Dear Santa,

My name is Katie. I am 7-years-old. I've been a good girl this year. I've never asked for anything before because you have to give stuffs to the other good girls and boys. I know Christmas is not about presents but the spirit and the joy and the baby Jesus. Mummy says so. Thank you very much for donating many things. This year Daddy stays at home alot. He and Mummy talk loudly all the time. She always saying we don't have enough money anymore. So I won't be getting any for Christmas. All I'm asking is that less then $20 is a power puff girls sweater so I won't be cold. The shop is medium size but I would like a larger size so it can last me longer. Thank you so much, I love you. I promise when I'm older next time I will donate stuffs to the less forchunet! :) If you are feeling nice maybe you can bring me some dolls to play too? I like dolls because I can play and make the Mummy and Daddy love each other. When you are reading this is the North Pole say hello to Mrs Clause and all the raindeers please! Thank you again from the bottom of my pinky heart!

Love,

Katie

A Message For Dom7th and Shao Tuan

As some of you already know, I will be flying off on Friday night to the Abode of Peace, or so they call it, for some peace in the lush jungle. Well, not really, but it will certainly be an exotic getaway, and it will be during the time of the year I usually spend with you guys making preparations for Christmas and youth camp. So I suppose it is only natural that I leave you all with a few words before I see everyone again next month. At least that way I don't actually disappear entirely.

First, as some of you may be oblivious to what it is I will actually be doing, let me attempt to describe the terrors that await me on this perilous journey. In fact, this Sunday, while all of you are nodding your heads toward the speaker for more reasons than one, I will be swimming across this exact river at least three times wearing something similar to this. In the coming weeks, I will also be traversing this, eating this, avoiding this and killing this amongst other life-threatening feats in hopes of getting this, and it's all because of this. Awesome huh. You bet. And I deeply regret that you cannot join me. But honestly speaking, I am both excited and apprehensive about this trip. It has been said that this exercise will be duly unforgettable, and I suspect that that will come to be in both painful and comic ways, the difference between the two chiefly being a matter of time. Well, I will find out soon enough, and you will know when I get back. Otherwise, I'd be grateful to be kept in your prayers.

To Dom7th, I must say that I am envious that you guys are finally going for a mission trip, after much procrastination over the years, and that I can't be there to join you in one voice. To those who are going, I've seen much effort being put in during the rehearsals on Sunday afternoons. But I urge you to also commit more soul into prayer. When hiccups occur, it's the heart and faith you will need to persevere in your ministering to the unevangelised to make God look great. Remember that it is He who empowers you to perform what He commands, and it is He who promised to be with you to the end of the age when He commissioned your outreach. Pray, friends.

On a more practical note, I gather that communication will definitely be a big issue. The language stuff. What to do? Or rather, what is there left to do with so little time? Let love speak. Let actions converse. Let your servanthood to their community articulate the gospel of the servant Christ. Know that their souls, like yours, matter in the eyes of God, so they should to you too.

To the youth committee, I know preparations for youth camp are underway. I'm not sure how many you have attended previous camps, but all four I've been a part of over the last eight years has each been a miracle to me, and I believe to the lives of others as well. So treasure the miracle that God is using you to materialise. Plan and execute with heart and hope so that when the heartbreak comes, you know God is using it to strengthen your hope in Him. And trust me, it always comes.

I'm also ecstatic that you guys have chosen the Gospel to be the theme for this year, and thus equally regretful that I won't be there on all three days. If you realise how foundational and far-reaching your choice of theme is, then you must also know to be as meticulous as possible with the delivery of your material, and also the preparations that precede to ensure that. By nature of its theme, this camp has the potential to set in stone a bible saturated and gospel-centred infrastructure for the fellowship and its years to come. Let that be your long term vision, to make us a Bride who knows, loves and honours her Groom.

