life calling

LET SOMETHING ESSENTIAL HAPPEN TO ME
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O God,
Let something essential happen to me,
something more than interesting
or entertaining,
or thoughtful.


O God,
Let something essential happen to me,
something awesome,
something real.
Speak to my condition Lord,
and change me somewhere inside where it matters,
a change that will burn and tremble and heal
and explode me into tears
or laughter
or love that throbs or screams
or keeps a terrible, cleansing silence
and dares the dangerous deeds...


Let something happen in me
which is my real self.
O God,
let something essential and passionate happen in me now.
Strip me of my illusions of self-sufficiency,
of my proud sophistications,
of my inflated assumptions of knowledge
and leave me shivering as Adam or Eve before the miracle of the natural -
the miracle of this earth
that nurtures me as a mother
and delights me as a lover;

the miracle of my body
that breathes and moves,
hungers and digests,
sees and hears,
that is creased and wrinkled and sexual,
shrinks in hurt,

and swells in pleasure;
that works by the most amazing messages
of what and when and how,
coded and curled in every
cell and that dares to speak the confronting
word.
O God,
Let something essential and joyful happen in me now.

Something like the blooming of hope and faith,
like a grateful heart,
like a surge of awareness
of how precious each moment is,
that now, not next time,
now is the occasion
to take off my shoes,
to see every bush fire,
to leap and whirl with neighbour,
to gulp the air as sweet as
wine
until I've drunk enough
to dare to speak the tender word:

"Thank you"
"I love you"
"You're beautiful";
"Let's live forever beginning now";
and "I'm a fool for Christ's
sake."

- Ted Loder

as it is, as they are

i enjoy listening to mandarin songs even though my grades in the same language were nothing to be proud of. over these years, many songs have remained with me. they come back when i least expect it...on a long ride home, in the pool, reading at night, the rare day in a ktv pub... the quiet road tracing a journey's end.
half the time i do not always capture the full meaning of their lyrics. in my simplicity or rudimentary understanding (and sometimes with the patience and help of great bilingual friends), i receive a glimpse into the beauty of this language...i am no linguist but i feel some of these chinese songs capture & express a range of human experiences that find no equivalent to the types you hear in english songs (maybe except those sung in the 80s...then again, i am obviously biased). the phrasings and poetic nuances in some pieces express a depth that english cannot penetrate, let alone translate.
it's best to receive them as they are. again, i don't always understand what is written but it's sufficient to note i feel a tacit grasp for what they wanted to say...there's a story to this one. never has the theme of change been sung with so much loss, anger and anguish.




this piece is by kit chan. i heard her live, once in nus. the sound system went off but still she soared, her voice lifting the day. we came close to heaven.

crossing

2000

Lord, it takes awhile to chart the distance crossed,

rediscovering

the first affections that anchored hearts to place.

2004

it mattered to you that i claim

my will to live

in all the choices

that life offered

2006

i do not know if sometimes the emptiness may be loved,

but there lies a treasure

hidden

on foreign field

2009

no one knows what may happen

in the next crossing.

i will do what a child does

knowing

you command a tree over man

give grace and shelter,

believing

your happiness protects us

now, this day

and

always

adapted:

writings & poems of paulo coelho and yehuda amichai

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vigil

wailin, richard, pat and the monks of yarra glen are an important part of my life in australia. they taught me how to love, laugh, live and pray. never one to turn away anyone in need, they share their warmth & hospitality with all. i miss them. their home-cooked meals, their poetry and music, the herbs and travel tales they used to share with me. they helped me find my second home when i was studying alone then, in melbourne. they now live in uncertainty & much fear as their lives and property hang threatened by the fire that rages on in victoria state. many have chosen to stay behind for as long as they can to ward fire off their property. because that is all they have left...i don't know how long more they can fight. a recent phonecall to them assures us that they are well, exhausted but safe, each community taking turns to watch the night, patrol their lands and alert each other should they detect danger miles ahead. it does not help that the fires are spread by fierce winds and gum-rich eucalyptus trees.Lord, protect and bring to an end the fires that they fear. many are old. they are tired. they fear abandonment. alot of us struggle to believe in your care in the middle of this hell and madness.

