Kernels of (learnt wisdom), mishaps
and misadventures ...

whiting and marlin. de-bone- disembowel fresh fish. best deals at QV market occur an hour before closing time. hangovers cures. try sunning in winter. dozen tassie oysters at $12. smuggle cheap drinks in your jackets. club for free (almost) and avoid exorbitant charges. quench thirst from taps in club toilets. sugared raspberries, jamaican chocolate and cinnamon dusted pastries. smoothie by the museum lawn. debunk yum cha. smoke free eateries. queuing at Safeway minutes before midnight. relish half-price slashes. half roasts at a dollar fifty. munching on chicken by a cold supermart. crunching granny smith apples at 10 degrees. did i just see chemical-free chicken breasts? simple and simply sesame breads. dabs of balsamic vinegar and olive oil are good for you. 2 pots of plants rescued from near drought at city baths. open a bottle-cap with a hand-dryer. promote longevity in dish. add wine to sauce. inhaling arctic air and still running in shorts. ice-cold live jellyfish. winter- quick dry clothes. grid-cities. gblt = gaybilesbiantransgender groups. ordinary persons. gumtrees in the house. webcraft. airplants & winterair. a small wicked bunch of fierce red chillis selling at two seventy! walking till sundown. sweatless. breathing cold freezing & free.

Our One Hope for the Happy Life

Faith by which we believe in God is particularly necessary in this mortal life, so full of delusion and distress and uncertainty. God is the only source of good things, especially those which make us good and make us happy. Only when we, the faithful and the good in these unhappy conditions, pass from this life to the happy life will we experience what now we cannot, namely to live as we want. We will not want to live a bad life in that bliss, nor will we want anything we lack, nor will we lack anything we want. Whatever we love will be there, and we will not desire anything that is not there. Everything that is there will be good, and the most high God will be the most high good, and will be available for the enjoyment of his lovers, and so total happiness is forever assured.



One who is happy in hope is not yet happy, but is waiting in patience for that happiness not yet possessed. As for those tortured ones without any such hope, however much they endure, they are not truly happy, but bravely unhappy.

St Augustine (354-430 AD)
The Trinity : www.ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah 26:7-9, 12. 16-19

At night my soul longs for you
and my spirit in me seeks for you...
Lord, you are giving us peace,
since you treat us
as our deeds deserve.


Distressed, we search for you, Lord;
...As a woman with child near her time
writhes and cries out in her pangs,
so are we, O Lord, in your presence:
we have conceived, we writhe
as if we were giving birth;
we have not given the spirit of salvation to the earth,
no more than the inhabitants of the world are born.

Your dead will come to life,
their corpses will rise;
awake, exult,
all you who lie in the dust,
for your dew is a radiant dew
and the land of ghosts will give birth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's first reading at Mass reflects much about what i have been experiencing within and what has yet to be. Isaiah roots for the spiritual meaning found amid anguish, of waiting and hoping. Expectant, like a woman about to bring forth life from her very womb. What are 'the land of ghosts' we hold within us, landscapes of the heart that have yet to see and experience life in its fullness? Do I trust God enough to offer these hours or even years of waiting to him?

Statue of St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380): christian mystic and saint
on the grounds of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. Online resources on her works: www.newadvent.org/cathen/03447a.htm

Have received some blog messages from a handful of you expressing adjustment issues you needed to face back home. I know it isn't easy having to adjust to new teachers, bad grades as well as meeting never-ending demands churned out daily by the hectic system. A few still 'blame' me for abandoning the class midway. I would have not taught any batch if i had my way, believe me but i can't come to school and do nothing either. Teaching JC1 would 'hurt' the least, my superiors advised. It was the same for me too. Did my part by informing my classes a month in advance as well so that there would be adequate preparation for handing-over as well as shoring up any sense of injustice or blank compromises that might issue from this departure.

I don't mean to enlarge a minor problem into a big one but there are bigger changes or losses in life that await negotiation and acceptance as we grow older. Sudden death, breakdown of relationships, friends leaving, shift in locality, new values, rejection of past expectations, adjustments in priorities, even changes in personality and outlook. To merely prescribe 'adapt' or 'just cope' as a response seems inept.

