The Handwriting on the Wall is my personal platform for expressing my viewpoints and commentaries on popular trends and current events, often in the light of Bible prophecy. As much as possible, I will endeavour to support these with prooftexts from Holy Scripture.
This blog is a work in progress. Typos (they happen!) and errata (I’ve been known to make some) are continually corrected and updates and links added. This does not mean any deceit is present or intended, only that I aim to be error-free. Corrections can even be made five years after an article has been posted. I also reserve the right to delete entire posts if I so choose for any reason without disclosure of it.
The views contained in the blog articles are those of their respective authors or editors. They do not necessarily reflect the collective views of WHY?Outreach, which sponsors this blog.
Comments are welcome as long as civil, so liberal use of the moderation process will be applied to ad hominem attacks, statements that challenge sound scholarship and lack qualified evidence, use of expletives, profanity, insults and stridency that aim to intimidate, disparaging diatribes against God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and all anti-semitic and anti-Zionist remarks. Be forewarned that all of these will be deleted with no response given to dignify them. Freedom of speech is not carte blanche to be discourteous, contemptuous and uncivil.
This site is not intended as an interactive discussion forum. Sorry! However, if you need to express an opinion on what's read in our three web pages, you are welcome to take it up privately with The Whyman at bhelohim@gmail.com.
However, please be informed that your comments can and will be reproduced as a point of reference for a post I plan to make. This is in accordance with the Fair Use Act:
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”
In accordance with the Berne Convention, all texts, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of and copyright to me and graphics and illustrations are courtesy of WHY?Outreach. Use of illustrations is free of charge with acknowledgment made to WHY?Outreach.
© January, 2009.
Update
Owing to chronic health issues, I find it often difficult to sit up for long and so shall no longer be making original posts and commentaries for this blog. Nevertheless, I plan to keep this blog active as long as the Lord wills. There is not a dearth of great online articles that cover issues as diverse as creationism, prophecy, eschatology and Christian apologetics, issues that I enjoy reading and used to enjoy writing about, and so whenever I'm able I should like to re-blog some of the articles I feel would be edifying to the body of Christ.
I praise the Lord for giving wisdom to so many online teachers who have been faithfully making their knowledge available for free on their respective webpages. Most of all I praise Him for your prayer and support for me and for WHY?Outreach.
© December 2013.
* Elena M. Cooke *: This is a tribute to you
Observing the world, even a microcosmic one of a school, from the viewpoint of an adolescent is undoubtedly coloured by inexperience and presuppositions. It was from this vantage point that I had felt that BBGS during my secondary school years was run by a puritan.
Elena M. Cooke oversaw the operations of the school as a straitlaced disciplinarian who resolutely meted out her draconian law and order to prevent moral turpitude. An example that had stayed in my memory was of the year the entire student body was expressly forbidden from watching 'The Exorcist' at the theatre. A special assembly had to be called for this purpose.
Those were the halcyon days of BBGS. Miss Cooke's leadership ensured that the curriculum and activities were discharged like clockwork, nary missing a rhythm. She led the school to countless academic accolades and cultural laurels including the Federal Territory's Cleanest School award three years in succession (so much so, word on the student grapevine was that BBGS had been barred from participating in subsequent years to allow other schools a chance to win the honour).
Miss Cooke was flawlessness de jure. In all our endeavours, school functions, and toilet and classroom cleanliness, and our uniforms, shoes and deportment, she set high standards of achievement for her staff and students. Not one thoughtless gesture or amoral deed slipped her radar without our being called on the carpet for it. The exception was Teacher's Day, when she allowed you to take the mickey out of her car.
Miss Cooke will also be remembered for her balanced sense of preferences and practicalities: no student was omitted from a kind ear and advice that had priority over a manicured netball field or a varnished gym floor. In working with children, you must deal with the infirm and misfits, in addition to all the victims, derelicts and hostages of dysfunctional homes, and not a few of these were gathered under her custodial wing.
I maintained a low profile as much as I could in school, keeping staccato time in my conformity with the bare requisites, the real 3Rs: responsibility for my learning, relationships with my best friends and rules for preserving order and harmony. I neither hankered for the limelight of the school stage nor cared to be regnant at the compulsory club- and society-meets. It wasn't laziness or apathy – school simply accorded me limited opportunities for enjoyment within the parameter of my interests.
And so you can imagine my surprise to receive a couple of correspondences from Miss Cooke several years later when I was studying abroad. Who would have thought she would have the interest or time to write to a faceless alumnus?
Like everyone else, I wept the day the school farewelled her anchor. I was on the cusp of the MCE finals and adjusting to a new leadership style was a reprehensible idea. As for the prolific Miss Cooke, she obviously hadn't yet overrun her efficacy as a principal and pedagogue, but compulsory retirement had overtaken her. The territory's flags should have flown on half mast that day.
Miss Cooke's prodigious esteem was as celebrated as the colossal stature of BBGS was legendary, their reciprocity embodying the classic symbiotic relationship between a man and his accomplishments. She was displaced too soon but her legacy survived in every alumnus under her tutelage and resonated in every new generation that followed whose forebears had benefited from Choral Speaking and Sports Day, or simply being a member of the BBGS family.
<Observing the world, even a microcosmic one of a school, from the viewpoint of an adolescent is undoubtedly coloured by inexperience and presuppositions. It was from this vantage point that I had felt that BBGS during my secondary school years was run by a puritan.
Elena M. Cooke oversaw the operations of the school as a straitlaced disciplinarian who resolutely meted out her draconian law and order to prevent moral turpitude. An example that had stayed in my memory was of the year the entire student body was expressly forbidden from watching 'The Exorcist' at the theatre. A special assembly had to be called for this purpose.
Those were the halcyon days of BBGS. Miss Cooke's leadership ensured that the curriculum and activities were discharged like clockwork, nary missing a rhythm. She led the school to countless academic accolades and cultural laurels including the Federal Territory's Cleanest School award three years in succession (so much so, word on the student grapevine was that BBGS had been barred from participating in subsequent years to allow other schools a chance to win the honour).
Miss Cooke was flawlessness de jure. In all our endeavours, school functions, and toilet and classroom cleanliness, and our uniforms, shoes and deportment, she set high standards of achievement for her staff and students. Not one thoughtless gesture or amoral deed slipped her radar without our being called on the carpet for it. The exception was Teacher's Day, when she allowed you to take the mickey out of her car.
Miss Cooke will also be remembered for her balanced sense of preferences and practicalities: no student was omitted from a kind ear and advice that had priority over a manicured netball field or a varnished gym floor. In working with children, you must deal with the infirm and misfits, in addition to all the victims, derelicts and hostages of dysfunctional homes, and not a few of these were gathered under her custodial wing.
I maintained a low profile as much as I could in school, keeping staccato time in my conformity with the bare requisites, the real 3Rs: responsibility for my learning, relationships with my best friends and rules for preserving order and harmony. I neither hankered for the limelight of the school stage nor cared to be regnant at the compulsory club- and society-meets. It wasn't laziness or apathy – school simply accorded me limited opportunities for enjoyment within the parameter of my interests.
And so you can imagine my surprise to receive a couple of correspondences from Miss Cooke several years later when I was studying abroad. Who would have thought she would have the interest or time to write to a faceless alumnus?
Like everyone else, I wept the day the school farewelled her anchor. I was on the cusp of the MCE finals and adjusting to a new leadership style was a reprehensible idea. As for the prolific Miss Cooke, she obviously hadn't yet overrun her efficacy as a principal and pedagogue, but compulsory retirement had overtaken her. The territory's flags should have flown on half mast that day.
Miss Cooke's prodigious esteem was as celebrated as the colossal stature of BBGS was legendary, their reciprocity embodying the classic symbiotic relationship between a man and his accomplishments. She was displaced too soon but her legacy survived in every alumnus under her tutelage and resonated in every new generation that followed whose forebears had benefited from Choral Speaking and Sports Day, or simply being a member of the BBGS family.
These are some (revised and updated) imports from my Facebook. Since I may be removing myself from the former (it's a matter of principle and because I loathe its new format), I thought it would be a good idea to save these entries to my blog for posterity and future reference.
Balancing the equation
During, and in the weeks following, the Israeli-Hamas conflict late last year, we were forced to ingest much disingenuous brouhaha from the media which dishonorably dubbed the former the War of Propaganda. We were also regularly served up editorials and commentaries from the Arab and international community, which predictably accused Israel of war crimes and the slaughter of innocents.
However, sorely missing from the equation was the voice of the Israelis, particularly the denizens of Sderot, the town that had borne the brunt of Hamas' offensive the last eight years before Israel launched a strike-back. It was this voice that counted among the regnant noises of the real propagandists that make up the liberal media and the anti-Israel demonstrators.
During an airing of the programme, This Is Your Day on TTV, the Mayor of Sderot went on the record to attest to the facts of the Hamas aggression. According to him, Sderot with a population of 23,000, had been hit by 9,000 missiles until Israel's ground strike, which translated to an average of 1,100 rockets a year or 3 shellings a day. The munition, smuggled into the Gaza city of tunnels from Egypt, was sponsored by Teheran under the aegis of the Iranian demagogue, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
The question the media and the world needed to ask themselves was: why didn't we hear of this deplorable action by Israel's enemies the last eight years? Why didn't the media report on the Hamas' crimes against the Israeli community? Why were there no demonstrations on behalf of the citizens of Sderot by the world's humanitarian and civil rights groups?
Which brings me to this unassailable truth – where Israel is concerned, few care to push the envelope.
Oh puhlleez!
Equality in the workplace is a fragmented reality. Ironically, it's often another woman who is fortifying the glass ceiling's relentless defenses. I've also to struggle with the stereotype of the Asian woman foreigner who's seen as a mail-order bride.
These struggles were accented late last year when a co-worker, who initiated our verbal volley in the first place, asked me if I had a rich husband after I'd told her that I was considering retirement. Needless to say, my competitive instincts reviled at her effrontery and were egging me on with the riposte (rendered in a mock-patrician tone): “Oh, daaahling, see this? It's my $2,200.00 Prada shift, which I bought ten years ago when the dollar wasn't inflated. The wages of my own labour are quite capable of maintaining my lifestyle.”
Had it not been for my caveat, which is the Beatitudes, I would have yielded to my instincts to retaliate; instead it was all I could do to wonder at her, my mouth agape.
Another tenuous world view collapses
Among the myriad of untenable world views in existence, pantheism, atheism, New Ageism, dualism, and naturalism, I find solipsism and its adherents the most riddled with inconsistencies. Obviously the solipsist, believing his own existence is all that he can be certain of, does not believe in God, miracles and angels; in fact, he believes that except for the self everything else may be a dream or figment of someone's imagination. This includes the existence of his parents, his house, his offspring, his job, his pet Chihuahua, the cafeteria he likes to frequent to eat his favourite chicken croissant. With deference to the solipsist, if his existence is all he can be sure of, why not dive in front of a moving car to test if it exists? Ironically, one will note that the solipsist looks both ways before crossing the road ...
The anti-multiculturalism of the Nationalist Alliance
If I've given the impression that I'm anti-multiculturalism, it's because I am. I simply don't believe that race exists. Race is a Darwinian invention which postulates that some ethnicities are less evolved and therefore less human than others. On the other hand, the Bible describes only two kinds of people: Jews and Gentiles. At the same time, it also teaches that all men are equal. Hence I must distance my brand of anti-multiculturalism, which tries to bleed across imaginary ethnic and cultural borders, from that of Kyle Chapman, which attempts to create an exclusive community of like-minded white Europeans with the goal of expanding the community to all NZ. For these people are doing exactly what I find abhorrent – play the race card and legitimise white supremacy. Their brand of anti-multiculturalism is more dangerous and anti-Christian than pluralism. It's thinly-veiled neo-fascism in the making.
Balancing the equation
During, and in the weeks following, the Israeli-Hamas conflict late last year, we were forced to ingest much disingenuous brouhaha from the media which dishonorably dubbed the former the War of Propaganda. We were also regularly served up editorials and commentaries from the Arab and international community, which predictably accused Israel of war crimes and the slaughter of innocents.
However, sorely missing from the equation was the voice of the Israelis, particularly the denizens of Sderot, the town that had borne the brunt of Hamas' offensive the last eight years before Israel launched a strike-back. It was this voice that counted among the regnant noises of the real propagandists that make up the liberal media and the anti-Israel demonstrators.
During an airing of the programme, This Is Your Day on TTV, the Mayor of Sderot went on the record to attest to the facts of the Hamas aggression. According to him, Sderot with a population of 23,000, had been hit by 9,000 missiles until Israel's ground strike, which translated to an average of 1,100 rockets a year or 3 shellings a day. The munition, smuggled into the Gaza city of tunnels from Egypt, was sponsored by Teheran under the aegis of the Iranian demagogue, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
The question the media and the world needed to ask themselves was: why didn't we hear of this deplorable action by Israel's enemies the last eight years? Why didn't the media report on the Hamas' crimes against the Israeli community? Why were there no demonstrations on behalf of the citizens of Sderot by the world's humanitarian and civil rights groups?
Which brings me to this unassailable truth – where Israel is concerned, few care to push the envelope.
Oh puhlleez!
Equality in the workplace is a fragmented reality. Ironically, it's often another woman who is fortifying the glass ceiling's relentless defenses. I've also to struggle with the stereotype of the Asian woman foreigner who's seen as a mail-order bride.
These struggles were accented late last year when a co-worker, who initiated our verbal volley in the first place, asked me if I had a rich husband after I'd told her that I was considering retirement. Needless to say, my competitive instincts reviled at her effrontery and were egging me on with the riposte (rendered in a mock-patrician tone): “Oh, daaahling, see this? It's my $2,200.00 Prada shift, which I bought ten years ago when the dollar wasn't inflated. The wages of my own labour are quite capable of maintaining my lifestyle.”
Had it not been for my caveat, which is the Beatitudes, I would have yielded to my instincts to retaliate; instead it was all I could do to wonder at her, my mouth agape.
Another tenuous world view collapses
Among the myriad of untenable world views in existence, pantheism, atheism, New Ageism, dualism, and naturalism, I find solipsism and its adherents the most riddled with inconsistencies. Obviously the solipsist, believing his own existence is all that he can be certain of, does not believe in God, miracles and angels; in fact, he believes that except for the self everything else may be a dream or figment of someone's imagination. This includes the existence of his parents, his house, his offspring, his job, his pet Chihuahua, the cafeteria he likes to frequent to eat his favourite chicken croissant. With deference to the solipsist, if his existence is all he can be sure of, why not dive in front of a moving car to test if it exists? Ironically, one will note that the solipsist looks both ways before crossing the road ...
The anti-multiculturalism of the Nationalist Alliance
If I've given the impression that I'm anti-multiculturalism, it's because I am. I simply don't believe that race exists. Race is a Darwinian invention which postulates that some ethnicities are less evolved and therefore less human than others. On the other hand, the Bible describes only two kinds of people: Jews and Gentiles. At the same time, it also teaches that all men are equal. Hence I must distance my brand of anti-multiculturalism, which tries to bleed across imaginary ethnic and cultural borders, from that of Kyle Chapman, which attempts to create an exclusive community of like-minded white Europeans with the goal of expanding the community to all NZ. For these people are doing exactly what I find abhorrent – play the race card and legitimise white supremacy. Their brand of anti-multiculturalism is more dangerous and anti-Christian than pluralism. It's thinly-veiled neo-fascism in the making.
I find it peculiar that atheists and liberals expect Bible-believers to be pacifists. Why do atheists care, unless they are going through an existential crisis? Liberals, on the other hand, justify pacifism by evoking a meek Jesus who taught us to turn the other cheek (and not much else). However, their effort is simply an invention to defend their apologetic.
Firstly, 'turning the other cheek' is a teaching in refraining from retaliation, which is distinct from self-defense. For elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Luke 22:36), we're given the precept to defend our home, country and ourselves if our freedom and peace were threatened by hostile invaders.
Second, as we've espoused time and again, Jesus is both the Prince of Peace and God of justice whose Second Coming will be as a Warrior King who will smite the rebellious nations of the world with the Sword of His Word (Rev.19:15).
Shifting gear ...
Contrary to the norm, I live to eat. Or at least it's what I'd like to tell people. Unfortunately, you indulge in epicureanism with a huge ransom to your health and image.
Doctors, dietitians, nutritionists and personal trainers, all teach us to 'eat to live', but what a tragic truism to swear by. Because it is eating to stay alive. Because eating as an activity is divested of joy and legitimacy.
Which statement makes the more sense or gives a happier message? 'I eat therefore I live', which makes eating a means of survival and self-preservation? Or 'I live therefore I eat', which makes eating a metaphor for liberty: liberty from the tyranny of diets, the constrictions of size zero and the constraints of guilt?
And when did eating become a function of living rather than a celebration of being? Perhaps it was when the first parents ate the forbidden fruit, which went horribly wrong, and eating lost its original design.
Speaking of things forbidden, a rash of bad publicity has been rolling off the press and Internet of late making 'fundamentalism' a dirty word. Bible-believers are running in spade to deny the label in favour of calling themselves evangelicals. It's a classic case of equivocation – they fear being associated with the militants of Islam who murder thousands of infidels in the name of religion.
I believe the label 'evangelicalism' has today even more negative associations and connotations in Christian circles. Evangelicalism and those in the Evangelical Left are at risk of being on the wayward path to first embracing 'all religions lead to God', an axiom of the emerging church movement; then liberalism of the Jesus Seminar ilk; after that, ecumenism, the ushering in of world peace through the unity of all faiths (anathema to Christ because of their mutually exclusive core tenets); and finally apostasy, the denial of Christ altogether, of which Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
It would be prudent at this juncture to disabuse the ignorant of fundamentalism by delineating the origin of the term. The word 'fundamentalist' was first employed in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in reference to a Christian who held to the historic core doctrines of the Christian faith: (1) the inerrancy of Scriptures, (2) the miracles of Christ (including His virgin birth), (3) the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, (4) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and (5) the deity of Christ.
