aPoRiA fALLs

after the euphoria...

2008-05-11T19:58:00.004+08:00

things are never quite what it seems...to be able to maintain a critical distance towards our interests, our hopes and desires, this seems to be the real challenge in the aftermath of March 8th 2008...

like most people...i was euphoric, almost gobsmacked by the electoral outcome...never would i have imagined that the ruling coalition would lose 5 states to the opposition, and the infamous two-thirds majority finally denied, not since that legendary year of 1969...but then May 13 happened, and as they say, the rest was history...history that we continually refuse to face up as a nation, as people negotiating a common identity in a shared space called 'malaysia'.

i remember remarking to friends that denying the 2/3rds majority, and actually achieving it, would be greater than malaysia winning the world cup! i used to think, there is a bigger chance for our country to do that, being world champions (which is absolutely wishful-thinking and delusory), than seeing the hegemonic political stranglehold being broken for the very first time in our 50 years as a nation...guess i was pleasantly surprised and proven wrong...the lesson is clear. one can never predict anything when it comes to social movements and political groundswells...they defy our best analysis and past experiences...

now a new challenge arises both for BN and Pakatan Rakyat...i begin to see that our trust as citizens can never be in any particular party or personality, no matter how strongly we feel attached to them, whether on the basis of rational choice or pure sentimentality. the first week of parliament has been disappointing...perhaps these are teething problems for an emerging democracy, the beginnings of greater participation from the common man...

but my fear is that the common man loses his ability to criticize, without fear or favour, either coalition...to be able to struggle for the malaysia 'yet to come', where justice meets those who are currently marginalised...and a better kind of peace, not built on violence or supported by oppressive and authoritarian powers...that is the higher or transcendental goal for all malaysians...

our uniqueness and differing perspectives, our particular ethnicities, religious affiliations or interest groups, must fight against the forces of banality and expediency, that phenomenon of 'levelling down'...the development of 'substantive' individuality and 'qualitative' subjectivity in our personal lives, the working through of the depths of tragedy and self-identity, must never be sacrificed for the sake of political parties, political solutions, or ultimately for the sake of the nation state.

once has to ask a more fundamental question, 'What is the state or government for?'...surely it can't be for its own sake...or when politicians from either side wax lyrical about programmes and agendas that are proposed for the sake of the Rakyat...is it just rhetoric, masquerading partisan politics in its base ambitions of wresting the reins of state power from another group...

perhaps we should start, taking the cue from sages of old, Aristotle or even that old farmer from Kentucky, Wendell Berry, by asking questions like 'What are people for?'...i am sure these seemingly unconventional starting points would yield results almost unheard of in the daily political discourse covered by our press and forums that major in MPs switching coalitions, price hikes, and big foots in parliament...

the malaysian project will always defer its own completion, as long as there are citizens whose hopes and dreams defy the present labels, policies and racial stereotypes...the concepts of 'barisan nasional', 'pakatan rakyat', 'melayu', 'cina', 'india', 'lain-lain', and countless other terms, are not natural and as such metaphysical 'givens'...they all have a beginning, at a certain point in our history (depending on our self-interested re-tellings), and therefore belies their temporality and constructed natures...there is hope yet for their passing and whittling away from our national psyche and self-understanding.

the makings/unmakings of a nation...march 8th 2008...a new chapter begins...but the saga continues...

the people, the rakyat, will inevitably write their own history...which begs the question, 'who are these people? what are they like? what made them act they way they did? what had they hoped for? what kind of government did they ask for?...' history will be their judge, when the actors have long disappeared...

we truly deserve the kind of government we have...at least that's true, in the aftermath of march 8th 2008.

walk on

2008-05-06T17:31:00.004+08:00

this captures that eternal dialectic so well; a human being, in search of enlightenment...existing...suffering; and the earth, the trees, as old as time, immoveable, oblivious; and yet, they are the same... the union of man and the nature he struggles with...

i once heard a woman say this, 'you are selfish. you think you can change me the way you want. but i'm like the world... i can never change...'

we all want to change the world; perhaps we got it all wrong... it is the world that changes...even us. it was here, before me, and here it will remain, long after i'm gone. to be able to see, to perceive both being and non-being...

and finally to accept, yes just accept...both our significance, and our temporality in the world...this is the way, and this is the path...

