medicare woes

been feeling under the weather. almost a week and my body still feels as if it is suppressing a virus from breaking forth. to see a doctor over here is crazy. first you have to make an appointment, then bring your insurance card, and obtain the prescription from some chemist. 3 potential trips in all. i shall spare my bike.

i will self-medicate. these are the stuff i bought today. fresh pots of mint (wind in tummy) and thyme (food seasoning mah) and a bottle of manuka honey (boost body immunity and removes phlegm), chrysanthemum flowers (cuts down 'heat') and liang teh packets from good old viet haunt, richmond. where did all that knowledge of herbs and self-care come from? i have a sense of the primordial too. the body seeks names to restore its balance.

rather delighted by the presence of something live, green and leafy in my room. i need something alive. if not for the space, i would have restored my kingdom menagerie of aquatic pets like what i did in singapore (and even in the staff room!!!). the airplant got glued with wax days ago and it is doing well. so is the succulent which accompanied me from last year...it is sprouting new leaves again. probably in kind response to care and water. now that autumn is here and winter looms in the distance, you wonder why its leaves are showing.

my cupboard bears a symbolic inner
space where people near and far are brought forth each day. russian orthodox spirituality terms it as a pomyanik (shakey spelling but it means a prayer-corner, i think), where you create sacramentals out of ordinary materials, reminding you of Christ's love and presence...a little 'altar' you bring from church to home. placed on my study table- an icon, the bible and a simple cruxifix...signs pointing to something deeper; never as mere table-decor or worse, superstitious objects.

incomplete as they are, frail symbols of faith, relationship and unconditional love...a soul's anchor against the uncertain tides of a changing world.

happyness on my kitchenette

enough to feed me.


enough to keep creative juices flowing...


each dish must be seduced to submission.


so i may eat in peace.



the seductions come heavy.


aroma-wafts of kinky fish sauce, the dark mysteries of hoi sin,


kiddy soya and its alter-ego-


a toylike grindersprinkler of sea-salt and man-coarse mountain pepper.



options to use oil of rice bran or sydney's old classic-


tetsuya's oyster vinaigrette, spoilt for choice,


even tzatziki will do...


ready as dips on bread.



baby spinach and prehensile rockets


cling on spanish olives, luscious asides to a voluptuous avocado


and red-cheeked smiles of sunriped tomatos...


they garnish the raw salmon


make beauty a morsel more tasty for the eye.



there are other rare servings to make-





stone-grilled swordfish, sambal skate and the untypical monkorjew fish layered


for another week's dining where fish


becomes religion.



warm on the tongue;


bouillabaisse on ivory clams, perfect for pasta-mix


perhaps.



when asian cravings come


wolfberries, dates and seaweed


on bone-chops of meat, are wholesome,


bestowing cooling philosophies of ying and yang,


purging the australiana heatsun


stains of my inner skins.



bouquet garni is the name


a bag of assorted herbs locked in bag...


ready to be dipped in a panful of boiling water.





my nose sits on wild fields of thyme,


on the side,


a emerald bed of basil leaves,


hedged by the roast spice of rosemary,


ancient sage and


orange-oregano;



these scented lyric calls of an old summer song


where fragrance comes christianed in


many more unknown names.

the hidden Christ

This has been a longtime favourite poem-prayer of mine. I return to it now and then and remind myself of the mystery of prayer and our relationship to others and the world...how our Lord has a stubborn streak in always challenging us to discover and find him thru' people especially those who are 'least' likely to manifest our preconceived ideas and expectations about God. That God became man in Christ is one mystery that continues to bind, shock (and sometimes disable) generations time and time again. Faith in this mystery has tremendous implications in how we journey on- towards our relationships with others especially with non-christians (Matt 25: 31-46, Luke 10: 29-37, Matt 21: 33-46).

A genuine christian knows he does not have the final answer. Scholars of western philosophy, theologians in particular (or even the feeble self-confidence that so-called mature christians like me would like to believe), always run the risk to domesticating God and reducing him to our size. It comes as little surprise why I encounter many people, even close friends who scoff at

over-enthusiastic believers who by no fault of their own, witness in an ineffectual and disaffective way...they encounter a hint of its message but rarely, in depth... the person who sustains it. We need to remind ourselves that divine revelation came in the form of a Person, not a book.

Beyond all rhetoric, I imagine this prayer is something that Mother Teresa would pray as many missionaries would...and also by people of goodwill and faith.

May it help us to recognise truly, the presence of Christ in our lives.

