the sudden onset of a storm and the rain pours down emanating white noise so palpable in the air.

there is an unexpected plaintive cry the rings out - not drowned out by the rain but so muffled that one can't tell whether cat or bird. i hear it cry for a bit then trek down to trace its source. after some foraging i locate it by sound... there right there in the drain under the pots and drain covers. i call out to it and its first response is mildly savage, unmasked anger.

at me? at the position its in now?

i potter around a bit hiding under my umbrella and aha! there i see it - stripped kitten under the fern and ceramic pots. water runs under its feet and its cry rings out time and time again. it hears me talking and begins to be quiet. i look around trying to figure how to lift it out and realise that it wouldn't be possible without severe inconvenience on my part. besides, one can never know whether its response would be savage or kind. i tell it, "you're just really wet... you'll survive well enough".

to echo my point, my dad appears at the doorway and asks what's up. i mention the kitten and he goes, "it's happened before... it'll run away when the rain stops".

haha, of course. now back here in my room typing, it is certainly still there but it has stopped crying. it's just wet, quite cold, rather uncomfortable... but the rain has peaked in intensity and soon will be over and it'll survive...

Marlin, a father, comes home to find his wife and countless babies missing. He is left with one - little nemo.

A mother bird comes back to find that her nest has fallen. Out of her five little babybirds, one survives.

In that transition from countless, from many to one - how do they find the strength to go on? Because of the one? What if even that one were taken away - mother bird finds all asleep - would herself constitute the one to live for?

Or something else?

:( i wish i could have done something to help her - just a few moments of folly, without understanding the full nature and consequences of your own act or coercement and duress from somebody else and you end up somewhere you don't know what for or why and why it has to be this way.

s. 471 read with s.466 Penal Code - "... shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years, and shall also be liable to fine."

Let us pray for compassionate judges.

and somewhere along the line my dad said:

"there is no difference between cleverness and wisdom.."

perhaps cleverness is merely potential, and wisdom the ability to overcome the shortcomings that would prevent the potential from being met. in the end, if one doesn't have the self-sight to see your own shortcomings and farsight to seek to overcome them thru one way or another, you are still kinda stupid. :P and if so, how can one say that you are clever?

...and then further on he went:

"...not saying all women are like that, but you don't let emotions rule your head!"

haha.

found this in one of my march journal entries:

"...I acknowledge that God speaks to us in different ways, me in simplicity, you in the passions of people and their pursuits.

Ladies stand and wait for their knights on a white horse and thereby learn the world where they are. Gentlemen set out to scale the mountains and find the truth in their endeavour. Surely, God knows what He’s about."

and so you who read it (if anybody reads it) do not know the context of the quote. is it then an apple in a vacuum, hopelessly lost without its setting? when does the realm of context end?

There was a battle above Harlem. The ten Booms huddled in the dining room until the night sky was silent.

Later Corrie found a hunk of metal on her bed. “Betsie! If I had been in bed it would have struck me right in the head.”

Betsie smiled patiently. “In God’s world there are no ‘ifs.’ No place is any safer than any other place. Our only safety is in the center of God’s will. Let us pray that we know His will.”

-------

Of Corrie ten Boom sharing:

Theologians who sat around critiquing the Bible but doing nothing to mend broken spirits of their flocks angered her. Once in Germany she said to such a group, “If I speak about the Lord’s return, as I probably shall, will you label me a Sectarian? If I speak about the fullness of the Holy Spirit does that make me a Pentecostal? Get your labels ready. If I speak about conversion will you label me a Pietist? If my message piques your consciences too much, you can label me and set me aside in a dusty pigeonhole.”

That was the spitfire Corrie ten Boom. Sometimes her approach was softer. To other theologians she passed out Dutch chocolate before a meeting. Chocolate was very rare after the war. They took it eagerly and ate it. When she finally spoke, she said in mock anger, “No one said anything about the chocolate.”

“But that’s not true,” protested one theologian. “We thanked you for it. I know I did.”

Corrie answered, “I meant that none of you asked me how much sugar was in it. Or what kind of chocolate it was. Or the order in which the ingredients were added together. Or the temperature of the mix. Or where it was made.” She smiled as her trap was sprung. “You just took it and ate it.”

“And it was excellent,” joked one unsuspecting theologian.

“And in the same way you should read this!” She brandished her Bible. “Stop analyzing it or you will never be nourished. Pick it up and read the word of God!”

What Papa ten Boom always told his children in the Beje:

"It is time to lay your burden on Jesus. When Jesus takes your hand, He holds it tight. When He holds you tight, He leads you through your whole life. When Jesus leads you through your life, He brings you safely home."

