On the Third Trip to Sarawak...

I feel that I really need to write something about the trip to Sarawak. I’ve been sick and busy for the past few days. I am still sick and busy now. There are just too many things to say that I don’t even know where to start! How do I organize all my thoughts and feelings?

During one of the devotions, on the day that we came back from the longhouses via logging trails, I asked each of us to share who God had been to us personally as well as to the team. I guess I will start here:

I feel that throughout the trip, God has been that still, small voice whispering in my ear. I could just feel Him near me in those moments that I needed Him… just before I had to chair a worship meeting, in the few minutes that I spent walking around the longhouse alone before I had to preach. I could hear Him. I could hear His Spirit filling me with ideas and words to say. I feel refreshed. Maybe it was because I was no longer the leader. I had less to worry about. I had less to think about. Instead, I had more time to pray, more time to reflect and most of all, more time to listen. I’ve never been listening to God so much before in my life! And I am thankful. I am thankful for this wonderful relationship. I am thankful for the quietness in my mind and the stillness of my heart.

Before the trip, I felt strongly that through this week-long sojourn, God wanted to teach me humility. I needed to learn to submit to my friends, to look at them as better than myself, and to remove all those arrogant thoughts that I had about myself. And He did. The surprising thing was that God had been much gentler than I expected. He was a gentle Teacher throughout. For that I am thankful too. I have had very harsh rebukes from God in the past with regards to my pride. I remember the times when He brought me real low… but this time, a soft reminder here, a tender push there, and a gentle nod over there… I don’t deserve it, I really don’t. But God has been good to me.

For the team, I believe that God has been an artist who sees the big picture. We were going back to Sarikei on the Toyota Hilux. The view was quite spectacular at times. We could see mountain ranges covered with pristine forests under the blue sky. Some places were still covered in the morning mist. We could even occasionally see the long road winding up and down the hills in the distance. And then this came to my mind: perhaps this is the view that God sees. He sees the big picture. He sees the forests. He knows where the road leads to. Our view however, is like the view from the longboats. We cannot see past the next bend. We can only see the trees right in front of us. And indeed, the whole trip came together so wonderfully that we could only admire in awe at the wisdom and sovereignty of God. No doubt there had been a lot of surprises. But everything came together – the devotions, the sermons, the team… everything. And for me, this whole trip has been God’s masterpiece.

After everyone shared, I ended by reading Isaiah 40 and 41, while reminding everyone that LORD in the English Bible represents YHWH – the name that God used to introduce Himself to Moses – I am who I am, I will be who I will be. Yes, He was. He was… we can only submit to His sovereignty.

This trip has been very different for me. It has been the best trip so far. I think I’ve found my place in the team. Whereas in previous trips I felt so detached and alone, now I feel so much a part of the team. No doubt we may still think differently when it comes to a lot of things, but I am willing to accept that. Maybe it is all out of that humility that God has been teaching me. Maybe I have changed as a result of being influenced by Brian McLaren and his idea of a generous orthodoxy since the last trip. Who knows. The whole trip was just so wonderful. The team has been so wonderful. I will always remember it. Thank you God so much… thank You…

On the last night before our flight home, while we were at the camp at Pantai Kabong, the Lord blessed me with the most astounding experience to cap off an amazing trip. The chalets had been fully booked, and we had to sleep outdoors near the hall. All the other campers had gone to bed. We had just finished our debriefing to settle some disagreements, and I went with Joash to take a bath. I later walked to the beach to join Chris and a few others who were busy playing with a hermit crab that they managed to pick up. Then I looked up and I saw it… Against the dark blackness of the sea, the sky lit up with light from a million cosmic lanterns, more than any I had ever seen in a single patch of sky in my entire life… it was so beautiful I could cry. The breeze was growing stronger, and clouds were gathering in the sky on my left. Out in the sea, flashes of lightning turned the sky white intermittently. The thunders roared to add their booming voices to the rhythmic pounding of the waves on the seashore, while the night creatures carried on singing their shrill melodies. A storm was brewing on the horizon, but the stars! Oh the stars were shining as brightly as ever in the dark of the Sarawakian night! It was a haunting sight to behold, but so achingly beautiful. Words fail me. The two elements of sea and stars seem to make very good combinations. Both are symbols of beauty and mystery. The scene reminds me of the paintings of one of my favorite artists, Christian Lassen. It was very generous of God to give me a glimpse of such beauty. To imagine that this is what God sees all the time, not just here on earth but on countless worlds all across the universe! What a way to end the trip!

