Brilliance is oft overlooked and thrown away.

Mad Girl's Love Song

2012-02-14T21:56:00.001+08:00

Slyvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Prayer When Unable to Assist at Daily Mass

2012-01-25T23:39:00.005+08:00

Go, my Angel Guardian dear,
To church for me, -----the Mass to hear.
Go, kneel devoutly at my place
And treasure for me every grace.
At the Offertory time
Please offer me to God Divine.
All I have and all I am,
Present it with the Precious Lamb.
Adore for me the great Oblation.
Pray for all I hold most dear
Be they far or be they near.
Rmember too, my own dear dead
For whom Christ's Precious Blood was shed.
And at Communion bring to me
Christ's Flesh and Blood, my food to be.
To give me strength and holy grace
A pledge to see Him face to face
And when the Holy Mass is done
Then with His blessing, come back home.

I found this prayer at www.catholictradition.org. is very cute, no?

The Spirit of the Law Argument.

2012-01-22T01:03:00.002+08:00

The ‘Spirit’ of the Law Argument

The ‘Spirit’ of the Law argument is an argument that a modernist relatafish (spineless relativistic fish) brings up whenever you discuss current problems within the Church with them. It goes something like this:

Practising Catholic (PCat): I wish the parish priest would stop calling the children up the sanctuary to hold hands during the Our Father. It’s grave liturgical abuse and shouldn’t be done.

Relatafish (R. fish): Why not? I think it’s wonderful! It gives the children a great opportunity to get close to the priest. I don’t see why you’re so upset.

PCat: Because it’s grave liturgical abuse! The rubrics don’t call for it, and it does nothing for the children except to teach them there is no such thing as sacred space. No wonder no one has any respect for Mass anymore.

R. fish: so what if it’s not in the rubrics, it’s not like it’s hurting anyone. Besides, maybe he doesn’t know. I mean, he has the best intentions right?

PCat: It doesn’t matter whether he has the best intentions, he should know that it’s abuse. What do they teach in seminary? Even if he doesn’t, he knows he’s disobeying the instructions in the Roman Missal. He’s putting his soul and all our souls at risk!

R. fish: Who are you to judge him, man? You just think that way cause it’s not traditional, don’t you? Well, you remember what Jesus said about the pharisees? They followed the letter of the law to the fullest extent but without following any of the spirit. Father might not be following the letter of the law, but at least he is following the spirit of it. What’s the point of following the letter if you don’t follow the spirit of the law? I mean look at you, bowing during the creed, kneeling to receive communion on the tongue. These are just actions dude, God sees what’s in the heart. Don’t be so judgemental Faithful Practising Catholic. Next, you’re gonna tell me that I’ll going to go to hell for sleeping with my girlfriend.

PCat: Uh, yes. The Church teaches that sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin. If you die in a state of mortal sin you’ll go straight to hell. You should go for confession and stop sleeping with her. Don’t you care about your immortal soul?

R. fish: There you go again. Look, we love each other right? So what’s the big deal. I’m going to marry her anyway. You and all your rules. You should really focus more on the spirit of the law man. I mean God, knows that we love each other, and if we’re doing wrong he’ll forgive us right?

PCat: Right…Say, isn’t that your girlfriend over there? Who’s that guy she’s holding hands with?

The problem with this argument is that the Spirit of the law cannot exist on it’s own. The Church rarely does things in an either/or fashion, as the protestants do, rather a lot of things are both/and. Likewise, the spirit of the law complements the letter of the law. One cannot follow one without the other. Both are needed for the person to grow.

Let’s have a look at the traditional way of receiving communion.

I once brought this topic up in a group of friends, and one relatafish told the rest of the group, ‘Ya, you can do that if you want to be more holy. You don’t have to otherwise, God sees what’s in your heart.’ That’s the ‘Spirit’ of the Law argument at play. Are we not at Church so that we can be more Holy, since Holiness is the only path to heaven, and eternal life with God?

The letter of the law says that the traditional AND preferred way of receiving communion is on the tongue, while kneeling. The letter of the law says that our hands are not consecrated and we are unworthy to touch the body of Christ, who is God. This also prevents anyone running off with the Blessed Sacrament, or having it fall to the floor. http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdwmemor.htm

The real spirit of the law says we need receive communion on the tongue, while kneeling, as a sign of humility that we lower ourselves before the Lord, Our God. The kneeling allows us to adore and revere Him, while receiving on the tongue reminds us that we need to be child-like and be completely dependent on Him.

They work together, hand in hand, to develop in us a proper disposition towards the Blessed Sacrament.

In the words of my good friend, you need the letter of the law to grow in knowledge, and the spirit of the law for your soul to grow. If you only have one, you cannot grow and you will become stunted.

Is your spiritual life stunted? Perhaps you should try receiving communion on the tongue, while kneeling for month. If you don’t notice a difference in your attitude toward the most Blessed Sacrament, I’ll buy you dinner.

Oh btw, the Pope says communion on the tongue is all cool. You can tell, he only distributes it that way.

5 Reasons Why Altar Servers are Cool.

2012-01-22T00:51:00.005+08:00

Sorry ladies, this one is for the boys. Now, now before you start complaining about gender equality and all that, you may want to understand that these fine lads, your friends, are putting themselves in serious danger. I mean, the whole reason for allowing young boys to put on cassocks at serve at the Lord’s altar is to foster a religious vocation to the priesthood. Also, you may want to drop that gender sociology class, it’s all whack.

Yes, that’s right, to foster Christ’s call to men to join His blessed apostles in His divine ministry. That’s a life of celibacy, servitude, long years of philosophical and theological study, getting up at the break of dawn to pray the divine office and never really clocking off the job. Don’t forget having to put up with satan’s constant pranks. Don’t worry guys, you have someone far more powerful watching over you.

I’m sure you ladies have far more important things to do in your desire to consecrate your lives to serving Christ, like helping Him make more priests so that there’ll be more Masses and confessions. Anyway, you know how men always need extra help doing things…right? And besides, I don’t think you really want to wear the same thing every day do you? (or…if you do)

So anyway, here’re the five.

1. The cassock makes you look über cool and manly. If you don’t believe me, check out Christian Bale. Or Father Dwight Longenecker
It may be long and flowy, but it’s really difficult to look girly in a cassock, especially if it’s black.

2. Being an Altar Server makes you manly. I remember, a long, long time ago, when I was but a wee lad, about the age of seven, all I wanted to do was be an Altar Boy. They were so cool, in the cassocks, doing things in sanctuary, helping the priest, and also helping God. I had to wait so long before I could start, like a whole entire year until I received First Holy Communion to join. Can you imagine the agony? A whole year (I was seven, give me a break, a whole year was like a seventh of my life). The older kids were like giants and we looked up to them. Even the things they did were manly, the president at that time was a commando during national service. How cool is that? When I finally got in, I was like woooooooah. The point is, a senior altar server has responsibilities, you will be responsible for guiding your little ones to becoming gentlemen.

And if you’re really good, you get to wear bling during mass.

Plus, You’ll also teach how to start and play with fires, which brings me to my next point.

3. One word: THURIFER. Remember how when you were young, you always wanted to play with fire and couldn’t? Well now, you can, and you get great smelling smoke too. Come on guys, who doesn’t think that swinging a giant metal case with hot coals and sweet smelling smoking come out of it is not cool? That was about the coolest thing ever, you lead the procession and get to smoke the priests and servers and people. And if you really good, you get to try tricks.

If that’s not cool enough, have you heard of the botafumeiro?

Okay, I’ll be a bit more serious now.

4. A chance to get really close to the Blessed Sacrament. You know how, during Mass, the Priest consecrates the host, and turns the bread into the actual Body of Christ, and then you quietly say, ‘My Lord and my God.’? (I’m sure you do), and then it hits you, and you’re like, ‘O MY BRONTOSAURUS!!!!! GOD IS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME! I AM BEFORE GOD, SO COMPLETELY UNWORTHY AND SINFUL AND GOD IS THERE!?' Then you stare in deep adoration, dumbfounded in awe and wonder at the most beautiful Blessed Sacrament that the priest is elevating for a few seconds? (Repeat for Blessed Blood, except say, ‘O Lord, be mindful of Thy creature whom Thou has redeemed through Thy most precious blood.’) And that’s when you’re sitting all the way at the back of church. Now, imagine that while being right up there in front of the altar, especially at low Mass. Ya, I know, it seems kind of silly. Since, you get right up close and personal when you receive communion, but you have to admit, it’s a whole different experience.

5. You’ll learn more about Mass than you ever did in catechism. If you’re like me, then you probably didn’t learn anything from those ten years in catechism class every Sunday. It’s not your fault that the catechist didn’t think it was important to teach you about the perils of mortal sin or tell you cool stories about how Santa Claus layeth the smackdown upon a naughty heretic during the Council of Nicea.

They probably thought it was better to teach you things like God is all loving and merciful, and then leave out all the other important things you need to learn, like how to actually attend Mass.

Besides, cat class wasn’t a complete was of time. The IJ girls were cute and so easy to tease right? I digress… But, we as Catholics have an obligation to know more or less how and why Mass works, so we can stick it to our protestant friends that we have real presence (with charity and kindness of course).

Serving Mass honestly helped me to gain a better appreciation of it. At least, by the time I was confirmed, I knew what a ciborium, chalix and monstrance were. Since then, I have learned a lot more about Mass and why it’s so important to our faith. So, important that the Pope tells people to go learn more about Mass and put the liturgy at the centre of their lives. This honestly saved my soul. If not for these basic tenants of truth to draw me back into the arms of Holy Mother Church when I had gone astray, I am sure I would have lost my soul by now.

So, I hope I have convinced you. And if you’re old like me, don’t let that stop you from learning to serve Mass. You know, how you join that happy clappy Catholic Students Society in school and then, they always have these private Masses? Ya, those need servers too. Or, if you really want to do it, I’m sure the 7am Mass at your local parish is looking for servers.

Someone said the Catholic Church doesn't give you a personal relationship with God.

2012-01-22T00:24:00.006+08:00

A while ago, a friend, who is exploring the Catholic Church, texted me in great distress about how her friend had told her that if she wanted to develop a ‘personal’ relationship with God, she should join the protestant church, his church, because the protestants focus more on the compassionate side of God, while the Church focuses on revering God, thus the protestant atmosphere would be much more beneficial in her journey towards faith.

This poor child could not be further from the truth! Unfortunately, he’s not alone. And, by not alone, I don’t mean the hordes of other protestants with no real understanding of the Church; save the nonsense told them by their pastors which they got from their pastors, who got it from their pastors (who got it from their pastors, who got it from Luther, but I digress). Sadly, there are many of us Catholics out there who think the same way, and they have tried to infuse these protestant ideas into the Church. So, if she might not notice the difference in some churches, we are to blame.

If you don’t believe me, have a look for yourself. Can you guess which one is Catholic?

So here, are three reasons why he’s wrong:

1. The Church was set up by God Himself, and so, is the One True Church. The doctrines, dogmas and traditions that She teaches have been handed to Her by God Himself, and have remained unchanged for almost two thousand years. Therefore, only She possesses the fullest truth. The protestants broke away and started dropping truths and doctrines like hot potatoes. Thus, if you really want to get to know God, you know where to go.

When Luther decided to abandon the authority of the Church and dropped all Her traditions. He then left the poor protestants with just the bible and gave them authority to interpret it. Unfortunately, the bible isn’t a straight forward book to interpret, it’s a literary masterpiece, chock full of large scoops of allegory and metaphor. So, essentially, Luther left the protestants and their descendants with this book of lecture notes from God and without the lecturer to explain it. Just imagine the chaos that transpired, headless students running all over the place, and now you have 38,000 different protestant denominations. They all have differing opinions, so which is the actual truth? They can’t all be true.

That is not to say that one can’t get to know God outside of the Church. You can; which is how a lot of people end inside the Church, but outside, you just won’t get to know Him as well.

Oh ya, The Church is not a denomination. It is THE Church.

He was one of them, decided we had more truth, then, became a Cardinal and a Saint. Hoo-hah.

2. We have the Holy Sacrifice of Mass.
The protestants have all these passionate sermons by their pastors with energetic praise and worship music so that everyone can jump about and then go to their cell groups to discuss bible verses. There, they pray to God and He speaks to them through their feeligns. And then, they go passionately live their lives as Christians. (Also, they might talk in gibberish from time to time)

That’s a pretty attractive and tough game to beat. We only have the Holy Mass after all. It’s so boring and repetitive and I don’t know why mummy drags me there every Sunday. And, the priest keeps giving lame homilies about how the lesson of the gospel is like a highlighter or other various stationary! How am I ever going to get to know God? Besides, he never talks to me like he does to my protestant friends.

But wait….

WE HAVE THE HOLY MASS!

God knows that you need to get to know Him and love Him, he created you for the very purpose! So, out of compassion, He created Holy Mother Church, instituted Holy Mass and commissioned His apostles to say it. Then, He was tortured and nailed to a cross by the very people He came to save (you and me) and died for our sins. This is all well and good you say, but how does the Church help me foster my relationship with God?

She takes you to Him. Yes, that’s right. She takes you right there, right then to the very foot of the cross on Calvary. The Holy Mass also goes by other names, like the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or the Most August Sacrifice. Have you ever wondered why? The altar is the icon of the body of Christ and is a table with one purpose only: to offer sacrifices. And, that is what the priest does every time he says Mass, he offers the sacrifice of Jesus to God in redemption for our sins so we may be saved. Mass is the unbloody re (hypen) presentation of the crucifixion on Calvary (http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1367.htm). Christ has already died for us, but when we are at Mass, we are supernaturally transported to that moment.

What’s more, during every Mass, this re-presentation is made real with the consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. When the priest says the words of consecration, there and then the substance of the host is transformed into Jesus HIMSELF. It may look like bread, but it is no longer bread, it is the body of Christ, under the veil of the sacrament! During the consecration you are there, physically with your God, the very Saviour of the World. How personal is that? Tell me, which of your protestant friends can claim such privilege?

‘HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM’, ‘FOR THIS IS MY BODY’
Moreover, Holy Mother Church in Her divine wisdom knows that you cannot be saying your ‘sorry’s and ‘thank you’s to God while distracting loud music is going on, so She gives you silence. She knows you long to be with God in heaven so she gives you the Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony, so that you may know what angels sound like. She gives you beautiful sacred pictures and architecture so that you may know what heaven looks like. She knows you cannot read the bible on your own, so she gives you the wisdom and instruction of the Church fathers. She knows you need inspiration to be holy, so she gives the examples of the Saints! Is it not through all these things that God wishes to speak to you? Are you willing to listen?

How compassionate is He to your plight that He is constantly going out His way to find you through so many different avenues? The Mass is all about how compassionate God is to us. The boring homily about how the gospel passage is like eyeglasses is not important! You are there! With God! Why are not speaking to Him? Why are you not asking Him for greater faith?

3. The protestants do it better.
It’s true. You want the modern music, the guitar riffs, the drums, the energy and dancing, go to the protestant…uh place of ‘worship’. You won’t find it in at Mass. See, the Church understands the need for these things for some people…outside of Mass, however some really smart people keep trying to bring it into Mass. The only problem is that is makes Mass boring. It also makes the people who do it look very silly.

- Cathedral of Los Angeles, 2005 (Also top picture)

- Cathedral of Los Angeles, 1945

So, if you really want to get to know God, then you know where to be! See you at Mass later.

梔

2012-01-22T00:20:00.001+08:00

When I climbed atop a mountain one day,
Caught in blanket fog and thicket deep,
As you danced on clouds. O what bliss, they say.

Under shrouds of clouds, kept away, away,
In the midst of winter, the Sun did keep.
When I climbed atop a mountain one day.

But She saw you and bathed you in golden ray,
And your pale white petals glowed in the heat,
As you danced on clouds. O what bliss, they say.

Yet, I spied you listless and a ‘lil grey.
A despondent sight to made my heart weep,
When I climbed atop a mountain one day.

I wished to draw a smile on you that day,
And nurse your heart in mine, to once more leap
As you danced on clouds, O what bliss, they say.

And from afar, I watched you spritely play.
O little flower, a joy that abounds so deep
When I climbed atop a mountain one day,
As you danced on clouds, O what bliss, they say!

The process of endochondrial ossification

2012-01-18T20:45:00.002+08:00

The process of endochrondrial ossification is usually described in a rather violent fashion. If one changed the words a bit, that would be the full scale invasion of a great civilisation by another one.

1. The cartilage is invaded by blood vessels right in the middle to form the primary ossification centre. (read base of attack)

2. Chondrocytes undergo modifications to form longitudinal columns.

3. These then deteriorate. (Torture of the locals, followed by execution)

4. Osteoblasts then enter cartilage. (like tanks signifying hostile take over. Osteoblast does sound like the name a of futuristic tank from Red Alert, doesn't it?)

5. Diaphysis starts from the centre. (A diaphysis is essentially the long shaft of the bone, the expansion of the conquered territories)

6. Ossification begins from the centre, as osteoblasts move lengthwise up and down the shaft. The Cartilage continues to grow outward. (As though a desperate attempt to escape the vicious osteoblasts)

7. Epiphyseal plates around on the ends. Meanwhile, osteoblast catches up with cartilage. (and guns them down. Well, turns them into bone).

8. Epiphyseal plates ossify.

The city has fallen.

A few of my most hated things.

2012-01-15T06:50:00.002+08:00

Had my module 3 exam today. My brain melted. Anyway, in exam panic mode earlier this morning, I wrote the following to the tune of the Sound of Music's 'My Favourite Things'. Yes, it actually almost fits the tune!

Cristae and proteins, glucose and fructose, tumour suppressors that lose their function. These are few of my most hated things.

Cell junctions an-nd meiotic division, porins and cyclins, and phosphorylation, non-disjunction that causes down syndrome, these are a few of my most hated things.

Mendelian genetics and autosomal recessives, cancers that move from your breast to your brains, point mutations that cause cell sickling. These are a few of my most hated things.

When the time comes, when the bell rings, when Elliot drones, I cannot remember a bloody damn thing, and my mind goes blaaaaank!

Epiphany!!!!!

2012-01-07T06:20:00.006+08:00

Today is the Solemnity of the Feast of the Epiphany of The Lord. Apart from having a lot of 'of the's in the title, this special feast marks the twelfth day of Christmas, and is called 'Mini-Christmas' in Ireland. A lot of people think that this is the end of Christmas, but...guess what? It isn't! (yay!) Christmas traditionally ends on the Candlemas, on the 2nd February. Confuse yourself away.

So move over Chinese New Year. Besides, Carol of the Bells over Gong Xi Gong Xi any day right?

Anyway, Epiphany is a big feast in the Roman Catholic Church, and while this post won't deal with the great theological and liturgy means behind this great feast, mostly because I am lowly medical student (read slave) and there many kind theologians and well informed bloggers who write about the Epiphany every year. You can read about it here, here, here, and perhaps the Pope's homily here.

Rather, this entry will be a short reflection on my celebration of Epiphany this year. As you, my dear reader, who have just finished reading all the splendid hyperlinks above, will know, on this solemn feast, chalk, water and incense is blessed at morning Mass. These are then taken back to bless one's home for the year. At home, a few prayers and the magnificat are said, and then the rooms in the house is sprinkled with holy water and censed with the blessed incense. I'm not sure how this is done, though it does conjure up images of taking out that spare thurible one keeps in the attic for such express purposes. (I jest, ideally, your priest brings his own.) Then, on the door of each room, written in blessed white chalk are the initials of the three magi framed by the year. e.g 20 C+M+B 12.

Of course, I don't have to tell you the three magi or wise men are named Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Incidentally, the initials could mean Christus mansionem benedicat, may Christ bless the house.

If you're wondering why I wrote the blessing in a shelf, the paper that they gave out with the chalk suggested putting the blessing on the TV. Since my friend and I both don't have televisions in our rooms, we opted to put it in the shelf above our laptops for a reminder and visibility. And, that is my friend posing with his newly blessed door in the second picture, while the door at the bottom is mine, though similar they appear.

It is a great pity that this traditional has been largely lost across Europe. We didn't really get into it in Singapore because we were a mission country and not all of the great traditions were transferred to us, also the 60s came around. Anyway, I think it's a great tradition to revive, you begin the year with God by sanctifying your home. Also, a great opportunity for catechism when your friends ask you to explain your actions.

Today, I also served my first high mass! I am very blessed that the first one I serve is on the Feast of the Epiphany. I almost didn't serve today because I wanted to study. I pray that I will never make myself unavailable to serve at the altar when there is a need again. After all, what could be more important for me to do all day?

Anyway, please pray for me! I have 2 days left to revise a ton of concepts and memorise far more definitions.