Lord

restore those whose lives are ruined and torn by destruction.

you are with them in their fear and loss

you will save

Lord, give us faith,

help our unbelief.

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the cistercian community at tarrawarra and the communities in healesville and all of australia ask for our prayers. for aid and for rain to stop the fires from raging and destroying their homes and lives

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

lor gambas: checkpoint 93

we can no longer tell
the difference between the cool jade of forest leaves and
the warm odour of sun melting sleeves, socks and boots.

the ground stings
with over-heated grass.
we can only stretch eyes this far,
attain some luck in stumbling, or succumbing
to the rising spells of emerald heat.

and there is fear of sundown...

our dreams morph

into sharpened ferns, chanting fields and

a moss of creatures creeping

to make sick these fantasies whispered

on our congealed beds of sweat raw chlorophyll...

the tale of the dead soldier lying beyond the night marsh -
he waits to join us again,

complete his final march.

* * * *** ***

my buddy treks behind me.
the day will not make him disappear.
his wet pores and clenched fists
secrete a secret will

to drag our bodies forth
to base camp.

never to arrive,
our desires liquify, blessing the ground
of our sacrifice.

picture courtesy of xiangxuan's account of ocs in facebook

heartspace

heartspace. i joined this community sometime last year, wanting to devote more time to ecology (i got my zoo posting!) and art to balance life & work. we meet on sat mornings. begin with sharing and close with a prayer, sometimes through song, a line from scripture or just begin a day framed in silence. and then we disperse into our own corners and pick materials of our choice. the hours pass in a simple play of colours. are allowed to experiment with any medium we wish; acrylic, crayon, clay, chinese brush, charcoal...anything that helps our heart to speak. when all is done, we place our works (in progress), sit back, distance ourselves from our pieces and comment on each others' works. there is no judgement. no appraisal. no grading. just (he)art speaking to (he)art, trusting the Spirit to guide us.

over here, i find courage to exorcise an old burden and rechart other undiscovered lands. i remember failing art for o-levels and labelled myself as a failure in that field for so many years. i never picked it up again until i joined heartspace. and these are the works i still create...the first piece was done in less than 2 minutes...a hurried attempt not to waste ink...i ceased the need to control. and spontaneity led to its genesis. for the second piece...i did not know the painting could be inverted (without losing its coherence) until another member told me so! 7 months lapsed between the 2 pieces i drew. the same blue tree appeared and inked the link between them. i still do not know what the blue tree said.

others resurrect a memory or loved one who went away. some portraits emerge from the dark terrain of searching and prayer, to reclaim a lost promise you once held with open hands.

you don't come here wanting to be an artist. you come- open, wanting to understand the process of becoming yourself again. though many members happen to be christian, we also welcome persons from other faiths as well. one of our members happens to be a buddhist who brings a different reading of life in her sharing.

i guess we don't always have a ready answer or reason for everything we draw. and it is ok to feel that way.

the same for life, wonder, love, pain, dreams and mystery. we don't always know their origins or haunting appeal to our spirit and psyche. but we chase, run away or experience them anyway...our need to be human is a gift we long to behold and re-create.


www.joannatan.com/heartspace.htm

a lost key pouch

i lost my keypouch last saturday evening. 3 keys to my personal drawers, an mart card loaded with $30 credit and $70. pouch was a gift from my sister last christmas and it smelled great in leather. i wrote my personal particulars on the card and pouch. any literate person would know how to return it. i woke early, took a bus and retraced my steps along shunfu road the next day. also alerted citicab, cold storage novena square and my friend for any possible trace or accidental recovery, just in case, in his place. still no news at this point of writing.

the following statements record the process of rationalisation that occurred within the week. so much for claiming to know myself so well.

Response A: i will try to ride on the spiritual assurance of a friend. she would pray. i too must pray. then i should trust God and await the miraculous appearence of my lost item. nothing lost, nothing broken- bible passage quoted in detail.

Response B: what if God answers 'no' in response? no further help for me. pouch does not appear. and never will. should i then lose my petty faith in God and trust him less?

Response C: believe it probably went to someone in greater need than me... maybe a poor family found it and decided to use it. mmmm..the amount would sustain their transport and daily needs for the next 2 weeks.

