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Me

As in me first and gimme, the pronoun has gotten a bad name over the years. It's other people we're told we should be thinking about. It's giving to them. But taken all by itself - just me - there's something rather poignant about it. Only 2 letters long. Barely one syllable. It looks as though it needs all the help it can get.

"Love your neighbour as yourself", we're told. Maybe before I can love my neighbour very effectively, I have to love me - not in the sense of blind passion but in the sense of looking after, of wishing well, of forgiving when necessary, of being my own friend.

f. buechner: whistling in the dark

-pictures from pjcodac mount kinabalu expedition nov.2005

remembering james

a small tribute to our brother james. written by tony.

He sat at the forecorner of our class;

Quiet, peaceful and with a welcoming smile;

He did not speak much but when he was asked to share he shared his

thoughts of God and his wonders, that moved me;

I watched him and one day when i talked to him in person I came to the

light to know that he was a man of God, who was living his life in

simplicity and love;

He never brushed down a request nor did he complain;

He showed me life of how a christian should live;

I became his friend and brother;

We met up many times, drove in his car, laughed over home made juices

and meals;

He used to advice me many times to take care of my health by living a

healthy and holy life;

The last I spoke to him, he never ceased to empower me with words of

encouragement, he never complained,  never sighed even when he was under

medical attention.

Today a good brother has left me and us;

But he is dearly remembered by all of us for the life he lived among

us;

We know brother, you are with God and we are happy that God is with

you... you will always be with us as a brother friend till we meet you one

day.

james quah & irene momo

james and irene...who passed away yesterday and today. both after a long battle with cancer.

generous, loving & gentle people who love God and life. you loved and helped me, as you do with countless others, along the way.

i give thanks to all that we have laughed, loved and shared.

our prayers & support remain with the ones you leave behind.

eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let Your perpetual light shine on them.
they rest in peace, amen.

doings: four in the morning

after a night of procrastinated constipated work. the plain idling. can't sleep. to sublimate my energies, i cooked bak kut teh at 4 in the morning. so good it rivals balestair street's.

picnic at edfac

one of those once a month mornings where one of the modules we're taking stretches from 5-8pm on friday nights and 9-5pm on saturday. colossal seminars. tutor's a nice guy. barry woolhead lookalike dr drysdale provides us with tubs of biscuits, bottles of milk and ready-made coffee and tea for the helping. feeding restless postgrad kids who can't sit still even at that age.

lunch was 1.5 hours long. we might as well bring our own -

each brings a dish. dynas with chips boiled egg and presvien, with her grapefruit salads. xing yee's chickenroast and kit nam witha lump of pure green grapes. simple. i kay-kiang. woke at 6. boiled rice the night before, chopped garlic and onion and dumped them onto pan with wodges of olive veges and anchovies. homemade branded goodness plus 6 cobs of corn to add a much-needed dash of sunshine to some darkbrown dish. i snipped the fried egg too for garnish. and don't forget the spanish oilves. tang of the morning.

sat on the grass. made easy. something we never did in s'pore (perhaps only in botanic gardens). s'pore grass makes backside itchy. aussie grass, luxuriant and soft. we were able to scatter and play with fallen maple too. the kind u see on posters about maine and yellowstone. a longheld dream. the same leaves of sun coming through.

deep root

If Judaism is the religion of hope

and Islam, a religion of faith, then

Christianity is the religion of love...

6th sunday of easter. sermon.

newman chapel

spiderman 3... wowww...wheeeei

utterly thrilled and what a wallop of a movie! the audience here clapped in unison after the film was over and all left the cinema satiated... and satisfied...intellectually. bloody-good end to a movie, the sum of all 3. I think it's the best of the trilogies offered. It even surpassed x-men in terms of the themes explored and issues probed. psyche. ethics. the greyzones of morality. i felt much empathy for sandman from the start and glad my intuitions proved me right to the end. him holding his daughter's picture in a brooch constantly, signified the stubborn thread of humanity even in the worse of criminals. and some say we are saved by whatever little love we hold on to the end. it's true.

spiderman leaping across the american flag was a colossal let-down. a show of mythic american heroism at a time when bush is the main pollutant to much of the globe. toby skimming the city streets cruising with rogue mannerisms brought the laughs. and that naughty hairstyle. still why should the female gender be portrayed as hapless and hopeless all the time? there's spiderwoman in marvel's archives somewhere. bring her in. mj shows a remarkable sense of resilience. she should be the mother of all mascots for kiwi bungee-jumpin. many people would have fainted 101 times the moment they fall from multiple storeys from on high but mj smiles and survives. pigs do fly in hollywood.

the subtexts of male friendship was a rare inclusion towards the end of the film. so is the image of spidey confronting a severed conscience beneath the steeple of the cross. an obsessive return to clear christian themes. a little more subtlety would have helped. the audience laughed in response on the gay subtext in the butler's statements to goblin junior towards the end of the film. they should laugh at the bible too when 'love' repeats itself, sometimes between a male preacher and a bunch of roughshod fishermen. moans of regret when dark peter pushes mj to the floor. muddied male chivalry. intelligence gone wrong.

still, can somebody say why venom is repelled by sound of toll bells and mentallic audio poles?