Lastly, for the many of you who are enjoying your holidays now, have as much fun as you can before you grow older, really. But I want you to be very aware that idle time is a fecund swamp for the proliferation and infestation of sin. And I say that with gravity. Someone once said to me very wisely, "Sin will take you further than you ever wanted to go, keep you longer than you ever wanted to stay and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay." I guess I'll just leave you with that.

Well, now that all is said and done, I will be able to eat my ferns in peace. My prayers will be with all of you even as bloodsuckers of all species besiege me at night.

Till 17th December, adieu!

If We Had Followed Through

I was sifting through my inbox when I chanced upon this series of emails sent by The Sister. They date to about 4 years back. Attached to these emails were photos of random church people gathering in familiar homes, some scribbling at their bibles, some talking and gesturing, others just looking cosy. Right. The 40 day PDL Campaign. We were supposed to weave the photos into some sort of video collage.

Now, my church is like this lego toy. There's the kids block, the youth block, the young adults block, the not-so-young young adults block, the adults block, the old block and the really old block, which also happens to be the really big block. The good thing is that there is integrity. The bad thing is that there is no integration.

That's why I immediately wondered why we didn't continue with cell groups. It's quite surprising actually because most churches do employ the system of cell groups at a church-level. And they worked at that time, evidently from the photos, but only for as long as they were there. It sounds like a simple question, but I doubt those who decided then would be able to answer my question now. We don't have that many lay-shepherds now to do it, but we would have more if we didn't stop then.

We must have missed the point when we ran the campaign 4 years ago. The model for fellowship (or worship, or missions, or anything else) was certainly not something to be completed, fulfilled or finished in any sense within 40 days. At least not in the way we celebrated it as if it were the culmination of some great spiritual awakening. 40 days was in fact the time given to kick-start a biblical and practical way of running a church that should last for as long as the people believe in it. How grave it is a mistake to mistake an end for a beginning!

I know a church which does this thing called 'Lifegroup'. Basically, at whatever age, you're thrown into a cell group of people around your age and you have meetings with that group for pretty much the rest of your life, hence Lifegroup. This system has its weaknesses, but the level of accountability you can expect to be nurtured from that is just amazing. We are nowhere near that, and dangerously so.

I think we have brought many people in, but we haven't made many people feel at home. That's why they tend to exit where they entered. A house is a building, and a home is a house with people in it. The house of God must be the home of His bride. We don't do marriages in churches for no reason. And that's also the purpose of ascribing locality to an omnipresent being. If even I feel this way, I speculate at what those who just came in through the door are thinking.

Imagine, if we had followed through, we might be home. 4 years is a long time. There might be a harvest now. At the very least, we won't have to be so afraid of our new neighbours at Buona Vista.

A Topic For Grown-Ups

I might get shot for writing this, but oh well, here goes.

As everybody knows, they've announced that the elections will be up and running anytime from the end of this year to the start of the next. The results, as always, won't be unpredictable. But then that begs the question, why should they be unpredictable in the first place?

I think it's a valid question. I'm not sure if we really crave to see more support given to the opposition than they already have now even though everybody seems to think so. Pap himself has always asked them what better domestic and foreign policies they could possibly offer that either he or his own ministers haven't thought of. Even the Clock, the most successful of 'foes', as it were, has never brought anything creditably new to the table.

So if it is novelty that people are looking for, it's definitely not what they're going to get, if they're not as silly as they are bored. And they'll be the ones who knowingly determine that in the end. It's a little like a magic trick. You ask how it works, but you don't really want to know, because then it loses its worth to your disillusionment. So in the end, we only cast votes for the illusionists who best mesmerise us on the stage of happiness, prosperity and progress.

It's not a bad thing. It's just, a thing. A generation thing. You see, for any opposition power to truly have a bid for power, it must oppose. Hence opposition. Like duh, right? Well it's really easier said than done. In other words, it has to pinpoint something, find some policy, some ideal about Pap and his men that's really contentious, and then become crusadingly polarised against that, electorally. That's how Lenin did it, that's how Obama did it, so it's doable. After all, Pap was once opposition himself, wasn't he?