From author David Robertson to TV news anchor, Bill O'Reilly, fundamentalists today are copping a motherlode of negative press. Fundamentalists are blamed for everything that's negative about religion, from hate crimes, anti-intellectualism and persecution of homosexuals, to the mass carnage of devotees of extremist cults and sects such as the Branch Davidian.
Many a time, this equivocation is unjustifiably set up as a strawman by amnesty and civil rights groups in order to discredit and silence the Body of Christ and browbeat the courts into according more rights and privileges to the fringe groups they represent. Reason? It's Christians, in particular of the fundamentalist right wing persuasion, who are standing in the way of gay rights and climate change protocol and New Ageism and pro-choice.
As for me, I'm proud to admit that I subscribe to fundamentalism as my apologetic for it's validation that my beliefs are balanced on the fulcrum of the 5 Biblical fundamentals. An aside, if you're going to call yourself a Right Wing evangelical, you might as well retain the label 'fundamentalist', because they aren't totally at variance. However, if your actions or beliefs contravene these, then, by definition, you don't pass the fundamentalist's muster, so dispense with the strawman arguments already!
I believe the label 'evangelicalism' has today even more negative associations and connotations in Christian circles. Evangelicalism and those in the Evangelical Left are at risk of being on the wayward path to first embracing 'all religions lead to God', an axiom of the emerging church movement; then liberalism of the Jesus Seminar ilk; after that, ecumenism, the ushering in of world peace through the unity of all faiths (anathema to Christ because of their mutually exclusive core tenets); and finally apostasy, the denial of Christ altogether, of which Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
It would be prudent at this juncture to disabuse the ignorant of fundamentalism by delineating the origin of the term. The word 'fundamentalist' was first employed in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in reference to a Christian who held to the historic core doctrines of the Christian faith: (1) the inerrancy of Scriptures, (2) the miracles of Christ (including His virgin birth), (3) the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, (4) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and (5) the deity of Christ.
From author David Robertson to TV news anchor, Bill O'Reilly, fundamentalists today are copping a motherlode of negative press. Fundamentalists are blamed for everything that's negative about religion, from hate crimes, anti-intellectualism and persecution of homosexuals, to the mass carnage of devotees of extremist cults and sects such as the Branch Davidian.
Many a time, this equivocation is unjustifiably set up as a strawman by amnesty and civil rights groups in order to discredit and silence the Body of Christ and browbeat the courts into according more rights and privileges to the fringe groups they represent. Reason? It's Christians, in particular of the fundamentalist right wing persuasion, who are standing in the way of gay rights and climate change protocol and New Ageism and pro-choice.
As for me, I'm proud to admit that I subscribe to fundamentalism as my apologetic for it's validation that my beliefs are balanced on the fulcrum of the 5 Biblical fundamentals. An aside, if you're going to call yourself a Right Wing evangelical, you might as well retain the label 'fundamentalist', because they aren't totally at variance. However, if your actions or beliefs contravene these, then, by definition, you don't pass the fundamentalist's muster, so dispense with the strawman arguments already!
It's not teenage boys!
You can blame the purist in me, and it's not teenage girls, either. It is teenage culture – the culture of teenagers. It is teenage fashion – the fashion of teenagers. And it is teenage crime – the crime of teenagers. However, it is teenaged boy and teenaged girl – persons of ages between 13 and 20. At least that's how my dusty lexicons used to define the terminology. These were the differences in usage teachers of yore taught me to distinguish. Not today, however; today headlines scream 'Teenage Boy Saves Drowning Man' and 'Teenage Girl Wins Jackpot', and no one bats an eyelid.
It bothers me that ads and most schoolteachers today do not accurately use, or teach the usage of, words like everyday vs. every day, its vs. it's, and uninterested vs. disinterested.
The apparent adulteration of the English language is today haloed as acceptable by our new dictionaries and Spellcheck! Now, I realise languages evolve to accommodate a dumbed-down one-size-fits-all generation* but let's restore the real McCoy to everyday usage lest we start on a slippery slope to senseless 'text language' finding its way into the lexicon as well.
*An aside: if you get a chance to read Eve's Bite [by Ian Wishart, Howling At the Moon Publishing Ltd, NZ, 2007] do not pass it up.
Yet another hard sell for location, location, locationI was once asked if I'd buy the best house in the worst neighbourhood or the worst house in the best neighbourhood. My answer was, and still is, the latter. But let me modify the rubric – I'd buy a second-rate house in a swanky neighbourhood, and then hope that my modesty wouldn't be lost on criminals on the lurk.
Yet what lurks on the other side of the tracks is more dire – squalor and its concomitant noise, domestic violence, gang-associated activities, overcrowding. Furthermore, should you be the wealthiest real estate owner there, you'd probably find thieves regarding the hub caps of your Audi, and burglars your Plasma TV, theirs for the taking. All because violating you and yours is a pastime embittered minds and desperate felons will find irresistible. Now, I'm not superimposing a pedigreed attitude on others just because I recognise the advantages of a good location, am I?
Missing my hearth
A gathering with my husband's family at Christmas or a birthday party always occasions a sense of nostalgia for familial events in KL. There's the usual jubilating, playing catch-up and laughter swelling in synchrony to the quantity of Sauvignon Blanc consumed. After the gamut of food, drink and conversation, the parents adjourn for their post-celebration mahjong-playing and the youth for the club or karaoke. The children left behind will be succumbing to ennui at the elders' regaling the Japanese occupation, the 60s' tumult and the 70s' plenitude. Finally we all wind down in the wee hours of a new day with the feeling that we have the best family in the whole world and will never trade it for any other. And I believe this feeling is universal to families of all cultures that have a reason to gather together.
Life's paradoxes
'So near and yet so far' – that's a paradox, simply put. Over the years I've found many of life's serial Catch-22s insanely befuddling: the bank won't extend to you a loan unless you have a credit history, which you can't create until you're given a bank loan. In order to feel sufficiently comfortable to talk to people, you need to know them, which comes from talking to them. You try to convince your atheist friend that God exists by describing your experiences, but he dismisses your experiences as subjective reasoning, and when you appeal to objective evidence for God's existence, he rejects it as he wants empirical evidence. You don't qualify for the job unless you possess the requisite experience, but that comes from being offered the job. Finally, you try to lose weight by eating less but that results in a lower metabolism, which causes you to gain weight. Yeah, you get the picture.
The marriage bed is undefiledWhen my husband's first cousin got married, I started thinking about my own marriage and the approaching 7-year itch. I don't doubt our ability to cross that milestone because, if my husband and I have learned anything, it is that committing to our contractual terms for a lifelong co-existence is a matter of choice.
Continuing to love our spouse is a choice we make every day: love otherwise atrophies since chemistry is a myth and moods are ephemeral. Chemistry doesn't count for much when your significant other habitually leaves the toilet seat up, routinely squeezes the toothpaste in the middle of the tube, uncannily smells like rancorous salted fish first thing in the morning, and every Sunday before church thoughtlessly compels you to marinate in your juices while your patience is tested by her obsessive compulsive need to colour co-ordinate her shoes to her gloves.
However, Marriage is Forever is a very real rather than imagined concept if we make the choice to be the first to extend a truce after an altercation, to remember to issue compliments for that delicious roast or perfect cup of Moccachino, and to keep surprising our spouses with handmade gifts, love notes or just the simple things we can do for them such as giving him a back massage or, if not too shabby in the notions department, offer to fix her hem or re-sew the button on her favourite shirt.
If both husband and wife make the choice to put the other's needs first, meeting each other halfway would come sooner on the paper divide, and this inevitably will always bridge the divide.
Requiem for Generation Y~ to be delivered in the year 2020
“I stand before you, amid an equal distribution of yawns and tears, to deliver my elegy for Gen-Y. Yours was a generation forged in the crucible of secular humanism. You stood for everything antithetical to God while you made relativism your god.
“You regarded the top job your entitlement, and wondered 'Y' you must rise through the rank and file for it. You coveted instant gratification: the latest Playstation, VW convertible, Marc Jacobs bag – you wanted them all and you wanted them ten minutes ago. You lived it up by partying, boozing and sowing your wild oats, and your legacy is a face deprived of the details of character, a life devoid of soul and that unborn child denied a life because he cramped your style.
“And now as you go into the pale, all that remains of you is the detritus of your debauched life which will continue to fall in a heap all around you long after the last dust has settled on your headstone.
“Rest in peace, Gen-Y. You shan't be missed.”
I'm one of many fans of comic book and book characters that have grown up with the latter harbouring a secret notion about who we think would be most suited for playing these characters in a film. Making these characters into a form larger than life, particularly in a leading role, requires someone of the calibre of Brad Pitt who can carry a film.
Some directors have been spot on, in my opinion, in their casting of suitable thespians in the roles of their respective superhero persona, but others must have had a bad meal during the casting calls. For instance, Kelsey Grammer epitomised the dignified Hank McCoy (or The Beast in X-Men, The Last Stand) and the verities of the Fantastic Four were perfectly captured by Ion Gruffud (Reed Richards), Michael Chiklis (The Thing) and Chris Evans (Johnny Storm). Brad Pitt was a plausible vampire Louis, despite (or because of) the sanguinary mandible, simian stares and constipated countenance. On the other hand, Ben Affleck was a dismal and wooden Matt Murdoch, while Eric Bana, I believe, was the wrong man to play Bruce Banner (the Hulk) - it needed suspension of disbelief to conceive of the troubled 5'9" 127-lb. scientist within Bana's bulk. Marvel had wanted Steve Buscemi (of Armageddon fame) in this role which, I personally feel, was tailor-made for Johnny Depp.
My almost-complete list of best and worst cast actors in a superhero or book-adapted role:
Most aptly cast
Kelsey Grammer (Beast, X-Men)
Hugh Jackman (Wolverine, X-Men)
Ron Perlman (Hellboy)
Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin, in Spiderman)
Helen Slater (Supergirl)
Jennifer Garner (Elektra)
Olivia Hussey (Juliet, in Romeo & Juliet)
Brad Pitt (the vampire, Louis)
Brandon Lee (The Crow)
Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft, Tomb Raider)
Robert Downey Jr (Tony Stark or Iron Man)
Michael Chiklis (Ben Grimm or The Thing, Fantastic Four)
Alan Rickman (Sheriff of Nottingham, in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves)
Taylor Kitsch (Gambit, X-Men Origins)
Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier, in X-Men)
Stuart Townsend (Dorian Grey, in League of Xtraordinary Gentlemen)
Most wrongly cast(with recommendation for alternative actors if ever there’s going to be a re-make)Famke Janssen (Jean Grey, X-Men) ... Better choice: Lucy Lawless
Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker, Spiderman) ... Better choice: Chace Crawford
Eric Bana (Bruce Banner or the Hulk) ... Better choice: Johnny Depp
Kevin Costner (Robin Hood) ... Better choice: Orlando Bloom
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Maid Marian) ... Better choice: Emmy Rossum
Ben Affleck (Matt Murdoch or Daredevil) ... Better choice: Josh Hartnett
Halle Berry (Catwoman) ... Better choice: Summer GlauHalle Berry (Storm, X-Men) ... Better choice: Jessica Alba or Grace JonesChris O'Donnell (Dick Grayson or Robin) ... Better choice: Emile HirschTommy Lee Jones (Two Face, in Batman) ... Better choice: Malcolm McDowell
Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane, in Spiderman) ... Better choice: Mary Elizabeth Winstead
James Marsden (Scott Summers, X-Men) ... Better choice: Keanu ReevesAnna Paquin (Rogue, X-Men) ... Better choice: Natalie PortmanViggo Mortensen (Aragon, in LotR) ... Better choice: Stuart TownsendChristian Bale (Bruce Wayne or Batman) ... Better choice: Timothy OlyphantJessica Alba (Sue Storm, Fantastic Four) ... Better choice: Scarlett Johansson or Julie GonzaloBen Foster (Angel, X-Men) ... Better choice: Justin Hartley
Edward Norton (new Bruce Banner) ... Better choice: it's still Johnny Depp
There aren't many things I can truthfully say I know with one hundred percent certainty. For instance, I don't know with complete certainty that living in NZ is something God has always intended for me. However, ever since my husband and I made up our minds that we would be based here for a time – till God sees fit to uproot us – we have seen Him blessing our decision in many ways. Nevertheless there have been trials that have very often cast doubts my way. I don't know for sure that I want to carry on teaching next year – and I won't air my soiled linen here that's no one else's business. Suffice to say I don't see myself being a teacher by choice after this year. And I'm not certain if I want to go ahead and build our dream house in NZ after all; I am open to the possibility of relocating again. Maybe to Singapore. Or Dubai.
However, there is one thing I'm very certain of and that is being married to my present husband – my only husband for life – has always been in God's plans for me. I am amazed by the sheer number of things we have in common that is being revealed to me bit by bit and day by day. Without divulging too many personal secrets I will comment on just three.
My husband and I enjoy playing games with each other. I'm not talking about the kind of mind games some couples play to establish a leverage in their altercation with each other. Women are especially adept at these kinds of games, manipulating situations and their spouses' weaknesses to blackmail emotionally and up their ante. Some women play their mind games so well that they premeditate conflicts with their husbands because it becomes perversely comforting to be engaged in hostility which compensates for a vacuous matrimony. No, the games my husband and I enjoy playing are reminiscent of childhood ones such as Hide and Seek, where I would hide and my husband seek. There are just so many places in the house in which I can hide before they become overused and par for his guesses, but my husband indulges us by protracting the sport with pretensions that he has lost me or the Rapture has taken place. And we never tire of recreating our version of Truth or Dare with its improvised questions and answers, which are imbibed with a sense of deja vu because played ad nauseam.
In our youth, both my husband and I came fairly close to attaining celluloid notoriety that could have dictated the paths of our destinies very differently. I befriended Seattle when we were both waiting on tables at a friend's uptown diner in order to save up for our college tuition. One day after a tennis outing with Seattle, I was persuaded to accompany her to a movie audition en route to home. A local film production company was casting for its latest project and my friend was auditioning for a role. Still in our tennis gear, we proceeded to the audition site where Seattle was put through a grueling rigmarole of reading lines and being interviewed and screen tested. The producers invited me to do the screen test as well, which I obliged for the fun of it. To my astonishment, I received a call-back a month later and was informed that the producers had cast me in a minor part, and if I accepted I should turn up at the set for preliminary rehearsals the following week. My euphoria at the news was swiftly derailed by the discovery that Seattle hadn't been successful in her own audition, so this, and my VCE finals just around the corner, prevented me from accepting the role.
When my husband was about six years old, he was invited to attend a telethon because his school had been one of the benefactors of the charity event. On the set of the telethon were several well known American celebrities and sitcom stars. One of the cast members of the sitcom, Benson, the actor, René Auberjonois (who went on to play the alien, Odo, on Star Trek – Deep Space Nine and star in Boston Legal), must have detected traces of star quality in my husband for he approached him and, without beating about the bush, asked him if he wanted to be famous. Unfortunately, whatever Mr. Auberjonois' intention was at that time is irrelevant now because, recognising this luminary of the small screen, my husband was too astounded to utter a reply much less a meaningful repartee. Seconds ticked by when nothing ensued but my husband's realisation that he had lost his chance at stardom under Auberjonois' wing, for the gentleman had no sooner vanished without so much as a by your leave than a conclusive “I guess not” was issued from his lips in reply to his own question. Years later, my husband would impress the casting directors of The Lord of the Rings with his skills at swordsmanship, but whether or not he got a call-back to be an extra in Peter Jackson's box office triumph remains anybody's guess since he couldn't stay long enough in Napier to find out.
I've not been acquainted with any other man who can put up with my habits and quirks. I have an olfactory disorder which has led to my dependence on Vicks and Tiger Balm, and as a consequence I have burned my bridges with many a former boyfriend who vexed at my smelling of menthol instead of Chanel No. 5. My husband, on the other hand, is enamoured of menthol, especially that found in Tiger Balm. He lavishes it on his face as if it were an after-shave. Similarly, I don't know many other women who can appreciate a husband that habitually turns an opinion into a prospective moot for an impromptu debate. It's pretty intense – but my husband is a man on a mission and quest for accuracy, and it is this quality among many that has made a first and indelible impression on me. In addition, both my husband and I enjoy all things medieval – knights' tales, magical swords and the dulcet mood pan flutes bring out in Celtic music. Books and films depict few things with the florid of that era: peregrine troubadours, itinerant hucksters, bacchanalian jousts and flattering Princess lines. My husband once belonged to the Medieval Re-enaction Club and wants to ignite his passion for medieval sword fighting again by re-newing his membership in the club. I fancy the challenge of running through a gauntlet.
That both my husband and I are perfectly matched is undeniable. Concerning love we both believe it's a choice we make which consolidates a marriage. Concerning marriage we both believe it's a sacred institution between a man and a woman that originated with God. Concerning God we both believe He is the Author and Architect of all life. Concerning life we both believe its purpose is the glory of God. Having common life principles and objectives such as these has gone some way in equipping our marriage with the conviction to overcome a steady onslaught of clashing traits, habits and preferences.
However, there is one thing I'm very certain of and that is being married to my present husband – my only husband for life – has always been in God's plans for me. I am amazed by the sheer number of things we have in common that is being revealed to me bit by bit and day by day. Without divulging too many personal secrets I will comment on just three.