It's about time for me to start reading biographies seriously. Anyone cares to lend me? :)
(suggested list of bios: William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, Charles Studd, Albert Simpson, D.E. Hoste etc.)

what i would like best would be for you to surrender your life to Him completely...

...and to lead us to love and honour Him with our lives.

i guess like the pilot in 'the little prince' i have left bits of my heart scattered among the stars.

when my little brother left i told him to pray for me when he looks up at the stars...
and now when i do, sometimes i don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

"All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--"

"What are you trying to say?"

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You--only you--will have stars that can laugh!"

You're the Lord of the sunshine

And Lord of the rain

You're Lord of the good times

and Lord of the pain

You're Lord of the mountains

And Lord of the seas

You're Lord of the music

Lord of the children

Lord of you and me

it is raining now at 2.28am.

the rain has come to mean different things for me throughout the years. when I stayed at Neptune court while I was still 6 and below, I remember the wind howling as the storms raged on and on at sea. the thunder used to scare me (as loud booms are wont to do) but I never knew much of the beauty in the wildness or knew to look out of the yellow-railed balcony to watch the storm approaching. perhaps I was too little and I couldn’t see very far. the only thing I remember looking out from is the window of the room I used to share with my brother when the tires screeched and skidded and I would rush to the window in anticipation of the imminent crash to follow. it was the ecp just below which I only know now to be beautiful and dangerous.

there were times when it was plain wet and others which made bubbles come out of Qing’s shoes and splash splash the puddles laughing admidst the grey and red and the pouring rain drying on our pinafolds under the hairdryer and socks held out like scarcrows left right left right in the drama theatre watching ‘City of Gold’.

shedding brown prom heels running home barefooted while buckets poured coming home from work delighting in the feel of asphalt on my bare soles

borrowing umbrellas and hiking to SKS on a valentine’s day… rain and books and reminder of the sprinkles on Ophir – a mark of grace, none other

than a particular night out on the ecp stuck under dripping trees, keiko sleeping, petrol greenish-yellow, my mistake and me laughing away

for the rain spells of grace as it falls its brief life in the air an exhilarating fall from a height if one could float one could fly and one could fall…

all of you half a globe away in a continent bigger than the red dot i'm in.

i miss you. :(

was reading C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet. in the book he talks about these beings called eldila that rule on malacandra (mars). the theory is that these eldil move at just about the speed of light and since we can only see things that are slower than the speed of light, the eldil can only be 'seen' by subtle changes in the light and most often, not at all.

interestingly this could mean that there's a whole world of things out there that we can't see simply because they move faster than light.

angels? :)

(still don't quite understand the einstein theory that time slow when it approaches the speed of light. anyone?)

what does being a good steward entail?

silently manning the ford.

bravely heeding the call.

voicing the bugle miles on miles.

only true faith, when duty begins.

i will master them bar chords and learn how to pluck ;)

none of mine, all of His.

Virtue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.


Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.


Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.


Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.


- George Herbert

earnest look within the eye of ears pricking up expression in the contours of the wide-eyed questions framed carelessly or with care more deep than silence

devoid or para-noid ?

it is true that the older i grow the harder it is to give people 'pat' answers or to provide clear right and wrongs. some things are still clear but others most others take on lines of their own like a spider web that starts out simple with clear bold black lines and gradually finer lines begin to fill in the sectors of the web each with a life of their own and they begin to criss-cross in seeming haphazard fashion sometimes you forget where the original bold black lines are found sometimes they have shifted or branched or disappeared and you sit like an insect caught in the middle of the web not by a roll of restraining saliva and webbing not by a living breathing dragon-spider with ready fangs but rather by indecision (of all things). the irony.

maybe need is a good reminder.

Imagine that you are born into a world in which there are only two dimensions. Length and breadth. There is no colour, and things are either black or white. The world is fascinating, endlessly stretched in its distance to cover, people to meet, food to try, things to learn, experiences to encounter. Remember that you have your five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These you wield to bring in new experiences… you are like a spice trader on the Silk Road, where each day your spice changes form and value in the new things you barter for – beads, glass, ivory.

One day you overhear some traders talking about a new dimension - DEPTH. They speak of it with awe, with wonder. It is no longer merely distance you travel in one direction (or two, if you count the reverse). But distance, any direction. You close your eyes tightly shut, so that in the darkness of your mind where you imagine wings and flight, gills and trenches at the bottom of the sea, you can just barely reach out to…

Your eyes flutter open and depth has become a reality. Directionless becomes a possibility. Along with it comes a realization – you can turn around and around – 360 degrees. Whoa. While previously you could only look forward or backwards, now there is left and right, east and west.

