"You're Welcome." - Filed under 'spirituality'

March 2, 2010

OH: What should we give up for Lent? #twg

"We should do something for Lent."

"Let's give up alcohol!"

"Ya, coffee is more important than alcohol, so we should give up alcohol!"

"Wait - shouldn't we give up the more important thing?"

Some silence.

And then he ups the ante.

"Alcohol is easy. You know what we should give up? Criticising people."

There are murmurs around the table. Murmurs which morph into sounds of assent.

Then she returns from the ladies'.

"Guess what we've decided to give up? You'll never guess."

She makes a few guesses, of a material and consumable nature.

"No. Criticising people."

She seems momentarily stunned, as the difficulty of that sinks in.

"Yea. Yea... We should give up complaining."

More silence.

"No, no, that's too hard, wey," he says.

There's nervous laughter all around the table as the seeming impossibility of not complaining grips us.

"Okay, we'll refrain from criticising people. That doesn't mean we can't speak the truth about institutions, like if there's bad service, for example."

And that's Lent settled.

God help us; it's a lesson in grace. Anything short of it doesn't work.

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Filed under // community of faith funny grace humor humour Lent overhead spirituality

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December 26, 2009

PIX: Without apology, the highlight of my Christmas this year was @melchica's baptism.

via flickr.com

Yes, I know I already said it, but it bears repeating.
Doulos's recently-published photo set on Flickr is the spark for this blog post.

Yes, I had a great time at the Christmas service at BLC.
Yes, I had a great time at the family dinner-and-tomfoolery.
Yes, I had a great time eating celebratory meals.

Not to discount these things - I'm grateful for them all - but they happen every year.
Not Mel's baptism, though. That doesn't happen every year.
I'm happy, excited, hopeful for you, Mel.

For photos, including shots of the Christmas service at Bangsar Lutheran Church, please follow the link to Doulos's Flickr set. Thanks, Doulos!

btw, my meal tonight was surf and turf at Monte's BSC [http://gowal.la/s/2moc].
Consequently, I'm in a good mood ;).

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Filed under // Bangsar Lutheran Church baptism Christmas friends household of faith life Melissa Chan milestones photos religion special moments spirituality

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December 16, 2009

We become what we behold. For better or worse. #Malaysia @Aisehman @Asohan

Aisehman (@Aisehman)
12/17/09 1:40 PM
Mufti calls for law to govern practice of black magic http://bit.ly/4YntMY Salem anyone? God pls dont let this happen

Sent with Tweetie

Interesting how the fundamentalists end of sounding like Puritans and the supremacists end up sounding like Zionists.

I guess we really do become the thing we hate.

Hating evil is not the same as loving good.

Dying for a cause is not the same as living for a calling.

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Filed under // ambition calling hate love Malaysia politics religion spirituality

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December 13, 2009

It's True: Janitors "Make" More Than Bankers! @sivinkit @leigh @gregorychang

The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.
It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.
They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress".

via news.bbc.co.uk

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

This mind-blowing study confirms what we have always known inside.

The world is upside down.

...

Incidentally, it reminds me of a dream I had of my dearly departed mother. She was dressed as a janitor and cleaning in a glass and steel skyscraper in heaven, while dark-suited corporate types milled around her.

She was the only smiling one in a sea of sombre faces.

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Filed under // capitalism dreams economics mammon money my mother spirituality values world

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October 13, 2009

Daily Bible readings in your inbox - this time, the lectionary.

Devotions and readings suggested for daily meditation and prayer

Lectionary readings provide a disciplined way to read through the Bible. These readings are available for both lectionary cycles, the Sunday and festival readings and the Daily Lectionary.

Read them online, subscribe to our email list, print a reading list or listen to "Hear the Word," the lectionary podcast.

Learn more about lectionary readings.

via pcusa.org

I just received an email from the Presbyterian Church (USA) from a list I subscribed to more than a week ago. I don't know why the delay (maybe they process subscriptions by hand), but I'm glad it's here.

It's the daily lectionary reading via email. I've already blogged about the Bible-in-two-years programme I'm following (http://alphalim.me/hijacking-a-bad-habit-to-promote-a-good-one-d ). This should be another exciting option.

The lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings that covers the whole Bible (and optionally, the Apocrypha). It's based on early Jewish reading patterns and has been developed throughout the history of the church. You might find it helpful.

I'll be trying both email subscriptions for awhile and see which I'll drop (or I might go whole hog and keep following both). The lectionary reading has the benefit of being in sync with the church year, though. So - well, we'll see what happens.