...

2008-05-04T15:45:00.003+08:00

if i can only write...the possibilities are endless, and yet the outcome is one...the inevitability of what is, and that's exactly what it is right now...to be lost and yet strangely found, or better, to be found out

to see all of one's flaws, laid out, given a thousand elaborations, investing them with lies...do you see me? forever vanquished...almost an afterthought, time will have its way with me

to be pushed, to be extended, to be hanged and quartered, distributed like ash in the wind...is there beauty still, to be hung onto, like an orphaned child pleading for a return, for reunion...

it is the fracture, it is the loss, it is the impassible void...at the center of everything...life, the universe, and that one true love...

...the emergent crowd are elitist 'name-droppers', spouting jargon for the initiated, while the rest are left out...

2007-03-19T01:32:00.000+08:00

surprises can be good...they can be disconcerting...even painful or hurtful sometimes. conversations can leave us with all kinds of feelings... one moment we can be full of excitement, anticipation... the next, we can be in the doldrums, depressed...

listening to stories...stories about people, can be that way too... we can be full of awe, admiration for all the goodness or kindnesses we hear about... the next, utterly lost for words when we hear about the ugly, the depraved...

tonite, i had such a feeling... because of a conversation i had with a friend... a conversation about our lives...and then about the people in our lives...names...those we esteem, and also those who disappoint... i was uncomfortable... he asked hard questions... i was implicated by his claims... 'am i really a part of the problem he was railing about?' i wanted to defend the group i was aligned with... but seriously... perhaps he's got a point... self-critique is a rare commodity in our day... it sure stung like hell!!! (for a moment, i felt like an American patriot told by an Al-Qaeda member that i was the real terrorist, after all... utterly unthinkable... and yet the anger that was aroused in me proves his very point...)

inevitably, god and spirituality came up, in the dirt of our perplexing, disappointed lives..."i am but a little breath..." i couldnt have felt our fragility more pointedly, in the silences that punctuate our speech...

where is god in all this? the future seems indifferent to both of us... perhaps it's the very open-endedness of our lives, the sense that all CANNOT be resolved... no easy resolutions before apparent disputes...

i was thinking today...perhaps if i had one more SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE... the kind that Aquinas had...that which terminated all the SUMMAS he gave to the church... then, perhaps...maybe... i would be happier...

oh unassuming conversation... never would i expect you to tear down those lofty dreams of mine...bring me down to earth... i can never be another 'meister eckhart'... another 'miroslav volf'... or a 'john milbank'...

names...they are all just names... concepts...'emergent'...'postmodernity'... 'theology'... 'politics'... they are all just concepts...

but God... that which we cannot conceive, we must LEARN to pass over in silence...

it is surely the hardest part of all...

...of God's spies...

2006-02-21T21:29:00.000+08:00

Rowan Williams quoting Brian McLaren in a speech he gave at a Christian-Muslim Forum... That's a pretty potent combination...

"It’s easy to talk about these things abstractly so I’ll end by quoting to you a story I came across recently from a most unlikely quarter. The book I’m reading from is an excellent book by Brian McLaren, an American Evangelical, pastor of a large independent church in the Washington DC area. The sort of Christian pastor who arouses a certain amount of anxiety in the breasts both of Muslims and of more liberal Christians, not to say columnists in some of our newspapers. The book is entitled, though, ‘A Generous Orthodoxy’ and it has a long and extraordinarily moving chapter on his approach to people of other faiths. Towards the end of this chapter McLaren quotes from another writer from the same background telling a little story about an encounter in the Washington DC area not long after September 11th. One day my daughter saw a woman walking towards us covered in a veil and asked the inevitable ‘What’s that, Mummy?’ ‘Emma,’ I answered, ‘that lady is a Muslim from a faraway place and she dresses like that and covers her head with a veil because she loves God. That is how their people show they love God’. My daughter considered these words, she stared at the woman who passed us, she pointed at the woman and then pointed at my hair and further quizzed ‘Mummy, do you love God?’ ‘Yes’, I said, ‘I do; you and I are Christians and Christian ladies show their love for God by going to church, eating the bread and drinking the wine, serving the poor and giving to those in need. We don’t wear veils but we do love God’.

