On craftsmanship

Since the only test of truth is length of life, and since words survive the chops and changes of time longer than any other substance, therefore they are the truest. Buildings fall; even the earth perishes. What was yesterday a cornfield is to-day a bungalow. But words, if properly used, seem able to live for ever.

Our business is to see what we can do with the English language as it is. How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question. 

And the person who could answer that question would deserve whatever crown of glory the world has to offer. Think what it would mean if you could teach, if you could learn, the art of writing. Why, every book, every newspaper would tell the truth, would create beauty.

- Virginia Woolf

I Vow To Thee My Country

Beautiful rendition of the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country by Beck Goldsmith

I Vow To Thee My Country

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,

Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;

The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,

That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

I heard my country calling, away across the sea,

Across the waste of waters she calls and calls to me.

Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,

And round her feet are lying the dying and the dead.

I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns,

I haste to thee my mother, a son among thy sons.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,

Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;

We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;

Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;

And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,

And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

Tipping over

I learnt something about a widely used screening method for alcoholism. CAGE comprises four questions, of which two "yes" responses indicate that the possibility of alcoholism should be investigated further. 

The questions are:
1. Have you ever felt you needed to Cut down on your drinking?
2. Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
3. Have you ever felt Guilty about drinking?
4. Have you ever felt you needed a drink first thing in the morning (Eye-opener) to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover?

CAGE is considered a validated screening technique, with one study determining that CAGE test scores >=2 had a specificity of 93% and a sensitivity of 76% for the identification of problem drinkers.

Source: Wikipedia

Where does one go to in Singapore for help?
Answer: National Addictions Management Service
http://www.nams.sg/Pages/index.aspx

Simple joys of life

Happiness is having a friend who's a military/political buff giving you his list of must-read books. I've just downloaded 15 or more books into my Kindle, covering DMZ, China, Japan, Vietnam, WWII, Hitler, Israel, Holocaust, US Pacific War and Churchill. Just a pity that some of his recommendations are not available on Kindle yet! I may have to get the hard copies. 

He's alive and we've only just begun to worship Him

He's alive - Suzy Yaraei

Full surrender

This past weekend was super packed for me, but for all the right reasons. Saturday was spent at Sentosa first and then at Wesley for Day 1 of Karar. We ended around 5.15pm. I was wondering how to occupy my time because I had a dinner appointment with two dear university friends at 7.30pm. One of the Karar co-leaders suggested that I attend Wesley’s Saturday service which had already started at 5pm in the Wesley hall just a few steps away from where we were standing. So I took her suggestion and went for the service. 

To my delight, the new pastor-in-charge Reverend Dr Kow Shih Ming was giving the sermon. His message was The Key to Following Jesus with the scripture reading from Luke 9:23. He noted that Christians usually wanted Jesus in their cars but not in the driver’s seat. This was because when Jesus was driving, He was in charge and He drove according to where He wanted to go; not where we wanted to go. His question to us was “Who is in charge of our lives?” Is it Jesus or is it us? 

The key to following Jesus, he noted, was total surrender. It didn’t mean that we become totally passive; rather, surrender is the glad and voluntary acknowledgment that there is a God and it is not me. His purposes are wiser and better than our desires. Jesus does not come to rearrange the outside of our life the way we want. He comes to rearrange the inside of our life the way God wants. Surrender takes courage in trusting Jesus and that our lives will be better than Him in charge. Surrender is a daily matter. Surrender means learning to be authentic for God and seeking to handle everything in a way that honours God. Surrender, however, comes with a cost. It means dying to our self and handing all aspects of our lives over to Jesus. The vicar gave us a paper key at the beginning of the service and at the end of it, he asked us to write our names and number the date as an act of commitment towards a full surrender to God. 

The service was also meaningful to me because of Holy Communion. I attend an Anglican church and it was quite educational to me to see how Holy Communion was conducted slightly differently in a Methodist setting. One of the differences was that the vicar and others leading in the Communion were kneeling before the Cross when they were reciting the prayers before partaking of the Communion. I found this humbling because it was such a stark visual reminder of our status before God, as well as His sacrifice for man.

On Sunday, I was deciding whether to attend my own church’s 10.30am service. Around 9am, my alarm sounded. After another 45 minutes, I jumped out of bed, took a shower and hailed a cab to church because I got a message that I was to meet in church after service to go to a home of one of my Kyrgyzstan mission trip mates. We were having a lunch gathering there because the missionary had returned home to Singapore for a few months. 

I was just in time for the 10.30am service. Again, there was an unexpected speaker in Reverend Canon Terry Wong, vicar of St Jame’s Church, who spoke on temptation. Broadly, he defined temptation as anything that takes us away or distracts us from being the person that God has intended us to be. Drawing on Matthew 4:1-11, he noted that temptation usually comes in three ways. 

First, the Devil tempts us to focus only on the one need of that hour, with all other things fading into the background. That one thing would have seemed the most important, akin to an object in a photo with a shallow depth of field. This need comes in various forms – the need for affirmation; the need for intimacy; the need for sex; the need for power, the need for money; and so on. He urged us not to be deceived and not to open the door, not even a crack, to temptation. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” 

Second, the Devil tempts us through half-truths. Half-truths are lies. Defeats, failures and setbacks are temporary in a Christian's life, as long as one is submitted to God. We are already victors in Christ for eternity.

Lastly, the Devil tempts us by focusing on the end result through our need for significance. The lesson is not to reach there in our own way but by following God’s way. Rev Canon Terry summed up his message by saying that Jesus’ temptation took place in the desert, which suggests that we all have to face our struggles in our own desert. However, that place where we are alone is also a place of deep communion with God. He also tells us about this talk that he had with someone who works with former drug addicts who have turned to Christ. He asked this person: “How do you know that a person has not reverted back to drugs again?” The reply: “I keep tabs and ask him about his personal walk with God and I also take note of his fellowship with other Christians.” This was a reminder to me of how I was to keep tabs on my spiritual health – whether I was spending time alone with God as well as connecting to other Christians in fellowship.

I went for lunch and returned home around 4pm to do some work. After finishing the work, I reflected on the fact that the Singapore church was receiving its next generation of pastors, which included my own pastor Daniel Wee, Rev Dr Kow and Rev Canon Wong. As Rev Canon Wong remarked before he started his sermon, this new generation of pastors have some very big shoes to fill. He asked that we would pray for them because they are the leaders who will oversee the kingdom of God in Singapore over the next one to two decades. I felt quite privileged to have heard from two of them over just one weekend, without actually planning to in the first place.  

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful to God for a few things today - a nice lunch that was too short, an e-mail that informed me that I was no longer needed in someone else's life, roadside flowers that greeted me in the morning, a lovely dinner that included eating preserved titbits with Yakun coffee with shoe repair on the side, and finally time for myself before I sleep around midnight. I'm also very happy for a dear friend who is being called to the bar tomorrow and will be returning to be with her husband in the US soon.