through and all the relationships and marriages I've seen, I can honestly tell you from the depths of my heart, if you're not soul mates to begin with, you won't be even after going through all those books, seminars and message CDs.
Finally, brothers and sisters, spend lots of time in God's presence. Because through the blood of Christ he's given you a darn good reason to be happy with who you truly are as a person and he's overjoyed whenever you're with him. And when you get used to having those two needs met by God, you'll recognize it when you meet that special someone who'll meet those needs for you."
Any male (or female of course) blurkers wanna offer their take?
btw, am changing some of his comments to protect his identity. :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Here's a surprising fact I discovered - In the many divorce cases I have seen, the women responsible for breaking up marriages and families were not as physically attractive as the wives. I used to be a big fan of a marriage counseling book on the different needs of men and women but this threw the theories of that book out the window.
What I found was this. Men have two very deep, very primal emotional needs. Women who choose to meet these needs become irresistible to men. The needs are:
1) to feel happy with who they truly are when they are with a woman
2) to know that this woman is truly happy when she is with them.
But what usually happens after marriage?
The dude comes home after a hard day's work. The first words out of his wife's mouth are a torrent of complaints. And when it comes to Sunday morning, it usually gets worse. The wife is usually the first one up. She'll lovingly prepare breakfast, help pack the kid's stuff and all that.Then barge into the bedrooms of the rest of the family yelling at them that they're gonna be late for church. And after that the wife feels so frustrated and pissed off at why everyone else in the family is grumpier than her even though they got more sleep than she did.
To the dude, married life is a series of minor catastrophies. He is fighting fires day-by-day and he gets tired.
This, ladies, is a dangerous situation. But it's even more dangerous if there are issues that need to be worked out. If the wife is unhappy with the dude over his job, or his pay, or his hobby. And she regularly makes it known by complaining or nagging at him about it. And he gets even more tired.
'Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.' (Pro 21:9) "Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife." (Pro 21:19)
When we dudes look at you and decide that we wanna have a dating/courtship relationship with you, we usually are looking out for red-flags, warning signs that tell us the future problems we're gonna have with you when we get married.
And if we actually propose to you, we do so knowing your problems and hang-ups. We look at them and say "Hey, I can live with them." And we foolishly shrug our shoulders and assume that you ladies look at our problems and hang-ups in the same way too, that if you agree to marry us you're cool with who we really are, warts and all.
That's why, sisters, nagging and complaining about us hits us so badly. It hits us at our core emotional need for acceptance. If the woman I love and choose to spend the rest of my life with is so dissatisfied with me, there must be something really wrong with me. How then can I be happy with being who I really am?
It's kinda like rejection from parents - if the people who brought me into this world think I'm lousy, I must be lousy.
And at this point, any woman who can meet our core needs is gonna affect us powerfully. Hey, it may not even grow to the point of adultery. But doesn't it offend your very sensibilities that it's another woman who makes your husband feel good about being himself, and not YOU?
And if this other woman is genuinely happy when she's with your husband, he's gonna look at her seriously. Even if he's still loyal to you, if he's gotta choose between spending time with you (and hearing you nag) or spending time with her (watching her smile and laugh) who do you think he's gonna choose?
And don't let the marriage vow deceive you into thinking you can get away with emotionally abusing your husband. I had to confront this woman who discovered that her husband, a serious believer, loving father and a husband with a heart of servanthood, fell in love with another woman. It was only his love for God and his children that kept him from actually committing adultery with her.
I had to be the one who told her "If you've been threatening him with divorce at every quarrel (from within the first 3 months of marriage) and constantly telling him how marrying him has totally ruined your future, your hopes, your dreams and your life, how do you think he's gonna feel about anyone who's happy when she's with him?"
I plead with you, don't ever let your marriage go there. Because you know after every quarrel he's wondering why he married you instead of her. He'll be wondering how much longer he can put up with this. And he's gonna be praying "God, deliver me from this marriage!"
Guys, please recognize the power of the two needs I mentioned. You need a woman who makes you happy to be who you really are. And who is truly happy when she's with you. This is the type of woman you WILL love as you love yourself.
On your side the responsibility is this: NEVER commit yourself to a woman who doesn't fulfill these needs, or even worse, is dragging you down in this two areas.
I don't care if she's a pastor, super-model or worship-leader, I don't care how many church meetings, prayer meetings or bible-studies she goes to each week, I don't care how much she's "improved" (God, that word makes me cringe to the very core of my being!) since you first got to know her.
If she makes you unhappy about being you, or you can't see regular evidence that she's happy when she's with you (and don't lie to yourself guys), leave her.
Now.
Because it may be that this woman is unable to fulfill your core needs because of who she is as a person. And if you put her in a position where she HAS to fulfill them even though she can't, you are not being fair to her, putting on her a burden she can't carry.
And if you meet a woman fulfills all these needs for you, recognize this: she's like water to a thirst you may never realized you had. So before you totally lose all ability for rational thought, get a couple of good brothers-in-Christ to check her out and look out for danger signs that you're most probably gonna miss, because you're too deeply in love.
And sisters, when you look for a husband, I plead with you, don't just look for a godly man. Seriously, they abound. Look for a man for whom you fulfill these needs just by being you.
Because if you can fulfill those needs, you WILL respect your husband, as God commands. Effortlessly. It takes genuine respect for who your husband truly is as a person to make him happy to be himself when he's with you. And to be happy when you're with him.
Junk the angmo-nised cookie cutter approach to relationships and marriage that you'll get by browsing the Christian bookshops. The books that get sold there make you believe that marriage is meant to be hard work, and you need to learn 5 love languages, 5 needs of men and women and go through one year of devotionals on becoming soul mates.
After all the experiences I've been through and all the relationships and marriages I've seen, I can honestly tell you from the depths of my heart, if you're not soul mates to begin with, you won't be even after going through all those books, seminars and message CDs.
Finally, brothers and sisters, spend lots of time in God's presence. Because through the blood of Christ he's given you a darn good reason to be happy with who you truly are as a person and he's overjoyed whenever you're with him. And when you get used to having those two needs met by God, you'll recognize it when you meet that special someone who'll meet those needs for you."
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The Ministry of Reconciliation: for Richer and for Poorer
Just came back from church camp and it was as usual, a really really pleasant break.
Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:7-12) popped up as I was preparing for the lessons. I am amazed at how stark and clear Paul is in his writings. Though these thoughts must have been conceived centuries ago, they are so sharp in their observation of what every Christian ought to be concerned with in the myriad large and small tragedies of human living.
I think so far, this has to be one of my most favourite expressions of what being a real Christian means.
"...We live by faith, not by sight...
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves
but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
A Ministry of Reconciliation: how beautiful is that? We must tell people that in repentance, there is a place for them where all sadness can be put to rest, all mistakes can be forgiven and all hopes can find a firm foundation. We are refugees born in a world that was never meant to be this frustrating. The promise of heaven is not a promise of Care Bear clouds and Hallmark cherubs. The promise of heaven is a promise of Home.
Being a Christian means simply passing on the message you have already heard - Come Home. Be reconciled to all the things you used to hope for, all the goodness that you ever tasted before and wanted more of. Because that's who and what God is - a very real Person, a sum of all the things that Humanity has known instinctively as Good.