My husband and I enjoy playing games with each other. I'm not talking about the kind of mind games some couples play to establish a leverage in their altercation with each other. Women are especially adept at these kinds of games, manipulating situations and their spouses' weaknesses to blackmail emotionally and up their ante. Some women play their mind games so well that they premeditate conflicts with their husbands because it becomes perversely comforting to be engaged in hostility which compensates for a vacuous matrimony. No, the games my husband and I enjoy playing are reminiscent of childhood ones such as Hide and Seek, where I would hide and my husband seek. There are just so many places in the house in which I can hide before they become overused and par for his guesses, but my husband indulges us by protracting the sport with pretensions that he has lost me or the Rapture has taken place. And we never tire of recreating our version of Truth or Dare with its improvised questions and answers, which are imbibed with a sense of deja vu because played ad nauseam.
In our youth, both my husband and I came fairly close to attaining celluloid notoriety that could have dictated the paths of our destinies very differently. I befriended Seattle when we were both waiting on tables at a friend's uptown diner in order to save up for our college tuition. One day after a tennis outing with Seattle, I was persuaded to accompany her to a movie audition en route to home. A local film production company was casting for its latest project and my friend was auditioning for a role. Still in our tennis gear, we proceeded to the audition site where Seattle was put through a grueling rigmarole of reading lines and being interviewed and screen tested. The producers invited me to do the screen test as well, which I obliged for the fun of it. To my astonishment, I received a call-back a month later and was informed that the producers had cast me in a minor part, and if I accepted I should turn up at the set for preliminary rehearsals the following week. My euphoria at the news was swiftly derailed by the discovery that Seattle hadn't been successful in her own audition, so this, and my VCE finals just around the corner, prevented me from accepting the role.
When my husband was about six years old, he was invited to attend a telethon because his school had been one of the benefactors of the charity event. On the set of the telethon were several well known American celebrities and sitcom stars. One of the cast members of the sitcom, Benson, the actor, René Auberjonois (who went on to play the alien, Odo, on Star Trek – Deep Space Nine and star in Boston Legal), must have detected traces of star quality in my husband for he approached him and, without beating about the bush, asked him if he wanted to be famous. Unfortunately, whatever Mr. Auberjonois' intention was at that time is irrelevant now because, recognising this luminary of the small screen, my husband was too astounded to utter a reply much less a meaningful repartee. Seconds ticked by when nothing ensued but my husband's realisation that he had lost his chance at stardom under Auberjonois' wing, for the gentleman had no sooner vanished without so much as a by your leave than a conclusive “I guess not” was issued from his lips in reply to his own question. Years later, my husband would impress the casting directors of The Lord of the Rings with his skills at swordsmanship, but whether or not he got a call-back to be an extra in Peter Jackson's box office triumph remains anybody's guess since he couldn't stay long enough in Napier to find out.
I've not been acquainted with any other man who can put up with my habits and quirks. I have an olfactory disorder which has led to my dependence on Vicks and Tiger Balm, and as a consequence I have burned my bridges with many a former boyfriend who vexed at my smelling of menthol instead of Chanel No. 5. My husband, on the other hand, is enamoured of menthol, especially that found in Tiger Balm. He lavishes it on his face as if it were an after-shave. Similarly, I don't know many other women who can appreciate a husband that habitually turns an opinion into a prospective moot for an impromptu debate. It's pretty intense – but my husband is a man on a mission and quest for accuracy, and it is this quality among many that has made a first and indelible impression on me. In addition, both my husband and I enjoy all things medieval – knights' tales, magical swords and the dulcet mood pan flutes bring out in Celtic music. Books and films depict few things with the florid of that era: peregrine troubadours, itinerant hucksters, bacchanalian jousts and flattering Princess lines. My husband once belonged to the Medieval Re-enaction Club and wants to ignite his passion for medieval sword fighting again by re-newing his membership in the club. I fancy the challenge of running through a gauntlet.
That both my husband and I are perfectly matched is undeniable. Concerning love we both believe it's a choice we make which consolidates a marriage. Concerning marriage we both believe it's a sacred institution between a man and a woman that originated with God. Concerning God we both believe He is the Author and Architect of all life. Concerning life we both believe its purpose is the glory of God. Having common life principles and objectives such as these has gone some way in equipping our marriage with the conviction to overcome a steady onslaught of clashing traits, habits and preferences.
It's been said that the Consumer Rights and Protection laws in Malaysia are five years behind the United States. If this were the case, then New Zealand would need ten years to catch up with America. This story is going to grate on some raw nerves but the truth must be told. NZ's backward Customer Protection laws, an unethical trade and consumer culture and unprofessional sales personnel, all contribute to an unpleasant and burdensome shopping experience.
Those advertisements for sales and special offers that assail our TV screens on a daily basis truly boggle my senses. It's not the hard sell itself that's mind boggling but the condition that is attached to it, usually written in fine print. There can be no mitigating a sale or discount item that is contingent upon the quantity of stocks available, thence the arm-twisting condition that it's 'only while stocks last'. Recognising its shogunate repercussions for consumers, the Malaysian commerce ministry puts a ban on offers and sales of this nature. The law is clear: no retailer is permitted to announce an item on sale or offer unless stocks of said-item are ample and available for all customers until the end of the sale or offer period. The exception is bulky goods whose stock numbers are restricted by a manufacturer's quid pro quo like whiteware and furniture where a line or make has been discontinued. However, offers and sales by major stores here, such as The Warehouse, Countdown and Woolworths, always come with a caveat of stock availability, even of popular items with a high turnover and established brand names such as Dove Beauty Soap, Arnott's biscuits and KiwiSoft toilet paper. I mean, how difficult is it to re-stock these?
It irks me that their offers are slated to last until midnight of a certain day, but long before the deadline has expired, the items are already sold out. This is an old trade canard that lures consumers into a store with false promises. Against such a practice must consumers be protected because having already made the trip, they will inevitably concede to buying a substitute at the usual retail price since they are loath to return home empty-handed. If an item is sold out but the offer period is outstanding, compensation for the customer's loss of time and transport costs must be made at the retailer's expense. A retailer who skirts the issue of his lack of scruples with a fine print is crossing the line of decency and fair trade ethic. A sale promise that cannot be honoured with available stocks is entrapment of a consumer, for as long as he can be enticed to enter your store he can also be tempted to buy something he never needed to begin with. Besides, the act of buying something – anything – is dangerously alluring. And it's this prescribed psychology of consumerism that the marketing departments are privy to and peruse to the retailer's advantage, never mind the cost to a consumer. But then that's their stock-in-trade (pun intended), isn't that?
There is a tendency for several clothing stores here to dredge up merchandise from a few seasons ago and tout them in their end-of-season sale. 'Farmers' is especially guilty of this practice. Something in the back of my ethical mind tells me that has to be illegal? These retailers should just be honest and front them up as a retro-fashion sale. And why is there no regulatory body here to stem the tide of sales that has this country under their siege? Seasonal sales, weekend sales, one-day sales, special occasion sales – Waitangi Day sales, Mother's Day sales, Easter sales, Boxing Day sales, VIP sales, Closing-down sales, End-of-lease sales, Stock-liquidation sales, Sale-for-the-sake-of-having-a-sale sales, and The-sale-to-end-all-sales sales – every day seems to be a sale day in some retail stores. Our major TV networks earn advertising revenue from retail anchors such as Briscoes, Harvey Norman and No.1 Shoes, and to the informed these retail chains sponsor the most number of sales in a year, thence the overwhelming invasion of their ads in our living rooms. Ezibuy and Farmers are implacable with their commitment to their arbitrary one-day sales but I wouldn't be remiss in my suspicion that their prices will have been hiked up before the sale to create an appearance that customers are being offered a good deal. In Malaysia the number of sales per year that a retail store is allowed to have is regulated by the commerce commission and retailers must register their sales days or periods at the start of the business year. Renegade retailers risk a revoking of their operating licenses.
My husband has ownership of some aspects of this last rant since he routinely does the grocery shopping and comes home annoyed by discourteous and unfriendly cashiers. I see my husband's point, even if it's more relevant to his shopping experience. Still, having lived in a number of countries – Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and my own country of origin, Malaysia, I believe I'm qualified to ratify his observation: New Zealand customer services personnel have the worst PR of any country in the free world. Go to that supermarket of ubiquity in any town and on any day in NZ and you're guaranteed to be met by hapless faces behind the cash registers. What disturbs us both is that many of these faces belong to young people – post-secondary school students, no less. Yet, these are people who know they aren't trapped in a dead-end job forever. Now, I appreciate the fact that all of us have our insecurities and employ different kinds of defense mechanism to avoid harm. After all, people tell me I put up walls, so who am I to judge? That said, I leave behind my insecurities before I enter the classroom. And I do appreciate the fact that sales assistants and customer services personnel have the right to be protected from irate and inebriated customers; but why a customer services job if you plan to be a daily foil to merry job productivity and gay consumer outlay? Suspicion of a customer's intent does not give you the right to be cold and terse to everyone, or to paint with your broad brush everybody as a mugger.
It's unfortunate but true: I've never felt the old adage that 'customers are always right' relevant in New Zealand. I'm seldom met by friendly sales personnel who appreciate my dropping in for a browse. I don't feel protected by a system of recourse and redress put in place here for consumers who have been on the receiving end of an unfair trade practice. But I guess if such a system existed, we wouldn't need Fair Go and Target to mediate for us now, would we?
I'm not so naïve as to presume that my apologetics will make an iota of difference to liberals and skeptics, or have a soupcon of impact on the general audience. For this reason, I offer no apology for disabling the comments function of my Facebook and Blog. It's otiose to turn it on since no one else can persuade me to adopt his viewpoint anymore than I can convince anyone else to take my position. Besides, I rather like to think of myself as an apologist, though one with a faint heart. Now that I'm at the turning point of my adult life (I'm mellowing so that winning a debate and loud music no longer give me that ecstatic high) I am loath to be engaged in confrontational verbal matches and deafening volleys with unbelievers and detractors. On the other hand, my husband's in his element when he's found in a debating mode; it helps that he has a thick skin and an acute wit that allows him to recognise all the fallacies that serious debaters, who fancy themselves as 'brights', employ ad nauseam to throw their unguarded opponents off – logical fallacies with such harrowing names are petitio principii, ignoratio elenchi, ad verecundiam, and false analogies, red herrings, non sequiturs, syllogistic fallacies, et. al. These days I prefer to leave the job of debating and arguing to him.
Internet users are also some of the vilest creatures on the planet who snub holds barred on bad etiquette and exact their vitriol, invective and character assassination behind the anonymity of their handles and nom de plumes. Yet they wouldn't dare to be discourteous when they meet you face to face and are in a discussion with you in the flesh. Add hypocrisy to their list of vile behaviour, why don't we? They remind me of road ragers who leave decency and courtesy at the door when they take possession of the car's driver's seat. It's a power trip for these people. Put them behind the wheel and what are ordinarily nice guys transmogrify into feral dragons that puff out billows of their erstwhile latent smoke from conspicuously flared nostrils as soon as you cut into their lane or hog it. Oh, how I lament our eroded morals. Another reason comments from blog lurkers and pseudo-commentators are not welcome is that these wannabes are too lazy to write their own essays but are content to jump on others' blogs and leave behind their expletive-laced one-line POVs here and there. As if that makes them sound really smart. It doesn't at all, but their blitzkrieg inevitably makes otherwise respectable blogs and webpages look tawdry. And I despise a tawdry website even more than I loathe the vileness of an Internet user.
A wise woman (my sister, actually) once gave me sobering advice about debating with unbelievers. DON'T! For no matter how well-researched your argument, or how convincing the evidence you provide to support your argument, or how sensible and sound your logic, no one who's your opponent in a debate, is going to swallow his pride and admit he's been wrong, mistaken or misinformed, or change his beliefs and adopt your philosophy in a public forum. Because in a public forum, so much appears to be at stake – giving up his hedonistic lifestyle in front of all his beer drinking buddies, betraying his fellow-skeptics' dependence on him to make their camp look good, disappointing his supporters who are lurking and fighting in his corner. The Internet may be the avenue of choice to a collegian in search of references and information in this ICT age, but it is the worst place to proselytise unbelievers with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Especially proselytising using a public forum as your venue and debate as your strategy. In a public debate, pride gets in the way of a skeptic's being open to the truth and believing that Jesus Christ is who He claims – God the Son and Saviour of mankind. And so all you succeed in accomplishing is keeping one more unbeliever in hell. I wouldn't like to be responsible for someone ending up on the wrong side of eternity on account of my determination to humiliate my opponent – who has no intention of being so humiliated and will challenge me senseless – in a debate.
What's more, we all have the tendency to gravitate towards reading what lends credence to our beliefs and lifestyle, and filter what doesn't. This is the reason skeptics and evolutionists read Richard Dawkins, creationists Jonathan Sarfati and evangelicals Josh McDowell. It's the reason John Piper has immense staying power among Calvinists and Reformed theologians (though despite being a Dispensationalist myself, I find pleasure in Piper's books), whereas Thomas Ice and his fellow-contributors to The Pre-trib Research Center are keepers in the Dispensationalists' circle. It's also the reason liberals devour the tautology of John Shelby Spong and John Dominic Crossan with such earnest, and Satanists find comfort in the deviant didactic of Anton LeVey. And New Agers love the 'ye are all gods' feel-goodism of their gurus, like Sarah Price and Deepak Chopra, and their spirit guides.
We are highly discriminatory about what we read as creatures of habit so that we are rarely called upon to wrestle with issues outside our comfort zone. In short, we're all preaching to the choir.
Internet users are also some of the vilest creatures on the planet who snub holds barred on bad etiquette and exact their vitriol, invective and character assassination behind the anonymity of their handles and nom de plumes. Yet they wouldn't dare to be discourteous when they meet you face to face and are in a discussion with you in the flesh. Add hypocrisy to their list of vile behaviour, why don't we? They remind me of road ragers who leave decency and courtesy at the door when they take possession of the car's driver's seat. It's a power trip for these people. Put them behind the wheel and what are ordinarily nice guys transmogrify into feral dragons that puff out billows of their erstwhile latent smoke from conspicuously flared nostrils as soon as you cut into their lane or hog it. Oh, how I lament our eroded morals. Another reason comments from blog lurkers and pseudo-commentators are not welcome is that these wannabes are too lazy to write their own essays but are content to jump on others' blogs and leave behind their expletive-laced one-line POVs here and there. As if that makes them sound really smart. It doesn't at all, but their blitzkrieg inevitably makes otherwise respectable blogs and webpages look tawdry. And I despise a tawdry website even more than I loathe the vileness of an Internet user.
A wise woman (my sister, actually) once gave me sobering advice about debating with unbelievers. DON'T! For no matter how well-researched your argument, or how convincing the evidence you provide to support your argument, or how sensible and sound your logic, no one who's your opponent in a debate, is going to swallow his pride and admit he's been wrong, mistaken or misinformed, or change his beliefs and adopt your philosophy in a public forum. Because in a public forum, so much appears to be at stake – giving up his hedonistic lifestyle in front of all his beer drinking buddies, betraying his fellow-skeptics' dependence on him to make their camp look good, disappointing his supporters who are lurking and fighting in his corner. The Internet may be the avenue of choice to a collegian in search of references and information in this ICT age, but it is the worst place to proselytise unbelievers with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Especially proselytising using a public forum as your venue and debate as your strategy. In a public debate, pride gets in the way of a skeptic's being open to the truth and believing that Jesus Christ is who He claims – God the Son and Saviour of mankind. And so all you succeed in accomplishing is keeping one more unbeliever in hell. I wouldn't like to be responsible for someone ending up on the wrong side of eternity on account of my determination to humiliate my opponent – who has no intention of being so humiliated and will challenge me senseless – in a debate.
What's more, we all have the tendency to gravitate towards reading what lends credence to our beliefs and lifestyle, and filter what doesn't. This is the reason skeptics and evolutionists read Richard Dawkins, creationists Jonathan Sarfati and evangelicals Josh McDowell. It's the reason John Piper has immense staying power among Calvinists and Reformed theologians (though despite being a Dispensationalist myself, I find pleasure in Piper's books), whereas Thomas Ice and his fellow-contributors to The Pre-trib Research Center are keepers in the Dispensationalists' circle. It's also the reason liberals devour the tautology of John Shelby Spong and John Dominic Crossan with such earnest, and Satanists find comfort in the deviant didactic of Anton LeVey. And New Agers love the 'ye are all gods' feel-goodism of their gurus, like Sarah Price and Deepak Chopra, and their spirit guides.
We are highly discriminatory about what we read as creatures of habit so that we are rarely called upon to wrestle with issues outside our comfort zone. In short, we're all preaching to the choir.
A rash of bad publicity has been rolling off the press and Internet of late making 'fundamentalism' a dirty word. Bible-believers are running in spade to deny the label in favour of calling themselves evangelicals. It's a classic case of equivocation – they fear being associated with the militants of Islam who murder thousands of infidels in the name of religion.
I believe the label 'evangelicalism' has today even more negative associations and connotations in Christian circles. Evangelicalism and those in the Evangelical Left are at risk of being on the wayward path to first embracing 'all religions lead to God', an axiom of the emerging church movement; then liberalism of the Jesus Seminar ilk; after that, ecumenism, the ushering in of world peace through the unity of all faiths (anathema to Christ because of their mutually exclusive core tenets); and finally apostasy, the denial of Christ altogether, of which Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
It would be prudent at this juncture to disabuse the ignorant of fundamentalism by delineating the origin of the term. The word 'fundamentalist' was first employed in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in reference to a Christian who held to the historic core doctrines of the Christian faith: (1) the inerrancy of Scriptures, (2) the miracles of Christ (including His virgin birth), (3) the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, (4) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and (5) the deity of Christ.