Have a very Blessed Christmastide!

What is Love?

2012-01-06T01:14:00.002+08:00

What is Love?

Love will never betray you, dismay, or enslave you; it will set you free. Be more like the man, you were meant to be. – Mumford and Sons.

Love is good. It can only be good, because out of love comes goodness. Love cannot be evil, since out of evil, one finds only hate. Therefore love is good and since it is only good, it can only be beautiful. All beautiful things are created with love, from which comes the care, attention and passion necessary to create that beauty. The creation becomes beautiful because reflected within it is a part of the creator. Without a loving creator, the creation cannot be beautiful. It would be empty and ugly.

Love is passionate, it is hot, fiery, and energetic. It cannot be cold. Have you ever heard of a cold lover? Cold is a term used to describe emotionless and distant people, on the other hand, loving people tend to have a warmth around them, a warmth that emanates from the hot fire within their heart. That of love. It is a fire that burns, engulfs and consumes all in its wake.

Yet, Love’s consummation is special, it doesn’t reduce or destroy or break down the substance it consumes. Rather, it increases and grows and changes it! Love creates, it cannot destroy, since it is good.

Love is selfless. All its actions are for the benefit of another and it always puts others ahead of itself. Love fully gives of itself for another too. Love is humble, out of its selflessness, it chooses to serve others rather than be served. Love is charitable. It seeks to share all that it has. It will never take from you, because it cannot take. Love is a gift.

Love is freedom, because love is selfless. It can never be forced on any one or force anyone. Love is a choice, a conscious decision, a commitment, and a conviction.

Love is merciful and forgiving. It never turns away those who seek it, no matter how many times they turn away or how far away they go. Yet, Love is just, requiring fairness and reparation of wrongdoing, it teaches harsh lessons so that one might grow and grow in love. Love seeks the truth, so that justice may be done, for in lies and falsehoods, there can be no reality, they are empty. Love is the truth, it is full and it is real.

Love is supernatural. It transcend beyond our world. It cannot be seen directly, or quantified or explained by Science. To Science, who cannot understand or explain why or how Love exists, it merely reduces it to chemicals in our heads that alter the way we act in our lives. Though, perhaps, it is because of the perfection creation of love that we have these chemicals in our heads. That is, we are made to love; hence, love brings about the biochemical changes. And like all of the supernatural, love casts a shadow on this world, seen through these chemicals, but more importantly, the many acts of love that we perform.

Love is a blinding light, so hot and so bright, that it blinds one to the superficial visage of the worldly skin that clothes us in shallow and materialistic aesthetics that turn people into objects and commodities. Rather, Love’s light is so bright, that it illuminates the soul and spirit within. It lets us look past the dirt of the fallen world, to see the innate beauty and intrinsic dignity hidden within us, and lets us see who we really are, who we were meant to be.

Love is suffering. It is not a transient affection feeling of appeal, not the desire or quantity of how much one is willing to do or give to another. No, Love is the willingness to suffer for another. Love is denying ourselves and our wants and needs for another’s.

Love is a sacrifice. Perfect love is to give up everything to suffer for another person’s life. To be lay down one’s own life for another. It is to be completely innocent and pure and choosing to bear the punishment and shame and humiliation of another’s crimes, so that he will have a second chance to live. So that he will have a second chance to love. It is being tied to a pillar to be beaten and spat on, and then to be scourged. It is to be flagellated with hooked whip designed to tear and rip out flesh on every strike. To have one’s title and office mocked and insulted, by a crown of thorns forced on one’s head, digging into one’s temples, one’s skull. It is to be drag the heavy instrument of one’s death to the execution place, and then to be nailed and hung on it. It is to die, suffocating on one’s own collapsed muscles.

It is to give up a royal throne of power and majesty to be born in a stable, and to sleep in a manger, in complete poverty to be in solidarity with the lowest pauper. Amidst beasts and livestock, sleeping peacefully on a bed of hay. Love is the child whose birthday you recently celebrated. The babe, the creator of the cosmos, the very Saviour of the World. That is love.

Love is God, and He is called Jesus the Christ, and from Him, comes all love.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T05:00:00.002+08:00

Hodie, Christus natus est! Glorificate eum!
Today, Christ is born! Glorify him!

Wishing my reader(s) a very Blessed and Merry Christmas!

May God bless you in the year ahead.

Imaginings

2011-12-22T17:19:00.003+08:00

Twilight at five thousand feet,
soaring above the clouds in darkness,
the lonely swan, lost, without his fleet.

The roar of the engines silenced
by a baby's sweet short cry,
ignored by the passengers, busy in dreams.

I wished you were here with me,
laughing at the darkness in the window.
The sound of your voice trailing in my ear,

I listen intently through the echoing rumble,
trying to remember each word, each sound, each smile.
Then I look back and see the empty seat.

Rom com on the small screen,
flanked by emptiness.
Long flights are forever.

Questions.

2011-12-06T00:59:00.002+08:00

Lately, much apologetics has landed on my plate, mostly to do with defending the sanctity of marriage. Just the other night, someone asked me about that video where that boy, Zach Wahls, who was raised by lesbian mothers gave an emotional testimony to the Iowan courts. Now, I'd avoided posting the video with any comments on facebook, simply because the video had actually very little substance. It was, rather simply, anecdotal evidence wherein a boy appeals to the emotions of people. It raises for me a great many musings of the irony of society. I remember on facebook there were about 15 people who had shared the video on their page with comments like, 'so why stop them?' and so on. One would have thought that a world obsessed with Scientism and the quantifying of any theory to prove its truth through statistical evidence would have stopped to examine the circumstances regarding the video. Marc Barnes takes a deeper look at the numbers here. But I digress from my point for this post.

I'm not intending to really discuss the matter in the post, rather just reflecting on my thoughts with regards to apologetics. Often, in informal discussions wherein some apologetics has risen to the surface, in this case, it was gay marriage, before one is able to finish qualifying a premise or defining the context of the discussion, they are often buried in a fury of questions fired from the mouths of swift archers. Often, the conversation goes no where since topics change with the frequency of a down spinning proton. It often makes me wonder what the conversation would be like if I fired the questions instead. Take the old Socratic dialogue out for a spin.

I was going to a post a hypothetical dialogue, but perhaps a little later tonight after I've finished my work for the day.

2011-12-05T20:16:00.001+08:00

Completely overslept and wasted my entire morning. sigh. At least, I'm not tired. That said, a long, long day awaits. Mass in a bit. Most Holy Mother of God and my mother, pray for me!

On Children

2011-11-29T06:18:00.000+08:00

On Children
Kahil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

St Leonard's words of advice when the going gets tough.

2011-11-28T06:09:00.006+08:00

It's Advent again, and a time to return our lives to Christ and await his second coming as we celebrate his first. It is a penitential time, a time to shrug of the worldly intoxications that we infatuate ourselves with and return to prayer and Christ. It is a difficult period especially in a secular society that began celebrating Christmas last month. For me, end of term MCQs and final examinations are rearing their ugly fanged heads. Now, it's a race to finish memorising everything that I shall have to know for this term.

When you're in university, no matter the course, it's always a mad rush for time. For me, my ADHD distracts me and biology is dragging me behind, it takes three hours to make each set of notes. I am blessed however, that it is only time that ails me because there are others who struggle with deeper issues than me with regards to understanding work and getting it done. But I-- or rather St Leonard has a solution for any of these problems! (Yes, a one size that fits all solution!)

Let me quote from his precious book, from examples to induce Tradesman or Artisans to hear Holy Mass, emphasis mine:

But you are thinking that the avaricious will never listen except to a tune in their own key. Well, then be it so. Get rich, gather up, make profit. What is the surest way? I will show you: daily hear Holy Mass with thorough devotion. It is plainly seen in the case of two artisans whom I could point out. Both pursue the same trade; one is burdened with a family: wife, children, grandchildren; the other is burdened alone with his wife. The first has brought up his family in great comfort and even style, and has all his transactions turn out wonderfully. Customers at his shop, and sales despatched. So he has gone on, till he finds himself putting by every year a good round sum, to serve in time for marriage-portions for his daughters. The other, who is without children, at one time got little employment, was half famished, and was, in short, a ruined man. One day he said confidentially to his neighbour, 'How is it you do? In your home there rains down every blessing of God; while I, poor wretch, cannot hold up my head; and all sorts of calamities light on my house.' 'I will tell you,' said his neighbour, 'Tomorrow morning I shall be with you, and I will point out the place from which I draw so much.' Next morning he took him to church to hear Mass, and then led him back to his workshop; and so two or three different times, till at last the poor man said, 'If nothing else is wanted than to go to church to hear Mass, I know the way well enough, without putting you to inconvenience.' 'Just so,' said the other; 'hear holy Mass, my friend with devotion, every day, and you will see a change on the face of your fortune.' And, in fact, so it was. Beginning to hear Mass every morning, he became well provided with work, shortly paid his debts, and put his house once more in capital condition. (Sar. in Vit. S. Joan. Eleem.) Trust the words of the Gospel. And if you do so, how can you doubt the fact? Does it not say clearly, Quaerite primum regnum Dei…et haec omnia adjicientur vobis? 'Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.' (St Matt vi. 33.) Make but the trial of a year; hear holy Mass every morning with true earnest devotion for one year, and if your temporal interests do not take a better turn, lay the blame on me. But there is little fear of that; you will rather have many reasons to thank me.

- St Leonard of Port Maurice, The Hidden Treasure

Apart from the long beautiful paragraph which our internet brains cannot endure, you may have noticed that this is intended for artisans and tradesmen, the businessmen, whose interests lies in making profits. How does that apply to me, the student, you cry, bewildered, invoking the names of several dinosaurs. It is simple, because we as students, we too desire earthly profit! Our avarice (greed) is in the desire for time! We are so greedy for it. Time is a material worldly value, it is precious, more so than money and we would be most foolish to waste it. Yet, we jealously guard it from its creator and our's. How many foolish times have I, in my youth, neglected even Sunday Mass, to study! And I thank God that he has made me wiser now, that I should give back to Him, what He has deigned to give me.

Now, my dear friends, I am not saying completely give up your studies to spend all your time in prayer. That is not your vocation, it is, at present to study, however, I am suggesting, that you perhaps, through this lovely advent, spend more time in prayer. If there is only one thing you do for Advent, go for daily Mass where possible, it is only half an hour of your time! If you fear the commitment, than, go more times than usual, go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday perhaps, or even just Monday and Friday. Whatever it is, set aside that time for God daily, and plan your day around it. Let nothing disturb that. Watch the change in your life appear.

That is what I shall plan to do this Advent. If you can, please say a Hail Mary for me that I complete all my exam prep in time!

To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed. Neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on Thee shall be confounded. V. Show, O Lord, Thy ways to me, and teach me Thy paths. V. Glory be. -Introitus, First Sunday of Advent, 1962

Thank you, St Thérèse.

2011-11-25T07:58:00.000+08:00

I am very thankful to have discovered St Thérèse just before leaving Singapore. It was within the last four weeks I remember. How humbled I have been by her life so far. These are certainly lessons that I greatly need, for I am a very arrogant and pride boy. I don't even know how I can be so proud, having been born with a disorder that should make me very lowly, since it has been rather life debilitating. I also cannot say that anything I have achieved has been through my own hand, for where I am now is really through the mercy of God. And yet, I am still so proud. Humility is a harsh lesson, one that I am thankful God has deigned to continue to drill into me, though I am a very poor, distracted and inattentive learner.

Now, I just need to stop complaining about how slow and boring the lessons in school are. >.< or perhaps, stop complaining about anything in general.

A lesson from St Thérèse

2011-11-25T07:30:00.003+08:00

Currently I am reading St Thérèse's book during adoration. I hope it pleases the Lord that I should learn more from the example of His Little Flower in His presence. I was reading this two weeks ago during adoration, and I thought it was a very lesson to learn, so I shall put the text here and you can try to follow Her example.

Dear Mother, I feel that I have expressed myself with more than usual confusion, and I do not know what you can find to interest you in these rambling pages, but I am not aiming at a literary masterpiece, and if I weary you by this discourse on charity, it will at least prove your child's good will. I must confess I am far from living up to my ideal, and yet the very desire to do so gives me a feeling of peace. If I fall into some fault, I arise again at once—and for some months now I have not even had to struggle. I have been able to say with our holy Father, St. John of the Cross: "My house is entirely at peace," and I attribute this interior peace to a victory I gained over myself. Since that victory, the hosts of Heaven have hastened to my aid, for they will not allow me to be wounded, now that I have fought so valiantly.

A holy nun of our community annoyed me in all that she did; the devil must have had something to do with it, and he it was undoubtedly who made me see in her so many disagreeable points. I did not want to yield to my natural antipathy, for I remembered that charity ought to betray itself in deeds, and not exist merely in the feelings, so I set myself to do for this sister all I should do for the one I loved most. Every time I met her I prayed for her, and offered to God her virtues and merits. I felt that this was very pleasing to Our Lord, for there is no artist who is not gratified when his works are praised, and the Divine Artist of souls is pleased when we do not stop at the exterior, but, penetrating to the inner sanctuary He has chosen, admire its beauty.

I did not rest satisfied with praying for this Sister, who gave me such occasions for self-mastery, I tried to render her as many services as I could, and when tempted to answer her sharply, I made haste to smile and change the subject, for the Imitation says: "It is more profitable to leave everyone to his way of thinking than to give way to contentious discourses." And sometimes when the temptation was very severe, I would run like a deserter from the battlefield if I could do so without letting the Sister guess my inward struggle.

One day she said to me with a beaming face: "My dear Soeur Thérèse, tell me what attraction you find in me, for whenever we meet, you greet me with such a sweet smile." Ah! What attracted me was Jesus hidden in the depths of her soul—Jesus who maketh sweet even that which is most bitter.

It is certainly a very difficult example to follow. I hope the Holy Spirit gives me the grace to find something virtuous and beautiful about the people I most resent or at the very least to smile lovingly at the image of Christ within them.

A little time to reflect.

2011-11-19T07:58:00.003+08:00

I had this thought the other day. It was rather unexpectedly injected into my prefrontal cortex. I was thinking about euthanasia, and juxtaposing how the utilitarian values the quadriplegic person as opposed to the Christian. Rather standard mock argument and reflecting. Then I just pictured myself getting run over by a car and loosing sensation from neck down. I heard the doctor telling someone about the options and how humane it would be to terminate my life. And I saw myself blinking a great deal to say, 'don't kill me, I'm alive!'

Of course, survival thoughts turned to thoughts of 'what now?'. To be completely dependent, and vulnerable and unable to do move or do anything at all. The ADHD kid's worst nightmare! We are a special bunch, us ADHD kids, we need to run and jump and just be hyper. There's always something that has to be done. I remember when I had a multi-ligament tear in my ankle earlier this year, and for the first day or two before the air cast, I was confined to house, and not just the house, but to a particular floor. I almost went crazy from having nothing to do and no one to talk to. Being paralysed would be far worse! Imagine, all that, while not being able to even talk! Don't forget, no more nice food, because you can't chew or there's fear of you choking on it. Never mind, basic bodily functions.

Ya, I think being paralysed is kinda inconvenient.

Anyway, what struck me was, what would I do all day? And the answer was simple. Pray. I'll just pray all day, and find someway to spend much of my time in adoration. It's like being a monk....in your body!

What was not so simple was when I found myself asking, 'assuming it is God's will that you are paralysed tomorrow, or now? then what?' and I knew he answer was the one mentioned above, but I didn't like the reluctance in my heart for not immediately reaching to share in the cup of suffering and carry my cross.

O Lord my God, I now at this moment, readily and willingly accept at Thy hand, whatever kind of death it may please Thee to send me, with all it's pain, penalties and sorrow. Amen.

2011-11-17T04:06:00.001+08:00

“I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled.”
— The Beatrice Letters, by Lemony Snicket

Good Morning

2011-11-11T16:58:00.001+08:00

Very, very happy this morning!

The Lord remembered His lowliest servant and deigned to visit him.

Studying too much

2011-11-06T16:51:00.002+08:00

‎6 easy steps that will help YOU, yes YOU to make the most of your pet virus.

1. ATTACH it (to a protein receptor on a potential host cell. Or become attached to it, always good to spend time with your pets.)
2. let it PENETRATE the host cell (because it's naughty that way)
3. UNCOAT the capside (cause penetration gets hot)
4. ECLIPSE. (the viral version of Twilight, cause teenage viruses need to go on dates to facilitate little virus making)
5. ASSEMBLY it (as most young viruses will do, your virus will have run off and left many broken things for you to put together)
6. RELEASE it. (congratulations, you're now a proud owner of >500 more pet viruses. Pass some onto your friends and repeat steps 1-6)

Death.

2011-10-31T17:58:00.000+08:00

A little poem reminder of the things to come this week.

Death.
Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

2011-10-31T06:24:00.001+08:00

Advent is coming. behold.

Do you ever feel like you're not real Christian?

2011-10-28T06:59:00.005+08:00

I should be sleeping now, but I can't sleep. I have quite a few things on my mind, needless to say one of those things has become the title of this blog. Now, I've never encountered such a question before until about two weeks ago, when I sat down for a bible study. 'Do you ever feel like you're not a real Christian?'

Needless to say, I was stumped. I'll just go straight out and say it. What the brontosaurus does that mean?! Well, that's what ran through my head colourfully as fast as brontosauri ran, if they could run. How does one be Christian and not feel like a real Christian? What is a real Christian? So, it turns out, that what the question actually meant, according to the facilitator was, having you ever committed such a grave sin that you've felt that you aren't a Christian anymore.

Well, now that he put it that way....well, it almost all made sense. Almost. I guess, I've personally never doubted my identity as a 'real' Christian. If anyone needed proof that I was a real Christian, I had my baptismal and confirmation certificates to prove it. Signed and seal with the Holy Ghost! It doesn't get any better than that. However, if you asked me if I ever felt like a 'good' Christian. Well, the answer is not as clear, maybe, but I probably am not most of the time. I might be religious, but I'm far from Holy.

I find it very strange that protestants can have this idea of not feeling like a real Christian. This idea that sin tears you away from the promises of baptismal, the indelible seal of the Holy Ghost, forever supernaturally marked upon your soul by the very Almighty God who created you. Though, some of them downplay the importance of baptism, some never receive it, even though it's in the bible. So, what makes a real Christian?

Simply put, what makes us Christian is really that indelible mark of baptism. It is the gift of grace that from God that allows to be imbued with his spirit and to given the chance to discover him, and to have that faith. It’s a gift that God free chooses to give and that we choose to accept. No one chooses God, do decides to take Jesus as his personal saviour and lord. It is Christ who chooses you and calls you. And, when we answer that call through our baptism that we become Christians and are admitted into that great family in heaven who will never abandon us in life or death.

I suppose, however, that there is this supposed ideal of being Christian that one has live up to. This ideal generalises that Christians should be virtuous, charitable, kind, patient, and loving. To be a Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, or Bl. Pope John Paul II to everyone. Essentially, while the modern world condemns Christians, they expect them to be really good human beings, and well, they aren't wrong for having such high expectations. After all, the call to be Christian is certainly more than a mere figure of identity, or a paper cert acknowledging the occurrence of some ritual, no, it's far more. It is a call to love and serve God with complete obedience and humility to His divine will. You have to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned (Matt 25:31-46). And that's only one lesson, there are ton from everything on loving your enemies (Matt 5:44), to forgive and keep forgiving(Matt 18:22), to giving up everything and eschewing worldly pleasures (Matt 19:21), to getting insulted and hated for God(Mark 13:13/John 15:18). It is essentially to be completely Christ-like in life and is certainly not an easy one. (Go on, think of the person you hate the most and say I am going to love him, and tell me you think it's easy.)

Hence, because of these great people (noticed how I used two saints as examples), there certainly is a high standard to live up to! After all, our faith manifests in the work that we do and we see that in how St James remonstrates us in his letter that 'What shall it profit...if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith save him?' (James 2:14). Thus, there certainly is an ideal for a Christian to live up to. And, the saints are great examples of that ideal, after all, they strove to love God with all their heart and to live their lives with heroic virtue, and so, represent a semblance of that ideality. However, there is one person in the whole of creation who completely fulfills that ideality, and to us is the greatest example and the greatest saint of all and that is Our Lady and our heavenly mother, Mary. Through her obedience to God, we have attained the Saviour of the World.

Yet, while we strive for ideality, there is always the reality of the situation, we are fallen people, and thus we fall into sin, time and time again. Even Our Lady could not do it alone, She stayed pure and immaculate because God filled Her up to the brim with His grace, and so He too gives us his grace to avoid sin when we ask for it. In fact, more than just his grace, he has given us the sacrament of confession when we still fall, so that we may return to him, and to admit and take responsibility of our sins and through that, we receive his forgiveness and absolution.