After this Emma took every opportunity to point to Muslim women during our shopping trips and telling me ‘Mummy, she loves God’. One day we were getting out of our car in our driveway at the same time as our Pakistani neighbours. Emma saw the mother beautifully veiled and pointed at her and shouted ‘Look Mummy – she loves God’. My neighbour was surprised, I told her what I had told her what I had taught Emma about Muslim ladies loving God, while she held back tears this near stranger hugged me saying, ‘I wish all Americans would teach their children so, the world would be better’.

That perhaps is – as simply as that – what we have to teach; that, perhaps, is what the Muslim Christian Forum by the Grace of God can achieve, thank you for being with us this evening."

the memory that stays with me most, from my brief meetings with these two sages of the faith, was the depth of their spirituality and ( i struggle for a better word...) godliness... yes, being in their presence, is to be in the thrall of 'godliness'...

here's the rest of Dr. Williams' speech.

...faith is not the sum of historical proofs...it is so much more...

2006-02-18T16:57:00.000+08:00

"Christianity is not based on a historical truth; rather, it
offers us a (historical) narrative and says: now believe! But
not, believe this narrative with the belief appropriate to a
historical narrative, rather: believe, through thick and thin,
which you can only do as the result of a life. Here you have a
narrative, don't take the same attitude to it as you take to
other historical narratives! Make a quite different place in your
life for it. - There is nothing paradoxical about that!"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1937)

...in the final analysis, grounding our faith on objectivity and historicity may be utterly irrelevant...faith in Christ calls for passionate inwardness..."the result of a life..." loving, enduring, suffering...

2006-02-18T15:32:00.000+08:00

cryptic
nascent
emphatic
tragic
miscellaneous...

all life is miscellaneous
all life is peripheral
the peripathetic crawl
the incandescent struggle

mourning with a human face
i settle..
yes…i settle
make amends
with you…

the dead follows me
they are alive
yes..they keep me alive

i might be wrong
i may have been wrong
all this while
for a long, long time…
yes, i could be all wrong

imitation
constant imitation
a gospel of sufferings
to renounce a little
to give away our all

to turn myself around…
to live on a different plane…
repentance
imagining things
i can’t think of
now

inwardness
makes me yours
you do not speak
at a distance
you address
me…
directly…

the flight of passion
i have only tears
dried out
limitations
all around

episodic memory
i smile
i say
“i remember…
i remember your face…”

2006-02-04T23:33:00.000+08:00

...he is the voice of postmodern rock...and he looks darn cool too...

watch thom yorke perform 'arpeggi'... it is an experience...

a christmas prayer...

2005-12-25T23:37:00.001+08:00

God of irony
God of truth
in the advent and birth
of your helpless babe
help unsettle
our surest beliefs
topple our comforting idols
our best intentions
and raze our religious temples to the ground...

You who speak to us
through a baby’s ceaseless crying
his soft hand clutching at our fingers
bothering us through the night
we are baffled like clueless parents
insomnia-stricken
by Your revelation
a restless Child, such trouble in our hands
always a little more
than we could understand
a little more
than we could manage...

This Christmas
I say
“Be ye never complete;
be ever learning,
desiring and longing...
God is never found in perfection.
accept your brokenness,
those dark nights
those meaningless silences...
take all that life throws at you...
and let the chips fall
where they may;
trust Grace over karma...”

This is your life
His own flesh,
His own blood...
this Christmas
make us human,
make us your own...