From author David Robertson to TV news anchor, Bill O'Reilly, fundamentalists today are copping a motherlode of negative press. Fundamentalists are blamed for everything that's negative about religion, from hate crimes, anti-intellectualism and persecution of homosexuals, to the mass carnage of devotees of extremist cults and sects such as the Branch Davidian.
Many a time, this equivocation is unjustifiably set up as a strawman by amnesty and civil rights groups in order to discredit and silence the Body of Christ and browbeat the courts into according more rights and privileges to the fringe groups they represent. Reason? It's Christians, in particular of the fundamentalist right wing persuasion, who are standing in the way of gay rights and climate change protocol and New Ageism and pro-choice.
As for me, I'm proud to admit that I subscribe to fundamentalism as my apologetic for it's validation that my beliefs are balanced on the fulcrum of the 5 Biblical fundamentals. An aside, if you're going to call yourself a Right Wing evangelical, you might as well retain the label 'fundamentalist', because they aren't totally at variance. However, if your actions or beliefs contravene these, then, by definition, you don't pass the fundamentalist's muster, so dispense with the strawman arguments already!
I believe the label 'evangelicalism' has today even more negative associations and connotations in Christian circles. Evangelicalism and those in the Evangelical Left are at risk of being on the wayward path to first embracing 'all religions lead to God', an axiom of the emerging church movement; then liberalism of the Jesus Seminar ilk; after that, ecumenism, the ushering in of world peace through the unity of all faiths (anathema to Christ because of their mutually exclusive core tenets); and finally apostasy, the denial of Christ altogether, of which Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
It would be prudent at this juncture to disabuse the ignorant of fundamentalism by delineating the origin of the term. The word 'fundamentalist' was first employed in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in reference to a Christian who held to the historic core doctrines of the Christian faith: (1) the inerrancy of Scriptures, (2) the miracles of Christ (including His virgin birth), (3) the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, (4) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and (5) the deity of Christ.
From author David Robertson to TV news anchor, Bill O'Reilly, fundamentalists today are copping a motherlode of negative press. Fundamentalists are blamed for everything that's negative about religion, from hate crimes, anti-intellectualism and persecution of homosexuals, to the mass carnage of devotees of extremist cults and sects such as the Branch Davidian.
Many a time, this equivocation is unjustifiably set up as a strawman by amnesty and civil rights groups in order to discredit and silence the Body of Christ and browbeat the courts into according more rights and privileges to the fringe groups they represent. Reason? It's Christians, in particular of the fundamentalist right wing persuasion, who are standing in the way of gay rights and climate change protocol and New Ageism and pro-choice.
As for me, I'm proud to admit that I subscribe to fundamentalism as my apologetic for it's validation that my beliefs are balanced on the fulcrum of the 5 Biblical fundamentals. An aside, if you're going to call yourself a Right Wing evangelical, you might as well retain the label 'fundamentalist', because they aren't totally at variance. However, if your actions or beliefs contravene these, then, by definition, you don't pass the fundamentalist's muster, so dispense with the strawman arguments already!
Student life in BBGS (Bukit Bintang Girls' Secondary School) was a roller-coaster ride of sentiments: gratitude for my teachers peppered with resentment at their myopic vision of what constituted an exemplary student; pride in my limited accomplishments – mainly in art and literature – laced with the deepest remorse at all the squandered opportunities.
I could have done better, but I had all but peaked at fourteen. At 14, I was mentally depleted. An interplay of circumstances outside my control, which included my chronically poor health (today they call it lactose- and gluten-intolerance), and upheaval on the home front, had shifted my focus from the mundane classroom to the escapist milieu of teen pop culture.
Consequently, textbooks were relegated under a heap of 16, Tiger Beat and Seventeen magazines, but so was my mastery of English riding on the crest of the rag trade. While I was hardly academically inclined, my fear of winding up on skid row effectively ousted a lifestyle choice that would be potentially without direction. I booked a passage to Australia and majored in literature at university.
Four years later, I returned to KL and promptly assumed teaching responsibilities at Taylor’s College, PJ. My floundering at adolescence would lead me to over-compensate in adulthood. I became ambitious and laboured in earnest to establish myself in the workplace. In the ensuing years I was Academic Director and Principal of several institutions of learning in Malaysia. During the course, I had revisited BBGS as a Sunday School teacher with JIC, had published my short stories and books, and had even dabbled in journalistic writing.
Today I am a citizen of New Zealand, my surrogate country. I teach English to international students at a local school and, whenever I can, I support my husband’s outreach ministry, which aims to bring the light of Jesus Christ to the world. You’re welcome to visit his site: http://www.thewhyman.jesusanswers.com/.
There is a heart in BBGS - mine. This, despite some of my worst trials being wrought in the school. Indeed, life did not always deal me a fair hand but it is because of the BBGS culture that I am what I am, high-achieving and single-minded but also empathetic and forgiving. And I pick up the litter I come across, straighten the wall hangings, and live a circumspect life – these are but some inconsequential residues of BBGS’ ample legacy that lives on in me.
I could have done better, but I had all but peaked at fourteen. At 14, I was mentally depleted. An interplay of circumstances outside my control, which included my chronically poor health (today they call it lactose- and gluten-intolerance), and upheaval on the home front, had shifted my focus from the mundane classroom to the escapist milieu of teen pop culture.
Consequently, textbooks were relegated under a heap of 16, Tiger Beat and Seventeen magazines, but so was my mastery of English riding on the crest of the rag trade. While I was hardly academically inclined, my fear of winding up on skid row effectively ousted a lifestyle choice that would be potentially without direction. I booked a passage to Australia and majored in literature at university.
Four years later, I returned to KL and promptly assumed teaching responsibilities at Taylor’s College, PJ. My floundering at adolescence would lead me to over-compensate in adulthood. I became ambitious and laboured in earnest to establish myself in the workplace. In the ensuing years I was Academic Director and Principal of several institutions of learning in Malaysia. During the course, I had revisited BBGS as a Sunday School teacher with JIC, had published my short stories and books, and had even dabbled in journalistic writing.
Today I am a citizen of New Zealand, my surrogate country. I teach English to international students at a local school and, whenever I can, I support my husband’s outreach ministry, which aims to bring the light of Jesus Christ to the world. You’re welcome to visit his site: http://www.thewhyman.jesusanswers.com/.
There is a heart in BBGS - mine. This, despite some of my worst trials being wrought in the school. Indeed, life did not always deal me a fair hand but it is because of the BBGS culture that I am what I am, high-achieving and single-minded but also empathetic and forgiving. And I pick up the litter I come across, straighten the wall hangings, and live a circumspect life – these are but some inconsequential residues of BBGS’ ample legacy that lives on in me.
Part 1 here.
This is a summary of the moments in BBGS that defined my character and outlook ~
Form 1
A new era was dawning. I had progressed to BBGS from her feeder school down the hill. I ran with a circle of girls who, one day, descended upon the class monitor like a flock of vultures to destroy her. There had been resentment at the absence of a democratic process in electing our class representative, and she bore the brunt of our resentment. Miss Cooke, our principal, was hastily summoned to defuse the situation and as I listened to her acerbic tirade, I decided unequivocally that I would never again be part of a clique, that I would not succumb to herd mentality without justification, and that I was always going to march to the beat of my own drummer.
Form 2
The tables were now turned and I understood the alienating effects of being ‘Teacher’s Pet’. The form teacher had ignored the process of election when she slapped the monitor tag on my uniform. The one to hate and pick on, I was in a lonely place. Carrying out my duties without the class’ support was akin to navigating an explosive minefield; my classmates were veritable emotional land mines, daring me to detonate them with every wrong word and action. I refused to surrender to their bullying tactics, resolving to win over my adversaries by seeking a common ground. As the year drew to a close, I found that common ground – a collective devotion to Donny Osmond.
Form 3
My relationship with my two best girl pals, whom I’d known since Form One, was deepening and they made school meaningful. The slender, tall and absolutely lovely Marilyn, with her gentle disposition, was a balm for the topsy-turvy condition of my home. Unbeknownst to her, she challenged me to up my ante at the academic stakes, mainly in English. Jennifer, whom I loved, was smart, quirky and always had a bright smile on her face. We greeted each other every day with a kiss on the cheek. Jen had heard the myth that more weight was equated with extra height. We put the myth to the test, and packed on the pounds with rojak, chee cheong fun and ice cream every day. Well, our madcap exercise succeeded at debunking the myth and we were saddled with the excess weight while the promised height gain eluded us. We visited Joanne Drew to rid us of the excess but, shamefully, at last we chose laxatives and slimming pills for a quick fix.
Meanwhile, I was developing a keen awareness of my nascent talent at writing and aesthetics during English classes. I had won the first and third prizes in a national poetry writing contest. My teachers expressed their concern at my proclivity for daydreaming but little did they realise that during those moments when they had caught me with my eyes glazed over, I was making mental constructs of sweeping fictional landscapes and characters that were the basis of the short stories and novella I would later publish.
Forms 4 and 5
It was a frustrating time. The dreaded MCE was looming over the horizon. I was placed in the Arts stream, and since Form Two, I had suffered from cognitive dissonance, the acutely painful recognition that I was never going to be able to get my head around geometry, or distinguish atoms from molecules, or dissect frogs with ease. Nor did I see their relevance to my life.
The Careers Club room was my personal sanctum, where I spent my senior years reading about prospective careers. In the meantime, I was gaining a reputation among the staff as an artist. I was commissioned to design the programme cover for the school’s production of Aladdin, and posters for fund raisers and staff fun fairs. My ad poster for the Careers Club so impressed the treasurer that she made me her heir presumptive. And so I toyed with the idea of carving a career in the Arts while I half-heartedly swotted for my exams.
About this time, I was also being stalked by two girls from another class. They would giggle to each other whenever we locked eyes. It stroked my ego to have admirers but I learned to prolong the sport of the chase by being coy and playing hard to get.
MCE came and went and, somewhat predictably, I had obtained distinctions in all three of my English papers. It was also the end of my scholastic sojourn along the hallowed corridors of BBGS.
This is a summary of the moments in BBGS that defined my character and outlook ~
Form 1
A new era was dawning. I had progressed to BBGS from her feeder school down the hill. I ran with a circle of girls who, one day, descended upon the class monitor like a flock of vultures to destroy her. There had been resentment at the absence of a democratic process in electing our class representative, and she bore the brunt of our resentment. Miss Cooke, our principal, was hastily summoned to defuse the situation and as I listened to her acerbic tirade, I decided unequivocally that I would never again be part of a clique, that I would not succumb to herd mentality without justification, and that I was always going to march to the beat of my own drummer.
Form 2
The tables were now turned and I understood the alienating effects of being ‘Teacher’s Pet’. The form teacher had ignored the process of election when she slapped the monitor tag on my uniform. The one to hate and pick on, I was in a lonely place. Carrying out my duties without the class’ support was akin to navigating an explosive minefield; my classmates were veritable emotional land mines, daring me to detonate them with every wrong word and action. I refused to surrender to their bullying tactics, resolving to win over my adversaries by seeking a common ground. As the year drew to a close, I found that common ground – a collective devotion to Donny Osmond.
Form 3
My relationship with my two best girl pals, whom I’d known since Form One, was deepening and they made school meaningful. The slender, tall and absolutely lovely Marilyn, with her gentle disposition, was a balm for the topsy-turvy condition of my home. Unbeknownst to her, she challenged me to up my ante at the academic stakes, mainly in English. Jennifer, whom I loved, was smart, quirky and always had a bright smile on her face. We greeted each other every day with a kiss on the cheek. Jen had heard the myth that more weight was equated with extra height. We put the myth to the test, and packed on the pounds with rojak, chee cheong fun and ice cream every day. Well, our madcap exercise succeeded at debunking the myth and we were saddled with the excess weight while the promised height gain eluded us. We visited Joanne Drew to rid us of the excess but, shamefully, at last we chose laxatives and slimming pills for a quick fix.
Meanwhile, I was developing a keen awareness of my nascent talent at writing and aesthetics during English classes. I had won the first and third prizes in a national poetry writing contest. My teachers expressed their concern at my proclivity for daydreaming but little did they realise that during those moments when they had caught me with my eyes glazed over, I was making mental constructs of sweeping fictional landscapes and characters that were the basis of the short stories and novella I would later publish.
Forms 4 and 5
It was a frustrating time. The dreaded MCE was looming over the horizon. I was placed in the Arts stream, and since Form Two, I had suffered from cognitive dissonance, the acutely painful recognition that I was never going to be able to get my head around geometry, or distinguish atoms from molecules, or dissect frogs with ease. Nor did I see their relevance to my life.
The Careers Club room was my personal sanctum, where I spent my senior years reading about prospective careers. In the meantime, I was gaining a reputation among the staff as an artist. I was commissioned to design the programme cover for the school’s production of Aladdin, and posters for fund raisers and staff fun fairs. My ad poster for the Careers Club so impressed the treasurer that she made me her heir presumptive. And so I toyed with the idea of carving a career in the Arts while I half-heartedly swotted for my exams.
About this time, I was also being stalked by two girls from another class. They would giggle to each other whenever we locked eyes. It stroked my ego to have admirers but I learned to prolong the sport of the chase by being coy and playing hard to get.
MCE came and went and, somewhat predictably, I had obtained distinctions in all three of my English papers. It was also the end of my scholastic sojourn along the hallowed corridors of BBGS.
Life in NZ is a world apart from that of KL. There are three things that are glaringly amiss in my life as a Kiwi compared with my charmed life as a KLite.
Here, it's been impossible to get the job that comes close to what I had in KL. Starting over at this stage and age has been an uphill acclivity with my ankles manacled to a ball and chain. A far cry from my rank and upward mobility in KL - I had arrived at the pinnacle of my profession in that I was holding a top position in the educational arena. I was also in negotiation with some associates and investors to found and operate my own Language- and Computer-learning centre as well as author a series of children's books. On the other hand, here the employment terrain has been harsh. The scenario has been one of trying to shatter the glass ceiling afresh, but I'm straining against a ceiling whose defenses are made impregnable by a number of infrangible circumstances – employer prejudice tops the list, work culture is next and the lack of contacts is the third. I feel as if I've reached a plateau as a teacher and this is as good as it's ever going to get.
Owning a house is equally impossible. I used to dream of being able to afford a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Now, I daren't even dream of owning a kitset. Ditto imported luxe - not without consultation first with my co-dependent. I also used to be a woman of some means: years ago, living and playing in the KL merry-go-round, I was wearing Prada, Fendi and Moschino, three of my favourite labels. I could gratify my pursuit of beauty and surround myself with beautiful things – Barbie Collectibles, designer furniture, ersatz Constable and Turner. These days my husband and I must weigh our economic needs against one another and reconnoitre needs from wants before we commit to a purchase. Opportunity cost has never been more than just a textbook application. As is re-learning to budget and subsist in accordance with the Kiwi economic and consumer structure and banking system.
I have left behind some seriously close girl friends in KL and it's been a daunting task to build new friendships here. Maybe the problem is caused by the lack of bother, though it's brought to bear on me frequently. Maybe it's the acculturation process which I haven't quite completed and consequently, I haven't adapted to the divergent ways in which women conduct their affairs here. Or maybe at my age, it just isn't easy to build friendships that are profound, which requires an investment of one's time and energy. All the women I meet already are content with their exclusive cliques and niches. And so when I feel that my husband has had enough of my conversations, I go to my Facebook. Unlike other members who use Facebook as a social networking device, Facebook for me is really the substitute for the BFFs I left behind in KL, the one I go to for that necessary outlet for my pent-up emotions and ideas.
Whereas I enjoy a better quality of life here – clean air, fresh water, parks everywhere, and a godly and devoted husband, there's no doubt that I enjoyed a higher standard of living and more substantial social ties in KL.
Here, it's been impossible to get the job that comes close to what I had in KL. Starting over at this stage and age has been an uphill acclivity with my ankles manacled to a ball and chain. A far cry from my rank and upward mobility in KL - I had arrived at the pinnacle of my profession in that I was holding a top position in the educational arena. I was also in negotiation with some associates and investors to found and operate my own Language- and Computer-learning centre as well as author a series of children's books. On the other hand, here the employment terrain has been harsh. The scenario has been one of trying to shatter the glass ceiling afresh, but I'm straining against a ceiling whose defenses are made impregnable by a number of infrangible circumstances – employer prejudice tops the list, work culture is next and the lack of contacts is the third. I feel as if I've reached a plateau as a teacher and this is as good as it's ever going to get.
Owning a house is equally impossible. I used to dream of being able to afford a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Now, I daren't even dream of owning a kitset. Ditto imported luxe - not without consultation first with my co-dependent. I also used to be a woman of some means: years ago, living and playing in the KL merry-go-round, I was wearing Prada, Fendi and Moschino, three of my favourite labels. I could gratify my pursuit of beauty and surround myself with beautiful things – Barbie Collectibles, designer furniture, ersatz Constable and Turner. These days my husband and I must weigh our economic needs against one another and reconnoitre needs from wants before we commit to a purchase. Opportunity cost has never been more than just a textbook application. As is re-learning to budget and subsist in accordance with the Kiwi economic and consumer structure and banking system.