E tu Iddio / You, God

You, God
Because of whom i walk in this boundless sky
among clouds of worlds
You are lonelier, poorer than I;
I have seen you wince under the surgeon's scalpel
removing an ucler from your bowels.
I have seen You dead drunk
staggering empty-eyed,
I have seen You
tense pushing a laden wheel-barrow,
jump for joy over new pockets
over shiny shoes
and call out to me, and stretch out Your hands
happy over a smile and a little kiss.
Those sparrow-like eyes of yours
make me sad.
In order to live, I must be a brother
and a father to You.
And wipe your running nose
and support you in your faltering steps,
build you a stout house
of solid stone in fine plumb, and heal you
if your head limply resting on my knees
burns with fever,
and fetch you bread, soup
and honey and the fruit you like:
it is my way of adoring you.

-by Danilo Dolce (translated from italian by murray bodo)

Listening

The following 3 excerpts were discovered in 2 different texts about prayer. They share an affinity. Each seems to respond adequately to the others; 'adequate' not in the sense of fullness and completion but permitting enough sufficiency to allow mystery and what lies unspoken, to be left open to the reader, hopefully to explore the terrain on her own terms.

1.

When a doctoral student at Princeton asked, 'What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?' Albert Einstein replied, 'Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.'

2.

Inspector: And you Rabbi? Which side are you on? The question or the answers?

Rabbit: I am on the side of prayer.

Inspector: And what is prayer; question or answer?

Rabbi: Both. Question for whoever believes he has found an answer. Answer for whoever struggles with the question.

From the play, Zalmen or The Madness of God by Elie Wiesel

3.

For prayer exists, no question about that. It is the peculiarly human response to the fact of this endless mystery of bliss and brutality, impersonal might and lyric intimacy that composes our experience of life.

Patricia Hampl

morning chapter

autumn beckons and days are windy and free. i can't wait to watch the trees turn orange-green. the tree-lined boulevards on the university compound make the place restful. the path marks my daily walk to collect the morning papers. today, i adjourned to animal orchestra for breakfast- had the finest mocha ever and the house speciality, a pan of baked eggs choked with a variety of servings from gourmet cheese to goat's milk, smoked aubergines and capers, and even sardines! i opted for the last. not quite disappointed but it could do with a little lemon dash to blunt the slight seasoned bitterness of fish. the interiors are

glued with illuminating pictorials and crude snapshots of world news, capturing its peculiar nooks and crannies; nelson mandela on a pipe, dame edna kissing a vulgar bust of city wall and late princess di crowned by bouquets of angelic leaves & pastel florals. relaxed with the day's .

papers on hands. sipping coffee and making myself privy to the hordes of conversations polluting the casual air of melbourne's many streetside cafes on this part of town.








art.
the yellow clock-tower links time with knowledge, an unshakeable stature and to some, a concept so full of flavour it resists the corrosion of time. being here, not quite foreign yet trying to stand or walk in stillness to the clear fact that these old stone walls are silent witness to the hordes of students who come to taste jargons and concepts dating back to centuries of thought. the old arts block hides one of my favourite walking paths. the walls breathe & ascribe to medievial language and philosophy. subjects never to be found in techocratic nus/ntu and the like find full respect here. i wonder how local / singapore students might re-imagine their own purpose and direction should they be exposed to these academic possibilities early in life. to many singaporeans, knowledge is best appropriated in light of its relevance to an ever-thirsting economy and its subsequent practical value to life. the given vision is a frightening one. and narrow still.

some students have in the past denounced reason as the enemy of revelation. others identify it as a critical ally to self-understanding and independent vision. medieval studies provides an experience in building up rational wholes, theories and interlocking systems of language, culture and ideas which shape them into being. and there, we take the proverbial imaginative leap...thinking more for and about ourselves, our place in the wider world, our critical relationship with others... not to be confined to what weber terms , the 'iron cage of bureaucracy' and the disabling form of obsessive-compulsive worship of empirical knowledge' which we are binded (and have been blinded) to.

love and freedom

The things and people we cling to imprison us; the things and people we love free us. The most liberating experience of all is to love something or someone and not at the same time want to possess the object of our love. True love allows the other its own freedom, yes, even desires that freedom; and in return the lover himself is free to love more and more selflessly.


Who, however, can achieve such love? Maybe no one can completely. But each one of us glimpses from time to time the exquisite joy of his own selflessnes. If i am willing to love you and let you go wherever you wish, we are both free and our love grows. Otherwise, need and dependence replace love, and we grow tired of what all of this is costing us emotionally.
Some of us learn this basic fact of life, and they become the contented and authentic souls we all know. Others never do learn it, and they are constantly caught in webs of their own making, unable to break loose and enjoy the freedom gifted by real love.




adapted: murray bodo