At some point, all of us will feel like the Prodigal Son - the proverbial never-do-well who reached a point in his life where he suddenly sees how badly he screwed up and does not think anyone could possibly want him back. God is the Father who waits with maddening patience at the door of the house, watching for his son to come back at last.
Reconciliation is a message of life for prostitutes, swindlers, liars, murderers, cheats, adulterers, the mean, the promiscious, the greedy, the lazy, the selfish, the idiot. In other words, every last one of us wretched little human beings. The lowest criminals are the first to have seen how clearly deadened they are. Those of us who have more happy, padded, entertained, manicured lives are just more naive and will take longer to see how far we have strayed from the home of our Ideals.
On the topic of reconciliation, I wondered too at camp about the whole idea of the Rich should help the Poor. I think we are all rich in many aspects - and we fail to understand the challenge of rich giving to the poor as long as we always simplify it into financial giving or even time giving. Sure we can give money and time - they are still valuable commodities - but there seems to be more to this giving of riches thing.
For instance: I know I have a wealth of smiling patience to listen to anyone. That is my riches in terms of personality. It's the way I was built, and it really is no great sacrifice for me to give a listening ear to anyone who needs it. An hour of listening to someone talk is probably what $1000 is to Bill Gates - small change. The true twist is when I think conversely of who the Poor that I should be reaching out to. My poor are the people who have no patience, no smiles to give, no social graces, no ease of communication. When I think of that, I get more scared and more sober about what it means to be giving.
My room-mate at church camp is one of the friendliest, sunshiney, beamy, high energy personality types I have ever met. She has just given up her banking career to go into Special Education Needs. She will be teaching autistic kids, kids with all sorts of learning disorders - she will give her riches of intelligence and ready smiles to students who may potentially never learn to smile back or think coherently their whole life.
Others who are not rich in social energy may be rich in the ability to organise and structure systems in a flick of an eye. Their Poor can be those who are an absolute mess and need someone strong to guide them through - be they a chronically distracted unemployed guy or a floundering badly run charitable organisation.
Provocative thoughts...I got to take them seriously. Hmmm....
Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:7-12) popped up as I was preparing for the lessons. I am amazed at how stark and clear Paul is in his writings. Though these thoughts must have been conceived centuries ago, they are so sharp in their observation of what every Christian ought to be concerned with in the myriad large and small tragedies of human living.
I think so far, this has to be one of my most favourite expressions of what being a real Christian means.
"...We live by faith, not by sight...
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves
but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
A Ministry of Reconciliation: how beautiful is that? We must tell people that in repentance, there is a place for them where all sadness can be put to rest, all mistakes can be forgiven and all hopes can find a firm foundation. We are refugees born in a world that was never meant to be this frustrating. The promise of heaven is not a promise of Care Bear clouds and Hallmark cherubs. The promise of heaven is a promise of Home.
Being a Christian means simply passing on the message you have already heard - Come Home. Be reconciled to all the things you used to hope for, all the goodness that you ever tasted before and wanted more of. Because that's who and what God is - a very real Person, a sum of all the things that Humanity has known instinctively as Good.
At some point, all of us will feel like the Prodigal Son - the proverbial never-do-well who reached a point in his life where he suddenly sees how badly he screwed up and does not think anyone could possibly want him back. God is the Father who waits with maddening patience at the door of the house, watching for his son to come back at last.
Reconciliation is a message of life for prostitutes, swindlers, liars, murderers, cheats, adulterers, the mean, the promiscious, the greedy, the lazy, the selfish, the idiot. In other words, every last one of us wretched little human beings. The lowest criminals are the first to have seen how clearly deadened they are. Those of us who have more happy, padded, entertained, manicured lives are just more naive and will take longer to see how far we have strayed from the home of our Ideals.
On the topic of reconciliation, I wondered too at camp about the whole idea of the Rich should help the Poor. I think we are all rich in many aspects - and we fail to understand the challenge of rich giving to the poor as long as we always simplify it into financial giving or even time giving. Sure we can give money and time - they are still valuable commodities - but there seems to be more to this giving of riches thing.
For instance: I know I have a wealth of smiling patience to listen to anyone. That is my riches in terms of personality. It's the way I was built, and it really is no great sacrifice for me to give a listening ear to anyone who needs it. An hour of listening to someone talk is probably what $1000 is to Bill Gates - small change. The true twist is when I think conversely of who the Poor that I should be reaching out to. My poor are the people who have no patience, no smiles to give, no social graces, no ease of communication. When I think of that, I get more scared and more sober about what it means to be giving.
My room-mate at church camp is one of the friendliest, sunshiney, beamy, high energy personality types I have ever met. She has just given up her banking career to go into Special Education Needs. She will be teaching autistic kids, kids with all sorts of learning disorders - she will give her riches of intelligence and ready smiles to students who may potentially never learn to smile back or think coherently their whole life.
Others who are not rich in social energy may be rich in the ability to organise and structure systems in a flick of an eye. Their Poor can be those who are an absolute mess and need someone strong to guide them through - be they a chronically distracted unemployed guy or a floundering badly run charitable organisation.
Provocative thoughts...I got to take them seriously. Hmmm....
Thursday, May 25, 2006
getfuzzy
looks like I am not the only one living vicariously in Stormreach.
I lurve Get Fuzzy. How cool is it that I might have run by the artist before in the virtual world? Gonna check out every dude swinging a two-handed axe now. ha!
as a rude gamer t-shirt I saw online declare "Sleep is for the WEAK!"
LOL.
I lurve Get Fuzzy. How cool is it that I might have run by the artist before in the virtual world? Gonna check out every dude swinging a two-handed axe now. ha!
as a rude gamer t-shirt I saw online declare "Sleep is for the WEAK!"
LOL.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Why I Won't Watch Da Vinci Code
1) Tom Hanks' mullet
2) Tom Hanks' mullet
3) Tom Hanks' mullet
4) Tom Hanks' mullet
5) Tom Hanks' mullet
Ye gads! Hair-style Liberals beware!
I am an anti-mullet facist-conservative-extremist-fundamentalist!
nyeah nyeah ni boo boo
His hair offends my belief system.
Quelle horreur!
hee.
2) Tom Hanks' mullet
3) Tom Hanks' mullet
4) Tom Hanks' mullet
5) Tom Hanks' mullet
Ye gads! Hair-style Liberals beware!
I am an anti-mullet facist-conservative-extremist-fundamentalist!
nyeah nyeah ni boo boo
His hair offends my belief system.
Quelle horreur!
hee.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Thoughts on TissueAunty's birthday
It was TissueAunty's birthday today - I broke my promise to celebrate it with her over dinner(she insisted on treating) as I was in a meeting and prioritised that as more "important". I am kinda grateful that I got a second chance on my way home. Apparently after her birthday dinner, she went straight back to the little Bugis island, selling her tissue paper. She insisted on treating me to a drink and I sat with her for a while to make up for missing her birthday. Teasing her about her new haircut, I asked her what she wanted as a present. In an embarrassed whisper, she requested for a Singtel Hi Card and perhaps a little pushcart trolley to ferry her multiple bags of tissuepaper, knickknacks and all that she peddled. She also asked for prayer for her and her family.