Furthermore, there's never been tangible conflict among Pap and his men. Well, not yet. But a new age dawns. Maybe when the friction can no longer be contained, when some men decide to leave and swim to the other bank, maybe that's when the unpredictable will happen. And those men will be the one of the most insightful men to have ever graced this political landscape.

Otherwise, politics has always been a topic for me to avoid, until now. Real politics is like what happens in the workplace, except on a global level. At this level, those who have more power than you can't necessarily fire you if they get pissed, but they can certainly fire at you. It's where being ousted is actually the easiest option. In many ways, it's scarier. Perhaps the most terrifying thing is that it's arousing my interest quite quickly. If this is some telltale sign of growing up, that it gives me yet another reason to miss being childish. That was when making someone angry was as easy to solve as saying sorry.

Symptoms and Superheroes

Something strange is happening to me. I think I might be becoming Spiderman. For starters, I've been developing an extraordinarily strange rash on my upper body. It suddenly appeared last night like a tsunami of red spots. But they're barely noticeable even at close distance because each spot is so fine and so small. The rash is also annoyingly fickle. It can appear and disappear within hours. At least it doesn't itch at all. Now it's sort of like a faint pink constellation across my very confused skin. Also, my temperature has been hovering at some ridiculously foreign temperature of 37.2 degrees. Honestly, what is 37.2 degrees? Has anyone ever had that before? I don't feel particularly hot, but definitely more than I do feel cold - clearly not a feverish symptom.

Most interestingly, I have what seems to be a steadily improving insect bite on my left wrist. It's bigger than the typical mosquito bite, but about as large as the average pinky nail would grow to become before you decide to trim it. It has a wrinkled, stubby scab sitting on top of it as if it were wearing a maroon turban of some sort. Otherwise, there's absolutely no pain and no itch, like the rash. Or maybe it's actually part of the rash, I don't know.

Sadly, no superhuman capabilities have manifested themselves as of now. It is quite disappointing. I know I used to dream about being Spiderman a lot not too long ago. Like literally dream about it at night, not in the sense of having actual aspirations. But then again the movies about him always have struck me about the same thing. I mean, with all that web coming out of his body can you imagine how much protein he would have to consume in one day?

Perhaps the last thing to grouse about is that if indeed I were to become some sort of superhero suddenly, the transformation would have come a little too late. As it appears on my clock, I've got two hours of Halloween left. Of course one possibility is that the superhero I turn into is Superman, which will enable me to turn back time by simply flying around the earth. But not a chance I suppose. As of now I think I still look very much like the same bloke when I wear my glasses. Shame.

Not So Easy Listening

Listening to U2 makes me wish I had the time to get the Red One serviced. The circuitry is still faulty and the strings are as brittle as dead leaves. The frets are pretty worn out too the last time I touched it. But I think the fact that I was reminded of it keeps me wanting to make more tunes as soon as I get the time.

Music drags out memories when your life has a great soundtrack. I think mine has a pretty decent one. Listening to The Script now reminds me of my stint at D&N earlier this year, and the stateliness of the Supreme Court; I played their album front to back on the way to the office every morning. Listening to Powerspace reminds me of classroom life in Year 4; there was a time we ceaselessly tried to sing Right On, Right Now. We failed of course, and eventually ran out of breath. But even that sense of comic futility was evoked with a mere play button.

It's interesting how the brain generates these associations. Daniel Levitin has much to say on this, and hopefully I will read of it soon. Meanwhile, I should probably expand my repertoire. I suppose in theory, listening to the same song over and over again would continue to 'attach' new memories to the same tune as the days go by. Perhaps I'll be overwhelmed with a chronology of sentiments if I hear that particular track a long time from now. Otherwise, I might simply be left feeling very confused.

The Things That Count

Perhaps the weight of experience from life in the army can never ethically justify the way in which it is gained, but it can reveal some deep realities. It is said that experience is a difficult teacher because she administers the test before giving the lessons. I think it's just like how absence makes the heart fonder.