Little Moments of Wonder

If there is one thing amazing about Marilynne Robinson, it is her knack of being able to capture little moments of wonder in her book. I don’t know if they do anything at all to further the story, though I have a feeling that they don’t, but she just seems to be able to bring everything to a standstill with her prose, so that you just want to stop and admire the picture that she is painting so well with her words. Maybe that’s why this book won a Pulitzer prize. Seriously, I don’t know why some of those short passages are there in the book at all. I wonder why a pastor, writing his last words to his very young son knowing that he will not be able to see his little boy grow up, would include these extremely personal moments of wonder. Maybe it will help the boy to see the world through his eyes. Maybe it will help the son of Reverend Ames to see intimately into his soul when he no longer is around. Maybe, they’re like just sitting there in the story just because they’re beautiful, like these:

I really can’t tell what’s beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They’re not church-going, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They’re always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don’t know why they don’t catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you’re done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is more easily spent.

The mention of Feuerbach and joy reminded me of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables and doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

As I was walking up to the church this morning, I passed that row of big oaks by the war memorial – if you remember them – and I thought of another morning, fall a year or two ago, when they were dropping their acorns thick as hail almost. There was all sorts of thrashing in the leaves and there were acorns hitting the pavement so hard they’d fly past my head. All this in the dark, of course. I remember a slice of moon, no more than that. It was a very clear night, or morning, very still, and then there was such energy in the things transpiring among the trees, like a storm, like travail. I stood there a little out of range, and I thought, It is all still new to me. I have lived my life on the prairie and a line of oak trees can still astonish me.

Marilynne Robinson invites us to slow down and to be quiet. This is her gift to us. She reminds us to remember what we have forgotten for a long time - to be able to pay attention to this interesting planet. Yes, it really does deserve all the attention we can give it. I have forgotten… I have forgotten the little moments of wonder…

I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try. ~ Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Isaiah 1-12

In any of our book by book bible studies, we’ve never really attempted any book that had more than 20-something chapters. The longest we’ve done was Joshua maybe. Next in line will be Nehemiah with 13 chapters. Not too long ago, I bought a commentary on Isaiah by Walter Brueggemann. It came in two separate books, one for chapters 1-39, the other covering chapters 40-66. Isaiah has 66 chapters! Printing out the NIV version of Isaiah on paper and then sticking them together like how we do it for our group Bible studies, I began my quest of trying to understand the book I like to call: Jesus’ favorite book! I think it really was His favorite. I think it was in Isaiah in which Jesus must have glimpsed what it meant to be YHWH’s Messiah, and how the kingdom of God will come ‘in that day’. He must have embraced it and seen himself playing the role of the suffering servant as part of YHWH’s unfolding plan of judgment and redemption.

I’ve been going through the first 12 chapters. I’ve never really been familiar with this book. The number of chapters in it has been quite intimidating for me, but nevertheless, this exciting journey has begun for me. The twofold themes of judgment and hope are very strong in the imagination of Isaiah. Well, there are debates about how many authors there were. Brueggemann (along with most scholars) is of the opinion that much of Isaiah did not come from the original prophet himself, that there were at least deutero- and trito-Isaiahs, and that the book has been edited and reshaped through the years leading up to the time of Jesus. But he does make a good point in that the book should be read with consideration given to its final canonical form.

My thoughts after reading the first twelve chapters? Well, YHWH is not someone you want to mess around with! Yes, we’ve come to think of God as merciful, compassionate and good. But reading an Old Testament book like Isaiah reminds me not to take Him for granted, because YHWH, when He is angry, is unstoppable. It makes me wonder if I don’t fear God enough.