I thought it was sweet of her to actually want to buy me birthday dinner. And sweeter still that her requests were so simple and asked for with so little bile or greed. She has so little and yet she wants to cheerfully share her wealth still. Since meeting her and being challenged by God on a personal level to be more participative in the life of the needy, I must say she has taught me some things about faith and perseverance in terrible circumstances. She has also shown me that God truly looks after the weakest and neediest in profound ways when we people neglect them. (Update: She found a flat that costs significantly less to rent and an easier-going $1200/month job manning a toilet at Bugis Village! Her son also secured a jib pushing a drink cart near Rochor. That's amazing considering her circumstances when we first met)
_________________
This made me muse a bit about something. On my DISC profile, with my high S and I, I am classified as a Counsellor/Adviser. It seems to tally with my experiences with random strangers. I am an uncanny magnet for strangers with the oddest hard luck stories on the streets. I think I send out a broadband signal - "easy target. will listen. likes oddballs. please approach. will find it hard to say no to request for conversation."
Everytime I meet a stranger with a hardluck story, I am challenged to put my beliefs about helping the poor to the test. I am fairly absolute in my statements to my students about the need to challenge the status quo and bridging the rich/ poor divide at an individual level as well as societal and international level. With each strange 'kook', I meet I am forced to readdress my values, "Are you gonna help or are you gonna walk away?"
It's really really tough and I can feel how easy it is to walk away. It is a temptation to help out in as fast, simple, "in and out" way as possible. Far tougher to make the decision to commit long-term to helping another person. It already is tough to dig out the wallet and dispense out the cash to a needy person. It is far far far tougher to go an extra mile and say you are willing to be involved beyond the chance encounter.
I know all the routine arguments because heaven knows, I have made them before in my lifetime ---- Yes, it is impossible to be involved personally with every single poor person that we meet, yes we can never insure that the money we give does not go to ciggies-drugs-alcohol, yes we are too culturally different to be of real use to them, Yes, I know we can just buy them food because that's what they need most.....so far the nagging feeling that will not leave my mind anytime I hear these arguments is - are those answers tripping just a little too quickly and conveniently off my tongue? Do my clever words disguise mere excuses? Do I want to buy food because I dont want to commit to giving real money and time to find out where exactly the person needs help in?
$5 for a pack of chicken rice is a cheap price to pay for assuaging guilty naggy feelings of "you ought to help the poor" and gaining the high of"wow,i am a generous person." We buy the drink and food for the homeless, feel warm inside with the chance to play benefactor and walk away from them for the rest of our life. We go back to our riches, they go back to an everyday reality of poverty. I just don't buy short-term charity. Real charitable work is a life-time commitment- a hard core decision to invest one's life in another's life. Cursory donations are useful but just don't cut it in terms of long-term solutions.
It's a challenge - and one that I am still wondering how I will fare in in my maiden effort/experiment with TissueAunty. Its tough...there have been so many encounters that I had where I was not sure how to go on further.
One time after working late at school, I was accousted by a drugged out looking chinese man asking for ten bucks. Not wanting to antagonise him, I listened politely to his ravings for a good thirty minutes - the conversation went from how his family betrayed him, to how he jumped off a building once and hurt his 'lum-par' (he gestured at his crotch violently to emphasise his point) but not one of his family looked after him, While talking to me, he would creepily talk at a space behind me, as if there was someone behind me. The nuttiest part was when he declared he had gone to prison before and was angry all the time and wanted to kill people. He stressed that sometimes he wondered if people walking on the street knew that he wanted to kill them. (At this point, I said, 'Oh no, I don't think they do and you should not kill people') He agreed and mentioned that in prison he met a Malay man who was always patient even though he insulted Malay guy's mom ('I call her C-B also he never angry!') From then, he wanted to be just like the guy. I nodded very very approvingly ('ya its good, learn to be like him'), gave him money and walked off as soon as it seemed like he was content he got stuff off his chest and was not gonna kill me.
Then there was the Eurasian man with one of those annoying survey forms who approached me in Raffles MRT, asking me questions about whether I liked my job and whether I was keen on switching careers to the sales company he was surveying for. I was trying to explain to him how I loved teaching and would never consider a career switch - he could not understand at all why anyone would not even try to find out how to get extra income. Conversation became a philosophical one about the nature of work and money with him trying to convince me about his stance - anyhow, turned out he was a slightly mentally unhinged unemployed man, sacked from his management post, and not taking it too well. He was a philosophy major and repeatedly made sure I understood that. Conversation lasted an hour. Anyhow, a few months later, I meet the same guy, doing the same survey at Bugis MRT. When he approaches me, I tell him straight away that he asked me before and we had a really long talk about why I was not keen. He goes on to reveal to me that he is angry the PAP wont subsidise his brain surgery and the government should watch out for how all the unemployed - "the walking dead" he called them - would rise up and overthrow it. He also names for me all the nasty civil servants he met at the CDC distributing social welfare. He also reiterates for me that he is not stupid, he came from a prestigious school and it was not his fault he was like that. (He spoke quite poshily actually, good enunciation)
And the most recent encounter: A woman with long greying hair, watery eyes and a mouth full of the smelliest, broken up , blackened teeth I had ever seen came up to me and claimed she had been praying for God to send her someone to help her pay her rent. The smell from her mouth was the foulest thing ever - she kept covering her mouth and apologising, saying she had cancer. She explains to me how her husband had died, and she was broke, and several times in conversation, she breaks off to pray one-liners to God. During entire conversation, she keeps reaching out to touch me on my hand and my stomach/waist when she wanted to emphasise "I am not a cheat. I got cheated before by a friend, I know what it is to be cheated. Please dont think I am one." We arranged to meet at City Hall the next day so I could give her some cash. She kept asking me to pray for her and how important it was because she had more vital spiritual needs than the material ones.
________
I wondered in every one of those cases, how could I offer long term commitment to help? When do I hand over the responsibilities to other people? It's a really tough call to follow. Need so much grace for it to happen! Still exploring....:)
I thought it was sweet of her to actually want to buy me birthday dinner. And sweeter still that her requests were so simple and asked for with so little bile or greed. She has so little and yet she wants to cheerfully share her wealth still. Since meeting her and being challenged by God on a personal level to be more participative in the life of the needy, I must say she has taught me some things about faith and perseverance in terrible circumstances. She has also shown me that God truly looks after the weakest and neediest in profound ways when we people neglect them. (Update: She found a flat that costs significantly less to rent and an easier-going $1200/month job manning a toilet at Bugis Village! Her son also secured a jib pushing a drink cart near Rochor. That's amazing considering her circumstances when we first met)
_________________
This made me muse a bit about something. On my DISC profile, with my high S and I, I am classified as a Counsellor/Adviser. It seems to tally with my experiences with random strangers. I am an uncanny magnet for strangers with the oddest hard luck stories on the streets. I think I send out a broadband signal - "easy target. will listen. likes oddballs. please approach. will find it hard to say no to request for conversation."
Everytime I meet a stranger with a hardluck story, I am challenged to put my beliefs about helping the poor to the test. I am fairly absolute in my statements to my students about the need to challenge the status quo and bridging the rich/ poor divide at an individual level as well as societal and international level. With each strange 'kook', I meet I am forced to readdress my values, "Are you gonna help or are you gonna walk away?"