Such is the condition, and it is real. Short of sounding detached, these changes you and i are experiencing now are issues we don't weclome readily. But inner movements need to be made, and there are days yet to be filled, hours to be lived and tasks still, to fulfil. Growing up to me, requires and involves constant vigilance, an attentiveness in how i handle change not only as a fact of life but a way of life. I don't mean we undertake a certain frivolity or instability in mood and spirit in handling change. The challenge lies in exercising a sense of daily awareness of what and how 'change' affects me, what remains unchanging and what i / we would like and are able to change. It is easier said than done. A degree of brutal honesty towards oneself is necessary so that we do not live in glass-world of our own making. It shatters in moments of crisis.


To those who are coping not too well with change, and sometimes wished for better times to come, perhaps we need to draw a line between sentimental longing for an impossible past (which stumps our growth) and a healthy appreciation of what has and had been. Find strength in what is left behind. Fate, if you believe in it, has a habit of crossing paths taken by strangers. Some are bound to meet again. The same wish goes to you, my students. Youth is sometimes the worst obstacle to self-awareness even though many claim this phase of life is a springtime of sorts in the experience of thrill, risk and experimentation. Reach deeper and experiment with the inner resources you have within you. Many dislike making that choice. But as what i've learnt, the choices that take us out of our 'safe space' can sometimes prove to be the most rewarding encounter with what we truly value and live for, in life.

Each of us maintain a 'safe space' within us. I owe this term to Helena who describes it as an inner sanctum where we hold back from life and live out a form of fabricated reality so as to escape our deepest yearnings and needs. It comes in many forms: high religiosity, false piety, loud humour, perfectionistic hard work or even intellectualism. I do not absolve myself from such descriptors too. Who knows if this blog serves as a guise for my own unconscious seeking as well?

Fracturing the structures that maintain and uphold our 'safe space' can sometimes take the work of a lifetime. It discomforts. It itches. It may even draw tears and anguish. Like learning how to pray, from scratch. It plunges you to the core of your being. But it is only by doing so that we discover a sense of authenticity that enables us to encounter ourselves as truthfully as we can, with no guise, masks nor dreamscapes to cloud our sense of self. Yeats describes this as 'moments of glad grace', sometimes equivalent to hiding one's face 'amid a crowd of stars'. I shall include the poem in a future entry.

Are you that one star that shines uniquely among a throng, who shares the same grace as you do? No pride, no arrogance- just a daily awareness of our own given attributes (even to reflect on our own response to change) which if we were made aware, would enable us to walk everywhere, amid streets and thoroughfares, not quite knowing, we shine like the sun (Thomas Merton).

"Don't waste your time
dreaming of being,
trying to be,
someone else.

Work & pray at being yourself.
Be who you are,
where you are."

St Francis de Sales

Revisiting Tarrawarra Abbey:
John 21: 4-12
-to bros samuel and joseph o.c.s.o
monks, brothers & friend

The quiet coves along the road lead in
and there you are
with habit in tow,
warm smiles that hide the long seasons of waiting
for old and
newfound friends.


I recalled how we woke in time for Mass,
alert to the vigils and poetry of everyday.
We also caught the first and last flares of many suns
before vespers and compline.
We are still divining the silence that keeps us both at peace
while the fire of faith continues to burn by the hearth
of our abbey.



We live the rare freedom found
in exile. Apart as we may seem,
and unknown to many,
your vocation story continues to sustain mine.
I learn to find a lifelong truth in solitude,
the cost of sacrifice.
In walking with you, we unfold
many valleys of pain, and further still,
sensing the secret search and hidden joy in every human heart,
known to you and sometimes to me-
and those who struggle to carry
the Cross of Christ.

The morning rains a catalyst
for our winter spirit.
An awakening to the sea and shorelines we share within,
and more time between us in the months to be...



Re: http://www.cistercian.org.au
Re:www.monks.org

Plaintive
by boey kim cheng

We are past talking
about griefs
personal and universal,
though there is blood
enough in pen
for a paradise lost
and the one regained...

we are content with
the little visions
blessing the dark nights,
and the present afternoon,
both for whom we write
no elegies.

we are grateful
for the room and the place
we find
and have yet to leave behind...

-adapted-

market tidings

Q V market was bustling with movments, scents, textures and tastes today. I like the art of beetroots- a thick combination and swirl of mud, soil, stringy stalks finished with a red bulb at its end. Botanical works.