I have left behind some seriously close girl friends in KL and it's been a daunting task to build new friendships here. Maybe the problem is caused by the lack of bother, though it's brought to bear on me frequently. Maybe it's the acculturation process which I haven't quite completed and consequently, I haven't adapted to the divergent ways in which women conduct their affairs here. Or maybe at my age, it just isn't easy to build friendships that are profound, which requires an investment of one's time and energy. All the women I meet already are content with their exclusive cliques and niches. And so when I feel that my husband has had enough of my conversations, I go to my Facebook. Unlike other members who use Facebook as a social networking device, Facebook for me is really the substitute for the BFFs I left behind in KL, the one I go to for that necessary outlet for my pent-up emotions and ideas.
Whereas I enjoy a better quality of life here – clean air, fresh water, parks everywhere, and a godly and devoted husband, there's no doubt that I enjoyed a higher standard of living and more substantial social ties in KL.
and the heart is where our treasures are made manifest.
Home is the reason we work hard to climb the corporate ladder and for that fat pay cheque – to make our home resemble our ideal as closely as possible.
It's where we can truly feel relaxed, where we satisfy our visceral need to conduct ourselves with living-room manners and not be judged. In fact we can display our living-room manners anywhere in our home: guffaw crassly, wipe our mouths with our sleeves, pick our noses, scratch our armpits.
It's the place we can extend our personality and express it in all its accoutrements. Hence there is method to the madness in which my absent-minded husband's studio is allowed to come into its own form and identity. And hence the clothes in my wardrobe are hung four inches apart because their owner suffers from claustrophobia.
No other place is respected as our own private property more than our home so that even the cops can't touch us without the risk of trespassing. Unless they have a warrant, that is.
It's where we set the rules as to the division of labour smashing all the conventions of society if we like. So the husband routinely does the laundry while the wife services the car. And it's natural.
There's no other place on earth that gives us a salubrious rest after chugging along life's thoroughfares. And do so with our obliques hanging out and bare knees serially drawn up to our chin.
Home is the reason we work hard to climb the corporate ladder and for that fat pay cheque – to make our home resemble our ideal as closely as possible.
It's where we can truly feel relaxed, where we satisfy our visceral need to conduct ourselves with living-room manners and not be judged. In fact we can display our living-room manners anywhere in our home: guffaw crassly, wipe our mouths with our sleeves, pick our noses, scratch our armpits.
It's the place we can extend our personality and express it in all its accoutrements. Hence there is method to the madness in which my absent-minded husband's studio is allowed to come into its own form and identity. And hence the clothes in my wardrobe are hung four inches apart because their owner suffers from claustrophobia.
No other place is respected as our own private property more than our home so that even the cops can't touch us without the risk of trespassing. Unless they have a warrant, that is.
It's where we set the rules as to the division of labour smashing all the conventions of society if we like. So the husband routinely does the laundry while the wife services the car. And it's natural.
There's no other place on earth that gives us a salubrious rest after chugging along life's thoroughfares. And do so with our obliques hanging out and bare knees serially drawn up to our chin.
We're allowed to engage in diurnal activities at night and nocturnal ones in the day, and who's to say we're bonkers? So it's pancakes for dinner, bedtime at noon on a Saturday and wearing our PJs at all hours of the day.
Monopoly on a rainy day sounds really inviting and comforting if our home is not a cardboard box under a bridge we share with trolls.
We can preach our pro-Zionist beliefs to our heart's content and the walls won't punch us in the face because they are incensed by our scurrilous homily.
Harlequin checks on the bathroom walls? Sure, whatever floats our boat. As long as it's not a rental property, of course.
Because our home, our quirks.
Monopoly on a rainy day sounds really inviting and comforting if our home is not a cardboard box under a bridge we share with trolls.
We can preach our pro-Zionist beliefs to our heart's content and the walls won't punch us in the face because they are incensed by our scurrilous homily.
Harlequin checks on the bathroom walls? Sure, whatever floats our boat. As long as it's not a rental property, of course.
Because our home, our quirks.
By KT and The WhymanMy husband and I have not been able to stay with a church family for long. We've left several churches on account of heresies and practices that are at odds with Scriptural principles and doctrines.
The first church with which we were compelled to sever ties was helmed by an oversight that wanted to follow the seeker-friendly paradigm for becoming a mega church. What this meant was blindly following the Purpose-driven paradigm (and Emergent Church heresy) of Rick Warren without examining if it was of the Lord or some other pernicious and dark influence. Months' worth of investigation and cross referencing with the Bible gave us the confirmation we had needed to deem the Purpose-driven manifesto suspect. Its subterfuge proved sublime even to those trained in rightly dividing the Word of truth.
It wasn't for the lack of trying that we finally decided we weren't going to stay. We had written emails and confided in members of our home group concerning our suspicion, but they seemed to think we were creating mountains out of molehills. Additionally, the points we raised, though valid, were either ignored or left unsatisfactorily addressed.
The second church which we left appeared at the outset to agree that there were problems within the Emerging Church doctrine (which was spreading its influence like a widely-cast drift net) but in practice openly taught, promoted and lived it. The last straw came for us when the Purpose-driven books were referenced and promoted in a speaker's sermon.
On top of that had been the question of women in this church who assumed a leadership role and taught from the pulpit. As far as we were concerned, women leadership was explicitly forbidden in Scriptures.
When questioned concerning their women leaders, the general leadership of this church presented a flawed eisegesis, rather than an exegesis, of the Bible texts to justify their practice. According to these leaders, it was tradition that had erred in the interpretation of Scripture forbidding women leaders, and Paul was addressing the Corinthian church according to the culture of the day which did not allow women to be visible.
Well, these leaders were sorely misguided.
The apostle to the church, Paul, made it extremely clear: in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 he said, “As in all the churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, according to the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul reiterated: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression.”
The prooftexts are hard to misinterpret. Some leaders content themselves with the claim that Paul hated women or thought of them as inferior to men. Both contentions stem from ignorance as Paul himself clearly elicited: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) and “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Do these verses portray Paul as a misogynist, as posited by radical feminists and liberals? Hardly.
Also, the claim that tradition had erred in the prohibition of women leadership was baseless and demonstrated the church leaders' flawed interpretation of Paul's instruction to the church. One reason presented by the leaders was that elsewhere in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul taught that the Body of Christ, comprising both men and women, was given varying gifts including tongues and prophecy. They argued that since women were given these gifts, it must logically follow that to exercise the gifts they should have to speak.
However, what these church leaders had failed to realise was that Paul was not teaching the exercise of these gifts within the context of a church service. The verses, in which Paul specifically forbade women from speaking, concerned the assembling of the church for worship. Thence women may speak outside a church service such as at Sunday School or Cell Group and Prayer meetings, but not during a worship meeting on Sunday.
Similarly erroneous was these church leaders' claim that it was the culture in Corinth only which disallowed women to speak and teach. In this case, these leaders' mistake was dismissing Paul's preamble to the verse. Paul began his instruction by saying, “As in all the churches, let your women keep silence.” Hence, the law which commanded women to keep silent applied to all the churches of the saints and not just the one at Corinth.
That Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foresaw a problem arising from women being allowed to speak and teach, was prospicient. For we see this tragedy being manifested today in the number of modern heretical movements being founded by women such as Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), Madame Blavatsky (Theosophy), Alice Bailey (Theosophy, Interfaiths), Kaye Warren (Purpose-Driven), and Ellen G. White (SDA).
Paul's rationale harked back to the Garden where the first woman was tempted. It was not Adam who was first tempted but Eve. In supporting his instruction to the church concerning a woman's role, Paul alluded to the story of the temptation of Eve with the full knowledge that this tradition was not the preserve of any one culture, let alone the Corinthian culture. Eve's temptation and Fall was accepted by the first century church as a historical fact that had relevant application for all mankind, for Eve was the first woman and her sin was imputed to all her progeny.
The apostle to the church, Paul, made it extremely clear: in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 he said, “As in all the churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, according to the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul reiterated: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression.”
The prooftexts are hard to misinterpret. Some leaders content themselves with the claim that Paul hated women or thought of them as inferior to men. Both contentions stem from ignorance as Paul himself clearly elicited: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) and “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Do these verses portray Paul as a misogynist, as posited by radical feminists and liberals? Hardly.
Also, the claim that tradition had erred in the prohibition of women leadership was baseless and demonstrated the church leaders' flawed interpretation of Paul's instruction to the church. One reason presented by the leaders was that elsewhere in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul taught that the Body of Christ, comprising both men and women, was given varying gifts including tongues and prophecy. They argued that since women were given these gifts, it must logically follow that to exercise the gifts they should have to speak.
However, what these church leaders had failed to realise was that Paul was not teaching the exercise of these gifts within the context of a church service. The verses, in which Paul specifically forbade women from speaking, concerned the assembling of the church for worship. Thence women may speak outside a church service such as at Sunday School or Cell Group and Prayer meetings, but not during a worship meeting on Sunday.
Similarly erroneous was these church leaders' claim that it was the culture in Corinth only which disallowed women to speak and teach. In this case, these leaders' mistake was dismissing Paul's preamble to the verse. Paul began his instruction by saying, “As in all the churches, let your women keep silence.” Hence, the law which commanded women to keep silent applied to all the churches of the saints and not just the one at Corinth.
That Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foresaw a problem arising from women being allowed to speak and teach, was prospicient. For we see this tragedy being manifested today in the number of modern heretical movements being founded by women such as Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), Madame Blavatsky (Theosophy), Alice Bailey (Theosophy, Interfaiths), Kaye Warren (Purpose-Driven), and Ellen G. White (SDA).
Paul's rationale harked back to the Garden where the first woman was tempted. It was not Adam who was first tempted but Eve. In supporting his instruction to the church concerning a woman's role, Paul alluded to the story of the temptation of Eve with the full knowledge that this tradition was not the preserve of any one culture, let alone the Corinthian culture. Eve's temptation and Fall was accepted by the first century church as a historical fact that had relevant application for all mankind, for Eve was the first woman and her sin was imputed to all her progeny.
Eve's example is still relevant to both the church and mankind today. The belief that aligns with Biblical proof is that, like Eve, women are predisposed to being misled because unlike men, women do not consider surrendering their lives to a supreme being as a concession of their independence. Men, on the other hand, are harder to persuade to turn over their sovereignty to God or knowingly to any god. The devil thus capitalizes on women's vulnerability and intrinsic desire for a relationship with a higher power. Satan's lies and deception are seductive, often easily convincing women that they are the stele of truth equal or superior to the gospel truth. Thus we have seen the proliferation of many movements founded by women that are leading untold numbers down the path to destruction and away from faith in the one true God.
We had sat on the pews of this church and on successive Lord's Day heard women speakers articulate a litany of heresies, often under the veneer of The Message bible twisted, which confirmed to us their susceptibility to the subtlety of the devil's seductive prowess. Enough was enough – we had to leave.
In both these churches, there was no denying the warmth of the fellowship and genuine desire of the oversight to reach the community with the gospel, but often it meant sacrificing the truth with doctrines that tickled the ears of the youth, feminists, relativists and politically correct.
Paul warned the Body of Christ of this widespread deception: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13).
Many secrets are best left closeted, but not the following. (Warning: some stories may be unsuitable for reading.)
The lure of the stageSimon Cowell will gag but in my opinion, Karaoke is Japan's best export. My uncle and I used to spend our Friday nights at a Karaoke club engaging the attendees with our mind blowing sets; my uncle's repertoire was random and included songs from the 50s and 60s. Mine consisted usually of Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings, The Carpenters’ Close to You and Rainy Days and Mondays, and Dionne Warwick's Woman In Love. Depending on the acoustics and mikes, sometimes we impressed, other times we blew. My uncle is an old-school crooner, reminiscent of Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, and has won several regional Karaoke contests in the solo category. Which is why I'm not bashful to duet with him. I have taken part in a couple of inter-college Karaoke contests that pitted the academic and administrative staffs of various schools in KL. My interpretation of Saving All My Love couldn't hold a votive candle to the original, but the judges thought it was good enough for the third prize. For my second and last contest ever, my voice lost its vibro (I think it was the greasy dinner I had before I took possession of the proscenium) but to the judges, Olivia Newton John's Have You Never Been Mellow wasn't a bad song choice and I was once more placed overall third best in the competition. Long story short, I entered the contests to prove to my music teacher in school, Mrs W, that she had been wrong when she almost excluded me from the school choir because she thought my audition was only mediocre. I made the choir by the skin of my teeth, but never felt as though she valued my contribution.
Nice guys finish last
Life is an endless series of competition to determine our place in the food chain. From the playground to the classroom and tuck shop, and thence to the office and shops, we are engaged in competition with our fellowmen which subjects us to the law of the jungle. I realise that we can't eliminate competition from our lives without eliminating capitalism and without competition progress would halt. However, in this fallen and imperfect world, with all our imperfect habits, sensibilities and aspirations, competition is seldom accompanied by justice and fair play. It's not always the ones who compete fairly who win the prize. In school I lost often to my classmates who cheated in their assignments by copying my work or someone else's, but were the ones rewarded with the glory that had been others' dues. A smattering of us who worked hard, competed fairly, and shared our notes, because we were naïve enough to believe in the golden rule, was robbed of glory in that way many times.
Axis of evil
It’s not boastful pride when I say that I used to be a predator-magnet. I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy when my relatives had used to describe me as someone who was going to grow up with a sex appeal. It used to so mortify me; when my mother would visit relations with her children in tow, the relations would squander the visit by fussing over how pretty my sister was and how Caucasian my brother’s features appeared; and turning to me they would opine that my sex appeal was going to bode well for me. I was all but ten or eleven at that time! Unfortunately this appeal would prove deadly instead. I have come close to being a statistic for the vice arm of Police a few times. My triumvirate of evil employed a copycat modus operandi – on the pretext of giving me a ride, they took me to a place of seclusion and no sooner had we arrived than they were all arms and legs. They represented an eclectic demographics: my first assailant was a teenager who didn’t seem to have a direction in life; my second was a wealthy 70 year-old proprietor of the largest travel agency in KL, and my third a blond-haired blue-eyed moustachioed Aussie in his 20s who drove a convertible. In each instance I was able to stave them off by exploiting my anger to my advantage and being more in control than they. They say rape is not about sex but power – but how empowering is it to know that you have been able to subjugate a puny 5'2, 103-pounder?
A mother’s intuition
My mother is the most generous person I know. I can't begin to keep track of the amount of money she has sent to my husband and me since we got married. Let's not even talk of repaying her. But I do know that it must add up to a sizeable amount by now: all the furniture in our house, save the bed, has been my mother's gift. Ditto the state-of-the-art colour printer in our office. On those two occasions that we have been back to Asia to see her, she has reimbursed our travel and other expenses. And for several past birthdays and Christmases to date she has wired generous ang pows to us – the latest has been wired to us at the beginning of this year and with it have been her instructions to “go and enjoy yourselves.” Enjoy ourselves. It's as though my mother knows that I haven't indulged in much material enjoyment, the kind I once took for granted, for some time now. I have never let on that we were struggling; I have never complained about our circumstances, never hinted that we were in need. Never will because never have to. For after all, we've always been comfortable and God has always provided through our church, friends and my husband's parents. But somehow Mom just knows the extra help will be handy. A mother always knows.
The lure of the stageSimon Cowell will gag but in my opinion, Karaoke is Japan's best export. My uncle and I used to spend our Friday nights at a Karaoke club engaging the attendees with our mind blowing sets; my uncle's repertoire was random and included songs from the 50s and 60s. Mine consisted usually of Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings, The Carpenters’ Close to You and Rainy Days and Mondays, and Dionne Warwick's Woman In Love. Depending on the acoustics and mikes, sometimes we impressed, other times we blew. My uncle is an old-school crooner, reminiscent of Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, and has won several regional Karaoke contests in the solo category. Which is why I'm not bashful to duet with him. I have taken part in a couple of inter-college Karaoke contests that pitted the academic and administrative staffs of various schools in KL. My interpretation of Saving All My Love couldn't hold a votive candle to the original, but the judges thought it was good enough for the third prize. For my second and last contest ever, my voice lost its vibro (I think it was the greasy dinner I had before I took possession of the proscenium) but to the judges, Olivia Newton John's Have You Never Been Mellow wasn't a bad song choice and I was once more placed overall third best in the competition. Long story short, I entered the contests to prove to my music teacher in school, Mrs W, that she had been wrong when she almost excluded me from the school choir because she thought my audition was only mediocre. I made the choir by the skin of my teeth, but never felt as though she valued my contribution.
Nice guys finish last
Life is an endless series of competition to determine our place in the food chain. From the playground to the classroom and tuck shop, and thence to the office and shops, we are engaged in competition with our fellowmen which subjects us to the law of the jungle. I realise that we can't eliminate competition from our lives without eliminating capitalism and without competition progress would halt. However, in this fallen and imperfect world, with all our imperfect habits, sensibilities and aspirations, competition is seldom accompanied by justice and fair play. It's not always the ones who compete fairly who win the prize. In school I lost often to my classmates who cheated in their assignments by copying my work or someone else's, but were the ones rewarded with the glory that had been others' dues. A smattering of us who worked hard, competed fairly, and shared our notes, because we were naïve enough to believe in the golden rule, was robbed of glory in that way many times.