It's really really tough and I can feel how easy it is to walk away. It is a temptation to help out in as fast, simple, "in and out" way as possible. Far tougher to make the decision to commit long-term to helping another person. It already is tough to dig out the wallet and dispense out the cash to a needy person. It is far far far tougher to go an extra mile and say you are willing to be involved beyond the chance encounter.
I know all the routine arguments because heaven knows, I have made them before in my lifetime ---- Yes, it is impossible to be involved personally with every single poor person that we meet, yes we can never insure that the money we give does not go to ciggies-drugs-alcohol, yes we are too culturally different to be of real use to them, Yes, I know we can just buy them food because that's what they need most.....so far the nagging feeling that will not leave my mind anytime I hear these arguments is - are those answers tripping just a little too quickly and conveniently off my tongue? Do my clever words disguise mere excuses? Do I want to buy food because I dont want to commit to giving real money and time to find out where exactly the person needs help in?
$5 for a pack of chicken rice is a cheap price to pay for assuaging guilty naggy feelings of "you ought to help the poor" and gaining the high of"wow,i am a generous person." We buy the drink and food for the homeless, feel warm inside with the chance to play benefactor and walk away from them for the rest of our life. We go back to our riches, they go back to an everyday reality of poverty. I just don't buy short-term charity. Real charitable work is a life-time commitment- a hard core decision to invest one's life in another's life. Cursory donations are useful but just don't cut it in terms of long-term solutions.
It's a challenge - and one that I am still wondering how I will fare in in my maiden effort/experiment with TissueAunty. Its tough...there have been so many encounters that I had where I was not sure how to go on further.
One time after working late at school, I was accousted by a drugged out looking chinese man asking for ten bucks. Not wanting to antagonise him, I listened politely to his ravings for a good thirty minutes - the conversation went from how his family betrayed him, to how he jumped off a building once and hurt his 'lum-par' (he gestured at his crotch violently to emphasise his point) but not one of his family looked after him, While talking to me, he would creepily talk at a space behind me, as if there was someone behind me. The nuttiest part was when he declared he had gone to prison before and was angry all the time and wanted to kill people. He stressed that sometimes he wondered if people walking on the street knew that he wanted to kill them. (At this point, I said, 'Oh no, I don't think they do and you should not kill people') He agreed and mentioned that in prison he met a Malay man who was always patient even though he insulted Malay guy's mom ('I call her C-B also he never angry!') From then, he wanted to be just like the guy. I nodded very very approvingly ('ya its good, learn to be like him'), gave him money and walked off as soon as it seemed like he was content he got stuff off his chest and was not gonna kill me.
Then there was the Eurasian man with one of those annoying survey forms who approached me in Raffles MRT, asking me questions about whether I liked my job and whether I was keen on switching careers to the sales company he was surveying for. I was trying to explain to him how I loved teaching and would never consider a career switch - he could not understand at all why anyone would not even try to find out how to get extra income. Conversation became a philosophical one about the nature of work and money with him trying to convince me about his stance - anyhow, turned out he was a slightly mentally unhinged unemployed man, sacked from his management post, and not taking it too well. He was a philosophy major and repeatedly made sure I understood that. Conversation lasted an hour. Anyhow, a few months later, I meet the same guy, doing the same survey at Bugis MRT. When he approaches me, I tell him straight away that he asked me before and we had a really long talk about why I was not keen. He goes on to reveal to me that he is angry the PAP wont subsidise his brain surgery and the government should watch out for how all the unemployed - "the walking dead" he called them - would rise up and overthrow it. He also names for me all the nasty civil servants he met at the CDC distributing social welfare. He also reiterates for me that he is not stupid, he came from a prestigious school and it was not his fault he was like that. (He spoke quite poshily actually, good enunciation)
And the most recent encounter: A woman with long greying hair, watery eyes and a mouth full of the smelliest, broken up , blackened teeth I had ever seen came up to me and claimed she had been praying for God to send her someone to help her pay her rent. The smell from her mouth was the foulest thing ever - she kept covering her mouth and apologising, saying she had cancer. She explains to me how her husband had died, and she was broke, and several times in conversation, she breaks off to pray one-liners to God. During entire conversation, she keeps reaching out to touch me on my hand and my stomach/waist when she wanted to emphasise "I am not a cheat. I got cheated before by a friend, I know what it is to be cheated. Please dont think I am one." We arranged to meet at City Hall the next day so I could give her some cash. She kept asking me to pray for her and how important it was because she had more vital spiritual needs than the material ones.
________
I wondered in every one of those cases, how could I offer long term commitment to help? When do I hand over the responsibilities to other people? It's a really tough call to follow. Need so much grace for it to happen! Still exploring....:)
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Snipers
According to the DISC personality test, because I am a super "S" type - I have learnt to cope with my environment by learning to be more objective and rational over people. I swear - that is a big challenge in the face of sniper-type personalities - you know, the kind who cannot resist giving you all their snipey little barbed, bullets of the day. Never fails to bring a good mood down to earth.
Is it a uniquely Singaporean social greeting to make comments about one's appearance? Like "You look very tired/haggard/fat/wierd etc." Whatever happened to just courteously asking after someone's general well-being or family?
The response that always runs in my head is - Oh gee, thanks for pointing it out! I wouldn't have been able to guess. I mean hello, if the person looks tired, he probably knows that he looks it and does not need you to unceremoniously point out how big his eyebags are, or how paunchy he is looking etc.
Of course, the silly part is, I know I have done that to people myself. Its like this horrible mechanism that pops into play - before you know it, you have said the dreaded words, "Oh wow....you look (Fill in the uncomplimentary blank)" ARGH. You have crossed over to the dark side before you know it.
Ok, must repent from planks of primary forest in my eye.
Must consciously say in head, whenever feel tempted to make 'evil comments' about someone's appearance, must replace with 'more encouraging comment' or better yet, just not comment at all.
The tongue! It is such a little monster!
Is it a uniquely Singaporean social greeting to make comments about one's appearance? Like "You look very tired/haggard/fat/wierd etc." Whatever happened to just courteously asking after someone's general well-being or family?
The response that always runs in my head is - Oh gee, thanks for pointing it out! I wouldn't have been able to guess. I mean hello, if the person looks tired, he probably knows that he looks it and does not need you to unceremoniously point out how big his eyebags are, or how paunchy he is looking etc.
Of course, the silly part is, I know I have done that to people myself. Its like this horrible mechanism that pops into play - before you know it, you have said the dreaded words, "Oh wow....you look (Fill in the uncomplimentary blank)" ARGH. You have crossed over to the dark side before you know it.
Ok, must repent from planks of primary forest in my eye.
Must consciously say in head, whenever feel tempted to make 'evil comments' about someone's appearance, must replace with 'more encouraging comment' or better yet, just not comment at all.
The tongue! It is such a little monster!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
The Measure of a Man
Have been preparing for the Prejudice & Discrimination lecture this weekend by watching this PBS documentary - "Ghosts of Rwanda". Its a stunning piece of work - full of astoundingly frank interviews with witnesses from all levels of the 1994 genocide and their reflections on what they did to help or harm. From the big movers and shakers who basically waffled and did too little too late - like Kofi Annan, Madeline Albright, Clinton - to the NGO workers, reporters,UN soldiers and victims on the ground who were face to face with monstrosity. There was even an interview with one of the Tutsi extremist murderers who had eventually converted and repented of his actions.
