lang-scapes

melburnians have a strong tolerance for diversity.

language-puns adorn every nook and cranny.

a city where eating french fries is delight

and falling sick,

you need not stammer and hide.

mooba 2007

Scenes from Moomba Festival 2007. Yarra River

autumn-plays

with days on a swing

and cold-candy on sweetened lips

our visions warmed on nights, when

we see children gazing

on flaming skies

unievolutions

hoah!!!!

Unimelb: The Evolution Starts Here...

you know, they should have added '!!!' for the supreme effect...

...evolve into what...i dunno..hopefully another sound-minded, wise and humble human being...all of us cooped under your canopy...

the path i walk or cycle by each day. it has an old style victorian fountain as its centrepiece. the magpie flocks there for a drink sometimes. so do we.

located along Leicester Street (thanks to Shakespeare, pronounced as Les-ter not lai-cess-ster, hor?!!! dun bee soooo cheena-pong, o man!)...

subjects not to be found in nus...simply because they would be read as 'economically unviable...' or irrelevant to the economy...chey!

when i am eager to walk by, white roses bloom by the hedge. elite-sounding university- graduates club @ unimelb charges sky-high accomodation rates. meals are catered for each day. miss mealtimes by a second and you scrape for food. well, you pay for the name and get your wallets burnt until chao-ta till the very end- caN SeE sEE lOOk LOok BUt dun blur-blur Go AND LIve there, hor!

,

poem

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills-

A bird and a tree say to him: friend.

czeslaw milosz

p/s: ziz, you should remember the location. and cuili, what a poem...needs little explaining and still, so quiet and true. I like it very much. thanks =)

on prayer

Yancy's gem-book on prayer is unlike anything I have ever read. He tackles and more importantly, meditates & confronts the questions head-on...prayer as a seemingly senseless and feeble act / need yet it is a decision that reflects our turbulent if not growing relationship with God; God not as santa claus as we like him to be...but one whom by his 'strange intimacy' meets us at every junction of life and enters the heart's deepest groans and yearnings. Just as all human relationships find deepest expression and completion through authentic relationship, trust and seeking, prayer is the eternal earthbound dialogue; what makes us most human is brought to level-ground. He also shares the pain of unanswered prayer and the sheer absurdity that is faith and how it can be borne on this long journey. This story touched a chord in me.

'I have seen evidence of God's presence in the most unexpected places. During our trip to Nepal, a physical therapist gave my wife and me a tour of the Green Pastures Hospital, which specialises in leprosy rehabilitation. As we walked along an outdoor corridor, I noticed in a courtyard one of the ugliest human beings I have ever seen. Her hands were bandaged in gauze, she had deformed stumps where most people have feet, and her face showed the worst ravages of that cruel disease. Her nose had shrunk away so that, looking at her, I could see into her sinus cavity. Her eyes, mottled and covered with callus, let in no light; she was totally blind. Scars covered patches of skin on her arms.

We toured a unit of the hospital and returned along the same corridor. In the meantime, this creature had crawled across the courtyard to the very edge of the walkway, pulling herself along the ground by planting her elbows and dragging her body like a wounded animal. I'm ashamed to say my first thought was, She's a begger. She wants money. My wife, who has worked among the down- and- out had a much more holy reaction. Without hesitation she bent down to the woman and put her arm around her. The old woman rested her head against Jane;s shoulder and began singing a hymn in Nepali...a tune we all instantly recognised: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so..." Her name was Danmaya who welcomes visitors at the small christian chapel on the site.







A few months later we heard that Danmaya had died. Close to my desk I keep a photo that I snapped just as she was singing to Janet. Whenever I feel polluted by the beauty-obsessed celebrity culture I live in - a culture in which people pay exorbitant sums to shorten their noses or plump up their breasts to achieve some impossible ideal of beauty while 9000 people die each day from AIDS or lack of treatment and hospitals like Green Pastures scrape by on charity crumbs - I pull out that photo. I see 2 beautiful women: my wife, smiling sweetly, wearing a brightly coloured Nepali outfit she had bought the day before, holding in her arms an old crone who would flunk any beauty contest ever devised except the one that matters most. Out of the deformed, hollow shell of a body, the light of God's presence shines out. The Holy Spirit found a home.'

adapted from Philip Yancy: Prayer- Does it make any difference?

p/s: i shared a similar experience with my students in a AP-lit class. It concerned a similar trip i made to Taiwan to visit a hospital where lepers were treated. The poem was 'The Missionary.' For obvious reasons, i had to carefully filter my faith from the 'secular' lesson that was shared. Yancy's account answers and completes the full heart of the story.