A Future Not Our Own

This poem by the Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador has helped to carry me through a few things recently, not least when I had to conduct a bible study on Joshua in CF. I had wanted to end the session with this poem, since I was talking about being the voice of counterculture in our world today. In the end I decided against it... I was already taking too much time!

It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying
That the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection…
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
An opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results…
We are prophets of a future not our own.

~ Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, A Future Not Our Own

This man spoke out against injustice. He was a voice of counterculture. And one day, because of the things that he spoke about, Oscar Romero was assasinated while conducting Mass

Nouwen's Sabbatical Journey

A Democratic senator was pondering how to influence people the most – as a politician who is able to introduce laws that can help millions of people, or as a minister who continues to offer hope and consolation to people in their daily struggle? For me it is not a question of how we can most influence others. What matters is our vocation. To what or whom are we called? When we make the effect of our work the criterion of our sense of self, we end up very vulnerable. Both the political and the ministerial life can be responses to a call. Both too can be ways to acquire power. The final issue is not the result of our work but the obedience to God’s will, as long as we realize that God’s will is the expression of God’s love.~ Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey

Life is ‘a little while’, a short moment of waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. The knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a new heaven and a new earth, makes the waiting exciting. We can already see the beginning of the fulfillment. Nature speaks of it every spring; people speak of it whenever they smile; the sun, the moon, and the stars speak of it when they offer us light and beauty; and all of history speaks of it when amidst all devastation and chaos, men and women arise who reveal the hope that lives within them. What is my main task during my ‘little while’? I want to point to the sings of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God. I do not want to complain about this passing world but to focus on the eternal that lights up in the midst of the temporal. I yearn to create space where it can be seen and celebrated. ~ Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey

In his life Henri lived close to those who suffered and he accompanied many people as they prepared to die. What then can be said of the death of our friend and teacher? Though not the one he was expecting, Henri’s heart attack was indeed a gift that helped him to make a passage. It is amazing grace that Henri died in his homeland close to family and a couple of close friends. The presence of these people, many faxes, and several phone calls reminded him of how deeply he was loved. Although he was fully expecting to live for many more years, Henri was not afraid to die. He had many struggles and had shared them openly with his friends and through his numerous writings. But this I know: Henri died at peace with himself, his family, his own faith community of L’Arche, his friends, his vocation as a priest, and the God whose everlasting love has been Henri’s beacon for sixty-four years. ~ Nathan Ball, Afterword to Sabbatical Journey

I have never met Henri Nouwen personally. Neither does he know me. But reading the closing words of Nathan Ball at the end of Nouwen’s diary, I felt as if I had lost a close friend. Indeed, after reading so many of his books, including two personal diaries, I feel so connected to Henri in ways that I cannot fully understand. It is a relationship between an author who wrote so transparently and intimately, with a reader among millions of others who felt deeply about what he wrote. It feels as if I’ve been with Nouwen through all his journeys in L’Arche as well as all over the world. One moment he is so alive and passionate. In the next chapter, someone else is writing about his death. It feels so awkward. Yet, it becomes so enriching when I reflect on it… a man who was faithful till the end. Neither of us met each other before, yet I consider Henri Nouwen a friend on my journey in life, for he shared his life with me and I am changed because of it.

Is This My Father's World?

I’m getting depressed… really, really depressed. I look at the situation in the Middle East and the ripples that are being sent all across the world, not least in Malaysia, and I get frustrated. More demonstrations. More propaganda. More anger and hatred. The world is taking sides, while more and more people are dying. I look at the situation in our own country and I feel even worse. Article 11, racial and religious tensions, people inciting anger, Lina Joy, the Ethnic Relations textbook, demonstrations against Israel and the US… Everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. No one wants to look at themselves. All are blinded by their own biasness and anger. “We are always right. They are wrong. We’re the good guys. They’re the bad guys.” All I see is hypocrisy. What is happening to our country? What is happening to our world? I got so worked up over these issues today as I pored through news websites and web logs. Feelings of frustration are welling up again as I write. As feelings of despair threaten to overwhelm me, I find myself humming the old, old hymn - This is My Father’s World. Am I trying to comfort myself? As the world heads into a downward spiral, I hang on to the words in the third verse –