There were several parts of the documentary that made me so incredibly angry. We can be such stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid evil creatures.
Watching the clip of the then-Hutu extremist leader Bagassora proclaiming with absolute righteousness that every Tutsi deserved to be destroyed made me so damnably frustrated that I actually hit the table with my fist. I just wanted to punch the *#$@!. It was a stupid, meaningless act but the only one I was capable of as a distant viewer, watching atrocities in the haven of a ridiculously privileged little Asian nation, through the pixels of a TV screen, immortalised in the shiny rainbow surface of a pretty shrink-wrapped DVD.
And then there were all those amazing unsung heroes who rejected the chance to flee for sanctuary, stood their ground and refused to turn away from mass murder: Un-named,unarmed UN officers who had nothing but wooden chairs, staunch moral conviction and bare hands to push away murderers who wanted to enter a church to kill the 1000s of Tutsis hiding within; Carl, the lone church worker - the only American expatriate to chose to stay in Rwanda when the whole expat community fled - who managed to save more people than his ENTIRE GOVERNMENT could by confronting Bagassora himself in a chance meeting. Mbaye, the Senegalese UN captain who ignored instructions to stay neutral and herded 1000 Tutsis to safe zones on his own initiative.
An Irish BBC reporter is shown in the documentary walking past 5000 bleached, shrunken corpses lain out in a church courtyard, piled there by their murderers. There is no mistaking the pain in his voice as he remembers seeing a pristine white statue of Jesus Christ with arms extended in welcome while below him, draped on the steps of the church is a rotting corpse, with arms similarly spread out. He said,"I was raised an Irish Catholic but I had drifted far far away from my religion. But that day, I looked at Jesus and I prayed for His Kingdom Come."
When I watched the political giants stumble over their words, shift their eyes away and twitch the corners of their mouths as they tried to explain how they could have turned away from such Evil, I realised one thing more powerfully than ever.
The measure of a man is not his earthly power - his riches, his power suit, his military might, his political position, his number of MBAs and glittering portfolio of experiences. All those countless stupid ads for luxury watches and diamonds that proclaim otherwise can bite me - not one of those silly trinkets defines who I truly am.
The measure of a man is the moral choice he makes in the face of Injustice and Evil.
When everybody else flees and everything turns mad, what kind of person you are behind all the gloss then becomes starkly apparent.
The documentary made me really realise:
I have no love for cowards and hand-twisting naysayers.
I have no love for smarmy, empty political rhetoric.
I hate too clever-by-half, snotty little soundbite answers for terrible problems.
I hate complacency and the excuse, "It's not my problem." or "I did not know".
The anger that came out of me while watching the documentary makes me seriously wonder what kind of person I will be in any ethical storm - as large as a national genocide or as small as a classroom decision.
Will I take my stand and take heart, seek refuge in the fact that I did what God demands? To save the wretched, the helpless, the child, the widow?
Or will I flee and seek refuge in nice-sounding euphemistic explanations? And worse, bleat God's name in vain to justify my inaction and complacency?
The measure of a man surely is in whether he chooses the narrow RIGHT WAY that is less trodden or whether he chooses the wide, crowded SAFE WAY to destruction.
When my kids watch the clip this Saturday, I hope and pray that something sensible will sit inside them and help them see that.
As for me and my bile against the murderous thugs of this world - I jsut hope I will remember "But for the grace of God, there go I!"
There were several parts of the documentary that made me so incredibly angry. We can be such stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid evil creatures.
Watching the clip of the then-Hutu extremist leader Bagassora proclaiming with absolute righteousness that every Tutsi deserved to be destroyed made me so damnably frustrated that I actually hit the table with my fist. I just wanted to punch the *#$@!. It was a stupid, meaningless act but the only one I was capable of as a distant viewer, watching atrocities in the haven of a ridiculously privileged little Asian nation, through the pixels of a TV screen, immortalised in the shiny rainbow surface of a pretty shrink-wrapped DVD.
And then there were all those amazing unsung heroes who rejected the chance to flee for sanctuary, stood their ground and refused to turn away from mass murder: Un-named,unarmed UN officers who had nothing but wooden chairs, staunch moral conviction and bare hands to push away murderers who wanted to enter a church to kill the 1000s of Tutsis hiding within; Carl, the lone church worker - the only American expatriate to chose to stay in Rwanda when the whole expat community fled - who managed to save more people than his ENTIRE GOVERNMENT could by confronting Bagassora himself in a chance meeting. Mbaye, the Senegalese UN captain who ignored instructions to stay neutral and herded 1000 Tutsis to safe zones on his own initiative.
An Irish BBC reporter is shown in the documentary walking past 5000 bleached, shrunken corpses lain out in a church courtyard, piled there by their murderers. There is no mistaking the pain in his voice as he remembers seeing a pristine white statue of Jesus Christ with arms extended in welcome while below him, draped on the steps of the church is a rotting corpse, with arms similarly spread out. He said,"I was raised an Irish Catholic but I had drifted far far away from my religion. But that day, I looked at Jesus and I prayed for His Kingdom Come."
When I watched the political giants stumble over their words, shift their eyes away and twitch the corners of their mouths as they tried to explain how they could have turned away from such Evil, I realised one thing more powerfully than ever.
The measure of a man is not his earthly power - his riches, his power suit, his military might, his political position, his number of MBAs and glittering portfolio of experiences. All those countless stupid ads for luxury watches and diamonds that proclaim otherwise can bite me - not one of those silly trinkets defines who I truly am.
The measure of a man is the moral choice he makes in the face of Injustice and Evil.
When everybody else flees and everything turns mad, what kind of person you are behind all the gloss then becomes starkly apparent.
The documentary made me really realise:
I have no love for cowards and hand-twisting naysayers.
I have no love for smarmy, empty political rhetoric.
I hate too clever-by-half, snotty little soundbite answers for terrible problems.
I hate complacency and the excuse, "It's not my problem." or "I did not know".
The anger that came out of me while watching the documentary makes me seriously wonder what kind of person I will be in any ethical storm - as large as a national genocide or as small as a classroom decision.
Will I take my stand and take heart, seek refuge in the fact that I did what God demands? To save the wretched, the helpless, the child, the widow?
Or will I flee and seek refuge in nice-sounding euphemistic explanations? And worse, bleat God's name in vain to justify my inaction and complacency?
The measure of a man surely is in whether he chooses the narrow RIGHT WAY that is less trodden or whether he chooses the wide, crowded SAFE WAY to destruction.
When my kids watch the clip this Saturday, I hope and pray that something sensible will sit inside them and help them see that.
As for me and my bile against the murderous thugs of this world - I jsut hope I will remember "But for the grace of God, there go I!"
Monday, May 01, 2006
Confessions of Ashara Stormborn, 4th level Cleric of Stormreach
Over the weekend, I was reminded that I had not been updating my blog for the longest time. Its kinda flattering to know people are reading your scribblings, so easily flattered goof that I am, I shall be suckered into trying to update again.