Returning brought back many seasoned memories of place. We were immediately drawn by the plants on sale. I bought fresh gum leaves for the house. They add much needed and thoughtful sculptures to place. Obtained the airplants for my room. Cons made the choice picks. The lull of colours and petals were too tempting to be dismissed. Such succulent plants grow well in winter. They last really long even though winter seems like a dead season, dry and cold. Even plants learn to rediscover life through death.

I reaped a good harvest with the following dishes yesterday: asam pedas with mullet, green curry with beef and fresh basil, greek salad with pine nuts, honey-drizzled wings and roasted chicken sandwiches...I used to be cynical over pre-packed stocks but have since undergone a conversion of tummy and heart!

Much self-integration has been happening inside me, alot of inner-work sensed and forged from within. The quiet helps me to reassess my basic priorities in life: what i live for, what sustains my beliefs, the art of believing. The lifeworlds i earnestly seek and would even risk for.

Going within. Pope John Paul II once said that 'the longest journey is the journey inward.' Some spend their entire lives pursuing this vocation. Some never do and may spend the rest of their daylight hours working toward a peace that eludes them till today. By night, some of us slip away only to become watchful insomnaics over ourselves and not for others. Yet others learn to find the friend within. A few discover both after a lifetime of trust and faithful prayer.

There is some similarity between the noise of the marketplace and the inner turmoil that is fueled by speed and restlessness. Yet the Spirit goes where it wills, letting us know that"God pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber." (psalm 127:2)

I like that line. Solace, comfort and self-surrender all contained within a verse, a meditation on trust.

lines written in soft warm winter mornings
(w. wordworth)

Gee i dun miss home at all. These past few days move and pass like a dream. I am very well looked after, here under God's watchful care. Health is fantastic and pace of life has slowed down considerably... Little kid brother adrian has been a seriously good flat mate. No aka 'Tiwary' conflicts yet, thanks to the brutal honesty and accomodating selves we both share. But seriously considering the fact that we hardly knew each other before this, the trust and mutual respect we have for each other has been really good.

Met Constance today and am inviting her over to dinner tomorrow. I was at Queen Vic market this morning feeling natural, still and free... and had plenty of fun scouting the stalls on my own for choice basil, eggplant, pinenuts and olive oil...The stuff isn't cheap and i have developed a vigilant eye for quick discounts and fast reductions as the hour stretches to a close everywhere around that galactic market. Then it's home to stock up the groceries, all the while learning to conserve loose scraps of newpapers to keep veges crisp & fresh. Am excited to cook for Cons tomorrow. We intend to visit the Uni, finally (!)..........before heading home for dinner. My culinary experiments have been working well...and hey, I can cook incredibly well..ahem! The 2 of us have so far hosted 2 other mutual friends over for dinner (all thanks to Chris' networking) and had a fantastic blueberry pie and fine sherry over freezing (8 degrees) st kilda's beach last night. Ric, my Filipino friend has also invited us to a KTV session with the local cath group this sun. I'm taking it!

University has yet to start so i wont know how my schedule will change. But i'm living in simplicity and awareness each day that i have to be responsible over my outlook and self-care (everything from morning / evening prayer to dabbing layers of yeeky moisturiser on my face and ankles each day- thanks to face-repair-upkeep-reinforcement (note i refuse to use the word 'beauty') tips and formidable supplies (olive, butternut and ginger...i have everything to start a new organic plantation on my crinky face!) from Nikki, Betty, Ai Hua and Viv. S11's twin-br0s big bird bolster (whoever's reading this from the class pls inform them!) pampers the neck but i have yet to try cousin's vibrating pillow!!! Seetha's radio-clock lulls me to bed each night.

The household chores are easy to complete. It seems the years of harsh attendance at home and NS have finally bore fruit in terms of good and fair duty to my new home. Simply keeping the place clean, daily reading the Word, taking the clothes in when the cold drizzle rains lightly on the balcony...even thanking God for whoever invented the portable heater. I have a picture of all inside my room all arranged in the form of a Cross. It is here that i make a daily commitment to remember everyone when i pray.

Thank you people (kin, apprentice and folk alike)... for sustaining and blessing me with your prayers. Seems our Lord has ordained me to be here and breathe, a new found natural spirit i've been waiting, for all this while...