There is not a day here where at any one point I am devoid of frustration, anger, grief and a list of other melancholic emotions you can name. I've come to realise that after working so hard for the smallest of things, suddenly they don't seem so small anymore. And the hard part now lies in adjusting my words and actions in accordance with the people and the things whose preciousness I've come to see with brand new eyes, because there's almost no time to do so.

You could say that the purpose of every human being is to find out for himself what are the things that really count. Only upon such a discovery can one confidently take the next step with a well of joy or motivation that undergirds a life buffeted by seasons of emotions. Unfortunately, that discovery itself is usually the result of some heroic journey that also involves a lot of suffering. Well, viva la vida - the life lives.

Smitten At Sunrise

I woke up at the doorsteps of dawn

And waited for yesterday’s sinking sun
Rubbed my eyes twice or thrice, I can't quite surmise,
Waiting for the pretty soul
For whom I’d suffer more than a broken nose

There I sat on the curb
Where I tripped and fell head over heels
When I saw her on two wheels
With her ponytails prancing and dancing,
A ballet around her peachy pink helmet

So I said to me,
“Why, now’s not the time to simply be waxing lyrical
About a faraway miracle
So how about
A shiny surprise in something small and cylindrical?”

But I don’t even know her name
Only that she’ll be riding by again
Maybe next time it won’t be the same
We’ll play the giggling game
And see the sunset by the end of the day

So as I savoured my ice-cream dream
The squeak of brakes sounded right in front of me
She was off the seat
My heart raced at pedal speed
And she said, “Well, aren’t you going to let me in?”

In sweet shock I had the door unlocked
And we stepped through without the tiniest clue
What we could do before we’d even said “Hi”
So I took her to my rocket science room
Waiting for a carnation chance to bloom

And there we saw me, curled up like a baby
Floating on the folds of my bedsheet
With glowing stars on the ceiling
Encyclopedia cities and a wooden box with steel strings
I could feel her looking at me

Then I woke up again with a sunnier start
My limbs sprawled like a renaissance work of art
And I heard from outside a bicycle ring
Like how a songbird would sing
The sound of the doorbell to my heart

The Efficiency of Inefficiency

We have become so efficient at doing inefficient things that this paradox deserves some elaboration.

As much as the rationale eludes us, we have been presented with a need to stencil our four-digit numbers onto every little piece of equipment we have. You ask, why not simply handwrite? Wish I knew.

Maybe it's because we want to give our aggressors the impression that we are really, really neat soldiers; it might actually scare them. Maybe it's because we want to use penmanship to boast of our robotic philosophy. Maybe it's because using stencils elicits within us a measure of kindergarten reminiscence that never deserves to be forsaken no matter how much innocence we may think we've lost ever since we stepped through these doors! Oh, my Wilfred Owen!

Nevertheless, we are not daunted. We must demonstrate our fighting spirit. We must be thinking soldiers. And so we divide the labour, and valiantly sacrifice our period of self-study for the noble and divine sake of nattiness. (Indeed, we found a way to do it quite quickly nonetheless, which is really the point of the title.)

And so it goes, another day to be laughed at in retrospect, another day that re-affirms the wise and practiced adage – Do or die, don't ask why.

Second Hand Thoughts

The passage of time in the army is a familiar journey. Like an ancient vessel, winds and waves of instruction and command do much to dictate how her seamen experience the voyage. The occasional return to her port of call is shortlived but treasured; every departure is but for the sake of preserving the coast.

Sometimes I imagine a day passing by like how you reach for a handful of sand with your bare palm – that's dawn. As the sun rises and surveys the horizon, you slowly release your fingers and the grains of sand explore your knuckles like khaki waterfalls. Most of them fall to the ground by nightfall, but a few hazel specks remain stuck to your moist hand – these are the moments you catch. The rest fade into the shore of your subconscious.