Anyhow: The reason why I have been offline on Blogger is pretty prosaic - I have been disgustingly obsessively playing Dungeons and Dragons Online, which launched in in April. It's my very first MMPORG - Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game. Within 30 days, I have racked up a shameful amount of gameplay into the wee hours of morning. But hey, anything to pry that +1 Flameburst Morningstar from the cold virtual hands of the evil Minotaur Priest right?
So in a short bunch of weeks, I have become one of the subculture of gaming nerds that sit in the LAN gaming centres at 3am, yelling, "RUN! THE SPIDER IS BEHIND!! WAH LAUUUUUUUUUUU." I have become well-acquainted with the bursts of virtual gunfire from Counterstrike ("Lock and Lode!" "Terrorists Win!") as well as the grunts of hard-working orcs from World of Warcraft ("workwork").
Apart from fulfilling my persistent need for gaming, it's a really fascinating phenomenon to dissect psychologically and sociologically. Ok, ok - so it sounds like yaya papaya justification for an insidiously time-consuming teenage-boy hobby but REALLY, I think the applications of MMPORG technology and thinking in other fields would be interesting to explore.
Darling Wikipedia informs us:
"MMORPGs have existed since the early 1990s. However, they have a history that extends back into the late 1970s. Over 25 years ago, players would connect to an entirely text-based world (no graphics) called a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) which was usually hosted at a University, sometimes without the knowledge of the system's administrators. The gameplay and community of these games was similar to the MMORPGs of today. MMORPGs have begun to attract significant academic attention, notably in the fields of economics and psychology that study relationships between real world economies and societies vs. synthetic economies and societies...."
What I think is interesting is how we take our real life personalities and ethics into the virtual world as well. Gaming - like sports - presents insights into people's motivations and character. I read somewhere that the cleric class tends to attract certain types of people - either the person wants to be really independent and self sufficient (able to fight and heal himself at the same time) or he does not mind using his own resources to help other people (spending spell points on healing other people instead of conserving for himself) Sounds more or less like why I keep playing the class.
Now based on that little tidbit of human psychology, we tested it out in real gameplay. My friend played a wizard and she got herself cursed and blinded - essentially useless to the party. I was too low level a cleric to have the spell Remove Curse/Blindness. So we sent her to a tavern in the game where other players from all over the world hang out and had her send a virtual shout-out, "Alms for the blind? Help the blind and needy". In-game, when you are cursed it is obvious to everybody as there is a gigantic ugly red and black light above your head. Sure enough, a total stranger helped out.
She, being Christian, could not resist sending out another virtual shout-out, "I was blind but now I see! Thnx."
Heh. Ok, Shall go find more serious topics to write about soon.
Meanwhile, I am officially a geek.
But you know....even The Geek shall inherit. haha
Anyhow: The reason why I have been offline on Blogger is pretty prosaic - I have been disgustingly obsessively playing Dungeons and Dragons Online, which launched in in April. It's my very first MMPORG - Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game. Within 30 days, I have racked up a shameful amount of gameplay into the wee hours of morning. But hey, anything to pry that +1 Flameburst Morningstar from the cold virtual hands of the evil Minotaur Priest right?
So in a short bunch of weeks, I have become one of the subculture of gaming nerds that sit in the LAN gaming centres at 3am, yelling, "RUN! THE SPIDER IS BEHIND!! WAH LAUUUUUUUUUUU." I have become well-acquainted with the bursts of virtual gunfire from Counterstrike ("Lock and Lode!" "Terrorists Win!") as well as the grunts of hard-working orcs from World of Warcraft ("workwork").
Apart from fulfilling my persistent need for gaming, it's a really fascinating phenomenon to dissect psychologically and sociologically. Ok, ok - so it sounds like yaya papaya justification for an insidiously time-consuming teenage-boy hobby but REALLY, I think the applications of MMPORG technology and thinking in other fields would be interesting to explore.
Darling Wikipedia informs us:
"MMORPGs have existed since the early 1990s. However, they have a history that extends back into the late 1970s. Over 25 years ago, players would connect to an entirely text-based world (no graphics) called a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) which was usually hosted at a University, sometimes without the knowledge of the system's administrators. The gameplay and community of these games was similar to the MMORPGs of today. MMORPGs have begun to attract significant academic attention, notably in the fields of economics and psychology that study relationships between real world economies and societies vs. synthetic economies and societies...."
What I think is interesting is how we take our real life personalities and ethics into the virtual world as well. Gaming - like sports - presents insights into people's motivations and character. I read somewhere that the cleric class tends to attract certain types of people - either the person wants to be really independent and self sufficient (able to fight and heal himself at the same time) or he does not mind using his own resources to help other people (spending spell points on healing other people instead of conserving for himself) Sounds more or less like why I keep playing the class.
Now based on that little tidbit of human psychology, we tested it out in real gameplay. My friend played a wizard and she got herself cursed and blinded - essentially useless to the party. I was too low level a cleric to have the spell Remove Curse/Blindness. So we sent her to a tavern in the game where other players from all over the world hang out and had her send a virtual shout-out, "Alms for the blind? Help the blind and needy". In-game, when you are cursed it is obvious to everybody as there is a gigantic ugly red and black light above your head. Sure enough, a total stranger helped out.
She, being Christian, could not resist sending out another virtual shout-out, "I was blind but now I see! Thnx."
Heh. Ok, Shall go find more serious topics to write about soon.
Meanwhile, I am officially a geek.
But you know....even The Geek shall inherit. haha
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Miracles large and small
A friend who went through much in life penned her thoughts on miracles to a group of us through email.
I thought it was quite poignant. Decided to doctor it a little, change the structure to disguise its writer.
But essentially this is it. Wanted to blog it, to share and remember it.
I think sometimes its just sweet to savour the miracle of being loved across the universe
- To know that Someone thought you worth the time and effort to befriend and behold.
The same sweet Someone who takes our inner desert of death and dryness,
digs and dwelves out a spectacular, gushing, flowing fountain of Life
and grows a Kingdom,
Amazing grace indeed :)
And now from J herself:
"There are times when my soul craves for the spectacular.
I cry out, like a child to the Father,
for mountains to crumble, clouds to burn, oceans to part, the dead to walk.
But of course, He knows better.
In the past, the children of Israel did not have God inside them.
He was outside.
So God needed to shout with the spectacular to get their attention.
Today, God is in us. Remain in him. He remains in you.
When He moves, we know.
We don't need to rely on the spectacular.
Today's miracles are just as spectacular.
But we don't see them outside because it is all INSIDE.
What we read about and gaped at in the old, is but a reflection of the greater in the new:
The spectacular within.
Today, walls still come tumbling down. Not of bricks and motar which we read about.
But of bitterness made sweet, unforgiveness turned mercy, fear turned to courage
Seas still part. Inside us.
Walls still fall. Inside us.
Darkness blazes into light. Inside us.
What was dead comes to life. Inside us.
Stone becomes flesh. Inside us.
One glorious day, these things will all happen in the Land of the Living once more in even fuller glory than ever.
Till then, we take heart, and wait on Him..the One who brings all things to pass.
It was so easy for me to miss the miracles that happen today.
I was looking outside."