Just heard there has been a terrorist attack in India. Need to keep updated on happenings elsewhere. Freedom can also be a form of hedonism and I'm afraid this new found space will replace the my habitual need to be rooted to movements and tensions occuring miles and oceans away from my present world.

These words from Dag Hammerskjold bear careful reflection even as we go on living our everyday commonplace lives...

"A modest wish: that our doings and dealings may be of a little more significance of life than a man’s dinner jacket is to his digestion. Yet not a little of what we describe as our achievement is, in fact, no more than a garment in which, on festive occasions, we seek to hide our nakedness."

amen.

sunny wintry melbourne city

Chris and flatmate Adrian did every thing possible to make the transition easy for me. We managed to catch the World Cup Finals at the airport before leaving. Dark horse Italy emerged as champs, much to my delight and prophecy since i am no big expert on soccer itself. The flight was smooth and so were the customs. Met a melbournite onboard which amused and inspired me by her artwork but kept me wide awake as well even though i downed a flu tablet to knock my senses out! My luggage arrived pregnant as ever, with no slips or spills on the seams. Those chinese herbs and ginseng slipped through like water, and the burly aussie officers giving little problems to the perceived soil on my shoes, remnants of my last few runs along rural Singapore (check Pentecost).

These pictures speak for themselves. My nose is fine and so is my skin. Your prayers must have worked becoz my sinus will be awashed in waterfall and skin would flake like crust in past winter experiences. My window of my 9th floor living room opens out to the sunset each evening. This is a long holiday for me. Can't believe i am not even keen to explore the city. Sleeping late, experimental cooking, cleaning the kitchen sinks, floorboards and rooms (much to Adrian's delight) and doing up all that is possible to make this a fresh habitat for the soul. Uni of Melbourne is just a street away but i am in no hurry to step on it. Constance will arrive this Thurs and we'll spend friday selecting the courses and settling with the university.

Banking, internet, mobile, rental, asian condiments, how stoves work, voltage, the winer blast, prayer and silence, first Mass at St Francis', reviewing SAF SOP aka houserules with Adrian, our fav. teochew mueh and teochew language, late night grocery shopping (to take in the discounts), expensive vegetables and first stirrings of wanting to cook artichoke (whoever said they were cheap!), warm morsals of vietnamese food (thanks for the treat Deacon Thinh!), laughter, home-cooked dinner with sardines, stir-fry kailan, braised pork neck and pumpkin at 8pm, easy honest company, cheap local red wine and friendship's fidelity...i'm happy and settled already...

To my brothers in common faith...Adrian, Thinh and Chris, Thank you.


p/s: my ex tenant has since been evicted from his room because of unruly behaviour...i shall spend this day infusing this empty space. watch this column for more updates... he he he

Pentecost

Holy Spirit, thank you for those moments,
moments that come unexpectedly
when I feel your presence around me.

Sometimes you are like a light breeze,
that rustles summer leaves
refreshing coolness in the heat.

Sometimes you are like the wind
so strong i stir like grass,
bending to the force of your love and calling.

I thank you, Lord
for these precious moments,
richly given to me,
many come suddenly, as gift.

I ask you Lord
stir me like shimmering grass
bend me like a river reed
to the voice and pathway you have set for me.


-vespers on the eve of my departure, still and alone (but not lonely) on a favourite running route

landing... to a new start-----------------------

Thanks to all who went all the way to the airport to bid me well. I carry with me a chocolate of blossoms, one soft cow, a vibrating pillow (!) one big bird forever stuck in a yellow bolster, one fighter jet, many memoirs, a giant cookbook, a photo frame, a classroom of menus to sustain me in the months ahead.

Some ask why I did not cry. It was difficult to cry. Hard to make myself cry. The more they teased, the more artificial it became to feel what i felt. And I stumped my feelings and moved with the motions. Self-ridicule was the best defense when faced with such scenarios. I said I was born without tear-ducts. Gordon imitated in goodwill what I used to tease them about seeing men cry in cinema, whenever sad movies tug their heart-strings. I wanted to execute John till this very day for making everyone shout ‘Mr Koh, Don’t go’ just outside the departure gates. The police almost sounded the security alert. In all, it was a chorus of fun and I know some meant it at heart…i take and receive your coming in heart and won't forget the words and wishes which helped me to make a start.