This is my Father’s world.
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

What is a Christian to do in all this? Do we shrug it off and say it’s none of our business? Do we take sides? I believe strongly that the task of a follower of Christ is not to be ignorant, nor to take sides, but to stand in the middle of it all – the brokenness, the wars, the barriers, the anger and the hatred – and to be God’s agents of healing and reconciliation, even if it means risking scorn and ridicule from both sides (even from other Christians!); even if it means that in the process we ourselves are crushed to death by the weight of it all… This is the cross we have to bear…

And this work begins when we admit that deep down in our own hearts, we are capable of the same sins that we see in the world; the same hypocrisy; that we ourselves need forgiveness just as much as anyone else. Then only can we pray… and be the voice of love that the world desperately needs… the fingerprints of God in a world bereft of hope…

Ecclesiastes

For the first time in the history of our SK Bible study group, we had our Bible study retreat this weekend. It was the first for me as well. I’ve never organized anything like it before. Now how do I feel about it? I’ve been looking so much forward to it in recent weeks, so much that I cannot utterly believe that it’s over in a flash! One whole weekend and it’s gone! Now things are settling down again – the house is quiet, and the voices of laughter and chattering are nothing but echoes of a memory. It was fun while it lasted. Maybe we could do this more often. Maybe we should!

Was it a retreat? Did we have a good rest from the hustle and bustle of everyday life? I don’t know about the others, but I didn’t really manage to rest physically. Not with the late nights and early morning wake up calls. Not with the pressure of having to think about what to do for the next session! But I think spiritually and emotionally, I feel refreshed. I did have a great time with the rest of my friends. Thanks guys - Glen, Esther, Yuet Pei, Joash, Ow, Kat and Agnes. Thanks for making it such a great weekend. Hope you all had a good rest.

Besides eating a lot and playing Betrayal quite a lot, we managed to have four sessions of Bible studies. The first on Friday was an introduction to Ecclesiastes and wisdom literature in general. I attempted to introduce ‘the Teacher’ in as short a time as possible so that we could all move on into sharing. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to follow. All of us shared. And it wasn’t like how it would normally be in our weekly Bible studies. Everyone was so transparent in the opening of themselves, so that it felt so intimate between the eight of us there. Everyone let their walls down so that the others could see deep into their broken and dry selves. It set the tone for a wonderful start to the whole weekend.

In the next three sessions, we all had a great conversation with the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. No doubt we may not agree with everything that he says, but he does have a lot to say to us. Yes, things are temporary and passing. Many things are futile and not worth chasing after. He looked around him, and saw the multi-layered realities of life. They frustrated him, and raised deep questions within him. The righteous getting what the wicked deserve while the wicked live long in their wickedness. Things don’t always seem to add up. Indeed, life is not so simple and neat after all. We can be righteous or wicked, wise or foolish, human or animal, but death is the great equalizer and it comes to all. But in all his questions and depression, God remained real to him. He came to see that we cannot fully fathom God, and our response is to stand in awe of His sovereignty. We cannot straighten what God has made crooked, so let us accept them as they are. And all these questions become less relevant when we live a life of contentment by enjoying the simple pleasures in life like eating, drinking and working. This is our lot, he says – they are a gift from God. Live life to the full! Before the days grow dark and old age overtakes us all. But remember our Creator for He will hold us accountable to what we do with our lives.