I thought it was quite poignant. Decided to doctor it a little, change the structure to disguise its writer.
But essentially this is it. Wanted to blog it, to share and remember it.
I think sometimes its just sweet to savour the miracle of being loved across the universe
- To know that Someone thought you worth the time and effort to befriend and behold.
The same sweet Someone who takes our inner desert of death and dryness,
digs and dwelves out a spectacular, gushing, flowing fountain of Life
and grows a Kingdom,
Amazing grace indeed :)
And now from J herself:
"There are times when my soul craves for the spectacular.
I cry out, like a child to the Father,
for mountains to crumble, clouds to burn, oceans to part, the dead to walk.
But of course, He knows better.
In the past, the children of Israel did not have God inside them.
He was outside.
So God needed to shout with the spectacular to get their attention.
Today, God is in us. Remain in him. He remains in you.
When He moves, we know.
We don't need to rely on the spectacular.
Today's miracles are just as spectacular.
But we don't see them outside because it is all INSIDE.
What we read about and gaped at in the old, is but a reflection of the greater in the new:
The spectacular within.
Today, walls still come tumbling down. Not of bricks and motar which we read about.
But of bitterness made sweet, unforgiveness turned mercy, fear turned to courage
Seas still part. Inside us.
Walls still fall. Inside us.
Darkness blazes into light. Inside us.
What was dead comes to life. Inside us.
Stone becomes flesh. Inside us.
One glorious day, these things will all happen in the Land of the Living once more in even fuller glory than ever.
Till then, we take heart, and wait on Him..the One who brings all things to pass.
It was so easy for me to miss the miracles that happen today.
I was looking outside."
Thursday, March 02, 2006
thoughts on teaching
this year i started teaching at a church run non-profit school for dropouts preparing for O level exams. The first thing that struck me when I walked into class on the first day was the collective visual impact they made.
The fact that all of them came in their own crazy piercings, coloured hair, ripped outfits, tattoos and make-up was jarring. My first thought was "Wow. I better know what I am saying. These guys are in their full on tribal regalia." It was massively cool in a "Dangerous Minds" sort of way but also fairly intimidating in much the same fashion. The first row of kids that faced me were Neo-goth punk boys. Two wore mascara, one had tattoos all over - including his girlfriend's name across his fingers and one massive neck tattoo of a pair of praying hands. He also had two gloriously huge, 50 cent size holes in his ear lobes.
I never gave much thought to the whole "wear uniform or dont wear uniform" debate. After all, I was used to putting on my little boring pinafore all the way till JC. I do understand now why they say putting students in school uniforms really does have a disempowering effect - all the students are made to look like carbon copies while you, the teacher, are in the position of power by virtue of your difference in outfit. It's akin to how soldiers, servants and factory workers all dress one way and generals, bosses and masters dress another.
Its been four weeks so far and already I see they are truly a tribe of their own, quite separate from the pristine mainstream. I have a sweet, lovely young librarian-looking girl next door who is already married with a little kid. When she waits outside the school with her Far East kid of a husband, I have to remind myself they are parents, not kids. I have a Young and Dangerous lookalike who can tell me he had not been turning up for class because he was clearing up a case at the police station.
But beneath the bizarro external side lies fascinating little stories. My mascara boy who togs himself up in skinny Britband ties and big punk pants shared with me that he loves designing Perenakan jewellery. My bouncer-looking, stocky mat-rocker biker boy reveals quite happily to the rest of the class that he is proud to be virgin and says his ambition is to be a good husband and provider to his future wife and kids.
Just this year, a fellow teacher shared with me some wise advice - "We teach who we are."
A good teacher prepares his students for exams. A great teacher prepares his students for life.
And of course, life is that funny slippery thing that can never be taught via text book...it can only be demonstrated, modelled, lived and shared. It is passed on through the ether, between the lines.
It's something I have grown very conscious of with my new discerning, tough as nails audience. I obviously come from a culture vastly different from theirs. They know it, I know it. Thankfully, they are sweet enough at heart not to hold it against me as long as I do the same for them.
How should I speak and teach such that they do not feel the difference between us, but the commonality that we actually share? How do I translate principles into lingo and images they understand?
Blogging is a funny thing - In an odd way, it is easier for me to be vulnerable through the medium of written words. You have the armour of weighed out thought and you don't directly face your audience and witness the immediate twitches people make in reaction to your words. It really is quite another dimension to learn how to be vulnerable on the fly, on the spot, at the moment when someone asks a cutting question or makes a shrewd personal remark.
The most powerful thing we can share with another person is the Truth of who we were, who we are and what we will be.
Yet it is the most frightening thing in the world to be truly vulnerable. It requires inhuman humility that only God can teach.
I guess to be a truly great teacher, you got to start and always continue to be a truly great learner. I need God to show me I can never think of myself more highly or lowly than I should. That's so tricky!
Anyhoo.....that appears to be one of my lessons for the year. Let's see how many decades I will take to ingest that!
The fact that all of them came in their own crazy piercings, coloured hair, ripped outfits, tattoos and make-up was jarring. My first thought was "Wow. I better know what I am saying. These guys are in their full on tribal regalia." It was massively cool in a "Dangerous Minds" sort of way but also fairly intimidating in much the same fashion. The first row of kids that faced me were Neo-goth punk boys. Two wore mascara, one had tattoos all over - including his girlfriend's name across his fingers and one massive neck tattoo of a pair of praying hands. He also had two gloriously huge, 50 cent size holes in his ear lobes.
I never gave much thought to the whole "wear uniform or dont wear uniform" debate. After all, I was used to putting on my little boring pinafore all the way till JC. I do understand now why they say putting students in school uniforms really does have a disempowering effect - all the students are made to look like carbon copies while you, the teacher, are in the position of power by virtue of your difference in outfit. It's akin to how soldiers, servants and factory workers all dress one way and generals, bosses and masters dress another.
Its been four weeks so far and already I see they are truly a tribe of their own, quite separate from the pristine mainstream. I have a sweet, lovely young librarian-looking girl next door who is already married with a little kid. When she waits outside the school with her Far East kid of a husband, I have to remind myself they are parents, not kids. I have a Young and Dangerous lookalike who can tell me he had not been turning up for class because he was clearing up a case at the police station.
But beneath the bizarro external side lies fascinating little stories. My mascara boy who togs himself up in skinny Britband ties and big punk pants shared with me that he loves designing Perenakan jewellery. My bouncer-looking, stocky mat-rocker biker boy reveals quite happily to the rest of the class that he is proud to be virgin and says his ambition is to be a good husband and provider to his future wife and kids.
Just this year, a fellow teacher shared with me some wise advice - "We teach who we are."
A good teacher prepares his students for exams. A great teacher prepares his students for life.
And of course, life is that funny slippery thing that can never be taught via text book...it can only be demonstrated, modelled, lived and shared. It is passed on through the ether, between the lines.
It's something I have grown very conscious of with my new discerning, tough as nails audience. I obviously come from a culture vastly different from theirs. They know it, I know it. Thankfully, they are sweet enough at heart not to hold it against me as long as I do the same for them.
How should I speak and teach such that they do not feel the difference between us, but the commonality that we actually share? How do I translate principles into lingo and images they understand?