I type this as I sit in a training shed, surrounded by friends, guns, grass, and the sound of raindrops that have since field camp lost a measure of their melodic quality. It's supposed to be our 'self-directed learning' period. But hey, boys can multi-task! But genuinely, I just think it's encouraging that such flights of fancy still materialise even now. In some sense, they're too precious not to pen down.

Which brings me back to the currency of events. What's interesting to note is that time seems to pass at a different speed here compared to the outside world.

On one hand, the general sentiment is that time passes as slowly as how a mouse would drag a hippopotamus across a football field. On the other hand, we are called to observe a sacred form of punctuality, in which a second of tardiness would result in elbow-buckling consequences; we end up always asking for extensions (which, by the way, brings back fond memories of my old life). So on one level, time passes too slowly, but on another level, it teleports.

Then, through an even wider lens, the rest of the world seems to be zooming past while everyday here feels like every other day. Because we live out the week in such great anticipation for the weekend, we scarcely realise that a month has already passed when we see our moms for the fourth time.

Like sailors, we learn all these things the hard way, the choppy and homesick way. But then again, who knows what will happen tomorrow? *grin*

There Is A Leaf

there is a leaf

that falls from branches who

were praying to the sky

it swims through the air and lands on

kneeling roots

there is a leaf

that is not yet a leaf but a tree

for it receives blood still

from legs that are being

severed at this moment

there is a leaf

that arrives at a concrete forest overrun by

hasty metal beetles with

granite logs smudged by giant silver cobwebs

it is disposed of quickly

there is a leaf

who is a passenger of the winds

like many who merely hope to tease the sky

and gracefully descend

only to become dirt again

there is a leaf

that is painted across

a pearly gown

its underside caresses a damsel's soft ivory skin

it cannot be destroyed

~tc

I will miss my room dearly.

The first thing that blocks your way when you enter - a new IKEA shelf I excitedly assembled with Mum a few days ago, plus the books from the package that just arrived this month. Both are really weighty.

The regions round echo the sound of that from which I've learnt to read, write, speak, laugh and think, amongst other things.

Another shelf then appears near eye-level. Things get dusty quite quickly while they're on it, but I suppose I'll miss cleaning them equally soon.

One resident ornament that depicts my true nature.

My trusty MPB lies just below. I will miss typing on it late into the night - to people and for people. Of course that means missing those people as well. Deeply.

And of course its very sexy Iron Man II wallpaper. Which is, by the way, extremely cool even to girls.

Learning to live without music will be quite deafening I think.

Who needs a lake and a forest when you've got books, a glass table and an iPhone. Argh, no more daily tweets.

The stillness of the night is usually quite admirable from my window.

Right below it, my damsel stands, tall and elegant. I will miss caressing her and making her trill.

To the detriment of our relationship, I will be forced to embrace another kind of longish, black and noisy instrument as my only companion who vociferates without vulgar embellishments. It cannot compare to a Fender, although I will need to defend the country with it.

My bed rests beside my damsel. Poor bolster, there will be no one to hug him to sleep very soon. (Yeah, it's a him. My pillow's a her though.)

What I see when I open my eyes in the morning (assuming I'm facing up with my head tilted slightly to the left and free of eye-crap).

"Mirror mirror on the cupboard door, who's the darkest of them all?"

This is actually an empty contact lens case. I wear my lenses in the washroom. It's just an artistic close-up. You've been conned.

Vestiges of my childhood still reside in my glass cupboard. Eat this bomberman, I will soon have more firepower than you and your pitiful little marble.

And of course, it contains lovely evidence of how important all of you have been to me. This is a really big one, nimbly crafted by Duck III with her own hands. I will miss being heart-warmed when I happen to cast my eyes on random things.

And finally as I type, time ticks away in nonchalance, and I'm that much closer to the next rung on the ladder heavenward.

Jesus, lead my march to Calvary.