We closed the whole study by reflecting on these questions: What are some of the realities in life that we have to face? How has God been real to each of us? What are some of our ambitions and things that we do that are meaningless? What are some of the things that we need to accept as a gift from God and enjoy? Finally, we thought about what we wanted to do with our lives. We wrote it on a piece of paper and stuffed it into a little gift box… as a reminder that life is God’s gift to us…

I don’t know if God spoke to all of us during this retreat. Of course I have been praying that He would. I trust that He will continue to do His work in each of us. And I hope that I have been faithful in doing what He has set for me to do. I was quite concerned earlier when Kat and Esther mentioned that they were not feeling well. Agnes had been having diarrhea in the days leading up to the retreat. I’m glad it all turned out fine. Thanks… and glory be to God in the highest! I have a little secret though. The little piece of paper in my little gift box is still blank… and I hope that God will reveal it to me in due time…

Father, I abandon myself into your hands.
Do with me whatever you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
And in all your creatures.
Into your hands I commend my spirit.
I offer it to you with all the love that is in my heart.
For I love you, Lord, and so want to give myself,
To surrender myself into your hands,
Without reserve and with boundless confidence,
For you are my father.
Amen.

Thank God for the Da Vinci Code?

I’ve just watched the Da Vinci code last night. Well, it’s not as boring as other people have suggested it to be. It was a thriller, no doubt, with all its plot twists. It’s just too bad that I already knew what was coming, thanks to all the hype surrounding the movie, not to mention the flyers spreading all over. And it seems that almost every Christian blog is talking about it, putting links to articles about it, etc… and they are all full of spoilers!! It seems that the Christians are taking this work of fiction too seriously, even more than our non-Christian counterparts! So here I am, continuing with the trend… haha!

There are already more than enough articles claiming to rebut the theories put forth by Dan Brown about Jesus. I’ll be sick if I look at another one. Yes, yes, there are a lot of theological and historical errors in the story. But is there any truth in the Da Vinci code? Or, to reframe the question, does Dan Brown have a point?

Has the Church focused so much on the divinity of Jesus that we have forgotten how human He was? Do we need to allow Jesus to be the man that He was 2000 years ago? And there is no better place to see Jesus in all his humanness in the four canonical gospels. We don’t need to go to the Gnostic gospels (they don’t really portray Jesus as a human being anyway, since according to Gnostic beliefs, Jesus never had a physical body!).

And, has the Church forgotten its mission? Christianity began as a subversive and radical movement against the unjust powers of the first century, namely the Temple hierarchy, and the Emperor cult of Rome. No wonder they were mostly tortured or killed. Now it seems that Christianity is colluding with those powers and systems that Jesus openly criticized. Instead, the Church in certain parts of the world is turning against those people Jesus would have sought to protect – the sinners, the poor and the marginalized. The role has been reversed. No wonder people are so fed up with the Christians! No wonder they don’t like the version of Jesus that the Church seems to portray to the world. No wonder people believe that the Church is a power-crazy institution that will do anything to protect its power. Does the Church need to reevaluate what it stands for, and learn again as little children what it means to follow Jesus?

Thanks to the Da Vinci code, my colleagues are all talking about religion. They’re asking me more questions than ever before about Jesus. Every time we sit down for lunch, the topic is sure to enter the conversation. So I made it a point to watch the show with them. I guess the book and the movie are a blessing in disguise. No doubt it hurts to hear what the movie says about our Lord and Christianity. But we can be assured that the shame, humiliation and pain of Friday will ultimately lead to victory, joy and glory on Sunday…

On another note, the Church has gone to great lengths to teach its adherents how to differentiate between fact and fiction in the Da Vinci Code. We are reminded again and again that this is a work of fiction. Now, why doesn’t the Church do the same thing with another work of fiction that is equally as damaging and dangerous, if not even more so because many Christians actually believe it to be true? I’m talking about the ‘Left Behind’ series, which is as much fiction with as much theological errors as the Da Vinci Code is and has. Why aren’t there as many rebuttals and seminars about it?

By the Waterfalls, a Reflection

The waters fall, the streams continue to flow. On and on, they never seem to run dry. Where does the water come from? Did someone up the hill forget to turn the tap off? The waterfall answers, “We come from the clouds. The rain keeps us going. Every time the dew from heaven falls on the mountainside, we are strengthened, refreshed and renewed.” Like the waterfalls, we depend on God to keep us going. “Rain down on us, O LORD, and rejuvenate us” we pray. Sometimes we forget.