Let me know if you give it a go!

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Filed under // Bible Christian church daily readings household of faith Scripture spirituality worship

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October 10, 2009

Sharing - an indicator of a healthy life.

"Build your ghettos and wonder why they try to exterminate you. Build your castles and wonder why they turn their ploughshares into swords against you."

When I went to Melbourne recently, I noticed how some immigrant communities tended to seek out their own, and kind of huddle together, creating Little Wherevers according to their lands of origin. Certainly, there's honour in remembering your roots. And there's practical support to be had from mingling with people of like culture. But in the context of the larger culture - you need to be more outward facing.

In the bad old days of genocide (which are today, in some parts of the world, sadly), minority cultures have been exterminated by the dominant cultures surrounding them. (Which are not always larger in number; it's the strength of influence that matters.)

It's easier to destroy a class or a category of faceless persons. But it's harder to destroy people that you know. So people should not form ghettos, but they should seek to engage and enrich the larger society. Not out of fear of extermination, either, but because it is the divine spark within us than drives us to missional behaviour - to give, to share.

(Also in Melbourne, I visited the Jewish Holocaust Museum and was reminded again of the people who were forced into ghettos. That's a different story, of course - it was a path they did not choose.)

Then I was reminded of medieval lords - landowners who literally dominated the peasants. What could people do when the entire economy was built around farming a plot of land - and you owned no land but had to pay hefty taxes, in terms of money and human dignity, to the man whose land you happened to be born on? There were benevolent lords, of course - but you know human nature and the powerful temptation to oppress. (It's very much alive still.)

What's the natural, logical outcome of a tiny minority living fat and large in comfy castles while the teeming masses around them scratched an existence from the soil? Of course - revolt.

Sharing - it sounds so kindergarteny. It sounds contrived - but largely, I suspect, because we were forced to share as children; it was the "right" thing to do. But sharing is the normal mode of life. I don't think that the underclass or the upperclass should share out of a hope of avoiding violence done to them. I think that everyone should share because that is the natural thing to do. Revolts are just nature's thermometer telling us that the engine's blown.

Would you share a little something today? Would you give something that's yours to give? Even if it seems so common to you, it seems common only because you have so much of it. Someone outside of your circle of existence is dying for some. Let your gift find them.

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Filed under // ambition giving life Melbourne 2009 scalable ambition sharing spirit spirituality

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October 10, 2009

When you know you are loved, fear no longer intimidates you.

"Be yourself." It's one of the hardest things to do. Why? When someone says, "Be yourself!" inevitably, a voice inside us answers, "Who?"

Sometimes we think we know. And sometimes we actually do know. But most times - too often - we don't know who we are.

Like a fool driving and using the phone at the same time, our performance and - critically, our performance assessment - are retarded. And so we go through life retarded. Living but never fully alive - but for those magic moments.

But those magic moments do exist. We crave them. We want them. We need them. We know they are there, dancing behind the veil. Why are they so hard to reach?

The flight of the butterfly. The light in a child's eyes. The smile of a girl. Precious, fleeting, delicate. So are the things that really matter - that really make life alive. They are as hard to grasp as a dream, because they are dreams.

Our dreams awaken us to life. Without our dreams, we'd be dead alive.

Sad is the sight of those who have wilfully sacrificed their dreams to the gods of fear. "Wisdom." "Reality." "Prudence." These are the nice names they give their gods, but their real name is Fear. The many-headed god of fear, loud of bark but toothless in bite. Shame. Ridicule. Failure. Starvation. Poverty. Death. The many heads of the monster. But he has but one heart, and faith born of love pierces it.

When you know you are loved, you have confidence, and fear no longer intimidates you. Sure, its many faces taunt you, but you slap them and carry on.

Some are born into homes so full of love that this confidence seems built into them. Others - most others - have to find the way for themselves, bumbling from one gutter to another. Until they find the one who has found them. And then they find the way home.

But it's not so easy, is it? It's not a one-time done deal. It's walking, step by step. Step by step, becoming who we are. With the help of the divine in his many guises as our friends, strangers, enemies.

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Filed under // ambition fear household of faith love scalable ambition spirit spirituality

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September 16, 2009

Can Malaysia be fixed? How do you "fix" a rot?

In the face of continual abuses of power and injustices in the land, it's a cinch to become jaded and cynical. And to lash back and demand change.