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

everyday...a prayer is heard.

a typical day runs like footwork...

thoughts creep up from nowhere and i scribble quickly on scrap paper (poached from the waste-dept at edfac... while no one is looking, hehe- not stealing ya!) so it goes...the things i must do for the day...

-check bank refund
-subscribe to papers
-top-up optus prepaid card
-buy indo-chilli from laguna
-develop family pics
-enquire if swimming shorts allowed at unipool
-tell cousin those pics were sent back!!! (after almost 5 mths!!!)

strangely i feel a sense of accomplishment after these things are done. the day opens up empty but it is gradually filled with little decisions that axel a day's movement somewhat. i look forward to daily mass, something simple to commit to during lent. i share with God everything that has happened so far. honesty and openness. relationships. what we apply in our human affairs untimately reflects his place in our lives. to personalise it further is to risk intimacy and a depthing that brings challenges of its own. yet if there is no intimacy to speak of, there can be no genuine relationship to begin with. Cassian says we pray best when we are no longer aware of praying...do i believe that God is intimately involved and is concerned with every detail of my life? do i find that intrusive or comforting? if so, why?

my meals are getting more arty by the day. used warmed over-nite rice...simply scatter it with basil and mixed herbs. next, tossed it with anchovies (pre-stir-fried with ginger) raw spinach, rockets, boccocini cheese and a dollop of kimchi, or a slice of cold ham. yop it with minutes of pesto sauce and ta-dah... you have the most filling vitamin-mind-blowing meal ever prepared by yours truly...whenever i crave for fish, i would add a smoked trout by the side and drizzle with lemon juice. lunch can't get better than this.

am doing a little more light (haha) shopping this final semester...tag on stuff unavailable in singapore. green is theme. these are funky shoes...doubt i can find that in queenway, junction 8, orchard and the like. wah!

i didn't forget how the day closed for me. watched the sky as the last fires of sunset burned. right outside my window. i ate my meal in silence. seeing, tasting, hearing...i don't know if i 'was' truly praying but the awareness itself...is thanksgiving.

four short months

4 short months and i will make every effort to live them fully. i like my new niche behind the law faculty. it's quiet at night, spared from the tinkling bells of trams that run along swanston street. the kitchen-near-bed setup didnt prove too bad afterall. i just have to be careful with cooking methods. living on my own has somewhat simplified a lifestyle...my meals are simpler but no less palatable, and i could structure my free time more easily, not needing to rush home for cooking duties as of last year.

i catch the afternoon sunblast, unfortunately but am spared the awakening dawn. room faces west melbourne and if i am lucky, i get to catch a sight of hot-air balloons cruising outside my window. am starting to clear up any leftover stationary and household equipment by now, passing them on to undergrads who need some startup in their new place.

best of all, i committed myself to many more external courses this term. secured my last 2 majors in marketing as well as leadership succesfully within edfac. also taking up classes in world music, pilates as well as meditation. Life drawing is a possibility. winter is due again with autumn looming in april. days are going to get shorter and colder. i reckon my outdoor runs will cease. not into treadmills but the ones in unimelb sports ctr should do fine. they even have a heated pool with great views of the residential colleges as well as open field.

i doubt if i would have such lavish portions of time to rest, work and play once i get sucked into the workforce again. being here has transformed my narrow outlook to life and imparted a greater, if not deeper sense of independence to chart my own road and own my own time. went to tarrawarra on sun. delighted to meet pat, sam and joe once more. rekindling the past. we chatted for almost 4 hours in the same room. cloistered indeed. bought pau for them and jo had copy of you jin's text at last.

met johal yesterday. he dropped nus for unimelb. an excellent choice. he will grow even more. came up for tea. taught him in 2004. we reminisced about gothic days and the sins of 03A05. hope he does a module on cinema studies and literature. he has not lost his gift for abstract thought and writing. he is with nissa now, another junior gal who was in my gp class...02A05 i believe. ha. THAT class...loyal blokes to the core. strange that pioneer students almost always end up getting attached to each other. looks like we all find something secure to hold on from the past...