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from a email sent out to some close friends recently, who shared a gift for my birthday... i have been collating various nooks and designs to conceptualise what my own place can become. yeap..i got it !
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Dear friends,

thank you for the bdae gift you shared for me. this jacket is super-cool and snug (even though many of you have yet to see it!). it shall follow me thru' many seasons in the years ahead...sorry the note comes late. alas, the cash has finally come in but peter is able to process everything, in infinite patience and quiet wonder. still, your generosity will remain for all eternity.

i have also fulfilled a once-distant dream; a humble 21th floor 4 year and 4 room hdb resale along bukit batok west. it is opp the driving centre and overlooks some hills in johor, much of the western countryside and a tinge of Jurong port. best of all, every window looks out to different shades of night and day cast on a far horizon. one window peeks above a brief canopy of trees...just as i imagined from many vague dreams in childhood.

you will soon be consulted in the refurbishment of this place and i promise to make it a warm and open lodge to welcome all. thank you for sharing my hopes in the different chapters of our friendship, some of you, stretching to almost 20 years. may God continue to help us experience more laughter, healthy abandonment and sure hope in all things good to come our way...

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New Testament Greek speaks of believing 'into' rather than believing 'in'. In English, we can convey the distinction best by using either 'in' or no preposition at all.

Believing in God is an intellectual position. It need have no more effect on my life than believing in Freud's method of interpreting dreams or that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Believing God is something else again. It is less a position than a journey, less a realisation than a relationship. It doesn't leave you cold like believing the world is round. It stirs your blood like believing the world is a miracle. It affects who you are and what you do with your life like believing your house is on fire or somebody loves you. We believe in God one reason or another we choose to believe so. We believe God when somehow we run into God in a way that by and large leaves us no choice to do otherwise. When Jesus says whoever believes 'into' him shall never die, he does not mean that to be willing to sign your name to the nicene creed guarantees eternal life. Eternal life is not the result of believing in. It is the experience of believing. . .

and finding, at last, a place to call my own

adapted from frederick buechner