A Worthy Excerpt

I didn't expect my attention to be held to the end when I started playing this video; it was really just for fun. I still believe that presuppositional apologetics best pierce at the heart of the postmodern thinker. But that doesn't make the blade of science any duller or less capable of anatomising propositions than it has proven to be. Clearly, unlike how one of the following speakers would contend, nothing happens by accident, not even the click of a mouse.

So here's a worthy excerpt - a small transcript I made of The God Delusion Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox (haha one letter away from John Lennon).

(In response to Dawkin's assertion that 'Design is dead, otherwise one must explain who designed the Designer', and so believing in a Designer leads to an infinite regress.)

It's the old schoolboy question - Who created God? I'm actually very surprised to find it as a central argument in your book. Because it assumes that God is created. And I'm not surprised therefore that you call the book 'The God Delusion' because created gods are, by definition, a delusion.

John Lennox

Professor of Mathematics at Oxford

I think the observation to be made is that scientists, more so than any other profession, cannot escape philosophy. Every tributary comes from the sky and ends up in the sea. Or you could say every tributary comes from the sea and ends up in the sky. Which is partially why I wrote this.

With Authors In April

Did Jesus Really Descend Into Hell?

Just yesterday, my church recited the Apostles' Creed, as millions of other Christians do each Sunday. It includes the statement "I believe in Jesus Christ (...) He descended into hell". Now this is the view of the Catholic Catechism as expressed in Article 5, and also of many Protestants today.

Nevertheless, I think the answer to the titular question is no, because I don't think the Bible teaches it. And I hope to show you why.

Now, there are three texts in the Bible that, if not carefully considered, seem to suggest that Christ did descend into hell.

The first is Ephesians 4:9. It reads, "(In saying, He ascended, what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?)"

The reason the "lower parts of the earth" cannot refer to hell is twofold.

Number one, the preposition "of" excludes that meaning. Paul indicates that the destination of Christ's 'descent' in this verse is not to any place outside of the earth, hence the phrase "of the earth". It would thus be a stretch to claim that He went under the earth, namely, to hell.

Number two, the structure of Paul's logical parallelism in Ephesians 4:9 invites us to attribute the same extent of Christ's ascension to His descent. Paul uses the phrase "in saying, He ascended, what does it mean but..." to illustrate an similarity in the degree to which he meant to exact an inversion from the ascension of Christ. Therefore, we should take it to mean something like "Just as Jesus ascended from earth to heaven, what does it mean but that He descended from heaven to earth?" So I don't believe that this text justifies the assertion that Christ descended into hell.

The second text is found in 1 Peter 3:18-20. It reads, "For Christ also suffered once for the sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patients waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water."

Again, I think the reason this text does not support the assertion that Christ descended into hell is twofold.

Number one, Peter writes in verse 18 that "Christ also suffered once for the sins", namely, on the Calvary road on earth. Now, Hell is a second suffering. Therefore, if Christ had entered a state of purgatorial existence after His death, it would imply that His atoning work on earth was insufficient. This is dangerous.

Number two, the more consistent interpretation for 1 Peter 3:18-20 is that Christ, through the voice of Noah, went and preached to that generation, whose spirits are now "in prison", namely, Hell. It is noteworthy that Peter never says Christ preached to those spirits while they were in prison. Therefore it probably means that in the days of Noah, Christ preached to them once, and now they are in prison. This interpretation is buttressed by 1 Peter 1:10-11, which says, "Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories."

The third text is found in 1 Peter 4:3-6, which says, "This time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are not surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way some people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does."

Once more, I offer two reasons.

Number one, notice the purpose of this 'preaching to the dead'. It can be found in verse 6, where it says, "that though judged in the flesh the way some people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does." A preliminary assertion would be that there is no life in any sense in Hell at all.

Next, we gather contextually from the conjunctional expressions "with respect to this" in verse 4 and "for" in verse 6, that Peter still has in mind the debauched practices of the Gentiles he described in verse 3. To understand his intention behind writing like this, we need only to see the antiparallelism between verses 3 and 6. 1 Peter 4:3 says, "living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry"; 1 Peter 4:6 says, "live in the spirit the way God does".