Along with the depth comes a marvelous transformation to the spread of blacks and whites you know. Suddenly you discover that there are the greys. Now the greys are worlds apart from the distance you’ve so far known. The distances are vast, but walk far enough and you end up back where you started from. The greys (on the other hand) are found shooting off the six black bars on a scale – like musical notes striving for higher highs, lower lows, the greys are almost quite a different shade, a new shade. Ineffable, you sigh.

There are others depths too… emotions for one, with its deep of ecstasy and height of despair; intellect for another – one can’t quite ever be too logical or invincible, there’s always a higher mountain to scale to counter the spread of low hills; and… the depth of distance that you can’t quite get over. Suddenly you can reach for the stars and dive to cold, fluid depths in the sea.

One day, a little child comes up to you. With the innocence of the young, she looks up to you with trusting eyes and asks: “Why is the sky blue?”

“Blue..?” you repeat, not quite comprehending.

“Yes, blue… like how the sun is yellow like the sunflower and the flowers red, sometimes pink and purple and… and I love the smell of lavender, it matches its colour don’t you think?”

Suddenly you see it. First in your mind’s eye and then like wave that spreads itself out away from you the whole landscape is painted in dashing, shy, bold, bright, dreamy colours.

It then strikes you, that the depth, the colours were there all along… in your heart. It isn’t the surroundings that has changed and evolved, but it is you that has grown.

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You wake up one morning and you see a beautiful sunrise.

Iridescent, enchanting it starts out blue… the blue of wishes and fancies, of love just out of reach and waking dreams. Then a streak of gold appears, you stretch yourself to trace its source, it is so light, so faint and then so golden in a moment, you lose yourself in the moment. The colours begin to come now… reds, pinks, oranges, bright beige and saffron, you can barely contain your excitement, the feelings that dance within you. The overwhelming sight of beauty.

The next day, the sun rises, and it is equally gorgeous. Not the same, it couldn’t quite be the same, but as dancing in its burst of colour – tenderness one moment, boldness the other.

The next day, the sunrise is again stunning.

And the next.

Soon you begin to find that no matter how beautiful the sunrise, other things begin to creep in and you begin to lose your fascination. The wonder of the first morning light.

Is that then a change in the sunrise? Or a change in you?

The answer is clear and there is no one to contend with but still, when asked, the sunrise just didn’t seem as gorgeous as the first time round.

Must it always be this way? Must one lose the depth of feeling, the wonder of creation, the de-sensitising in the face of pain?

Listen:

The Child Dancing

there’s no way I’m going to write about
the child dancing in the Warsaw ghetto
in his body of rags

there were only two corpses
on the pavement that day
and the child I will not write about
had a face as pale and trusting
as the moon

(so did
the boy with a green belly full of dirt
lying by the roadside
in a novel of Kazantzakis

and the small girl T. E. Lawrence wrote about
whom they found after the Turkish massacre
with one shoulder chopped off, crying:
‘don’t hurt me, Baba!’)

I don’t feel like slandering them with poetry.

the child who danced
in the Warsaw ghetto
to some music no one else could hear
had moon-eyes, no
green horror and no fear
but something worse

a simple desire to please
the people who stayed
to watch him shuffle back and forth,
his feet wrapped in the newspapers
of another ordinary day

- Gwendolyn MacEwen

Irony. but her crude comment on mankind is honest, is it not?

We humans have such short memories we forget, we shut out. We accept the evil as the norm, the unkind as the reality.

Must it always be so?

How did Jesus, a God yet just a man, see all the pain, the suffering, that he would weep blood, fall with compassion, and yet still know all the pain, the cruelty on and on without losing touch?

To feel it all, and yet to act with resolve, to fulfill his life mission.

I marvel.

'God is my Judge'

I wonder what I would do - taken in captivity from my homeland, thrust into a new culture, eating herbs and water for days. Would I be patient? Would I be bitter? Could I see any purpose in it all?

And yet perhaps, it has not so much to do with circumstance as the attitude of his heart. People saw him as someone who "continually served God". What could that mean? What does serving entail? To remain pure in the midst of a foreign land when every visible sign seems to cry out, "Come with us, it'll make your life easier." And then to turn - head, foot and toe away and with heart-sight to look up.

That is the namesake of my brother. Will he learn to love His Maker and others wholeheartedly too? I pray that it will be so.

[Happy Birthday, little brother.]