By the sandy riverbanks, the trees reach for the sun. The animals come to live on their branches, and under their cool shade. Why do they grow so tall and strong? “The river gives us life”, they say. As the stream follows its course, it brings life wherever it goes. Our lives flow by a multitude of other lives. Like the stream, do we become that channel to which life can flow from God to others?

On and on the river runs, never stopping to rest. “Hey, wait a minute! I can’t keep up with you!” Like the river, our lives flow on and on. Most of the time, we can’t catch up. One year passes by, and then another. We then wonder what happened. “Where did it all go?” we ask. “All gone in a flash” the echoes whisper in our ears. We need to slow down. We need to pause for a moment to reflect, to enjoy and to really live. Are we aware of the beauty that surrounds us each day? Are we aware of the little movements of God in and around us?

The stream flows next to me. The water is muddy, but the current is strong. Why? Why does the stream look the way it does? Why is it the way it is? The sand and the mud follow it down the mountainside. The little streams that flow into it along the way determine its volume. What I see next to me is merely a snapshot of a long, winding journey down the mountain. Past experiences flow like little streams into our lives to make us who we are today. We carry scars along with us like silt carried by the currents. Chance? Inevitable accidents? Fate? Or God’s careful shaping of our lives? Is this what it’s been leading to? Or is there more? I cannot see. Where does the river go next? What happens after the next bend? They are obscured by the trees. Where are we going? What’s next? How long more? We can’t see. They are obscured by the misty unknown we call the future. All we know, is that somehow, somewhere, the river flows into the sea. Infinity. Eternity. Hope. What will carry us through the unseen stretch ahead? What will keep us going? A promise… and a hope…

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.

The Last Word

The last time I read a book that had the words ‘The Last Word’ in it, I was left with my beliefs shaken as my mind filled to the brim with questions and more questions (Yes, it was Brian McLaren’s ‘The Last Word and the Word After That’!). It was, together with its 2 prequels, the beginning of my journey to a new understanding of Christianity. Not long after (and a few more books later), my long-held understanding of Sola Scriptura and the inerrancy/infallibility of the Bible went out the window as well, leaving me in a state of uncertainty. Would I end up becoming what many would call a ‘liberal’ Christian who keeps certain passages of the Bible that appeal to me while throwing out those that don’t? What kind of authority would the Bible have on me from then on? Even at that stage, I still very much enjoyed studying the Bible with my friends, as well as on my own. But the question remained. What authority does the Bible have and what role does it play in the Church?

It is kind of odd, that a book with a similar phrase on its cover would provide me with very convincing answers, and provide a kind of closure (whether it is temporary or permanent remains to be seen) to it all (and of course, the journey is still ongoing!). The works of N. T. Wright, currently my favorite author, have been very inspiring. In those areas that Brain McLaren left me questioning my previous beliefs, Wright has provided me with scholarly views and biblical studies with a totally fresh perspective to answer those questions. That’s why I’m sort of on a personal crusade to read everything that he has ever written, including his ‘For Everyone’ commentaries of the entire New Testament! So I was not surprised that after reading ‘The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture’, I feel a sort of closure in my struggles with Sola Scriptura and the authority of the Bible. I’ll be summarizing some of Wright’s points in the near future as I indulge myself in my second reading of this short but very profound book.

I Think I've Found My Hero!

A lecturer from UM (I do not want to disclose his name here, but he does have an interesting name!) came to speak in CF on Tuesday. As I talked to him after CF, I found out, to my utter amazement and delight, that he is a paleontologist! And there I was, this dinosaur loving grown-up kid who always wanted to be a paleontologist (but ended up being a reluctant engineer instead), drooling all over this real-life scientist who studies real-life fossils. It was pure admiration for the man that I wanted to be, and pure jealousy for not being able to be that man. I never knew there were paleontologists in Malaysia! “You mean you can find fossils of prehistoric creatures in Malaysia? Which age?” I asked him in starry eyed wonder. “Precambrian, Cambrian…” he answered like any knowledgeable scientist (and any kid like me who grew up reading books that had all those words in it) would. “In fact, if you go to this place just outside Kangar, you can actually find Trilobite fossils over there. It’s just that we haven’t found any dinosaurs yet.” Wow…