Axis of evil
It’s not boastful pride when I say that I used to be a predator-magnet. I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy when my relatives had used to describe me as someone who was going to grow up with a sex appeal. It used to so mortify me; when my mother would visit relations with her children in tow, the relations would squander the visit by fussing over how pretty my sister was and how Caucasian my brother’s features appeared; and turning to me they would opine that my sex appeal was going to bode well for me. I was all but ten or eleven at that time! Unfortunately this appeal would prove deadly instead. I have come close to being a statistic for the vice arm of Police a few times. My triumvirate of evil employed a copycat modus operandi – on the pretext of giving me a ride, they took me to a place of seclusion and no sooner had we arrived than they were all arms and legs. They represented an eclectic demographics: my first assailant was a teenager who didn’t seem to have a direction in life; my second was a wealthy 70 year-old proprietor of the largest travel agency in KL, and my third a blond-haired blue-eyed moustachioed Aussie in his 20s who drove a convertible. In each instance I was able to stave them off by exploiting my anger to my advantage and being more in control than they. They say rape is not about sex but power – but how empowering is it to know that you have been able to subjugate a puny 5'2, 103-pounder?
A mother’s intuition
My mother is the most generous person I know. I can't begin to keep track of the amount of money she has sent to my husband and me since we got married. Let's not even talk of repaying her. But I do know that it must add up to a sizeable amount by now: all the furniture in our house, save the bed, has been my mother's gift. Ditto the state-of-the-art colour printer in our office. On those two occasions that we have been back to Asia to see her, she has reimbursed our travel and other expenses. And for several past birthdays and Christmases to date she has wired generous ang pows to us – the latest has been wired to us at the beginning of this year and with it have been her instructions to “go and enjoy yourselves.” Enjoy ourselves. It's as though my mother knows that I haven't indulged in much material enjoyment, the kind I once took for granted, for some time now. I have never let on that we were struggling; I have never complained about our circumstances, never hinted that we were in need. Never will because never have to. For after all, we've always been comfortable and God has always provided through our church, friends and my husband's parents. But somehow Mom just knows the extra help will be handy. A mother always knows.
My OfficeWriter Thesaurus defines culture shock as disorientation. Yeah, I'm disoriented, all right. But I didn't see it coming.
Having travelled widely and independently my whole life, I had dived headlong into the migrant fray believing that I was going to adapt to my new life in NZ in an instant. Was I ever mistaken. The past six years have taught me that adapting to a new country as a permanent resident presents very different challenges from the ones confronting an overseas student or tourist.
My picture-making mechanism recalls making swift and ready adjustment to Australia when I was a student there for four years. I remember hardly ever feeling homesick or a longing for everything Malaysian the way my peers had used to feel. If anything, I would be racked by guilt because I couldn't miss my family and country more. Uni work was my only challenge and source of stress. I made friends easily, participated in social and church activities with the faithfulness of an Abraham, and was successfully juggling uni with my various part-time jobs. I even found the insipid institution food quite palatable and, occasioned by our creaturely need for variety, I would treat myself to a night on the boulevard where I found bistro food and Scandinavian smörgåsbord delectable. And my only sickness was the perennial colds I contracted in winter, and migraines caused by the stress of meeting assignment deadlines and the monthly periods.
So why do I find acclimating to NZ such an inviolable challenge? Why do I find its culture and lifestyle more demanding than I have the resources to cope? And is it just me or is the food here all that tasteless, greasy and apt to make one bloated and nauseated? Granted the nutrition here is very different, but I lived on meat pies, sausage rolls and dim sims in Melbourne, too.
Is it just me or does every other immigrant take ill with the perpetuity of infinite time, which is a given? In my last ten years in KL I had taken sick leave from work no more than five times. On the other hand, in my first year of returning to the workforce in NZ, I had taken five days of sick leave (which was my optimum before my pay got docked). But I had been sick more often than that. That's five times in a span of 12 months in NZ compared to five times in a span of 120 months in KL.
Right now I'm treating several itchy scabs that persist in darkening my world – all have been mosquito bites to begin with. But mozzie bites in Malaysia and Australia didn't leave scabs that were still itching after two years, forcryingoutloud! If even my GP is confounded and has no miracle cure for them (and mind you, my GP has been voted the best in his field by the Manawatu community), then these scabs ought to qualify as lab specimens for our scientists and researchers to get to the root of the problem.
Every year since my arrival in NZ I've had to deal with a different kind of malaise. In my first year it was painful chilblains that swelled up my extremities so that they resembled a pig's trotters. In my second year my eyelid twitched every day so that after a fortnight of suffering like old Job, I sought out a GP to sort out my confused eyelid. The GP said I might need Botox to sedate the nerves. However he prescribed oral medication for my initial nostrum, which thankfully worked, so I was spared the affliction of Botox. Then, my third year saw me going through five bouts of the 'flu in successive weeks and that awful stomach bug that had me so doubled over that my husband needed to carry me to the Emergency Ward; and in my fourth year, a superfluity of spotty rashes riddled my legs to the extent that I could have spent hours playing connect-the-dots with them. Last year I developed itchy skin syndrome on my neck, back and elbows – eczema, actually – so apparently my case manager informed me that I qualified for a disability benefit. Woo-hoo! But how befuddling that none of those maladies ever recurred in any other year.
With these odds threatening to make my life in NZ a caricature of normalcy, I am incredulously missing home and my mother – me a married woman, for Petey's sakes! I long to see my mother and taste and smell her cooking. And I long for all the food from home that I used to take for granted and of which I was spoiled for choice.
Now what aspects of the Kiwi culture are exposing me to the caboodle of maladies mentioned above? OK, so the people here have a different way of saying 'cervical' which creeps me out, and 'debut' which cracks me up. But they're just words. And, so Kiwis are fond of casting racial slurs at aliens – but I cast my looks of disdain with my slanty eyes at their bizarre slang and clothes, too, so why should I put myself on a higher moral ground? We are all snobby creatures given to our ethnocentric posturing. The weather also must take much of the blame – it's too hot or it's too cold, with nothing in between, which suits me better. That and my nutrition, which is nada, zilch, because what do I know about cooking with ginger, garlic, gingko and all the assorted goodness that you get from herbs and spices? For us it's take-outs or rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. And TV dinners and lots and lots of junk food. Because they're fast and easy, cheap and fill the stomachs.
Ultimately being a permanent resident or citizen in a foreign country when you're an adult presents you with greater challenges than being a transient student or tourist – there are bills to pay, dependents to feed, a car and house to maintain, a new workplace culture to which to adjust, income tax forms to file, and work and social taboos to unlearn and re-learn.
Moving, getting married, having a baby, losing the baby, getting a new job – all are examples of change that have been stressful. But compounded by the age factor and lack of support, a change of lifestyle – where failure is not an option – will contribute to an enormous toll on anyone's health and well-being.
Oh, did I mention bills to pay?
I've been quite fortunate to have been spared excessive xenophobic aggression towards me in NZ. There was that one incident outside a supermarket when a crowd of cacophonous youngsters cast a slur on my meme, pronouncing that I wasn't as evolved as they of the Caucasoid stock. I wonder how this rowdy bunch with their pack mentality would respond to the scientific discovery that the dark-skinned Indians are also of Caucasoid stock?
I've also had several experiences with “racial” discrimination, all of which took place in the City library, of all places. One would have thought a place of knowledge and learning would be a people equaliser – but there goes the theory that education dispels prejudice. In fact, it was the Enlightenment, motivated by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, that witnessed science replacing Holy Writ as the Holy Grail of truth, and propagated the error of racialism. Ironically, the old bristled guy that turned his nose up at me was dressed like a skid row bum – maybe my being better-dressed left a bitter bile on his tongue.
That middle-aged Pakeha man who nearly cussed me out of the premises seemed of sound enough mind, but appearances are beguiling. There are so many varieties of mental disorders: bipolar, schizophrenia, delusion, dementia. But I'm being disrespectful of these genuine sufferers to lump him with their kind. No, I adjudge him to be completely in control of his mind, by his manner of poring rapaciously over his periodicals, so I can only impute his prejudice to an intensely religious devotion to Darwinism. For, according to my husband, prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, people of other ethnicities were never regarded as less than human. Whereas I beg to differ - 'racism' is as old as the history of man - I will concede that Darwinism has become a platform to justify acts of 'racism'.
Finally that nice-smelling Maori lady who used her body English to indicate to me that I wasn't welcome to use the public facility – partly funded by taxpayers' money – must just have been on her period that day. Yes, that's what it was.
I've also had several experiences with “racial” discrimination, all of which took place in the City library, of all places. One would have thought a place of knowledge and learning would be a people equaliser – but there goes the theory that education dispels prejudice. In fact, it was the Enlightenment, motivated by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, that witnessed science replacing Holy Writ as the Holy Grail of truth, and propagated the error of racialism. Ironically, the old bristled guy that turned his nose up at me was dressed like a skid row bum – maybe my being better-dressed left a bitter bile on his tongue.
That middle-aged Pakeha man who nearly cussed me out of the premises seemed of sound enough mind, but appearances are beguiling. There are so many varieties of mental disorders: bipolar, schizophrenia, delusion, dementia. But I'm being disrespectful of these genuine sufferers to lump him with their kind. No, I adjudge him to be completely in control of his mind, by his manner of poring rapaciously over his periodicals, so I can only impute his prejudice to an intensely religious devotion to Darwinism. For, according to my husband, prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, people of other ethnicities were never regarded as less than human. Whereas I beg to differ - 'racism' is as old as the history of man - I will concede that Darwinism has become a platform to justify acts of 'racism'.
Finally that nice-smelling Maori lady who used her body English to indicate to me that I wasn't welcome to use the public facility – partly funded by taxpayers' money – must just have been on her period that day. Yes, that's what it was.
 |
| All smiles for the camera. But on screen, they bicker, yell and claw their way into a deeper hole. Social Darwinism in action. |
Without equivocation, I simply cannot fathom the thought processes of the writers of Shortland Street. I'd like to know why script writers of Kiwi television dramas feel that their characters mustn't put across their points of view without resorting to histrionics and being parodied as caterwauling banshees?
Let's not pretend that the ethical standards the medium is impressing upon this me-first and me-only generation aren't exacerbating the moral crisis of the nation. Do these writers really believe that they are portraying what is society's breakdown in communication and ethics, or are they really encouraging it? Small wonder the spiralling incidence of domestic violence in Kiwi neighbourhoods if all families ever know about communication, interaction and problem / conflict resolution is through raising your voice, the rolling pin and the roof. Those who wish to suggest, "If you don't like it, you can turn the TV off" are burying their heads in the sand, not to mention missing the point.
However, this bankruptcy in literary ingenuity among scriptwriters is not just the preserve of Kiwi soaps and dramas - Aussie and Malay ones fare no better. Hong Kong soaps, with their garden-variety themes, are rarely original. But their characters are also rarely in need of anger management classes.
In my debates with atheists, I've come across several who maintain that Christians have the onus to prove that God exists. As if atheism is the default position. I beg to differ: in every culture there's a desire inside every human being to know God and an innate sense of His existence.
I'll go out on a limb to maintain that children also have an inherent sense that God exists. Chynna Phillips (of 90s band, Wilson Phillips fame), the wife of actor William Baldwin, testifies that as a young girl, she knew Jesus and who He was. I can personally attest to this myself: as a young child of four, when I was taught by some uncles to pray, my inclination towards accepting that God existed was a natural and instinctive one. (Perhaps intrinsic is a better word than instinctive.)
Consider next the anthropological evidence: in our world's many cultures and civilisations, there appears to be a desire in their denizens to seek God, to debate about Him, to pray, to organise religion and worship, and to call on Him for help when disasters happen. All of this must attest to there being a living God who has placed this desire for Him in each one of us.
C S Lewis put it succinctly when he wrote: “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires can be met.” Since our desire to eat is met by food, and our desire to learn by exploring nature, so our desire for God can be met personally by the Creator of this universe who actively seeks us out.
Therefore, theism is the default position, and atheists have the onus to prove otherwise. For only “the fool says in his heart there is no God.”
I'll go out on a limb to maintain that children also have an inherent sense that God exists. Chynna Phillips (of 90s band, Wilson Phillips fame), the wife of actor William Baldwin, testifies that as a young girl, she knew Jesus and who He was. I can personally attest to this myself: as a young child of four, when I was taught by some uncles to pray, my inclination towards accepting that God existed was a natural and instinctive one. (Perhaps intrinsic is a better word than instinctive.)
Consider next the anthropological evidence: in our world's many cultures and civilisations, there appears to be a desire in their denizens to seek God, to debate about Him, to pray, to organise religion and worship, and to call on Him for help when disasters happen. All of this must attest to there being a living God who has placed this desire for Him in each one of us.
C S Lewis put it succinctly when he wrote: “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires can be met.” Since our desire to eat is met by food, and our desire to learn by exploring nature, so our desire for God can be met personally by the Creator of this universe who actively seeks us out.
Therefore, theism is the default position, and atheists have the onus to prove otherwise. For only “the fool says in his heart there is no God.”
At least not from my eyrie as a Christian. I've ruminated on the semantics of faith and doubt for quite some time now, and I've arrived at the conclusion that faith and doubt are not on opposite ends of the theological spectrum. In fact they are complementary .
On the other hand, I believe that faith and unbelief are polar opposites. A person with a faith has a belief. In contrast one who doesn't hold to a faith is an unbeliever or has no belief (thence you get the term 'unbelief').
And what of doubt? Well, a thorough perusal of the lexicon apprises that the word 'doubt' means the lack of certainty or confidence that something is true. Let's speak with some candour here: every believer harbours some kind of doubt at some point in his faith. I sometimes doubt my salvation. I sometimes doubt God's existence. I sometimes doubt His beneficence – this comes usually when a prayer to resolve a crisis appears stonewalled.
But here's the difference between doubt and unbelief: my doubts do not nullify my identity or relationship with the Object of my faith – God. Because while I may question the doctrines and assurances sometimes, I still believe the rest of the time, and it is my belief that secures my faith in God.
However, unbelief has serious ramifications for one's soul and eternal destination. Not believing God exists; not believing Jesus is who He is – the Son of God; not believing Jesus is the only way to be saved from sin and hell – this is unbelief that impedes one from making the decision to put one's faith in God. This the Bible says is the unpardonable sin. And so unbelief not only nullifies one's identify with the God of the universe but also condemns one to an eternity without a relationship with Him.
Consequently, doubt is the lack of faith rather than the absence of faith.
On the other hand, I believe that faith and unbelief are polar opposites. A person with a faith has a belief. In contrast one who doesn't hold to a faith is an unbeliever or has no belief (thence you get the term 'unbelief').
And what of doubt? Well, a thorough perusal of the lexicon apprises that the word 'doubt' means the lack of certainty or confidence that something is true. Let's speak with some candour here: every believer harbours some kind of doubt at some point in his faith. I sometimes doubt my salvation. I sometimes doubt God's existence. I sometimes doubt His beneficence – this comes usually when a prayer to resolve a crisis appears stonewalled.
But here's the difference between doubt and unbelief: my doubts do not nullify my identity or relationship with the Object of my faith – God. Because while I may question the doctrines and assurances sometimes, I still believe the rest of the time, and it is my belief that secures my faith in God.
However, unbelief has serious ramifications for one's soul and eternal destination. Not believing God exists; not believing Jesus is who He is – the Son of God; not believing Jesus is the only way to be saved from sin and hell – this is unbelief that impedes one from making the decision to put one's faith in God. This the Bible says is the unpardonable sin. And so unbelief not only nullifies one's identify with the God of the universe but also condemns one to an eternity without a relationship with Him.
Consequently, doubt is the lack of faith rather than the absence of faith.
One of the things I enjoy in life is loafing and hanging out with my best girlfriends. Before my sojourn in KL ended, I used to pursue this hobby religiously once a week – my BFFs and I would hang at Coffee Bean, Starbucks or some five-star hotel like the PJ Hilton and Holiday Villa where we'd exploit an entire afternoon enjoying delectable high tea and smashing conversation.
In retrospect, I've come to realise that for most of my life I've always hung out, and preferred to hang out, with girlfriends a decade or so older than I. I'm an old soul like that.
Don't get me wrong: I've nothing against women my own age. However, all my socials with 20somethings in the past had consisted of comparing notes on baby's Firsts – first steps, first words, first teeth. Plus comparing nappy brands and griping about the Indonesian or Filipino maids. They were too lazy, or too rash with their tongues, or too strident with the children, or too loose about their morals.
None were all that stimulating to me, especially not for a single oriental woman who had altogether very different life experiences. I was at that time at the stage of carving a career niche and parlaying my interests into a healthy bank account. What's more, all that palaver about dirty nappies would only stimulate my olfactory mechanism to a barf-fest.
And then I met Bessie and Mary – older, more sophisticated and well-versed in a large spectrum of subject matter, and I found my new interlocutors matching my wits on comparative religions, politics and economic systems, and ways to double our investment portfolio in a year. Without sounding cocky, I was able to hold my own in any topic of conversation with them. I think it was also because they were voracious readers like me that I found myself gravitating towards them.
In the course, I have found that reading and pursuing knowledge are past times that can be lonesome and depressing if you don't have a friend with the same hunger for knowledge and passion for learning with whom you can sound off. Never mind if this friend is a decade older or younger than you. Knowledge is more worthy of pursuing if it can be shared.
Let me end this polemic with my modification of a well-known line from a musical: “Knowledge, like manure, must be scattered everywhere to encourage others to grow.”
In retrospect, I've come to realise that for most of my life I've always hung out, and preferred to hang out, with girlfriends a decade or so older than I. I'm an old soul like that.
Don't get me wrong: I've nothing against women my own age. However, all my socials with 20somethings in the past had consisted of comparing notes on baby's Firsts – first steps, first words, first teeth. Plus comparing nappy brands and griping about the Indonesian or Filipino maids. They were too lazy, or too rash with their tongues, or too strident with the children, or too loose about their morals.
None were all that stimulating to me, especially not for a single oriental woman who had altogether very different life experiences. I was at that time at the stage of carving a career niche and parlaying my interests into a healthy bank account. What's more, all that palaver about dirty nappies would only stimulate my olfactory mechanism to a barf-fest.