Therefore, the 'preaching' is an attempt to conform a person who has the heart and mind and life of 1 Peter 4:3, to one who has the heart and mind and life of 1 Peter 4:6, even if this person will be "judged" and will perish in the end (and that we do not know for sure). Hence, it would be illogical to suggest that this message was preached to those who are in hell, because not a single soul in hell is in the capacity to become 1 Peter 4:6.

Number two, from what has been argued above, I read "preached to the dead" as a reference to those who, after being preached to, have since died. Peter never says that Christ went to preach to them after they had died. This fits coherently into the premise established by 1 Peter 1:10-11 and 1 Peter 3:18-20.

Furthermore, I believe that there are other texts that suggest where the spirit of Jesus went after His death. Here are a few:

"And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And He said to him, 'Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.'" Luke 23:42-43

"Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!' And having said this He breathed His last." Luke 23:46

"For David says concerning Him, '(...) For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption...'" Acts 2:27

In conclusion, I believe there is a very, very weak textual basis for the assertion that Christ descended into Hell between Good Friday and Easter to preach to the imprisoned souls of Hell or Hades. Even if it were the case, it eludes me why Jesus would want to do so. So I think it would be God-honouring and truth-cherishing to simply omit the phrase when reciting the Apostles' Creed.

Creating Rainfall

Wisps of thought, strands of time

Moments of snow that spill sublime

Gales of pride, breezes that blush

Crossing paths in a clouded mind

Trembling snowflake, confident hail

A frozen tear where thought derails

From slippery tongue and flurry wit

Vapours of guilt shall haste entail

Temperate design, tropical scheme

Escape spontaneity with watery sheen

Sentiments crystallised, affections stored

What might it be but a torrent of dreams?

Showers of wrath, drizzles of love

A deluge of judgment from the heavens above

Behold - the rainbows of imagination!

Hope the prism, faith the dove

Every cloud a silver lining

Every sun a golden crown

Every sky precipitating

The lands, they thirst for what comes down

tc©

Creating Sunshine

you summon tinder

midnight tendrils approach

a coil of parched broken wood

meek and beset in gloom

power and life encased

usurped and dethroned

bolt shut by wind and rain

that paints your skin

your departed hide

a parasitic white

twitches and flakes like falling talc

chilblained limbs

clutch air claw flesh caressed by icy blades

your work is judged

the sky an eye

you stare back

its pupil a chasm

you grip your flint

black and insurgent

the gales contend to

lacerate your knife

and you strike

metal against stone

a dazzle of spark and cinder

a lustrous display of orange and white peacock feathers

an explosion of hope and life

tc©

Less Than 15 Minutes

Know the truth. Know the Gospel.

Valentine Afterthought

I think I've quoted this before, but let me do it again.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alternation finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, though rose lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 116, "The Marriage Of True Minds"

William Shakespeare

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless."

~Ephesians 5:25-27

Brothers, don't get married so that we can stop pursuing women. Get married so that we can perfect the pursuit of the same woman over a lifetime.

Happy belated Valentine's!

Reader Response: Cry, Baby

"You go to bed now. What you want is a good cry."

This opinion had nothing to recommend it but the general consent of mankind. It is universally understood that, as if it were nothing more substantial than a vapour floating in the sky, every emotion of a woman is bound to end in a shower.

Joseph Conrad in The Secret Agent

Few people have actually seen me shed tears before. General consent of mankind, perhaps. I wonder what Conrad thought of Woolf.

And, sometimes I really wonder what it'd be like if Mum had a daughter.

Quake Queries

Here is an interesting read:

What does the world owe Haiti? Beyond the moral imperative to help save the country there is a practical incentive. Natural disasters - earthquakes, storms, floods - are unavoidable acts of God. But it's possible to build societies, from New Orleans to Port-au-Prince, that can weather them. Doing so would save lives and the tens of billions of dollars that are spent every time a fragile community gets wiped out. "The world can't afford more of these disasters," says Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado. "It's worth investing in these problems now, while we can." Haiti's buried were victims of poverty and neglect, not just the quake. But we owe it to the survivors - to people like Michaud Jonas - to help build a Haiti that will never again be so vulnerable.