can't wait for fantastic 4...after the silver surfer, hope galactus shows his bright cold face and slams cocky human torch to the depths of earth's concrete floor. invisible gal and mr fantastic. their nuptial chamber. great. teasers galore. one may not see the other and the other not knowing what to stretch and hold! pshaw!

postscript

i write at 5 am believing night

must give way

to morning....

lady chapel

newman jesuit college, off campus, a ride away. i cycle there, daily for mass. a community of not more than 12, most times. an enclosed intimate space, worlds slightly apart from the seemingly impersonal city parishes i've been. the pews, altar and pulpit are made from disused railway tracks, lodged metaphors of something larger than life. why we kneel, why we pray. journeys without end. dependence & humility. from unfreedom to freedom. from self-love to greater love for jesus and the conflicted redeeming world he asks us to live. within, not without. loss transformed. faith challenged. a wandering road, to the still points of silence. bread broken. shared among. many i've left behind. many i've met. i gather you, on the altar of this prayer. our common sacrifice.

meaning, on the other side

This terror of looking directly into the void and finding only experiences that seem meaningless and devouring is worse than any sickness. Yet the darkness is there. The need is not to escape it but to go through it and find meaning on the other side. There is still no better description of the darkness than the words of St John of the Cross, spanish mystic in Dark Night of the Soul.

The idea sometimes heard today that darkness can be avoided and we should find God only in joy and celebration, in peace and comfort, is a grave delusion that perhaps reveals our present lack of experience. We are apt either to begin this way in some darkness and depression or else be caught up by it somewhere along the way.

Celebration is fine and comes after deliverance. Beforehand, celebration is often shallow, false and naive."

morton kelsey: transcend- a guide to the spiritual quest (1981)

daybreak / I

At times, we experience a blockade in and to, a more satisfying and fulfilling life...it concerns not only those among us who wish to push beyond a vocational void or persons recovering from a loss of self-worth, confidence or despair. It also touches those who walk in search of a deepening spiritual quest.

By impasse I mean that there is no way out, no way around, no rational escape from, what imprisons one, no possibilities in the situation. In a true impasse, every normal of acting is forced to a standstill, and ironically, impasse is experienced not only in the problem itself but also in any solution rationally attempted. Every logical solution remains unsatisfying, at the very least...Any movement out, any next step, is cancelled, and the most dangerous temptation is to give up, to quit, to surrender to cynicism and despair, in the face of disappointment, disenchantment, hopelessness and loss of meaning that encompasses one.


David Tracy: Blessed Rage for Order (1975)

daybreak / II

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God.

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo

on vulnerability...

john 13: 1-15

Carl Jung once said how much he admired christians because they saw Christ in the poor, in those who are hungry, naked, in hospitals and in prisons, and in those who are strangers. But what he could not understand was that they could not see Christ in their own poverty.

Jean Vanier

daybreak / III

The swiftest things are the softest things. A bird is active because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. A bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force.

g. k. chesterton

something comes falling

and then, u hear a campus morning song.


there are brows of excitement everywhere; the leaf-strewn pavements lining the cool box of bluewater pools lodged beside the training track. you can swim or run in mild autumn air.easy too, to discard your studies for a moment and find again, the residues of trees that resemble the ones you love to gaze from home. casurina and birch, angsana tints and maple-hues patching sunsprays on earthgrounds. syrup-brown reds hiding the drench of greencool rain. a scent of the coming afternoon.

you hold then, the lyrics of one fine day

enclosed in petals of art and life

on hand.

veggiechicken,fish&kitchenstocks

this is my secret cache of raw energy meals. varied stockpiles for moody autumn days when it gets too cold to eat out on your own. money-savers ready to celebrate another day of flavours-

tupperwareblues of bak choy, rockets, spinach, snowpea sprigs and marinated olives.
reef fish and bak kut imprisoned in an artic freezer. rotund collectibles, those apples and pears. compulsory bars of dark chocolate. juicesofapplelime. longlife pitas. saltyslips of smoked trout&herring. eggs and dressings. eastwest pickles, afghan promengranates & china's preserved cucumbers. that cold darn slice of ham. emily's free gifts of bagels, caesars & cous cous balls tipping over the edge of the fridge.

yipppeeeeeee!

nightrain

the rain was insistent and constant in its patter. ending the quiet, and breaking the brief spells between a lull and the dream... what yesterday left in its wake.




the windowsill, an open book. the sky before it opens to dawn.





it was raining twilight that night. just outside the window. i cannot tell what remains from droplets of rain as they fall and flower on glass. the wind blowing on cold damp stars of morning

a jersey's smells of home (to 06s11)

it was the first and last package i'll probably receive from home...a neatly written envelope. they had 'warned' me earlier...that a class jersey was coming my way..arrived, it did. i like the combi of colours; white with streaks of red and blue. most surprising of all, it had 'prof k' embossed on it...a cheeky reference to our common love for x-men. me the teacher (heavens, not professor!), they are the mutants who needed a leader. k replacing xavier's on a sleek piece of jersey...

it came with a laminated poster, a warm collage of our best days in first quarter 2006. and their signatures. a note saying, 'come back soon'- another class whom i cared about and inevitably had to leave behind... they remembered and so did i.

it won't be long before i see them again. s11 and our collective fun, affection and gratitude for all that has been, and probably, will be.

thank u mutants...u know the jersey speaks and means alot to me...