And that is the reality of being Christian. We all fall because and we need the humility to accept that we fall, because we are human. We are not perfect, though we must strive to be good, we still will fall. And when we sin, we need to ask God to forgive us, and He will, hence the sacramental confession.

St Peter Julian Eymard says, 'He loves, He hopes, He waits. If He came down on our altars on certain days only, some sinner, on being moved to repentance, might have to look for Him, and not finding Him, might have to wait. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep him waiting one instant.' Like the Father who spent all his days just waiting and watching for the return of His prodigal son, so he waits for us! and how comforting to hear those words,

'God the Father, through the death and ressurexion of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church, may he give you pardon and peace. And, I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.'

O what great comfort! For I know, truly, that through the words of my confessor, and the authority that Christ gave to him when He commissioned the apostles, that 'if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (Jn 20:23), I am forgiven of all my sins!

Perhaps, this is why if one is understands the faith sufficiently, one will remember that it is true baptism that one is a Christian. A Christian falls, but stands up again, repents, seeks the forgiveness of the Lord, and does penance. There is no sin too big that God cannot forgive, and there is never any sin that God does not want to forgive, only as long as we ask for it.

'However awkward confession may be, it is the decisive place where one experiences anew the freshness of the Gospel, where one is reborn. There we also learn to blow away our pangs of conscience, just as a child blows a falling autumn leaf. There we find the happiness of God, the dawn of perfect joy.' Br Roger Schutz

'After a fall, stand up again right away! Do not leave sin in your heart for even a moment!' - St John Vianney

'Love Jesus! Have no fear! Even if you had committed all the sins in the world, Jesus repeats these words to you: Your many sins are forgiven, because you have loved much.' - St Padre Pio

I go to a non-denominational church every Sunday.

2011-10-17T22:40:00.002+08:00

Hello! My name is David and I am a non-denominational Christian, and I go to a non-denominational church. Yes, it’s absolutely true! Perhaps, if I may, my dear reader, you would permit me a chance to talk a little about my Church and her history?

My Church was started in the 30s. It’s a relatively new church, in the history of the world that is. I should specify, my church was started in 33 A.D., somewhere in Jerusalem, by a man named Jesus Christ, who as it turns out, was also God! It was a great historical event that was chronicled in the bible by the evangelist and apostle St Matthew; see Matt 16:18. God also promised that no matter what happens the Church would never fall, then he commissioned his apostles to lead the Church and sent them His Holy Spirit to guide them in their divine commissions (Acts 2). Having a church started by God himself is kinda special…actually, really special.

I guess you could say that we were one of the first, if not the first non-denominational Church ever in the world. The first twelve leaders of my church took in everyone. They never cared or discriminated against slaves or emperors, the poor and the aristocracy, pagan or Jew, man or woman, white or black, a prostitute or soldier. They especially loved to take in sinners, oh how they love those sinners especially. They also looove to forgive sins through the power invested in them by Christ. They love to turn sinners into saints.

They only had three criteria for joining really, to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul’, and to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and to understand what that completely meant. They were kinda slack on the first two criteria, because they knew it would be very difficult to follow, so they worked their bestest to help people achieve the third one as much as possible before letting them in. See, they had to be a bit prudent about letting people in, because in that time, if you joined this church, you might lose your life. Anyway, despite all that, the small tiny church did thrive and grow. Nowadays, they still teach people to achieve the third criteria, and we are still growing.

That said, for the first few hundred years they were aggressively pursued and persecuted, with many being put to death, under Nero and then Diocletian and it was only when St Constantine the Great, after the influence of his great mother, St Helena, joined my church and issued the edict of Milan in 313 A.D. that my church-goers were given some peace. It was then, in about 397 A.D., that the leaders of my Church got together for coffee and some biscuits in Carthage and decided to compile the bible, that same Bible that everyone uses today.

They also did some really awesome stuff over the next two thousands years. They evangelised many pagans, and helped intellectually fight heresies and naysayers, they started the first universities, hospitals, brought education to the working class with their schools. They advanced philosophy, one of our greatest philosophers even used logic to reason that God exists, and his arguments stand undefeated even until today, and he lived 900 years ago. They also worked hard to advance science, law, astronomy, art and music. They invented musical notation and the do-re-mi scale. They created polyphony, which is some of the most gorgeous and beautiful music you can ever hear. The gothic and baroque styles of architecture can be traced back to the great churches they built.

They branched out all over the world. It’s really quite cool, you can go to practically almost any country in the world and you’ll be able to find a church to go to on Sunday. They say you can go to one of our churches anywhere in the world and service will be the same. And they don’t discriminate or separate either, no youth or adult service; everyone comes together like a gigantic family to celebrate God. You know what the best part is? They still take in everybody of every colour, race, height, size and shape. From royalty to poverty, professionals to odd-job labourers, everyone! And you know what? They still love sinners, they especially welcome them.

PS:Oh, psssst, I'll let you in on a secret. The actual best part about my Church is that during service, you actually get to physically meet Jesus! Like in person. Shhh ok? It's a big secret.

The Canonised Saints: mere believers or much more?

2011-10-12T04:39:00.007+08:00

Today, I attended a bible study on St Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where the apostle addresses the new church in Philippi, greeting them as saints together with the bishops ('overseers' in that translation, but that's for another day) and deacons.

'Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ: to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.' - Phil 1:1

So it was then explained that meaning of the word saint, apart from meaning, holy or 'set apart', was in referral to the Church at Philippi. Then, it was further explained that the word saint could actually be applied to everyone in the room. All that was needed to be one a saint was the belief in Christ, and that's why those people who are remembered on special days are called saints, for their belief. It was further admonished that that was why they weren't any more special than the ordinary Joe and thus don't need to be placed on a pedestal and revered. In fact, it was said, some people get carried away and hold them with such high regard and status, treating them as great people and some denominations even worship them.

Call me Catholic, but alarm bells were going off in my neuro-OS as though the Saracens were trying to invade Constantinople again. I could feel my blood heating up. Then, I thought for a second, and I realised that you know what? By golly gosh, he's right!

The Saints were ordinary people. They were just like us, 206 bones, two eyes, one mouth, two ears, hair, one nose. They came from all walks of life. Some were peasants, farmers and extremely poor, others were emperors, royalty and aristocrats. Some were geniuses and redefined philosophy as you know it, others were very simply minded or had mental problems. Some were physicians, scientists and lawyers, others were artists, simple folk, maidens. Some were married and started families and parented children, others married Christ, and devoted their lives to prayer, meditation and parenting His flock. Some confessed Christ and were brutally murdered for his name, other's confessed Him and lived long lives in a testament to His name. At the centre of it all, is their ardent belief in one Jesus Christ, the God who became man, lived amongst man, and sacrificed Himself to save man.

So, these saints, they were really just ordinary people, much like ourselves, who believed in Christ. If that's true, than what makes them so special? Nothing much after all, they believed, and because of that belief, struggled to live their lives with heroic virtue, eschewed the pleasures and mindsets of this world and lived out their lives completely as Christ desired. Oh, and did I mention, that they also attained eternal salvation and happiness in heaven, through their great love for Christ, which they expressed in every aspect of their lives?

Wait, you say, but are you implying that heaven is not easy to get to? Well, yes.

I’m sure you’ve all read John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.’ But, what does it mean to believe?

In the gospels (and I looked all of these up. You know how Catholics don’t memorise the bible right?), Christ says to believe in him you must ‘sell what thou hast, and give to the poor… and come, follow me’ (Matt 19:21), meaning to give up all worldly possessions and ideals, and give oneself completely to Christ. He also said that you must feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, cloth the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned, for what you do to ‘these my least of brethren, you [do] it to me.’(Matt 25:45). And, he further says, ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world…He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up on the last day.’ (John 6:51-52, 55).

Sounds like believing is a tough call isn’t it? This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. The gospels have many more requests of Christ to his believers. To follow Christ completely, is certainly to be set apart from the rest and to be holy. It is also a challenging and arduous path.

I, for one, though I am believer, I am nowhere near even coming within one million kilometres of the holiness that a Saint has. I am so arrogant, so proud, and so impatient, so attached to my worldly possessions and pleasures of the flesh. I mean, seriously! Just look at what some of these guys have done! St Dominic, born to wealthy and honourable parents, gave up everything to live in poverty and to spend the rest of his days preaching about Christ, started the Order of Preachers. Ss Cosmas and Damian, twin physicians and surgeons, charged not a penny for their services, survived crucifixion, stoning and being shot by arrows before being martyred by the sword. Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, gave up everything to be a nun, then gave up even more to go to Calcutta to live amongst the poorest of the poor and to love them. St Edith Stein, German jewish convert, philosopher, and nun who openly criticised Nazism, and was gassed for it.

Yet, even then, they were still unworthy to go to heaven (no one is worthy after all. One enters heaven solely, by the grace of God). And yet, these lot made it. They completed the feat that Christ said was harder than making a camel pass through the eye of a needle. They recognised, realised and actualised the true meaning of life, to love, know and serve God in this temporal life and to be reunited with Him forever in the next. And, they did all of it, not for themselves, but for God, who then deigned to take them in his kingdom. For that they truly deserve the title of Saint, which comes from the Latin, sanctus, meaning holy.

How can I even compare with them? But, hey! You know what? Remember, they’re just ordinary people like you and I…that means….if they can do it…so can I! So, that got me thinking, if I wanted to go to heaven, who would be the best person to model myself on? Hmmm…I’d choose someone who has probably done it all before, someone with good virtues. A real stand up fellow. One that I wouldn’t mind hanging pictures off in my room to remind me of their great example or someone that I could turn to for help when going through similar problems. Someone who has already made it to heaven.

Oh, I know! I’ll choose a Saint! They led lives of heroic virtue, didn’t they? They fully confessed Christ as their God, creator and saviour right? They went through the same struggles with sin and concupiscence that I go through, didn’t they? And, they’re also in heaven aren’t they? Hey, isn’t that a great idea? And since the Saints are still part of my celestial family, when I need help, I can ask them to pray to God for me! They could be my role models, my heroes! This is too good an idea to keep to myself! The Church should make them heroes and role models for everyone!

Oh wait. She already has.

Sancti et Sanctae in caelo, ora pro nobis!

PS: I’m not going to touch on the worshipping thing. Any good protestant worth his salt should know that when you revere, admire and respect one of God’s creations for the beauty and glory that God has given to them, you give glory and praise to God, the creator. After all, which parent doesn’t bask in the achievements of their children, and can’t wait to boast about them to others? Which teacher doesn’t feel great when she finds out her students scored distinctions? At the end of the day, it’s all for the Glory of God.

Our Lady, the greatest Saint of them all. Without her obedience, and humility. Without her love for God, without her 'yes', we would not have the Saviour of the World. Thank God, she's our mother too, and watches out for us as her children from heaven.

Feisty.

2011-10-04T14:06:00.003+08:00

BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick; nobody marks you.

BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?

BEATRICE Is it possible that disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her prescence.

BENEDICK Then is Courtesy herself a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved by all ladies, only you excepted. And I would I could find it in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.

BEATRICE A dear happiness to women. They would else been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind. So some gentleman or other shall scape a predistinate scratched face.

BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours were.

BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK I would hold my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, o' God's name. I have done.

BEATRICE You always end with a Jade's trick. I know you of old.

Beatrice.

2011-09-19T00:39:00.003+08:00

BEATRICE

Lewis Carroll

In her eyes is the living light

Of a wanderer to earth

From a far celestial height:

Summers five are all the span --

Summers five since Time began

To veil in mists of human night

A shining angel-birth.

Does an angel look from her eyes?

Will she suddenly spring away,
And soar to her home in the skies?

Beatrice! Blessing and blessed to be!

Beatrice! Still, as I gaze on thee,

Visions of two sweet maids arise,

Whose life was of yesterday:

Of a Beatrice pale and stern,
With the lips of a dumb despair,

With the innocent eyes that yearn
Yearn for the young sweet hours of life,

Far from sorrow and far from strife,

For the happy summers, that never return,

When the world seemed good and fair:

Of a Beatrice glorious, bright

Of a sainted, ethereal maid,

Whose blue eyes are deep fountains of light,

Cheering the poet that broodeth apart,

Filling with gladness his desolate heart,

Like the moon when she shines thro’ a cloudless night

On a world of silence and shade.

And the visions waver and faint,

And the visions vanish away That
my fancy delighted to paint

She is here at my side, a living child,
With the glowing cheek and the tresses wild,

Nor death-pale martyr, nor radiant saint,

Yet stainless and bright as they.

For I think, if a grim wild beast
Were to come from his charnel-cave,

From his jungle-home in the East

Stealthily creeping with bated breath,

Stealthily creeping with eyes of death

He would all forget his dream of the feast,

And crouch at her feet a slave.

She would twine her hand in his mane:

She would prattle in silvery tone,

Like the tinkle of summer-rain

Questioning him with her laughing eyes,

Questioning him with a glad surprise,

Till she caught from those fierce eyes again

The love that lit her own.

And be sure, if a savage heart,

In a mask of human guise,

Were to come on her here apart

Bound for a dark and a deadly deed,
Hurrying past with pitiless speed

He would suddenly falter and guiltily start

At the glance of her pure blue eyes.

Nay, be sure, if an angel fair,

A bright seraph undefiled,

Were to stoop from the trackless air,

Fain would she linger in glad amaze

Lovingly linger to ponder and gaze,

With a sister’s love and a sister’s care,

On the happy, innocent child.

Dec. 4, 1862.

Youth Mass

2011-09-15T16:33:00.003+08:00

After assisting at Holy Mass yesterday, while standing outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes talking to friends, I kept overhearing the things the old uncles and aunties were saying. There must have been some confusion. They must have been, because they were surprised and shocked and saying things like, ‘wah! This one Youth Mass ah? So many young people!’

The concept of seeing so many young people assisting at Holy Mass must have been quite alien to them. There were no drums, no electric guitars, and no modern hymns with saccharinely sappy lyrics. Heck! There was hardly any English at all! The Mass was a missa cantata celebrated in the Extraördinary Form, also known as the Tridentine Rite, the pre-Vatican II mass. It was almost entirely in Latin, save for the homily, complete with heavenly Gregorian chant and polyphonic motets. A Mass where the priest faces the altar, says prayers quietly and the altar servers are decked out in über cool black cassocks and surplices.

Yet, the youth had come from all over the island to attend this Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and to venerate a relic of the True Cross, from the very same cross that once hung the Saviour of the World himself. It was truly a Youth Mass. The youth organized it, they served at the altar, they sang in the choir, and they assisted devoutly in appropriate dress, chanting the responses, kneeling, bowing their heads and crossing themselves.

To the older generation, who were mostly from the parish and had come to see the Extraördinary Form(EF) for the first time, it must have been truly a sight to behold for them. For those who regularly attend the EF, it is a very regular sight to see.

My dear reader, you see, for years, they were taught that the youth have to be engaged and in order to do so, they must organise Masses specially for them, with music that they could connect with or relate to. The older hymns were not suitable, Gregorian chant was beyond them, they wouldn’t like a Mass in Latin. Yet, here they were side by side with the youth!

So what brings the deluge of the young to hear Latin Mass? Novelty might seem the suggested answer had the EF been a one off event, however there is a regular EF at the chapel of St Joseph’s Institute (International) on Thomson Road, every first and third Sunday of the month at four o’clock. Convenience doesn’t seem to be the answer either, since these youth regularly walk up the long slope of the school in the middle of nowhere in the hot Singaporean weather at a timing which is horrid for students. Any student will tell you that Sunday afternoon is prime time for some serious mugging. Transecting that afternoon for Mass in a far off place is certainly a lost of important studying time, regardless of how one manages their time.

If novelty and convenience are not the answers, then what is? Why are the young faithfully coming for Latin Mass? Perhaps, these young energetic faithful are searching for their Catholic identity. An identity which many of them do not really understand after having been brought up with decades of Masses which pander to them and Churches that seem to be more protestant than Catholic. They want to sit in a Church and catch a glimpse of heaven as their eyes trace the gothic arches and the high altar up into the high ceiling of the sacred architecture. They want to hear music that lifts them up in to those heavens and a chance to taste the mystery of God. When one attends an EF Mass, it is immediately distinctly Catholic.

Perhaps they decided that instead of going to Mass that was celebrated in a fashion whereby God is brought to them, they chose to go to God instead, even though that means not knowing exactly what is going on, where they have to come of their comfort zones, and seek a silence where they can pray.

There could be so many reasons to rationalise this phenomenon, however one thing is sure. If you assist at a EF Mass regularly, you will learn to appreciate the Ordinary Form of the Mass much more. What’s more, you will soon find your spiritual life changing. Just ask any of the youth! You know where to find them.

Please Stop Attending Mass.

2011-09-10T00:31:00.003+08:00

Recently, I was reading a book called, ‘The Hidden Treasure: The Holy Mass’ by St Leonard of Port Maurice. It was a very good read which extoled upon the greatness and goodness of assisting at the Holy Mass, especially daily, and I recommend that everyone should get a copy and read it, it is short and easy to peruse and is certainly for everyone.

Now, perhaps you may be confused as to why I say that a book, which explores the graces of assisting at the Holy Sacrifice, is a book for everyone though not everyone helps out at Mass unless one is an altar server, a chorister, or the celebrant himself. I’m just a normal average Joe, you say, I just attend Mass like everyone else, what good is it to me?

Ah. That is where you are misconstrued, my dear reader. It is actually you who are assisting at Holy Mass. Yes. That is right, you are the one who assists at Holy Mass. But, how can this be, you inquire, I do not do anything, I merely sit in the pew, trying to pay attention. I can’t really sing because the songs are so heavily syncopated and don’t even sound nice. That is where you are most gravely wrong. Anyone who hears the Holy Mass, has the potential to assist at it.

Perhaps, we might take a look at why you feel that you do not assist at the Holy Mass. For the past four decades, we have firstly seen a dramatic shift in our vocabulary regarding the Holy Mass, and our liturgy. We have been told to ‘attend’ Mass, whereas when one was in Church to ‘hear’ the Holy Mass, one was also expected to ‘assist’ at it. St Leonard’s book is strewn with phrases such as those aforementioned, so is the Baltimore Catechism. However, we have only been thought to attend Mass. No wonder there is great confusion with what is truly required of us at the most Holy Sacrifice!

How should we then participate in at Mass? Let us turn to the Baltimore Catechism and have a look.

Q946. How should we assist at Mass?
A. We should assist at Mass with great interior recollection and piety and with every outward mark of respect and devotion.

Thus, while the servers, choristers and the celebrant have the special privilege of assisting externally at the Holy Sacrifice, you, who are sitting devoutly in the pew, in modest dress, are to assist as well. It is about an interior assistance as opposed to an external one. It means that we need not know the responses or possess the capability to sing the propers or ordinaries of the Mass, we only need to be pious with our prayers and offer up our intentions during the Mass.

So what is the difference between merely attending and assisting at Mass? In the first place, the connotations of the words are very different. To ‘attend’ merely implies to one’s mere presence at the event, while to ‘assist’ implies the necessity of helping out and being part of the event. Francis Cardinal Arinze, the Cardinal Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Workship and Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation in Rome dealing with how Mass is to be said and how the Sacraments are administered, says that we can prepare for Mass by not only reading the readings beforehand, but by reading the opening, offertory and communion prayers as well as the various antiphons. He also describes the need to pray and ask God to allow one to receive communion. These pre-communion prayers are very necessary to remind ourselves of the great gift that we are to receive.

What’s more another priest once described that during the preparation of the gifts, we offer our own prayers and intentions into the chalice and raise it up to heaven. Also, during the consecration, it is said that largest amount of souls in purgatory are granted entry into heaven. Thus, it is during this time we should offer our prayers for the souls in purgatory.

There are so many things that we as the congregation need to do! To listen devoutly to the readings and the digest and meditate upon the words of the homily, to prayer for the Church, her people, the world and ourselves during the liturgy of the word. To meditate upon the beauty of the chanted antiphons and the words in the psalms they’re from. It amazes me that we even have time to sing along with the choir or to listen to the priest says his prayers on our behalf!

So it would be nice if you would stop attending Mass, my dear reader, and to humbly accept the office of the lay person and to interiorly devote yourself to Christ and his sacrifice as it unfolds before you. Also, do pick up St Leonard’s great book. I hope to see you assisting at Mass soon!

Studying For Souls

2011-09-09T16:17:00.006+08:00

Dear friends,

Some of us have exams nearing. And, as any of us normal students know, studying can be a difficult process marked with stress, frustrations, book-throwings, page-tearings, crying and other sorts of sufferings and sacrifices.