2005-12-11T01:36:00.000+08:00

sometimes a song could capture the current mood of your life... "what sarah said" by death cab for cutie has lingered on my mind for the last couple of months... the simple melody of the piano, the soothingly clear vocals of Ben Gibbard and his lyrical gift... this is an endearingly beautiful song...

it has new meaning now, since my granddad died on tuesday morning...

murakami said that some of us write because of pain...whether to numb it, avoid it, or as a way of facing it... i don't know... my thoughts and feelings are everywhere...and nowhere...

i think of him...he was surely one of the kindest person i've known in my life...i'm glad that i was back in malaysia for the last year of his life...he told me stories of his younger days, how he left china as a young man, lived in singapore, taiping, and finally settling in ipoh...i got to buy him coffee some days, when i visited him...ice-cream too...grandpa loved cornetto ice-cream...

somehow, i feel you're closer now, grandpa, than ever before... i can't explain why... we, and grandma, miss you terribly...

"What Sarah Said"

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breathes as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak of the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that out memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"

So who's going to watch you die?...

2005-12-10T23:52:00.000+08:00

remembering grandpa...

for we are also those whom we've lost...

2005-12-02T20:57:00.000+08:00

Ipoh, February 2004

How does one find true love in one’s lifetime? My best friend from college is getting married this Saturday… We went out for a drink… probably the last time I’m out with them as singles. I had my usual teh tarik kurang manis, while asking them all sorts of questions, just to get my facts right for the speech… “How did you feel when you first met him? What was your impression of him? What makes you proud that he’s your man?” “When did you make your first move? How did you propose? How did she react? What was it about her that so attracted you?” Thousand and one questions, to get to the heart of the matter : the mystery of nuptial love. Can lovers really know when it all began? I sincerely doubt so…Love sneaks up on you, when you least expected it…and when you’ve caught its disease, there’s no way you could recover…nor would want to, if you had your way…

Their deep friendship, their effortless connection with each other’s humanity, how they talked and listened to each other…I would not have believed that ‘soul-mates’ ever existed outside Hollywood films, if not for them, observing them up-close and personal…their most ordinary moments together, an epiphany that disarms even the most battle-hardened, love-forsaken cynic…

If I’d ever believed in miracles, there is one unfolding right before my very eyes…I’m so happy for the both of you =]

2005-11-28T09:12:00.000+08:00

monday morning...today was one of those days i find myself waking up, my hand grasping for the alarm clock that is beeping...i've been anticipating the 'beep' for possibly an hour, trying to stay asleep...i can hear the sound of soft rain by my window...i've all but given up hope. these days my body automatically 'switches on' at about 6am...the first thought on my mind is the last one i had just before i dozed off last night. i know this doesn't happen everyday...why it does sometimes, and at other times, not, remains a mystery...we don't get to pick or choose our thoughts the moment we awake.

making my way to work, scanning the landscape of KL from my vantage, through the train's window, i couldn't help but realize how predictable human habits actually are...come on...all of us travel in vehicles shaped like little boxes, all filing in and out of the same asphalt roads, day in, day out...all of us dress the same too...most...i hasten to qualify. but even the anomalies are quite a uniform group, guys and girls in blue jeans and t-shirt...the rest of us 'office-types', well...you get the drift...

how is it that modern men and women, who so pride themselves as rational 'choice-makers', we the possessors of freedom of choice, still end up so uniform, so 'normal'...if we are such free creatures, our innate creativities should actually be expressed in ways more diverse or more original than the range of adopted life-styles that we see around us...yuppies, networkers, 'the youth', senior citizens etc.

the conspiracy theorists will tell you that our choices are not actually 'real' in the first place...much like the choices that mcdonald's or burger king would give to its customers : meal 1, meal 2 or meal 3 etc. powerful business interests dictate what we can actually choose...the TV channels we get to watch, what kind of products would make you happier, or even the kind of jobs you should aspire to...

to dwell on this thought...i feel helpless...what if we, as a civilization, as society, is heading the wrong direction? we have so ingeniously set up structures and technology to advance as a race, but now we find it hard to control; these 'powers and principalities' are controlling us instead...we can't seem to be able to change our course, our destination...