And then I met Bessie and Mary – older, more sophisticated and well-versed in a large spectrum of subject matter, and I found my new interlocutors matching my wits on comparative religions, politics and economic systems, and ways to double our investment portfolio in a year. Without sounding cocky, I was able to hold my own in any topic of conversation with them. I think it was also because they were voracious readers like me that I found myself gravitating towards them.
In the course, I have found that reading and pursuing knowledge are past times that can be lonesome and depressing if you don't have a friend with the same hunger for knowledge and passion for learning with whom you can sound off. Never mind if this friend is a decade older or younger than you. Knowledge is more worthy of pursuing if it can be shared.
Let me end this polemic with my modification of a well-known line from a musical: “Knowledge, like manure, must be scattered everywhere to encourage others to grow.”
I'm No Pacifist
I find it peculiar that atheists and liberals expect Bible-believers to be pacifists. Why do atheists care, unless they are going through an existential crisis? Liberals, on the other hand, justify pacifism by evoking a meek Jesus who taught us to turn the other cheek (and not much else). However, their invocation is simply an invention to defend their apologetic.
Firstly, 'turning the other cheek' is a teaching in refraining from retaliation, which is distinct from self-defense. For elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Lk 22:36), we're given the precept to defend our home, country and ourselves if our freedom and peace were threatened by hostile invaders.
Second, as we've espoused time and again, Jesus is both the Prince of Peace and God of justice whose Second Coming will be as a Warrior King who will smite the rebellious nations of the world with the Sword of His Word (Rev.19:15).
Read more here.
On 'why I want to live to eat'
Contrary to the norm, I live to eat. Or at least it's what I'd like to tell people. Unfortunately, you indulge in epicureanism with a huge ransom to your health and image.
Doctors, dietitians, nutritionists and personal trainers, all teach us to 'eat to live', but what a tragic truism to swear by. Because it is eating to stay alive. Because eating as an activity is divested of joy and legitimacy.
Which statement makes the more sense or gives a happier message? 'I eat therefore I live', which makes eating a means of survival and self-preservation? Or 'I live therefore I eat', which makes eating a metaphor for liberty: liberty from the tyranny of diets, the constrictions of size zero and the constraints of guilt?
And when did eating become a function of living rather than a celebration of being? Perhaps it was when the first parents ate the forbidden fruit, which went horribly wrong, and eating lost its original design.
With aging come the nasty
problems that have a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it. First
there's the arthritic ankles, so you're no longer able to leap off the kitchen
chair. Funny how you start to lean towards low furniture and change your
interior décor to resemble a Japanese domicile.
Then you suddenly require reading glasses, but despite the glasses you can't get past the first page, so you convince yourself that 'you-won't-want-to-put-this-novel-down' is an advertising gimmick designed to defraud you of your money. Nevertheless, looking through a haze isn't altogether traumatising – you don't notice your wrinkles and crow's feet either.
And then your molars break off in parts, so you always appear tight-lipped
when you're speaking and lock-jawed in photos. Staving off hard foods becomes
necessary, as is embracing tiny morsels, so knives must be amply applied to
food before it's cooked.
You don't expect these
problems to beset you as you age because mental aging and physical aging do not
proceed in tandem. Now, why didn't babies come with a standard issue warning
that this would happen when they were born?
Being au courant
The fashion pendulum has
swung back to the 80s – leggings, fringes, neons colours. I did all that in
what's now known to be the era of excess – as well as shoulder pads, power
suits, cameo pins. It was baroque reinvented with largesse.
When the 90s rolled around, I did ascetic – empire lines in dour noir accented by esoteric crucifixes with the simulacrum of goth. And I did grunge, a distant cousin of asceticism – Doc Martens boots, crushed velvet and deconstructed tops and skirts. Evidently whoever coined the moniker 'fashion victim' could have had me in mind.
Being wiser today, I no
longer aspire to be current. These days I choose to wear what standing in a
hall of mirrors, my reflection multiplied to infinity, won't intimidate me. At
the turn of this millennium, I found what had come to be my style and I have
stayed true to it through the rise and fall of fashion hemlines. The look of
choice is minimalist mod: the shift dress, the trench or duffel coat, the
turtleneck sweater – can't go wrong with these classics.
Don't get me wrong though – I eschew the fashionably au
fait, but never fabric quality and design distinction. So, no, I
don't do op shops. Because 20 extravagant investment pieces give me more
wardrobe mileage than 60 thrift-shop duds.
Wishful thinking
If I could be anything I
would like to be a working writer. I'd like to write like C S Lewis. Most of
all, I'd like to be witty but my attempts at witticism invariably get eclipsed
by sarcasm. They're like many American sitcoms - sarcasm masquerading as irony.
I was first introduced to Japanese anime when an acquaintance bequeathed to me his movie rental business. (This bequest has a story of its own to tell, but not today.)
The business stockpiled quite possibly the most comprehensive collection of Japanese animated series and movies to be found in the Manawatu. Our niche customers certainly knew their stuff when they came to the store in search of Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, Inu Yasha, et al. You knew they were serious aficionado. My customers came in all shapes and sizes and from all kinds of professions and ethnicity: Kiwi army guys; Massey Uni students from Japan, Korea, Persia; local business entrepreneurs and technicians, High School students.
My own favourite anime series is The Get Backers, which I have watched three times. There are so many reasons to like this 12-part series.
Their consummate artistry and sense of perspective are unrivalled. Their protagonists comprising sylph-like boys with gravity-defying spiky hair and tiny-waisted girls with big orbs for eyes, while surreal, are role models of altruism. Their themes are always moralistic, dealing with respect for one's elders, charity toward one's neighbours and service to one's environment (but with none of the error-filled Al Goresque rhetoric of 'An Inconvenient Truth' or the Michael Mooresque political grandstanding of 'Fahrenheit 911').
Indeed, if our precious Israel and Tamsyn weren't 'inviable pregnancies', (they'd be 4 and 3 respectively), my husband and I would raise them from their formative years on a staple diet of Japanese anime. Later when they start to assert their free will, I hope that they'd find the usual television fare so prosaic that they'd want to be as prescient about their entertainment options as mommy and daddy are.
The business stockpiled quite possibly the most comprehensive collection of Japanese animated series and movies to be found in the Manawatu. Our niche customers certainly knew their stuff when they came to the store in search of Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, Inu Yasha, et al. You knew they were serious aficionado. My customers came in all shapes and sizes and from all kinds of professions and ethnicity: Kiwi army guys; Massey Uni students from Japan, Korea, Persia; local business entrepreneurs and technicians, High School students.
My own favourite anime series is The Get Backers, which I have watched three times. There are so many reasons to like this 12-part series.
Their consummate artistry and sense of perspective are unrivalled. Their protagonists comprising sylph-like boys with gravity-defying spiky hair and tiny-waisted girls with big orbs for eyes, while surreal, are role models of altruism. Their themes are always moralistic, dealing with respect for one's elders, charity toward one's neighbours and service to one's environment (but with none of the error-filled Al Goresque rhetoric of 'An Inconvenient Truth' or the Michael Mooresque political grandstanding of 'Fahrenheit 911').
Indeed, if our precious Israel and Tamsyn weren't 'inviable pregnancies', (they'd be 4 and 3 respectively), my husband and I would raise them from their formative years on a staple diet of Japanese anime. Later when they start to assert their free will, I hope that they'd find the usual television fare so prosaic that they'd want to be as prescient about their entertainment options as mommy and daddy are.
There'd be a multitude of questions I would want to ask Him and a myriad of things I want to do with Him. The possibilities would be infinite and only limited by my imagination. However, one night with my God and Saviour will not accommodate an infinity of questions and activities, so I should mention the top three things I would like do with Him.
First of all, I wouldn't waste the night feeling harassed about the catering because after all Jesus was the one who had fed the 5,000 with three loaves of bread and two fish, and turned water into wine. But I'd get a camcorder poised to record the whole rapturous experience.
After the initial formalities – greetings, introductions and salutations – are out of the way, we'd get down to dinner. But even this would be a formality, for who could think of food at a time like this? Between the bread and wine, I'd ask Jesus, first and foremost, what He does with all my tears after He has bottled them up. One of my favourite verses in Scripture is the cryptic Psalm 56:8, “You number my wanderings, put my tears in Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” I meditate on it when things go awry of plans and I find myself adrift in my sea of tears. To know that the God of the universe cares to mind my tears is sufficient consolation for me. But it's such a verse for curiosity, isn't it? This is what I'd like to know from the Lord.
The second thing I'd do is ask Jesus to settle once and for all the standing debate between my husband and me on whether we'd be eating in eternity. I'm fixated on food and can't imagine giving up chocolate and cheesecake. My husband's position is that there'd be no need for eating. My contention is that when Jesus appeared to His disciples after He had risen from the dead, even He ate fish in their presence. Perhaps in our resurrected and glorified bodies eating would not be a necessity but an option, not to be exploited as hellenistic pleasure but as an opportunity to declare God's bounty.
Finally, and this would be the piece de resistance of the evening, I'd ask the Lord to reprise His 6-day creation fiat in real time. How wonderful would that be – to witness with my own eyes the Genesis Big Bang which led to the universe and all the planets, stars and galaxies coming into existence. To witness the creation of all the animals, the plants, the seas, and then the first human beings. And I'd be watching all this grandiosity in my own living room ensconced on my front row couch.
First of all, I wouldn't waste the night feeling harassed about the catering because after all Jesus was the one who had fed the 5,000 with three loaves of bread and two fish, and turned water into wine. But I'd get a camcorder poised to record the whole rapturous experience.
After the initial formalities – greetings, introductions and salutations – are out of the way, we'd get down to dinner. But even this would be a formality, for who could think of food at a time like this? Between the bread and wine, I'd ask Jesus, first and foremost, what He does with all my tears after He has bottled them up. One of my favourite verses in Scripture is the cryptic Psalm 56:8, “You number my wanderings, put my tears in Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” I meditate on it when things go awry of plans and I find myself adrift in my sea of tears. To know that the God of the universe cares to mind my tears is sufficient consolation for me. But it's such a verse for curiosity, isn't it? This is what I'd like to know from the Lord.
The second thing I'd do is ask Jesus to settle once and for all the standing debate between my husband and me on whether we'd be eating in eternity. I'm fixated on food and can't imagine giving up chocolate and cheesecake. My husband's position is that there'd be no need for eating. My contention is that when Jesus appeared to His disciples after He had risen from the dead, even He ate fish in their presence. Perhaps in our resurrected and glorified bodies eating would not be a necessity but an option, not to be exploited as hellenistic pleasure but as an opportunity to declare God's bounty.
Finally, and this would be the piece de resistance of the evening, I'd ask the Lord to reprise His 6-day creation fiat in real time. How wonderful would that be – to witness with my own eyes the Genesis Big Bang which led to the universe and all the planets, stars and galaxies coming into existence. To witness the creation of all the animals, the plants, the seas, and then the first human beings. And I'd be watching all this grandiosity in my own living room ensconced on my front row couch.
The times are a-changing. Well, that's fine, and I'm Victorian and reactionary. But it sure raises my ire (and eyebrows) to see concessions being made for change at the expense of minding our Ps and Qs. Take for instance our youth's orientation towards being outfitted in monochromatic black for any occasion, even weddings. Granted that black is a catchall for a multitude of flaws (but it amplifies lint), and perennially fashionable (until Vogue declares some other the new black), funereal black should be reserved strictly for funerals and conservative workplaces. In these contexts, black is deferential and dignified. However, black at weddings is offensive for – colour me blind – weddings are occasions for heralding new beginnings which should be signified by rainbow palettes on everything. Then again, in these irreverent times, how many of us have a sense of occasion or the grace to dress for the occasion?
Next, there's the matter of the handshake and who extends his hand out to whom. The rule used to be simple: we deferred to those senior to us in hierarchy, rank and age. Following this, men deferred to women. Well, that was then. Today, anything goes, or so it seems, and so undoubtedly and not surprisingly, this declining knowledge in refined social intercourse is contributing to much confusion. Even those in polite society are clueless. I've been appalled at seeing teenagers, born without agency, offering their hands first to women. Oh, the cheek! I've been aghast to observe younger male relations extending their hands to their elders. Excuse me? I've also been bemused to watch students with their hands stretched out first to their teachers. Let's just say I've seen too many people comporting themselves with very little decorum and wantonly demolishing propriety that my dignity is straining to restore good manners to all and sundry.
Last but not least, is the prevailing ignorance of telephone etiquette in private and in public. In my assessment, many societies are misappropriating exemption of the first-come-first-served rule to telephone calls. There's no denying the coercive nature of a ringing phone. The ring is designed to annoy us into submission – how we drop everything at its behest and how it makes us a vassalage to technology. It also intrudes into our everyday activities, so we leave the muffins burning in the oven, the baby's neck entangled by the curtain cord, the lover's arms wide open and abandoned, often to answer a piddling call. However, in commerce we shouldn't have to defer to the Johnny-come-lately on the line when we have waited a lot longer in the line for our turn to be served. The ad hoc judgment enterprises make in pronouncing a caller's needs more urgent than the needs of those who make the effort to be physically present at their establishment is the acme of rudeness.
Many a skeptic and naturalist is convinced that miracles can't happen. They contend that if miracles are that common why are there not more books written about them and why haven't more people heard about them. Whereas it's true that there aren't many books on the market published about miracles, there are many testimonies and narratives of miraculous occurrences that one can read about on the Internet. It's just a matter of wanting to look for them.
Accounts of miracles one can find on the 'net include those experienced by the World War 1 allies who were saved on enemy lines by supernatural entities in white raiment and the delivery of the Israeli soldiers by God's angelic host during the 6-Day War.
Choosing to eschew miracles, the naturalist subscribes to the credo of attributing all of life's events to random chance. However, I've had enough experiences of the unexplained and the uncanny to pronounce chance as unacceptable and tenuous a belief as the belief in coincidences. I would much rather offer a teleological explanation for all of my own experiences. Let me illustrate why with a tale of a miraculous deliverance I had several years ago.
It was the week before my relocation to New Zealand to live with my husband of three months. I had been to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money that was to sponsor my air passage to NZ and sustain my new life there for the next six months. After carefully concealing the money in my purse – a black leather handbag with a long sling that had been my mother's present to me which she had bought in Singapore – I left the bank to get my car and pick up my mother who was shopping close by.
I was heading for my car when I heard a distinct voice clapping above me warning me to transfer the cash from my purse to my shopping bag. This was a thin plastic bag inside which was a same-day acquisition I had made before my excursion to the bank. Well, that's a rather unsafe place to stash a wad of bills, I thought to myself, but I nevertheless heeded the disembodied voice in my tympanum.
No sooner had I made the change than a motorcyclist sped towards me and in one fell swoop disinherited me of my purse. Dumbstruck and nursing a reticulated welt on my forearm which was sustained during the surprise snatch, I could merely glare at the motorcyclist in disbelief. It was much later at home that I thanked the Lord after I realised that all I had been bereft of were my expired credit cards and six dollars.
To this day I believe God had supernaturally thwarted the snatch thief's scheme so that nothing could sabotage His plans for my new life in New Zealand from forging ahead.
Accounts of miracles one can find on the 'net include those experienced by the World War 1 allies who were saved on enemy lines by supernatural entities in white raiment and the delivery of the Israeli soldiers by God's angelic host during the 6-Day War.
Choosing to eschew miracles, the naturalist subscribes to the credo of attributing all of life's events to random chance. However, I've had enough experiences of the unexplained and the uncanny to pronounce chance as unacceptable and tenuous a belief as the belief in coincidences. I would much rather offer a teleological explanation for all of my own experiences. Let me illustrate why with a tale of a miraculous deliverance I had several years ago.
It was the week before my relocation to New Zealand to live with my husband of three months. I had been to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money that was to sponsor my air passage to NZ and sustain my new life there for the next six months. After carefully concealing the money in my purse – a black leather handbag with a long sling that had been my mother's present to me which she had bought in Singapore – I left the bank to get my car and pick up my mother who was shopping close by.
I was heading for my car when I heard a distinct voice clapping above me warning me to transfer the cash from my purse to my shopping bag. This was a thin plastic bag inside which was a same-day acquisition I had made before my excursion to the bank. Well, that's a rather unsafe place to stash a wad of bills, I thought to myself, but I nevertheless heeded the disembodied voice in my tympanum.
No sooner had I made the change than a motorcyclist sped towards me and in one fell swoop disinherited me of my purse. Dumbstruck and nursing a reticulated welt on my forearm which was sustained during the surprise snatch, I could merely glare at the motorcyclist in disbelief. It was much later at home that I thanked the Lord after I realised that all I had been bereft of were my expired credit cards and six dollars.
To this day I believe God had supernaturally thwarted the snatch thief's scheme so that nothing could sabotage His plans for my new life in New Zealand from forging ahead.
Are you one of those people who go through life without meeting road blocks and obstacle courses? Count your blessings, then. As for me, I'm probably one of millions who have never been given a smooth ride to realising our dreams and aspirations.
The preponderance of my missteps is related to my interaction with bureaucrats. If I've had ten dealings with official departments nine of those have seen me being sent on wild goose chases, making phone calls one after another but to no avail, or being given the runaround but running on empty. Such have been my experiences with the likes of the NRD, Immigration, High Commission – you name it.
My experiences with people in the bureaucracy have, needless to say, left me thinking that I've been hexed. I suppose I could languish on this superstition and sink deeply into this dark recess of my imagination, or I could angle for the perception that the pandemic of glitches I'm facing may really be the handprint of Divine Providence on my affairs.