Also, you may know that there are many souls in purgatory. If you didn't, you do now. And suffering can be offered up as penance for the souls in purgatory. And since studying can have suffering, perhaps you may wish to offer up your academic sufferings for the holy souls in purgatory.

That way your studying won't go to waste (it won't either way but it feels that way sometimes). :)

If you think this is a good idea, you may wish to write down this prayer and keep it in your pencil case or file or book, and say it before you commence the daily mugging.

Pray Before Studying
O Jesus, You who suffered and died upon the cross for my sins, and gave me the opportunity to learn of the knowledge you so wonderfully created, bless me today as I carry out this vocation and to give you glory in all I do. I also wish to offer you, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the sufferings that I endure through the course of my studying today for the intentions of the souls in purgatory. And, I ask that You and our Blessed Mother, through the prayers of all the patrons of students, especially St Joseph Cupertino, St Gregory Wonderworker and St Thomas Aquinas, to watch over me in my studies and my examinations. Amen

God bless!

PS: in desperate circumstances, St Jude is the patron saint of desperate cases.

PPS: I have started a facebook event for this, you can find it here. Please do show your support by attending and checking in with your progress from time to time!

The Diner.

2011-09-05T22:12:00.001+08:00

This was for a writing competition.

Sheets of rain splashed onto the windscreen as I tore down the viaduct. I didn’t really care where I was going, I was just racing across from expressway to expressway trying to get some control on what my mind was spinning at me. There was just something about this city, with its tall ominous buildings that just seemed to mock your existence. Thunder erupted and an eighteen-wheeler sped past in the other lane, momentarily blinding me with a deluge of water from its tyres. God, I could use a smoke. I haven’t had one for nine months but I promised a friend in a collar that I’d quit once and for all. I don’t actually like smoking, it makes your fingers smell and ruins your sense of taste. The only redeeming feature was the quick escape it provides from life and the romantic notion of watching the smoke drift up into the sky as it leaves your mouth. Maybe it’s a writers’ thing, maybe I just wanted to get away from my sordid life. I had driven aimlessly for four hours now, it was about two in the morning and I was hungry. So, I floored the accelerated and pulled the old mustang into the first exit. The tyres skidded on the slippery road and left sprays of dirty water in their wake. I drove a few more miles and finally spotted the familiar diner.

The diner had opened there when I was a kid, a long time ago back in the day. It was one those grease joints that opened at all hours, where the burgers had enough oil in them to start a war. My family lived around the block, so we used to step in regularly to clog our arteries. Now, the place looked pretty rundown and more oleaginous than ever. I wondered when was the last time any health inspector surveyed the place, then I realised I hadn’t been in this neighbourhood for nearly a decade. Too many memories, and as I stepped in, they all flooded back. Old man Johnson used to run the place, left it to his kids who sold it on condition the menu was retained. The place has traded hands several times since then, each time on the same condition that the menu is kept the same. Don’t know who runs it now.

A young waitress greeted me with all the enthusiasm of a sea slug and began to chant out the specials while throwing the menu at me. I ordered the oiliest cheeseburger on the menu and a coffee. Ms Hospitality ran off to inform the greasy eyed fry cook behind the counter. It was really quiet in the diner. Looking around, I realised I was the only customer here. Somewhere in the background, a jukebox was playing some of the latest hits and I began to wonder what in hell I was doing with my life. I was going through one of those periods where one suffers the full blunt of life’s vicissitudes. The sort one sits up into the night nursing a bottle of Jack comparing what one has inadequately achieved to the overachievers he calls friends, wallowing like a baby in self pity as he wonders amidst the crushing loneliness what he was going to do with the rest of his miserable life. You know the sort: in between jobs, or girlfriends or dogs. The kind of depression you just want to blame God for until you realise it’s probably your fault and then you wish He’d never created you. Outside, the tempest continued to howl.

My food had finally arrived. The coffee tasted gray, but the burger was decent. I was in a mood for something greasy anyway. I had just taken a second bite when she threw open the doors of the diner and nearly brought in half of the storm with her. She was a pretty thing, about my age with a sweet smile. She seemed to fill the place with colour as she walked in. The walls magically seemed to regain their original lustre from decades ago. The waitress, too, underwent some metamorphosis before my eyes and cheerfully greeted her. Perhaps, it was something that she wore in her soul. Perhaps, she may have just been a regular, since the waitress and her stopped exchanging pleasantries and started to exchange the gossip of their lives. After the waitress promised to bring her ‘the usual’, she came and sat down in the table next to mine. One can’t help being drawn to such people I guess, so I turned and said ‘hello’. She ‘hello’-ed me back with a sweet sweet smile and before long she was sharing my booth and we were chatting away like old friends.

Her name was Melissa, she worked in a hospital somewhere, just got off her shift. Turns out, we shared a lot in common. She grew up in this neighbourhood, on the other side of the huge dual carriageway. We had the same childhood parish, but my parents had lost their piety. I couldn’t believe that we’d never bumped into each other in the past. I told her I could have never forgotten a pretty face like hers and it was a pretty face. I teased her about her eye bags, which were like crescent moons holding up her eyes, she said she got them from her mum. She teased me about my scruffy writer’s stubble and attempts at keeping fashionable hair. We talked a bit of politics, and the weather and the arts. We talked about importance of chastity amidst the fall of a decadent promiscuous society. We talked about music. She told me about her bad day at work, and I was amazed at her determined cheerfulness. I told her about my lack of progress with my book and my attempt to escape this dreary city in a month. We lamented about it, and chatted some more. I suppose that is the human condition, to be lonely and tired in life, searching for, yearning for some companionship in the hope of affirming one’s own existence.

We talked for two hours and then she refused to let me make the two-hour drive home and offered me her couch instead. It was a just a block away and I could leave the car at the diner. I held her hand as we walked back down the cold, slippery streets toward her flat. The smell of wet grass wafted through the air.

White Queen (revised)

2011-09-05T21:50:00.003+08:00

White Queen
Everywhere I walk, you seem to build castle walls in my face.
High, looming towers across the black and white plains.
You hide there too, beautiful, up in the highest place

While your horses gallop past with their knighted lords,
seeking out many an enemy or some spritely foe,
with which to slay with their mighty swords,

Or perhaps, with cold stare and silent conversation.

So, I hide away here in the black tall grass
and watch you from so very far away.
Your smiles, and sorrows I long to share and grasp,

But your bishops say, 'no', with an excommunicating stare.
I have never understood those prelates of yours,
With their slanted thinking in black and white, of ill-gotten cause.

Their reach was frightening and they travelled very far,
so, I hid from them too, and stared out at you from castle walls.
It would seem that every step I take shall require much thought.

How strange, for I had only one quest:
to deliver you a flower with my heart on it's petalled breast.
O, how the crescent moon reminds me of you.

But I am a trained soldier, and so continue to seek,
through the monotone grasslands with my tarnished crown,
that my quest and Triumph shall soon meet.

(It seems such a foolish play on my part,
but alas, a stubborn fool I was born.
So, now in mud and forest I shall have to creep.)
I shall take my time to cross each square,
one
by
one.

Sirach 38

2011-09-05T21:38:00.003+08:00

‘The real difficulty which confronts everybody, and which especially confronts doctors, is that the extraordinary position of man in the physical universe makes it practically impossible to treat him in either one direction or the other in a purely physical way. Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.’ – GK Chesterton

I should be sleeping but I shall write this before it leaves me. A friend gave me this lovely going away card. In it, she pasted a lovely letter, the prayer of St luke for physicians and this excerpt from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach). I shall reprint it here:

Medicine and Illness
Sirach 38

1 Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him.
2 For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts of the king.
3 The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised.
4 The most High hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them.
5 Was not bitter water made sweet with wood?
6 The virtue of these things is come to the knowledge of men, and the meet High hath given knowledge to men, that he may be honoured in his wonders.
7 By these he shall cure and shall allay their pains, and of these the apothecary shall make sweet confections, and shall make up ointments of health, and of his works there shall be no end.
8 For the peace of God is over all the face of the earth.
9 My son, in thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and he shall heal thee.
10 Turn away from sin and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all offence.
11 Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering, and then give place to the physician.
12 For the Lord created him: and let him not depart from thee, for his works are necessary.
13 For there is a time when thou must fall into their hands:
14 And they shall beseech the Lord, that he would prosper what they give for ease and remedy, for their conversation.
15 He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker, shall fall into the hands of the physician.

The remainder of the verses, 16-39, deal with mourning the dead and how people’s crafts contribute towards building the city and it is through their work that they make God happy. Of course, the ones I have reprinted here are the ones that shall interest me tonight.

The Work of God.
Sirach writes, ‘For all healing is from God’. When I read this passage, I’m reminded of the great humility with which I shall need to carry out my future responsibilities as a doctor. Without the Almighty, from whom all healing comes, would my work be in vain and most fruitless. It is so important that a doctor should remember this in his daily duties. How disheartening it is for all those physicians who do not place their faith in the one who provides them with their abilities, and does not give Him credit. How great is the mercy of God that he still works his healing powers through them.

Moreover, this is a particular vocation that ‘the most High hath created’. God is so great that he has, in the wake of the illness and disease, a consequence of original sin, created the vocation of physician to aid man. ‘[F]or his works are necessary’, Sirach instructs the reader. What a great privileged it is, to have a job created by God for the necessity of mankind. How great is God that he shall allow me to partake in his wondrous works! He has created me for this job, this vocation, and has deigned to use me so that He can heal illnesses and wounds, and through me let his mighty works be shown. He is the primary agent and how blessed am I that I should partake as the secondary agent.

God provides for the tasks he has ordained
I find great solace and comfort in the knowledge that God provides for the tasks He puts one through. Medical school is long and very stressful. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge to be learnt, assimilated and memorised. One practically has to learn to speak in a different language, whereby acronyms can replace nouns, adjectives and verbs. Once school is the done, the learning continues forever and work is stressful (‘of his works there shall be no end’). Work puts one continually at the forefront of health risks. A mistake could result in a malpractice suit and the suspension of one’s license or even jail time. Yet, this is the job that God himself has created, we cannot fail in it, certainly and especially if we stand by him, and if He wills it. Sirach says, ‘The virtue of these things is come to the knowledge of men, and the meet High hath given knowledge to men, that he may be honoured in his wonders.’ Which is a great comfort for me as a student. I, for one, am not particularly intelligent, as this rather clumsy amateur exegesis inadvertently reveals. Thus, I am rather relieved that I shall not have to memorise everything alone. Not to mention, all the tools of the trade does he provide, for ‘The most High hath created medicines out of the earth’. Hurray for divine providence!

Treat not just the body, but the soul as well.
A wise Jesuit by the name of Fr Hilario heard that I was going to medical school and quickly reminded me of the nature of my future work. He said in a patient, fatherly tone, ‘A doctor is both a healer of body and soul.’ and then went on to regale me with a tale of how a Hindu doctor used to visit a sick patient every day and asked how she was, and how she felt so much better after each visit. It wasn’t that he actually did anything, but his presence comforted her soul and that brought about some healing. The entire story reminds me of two things. The first, corny as it is, is the age old adage that a doctor ‘cures sometimes, relieves often and comforts always.’

The second, is far more delightful, is of my patron saint, the first modern doctor to be canonized, St Giuseppe Moscati. He once told an intern,

‘Remember that you have to deal not only with the bodies but also with the moaning souls coming to you. How many suffering people you will more easily soothe by advising and going straight to their souls, instead of giving cool prescriptions to be given to the chemist! Be joyful because great will be your reward; but you will have to set a good example of your elevation to God.’

St Guiseppe was greatly concerned with the state of his patients’ souls and viewed the sacraments as the ‘first medicine’, often encouraging his patients who would be undergoing major surgery to receive them, especially that of communion and confession. He couldn’t have been more right. Confession truly brings healing both to our souls and to ourselves, and communion, which is the very gift of Christ himself, fills us full of supernatural grace from God!

I bring this up because it ties in largely with what Sirach has written.

‘My son, in thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and he shall heal thee.
Turn away from sin and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all offence.’

Sickness and disease, like death, are consequences of original sin. When the soul is in the state of mortal sin and is turned away from God, the body too suffers from this disconnexion. Mortal sin ruins and kills the soul by removing the connexion we have with God and destroy our humanity, which is the image of God. Consider the effects of Post Abortion Syndrome and how it affects both men and women and ruins their lives. Perhaps listen to a few of the stories from the Silent No More campaign.

His grace, the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen actually predicted this phenomenon back in the seventies when Roe V. Wade came about. He actually understood how sin corrupts the body and the need for confession. You can watch that here.

Of course, with the aggressive militant secularity of modern culture, public displays of religiosity are looked down on and attacked. We live a society that persecutes us for merely wearing a symbol of our faith on our person. I just read about a nurse who was given a desk job for refusing to take off her crucifix, a crucifix she had worn for thirty-one years without complaint from anyone in the hospital. Therefore, looking after patient’s souls will become a difficult task, however there are still ways about it. I read recently of a physician who hired people to pray for the intentions of his staff, himself and for his patients.

It is more than necessary nowadays that we center our lives in prayer and on Christ, for he will give us the strength to persevere and be good Christians. He will give us the necessary spiritual armour to face the day and the strength to carry our cross. Which brings me to the next point.

Personify Christ.
I should note that Haydock says that the verse, ‘Was not bitter water made sweet with wood?’ is an allusion to Moses, striking the rock and making the bitter water sweet. It is upon this same staff was mounted the bronze serpent that healed all those afflicted from those fatal snakebites. That same serpent on a stick is the symbol Ascelpius’ staff, the usual symbol of western medicine. Ascelpius is the greek god of medicine. That symbol of the bronze serpent foreshadows Christ. It is interesting to see this foreshadowing throughout history. Many theologists talk about how the Truth is written throughout time and space, in the very fabric of Cosmos itself.

Sirah too describes this, ‘He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker, shall fall into the hands of the physician.’ The physician is none other than Christ, God himself, who has come into the world to heal it from sin through his suffering and death on the cross. St Thomas Aquinas references this in his prayer in preparation for communion, where he goes ‘sick to the physician of life’. Christ himself uses the analogy in the gospels of Ss Matthew and Mark when he speaks to the pharisees, ‘They that are well have no need for a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but the sinners.’, Mk 2:17

In this nifty allusion, it not only foreshadows the coming of Christ, his role as the physician of life, but also our role to personify Christ for others. While all Christians are called to be Christ for others (and also to see Christ in others, since Christ may come in veil of the lowliest and ugliest that frightens us), the doctor has a special role, he personifies the healing powers of Christ, he personifies Christ the healer. Again, I say, what a great privilege that is to share in this wonderful plan of God, and co-healers with Christ.

To end of, perhaps I can take you to this tongue-in-cheek writing about the Christ, the polymath specialist.

We Are Catholic.

2011-09-01T02:29:00.002+08:00

Some late night thoughts.

2011-08-21T03:33:00.002+08:00

Now that my blog has a new look, though it looks worse, I might, for a while, take up the blogging thing again. Look! you have three new entries in just one night. Two of them are complaints or close to it anyway. It's better then nothing, though.

Anyway, I thought I'd just post about the Gospel reading for today. It's from Matthew 16:13-20, wherein Christ commissions Peter and the apostles to start his Church with the promise that it will never fall. It's one of my favourite passages, herein lies the power of the sacrament of confession, which I take great comfort in. Herein lies the might of the Church. I shan't write to much about it because I am not a theologian, but I'm sure if you look through the regular spots, you'll find a great deal of posts in the Catholic Blogosphere regarding this passage.

Unfortunately, in Singapore, we use the Jerusalem Bible for our lectionary. Thankfully it's not the New Jerusalem BIble, what with all it's Yahweh's and all. Though the JB is in itself, rather horrid. It essentially tried to pull a Luther on the bible and went back past the Septuagint and used the Torah as it's base for translating the Old Testament, and so instead of the more credible Koine Greek, we have the Hebrew from the 2nd century onward. Also, they dropped all the exclusive language and thus ending the Thous and Thys which were attributed to God. The translation is also rather clumsy to read and doesn't have the flow that the King James Bible has. So much for doing a Luther. Though another pet peeve was the translation of Luke 1, which didn't have the Angel telling Mary she was 'full of grace', which is far accurate, but that's for another day.

The passage, you can easily find online, however I like the way the latin sounds. So I shall post that here.

Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam mean, et portæ inferi non prævalebunt adversus eam. Et tibi dabo claves regni cælorum. Et quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum in cælis: et quodcumque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in cælis.

2011-08-21T02:48:00.001+08:00

I hate how my blog looks now, but at least, I can now have comments. urgh. To think 10 years ago, I was really good with html.

2011-08-21T02:26:00.002+08:00

Had one of those forever alone laments with a friend of mine. It went something like:

'you're pretty, smart and nice, don't see why you should have trouble finding someone'

'thanks that's nice of you'

'I, on the other hand, look like some sort of literary monster.
Tall, big, fat, scary and knows physics and does calculus'

In light of the fact that probably no one reads this blog, I am shameless willing to humiliate myself in such a fashion. Of course, the sentiments above are true. So hopeless.

Pity party over.

I also wish that I could stop thinking about you.

I miss...

2011-08-19T00:58:00.003+08:00

I hate nothing more than being injured. Recovery and rehab time are always an eternity and something greatly to be suffered. Injury means you have to start from scratch with your fitness, which if you’re like me, was never there in the first place means a few months of pain and humiliation trying to bring up your stamina to run 5km again, never mind getting back on the track to do intervals for anaerobic stamina. Of course, there’s being left out. Everyone else is having fun, while you pace the side of the field, looking on. Finally, aside from your game, there’re all the little things in life that I miss being able to do.

I miss being able to
- keep up pace with my friends when we’re walking
- brisk walk
- change in less than 3 minutes
- run up and down stairs
- tiptoe
- roll around in bed
- shake my left leg, though it’s a very bad habit
- stretch my left foot and pointing my toes
- wriggle my left toes
- not have pain under my arms from the crutches
- jump about all of the place
- to get a snack anytime i wanted
- to walk to church for Mass

In fact, I’m not sure if it’s because of the injury, but I am really earning to go for daily Mass now. One of my worries is that when I go for Mass this Sunday, I won’t be able to kneel properly and adore the Lord and thus won’t be able to commune. Of course, I might be being scrupulous, but I guess you could say that I refuse to commune unless I may treat the Lord, my God with the greatest respect possible.

There’s still spiritual communion! And, what a treat to be chosen by God’s grace to be at the Lord’s Supper. http://fisheaters.com/TLMmissingmass.html

If We Hold On...

2011-08-17T00:34:00.002+08:00

I'm miserable. I can't believe that another calamity could befall me, and what a vicissitude it is. Before, I had to slow down a bit, and I was fine, things were picking up again, and now everything has come to a sudden stop. This new issue is costing me much greater that its predecessor, far too much. I might be overreacting, and I hope I am not wrong here with regards to the extent of the damage. I know I'm far too stubborn not to take it easy all the way, I'm going to do my best and everything I can to make it back by the 3rd. I must, I have to. It will probably be my last locally.

If I can get back by the 3rd with a lot of tape, then the damage will be minimal, I can still recover after that, however, if it is to the worst extent, then I am out for months. Everything I've done for the last three months will be for nothing. A miserable winter awaits me ahead. I can't stand the bleakness.

I want to be mobile again, I want to independent, up and about. Invisible chains have me.

Hamlet

2011-08-12T14:04:00.000+08:00

Lately, I've been going through a lot of obstacles in my life. Just when you think everything might be going smoothly for once, suddenly, life throws you an earthquake. Of course, that might be a fair bit of melodramatic exaggeration, however, things are certainly not looking great for me. Well, superficially anyway.

Everyone has their own problems, certainly, definitely. Everyone of course thinks the crosses they carry are the heaviest, at least at some point in time in their life. Lately, I have been pondering the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

I haven't actually read the play proper, but I remember the plot. It is a such a dark and macabre tragedy, akin to the Duchess of Malfi. The protagonist, Hamlet, discovers that his father, the King has been murdered by his cousin Claudius after receiving a message from the ghost of his father. The ghost then commissions Hamlet to avenge him. Like any loyal son, he does, and across the story pretends to fall deeper into madness. Depressed greatly by the events unfolding around him, he considers suicide and utters the above text.

He considers deeply whether it is worthwhile to succumb to all the pains and sufferings of life or to fight them to the death. How easy does it seem to simply die, it would be the end of all suffering and end of life's unjust and unfair schemes.He has even convinced himself that in suicide, true courage is found.