i am no pessimist nor a doomsday prophet...even if such observations of our daily lives are true, to a certain extent, this does not mean acquiescence and surrender to the inevitable. the christian, the follower of christ, is the last person who should or need submit to such a logical reading of our history, to be 'conformed to the pattern of this present age'. the christian is the true revolutionary, only if we understand our place at this historical moment, to derail this world's logic or inevitability in the light of the eschaton, the judgment of Christ of every human project and ambition in the light of the NEW WORLD he is constructing...

i will be heading back to class...i ask myself 'how can christ be present here?'; 'how does the kingdom of god manifest here?'...not tomorrow, not through telling people that when we all die, we get to be heaven... that kind of gospel is hollow to me, and i suspect, also to many of my friends and the young... we, 'postmoderns', have an intuition...something's not right...something's amiss...in ourselves, our families, our nation, our churches, our government...

today, i hear his words: " change your life/redefine your priorities...God's radical kingdom is confronting your life, here and now..."

is a different world or future still possible?

staring through el greco...

2005-11-20T21:23:00.000+08:00

Toledo by El Greco

I fell in love with the paintings of El Greco, when I chanced upon them at an art gallery in London, a couple of years ago...it left an indelible mark...the shades of blue held my attention...reminding me of mystery, that some parts of reality would always remain impenetrable to the human mind... to have gazed at those paintings was to be called on to pray...truly icons of another world, or messages in bottles come from the Sublime...

The last few days, I felt as if the things that really matter, if there is any thing that makes my life worth the passing of 28 years, they have recently flashed before my very eyes...experiencing ethereal beauty in a new-found friend ...escaping a possible premature death...to have rested in the company of friends...and filled my ears with the raw sounds of earth and trees...

What more can I ask for? Have I the hands to receive, in spite of my constant profligacy? Eternal life finds its logic in my insatiable longing for more of this life... To be alive is to be surprised time after time...grace thriumphing over karma...

Today has never happened before...even a cynic like me, is starting to believe...

2005-11-16T12:28:00.000+08:00

it is raining heavily here, in wangsa maju...spread out before me is a large field, peppered with large pillar-sized trees...looking at how the raindrops fall, incessantly, against the clear, brown and green foliage, beneath a grey sky... feeling the wind...melancholy...hope... and a tempered peace...

this was my moment of reprieve...

the weight of words...

2005-11-12T22:03:00.000+08:00

Heard of the death of Kyle Lake, 33 year old pastor of University Baptist Church in Texas, last week. He died in a freak accident, while conducting the baptismal service, with about 800 people present... 'Where are you, Lord, in all this?' A question, a longing, a struggle to understand seems more apt in the face of such tragedy...may we never arrive at clear and clinical resolutions too easily... May the God of all comfort shelter Kyle's wife and two young children in the midst of the pain...

Words from his final sermon notes moved me beyond measure, as I heard them spoken by my own pastor last Sunday.

”Live. And Live Well.
BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now.
On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun.
If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE.
Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time.
If you bike, pedal HARD… and if you crash then crash well.
Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done—a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed.
If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old’s nose, don’t be disgusted if the Kleenex didn’t catch it all… because soon he’ll be wiping his own.
If you’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well.
At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because-it-is-most-definitely-a-Gift.”

Thanks Kyle... for your life and reminder... I've almost forgotten how to lose myself, to be immersed in the gifts around me...

I am getting knee-deep again in a novel...it's been ages...

faith redux...

2005-10-04T17:40:00.000+08:00

Abraham and Isaac by Barry Moser

Have we made faith too easy in our day and age? Have we parcel out the most priceless of all things, in the yard-sale of our churches, counting ‘conversions’ on demand?

Abraham troubles me…his story terrifies… There are no categories I can muster with all my might and intellect, to understand him, to take from him an object lesson to live by…

How many times have we heard a sermon that takes the sacrifice of Isaac, as an object lesson of how it points towards the sacrifice of Christ? Does this mean that all I should ‘get’ from the narrative of Abraham is that his life event is meant to foreshadow the more ‘substantial truth’, that Christ was the one sacrifice for humanity, the ram caught in the thickets that replaces Isaac?