Extract taken from 'Aftershock'

TIME Magazine, Feb 1 2010 Issue

What really is the difference between a moral imperative and a practical incentive? To most, solace from a guilty conscience sounds like necessary relief. Then again, why might there even be guilt in the first place?

What might be an 'avoidable' act of God?

What becomes of the 'tens of billions of dollars' that are saved when Port-au-Prince capably resists the next tremor with sound infrastructure in what seems to be a seismogram of the future?

"Surely the world can't afford more of these disasters," unless it plays litigant to an economy of judgment spurred by a currency of wrath. Does it?

What is the real message that is meant to be transmitted by all of this? Is there even one?

The quake queries, and swallows her throat for the first time in a few decades. Difficult, perhaps painful, but interesting indeed.

The Perfect Visit to the Doctor

(At the clinic two days ago)

Dr. Lee: Hello! Come, sit down. So what's wrong with you today?

Me: (meekly) Very, very bad throat.

D: When did it start?

M: (peace sign)

D: Two days ago...wah really cannot talk arh?

M: (nods pitifully)

D: (scribbles) Any fever?

M: (wolverine sign)

D: Three days ago...now stopped?

M: (nods)

D: Okay. (scribbles) Open your mouth. (prepares flashlight)

M: (gapes in pain)

D: ...AIYOH!!! How can you get something like this!?!?

M: ...

D: Aiyoh aiyoh aiyoh...so many ulcers pok pok pok all around your tonsils and your throat...must be so painful!!!

M: (thinks: And this your idea of sympathy...?)

D: Aiyoh come, come to the mirror let me show you...

M: (meekly) Uh no it's okay, scaring myself once is enough for me already.

D: Aiyoh...I want to take picture of this leh...

M: (blank face)

D: Okay never mind. Don't worry don't worry. I'll give you strong antibiotics to bomb all the ulcers. Bomb bomb bomb all of them! But aiyoh...how can you get this kind of thing...your friend spread to you right?

M: (shrugs)

D: Wah, hope you don't spread to me. Come, let me take your temperature.

M: (rod goes under tongue)

D: 37.0. When was the last time you took panadol?

M: (wolverine sign)

D: Three hours ago. No wonder only slightly feverish. Okay, this is very, very bad tonsilitis. You must know, with this kind of inflammation, you can only expect that your fever will keep rising and falling.

M: (shakes head and sighs)

D: Don't worry arh. The antibiotics will bomb all of them. If after a few days it's still like that arh, you come back here. I'll give you that one.

M: ...which one?

D: (points to ass)

M: (thinks: Ass shot) Okay...

D: You want MC or not? I give you 7 days MC.

M: (smiles and shakes hands and heads)

D: Sure? But you must have plenty of rest you know. Okay?

M: (nods)

D: Okay arh, that should be it. (scribbles vigorously) I'm so sorry you kenna such a thing arh. Don't worry, it'll all be over soon. See you next time!

M: (thinks: No thanks. Bye.)

(At the receptionist)

Receptionist: This is for fever and pain, take four times daily after food, these are the antibiotics, take three times........yep, that's it.

M: (holds up the bottle of mouth gargle and performs awkward chemical mixing gesture)

R: ...oh dilution! Yes, sorry. One is to one dilution. Then you can just gargle. Once in the morning and once at night.

M: (nods)

R: Okay so that'll be 45 dollars.

M: What!!

R: Er...oh because she gave you a strong antibiotic that's why it's so expe-

M: (meekly) No no that's not the point...never mind. (hands her $50 bill)

R: Here's your change. Thank you and take care!

M: (waves goodbye and thinks: 45 bucks. What a joke.)