Blogging is a funny thing - In an odd way, it is easier for me to be vulnerable through the medium of written words. You have the armour of weighed out thought and you don't directly face your audience and witness the immediate twitches people make in reaction to your words. It really is quite another dimension to learn how to be vulnerable on the fly, on the spot, at the moment when someone asks a cutting question or makes a shrewd personal remark.
The most powerful thing we can share with another person is the Truth of who we were, who we are and what we will be.
Yet it is the most frightening thing in the world to be truly vulnerable. It requires inhuman humility that only God can teach.
I guess to be a truly great teacher, you got to start and always continue to be a truly great learner. I need God to show me I can never think of myself more highly or lowly than I should. That's so tricky!
Anyhoo.....that appears to be one of my lessons for the year. Let's see how many decades I will take to ingest that!
Monday, February 27, 2006
tagged :)
have been so offline that i did not realise i got tagged by Miz C all the way from Beijing. Ok, just for you, babe. :)
Seven Dreams Before Death:
1. See Italy again
2. Kiss a guy that I love
3. Publish a School of Thought book
4. Visit Auschwitz
5. Start a youth ministry
6. Have the perfect hostess' kitchen
7. Start and finish my own graphic novel
Seven Things I Can't Do In This Lifetime
1. Be perfect
2. Kiss a guy that I don't love
3. Give up dreaming
4. Give up carbs
5. Drive
6. Look anything like Stephanie Sun
7. Understand accountancy and the theory of relativity. (i tried many times and failed)
Seven Things that Attract Me
1. a man who has learnt to be grateful for all that he has
2. humbleness in any company
3. wisdom to listen
4. an ability to laugh out loud
5. ability to both offer honest criticism and honest praise
6. an open, generous, kind heart
7. Self-awareness
Seven Things I Say
1. "Okaaay, can you rephrase that in another way?" (classroom)
2. "Think...don't just wait for my answer....think!" (classroom)
3. "Wah lau...."
4. "orrrr?! Win already lor!"
5. "Oooh...!" (for good food, nice clothes, smarmy attempt to make fun of people etc)
6. "...(random made-up tune)..."
7. "I don't THINK so...!"
Seven Books I Love (guilty pleasures included)
1. The Song of Ice and Fire series (George RR Martin)
2. The Dragonlance series - Chronicles and Legends only
3. Donald Miller's Looking for God Knows What
4. CS Lewis' Mere Christianity
5. The Bible - especially the Book of John
6. Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing about Grace / Soul Survivor
7. Doestevsky's Brothers Karamazov
Seven Movies I Love (guilty pleasures included)
1. Memento - too clever by half
2. Defending Your Life - nerd full of fears and too many words gets the smart girl.
3. Can't Buy Me Love - i love me a nerd gets the girl tale. this is classic
4. Pretty Woman - honestly, it's a heckuva trashy movie that I can watch again and again.
5. LOTR trilogy - especially Two Towers, come on, its Helm's Deep!!!!
6. Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset - killer chemistry. realistic characters.
7. 2046 - did not love the show as much as i loved the train of thought it was able to spark off. would never watch it again.
all the people i could tag have been tagged....although if you are reading, SkinUp, HKGirl..I would love to see your list!:)
Seven Dreams Before Death:
1. See Italy again
2. Kiss a guy that I love
3. Publish a School of Thought book
4. Visit Auschwitz
5. Start a youth ministry
6. Have the perfect hostess' kitchen
7. Start and finish my own graphic novel
Seven Things I Can't Do In This Lifetime
1. Be perfect
2. Kiss a guy that I don't love
3. Give up dreaming
4. Give up carbs
5. Drive
6. Look anything like Stephanie Sun
7. Understand accountancy and the theory of relativity. (i tried many times and failed)
Seven Things that Attract Me
1. a man who has learnt to be grateful for all that he has
2. humbleness in any company
3. wisdom to listen
4. an ability to laugh out loud
5. ability to both offer honest criticism and honest praise
6. an open, generous, kind heart
7. Self-awareness
Seven Things I Say
1. "Okaaay, can you rephrase that in another way?" (classroom)
2. "Think...don't just wait for my answer....think!" (classroom)
3. "Wah lau...."
4. "orrrr?! Win already lor!"
5. "Oooh...!" (for good food, nice clothes, smarmy attempt to make fun of people etc)
6. "...(random made-up tune)..."
7. "I don't THINK so...!"
Seven Books I Love (guilty pleasures included)
1. The Song of Ice and Fire series (George RR Martin)
2. The Dragonlance series - Chronicles and Legends only
3. Donald Miller's Looking for God Knows What
4. CS Lewis' Mere Christianity
5. The Bible - especially the Book of John
6. Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing about Grace / Soul Survivor
7. Doestevsky's Brothers Karamazov
Seven Movies I Love (guilty pleasures included)
1. Memento - too clever by half
2. Defending Your Life - nerd full of fears and too many words gets the smart girl.
3. Can't Buy Me Love - i love me a nerd gets the girl tale. this is classic
4. Pretty Woman - honestly, it's a heckuva trashy movie that I can watch again and again.
5. LOTR trilogy - especially Two Towers, come on, its Helm's Deep!!!!
6. Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset - killer chemistry. realistic characters.
7. 2046 - did not love the show as much as i loved the train of thought it was able to spark off. would never watch it again.
all the people i could tag have been tagged....although if you are reading, SkinUp, HKGirl..I would love to see your list!:)
Monday, February 06, 2006
h@te!
I REALLY REALLY REALLY h@te the overuse of "@".
I get severe heartburn (akin to when I hear timmy thomas' Dying Inside To Hold You, but that's a rant for another day) when I see it! So was superduper amused when I found someone had already written a diatribe on it. I particularly love his analogy about the 50 year old man - it really really hits the spot! :)
BadBranding@Singapore by Imagethief
"I keep thinking that the brand developers of Singapore will outgrow "@", and they keep disappointing me. I was scandalized five years ago when the glamorous, new office tower at Dhoby Ghaut was named "Atrium@Orchard". In 2006 using "@" in a brand is beyond unforgivable. It's the branding equivalent of a fifty-year old man with a pot-belly and severe male-pattern baldness growing a pony tail and getting his ears pierced in a futile attempt to stay youthfully hip. It reveals a failure to grasp contemporary style that is so final and absolute that it obliterates by definition the very sensibility that it was meant to create."
I get severe heartburn (akin to when I hear timmy thomas' Dying Inside To Hold You, but that's a rant for another day) when I see it! So was superduper amused when I found someone had already written a diatribe on it. I particularly love his analogy about the 50 year old man - it really really hits the spot! :)
BadBranding@Singapore by Imagethief
"I keep thinking that the brand developers of Singapore will outgrow "@", and they keep disappointing me. I was scandalized five years ago when the glamorous, new office tower at Dhoby Ghaut was named "Atrium@Orchard". In 2006 using "@" in a brand is beyond unforgivable. It's the branding equivalent of a fifty-year old man with a pot-belly and severe male-pattern baldness growing a pony tail and getting his ears pierced in a futile attempt to stay youthfully hip. It reveals a failure to grasp contemporary style that is so final and absolute that it obliterates by definition the very sensibility that it was meant to create."
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