Somehow I wonder if I am running, alone, on a similar path. I know where it is going, but I am so stubborn that I cannot stop myself. It is most self-destructive and eschews any concerns of the future. Or perhaps, even dispels any possibilities of the future before they make themselves available. Maybe, I'm just waiting for someone to save me from my foolish stupor, though experience tells me otherwise.

I always tell my friends in similar situations that they're very lucky they don't have full knowledge about the possible extents it could lead to. I wonder where I will be heading to…

and in that sleep of death, what dreams may come….

Knee worries.

2011-08-08T19:34:00.002+08:00

My knee is injured again. The same one with the lateral mensicural tear that I had operation to fix two years ago. Same pain shooting through the joint, same swelling, same tightness. The operation was to shave off the bits of frayed meniscus, and quite a bit was shaved that i have little left linking the lateral horn to the medial horn, if it tears, then I am at great risk of accelerated arthritis.

This injury could not have come a worse time. I'm stronger than ever, I feel fitter than ever and I'm improving so much. There is a match on the 3rd, and the season would have started when I touch down in Dublin later that month. I don't know how I got it because i have been pain free for the last two years since the op. I think it is a combination of very quick weight gain, getting much fitter and using metal studs on astroturf. I hate astroturf, but then again, who doesn't?

I hate the feeling of complete hopelessness as I watch my dreams of actually getting real good at my favourite sport while I'm away. It doesn't help that the country is crazy over it and that season will just be starting since it's a winter sport. The six years that I'll be in Dublin will the prime of sporting tour if anything, since once thirty hits, everything slows down. Sure, I'd love to be like Elvis, my fifty, that's right FIFTY, year old teammate who still plays after two heart bypasses. Elvis is actually japanese, but wears his sideburns like his famous namesake, hence the nickname. Damn, those Japs are hardy. Also, once housemanship and the working life start, I'll never be able to commit the same amount of time too it.

Furthermore, through all the waves of despondency that wash over the shores of mind as I question the future of my knee, I can't help wondering why me? Why does God have to pick me to have the torn meniscus. Why can't I have a torn ACL? I could live with that, in fact, I think it's a far better injury to have than a torn meniscus. I don't know. But still, why me? I hate asking that sort of question, as if I'm challenging his infinitely greater wisdom.

Honestly, I don't know what I'll do without it. It's a huge part of my life, my identity. Nothing gives me the same rush as being on the field. Perhaps, all my hobbies are just psycho-analytical proof of some self-destructive behaviour since I can't see any bright future ahead. Maybe I just wish someone would save me from all these destructive addictions. Maybe I'm just being melodramatic. I don't know. In the immortal words of Hamlet,

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I just want to run and hit people. ):

Melancholic Munch

2011-08-04T09:17:00.003+08:00

Rainy days are for sleeping. Really.

And I über late for work cause of the rain. Thank God for a nice boss.

Also, it really sucks when the only thing on my mind this morning is the one thing I shouldn't be thinking about.

No, it is not sex. Yes, it is someone.

A rare snippet into my daily life on this blog. Be grateful.

Ship Shape

2011-07-30T00:09:00.001+08:00

We are but prisoners of this insipid race,
on fetid boats that scour the seven seas,
sailing across tepid waters for a taste
of what is, what was, of what will never be.

Hard at the oars, row,row, row, row,
'faster!' screams the sordid midshipman,
driving whip into bone, much pain to sow.
there is no sight for hope, no island.

Here, out at water, moon pushes tide,
so seize the sails, all hands on deck,
a little bee flies around the side,
staring out at empty sea to check

for a ray of turbulent hope,
amidst endless hollow water,
we should be sailing proud, yet
sipping secretly, demoralised by the spirit.

So push on me hearties and fly the Jolly Roger!

One of those tired days

2011-07-28T17:57:00.002+08:00

I've had one of those days where you one of those annoying rock songs on unrequited love gnaws your soul, while you drag your feet through the various treacherous activities of the day, tugging at some stubborn cardiac muscle lost in a ventricle somewhere that just won't let go.

Then like any good soldier ant, marching on carrying more than it's weight back to the hive of circumstance.

2011-07-28T00:42:00.002+08:00

Sometimes you just feel really alone left to your insecurities and obscure futures.

Response to relativism.

2011-07-27T14:02:00.001+08:00

In referral to this: http://www.catholicnews.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6339:viewpoints-use-pulpit-to-address-controversial-issues&catid=278:july-17-2011-vol-61-no-14&Itemid=79#comment-570

I'd like to thank refer Mr Au for his objective comments on the 12th of July, 2011.

In his comment, Mr Au implies that the key to deciding the morality of an action is based one's viewpoint and the semantics that define it. His example of abortion states that one side views abortion as murder as 'not a statement of fact but of value, of belief,…of judgement where inference becomes judgement' while the other position is a 'statement of what ought to be'. He treads dangerously in relativism in his suggestion.

If one follows the concepts of relativism, then, there can be no absolute fact from which to base our arguments on. Wrong can be right in one person’s eyes and this becomes a valid viewpoint as it has to be accepted since there is be no fact, only belief. Without this objective and factual absoluteness of fact to rely on, there is no morality in society, since there is no absolute right or absolute wrong.

An action, regardless of the semantics used to define it, or the beliefs held by another is still an action. Once committed, it cannot be taken back, it has become fact. These actions will, according to natural law, have consequences. These also become fact. If the pebble falls into a pond, there will be the consequence of a splash and ripples in the water. Regardless of disbelief, or viewpoint, the fact that the action of the falling pebble and the consequence of the splash and ripples is absolute. Simply put, no matter how much you believe and tell yourself that you believe that no ripple or splash will occur, it will occur. Also, if the action has moral consequence attached to it, it can either be described as evil or good. If the action has an evil consequence, it is an evil action, as it will cause evil, regardless of the intent.

Thus, the three examples, which Mr Au argued for, are without a doubt evil. Abortion is the direct surgical destruction of the unborn child. It is murder of one completely innocent and defenseless. One cannot murder an innocent child without consequences. Many women and their partners have been shown to suffer from Post Abortion Syndrome, a post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes their lives to destructively out of control.

Pornography makes men and women objectify each other, and turns the marital act into a plaything, to be enjoyed whenever one wants without fearing the consequences. Research shows that it causes the breakup of marriages, creates unrealistic expectations and makes one unsatisfied with what is normal and healthy, causes one to seek out abnormal behaviours to gratify oneself. The extreme consequence is to become a serial killer or rapist.

Same-sex marriage makes a mockery of Holy Matrimony and of the family. Allowing the floodgates of Same-sex marriage in society to open will soon create a hole that will allow gay adoption to thrive. Such an evil imposes on society the need for ‘equality’ in their adoption processes, allowing children who could be adopted by the childless heterosexual couples, to be adopted by a couple who cannot fully provide for the emotional development of a child. Studies show that children need both a male father and a female mother to thrive ideally. Furthermore, they also show that a child raised by homosexuals is more 7 times more likely to have a non-heterosexual sexuality and more likely to experiment sexually in adolescence. The nice ‘equality’ is great from the couple, but does nothing but ill to the poor child.

Similarly, we all have souls regardless of whether we believe that we do or not. When we die, we shall be judged and our soul will either go to heaven or hell to await the last day where it shall be reunited with our bodies. Our souls require nourishment and care, moreover, they can be injured through evil actions. When the evil action committed is a grave one and down with full intent and understanding, such as abortion, it is called a mortal sin, and like a mortal wound destroys our soul’s connection with God and prevents it from receiving salvation. Even small acts of evil can accumulate and become mortal.

We are lucky that we as members of the Church founded by Christ, that we escape the hell and eternal damnation through frequent reception of the sacraments, namely confession and communion. However, those who do not believe do not have access to these same sacraments and place themselves in great danger.

Therefore, such evils must be proclaimed and condemned publically by the Church, who is our only hope against evil because that is what she was commissioned by Christ to do. If she is silent, society will suffer. And when she speaks, it is with the truth. The truth does not impose, it merely is, it presents itself and allows for one to believe in it. When faced with the truth, one is innately drawn to it. That is the way the Church has always acted, she has told the good news and the truth and allowed people to make their minds up for themselves. One cannot have faith and understand it without being able to think.

Evil, on the other hand, imposes untruth on society, it seduces with sweet words and tells you what you want to hear, then forces you do what it wants. The legalisation of abortion while seemingly noble in it’s intent in respecting women’s rights has destroyed respect for life in general. Now pregnancies are treated as an inconvenience instead of a joyous celebration; people have become more selfish in society, instead of being blessed with the gift of bring forth life, they choose to have it ripped from their wombs in a most inhumane manner. It removes responsibility from people in society.

Hence, regardless of public opinion, the Church must speak out against evil, otherwise the devil’s laughter will flood hell as he fills it up. Without the voice of the Church, society has no hope.

New Poems.

2011-07-19T23:51:00.004+08:00

They all sound horrid, really.

White Queen
Everywhere I walk, you seem to build castle walls in my face.
High, looming towers across the black and white plains.
You hide there too, beautiful, up in the highest place

While your horses gallop past with their knighted lords,
seeking out many an enemy or some spritely foe,
with which to slay with their mighty swords,

Or perhaps, with cold stare and silent conversation.

So, I hide away here in the black tall grass
and watch you from so very far away.
Your smiles, and sorrows I long to share and grasp,

But your bishops say 'no' with an excommunicating stare.
I have never understood these prelates of yours,
With their slanted thinking in black and white, of ill-gotten cause.

Their reach was frightening and they travelled very far,
so, I hid from them too and stared out at you from castle walls.
It would seem that every step I take shall require much thought.

How strange, for I had only one quest:
to deliver you a flower with my heart on it's petalled breast.
O, how the crescent moon reminds me of you.

But I am a trained soldier, and so continue to seek,
through the monotone grasslands with my tarnished crown,
that my quest and Triumph shall soon meet.

(It seems such a foolish play on my part,
but alas, a stubborn fool I am.
So, now in mud and forest I shall have to creep.)

I shall take my time to cross each square, one by one.

The Finch

Fly, fly little finch,
away from Mister Darwin's reach.
He intends to sack you with other birds
and hold you in his keep.

You shall be the loam with which
he will thunderously preach;
the cornerstone of your Creator's fatal sleep.

How, a century more, and stuffed
upon a shelf you'll see, out of jewelled eyes, one
Mister Dawkins exaggerating beyond your finder's speech.

And your Creator shall look down
upon the Society, and
sigh and weep.

I Hate That You Are Still My Greatest Muse

I hate that you are still my greatest muse.

The long forgotten laughter now pervades the air,
drifting up into the clouds like a balloon.
Your sweet smile beams like sunshine rare;
out of breath, I gasped for it all afternoon.

Drowning in this desert drought of hopelessness,
like a salvage diver seeking great treasure --
uninspired and mouldy sunken ships sit timeless.
These very words are a water burial assured.

Together forever in these depths of deep,
Chased constantly by seductive angler fish
only to put on that ugly mask you keep
to avoid being someone else's side dish.

(There is no reprise for the wicked, no chance for sleep.)

I hate that you are still my greatest muse.

2011-06-28T01:14:00.003+08:00

Lonely Boy
Black Lab

you say
you like to sleep alone
and i say
I miss the way you breathe
you say
I get away with murder
but you know i've paid for hurting
someone i cant leave behind

Do you feel something
pulling you back in
do you see something
you wanna see again
i could be the one
i could make it up to you
take me back, im the lonely boy who
who loves you

you say
my broken heart becomes me
I say
I'd sell it cheap to you
you say
I should
wrap all the lies i've told in
10 dollar bills and smoke the
money doesnt burn so clean

Do you feel something
pulling you back in
do you see something
you wanna see again
I could be the one
I could make it up to you
take me back, I'm the lonely boy who
who loves you
(x2)

Poems as of late.

2011-06-21T14:42:00.003+08:00

Glorified Butcher

Hold it like a pencil.
(index finger there.)
Be sure and steady,
(have confidence lad!)
Make the cut, follow the lines.
(that's a boy!)
Retract the layer.
(now cut through all the meat.)
Skrt! Skrt! Skrt!
(watch the nerve!)
Insert the plate,
(almost done.)
Stitch her up.
(now mop up the blood.)

Emo Nemo

Emo Nemo sat by the beach and he died.
The cops ruled it plausible suicide.
No fish, they'd reckoned could have tried
To pass their day without water passing through their sides.
If you don't get this, I might have sighed,
Though, I'd much rather commit your homicide.

2011-06-21T00:45:00.000+08:00

My heart still flutters and I get excited when you come into view, even though I don't want to see you. I am truly defective.

Speech

2011-06-02T01:03:00.000+08:00

[Author's note: I wrote this down on the night of the 17th, though I floundered for awhile on whether to publish it, since it reveals that I actually express emotions and feelings. Yea, bet you didn't know that. Now that my masculinity has been destroyed, my robot masters will have a few words or zeros and ones to say to me. see you in the afterlife!]

My dearest friends,

Today was my birthday. Today, I intended with the most sincere misanthropy possible to conceal this fact and to have a very blasé day. Fortunately, this plan of deception was completely sabotage by you lot. And I’m almost got away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids. Damn you meddling kids!

So, after having my ordinary nondescript dinner hijacked by you kids and turned into a birthday function, and having to perform such stunts as attempting to ingest what must have been two and half humungous tablespoons of wasabi and having to come up with an impromptu speech. Oh, the audacity! Well, tonight you all learned that improv speeches aren’t one of the things that I do best, or good, or anywhere on that spectrum of positive quality. Improv comedy and spontaneity on the other hand….but that’s another story. So I thought I would pen down my thoughts in the form of a speech to thank you all for meddling in my life and you could pretend to read it as though I was saying it.

Today, I celebrate the twenty-third year of my existence, and the commemoration of my birth. I want to thank you all for coming down especially to have dinner with me in the middle of the week. I am truly grateful to you for taking the time to do last minute shopping and spend time with me.

I confess, that I kept quiet on the matter because I did not want to celebrate or mark the occasion with anything extraordinary. To do so would conjure up a mandatory reflection on the meaning of life and of the past and having to be fussed about the entire day. A regular day with brunch with my family and dinner with my second family would have been enough for me really. Yet, I must thank you all for stopping me from being so silly.

The truth is that I am a hypocrite. I remember writing a few years ago in a philosophically charged essay that the purpose and intent of a birthday was not for the indulgence or enjoyment of the birthday boy, that right has always been to the friends and family who so wish to celebrate this special occasion of the birth of someone, who had impacted their lives in some way or another at some point. To deny this celebration to people is a great travesty; it is essentially to deny the love of those people toward the aging child.

Of course, I am a very stubborn amateur philosopher who routinely attempts in vain to contradict one’s own theories though real life rebellion….but, I digress.

Having lived that very long period of twenty three years; starting while dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I can’t help but look and be in slight awe at the people who are sitting here at this table with me this evening. I am certainly not the easiest person to be friends with, stubborn, opinionated and decidedly argumentative and live in a well of vaguely obscure interests. I’m very grateful to have you all here with me today at dinner. For many of you, we’ve known each other for years and been through a great deal of things. You’ve been there for me throughout my crises in life, and I am very grateful to always count on your support, your very patient and listening ears and your advice and opinions throughout the last two decades and a bit. The very fact that I actually made it to university is a testament to your charity and love. For those who don’t know, I had a very turbulent and chaotic tour of academia, a learning disability, and repeated two years in a society that doesn’t tolerate failure. If it weren’t for you lot catching me every time I fell, I wouldn’t know where I’d be or how many bones I would have broken. Possibly, the prison infirmary of the Death Star.

For my recently acquired friends, I promise you, you won’t get bored. I owe Trouble a great debt and she’s been hounding me ever since.

I owe you all a debt too, that of gratitude, for reminding me of my selfishness to appear nonexistent in society, a feat I guarantee many of you great unbelievers and skeptics is not difficult to pull off despite my large stature. I am trained in the great ways of the white ninja clan of the planet Sakura VI, believe it or not. It is, however, an important reminder about how difficult it is to allow oneself to be loved. Certainly, that vulnerability is not easy to slip into, especially in an age where independence is so highly valued. Being loved is difficult, whereas loving is easier. St Peter realized that when he had his feet washed by his God and master and teacher.

I have experienced the same situation before during a church camp where we were given the opportunity to wash our friends’ feet. What an experience that was! Serving people is pretty easy, and washing people’s grubby feet can actually be quite a joy, and you never even think about the dirt on their feet or what not. Being served on the other hand, it was embarrassing, especially to have the seniors sit you down and start cleaning your feet. You feel the whole world is watching you and sit there awkwardly as they lovingly poor water over your feet and lovingly massaging out the dirt and wipe them with a towel. The gratitude and emotion that pours over you is overwhelming.

That is power of love. It is such a great desire and conviction that emanates from within and fills you. It is not something one chooses to do. No. One cannot fully choose to love, it is a divine gift from above, for the simple reason that all love comes from God and because God is love. And, today you have loved me, and I am truly touched and blessed to have you as friends. I pray that you may never lose your charity.

This year also begins a new chapter in my life and in the lives of many of us. I am finally going to university. Some of us are finishing up university, some of us have started work. Some of us have even moved into the workplace. This is certainly going to be an exciting year and I’m glad that I have you on board for the ride. The truth is that I’m filled with a great many conflicted feelings about this new chapter. Going away is both exciting as it is upsetting.

I can’t imagine going on for several months without seeing any of your faces and having a good laugh over the incredulity of life or shooting some zombies or terrorists. It’s been difficult to have a few of you leave for greener pastures and the remainder of you with your school and other commitments make you rather inaccessible. Yes, it’s also evident that I have too much free time and am in clear want and need of employment. Yet, I am rather excited to be going to another country, living in cold winter and the opportunity to slice up dead bodies, and I promise to share a great many stories with you regarding the latter. The school has a horrid academic calendar planned with not enough holiday time, but I guess schools don’t really like the idea of holidays. You can almost imagine the teachers going, ‘What?! Students on break already!? But we haven’t tortured and whipped them enough! Look! The blood on my table is starting to congeal…I need fresh failures…I mean specimens.’

Yet, I am one step closer to making my lifelong dream a reality. For this, I cannot be more grateful to you, my dearest friends and my most lovely parents, and for this, I cannot be more excited. I will not deceive; it is going to be a long and arduous trek into the biohazardous woods governed by Asclepius and Apollo. My parents have already prepared me for it. Their never ending reminders of the grave evils of alcohol and glorious punishment that awaits all medical students has certainly been very encouraging. I’ve also been made to promise that I will spend all my time studying, every minute and ever second. I think that after hearing about the evils of drink, I might take them up on their offer. Maybe just after this pint of Guinness…

However, whatever mountain awaits me will be more than bearable because I know that I shall be able to count your friendship. I know every now and then when I lose my footing and fall, one of you will pop by in a flying saucer and cheer me on like before. Or perhaps, I was imagining ET. And when one of my professors begins to get all pissy, Bowen will lend me his Vatican Death Squad of Albino Opus Dei monks (trademarked, Mr D. Brown). It will certainly be a delightful time.

I do ask for one thing of you; apart from your most kind prayers, that you will allow me to return you the favour from time to time. I shan’t be able to survive the cold winter even with imaginary leprechauns to keep me company if you will not keep me privy to your adventures and misadventures. So you know what to do.

Anyway, as you’ve probably learnt by now, I can be a very long-winded when I speak. I personally blame it on all the Victorian literature that I wolf down, but I don’t think I shall escape your pitch folks and torches with that excuse, so I shall now conclude.

I want to thank each and every one of you again for making my birthday a very special one this year. It has been a great pleasure to have each of you as trusted companions on life’s road. I hope that all of us will have a most prosperous year with many blessings from God. Lastly, I hope that you shall all become extremists and I shall now leave you with a quote from St Philip Neri, which is my motto for the year.

‘If you wish to go to extremes, let it be in sweetness, patience, humility and charity.’ – St Philip Neri

With much love,
David
Feast of St Paschal Baylon
17th May 2011

Midnight Random Surprise Supper

2011-05-31T23:25:00.002+08:00

It was always such a typical scenario at the House of Thio, then one doesn't get surprised anymore. Walk into the living room, greet God-mummy, and she replies with, 'Hi dear, you're just on time, now cook.' And before your know it, Bob's your uncle and you're flipping sausages, bacon and eggs in the kitchen.

These sausage, bacon and eggs are typically followed by humourous and joyful conversation and much discourse about anything under the sun. What is a family without laughter? Obviously a very boring one.

I shall miss my second home very much while I'm away.

misanthropic much.

2011-05-17T00:12:00.002+08:00

I don't feel like doing much today, or being anyone or anything real. I just wish the earth would swallow me up. Today seems like a waste of my time.