Nothing wrong with demanding change when change is due, of course. The danger is when we see the problem as existing solely "out there". At that point we start to exclude ourselves from the equation of what's wrong with our country.

But, as Ben Kingsley said, we must be the change we want to see. Or was it Gandhi?

Either way, it's true.

That's why I'm stoked about today's day of fasting for the nation. [ http://peace4msia.blogspot.com/ ]

Instead of "Selamat Hari Malaysia", to me, it's "Hari Selamat Malaysia". (Not "Happy Malaysia Day" but "Save Malaysia Day" - not so nice in Bahasa Inggeris.)

Of course, we do whatever we can, but do you really think that we can fix the problems our country is in?

You can fix a car. Can you fix a rotting fish?

A country is not just systems and institutions. It is also people. And people are organic.

Organic entities don't break down. They rot.

Can you "fix" a rot?

The best you can do is cut off the rotting part before it spreads to the still-good part.

There's a Malay proverb about the rot of fish setting in first at the head...

Woah! Am I talking about cutting people off? Discarding them like used trash?

(It's tempting...)

Some or our eminent parliamentarians have said things to that effect - pendatang (migrants) go home, hahaha.

We're all pendatang. It's just a question of siapa datang lebih awal (who migrated earlier).

Some of us slighted ones think instead that people like these eminent parliamentarians should leave the nation.

But then don't we espouse the folly we denounce?

Of course.

"God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."

Even the worst sinners are given a measure of time in which to repent before it's too late and judgement bites.

Are parts of the nation rotting? We can't fix that. The only hope for the rot is healing, at best, miraculous regeneration, at worst.

The power of resurrection.

The power of God to change a person.

We have to do every little bit we can, rakyat jelata. But everything we can do is not enough. We have to look above.

We have petitioned the highest offices in our land. We have to go higher.

No, not the UN!

Higher still.

That's what the fasting is about. It is saying, we've reached the end of ourselves. We've exhausted our options. We need your help.

Heal us, save us.

It's about bowing down to pray and then rising up to walk out that prayer.

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Filed under // fasting God human/divine Malaysia Malaysia Day people politics prayer religion spirituality

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August 20, 2009

Lame Excuses and the Mystery of Joy

A friend of mine wrote recently, that she felt her mom used religion
as a coping mechanism, a crutch. "As long as I have Jesus I don't have
to face up to the fact that I'm unhappy."

It's easy to disdain people who supposedly imbibe Karl Marx's "opiate
of the masses". But like that Calvin & Hobbes comic where the TV said
Marx hadn't seen nothin' yet, there are far more opiates than
religion.

In most people there is an internal code: "If I could just have x,
I'll be happy, I'll survive."

It could be an imagined god, a supposed career, a fantasy lover, an
iPhone. Truthfully, nothing will make us happy if we aren't already
disposed to happiness. All these are add-ons, enhancers. Not creators
or originators of happiness.

The spontaneous source of joy is the divine spark placed within by the
hand of God. And that, my friend, is a mystery.

(Unless you believe in genetic determinism, in which case you either
got it or you don't and if you don't got it, tough on ya.)

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Filed under // contentment happiness joy mystery religion spirituality wisdom

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July 28, 2009

The opposite of stress is not no stress

Image via Wikipedia

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. - Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30

Boy, talk about "weary and burdened" - I'm right there with ya.
Often, I feel worn out and weighed down, wanting to just "cast of the chains" and "throw caution to the wind" and "dance around naked".

But gravity - gravity is heavy.
It's hard to resist earth's downward pull.

It's not about the physical forces, of course. It's the weight of life.
In my attempts to "break free" of the grind, I find myself often "out of the frying pan and into the fire".
Not that I'm prone to get into trouble. No, no. I'm talking about the internal life.
Trying to flee the anxieties and worries of life, I find myself replacing one set of fears for another.

And then I come to the realisation that it's not about throwing off your yoke, but exchanging it.
The nature of the beast - human beings are born for purpose. To deny purpose is to deny your personhood.

We need a yoke.
It's not a question of yoke or no yoke.
It's a question of difficult yoke or easy yoke.
Heavy burden or light burden.

Trying to live yoke-free and burden-free is like trying to create a vacuum in nature.
It's very difficult to create near-vacuums and impossible to create true vacuums.

The next time you're feeling stressed out, try focusing on putting on the easy yoke, instead of trying to cast off the difficult yoke.

The opposite of stress is not no stress, but eustress - good stress.

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Filed under // productivity spirituality stress

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Devotions and readings suggested for daily meditation and prayer