When I found out that he offered to speak on topics such as Creation and Evolutionary theories for any upcoming Inter-faith talks, I realized that I just had to ask him this question: What is your position on Creation and Evolution? When we were coming out of the elevator to walk to the parking lot, I popped the question. His answer? “Of course, it’s Creation. It is a miracle, whether it took 6 days or 6 billion years. But if you study within the confines of the Universe, you will find that it is evolutionary.” Ah… I was happy with that answer. At last, I’ve found another person in Malaysia who has a similar view to that of my own – that of Theistic Evolution. I often cringe when Christians who know nothing about it make fun of it and write it off as if every evolutionist is a silly God-rejector (because the Bible says God made the world in six 24-hour days). No doubt it still remains a theory. No doubt it still has its problems. No doubt it cannot be proven empirically. But there is growing evidence for it. And of course, it doesn’t matter if God created the world in 6 days or 6 billion years anyway… not for many people. But for those who desire to know the mind of God through His handiworks, it is a joy to find out more about these things.

I wonder if I’ll have another opportunity to have a chat with him. My hero?! Maybe I can find a little time to spare for a trip to Kangar… fossil hunting anyone?

Word Cloud

I tried the Word Cloud design by Snapshirts and I got this. The program looks through your website to pick out repeated words, so you get a feel of what you normally write about. So maybe these words form the theme of my blog...

thanks to sivinkit for this cool website!

Pondering...

I’ve been thinking about life and death a lot recently. Those morbid thoughts have led me in and out of depression in the last few months. That aside, I have been thinking a lot about my own life in all its fragility, messiness and beauty. Life is fragile. I’ve said it many times before. If it ends tonight, will I be satisfied with the way that I’ve lived? Am I living life to the fullest? Have I been a good steward of this gift that has been bestowed upon me each day when thousands of others do not wake up to see the sun rising the next day?

Such ruminations, while thinking about what I’ve just read about being a Christian in Malaysia and some recent posts by a friend on her blog, cause me to ponder about my own future, however short it may or may not be. There’s been a faint whisper tugging at my heart, calling me home to Penang to be with my family and the people that I’ve known during my growing up years. More and more, I’m beginning to feel a deep sense of wanting to spend more time with my parents, not least because of my recent illness and the thought that we may not have much time left together on this earth and in this age. Nevertheless, it still remains a faint whisper… Deep down, I also wonder if I should be doing something else. Where do I go from here? There are decisions to be made, and a brittle but exciting life to be lived.

In terms of ministry, two in particular have been my joy and constant source of refreshing. They are the two Bible studies that I am involved in – one in SK, and the other in campus. I thank God each time I think about the fruits that have been borne through those studies. I look forward to these sessions every week, and leave them feeling blessed. I thank all these friends of mine who make the study so much more fun, insightful and rewarding. I realize now… that this is something that I love doing so very much… these are little things… which now remind me again of God’s message to me just a little more than a year ago; about the little things that He wants me to do; that my call to ministry will be a ministry of little things… I remember now… just like before, just like my Grandma… just like yeast working invisibly through the whole dough… Learning to let go of certain things while fighting the need to feel important will not be easy.

Into Perspective

My dear friend Su Chen posted a note of encouragement to me... :) (Thanks!!) In it, she quotes the lyrics of a song - "God of wonders, beyond our galaxy"...

In yesterday's news, NASA reported that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the most detailed image of a spiral galaxy. Similar to our own Milky Way galaxy, the Pinwheel galaxy (or Messier 101) is estimated to contain about 1 trillion stars... that's about 1,000,000,000,000 stars. Of course, I do not want to take the beauty out of it all with too much technical detail. Let's just savour its beauty and confounding extravagance...

... and it does put our lives (including all our problems and anxieties) into perspective...

On Christian Leadership

Reading Henri Nouwen has always been very insightful for me. Many of his books are short, but the wisdom that the books contain is usually profound. Every time I pick up ‘The Wounded Healer’ to read a paragraph or a subchapter, I have to stop myself from reading further so that I can properly digest all that he has to say. I’ve picked out a few paragraphs to think about for the coming days and to see what they mean for the ministries that I am involved in.