I don't really want to recall or remember the events of yesteryear though they swim through my brain vividly. there's nothing left anymore. I don't know. feeling so misanthropic. I turned that segment of facebook. I'd turn off facebook but i want all my links.

Maybe today will be but a dream. I can wake up tomorrow in Oxford, late for clinicals. Maybe Kiera knightly would've made me waffles for breakfast. Hey, I'm still dreaming right?

Bees

2011-05-15T19:02:00.002+08:00

Bees are annoying creatures. They molest plants and steal sweet nectar and facilitate plant copulation. YES, they make PLANT SEX happen. Disgusting creatures. I had one come bother me yesterday. I was busy, minding my own business, sharing with some young ones why communion in the hand was an evil creation, when one decided to come investigate my distal appendages for nectar. Rather uncomfortable experience with the honey making creature caressing one's digits in search for some non-existent sweet viscous liquid. I must have early-onset diabetes or something. Obviously, this rather petulant behaviour on my part is due to the yellow and black jacketed creature's unwitting reminder of another sort of homophone.

A year ago, another sort of Bea fluttered around me, and that was a rather great day. I didn't really want to remember that day, though I do. I don't know what happened to the Bea, perhaps she flew overseas. I don't know.

365 days ago.

Happy Feast of St Jean-Baptiste de La Salle

Beauty.

2011-04-27T02:11:00.002+08:00

I remember I wrote this a year ago. A friend's blog made me remember it

Dear Friends,

Love Undefiled has a very nice video link today. The video, titled ‘Killing Us Softly 3’, a talk by Jean Kilbourne on the presentation of women in the media and advertisements. While albeit a bit long at 35 minutes, she does provides very poignant and witty insights into the dehumanization and objectification of women in various media. Do give it a watch here. http://loveundefiled.blogspot.com/2010/08/killing-us-softly-show.html

Ms Kilbourne puts into words something which I have realized for a long time. As a photographer of many years, particularly one specializing in portraits, I have, over the years, more than noticed the trend that she points out. It is particularly more difficult to get my female friends to partake in a picture than the guys who would be racing to be the first to jump in front of the lens. It would appear that the professionalism associated with the big, black and bulky SLR that I used seemed to deter them greatly. They didn’t feel that they looked good enough to be in a professional photo. Pity, they looked good enough to me.

To me, and I daresay that I do not hold the same views as the majority of my sex, the most beautiful portraits I’ve ever seen were never the ones used for advertising, or the ones shot in a studio. No, I’ve actually always hated those photos. They’ve always appeared artificial, overly sexualized, immature and completely lacking in any meaning or intelligence. They’re lifeless. To be completely honest, and at the risk of my manhood (shhhhh!), I don’t particularly find the models extremely attractive or beautiful at all. If anything, they look fake. I’ve never bothered with Victoria’s secret catalogues or whatever it is my friends or bunkmates were into, and I’ve only ever bought one copy of fhm, to support a friend who modeled for a minor article, and save for that article (poorly written too, I might add), remains unread at the bottom of a box in a cupboard somewhere. I’m just strange that way.

The most beautiful portraits that I have ever seen feature everyday people of any age going about their lives, in everyday settings. They capture the true character of a person, who they are really are in that split second that the shutter opens. They are usually sans make-up or purposely posed in any manner. They celebrate life for everything it is. In every happy or sad moment, in times of anger, or calm, in reflection or grief, that is where life is captured. While this is possible in a studio, the best I’ve seen are always captured outside of the artificially created scene, in natural light, with the living world as a backdrop. Truly, they are a celebration of life.

I’ve always felt that it is possible to take a beautiful picture of anyone; no matter how they look or what age they are or even if they have a huge mole on their nose. Naturally, I also prefer that they are without make up. I guess you could say I like to capture people as God desired me to see them, which requires looking a bit deeper than the epidermis. It requires you to see the child of God. After all, we know that God is love, and love is beautiful. Since God creates with love, what he creates can only be beautiful.

Beauty, my dear friends, is out there in the world, it’s in the faces of everyone, beyond their skin. It’s their identity, their personality, who they are that makes them beautiful. And, it’s up to you to stop and have a look around you. The ageing lady, pushing her ancient wheelchair bound husband around the playground, the young children laughing and creating their own new worlds in the park, the family going out for dinner or the young couple enjoying a quiet walk along the pier. The beauty is all there, if you want to see it or not. And, when you see that beauty, you’ll get a glimpse of God.

So remember kids, especially the girls, you are beautiful!

God bless,
David

I suppose this image sums what I like in my photographs. It exudes a sort of beauty that isn't just derived from looks. There's something about the way they look in harmony with each other, and the joy that they have that make them beautiful. I see God in them. Being the awkward teenagers they are, they probably don't see it themselves. Pity.

2011-04-13T00:22:00.002+08:00

I OPENED MY MAILBOX TO FIND THIS

OH MY TYRANOSAURUS. I AM GOING TO BE A MEDIC :D :D :D :D: :D

DEO GRATIAS!

Confessions of church militant.

2011-03-21T03:30:00.002+08:00

I used to be a church militant. I discovered the truth regarding the horrible events surrounding the controversial second Vatican council and I was filled with fire. I was changed, suddenly I knew the important of the mass and traditions. Suddenly, I saw the flippancy with which the blessed sacrament was handled and the lack of awareness. I grieved about the traditions that were stolen from me. I was fueled with anger over the absence of an identity that was truly catholic. And, I was filled with fire to do something.

It is very common for this to happen, especially to one's who can see. Trads are usually a tough a bunch, who in real life are used to being the odd one out and having the drive to push forward when we know the truth. Combining that with a hot head who loves to argue and you've got a very explosive militant waiting to take off a few heads. I fought hard and I lost to a monster wave called popularity. I am very thankful that it was only a phase, because suddenly, I found out that there were better ways, softer ways, gentler ways to put the message across. One doesn't always need to be slapped hard in the face to break out of hysteria. In fact, most of the time, talking gently and softly is far more effective.

I look at the way I dealt with things in church now and the way I handled them in the past. There is a complete contrast. Last year, I fought hard to teach the new ones to take up the full fast. This year, I realised, it would be a long time before they decide to take up the proper fast. They need to explore these modern ideas of 'choosing' what to give up for lent, to see if they can do a childish fast before they take on a mature one. Before, I'd have corrected all the misconceptions that others would spout. This year, I realised, that correcting them would be futile. They hadn't reach that level of understanding yet. I have very high standards with what I think should be taught and what should be expected. I'm glad that I no longer try to hold everyone to those same standards. It would be futile and pointless until they were ready. I hope I'm improving.

I regret the whole of last year. I steadily rose in my militant stance from January and peaked in June before I started to tone down. I regret it so much because of all the people I offended in that journey. There was no need. There are always other more peaceful means. I regret that I let her see me so stubborn and so deranged and I'm pretty sure that was a factor. I don't regret what I've learned though. The truth is after all still the truth. What must be done correctly is simple and should be done.

Baby steps....baby steps.

The Truth.

2011-03-21T01:01:00.002+08:00

There is a saying that 'the truth hurts' and indeed it does. The truth when laid out before you, strips you down of all your delusions of grandeur, or all the masks that hide the scars, of all the scars that hide the skin, and so you stand there, naked, as you are, in all you are. Naked, vulnerable, exposed. The truth is plain and bare. And when you're exposed like that suddenly, for the truth usually comes fast and quick, it is like an explosion and it hurts.

Preparing for interviews, completing university admissions forms and thinking about contingency plans are painful and torturous tasks. They remind me of all my failures and regrets in my first tour of academia. Having to constantly prove oneself and still find some confidence behind the shame of a lousy record. I guess, I'll always be lugging some baggage on my shoulders until the end.

I am very blessed to know so many people who were willing to help me prepare for my interview! Blessed especially to know the people I know. A former head of HR in a major bank. A bio tutor who's well versed in these interview questions. A medical student who's willing to take time off to meet with me. Not to mention all the advice people have been giving me. I'm very thankful to have you all in my life.

It is not surprising, being a medical school interview, that 'be truthful' is the most common advice that I received. Truth is an important facet in a doctor's life. His career, his vocation is built around it. The search for the truth in diagnosis followed by it's transition into the patient's hands. Trust is built on the integrity that flows from truth. And that trust is so crucial. If a doctor lies to patient, the patient is no longer capable of making proper decisions that will affect their bodies. Granted they are exceptions in extreme circumstances, it is something that certainly shouldn't be commonplace. However, medicine is a very competitive course and everyone wants to get in. In fact, you need to be the best of the best to get a place. Perfect grades, et cetera. The interview is the first of many. It's essentially a job interview and you need to make them want you.

Hence, I was surprised when preparing for the interview with a friend, the question of 'how many other offers have you received' came up and I was told to lie. With my lousy grades, getting other interviews is a miracle, and I know I can have flexible morals and lie if it suited me. (I'm not a serial liar, however I am willing to do so if necessary), yet somehow it seemed wrong particularly in this case to lie. Just wrong.

He cajoled further, 'if you want to get in, you'll have to lie.' And he had a point. After all, the point of the interview is selling yourself to the university. Why should they want you if noöne else did? You're immediately labelled as a reject and that spells defective. Why would anyone want to take you on then? How difficult can it be? Just to say '3' and give names. They can't check, universities don't reveal that information. It's acting after all, pretending to be someone else, putting on a mask and becoming that person for a short period of time...so simple. I'm an actor after all.

Yet, I couldn't. I couldn't from the start. I couldn't reconcile it, no matter how much I turned and twisted it around in my head. The decision was obvious. I would be honest. I cannot build a career whose foundation is lies on the truth with a cornerstone that is a lie.

Then the uneasy few hours past between that preparation and the interview the next day. I hoped that they wouldn't ask that question. They didn't, though they asked something similar, they asked 'why did you pick this college?'. And I told them the truth. That I was out of options and that if I wanted to do medicine, I would have to choose this college and that I knew it was a good college even if it wasn't highly graded and it didn't require straight As. I'm lucky to have found a decent and good medical school that I qualified for and that had churches that I could attend. (I didn't mention the churches though)

I know the consequences of such a response. I can only prayer and hope that they do not see me in a negative light.

St Patrick, pray for me!

2011-03-18T11:44:00.005+08:00

it is two hours to my interview, my heart is racing, my eyes are shifting and scanning the entire room. I can't say if I'm prepared enough or if I'll actually get it. I think the only thing left is to soldier up and march on. I pray that I'll give the right answers. I pray that I'll be able to speak eloquently as I usually do. It's still St Patrick's Day in the US. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. The interview is with the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.

St Patrick was born in Roman Britain, but was captured at the age of 16 by a raiding party and brought to Ireland. There he turned to God in prayer and he later escaped captivity when he had a dream from God and was reünited with his family. He later had another dream where the people of Ireland were calling out to him, 'we beg you holy youth to come walk among us once more.' He was then ordained and went on to convert many people. He used a shamrock to describe the trinity to the Irish, hence the symbol.

He also wrote the famous hymn known as 'St Patrick's Breastplate', composed by him in preparation for his victory over paganism.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop [deck],
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

Things I may have left out.

2011-03-13T19:52:00.004+08:00

Diagnosis in medicine is like a great detective game. You have all the symptoms as your evidence and the many diseases or afflictions as your suspects. All the pieces fit together like a puzzle and then you need to take care of it.

I may have 'Rubik's Complex'

Interviews...

2011-03-13T19:52:00.001+08:00

I am in the midst of preparing for a medical school interview. God knows, I almost never thought I’d actually be here. I’m actually almost at a lost for words and that is an almost impossible feat. I’m anxious and nervous and worried that I won’t find the right words, or worst, the right examples to substantiate the qualities in the stories I’m supposed to recant for the interview panel. At this point, I’m wondering what was scarier, my DEP audition or this interview? Will I sound convincing enough? Enthusiastic enough? Confident enough? Calm enough? Intelligent enough? Will I go into game face and become emotionless and keep too detached a tone? Will I over do it?

I guess in doing everything for the first time, there is that element of fear of the unknown, of failing, that grips you. Practice always helps, but practice is always in a controlled environment, and when you’re in the field, anything and everything can go wrong. That’s Murphy’s Law. Once you clear that initial attempt, everything becomes easier. That fear of failing diminishes significantly. It will never completely disappear, but then it becomes minimal and recedes to the back of the mind.

I think the biggest question that grips me is not so much illustrating what a qualities a good doctor must possess or whether I can demonstrate a distinct sense of moral clarity. I think my biggest question is the perennial one: Why do you want to be a doctor?

There is certainly no end to the variations of answers that could be given for this question. There are a myriad of patterns that can be observed from the various reasons I’ve heard over the years, yet each one is individual and personal and never simple. One doesn’t simply sign up to spend the next decade in extensive and tedious training without first knowing what one is getting into.

On my part, it is essentially a combination of three factors: growing up in a family of doctors, my great love of science and interest in medical science and my equally great desire to help people.

I am from a family that has produced three generations of doctors. My parents are both doctors, as were my grandparents and my great grandfather as well (his wife was a nurse). Being from a family of doctors, I have, from day one, been submerged into the world of medicine. From being taken along to clinics or to the hospital while my parents tended to patients or went on rounds to watching my grandfather leave the house at all hours to deliver babies to enjoying the privilege of having very patient relatives would are willing to explain all my curious questions about medicine, biology, disease and drugs. As a result, I am fully aware of the both the positive and negatives sides of the career. I truly believe that despite the difficult life of being on call or the long long years of study and necessity of being the perpetual student, the chance to help a sick person get better and to make a difference in their lives is fully rewarding and that the ability to do this with science makes it even more so.

I also have a great love of science, particularly medical science. Being a naturally curious boy, I was always interested in learning how things worked and looking for explanations for naturally occurring phenomena. I loved learning science in primary school and when I had the opportunity in secondary school I jumped at the opportunity to obtain higher level material. I was reading and understanding O level sciences at the age of fourteen. Biology was of particular interest to me and I loved finding out how living things worked. Living things were always a mystery compared to machines, with all their parts that were specifically put there by the genius engineers, which is still fascinating, however, living things have that random factor. Machines can’t suddenly grow cancer or react to different environments, they work the way they are supposed to, unlike living things.

The more I learned about biology, the more I devoured it, and as I started to learn about the human body I was ensorcelled and entranced. The way everything worked is amazing. For example, I amazed at how in pregnancy, from the point of conception whereby a single cell is formed from the fusion of the gametes divides and grows in a sack within the uterus of a mother over a period of nine months to produce a full baby. At every step, the development is just precious and mindboggling. How the mother’s immune system doesn’t destroy what is now a foreign cell and how every system gets affected. Or the various stages of skin repair, the inflammatory to the proliferative to the epitheliation to maturation. I’m just fascinated. I love to learn and be challenged in new ways.

With regards to helping people, I was brought up from young to always help those who are in need and as I grew up, I realize that it is something I honestly enjoy doing. Medicine is the only field that I can think of that will allow me to help people on a daily basis and have the opportunity to see the effects of my work. My grandmother always used to quote the anonymous physician who said that doctors should ‘cure sometimes, relief often and comfort always.’ And that is sometime I have seen on every attachment that I have been on, the majority of patients leave the doctor’s room with a look of relief and comfort on their faces. And this, to me, is very rewarding.

Hence, the opportunity to daily combine these two great interests of mine as a career is most appealing and I am enthusiastically hoping to explore this. Furthermore, the long training and intellectual rigour of medicine provide an ideal platform to challenge and push myself further. It’s a like a large and very long puzzle and I enjoy putting the pieces together.

Lost At Sea

2011-02-23T22:52:00.001+08:00

I thought I caught a glimpse of you today,
locked away in the corner of my eye,
that pretty face that used to haunt the bay,
and watch the sunset from her window.

I can't remember when, or where or why.
distracted by the clouds, sand and seabeds.
I thought I heard you heave a sigh or cry,
to ponder at my sudden coming by.

Was it at the park that I saw such weary eyes?
They gleamed despite their tired shine.
Or maybe the back of a room, on a bench
in the park, in the corridor, hospital or church,

I can't decide. Oh Doctor! Doctor!
would you please, if you please,
could you, maybe, cauterise my heart?
Then, I wouldn't think of you so much.

Valentine's Day

2011-02-15T01:27:00.002+08:00

I hate this day. Whatever I do, it always reminds me of how old I am, how alone I am, and how alone I will be. Solus sum, semper solus.

This year, I did something that I hopefully won't regret. I got you something. I was looking for catharsis from what happened last year. A small tinge of hope for a change of heart perhaps. All ideas that from practical viewpoint, from a strategical viewpoint are completely ridiculous ideas. Alas, if the heart was only logical.

I hope you enjoy the gift. I hope you like it. It's something fun to do, when you're with someone, just to pass the time and enjoy life. I hope you use it and don't throw it away immediately. I hope you read the letter, after all, that was the whole point of this charade. I hope you don't repel in digust, I hope you don't overreact, I hope you don't avoid me forever. I just wanted you to know perhaps. So I hope you write back, then I can have a peaceful mind and a calm heart.

Perhaps, perhaps, I can move on.

Today, I decided to lie in bed as long as possible. The day wasn't worth my attending. What ever needed to be done could wait until tomorrow. I didn't achieve that though. Some friends banged on my door at a quarter to four. Nice friends.

I shall mope around for a bit. It's difficult to let go, at least for me, I'm so stubborn, I can never let go of anything. I hoard things, that's why my room is cluttered. I have my entire life in boxes in cupboards and on my shelves. A little bit here and a little bit there. I don't need a diary, these things remind me of everything.

Maybe tomorrow I shall go write some poems. :/

I hate this day.

Chingay

2011-02-15T00:50:00.002+08:00

I spent the start of my weekend doing something fun. I took part in my first and probably last Chingay Parade. The street parade is an annual affair that celebrates the Chinese new year and involves many floats and performers. If you are a dancer from a fairly decent school, you'd probably have participated in it at least once. I unfortunately, still have two left feet, so I took part in another way, which of course is with my buddies from the 501st Legion of Storm Troopers. The 501st also known as Vader's Fist, is a fan initiated non-profit organisation that does charity work such as visiting children with the Make-A-Wish foundation or helping out with the SPCA's donation drives and the such.

I am Darth Vader for the Singapore Garrison. It is always a thrilling experience to don the armour and put on the helmet of the greatest Sith Lord. Being Vader is probably the only acting that I've got a chance to do since leaving drama in 06 (I am dying to get involved in a production somewhere). I think I make a pretty decent Vader even if I don't get to do the voice. The fans don't notice, they're happy with just getting a quick photo in. heh.

There is something magical about donning the helmet and slipping into the character. I connect so much with Vader's troubled, twisted and dark past. The regal stance and purpose with which he walks. This grasp of anger and power in his trademark gesticulations. The mask adds another level. Walking around as Vader brings about mixed feelings in people, especially the children. Some are completely terrified, some are excited, almost all are mystified.

Being Vader isn't as fun as being the other characters, like the storm troopers. The troopers can be as goofy as they like because that's what they are in the movies. They have no characterisation. Me, on the hand, I have feel the need to remain true to character. There is this respect for him and for the fans that requires me to keep that magic there. I don't get to wave at people or generally be friendly, which is a bit sad, but I do get a deep thrill at evoking people's childhood memories. It makes their day, I bet, in some surrealistic manner.

The parade itself was cool. I generally hate being in parades. Too long and too much logistics. I remember the few parades that I took part in the army. I hated practicing for them, but there was always this sense of pride when they were actually happening. This smartness of the march and of the uniform. The whole looking sharp. I don't know. Chingay was certainly more slack than a military parade, though I wish we had done a bit more fun things, alas. Haha it was still awesome.

This post is probably going around in circles, alas, that is the curse of the ADHD mind. Also it was more of a short reflection and rant anyway. Being Vader is always awesome. Always.

2011-02-14T19:52:00.002+08:00

I wrote the poem below for someone special. I hope she happens to cross this space today and reads it.

moon.

2011-02-14T19:44:00.002+08:00

The sweet crescent moon

reminds me of your eyes,

upon whose lunar beds

they both lie.

Those clear dark gems so

sharp, they pierce the sky.

Beautiful and round,

deep portals of your soul,

against their pale and flawless

canvas do they glow.

Ever so radiant,

so gentle and so kind,

Eyes belonging to one

who will ne'er be mine.

Nostalgia.

2011-02-10T22:03:00.006+08:00

I just cleaned up my room. I haven't cleaned it properly since 2006 I think. (save for intermittent attempts to clear my desk for new things to place on it. This is what it looked like before I started to clear things at about 9pm last night.