Response D:. still there is no need for them to do that, right? why can't they just take the card and money and return the rest to some police post? they could even call me and 'pretend' to be a good samaritan instead?

Response E:. why is God like that? why can't he even fulfil a simple prayer like this?

Response F: the economic crisis has hit alot of people. others have also lost a life, their loved ones or their jobs. what is a missing key pouch compared to other kinds of loss that people are facing? let go. com'on be grateful you even have a stable job in these hard times.

Response G: tsk....just be more alert next time, k? lesson learnt?

Response H: well, better to lose a key pouch and some cash than the handphone, an entire wallet (packed with ic, credit cards etc etc) or a passport! i am darn lucky coz it could have been worse!

there are other losses to come in life. one former student comforted me by claiming that one lost item hints of better tidings to come in one's life.

it is a tough 'act' trying to look on the bright side, to trust God (still) and not get overly entangled over the secular streak that is entwined within. i am quite a contradiction in terms- a social sceptic and spiritual optimist at the same time.

feb first: one life

this is a simple birthday song that carries much meaning for me. thanks to all who dropped notes everywhere in virtual, electronic and physical space to wish and celebrate with me. have always wanted to compile photographs from birth to now, just to establish an existential cope to the ways i've been, struggled and grown. i will do this by year-end(?)... am still be-coming...be-holding what this one life may mean for others and me. maybe a line or two from cormay's song may also light a path inside your heart as you celebrate your own birthday sometime this year, even if it had just passed.
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"When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; When i became an adult, I put aside childish things...

...In the same way, we see now, indistinctly, as in a mirror. But someday, we are going to see God in his completeness, face to face. At present, I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known..."

1 corith: 13: 11- 12

Have asked that these words (esp verse 12) be engraved on my stone the day i leave earth for heaven. Birthdays help me remember my origin, my beginnings and my end. In between are many slips, detours, quiet peaks and rich valleys that have marked one life with many lessons, much wisdom and alot of beauty. Thanks to all for being a part of my life...i've also come this far because of you. Am grateful we share this one life together, our lifetime, our grace to be.

tell me on a sunday

am here every month on sat or sunday. i fulfil part of my childhood and undergrad dream- to study more about and handle live animals in a life-giving way... practise a little bit of zoology which i failed to take during my uni days.

that's a malayan stick insect. similar to the ones found in undisturbed forests over here. i get alot of fun getting visitors to spot them on the branch display. my guests register a childlike delight when they are able to identify these masters of disguise brought out for interaction and display.

that's my favourite queensland titan, found only in australia. harmless and defenceless, it rears its abdomen like a scorpion if disturbed. visitors hazard a good guess all the time. and the brave ones move on to put them on their shirts, caps or face. some adults squeal away but their children become their teachers on that appointed hour or so, they claim.

i spend these sundays unpacking the lore that hides in forest songs. we master terms like dimorphism, mimicry, parthenogenesis. live and play witness to the kid, tickling in us all.

red, lunar & ox

i grew up with emblems related to most things chinese. every lunar new year brings its cache of auspicious sayings, with its vast semantic fields that draw material associations like wealth, prosperity, luck, credit, cash and all things gold and red to our elusive search for happiness. the chinese appear to speak an embroidered language that is deeply couched with meaning. phonetically, this allows speakers to acknowledge hierarchies of rank and file, intent and idea into lettered phrases that may be spoken elegantly in a line or two.

i used to resist the link; that one can be happy simply by receiving an endless accumulation of wealth. i was at one stage, critical of what i perceive to be the 'materialistic' foundations / 'philosophical assumptions' of the chinese way of defining 'goodwill' or 'lunar new year culture.' today, inverted commas mark the terms that sweep this entry. i am careful to bracket them as a way of confronting the relativity of such values inherited over the years. still, money isn't everything. i rather wish for good health, first- for myself, loved ones and friends so that we may continue to reflect and share generosity & goodness with those that come our way. of course, there will be moments when we would rather invest some of that on our personal search for happiness, be it temporal or eternal.

it brought to mind a text i read in uni; keith basso's Wisdom Sits In Places. an anthropologist who specialises in culture and linguistics, basso looked deep into the oral traditions. he identified deep structures in the language spoken by western apache indians and grew to understand their basis for naming places and using soundscapes or personal narratives to infuse spiritual or aspirational content on their own material spheres.