It seems necessary to re-establish the basic principle that no one can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with his whole person into the painful situation, without taking the risk of becoming hurt, wounded or even destroyed in the process. The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others. Thinking about martyrdom can be an escape unless we realize that real martyrdom means a witness that starts with the willingness to cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, and to make one’s own painful and joyful experiences available as sources of clarification and understanding. Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

When one has the courage to enter where life is experienced as most unique and most private, one touches the soul of the community. What is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others.

Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine. Many have walked into that dead-end street and found themselves imprisoned in a life where all the words were already spoken, all events had already taken place, and all the people had already been met. But for a man with a deep-rooted faith in the value and meaning of life, every experience holds a new promise, every encounter carries a new insight, and every event brings a new message.

A Christian leader is a man of hope whose strength in the final analysis is based neither on self-confidence derived from his personality, nor on specific expectations for the future, but on a promise given to him. This promise not only made Abraham travel to unknown territory; it not only inspired Moses to lead his people out of slavery; it is also the guiding motive for any Christian who keeps pointing to new life even in the face of corruption and death. Leadership therefore is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness. Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests and Christian laymen have become disillusioned, bitter and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts.

End of the Road

Imagine driving down an old, winding trunk road, with a big truck right in front of you. You want to go faster, but you can’t. And all of a sudden, the truck grinds to a halt and you are forced to stop. You wonder how long it will be before the truck moves again. You wonder if you should turn back and take that exit you passed 5 hours ago. You feel like giving up on the entire journey to just go home.

This is how I feel about my Masters research at the moment. Dead end. Should I take another road, using another method? Or should I just give up and go home… to Penang? I don’t feel like thinking about it now. Not today. I’ll just prepare for the wrap-up on the book of Joshua for Bible study tonight and forget about it for now…

In Loving Memory...

The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened (Matthew 13:34)

Ten years ago, Grandma returned home… after more than a year of battling with leukemia. She did not have many relatives (in fact, when she passed away, her only relatives were her husband, children and grandchildren), she did not have many possessions, she did not have much education; she came into the world with nothing, and left with nothing much of material worth behind. But she left a legacy.

Her selfless and sacrificial love for others was the one thing that everyone she knew saw in her. Though she was despised by many out of jealousy, even hit by her mother in law while pregnant, she chose to suffer in silence. Even near her end, she chose to bear her pain in silence, never wanting to cause her children any worry. For the sake of family unity, she would always choose to take the blame for every little dispute, pointing the finger at herself even when it had nothing to do with her at all. That was how she protected her children.

Having read Pastor Sivin Kit’s article in the FES newsletter on Jesus’ parable likening the Kingdom of God to yeast that is invisible but which works its way through the dough, I couldn’t help thinking how Grandma was a perfect example of the parable. She had no form of theological education or training, she never much served in any church ministry and she was never one who was very popular in church, but she fulfilled her responsibilities as a wife, mother and grandmother as best she could. She would do the house chores, even when she was ill. She would sacrifice her own well-being for the comfort of others. She would serve everyone she knew… even the house maid! And through her, the Kingdom of God broke into the family and into the world. Now, her legacy lives on – in her children and grandchildren who have been witnesses to her selfless love. I see the same kind of love in my own father and in my aunts. And though I fail on countless occasions, I hope to be like her one day…

I was told by Dad and my aunts that I had been her favorite grandchild. With both my parents working, she was the one who took care of me when I was young. I remember faintly her stroking my eyebrows to put me to sleep, fetching me back from school and occasionally to the barber. I still keep the toy dinosaur that she gave me a year before she died. My Dad even told me that my grandma loved me more than even he or my mom could. Of the little that she owned, the most valuable was a jade ring. Before she died, she gave the ring to my aunt to be kept, so that it would be passed to me when I grew older…

In loving memory of my grandma, Kuan Yuet Ngor, who passed away on 18 February 1996