So were the items that came as precious gifts…the many big and special cards, the boxful layered coat of surprises which S11 gave me, hand-made chocolate blossoms from Jae and gang as well as Hidayah…(I finished it all for you dear!), Fengrui’s and Reg’s fighter jet, 06A02’s purple cow (why purple I wonder?), Sandra's anchor-frame reminding me what teaching is all about... and not forgetting my Ct class (04A02) book of self-made menus to keep me filled and hungry when nights get cold. Wenjie and Mermaid’s Big Bird all made the leaving a little easier to bear... i know which memories i'll hold on to when the day is complete. Not forgetting the words and quiet faith from my family & kin whom i'll miss the most.

Why didn’t I cry…? I wondered to myself…perhaps many tears have already been shed quietly, and on my own, in a quiet church, on a solo walk...way before today’s gathering and goodbye. In these moments, i uttered the same prayer of thanksgiving i have continually and faithfully said all these years of my life, that no paths will cross by mere coincidence or accident, that God has ordained these days to pass, these new ties to forge, this hour of gratitude and giving way before other days even began. I too am a grateful recepient of this grace...6 generations of students turning up before and at the airport to say goodbye, to standing on my own and seeing my usually stoic dad, mom, sis and aunts tear amid a throng of noise and encouragement from my close friends... it was a loud send-off with many lessons to bear...a deep-seated reminder of Your presence in my life, You watchful over my life, as always through people, places and moments which mark my existence from the very beginning.

I know I can well move on with the blessings everyone has given me. To my students and friends; you once said I brought you life. I now say you have returned me to Life...

I have and will walk into an empty room. It’s a small and modest one. But your love, goodwill and memory will once more, litter the spaces I will keep for you in many corners of my present life, in the fresh corners of my newfound place and the prayers which link us together at the start of each new day.

"When will you be home?" she asks...
We both know we have no clear answer to where my dreams may lead.
She's watched me as i crawled and stumbled,
As a child, she was my world.
And now to let me go, I know she bleeds and yet
she says to me-
You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away...

fly away by corrinne may



faithful waiting...
for granny...

you lean across the window to watch for rain
each faithful wait, love's faithful waiting
beyond word, beyond creed,
beyond memory-

a child coming home while you sat waiting
your frail hands threading my torn sleeve
or sorting the greens,
your heart waiting
your prayer holding out the rain.

returning a poem

we never knew how it is to be silent- a day's monochrome shades
intermittently hit
by droplets of noontime's intellectual strain.
we traversed many seasons of laughter and wonder, still tired,
and kept abit of time to question why birds seem to know their way home,
at nightfall.

you teased and blamed me for making you think.
i smiled in understanding,
grateful that you never once thought
how peaceful i slept that evening,
lulled by what the sky sang, signing in sunlines
on canvas-white
the mystery of our vocation, and what it all means
against our wild and precious lives.
















many thanks for the meals & journeys we shared - class 0f 2003 (02A05) and
class of 2004 (03A04 & lit group)

Harvest Home
bettye t. spinner

In the ideal
it is a harvesting,
this work we do-
.......................

In the ideal
our classrooms fill, like...
life stories, heaped among the texts,
spill into the hallway of our schools,
crowd the sidewalks or the subways
or ride yellow buses home,
altering the form of knowing,
changing heads,
changing hearts
changing history,
bringing harvest
home.

-homeward bound: class of 2000-2001 (oos14 & oos22), 2001-2002 (01A01)...

women in life

they were there when i required some quiet to still an ego that was harsh on itself, adding names, helping to name the restless silence i mistook for peace. anchors of soul, carers at heart giving in ways which only women can give... some understanding, an appeal to honesty, and courage to shatter illusions i've only began to recognise. they point to horizons i refused to gaze further and led me to deeper courage to recapture myself and what i stand and live for.

there comes a point when we need to walk bravely, away from living an
incomplete life to one of wholeness, in daring to uproot false dreams and hold out to an open rain, we journey wayward, bare in spirit but faithful to the road, in every step reclaiming our first call, to be people of soul and spirit- keen observers of movements in the heart.

to kim (the wry look that was cast on me and clifford was classic!), helena, lai kuan, carol and sandra... i'm thankful our paths crossed along the busy byways of our lives.