Who Am I?

Who am I?
Who am I?

John and Sharlene van Tonder came over to settle some matters at their respective embassies on Monday. Under the streetlamps, in the shadow of the Putrajaya mosque, they shared…

Out of the river onto the riverbanks
Out of the action into redundancy
Spectators watching from the sidelines
And this becomes the catalyst
For God’s work of formation
When all else is taken away
And the feeling of utter uselessness comes to stay

I feel… I feel…
The same way

Who am I? Who am I?
Who am I when self security is gone?
Who am I when I am no longer a man of influence?
Who am I? Who am I?
Who am I when all sense of enjoyment disappears?
Who am I… when I am no longer my own god?

Nothing, empty handed, that is who I am
This is how I came
This is how I go

Yet…

Fearfully and wonderfully made
A child, in His loving hands
Bearing and reflecting His image
In a beautiful but scarred world
How many times have we heard?
How many times have we preached?
Yet how many times have we forgotten?

Who am I?
I guess I remember now…
In relation to God
In relation to the world
What do I do now
Knowing what I know about who I am?

All these I pondered as the music played on, the lights dimmed and Michael William closed his sermon in CF on the topic: Who am I?

Amethystium

Finally, after having to look around the whole of Malaysia for more than a year; after failing to find it in New Zealand; after attempting to ask some of my friends who were coming back from overseas to look for it in US and other places; I stumbled upon that elusive CD – Evermind. The third album in the dragonfly trilogy by Amethystium, it was hidden in a little corner behind a stack of other CDs at Borders in Singapore.

I picked up Amethystium’s first album, Odonata, at a music store in Penang about 4 years ago, mainly because I thought the CD cover looked cool. I had never heard of it till then. Went home, popped the CD into the player, and listened to it in awe. Best music I had ever heard (at least until the second album came out), and from then on, I was hooked. Amethystium, and the talented Norwegian behind it, Oystein Ramfjord, is definitely my favorite artist. I highly recommend it to all newage/ambient/electronic/darkwave music fans! Check out reviews here. Get some low quality sampling here on the official website.

Bukit Tinggi Weekend

Last weekend was Bukit Tinggi with the mission trip gang. Nice place. There was much fun, laughter and relaxation in a refreshing environment. But most of all, the trip was very educational, filled with great opportunities to improve one’s knowledge. What did I learn?

1. Szu Li is good with quizzes.
2. Kat can stay on the phone for a long time.
3. Chris has lots of friends in Bukit Tinggi, though I would think that most of them came (and they came in the hundreds!) because they were attracted to the light rather than to visit him.
4. Joash can maneuver a four-wheel drive with expert ease… and he sweats a lot.
5. Jane’nette is very proud of her boyfriend and will jump at every opportunity to show him off to others, thus making other girls around green with envy and all the other guys around suffer from low self esteem.
6. There IS such a thing as beginner’s luck – Su Chen proved it twice.
7. Houston is NOT a state in America (a painful lesson though it was).
8. Gender equality is selective – it only applies when those who are endowed with estrogen producing glands are the ones reaping the benefits.
9. The statement that men are in nature more competitive compared to women (who are more cooperative) is false. When it comes to the battle of the sexes (or in any game in which women go up against men), women can be treacherously competitive.
10. The word ‘formication’ exists, even though Microsoft Word dictionary does not recognize it. And it has nothing to do with sexual immorality.
11. Bugs are your friends (especially big ones with weird looking horns on their heads).
12. Pelting someone with ping-pong balls can be an exhilarating experience.
13. If you are playing a game in which you have to pick up ping-pong balls that have been thrown at you, make sure you sit near the wall and that there are no stacks of furniture behind you.
14. Having nicknames like gonorrhea and syphilis after learning these terms in Human Development is NOT cool.
15. A ‘hooker’ is something that you use to hang clothes in the bathroom.