i guess material preoccupations have their place in most cultures. my race's depicted obsession with wealth (painted in homes, on streets and sewn on attire)is perhaps a fuzzy reflection of our own kindled pursuit of contentment and security. we word and speak our best intents, then press into colour the deep tidings we fail to grasp with our hands...

separate species

common fruit bat / Cynopterus brachyotis
like colugos, bats are also mammals. however, they are fully capable of flight. other characteristics include

-Fox-like face, protruding jaw
-Short to non-existent tail
-Normal to large, dark eyes
-Ears are fully enclosed at the base
-Hair varies in thickness; generally short and fuzzy; front part of head, outer parts of limbs and wing membrane are generally bald.
-Skin is brownish with variation in hue and intensity
-Wings are usually dark with spotted patterns
-Teeth are generally 34 in number and do not fully close; the back molars are flat and wide and used for crushing soft fruits
-Long and agile tongue
-Hands have a small claw on the second fingers which are useful in ripping open fruits; this is a distinguishing factor between Fruit and Insectivorous Bats

adapted from: http://whozoo.org/students/dansch/fruitbat.htm


colugo / Malayan flying lemur- Cynocephalus variegatus
The term is a misnomer as colugos are not lemurs. neither do they fly. rather, they glide using their skin membranes. they have more fur than bats. they make use of their underside membranes to catch wind currents as they travel from tree to tree. this calls for incredible tact, a superior sense of approximation, judgement and availablility of wind currents to take them across distances. the one i saw happened to glide across a packed expressway- to the other far side of the road!

Cynocephalus variegatus

7am. 21 jan. 2009. i was onboard 157 heading to college. it was crawling it way along lornie road. the empty lanes soon giving way to a sea of damp lights on either lanes. and the march of cars piling towards the city dawn. my bus paused at the bus-stop just opposite caldecott hill.


i saw it. something flew across the road just beyond my double-decked window...close to 400m away. it soared (glided?) above the peak traffic that was heading west. i thought it might be another sea-eagle or a hawk that strayed off its flightpath. and then, it gracefully latched onto a tree just beside a bus-stop.

and goodness me...it was a fairly large colugo indeed. i wasn't fast enough to take a snapshot with my phone-camera. but i stopped breathing, seriously.


http://www.wildsingapore.per.sg/discovery/factsheet/colugo.htm

that rare gem glided right above the traffic. what led it so near the edge of urban life? a nocturnal mammal, was it returning to its favourite tree, to nestle for the day ahead? it struck me that its home locale was ironically close to the very forces that seek to diminish its habitat & range.

one of singapore's rarest mammals, did the colugo also learn to adapt amid the noise and sprawl that pierce uncomfortably close to its forest home? we assume its numbers would decline or even become extinct altogether. our predictions may not be valid afterall.

my morning was broken bright with a colugo in flight. i feel canonized. my secret sight scores high on a scale of ten on ten. just an ordinary thursday on a humble bus to school, just feeling, all glowing, most blessed...

this night, me blessing

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

that's a very raw setup of my new cubicle. i kept it neat this time. but since i cannot stand blank spaces and white walls, i picked the pictures that mean most to me on this journey to bring some colour and poetry to my new working life; i wanted to remember the classes that left more than a mere impression...their gratitude and joy that helped me to uncover and share my own. yes, students, people and classes come and go. still, one batch or two and sometimes more than a handful inspire us to remember them for life.

hopefully, our capacity to remember people, and celebrate moments will not just be applicable to teachers and students. there is alot more to life beyond the classroom- the friends that shelter us, the families that fed us and even travellers or strangers who make a brief transit in our lives, forgetting they have left an echo of their heartsongs behind.

I like Buechner's definition of the term:

Remember:

when you remmeber me, it means you have carried something of who i am with you, that i must have left some mark of who i am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we ever meet again, you will know me. It means that even after i die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

For as long as you remember me, i am never entirely lost. When i am feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that i actually exist. When i'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When i'm feeling happy, it's part of the way i feel.

If you forget me, one of the ways i remember who i am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who i am will be gone.

"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief says said from his cross (Luke 23.42).

There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.