Take, as an illustration, my latest trial – the agonizing 12-month delay and wait for the EPF department to complete the processing of my superannuation. But what if it's God in His omniscience who has seen it provident to delay the progress of my application so that on the day my superannuation is received, it'd be perfectly timed? Isn't it just like a beneficent and merciful God working backstage to look after me in His mysterious way?
For when that long-awaited day arrives, the NZ currency may fall further against the Malaysian Ringgit, which means a bigger dividend for me and my family. And when it's time to build my house, which is the reason for my application to begin with, a recessed economy will afford me the luxury of shopping around for the most competitive builder and contractor.
So it is with this new outlook that we ought to wear our pain and suffering like badges of courage and honour.
The preponderance of my missteps is related to my interaction with bureaucrats. If I've had ten dealings with official departments nine of those have seen me being sent on wild goose chases, making phone calls one after another but to no avail, or being given the runaround but running on empty. Such have been my experiences with the likes of the NRD, Immigration, High Commission – you name it.
My experiences with people in the bureaucracy have, needless to say, left me thinking that I've been hexed. I suppose I could languish on this superstition and sink deeply into this dark recess of my imagination, or I could angle for the perception that the pandemic of glitches I'm facing may really be the handprint of Divine Providence on my affairs.
Take, as an illustration, my latest trial – the agonizing 12-month delay and wait for the EPF department to complete the processing of my superannuation. But what if it's God in His omniscience who has seen it provident to delay the progress of my application so that on the day my superannuation is received, it'd be perfectly timed? Isn't it just like a beneficent and merciful God working backstage to look after me in His mysterious way?
For when that long-awaited day arrives, the NZ currency may fall further against the Malaysian Ringgit, which means a bigger dividend for me and my family. And when it's time to build my house, which is the reason for my application to begin with, a recessed economy will afford me the luxury of shopping around for the most competitive builder and contractor.
So it is with this new outlook that we ought to wear our pain and suffering like badges of courage and honour.
Malaysian primary school teachers, I believe, are ill-equipped to deal with children's behaviour. Teachers with unresolved life issues, emotional baggage and a lack of self-love can behave in ways that put a damper on a pupil's schooling and socialisation process. I should know, for when I was in Standard Five (in BBGS Primary 1), a misunderstanding between me and my class teacher, (whom I'll call Miss K), left me feeling so ashamed that I wanted to drop out, and though I'd been a Christian since four years old, I wanted to renounce Jesus, on account of her. All this at the ripe old age of ten.
Ironically the raison d'etre for this misunderstanding occurred in relation to a lesson ritual that had been a favourite of mine – peer evaluation. At the start of each of her lessons, Miss K distributed to every student a peer's homework to proofread. I had cherished this ritual from its inception and looked forward to her lessons because of it.
The fateful day began with my arriving at school in a semi-somnolent state. For someone with lactose intolerance a breakfast of buttered bread and Milo did not conduce to alertness or control of your faculties.
Miss K's early-morning lesson commenced in the usual manner: she'd circulate the class to distribute exercise books to each pupil for peer marking. Soon after she had handed me a book, my crackbrained tongue accidentally issued a sound, which she interpreted as a brazen expression of my disdain for the task she was handing to me. (I'm talking about the 'tsk' sound your tongue makes when you feel irritated.)
My gut feeling instantly intuited that my tongue's infraction didn't pass muster with Miss K when she yanked the book from my limp grip. She ordered me to go empty the wastepaper basket instead. As I made the short but lonely climb up the hill to the dumpster I was overcome by the onerous sense that my life was about to take a turn for the worse.
And it did – on my return, I was met with downcast faces and eyes at half staff. Were my classmates embarrassed for me? Ashamed of me? Or worse, perhaps they held me with the same disdain the teacher thought I held her task. At the end of the period, my buddy intimated to me what had transpired in the scant time I was away, including the fact that Miss K had called me “an unwilling worker”.
Labelled, stigmatised, shamed – all these words and their associated awfulness thundered over my head like a dance macabre of laughing masks. I wanted to cry but couldn't even though I felt a choking claw stuck in my throat. I wanted to explain to everybody, but a debilitating disbelief had anchored me in my fugue state. How could she? She, who went round preaching the gospel of Jesus' love and forgiveness? And what a credit to her profession and faith to scorn a pupil with untruths without giving her the right to defend herself. Suddenly her hypocritical sanctimony was as grotesque as her professed beliefs were artificial.
My memory of that day consists of sorrowful silhouettes of figures that avoided me, personal thoughts that were engaged in harmful internal self-debates and lessons that mulched together making as much sense as the day's woeful happenstance. But the subtleties of its revelation of who I was and whose company I was keeping were clear: I was in the top class and commingling with young ladies who had pedigree and such cultured habits as minding their own business. Which was why there'd been no audible mockery under which to cower, nor compassionate words by which to be comforted. And no one wanted to be me that day. I didn't want to be me that day.
I can scarcely remember how I managed to survive the rest of the school day, but I must have – as well as the next day and the next. I never forgot this experience for it had been so painfully damning to my psyche. To be publicly humiliated for a private misunderstanding was a punishment that hardly befitted the crime. In any case, my offending tongue was not even directed at the teacher or the task. It simply slipped.
I realise this happened many years ago and the only person who even remembers it is me. It's my baggage to carry. But, this was an excursion down heartbreak lane I had to take because writing, I've been told, is cathartic – and I had hoped that this narrative re-told might purge me of the rancour I had stored in my personal silo since I was ten years old.
Blogs are useful that way.
Ironically the raison d'etre for this misunderstanding occurred in relation to a lesson ritual that had been a favourite of mine – peer evaluation. At the start of each of her lessons, Miss K distributed to every student a peer's homework to proofread. I had cherished this ritual from its inception and looked forward to her lessons because of it.
The fateful day began with my arriving at school in a semi-somnolent state. For someone with lactose intolerance a breakfast of buttered bread and Milo did not conduce to alertness or control of your faculties.
Miss K's early-morning lesson commenced in the usual manner: she'd circulate the class to distribute exercise books to each pupil for peer marking. Soon after she had handed me a book, my crackbrained tongue accidentally issued a sound, which she interpreted as a brazen expression of my disdain for the task she was handing to me. (I'm talking about the 'tsk' sound your tongue makes when you feel irritated.)
My gut feeling instantly intuited that my tongue's infraction didn't pass muster with Miss K when she yanked the book from my limp grip. She ordered me to go empty the wastepaper basket instead. As I made the short but lonely climb up the hill to the dumpster I was overcome by the onerous sense that my life was about to take a turn for the worse.
And it did – on my return, I was met with downcast faces and eyes at half staff. Were my classmates embarrassed for me? Ashamed of me? Or worse, perhaps they held me with the same disdain the teacher thought I held her task. At the end of the period, my buddy intimated to me what had transpired in the scant time I was away, including the fact that Miss K had called me “an unwilling worker”.
Labelled, stigmatised, shamed – all these words and their associated awfulness thundered over my head like a dance macabre of laughing masks. I wanted to cry but couldn't even though I felt a choking claw stuck in my throat. I wanted to explain to everybody, but a debilitating disbelief had anchored me in my fugue state. How could she? She, who went round preaching the gospel of Jesus' love and forgiveness? And what a credit to her profession and faith to scorn a pupil with untruths without giving her the right to defend herself. Suddenly her hypocritical sanctimony was as grotesque as her professed beliefs were artificial.
My memory of that day consists of sorrowful silhouettes of figures that avoided me, personal thoughts that were engaged in harmful internal self-debates and lessons that mulched together making as much sense as the day's woeful happenstance. But the subtleties of its revelation of who I was and whose company I was keeping were clear: I was in the top class and commingling with young ladies who had pedigree and such cultured habits as minding their own business. Which was why there'd been no audible mockery under which to cower, nor compassionate words by which to be comforted. And no one wanted to be me that day. I didn't want to be me that day.
I can scarcely remember how I managed to survive the rest of the school day, but I must have – as well as the next day and the next. I never forgot this experience for it had been so painfully damning to my psyche. To be publicly humiliated for a private misunderstanding was a punishment that hardly befitted the crime. In any case, my offending tongue was not even directed at the teacher or the task. It simply slipped.
I realise this happened many years ago and the only person who even remembers it is me. It's my baggage to carry. But, this was an excursion down heartbreak lane I had to take because writing, I've been told, is cathartic – and I had hoped that this narrative re-told might purge me of the rancour I had stored in my personal silo since I was ten years old.
Blogs are useful that way.
The following were first posted on Facebook, dated between October, 2008 and January, 2009.
No scary bits!
My husband and I recently watched Twilight, which, in a nutshell, was dull – child's play, really – with nary a scary moment. Aside from the forced acting by the top-billed, and camp dialogue bordering on stage-struck from the minor cast, clichés abounded: figures in isolation thrust upon an isolated setting as helpless vampire prey, philosophical posturing by conflicted vampires bemoaning their unnatural bloodlust, unrealised longings that not even glorious immortals could obviate. To top it all was a thin plot lacking a focus, non sequiturs that evince logic sacrificed on the altar of immortality, a contrived but inchoate ending, and, most troubling, an adolescent vampire who, despite having sailed with the ebb and flow of centuries of pop culture, appeared time capsuled and unable to make the crossover from Debussy to Duffy. Oy vey – even the 500-year-old Lestat, of The Vampire Chronicles fame, could score himself a review in Hit Parade! And that's scary.
Beware of watermelons bearing gifts
They are deceptively innocuous, they are eye candy, and they promise a cleaner, greener environment. But for a while now the former Labour government, with Green leading the charge, had been foisting on the unsuspecting consumer products with the potential to inflict grievous harm. I am talking about energy-saving light bulbs, not watermelons. Research has uncovered the certainty of mercury leakage and poisoning when one unwittingly handles these bulbs after they break and are carelessly discarded. Now shouldn't there be a warning of this on the packaging and instructions for their correct disposal? Devoid of this is tantamount to acts of negligence by the hucksters. Yet the watermelons (red socialists in green environmentalists clothing) are trying to make the regular bulbs obsolete. When did coercion become an ism of free market economies? Just ask China.
Apparel Angst (a.k.a. 'What's eating KT?')
New Year is a time for that once-a-year wardrobe weeding and airing of unmentionables that have become unwearable. I feel that I should streamline my apparel some more to keep it simple and maintain a uniform style for all occasions. I'm leaning towards revisiting the 60s (I've been inspired by my favourite Twist 'n' Turn Barbie), but the mini can be vicious towards ample thighs and knees (although the problem isn't something opaques can't camouflage, is it?). And so hard to part with my dandy blazer and last season's leggings – I mean, how do you meld these with a 60s portmanteau? The thing is that you can update a throwback but it's harder to retrograde a classic. I may just have to let menopause segue me out of these outfits until they're rife for the recycling bin. Only problem is, by this time I'd look pitiful in vintage Mary Quant. And this, folks, is what's eating KT.
Can the scientist and the priest be best friends?
That religion and science are mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. The fact is that science (both operational and origins) as we know it today owes its foundation and flourish to dozens of individuals who professed their belief in the Word of God and saw no contradiction between holy writ and their observations of the universe. Among these luminaries are Newton, Pascal, Morse and Fleming. Today, we can read about many hundreds of qualified specialists in their respective fields – biochemistry, archaeology, geology, cosmology, paleontology, et. al. – who are rejecting Darwinian evolution in favour of their observations of nature which corroborate the Genesis record that God created the universe less than ten thousand years ago. It is now also science that has put the final nail in the coffin of the evolution-vs-creation debate. The discovery of the DNA has shown conclusively that mutation causes loss of information which would necessarily entail a devolution, and not an evolution, of the species.
My husband and I recently watched Twilight, which, in a nutshell, was dull – child's play, really – with nary a scary moment. Aside from the forced acting by the top-billed, and camp dialogue bordering on stage-struck from the minor cast, clichés abounded: figures in isolation thrust upon an isolated setting as helpless vampire prey, philosophical posturing by conflicted vampires bemoaning their unnatural bloodlust, unrealised longings that not even glorious immortals could obviate. To top it all was a thin plot lacking a focus, non sequiturs that evince logic sacrificed on the altar of immortality, a contrived but inchoate ending, and, most troubling, an adolescent vampire who, despite having sailed with the ebb and flow of centuries of pop culture, appeared time capsuled and unable to make the crossover from Debussy to Duffy. Oy vey – even the 500-year-old Lestat, of The Vampire Chronicles fame, could score himself a review in Hit Parade! And that's scary.
Beware of watermelons bearing gifts
They are deceptively innocuous, they are eye candy, and they promise a cleaner, greener environment. But for a while now the former Labour government, with Green leading the charge, had been foisting on the unsuspecting consumer products with the potential to inflict grievous harm. I am talking about energy-saving light bulbs, not watermelons. Research has uncovered the certainty of mercury leakage and poisoning when one unwittingly handles these bulbs after they break and are carelessly discarded. Now shouldn't there be a warning of this on the packaging and instructions for their correct disposal? Devoid of this is tantamount to acts of negligence by the hucksters. Yet the watermelons (red socialists in green environmentalists clothing) are trying to make the regular bulbs obsolete. When did coercion become an ism of free market economies? Just ask China.
Apparel Angst (a.k.a. 'What's eating KT?')
New Year is a time for that once-a-year wardrobe weeding and airing of unmentionables that have become unwearable. I feel that I should streamline my apparel some more to keep it simple and maintain a uniform style for all occasions. I'm leaning towards revisiting the 60s (I've been inspired by my favourite Twist 'n' Turn Barbie), but the mini can be vicious towards ample thighs and knees (although the problem isn't something opaques can't camouflage, is it?). And so hard to part with my dandy blazer and last season's leggings – I mean, how do you meld these with a 60s portmanteau? The thing is that you can update a throwback but it's harder to retrograde a classic. I may just have to let menopause segue me out of these outfits until they're rife for the recycling bin. Only problem is, by this time I'd look pitiful in vintage Mary Quant. And this, folks, is what's eating KT.
Can the scientist and the priest be best friends?
That religion and science are mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. The fact is that science (both operational and origins) as we know it today owes its foundation and flourish to dozens of individuals who professed their belief in the Word of God and saw no contradiction between holy writ and their observations of the universe. Among these luminaries are Newton, Pascal, Morse and Fleming. Today, we can read about many hundreds of qualified specialists in their respective fields – biochemistry, archaeology, geology, cosmology, paleontology, et. al. – who are rejecting Darwinian evolution in favour of their observations of nature which corroborate the Genesis record that God created the universe less than ten thousand years ago. It is now also science that has put the final nail in the coffin of the evolution-vs-creation debate. The discovery of the DNA has shown conclusively that mutation causes loss of information which would necessarily entail a devolution, and not an evolution, of the species.
This is somewhat facetious but I'm as serious about it as a heart attack. I was inspired to pick up this theme from a television evangelist's casual reference to a well-known philosophical apothegm that was a postscript to his sermon. I assure you, however, that what follows has nothing whatsoever to do with said-evangelist's sermon, so it's not a plagiarised piece of writing.
I've no doubt many are familiar with the Cartesian model for knowing our existence: 'Cogito ergo sum' or its English equivalent, 'I think therefore I am'.
However, in my opinion, 'I think therefore I am' is no more than a rehashing of mankind's antediluvian aspiration to godhood, a kind of pastiche if I may use the term. The I AM in Descartes' paradigm audaciously usurps one of God's divine identities. I AM is the English transliteration of the tetragrammaton YHWH, which was the name God used to reveal Himself to the prophet, Moses. You can read about this in the Old Testament book of Exodus.
God, therefore, is the I AM that's sacrosanct to Jews and Christians. Whenever the name I AM was referred to, the ancients immediately recognised it as the holy name of God or Jehovah (Yahweh).
Which brings me to my heading: I believe that the basis for my capacity for thought is the existence of God. There must exist a being of superlative intelligence to create someone like me with the faculty to think, process thinking and in turn effect a creation of such intelligible complexity as poetry, philosophy and technology. For in the beginning, God thought and spoke into existence the universe and all that were in it, the animals, plants, seas and oceans and all the sea and air creatures. And then He thought and spoke into being man and woman, creating them in His own image and breathing into their nostrils the breath of life.
Hence, unlike Descartes who could only theorise that he existed because he thought, I know that I exist because God thought.
I've no doubt many are familiar with the Cartesian model for knowing our existence: 'Cogito ergo sum' or its English equivalent, 'I think therefore I am'.
However, in my opinion, 'I think therefore I am' is no more than a rehashing of mankind's antediluvian aspiration to godhood, a kind of pastiche if I may use the term. The I AM in Descartes' paradigm audaciously usurps one of God's divine identities. I AM is the English transliteration of the tetragrammaton YHWH, which was the name God used to reveal Himself to the prophet, Moses. You can read about this in the Old Testament book of Exodus.
God, therefore, is the I AM that's sacrosanct to Jews and Christians. Whenever the name I AM was referred to, the ancients immediately recognised it as the holy name of God or Jehovah (Yahweh).
Which brings me to my heading: I believe that the basis for my capacity for thought is the existence of God. There must exist a being of superlative intelligence to create someone like me with the faculty to think, process thinking and in turn effect a creation of such intelligible complexity as poetry, philosophy and technology. For in the beginning, God thought and spoke into existence the universe and all that were in it, the animals, plants, seas and oceans and all the sea and air creatures. And then He thought and spoke into being man and woman, creating them in His own image and breathing into their nostrils the breath of life.
Hence, unlike Descartes who could only theorise that he existed because he thought, I know that I exist because God thought.