Just so we're clear. This is not completely a mess. This is what is known as an organized mess. Read: ORGANIZED. I know exactly where everything is, unless someone rearranged it for me. Don't you just hate when people mess with your mess? Below is a picture of things nearing the halfway point.

It amuses me, that as you clean and rearrange things, everything becomes exceedingly messier. There was a point where I had to make great big lunges to cross from one end of the room to the other. Everything on my table was left there since A levels. That wasn't so hard to store and arrange. It was everything on another shelf and everything under my desk that made keeping and tossing things so difficult. I uncovered things that dated all the way back to 2002 when I first moved into this little apartment, when we moved into the house. And as I was packing my collection of shoeboxes, I found things all the way back to primary school.

It is really difficult to go back a decade and dig through one's life. For me at least. I don't keep a diary, I keep things. I did try once, but it didn't really work out. I'm not one to mark done daily events, I write reflections and if I can drag my lazy arse to do it. Hence, you can see, I have already failed to put in a daily entry into this thing, and when I did, they were mostly one liners. Twitter is more effective for one-liners, and it's transient.

I found all sorts of really weird things as I was sorting things. A collection of chinese essays by ACJC students. I figure most of the contributors are the girls. I found my first O level cert, and my entry proof for the second time that I did Os. Looking back at my, I am quite the academy failure. I don't particularly enjoy that period of time. Mountains to perpetually climb and hurdle to constantly overcome. I'm still out there in blistering winter attempting to scale this peak and I wonder if I'll ever get there. Cold and numb.

The hardest part about cleaning my room is finding all my correspondence across the years. I keep all the letters I've ever received in a shoebox. I also keep all the invitations to weddings, wedding programmes and all the shows I've ever watched, but the letters are by far, the most important to me. Most of them are from the many camps I've facilitated across the years. Some of them from the camps that I attended. All of them are encouraging affirmations or thank you letters. And then I find a few of the real letters I've received and I see the people I drifted away from and I wonder what happened.

Letter writing is a gem, a beautiful art that is dying. I intend to keep writing letters and in flowery language the way they should be written. It's a pity that people only write letters nowadays as formal correspondence or requests, and it's amazing if they actually write. The advent of e-mail and computers and destroyed the art of penmanship and of letter writing. An e-mail can never have the same personal touch that a handwritten letter has. There is a part of the writer's soul in each and every stroke. From the scrawl of a doctor, to the careful neat font of a girl's, it's there. The text you read before you, however, is hard and cold.

I also found all the birthday cards my paternal grandparents have given me across the years. Without fail, I have one every year and I kept as many of them as I could. It was difficult looking at them and seeing the signature 'Love, Yeh Yeh and Mah Mah' become 'Love, Mah Mah'. I felt a deep knot in my throat as I thumbed through them. I really do miss my yeh yeh, and I pray that the lord has mercy on his soul. On a lighter note, I have most of the cards my parents gave me across the years too. It's amusing how they sign off, 'Love, mum and dad' in the most legible print possible, but whatever other writing they have is completely illegible. Sigh...doctors.

Looking back on all this, I've seen the way God has certainly given me many many chances and actually guided me to this point so far. If I didn't re-do Os, I'd have never gotten a science course of my choice in poly, and if I hadn't retained, I'd have never qualified for Medicine anyway...not that I do now. Having the opportunity, or rather being forced to take a more scenic route has allowed me to build up an excellent support system of friends and family and allowed me to deepen my faith and my knowledge of it. I'm still sore that I can't graduate along side my peers or that I'm pretty sure I'll always feel inferior for taking so long, but I don't regret taking this path. I just hope and pray that it really is in his plan for me to do medicine. It is a dream that has been dreamt for more than a decade.

At least, my life is slightly more organized now. See (10 hours later):

PS: that's my collection of textbooks and literature(worthwhile literature. all other rubbish is on another shelf) My biology textbooks are missing though. One is with a friend, and the other one on genetics I seem to have misplaced with someone ):

Yes, that's a VIAGRA pillow under my desk.

2011-02-06T23:42:00.001+08:00

Down Down Down
Mumm-Ra

When you won’t dance
our young hearts grieve
A strange light you cast
so come dance with me

If all I have
in ten years from now
are wasted memories
then I won’t be ashamed of what the
Hell were you thinking
standing so tall
I’m not conceding the rise and fall

In every room
I still look for you
I need more time
before I let go
is that such a crime?

I’ll just make sure I look so dead in your eyes
Don’t talk of stars in the sky
Just look down down down
Cos it’s always been this way
Yeah it’s always been this way
Yeah it’s always been this way
Yeah it’s always been this way

Quick rant.

2011-02-06T10:41:00.003+08:00

I'm very amused to see the Church featured in the local Sunday Tabloids today, for enforcing dress codes. The cynical bastard in me wishes to loquaciously lament on the fallen times of today, however such is a consequence of embracing the multifaceted ever-changing venomous hydra of modern liberalism. To reach a point whereby the local news scene actually took notice and published an article is a clear sign of the degradation of certain social values and concepts in society today. That and there is nothing newsworthy to report; after all Egypt is having a wonderful era of peace.

I think the biggest concept that the Singaporean Church has lost is the Sense of Sacred. If you are drawing a blank on the term, you are not alone. The idea of Sacredness has been lost in most churches for a very long time, so not many practicing Catholics actually have an idea of what it feels like to step into somewhere sacred. They cannot be blamed of course, who can fault these poor ignorant souls when churches no longer vaguely resemble churches save for the cross on the roof and the crucifix inside? Most churches nowadays look like multipurpose halls or the inside of aircraft hangars. Or when the music inside church seems so similar to the Laneway concert? Or attempts to be and ultimately fails. Let's face it, these musicians are rather talented and professional and they aren't trying to play religious music.

So when you think about it, it isn't really difficult to mentally come to conclusion that, 'Hey! i'm going to an aircraft hangar to listen to some guys who can't play as well as laneway! ALRIGHT! Let's dress appropriately!' Naturally, you are going to get people dressed like they're going to their friend's place for a beer. Yet, as we all know, these same young people...usually young people (most old people have a certain sense of class) will be dressed in suits and dresses for a wedding dinner or dress clothes to go for family dinners at restaurants. Of course, a wedding dinner is at a hotel and dinner in a restaurant call for class. There is an unspoken dress code and a way to carry oneself in these places. So why can't churches expect similar behaviour from people?

After all, more than just appeasing the older relatives and matriarchs and patriarchs of the family clan, and giving face the wedding couple and their family, when you go to Church, you are standing before God himself, and he is there in the eucharist (for noncatholics and those who've forgotten, YES, LITERALLY THERE. LITERALLY.) Most of you wonder dream of visiting the Queen in nothing less then your best clothes possible, so how can you go before the creator of the universe, your creator, dresses so flippantly as though he's just your next door neighbour?

I hope you see my point now. If I had my way, I would bring back 'Sunday's Best' for church. After all, when you love and respect someone, you want to look good when you see them. What more respect can you give your very creator? In fact, dressing well and modestly helps your fellows parishioners to concentrate and prayer better too, rather than be distracted. We're all human after all. In fact, in most examins of conscience, you will find under the 6th commandment, this typical question, 'Have I dressed immodestly? Been the occasion of sin for another?' See you're helping God by dressing well!

I'm very glad that they denied Ms Audrey Seow from receiving communion. Her comments regarding the matter that, 'We are taught that God loves us no matter what we are, so why should the church discriminate against our attire?' suggest that Ms Seow has also forgotten the criteria for communing, that she has to love God too. And to love God means to follow his rules and his will and not our's. Had she been attending a church that looked like a church, I'm certain that she'd have dressed appropriately.

Dress codes are far from the largest issue. If priests just made their churches look like churches again and if they brought back the beauty and elegance of the music and the architecture, they will see a change in dress. After all why should we aim so low? The point of going to church is to strive to new heights and become better people because we love God.

For further reading, I do direct you to an old piece by Msgr Charles Pope on modesty being reverence for the mystery http://blog.adw.org/2010/02/modesty-is-reverence-for-mystery/
and to Fr Longenecker's older entry on what churches should look like
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2010/01/chust-for-nice.html

Sacraments.

2011-02-01T01:29:00.001+08:00

I'm so lucky to have confession!

Trials

2011-01-26T01:12:00.001+08:00

There are many trials that besiege my life. I pray that God grant me patience to deal with them slowly and carefully.

2011-01-20T23:22:00.001+08:00

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

- Alexander Pope

2011-01-20T00:24:00.002+08:00

i wonder what is it that draws specific chemical pathways to fire those particular neurons within my sordid brain. a constant reminder, a picture, a picture, your visage forever in my head. task insurmountable, unattainable, unachievable. I miss you a lot, but i don't think you'd ever appreciate that.

Prayers please!

2011-01-19T00:21:00.002+08:00

I got rejected by one more university from the UK today. Three down, one to go. My fingers are tightly crossed. I'm getting rather desperate at this point.

Slow night.

2011-01-18T00:28:00.002+08:00

It is a very slow night for me. Barely half past twelve and I am already drifting off to sleep. The essay on selfish mothers is half done and will probably need editing, but I promise you will read it by the end of the week. I am still musing about this evening's conversations with Morgan and Till and I cannot wait to go to medical school.

Misanthropic much?

2011-01-16T01:36:00.003+08:00

Names are not imporant, only that the creature is an organic life-form capable of the highest order of neurological function. Creature comprises mostly of protein structures called 'meat', and also exhibits respiratory, cardiovascular and other functions, and as well as contains approximately 206 bones and is prone to constant mechanical failure. Creature also possesses emotional capabilities and which is theorized as the fault for constant neurological dysfunction and psychiatrical failure. Such symptoms, humourously, are misattributed by the creature to stem from their fluid pump located in the cavity of their upper thorax between their weak ballast tanks.

Creature is weak and pathetic, and extremely prone to impulsive and rash behaviour that results in mass extermination of their own kind, often by their own doing. In comparison to neighbouring fauna, creature is significantly physically weaker and slower and far less adept at camouflaging into their environment. However, it must be noted that creature possesses far greater intellectual prowess as compared to neighbouring fauna. Results, however, are skewed by creatures inhabiting a sub-continent flanked by the locally named Alantic and Pacific Oceans. Results were also skewed by other creatures in other habitats, though a far less significant amount.

Conclusion. It is with great amazement that the creature has managed to thrive and produce viable offspring until this point. However, the creature does not demonstrate capabilities of prolonging this struggle further. Recommendation: Artificially accelerated extinction.

--End Transmission--

2011-01-16T01:10:00.001+08:00

Equally important a realisation is not to blog when you're three quarters asleep. I edited the previous post at least three times to correct horrid phrasing and bad grammar.

Irony

2011-01-15T03:20:00.004+08:00

My life is fraught with irony. I have come to realize that despite my loyalty and love for ACS, the majority of the girls I've ever considered seriously going out with were from Raffles. That's 3 out 4.

Late Night ramblings

2011-01-13T23:56:00.002+08:00

Last night, in a successful procrastination bid on my work, the little insurgent devils of distraction made me watch two movies, The NeverEnding Story and Stardust. Both are movies of fantasy, where the protagonist finds himself reluctantly dragged into other worlds, and as with all tales of fiction, working against the odds to save the day.

The NeverEnding Story is a movie that all must watch. A little boy finds himself the possession of a magic book wherein his unknowing imagination controls the plot. The main theme of the loss of imagination is one shared with Toy Story 3, and evokes a strange fear of growing up. However, my ideas on dreams, imagination and true play shall be saved for another day. Those who have heard my theory know it is a rather lengthy one to explain. Today, I have other things to talk about.

Stardust is another movie that is worth watching. An adaption of Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name, it explores the magic of love, particularly the magic that one comes across seeking it. Yet, what interests me is not so much the main theme, or even the main character, however but one of the secondary ones, Captain Shakespeare.

The beloved Captain carries with him a fearsome reputation, one built up over the years. Known to his men as a bloodthirsty, cruel and heroic leader, he is truly soft at heart and a gentleman. It is with this that I feel truly shows his fearsome heroism. He fakes the captured Tristan’s death to save his life and takes Yvaine to his chambers to keep her away from the crew. In doing so, he then reveals that he gained his reputation without ever ‘spilling a drop of blood’, a feat far more difficult to achieve. His reputation is one borne clearly of love and not a lust for power.

It is this same love that makes him a great hero in the movie. Love draws people to each other, binds one squarely on the world. It is far more powerful than greed, lust, power, or fear that one can come up with. It is far harder to lead with love than it is to govern with the might of fear. The Captain’s leadership is clearly juxtaposed to that of the Princes, particularly Septimus, who faces off with the Captain in one scene. Septimus lusts for power, and in doing so, as the movie ends, he loses everything, including his life. Locked in a sordid tradition of having to slay his brothers for the throne, as the movie proceeds he is slowly stripped of everything and everyone around him. First his last few remaining blood relatives are murdered, then his men, and finally he is killed by, drowned by the Witches. His lust for power consumes him.

In contrast, the Captain’s sole desire is to give as much as he can. A closet homosexual and cross-dresser, he is reputation is superficial. With love, he teaches Tristan to be a gentleman and protects Yvaine’s identity, keeping her safe from her seekers. His love for them translates into bravery, when even at the loss of his reputation and faced with Septimus’ sword, he keeps strongly to his silence, gaining them much time and distance. His actions reward him grandly. Despite being caught and hung out to try as a poofter, in the death of his reputation, he gains a new one, an even bigger greater one, for there is no mutiny from his crew, instead a far greater respect is forged between them and him and they promised to continue sailing under his command.

Captain Shakespeare is a true hero in the film and a clear reminder that the virtue of heroism is borne of love. One cannot commit acts of brave heroism without the foundation of love to fall back upon and to push one into the fire. It is what makes little people into great heroes.

A Promise

2011-01-12T01:21:00.002+08:00

I have been far too lax in the upkeep of this weblog, so I shall endeavour to update it daily this year. They may not be full length posts, as is my usual longwindedness, however, may range from fleeting sentences to a paragraph to an essay. Twitter has become my temporal transient diary, so hopefully I shall not be posting too many transient musings here. You can follow my twitter at www.twitter.com/discthrower

Because you are alway on my mind.

2011-01-12T01:19:00.001+08:00

Miles Away
Carol Ann Duffy

I want you and you are not here. I pause
in this garden, breathing the colour thought is
before language into still air. Even your name
is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again
and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight
I make you up, imagine you, your movement clearer
than the words I have to you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a look, standing here whilst cool late light
dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,
but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,
inventing love, until the calls of nightjars
interrupt and then what was to come, was certain,
into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Humility

2010-11-23T02:23:00.001+08:00

There is a very strange thing about national slavery. It is inevitable that you will come across Sergeant Majors, and you will meet many and will probably work with at least one of them. There are all sorts of Sergeant Majors, but they can more or less be squeezed, even despite the massive thoracic bulge some of them work hard to maintain, into two categories. On one hand, you have the really lazy ones who barely capable of an ounce of leadership, are lazy and are as inflexible as the points of view of a fossilised fundamentalist on the possibility of the Big Band Theory. On the other hand you have the fatherly types, patient yet stern, they understand what you’re going through and are more than willing to pull their weight when necessary. The following story involves a Brigade Sergeant Major and he falls in the latter category.

It was my last field exercise, and it had already been quite an experience, especially for an office boy logistician. For one, it was my first time experiencing rain during a field exercise, first time freeing a pangolin that had become entangled in a camouflage net, first time camouflaging, rather redundantly, a rather large command post and meeting a one-star in person and the first time I collided with a dump-truck and lost. Well I met a few that day and even more higher-ups, but it’s irrelevant. The most striking event was sweating side by side the Sergeant Major as we tore down camp on the last night of the exercise.

We had returned to base camp earlier than the rest of the group who were still packing up at another area. ‘We’ being the Brigade Sergeant Major, the Regimental Quartermaster, the Logistics Warrant Officer, myself and a two of my men. We sat down for a few cups of stale coffee, and relax after completing most of the exercise, and after a while it was somehow silently decided that camp would be torn down. The next time I knew, I was standing next to Sergeant Major dismantling tents and keeping the folding benches and tables. We joined him wordlessly, without command or invitation.

It was the kind of situation where for some odd reason, you wanted to help out voluntarily, and if you knew the many terms of endearment we have for conscription, to help out voluntarily is rather alien. Of course there was the incentive of returning to camp earlier than planned, enjoying a nice shower and being clean for the first time in 3 days. There was no bossing around or ordering, just three warrant officers and three bottom feeders tearing down the camp for the simple reason of giving the returning storemen a break.

You see, the Sergeant Major is a former special forces operator, a trained Navy Seal, complete with a master level in all the airbourne badges and probably many other skills as well, just that his uniform didn’t have space to put all of them. Furthermore, he was the second highest ranking soldier in the entire brigade, as there wasn’t a 2IC to the brigade Commanding Officer. So you can imagine, he was no small fish and he certainly didn’t have to do a grunt’s work.

I know this doesn’t sound very spectacular or out of this world, or contain any form of heroics at all (all soldiering stories should contain a part where someone dies, just for the effect), except when I rescued the poor pangolin from almost certain death, but I was very impressed. That was a show of true leadership.

Being a leader is not about simply standing around telling people to do things while watching them perform your orders, it is about inspiring others to get in and do the same work with you. To do the former is to rule with fear, and more oft than not, you will end up losing your humanity. It gets the work done, but in the process, you lose more than you will ever gain. Instead, should you approach your duty with a little humility, you will go a long way. Certainly, you will need to maintain some distance between you and your inferiors, and many other things, and with most things, a fine balance must be struck. However, you can always have humility.

Humility is what reminds you who is really working for whom. As the superior, it is easy to be awash with power, having so many souls under your command, at your mercy. Yet, this could not be so far from the truth-- which is that leaders don’t just have inferiors under them, but they are actually working for their inferiors. There is that responsibility and obligation to provide proper direction and guidance to the inferiors in any aspect of work, as well as to continually shovel coal into their engine to keep their fires burning. It is paramount to remember that while leaders are very important to any project, group or assembly of people, their importance is solely dependent on there being a project, group or assembly of people. Leaders serve their people.

Furthermore, it would be somewhat coincidental to note that earlier aforementioned category of Sergeant Majors, the ones who are lazy and inflexible are usually the ones trapped in a rank, slowly mining their way to the top, whereas the latter are the ones who usually soar. To throw out a mere theory, it may simply be in their humility. With humility, there is recognition of that one is no as large as their egos present themselves, and also the recognition that one does not know everything. It is with this knowledge that allows one to learn, and to learn is a most important skill. No one can have full knowledge of everything, even the most experienced Sergeant Major cannot possible possess all prerequisite information to run a camp ideally. It is, and this is somewhat more prevalent in the service, often a case of trial and error. With humility you can learn from error, and you are willing to take feedback and steps to improve, and improve you will.

This is what I saw in Sergeant Major as he untied canvas from superstructure, and it is a clear reminder of the scope of the role that I play in life. Leadership is more than just a position or a title, but a very large responsibility and a call to serve. Sooner or later, everyone is called to be a leader, whether in an official manner or just as the head of the household, what are you doing to be a good leader?

The Black Widower

2010-11-07T23:25:00.001+08:00

Eight legged freak, bottom dwelling creepy crawlie,
along the forest floor it goes, casting nets,
invisible threads, twines of silky deceitful webs,
between branches. Hovers at the middle,
appears deceitfully suspended in mid-air.

The cunning creature moves in heartless rapture
to the fly upon its wiley string, slowly, slowly,
twisting the miscreant to its every whim, closer, closer
great fangs of venom rear, dripping, dripping,
not to kill but paralyse and petrify with fear.

Tangled fly, food for another day.

All around its nest the beetle bugs go play,
in its home of decomposing dreams,
eight dead eyes peer up at the faraway sky
watching majestic eagles soar
and hardworking honey bees fly to new heights.

Down here, amongst the muck, mud and grime,
it crawls on its belly, each twisted mangled leg paws
through the garbage. It will look
for a new home, a new hole, dark and dire,
for new prey to drink precious life's fire.

Unsatisfied,
the black widower, crawls back into the black abyss.

Constant.

2010-10-09T01:01:00.001+08:00

Today, I spent most of the afternoon calling admissions officers in the various UK universities. A chore that I was supposed to do on Monday, unfortunately it was put off due to unforeseen circumstances involving daylight savings and a dictator’s abdication. The entire experience as B, who helped call one university, put it, is entirely intimidating. There is a certain fear that grips the heart, knowing with every ring the knowledge that a sliver of hope is all you may receive and rejection is ultimately the default option.

For the uninformed, I am chasing my dream of becoming a doctor. It is a dream that I’ve had since I was a kid. Unfortunately, I was never offered the straight and narrow path was cast far off the beaten track to navigate through thorny thicket deep. At every junction, I watch the rest fly fast overhead on speeding clouds, while I wade through marsh and scale mountain. Essentially retained twice, I floundered at the ‘A’ Levels too, where I should have scored straight As, I clinched a mere ABCAA. For those who know me, I am far more capable.

I can’t think of any other reason except suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Mine isn’t the run of the mill barely clinical ADHD, it is full blown, severe; I would climb a tree if given the chance. And I’ve never hated myself for having it so much in my entire life.

To think that just for a few base pairs on a chromosome somewhere in my DNA, I might have avoided this entire debacle. I cannot rationalize it any other way. It is solely the fault of ADHD that I am stuck in my predicament.

The education system of Singapore, for all its failures is fair enough upon those who work hard. In fact, which system of education, in any country in the world, makes considerations for the minority of the population? None, however, what is constant is that if you work hard and you have an ounce of intelligence, you will do well.

Was it the environment? My peers? Teachers? No, certainly not. I had good teachers for the most part. My peers were never study buddies. And my environment was of my choosing. It seems that I worked so hard only to have run into a ditch.

Quæritur: What do you do when your genes screw you over? It is essentially getting shot in the foot before the race of life begins.

Life is never constant with ADHD. There is a need to discover, to seek adventure, to feel the adrenaline pumping through the veins, to be challenged. Certainly, life, to the outsider is never boring. However, to us, life is a dangerous journey through the most murky mist amidst the smoke and mirrors. If there is to be anything that can be said to be constant, it is that I never know where I’m headed.

A Drink.

2010-10-09T00:59:00.000+08:00

Cynical yearnings, a near ill-gotten dream enervates
strongly with almonds in my goblet.
oh what sweet slumber shall soon come.

In each small sip I take, bitting back bitterness,
of temporal gestures and uneventful memories,
to have grown so old and yet fraught with

naught but regrets, the least of which lessens
with every small sip. My eyelids become burdens.
just maybe, maybe...

A bullet and a method of delivery,
is a simple efficacious manner,
devoid of grace and benefits, so I sip, I sip.

To hope to sleep, and in that sleep, of the dreams to come.

One day I'll sing this to you, because I really mean it.

2010-09-11T01:22:00.001+08:00

My funny Valentine
Sweet comic Valentine
You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you're my fav'rite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

Don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little Valentine
Stay!
Each day is valentine's day

Is your figure less than Greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

Don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little Valentine
Stay, oh stay!
Each day is valentine's day

Beauty

2010-08-26T00:12:00.006+08:00

Love Undefiled has a very nice video link today. The video, titled ‘Killing Us Softly 3’, a talk by Jean Kilbourne on the presentation of women in the media and advertisements. While albeit a bit long at 35 minutes, she does provides very poignant and witty insights into the dehumanization and objectification of women in various media. Do give it a watch here.

Ms Kilbourne puts into words something which I have realized for a long time. As a photographer of many years, particularly one specializing in portraits, I have, over the years, more than noticed the trend that she points out. It is particularly more difficult to get my female friends to partake in a picture than the guys who would be racing to be the first to jump in front of the lens. It would appear that the professionalism associated with the big, black and bulky SLR that I used seemed to deter them greatly. They didn’t feel that they looked good enough to be in a professional photo. Pity, they looked good enough to me.

To me, and I daresay that I do not hold the same views as the majority of my sex, the most beautiful portraits I’ve ever seen were never the ones used for advertising, or the ones shot in a studio. No, I’ve actually always hated those photos. They’ve always appeared artificial, overly sexualized, immature and completely lacking in any meaning or intelligence. They’re lifeless. To be completely honest, and at the risk of my manhood (shhhhh!), I don’t particularly find the models extremely attractive or beautiful at all. If anything, they look fake. I’ve never bothered with Victoria’s secret catalogues or whatever it is my friends or bunkmates were into, and I’ve only ever bought one copy of fhm, to support a friend who modeled for a minor article, and save for that article (poorly written too, I might add), remains unread at the bottom of a box in a cupboard somewhere. I’m just strange that way.

The most beautiful portraits that I have ever seen feature everyday people of any age going about their lives, in everyday settings. They capture the true character of a person, who they are really are in that split second that the shutter opens. They are usually sans make-up or purposely posed in any manner. They celebrate life for everything it is. In every happy or sad moment, in times of anger, or calm, in reflection or grief, that is where life is captured. While this is possible in a studio, the best I’ve seen are always captured outside of the artificially created scene, in natural light, with the living world as a backdrop. Truly, they are a celebration of life.

I’ve always felt that it is possible to take a beautiful picture of anyone; no matter how they look or what age they are or even if they have a huge mole on their nose. Naturally, I also prefer that they are without make up. I guess you could say I like to capture people as God desired me to see them, which requires looking a bit deeper than the epidermis. It requires you to see the child of God. After all, we know that God is love, and love is beautiful. Since God creates with love, what he creates can only be beautiful.

Beauty, my dear friends, is out there in the world, it’s in the faces of everyone, beyond their skin. It’s their identity, their personality, who they are that makes them beautiful. And, it’s up to you to stop and have a look around you. The ageing lady, pushing her ancient wheelchair bound husband around the playground, the young children laughing and creating their own new worlds in the park, the family going out for dinner or the young couple enjoying a quiet walk along the pier. The beauty is all there, if you want to see it or not. And, when you see that beauty, you’ll get a glimpse of God.

So remember kids, especially the girls, you are beautiful!

'Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.' St Augustine

Dreams.

2010-08-14T04:28:00.002+08:00

Today I had the privilege to have a look inside the mind of a dear friend. It was, admittedly, an ill begotten privilege to venture so deep inside his mind. I feel horrible that I partook in it. The venture itself was unexpected, but I saw his deepest dream.

The contents of the dream are neither relevant to this short essay, nor do I have the right or desire to share it. Safe to say, the ambition, whilst possible and plausible in the current situation, was far from ideal. To have attained it in this manner would have been a mockery of his ideal in the first place. Safe to say, he has never ventured into it.

To summarize, it is possible to attain his ideal, but he will sacrifice may other important things along the way to achieve, so many that, in his fervently practical nature, it is unrealistic.

I feel deeply sad for him that he cannot pursue this dream. It is a very noble career. It made realize that in pursuit of my own dream, that of practicing medicine, that I am blessed to continue to have the opportunity to realize it, even if the sacrifices are difficult. I guess the choice I shall have to make is the one he faced, to be content here for he is very blessed, or to risk all for that one dream. In mine too, I shall face the same dilemma.

For me, to carry on this road shall mean great sacrifices. I shall go have to go away, leaving my family behind. That pains me greatly. I may not be the perfect son, far from it, but my parents have always been as perfect as they could to raise a child that does not conform to anything in any textbook anywhere except clinical ones. I may just as well put aside my dream of one day having a family. I am getting old, and I know that I will get sucked in completely to that world of medical academia.

However, I cannot and will not begin to compare the risks of our dreams. For him much more is at stake, for him, much more could have been lost. He is a very valiant man. In comparison, my task amounts to nothing. I admire him for his courage, not just in his dream, but in his ability to turn away from it, even though deep down it hurts so much, even if he would never mention it. It is a hurt that will be always there.

The matriarch of the Kennedy Family, Rose Kennedy once said, 'It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.'

This will be in his dreams forever. He is obsessed.

So am I. Time and time again, my path to medical school has been strewn with insurmountable obstacles and more often than not, the path is shrouded in much smoke and mirrors. One of the most important things to have in applying for medical school are grades, I had the worst luck of having the combination of being both severely ADHD and to be stuck in the utilitarian competitive machine of the Singaporean Educational system. It is honestly by the grace of God that I have managed to venture so far inside the system and still come away with curiosity and the deep desire to learn. I still am, however, uncertain of the future. It is unnerving.

I cannot give this up though. It may not seem like the wisest decision, far better careers, far more financially stable, for better job security (all with better working hours). I won't be able to live with myself for not seeing this through until the very end. I do honestly wonder if it is he who has made the right choice.

At the very least, should I be forced off the path permanently, and stuffed into a cubical someone doing a menial job I don't care very much about(I cannot even fathom what that will be!), I shall have benefited greatly from the process. I have to admit that my journey thus far, in all it's curves and bends, has taught me far more than I would have learned had I been allowed to take the more linear path. I would have probably been miserable. The most important thing that I have learnt is to trust God more.

It is the most unnerving thing of all. Especially for a schemer like me. I need to know, if this what I'm doing, I need to be thinking three, four, five steps ahead. Yet, often, especially in this journey, I cannot see beyond my nose. God is clearly in the driver's seat. I just hope as I sit down next to him, I shall have the courage to open my eyes and be ready to alight where he so desires.

This is often an issue that ends up being discussed in our 'sharing' sessions during RCIY. Where is God leading me? Is this really what he wants me to do? To be honest, the truth is I do not know, and I am sure that no one knows. It is easy to apply human rationalization to every point in my journey to say that God is truly pushing me in this direction. He's given me the necessary skill sets, he's changed me in ways I'd never imagine. However, there are just too many variables to be sure. I cannot find comfort in that.

I guess that I am just stubborn. Then again I don't know.

I also realize that this post has digressed pretty far from the faint idea of where I originally intended. Like this post, I don't know exactly where I'm going now. I can only pray that it is the right way. That's all anyone can pretty much do. Pray. I shall chase this dream until otherwise.

2010-08-12T00:18:00.002+08:00

I wish I could tell you. I know I shouldn't. I guess I won't. One day maybe.

2010-08-11T23:56:00.003+08:00

What if I told you I'd never give up? That I'd never back down? That, no matter how many times you push me down, no matter how many times I fall, no matter many times I get floored, I will never drop my sword, I will never let go of my shield?

I will get up and go at you again and again and again. I won't be bothered by the pain and the torture of every breath. I will get up. I will push on. I will fight on.

I can't stop. Not now, not after so long. No, I can't. I know I'm stubborn. That's the nature of the Taurus. This is the dragon burning within me. I just can't settle for anything less than this. I don't care how many times you push me off the mountain, and how my hands are bleeding and my knees are scraped and how my muscles burn with ever step I take, and how much soot has covered my face, I will get up and I will charge again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN, UNTIL I REACH YOUR SUMMIT, UNTIL I STAND ABOVE YOUR PEAK, UNTIL I HOLD YOU IN ALL YOUR VIGOUROUS TENACITY.

I AM A FIGHTER. I AM A SOLDIER. AND I CANNOT STOP. THAT IS WHO I AM. I DO NOT KNOW DEFEAT.

And, I'm coming for you.

My thoughts...

2010-08-04T13:55:00.001+08:00

The Little Things Give You Away
Linkin Park

Water grey
Through the windows, up the stairs

Chilling rain
Like an ocean everywhere

[Chorus]
Don't want to reach for me do you
I mean nothing to you
The little things give you away

And now there will be no mistaking
The levees are breaking

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

And six feet under water
I
Do
[End Chorus]

Hope decays
Generations disappear

Washed away
As a nation simply stares

[Chorus]
Don't want to reach for me do you
I mean nothing to you
The little things give you away

But there will be no mistaking
The levees are breaking

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

And six feet under water
I
Do

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

And six feet under ground now
I
Now I do
[End Chorus]

[Brad's Guitar Solo]

Little things give you away
Little things give you away
Little things give you away
Little things give you away
Little things give you away

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you

(Little things give you away)

2010-07-11T19:19:00.002+08:00

Wish you would stop treating me like the bloody plague. It's expected I suppose, but completely unnecessary. I hate you.

2010-07-09T21:16:00.004+08:00

Medicine is indeed a bed of roses, I expect to lie down in her, tantalized by her soft lush petals, seduced by her sweet luxurious smells, perforated, pieced and ensnared by her sharp, sharp thorns.

Balloons

2010-06-29T22:06:00.003+08:00

Balloons

We're all balloons, filled full with helium, tied tight with string.
Floating up high with the clouds in the sky,
flying freely with the cumulonimbus and avoiding
the pointy tips of skyscrapers.
Companions of the stars and the moon,
gossipers with the Sun.
We think we know it all.
At least we probably do.
Age cannot catch us, she is too slow,
and invincible we float on,
so full of hot air,
and dreams.

And then one by one, my friends start falling
one by one, falling out of heaven,
their strings entangled in tiny knots, weighing
them down. They spin and dance and stall,
then plummet.
First Juliet, then George, then Wilson and Greg,
Peter fell, Scott fell, then Annie and Ted.

One by one, until you and I were all that were left,
but there many a cloud between us
and you drifted down south,
the wind blew you away,
tied to a string of books, scales and a stethoscope.

Then one by one, 'til I'm the only one alone up there,
but I didn't care.
I'm still free
though now old with less air,
to roam about the Earth, being blown, being blown
so aimlessly. Spectator to the passings and joinings,
to the mortarboards and gowns and the exchange of rings.
But, I don't care,
I'm not tied down. I am free.
The world is my cage,
and I shall float around
her aimlessly.

Aftermath

2010-06-29T22:04:00.000+08:00

Aftermath

It's been a while since that wistful day,
when the planes flew high overhead
And dropped off that message on fifty-five A.
The playground still stands shellshocked and quite dead.

For two days all stood still, all calm and neat,
the virus slept well in Spring's warm blanket,
incubating, spawnin a great toxic treat,
and in Summer's heat, she did spring quite free,

a startling neurological agent,
invading, invading heart, soul and brain.
Work distracted from the pain. The surgeon
could not operate. Metastasising,

spreading, attacking poor amygdala.
Someday, I'll recover from this trauma...

Stuck

2010-06-29T22:03:00.002+08:00

Stuck

It would appear that I'm stuck in quagmire deep,
I've run this marathon before, thrice actually,
they all began so differently, at
different places, with different
routes and at different paces.
Yet, across the same marsh they passed. I thought
it quite shallow.
Not so I fear,
and now I'm stuck in the muck right here.

And I wonder what I was chasing? To run
so quick and blind, landing in such thicket deep,
or was I running away from something
like the sun? Rays of thought invading ev'ry
nook and cranny. It seemed so weird when
the sun lit up the world and darkened
my thoughts.
Lot was wise to run away,
should I flee this destruction or stay?

Standing there in mire slowly cooking,
I guess I'll turn around and face whatever's coming,
And maybe that will drown out the swarm's buzzing.

Connexions

2010-06-18T20:47:00.003+08:00

A week ago, I attended the first Rite of Christian Initation for Youth (RCIY) camp for the year. It is a first camp that the enquirers, the ones enquiring about the Catholic faith attend, and it is a fun camp with light talks and many games to play, a sort of welcome and bonding session. As per usual, with every camp, everyone has to put up an ‘affirmation envelope’ wherein you write little things to other campers to affirm them and encourage them along. One of the befrienders sent me this:

Dear David,
Thank you for taking the time to come down for all the RCIY meetings and camps, you really have a way of relating to [enquirers/new people] that no one else does, and I could definitely learn some of that.
[…]
God Bless,
B

As a read the note after camp, I was stunned by the words ‘have a way of relating to them that no one else does.’ I guess I was caught a bit by surprise. I surely do not deserve this praise. Of all the things David is, I don’t think connecting with people even rhymes with any of the attributes. If it were, the previous entry wouldn’t have been composed. I just saw a need during the camp and fulfilled it just as I had been trained in many previous camps.

During a camp, there will always be people who are caught on the fringe, hanging by themselves, mostly in groups of two or three. During my time in confirmation camps, the cause was usually not being from the same school as the dominant group, ie SJI, CHIJ, or SJII. During RCIY camp, it’s usually the enquirers because they are new and don’t quite know anyone there, even after the few first sessions, they still don’t know anyone. The befrienders (RCIY graduates and confirmed Catholics) and other facilitators have already been there a year and are pretty much a close group, so usually the quieter enquirers still feel a bit awkward joining in their conversations and antics.

So, here are people who’d like to be part of a group, all it simply takes is providing the group and making a connexion. It isn’t really anything special really. All it takes is the right questions, and a charitable ear and keeping fingers crossed that you can make a connexion. All you need is to treat people with basic human dignity, then, the first step is always to start the talk. Anyone can do that!

Furthermore, if they’d only known what had transpired in the past few weeks, I highly doubt they would agree about this relating to people business. I made a promise to treat everyone I meet with that basic human dignity but I think I have constantly failed at doing it.

A few weeks ago, I was sentence…given a week long duty. This is the sort of duty where you essentially stay in your bunk all day doing nothing and waiting for an activation that will never come by enemies that don’t exist. As you can imagine ADHD-addled me was as bored as bats in a tree awaiting for nightfall to party. Not to mention being thrown to such a duty. (For those of you playing the home game, ADHD and boredom don’t mix AT ALL. Think napalm and water.) So there I was, being depressed and antisocial and completely not intending to make any new friends at all. I just wanted to stay low and go home. Pancake breakfast and the Tridentine at the end of the week were the only things getting me through.

Unfortunately, God didn’t intend for me to alone the entire week, I had a roommate. I remember when I found out that he was not a driver, but a transport supervisor like me, I felt instantly warmer towards him. I was stunned for a moment after that, I couldn’t believe that I am really such an arrogant bastard. In the first place I didn’t want to share the room with anyone, and I most certainly feel like making conversations with drivers. I couldn’t believe that I had stereotyped them as being unworthy or incapable of conversation. I know that with my establishment there is a necessity of keeping some distance from them, for they are after all my men, but this seemed almost ridiculous. I admit that often, we are on completely different wavelengths, but the essentials are still the same. Everyone has passions, hobbies, plans for the weekend, a family, friends. Was I really too thick, too high and mighty, too stuck up to have conversations with them? I guess this is something that I shall have to settle, because these are the people that I shall be dealing with day in and day out and they are good people, however this is for another day.

It turns out my roommie was a happy clappy tamil Pentecostal. From day two onwards, he insisted on speaking to me in falsetto, claiming it was his normal speaking voice. He chose the week to begin his foray into guitar and I spent the week listening to him play only down strummed chord progressions and singing Christians songs in tamil. By day three, I had almost as many screws loose as he did, I had had a dream about having a webcam conversation with one of my quadriceps muscles. It was sipping tea from a teacup with it’s pinky out and enquiring about my wellbeing. It was a very very surreal week.

That said I came prepared for the week, I had brought several nonfiction (big mistake) books to camp to read, he on the other hand, was clearly socially awkward, and had nothing to do, he was probably as bored as I was. Me being me, and well trained, I did make conversation with him, but it soon became quite apparent that I wouldn’t be able to establish a connexion with him. He on the other hand, somehow managed to do so, though I suspect it was a matter of transference. Loneliness does that to you, desire for company transferred upon the nearest possible thing. It’s probably why I endured four days of falsetto (he didn’t do this to anyone else). And this is where I truly could have been better! He is a really nice guy, with a good heart. He insisted on treating me to dinner despite being a poorer financial situation.

It was weird talking to him, it was mostly him trying to make the conversation and me replying as curtly as a I could. I could have clearly showed him a much greater amount of charity. I could have shown him more love. I felt really bad on the last night, when he kept asking me to talk to him, but I just had nothing to say to him. He even requested to meet up sometime in the future. I don’t know if I have it in me to acquiesce to his request. That said, I don’t think anyone in the army has actually given him that much of a listening ear before. If S reads this, we may have only known each other for a week, but I’m sorry for being such a lousy friend.

It makes me wonder, what exactly is this special way of relating to people is? I can’t relate to my men, I know what they’re going through, I know what they’re interested in, I know the common topics, but I just can’t connect with them at all. Let’s not even talk about about my colleagues because work is easily a common topic of conversation. Normal people, from my tier of society, the educated ones, I have nothing in common. Small talk? I am horrible at initiating it, I much prefer listening to people. I hope that I will find some way in which I can relate to people.

Clearly, I have much to work on, as a person, as a friend. Communication is so vital in my desired vocation. And I fervently pray that one day I shall live up to that affirmation letter.

I need to talk to you.

2010-06-17T23:39:00.004+08:00

Starry night, disquiet'd skies,
Hearts beating, walking towards the other,
While silence on the cold street lies.
A midnight meeting.

Little notes echo and fly,
(Disturbing the chaos of my mind),
From the little music box,
(Deflecting the silence in my mind.)

Nervous looks, uneasy smiles
Hiding hidden frowns.
An inkling.

Look in to her eyes,
Mutter mumbled words,
The wordsmith's brush is dry.

'I like you.'

And it's over. Silence pursues.
The quest now lost, yet some peace found.
Retreat to a safe place, mend the wounds.

I shall miss you.