Abraham’s pathos, as a human being, at a loss within himself, is nowhere to be seen… Where is ‘the father who loved his son’ that Genesis tells us, the one who hoped for his covenantal son for close to 70 odd years, day and night counting on God’s promise, in spite of the grim reality of a physical body in decay? Did he stop hoping? Did he not worry that God actually forgot about him, or Sarah’s reproach as a barren wife?

That day came… a son was born… the entire household was in rapturous joy… God fulfills His promise to Abraham. But we do not stop here. A father’s love for his newborn son, is immediate, and yet it grows stronger by the day. No one can begin to understand that intensity of love, until you have fathered a child. You will have such attachment to the child, tell him stories, play with him, give him all the attention, all your waking hours…

But when does it all fall apart for Abraham? Did anyone else hear of it? Does Sarah know? Or his faithful servant, Eleazar? Can the Lord God be mistaken? Why does He require now, what He has so gloriously and kindly given, my only son? How will my family understand this? They will think that I’m mad… Worse still, I will be a criminal… But what can I do? Shall I disobey the one that has called me from my youth, from my kinsmen in Ur? Am I self-deceived?

Terrible days…sleepless nights… Abraham was quiet during that time. Alone in his dilemma and pain… It took a further 3 long days, riding on an ass, the slow ride up Moriah, with his beloved child by his side… “Where is the sacrifice, daddy?” Isaac would ask… Perhaps, he said ‘My boy, the Lord will provide…’, knowing well what the Lord required… The pain, the anguish, pathos…

Under the dark sky of Moriah…please do not patronize me with easy explanations…preaching on this passage as if it was universally clear to all ‘believers’ what Abraham’s story was meant to teach… In that hour, God summoned Abraham to stand alone before Himself, transparent and naked, so that ‘faith’ would arrive, but only after Abraham has exhausted himself, in his whole being, resigned to do the will of God.

This is what I do not get from the religious ones…they say to call for a ‘leap of faith’ is dangerous, irresponsible, the following of one’s private whims and fancies… But can’t they see that the ‘leap’ is not one that is performable at will, to be done as often I would like to? How can you surrender your all to God, if you had nothing in the first place, that you never experienced the natural beauty of the world, and drank deeply from the spring of life? If you have never regretted loss in your life-time? How can you offer a gift, if your hands have never clasped it so close to your heart? If you never lived in the first place, would you ever know that Christ offers a new kind of life, that is immeasurably different and better than the best this life could offer?

Faith comes, if and only if, you have performed that ‘movement of infinity’, that you have truly loved life and finite pleasures, and yet renounced them, having the strength of character to live without… Even then faith does not come automatically… A sense of the tragic might stick with you for life…It all depends on God… You may, perchance, gain all these back, a hundred fold… faith is forever the elusive, the absolute surprise…

It is easy to call oneself a Christian these days… Jesus’ own pathos is neglected… Yes, we get his story, ‘the point of it all’, that he died for the sins of humanity… It is easy to live with ‘the doctrines of our salvation’ nice and comfy in our pockets. I for one, cannot sleep at night… I have nightmares… To stand under the gaze of the one who said, ‘Go sell all that you have…’… For that, I am dumbstruck… Or what was he thinking, when he hung for hours, desperately clinging to life, on Golgotha? A living, dying, speaking Christ is scary… You cannot put him away, like a gospel tract.

Preacher, slow down… Preach first, how much Abraham truly loved Isaac. Preach that for weeks on end… Expound the depth of his love, week in, week out… Maybe then, we can go on and talk about ‘Abraham being our father of faith’, that he offered Isaac...then we might even begin to understand what Moriah is about…what Isaac's sacrifice could mean... I confess, understanding Abraham is beyond me, even after all these years... Some things just don’t yield easy explanations… Faith, above all.

madman or scientist?

2005-09-27T18:56:00.000+08:00

Icelandic Post-rock Aesthetes

Everyone wants a logical proof that either the Divine exists, or it doesn’t… but “questions of science and progress doesn’t speak as loud as my heart”…

I cannot fully explain, but my heart is driven beyond, bursting the confines of the ordinary… when I am listening to a piece of music, too beautiful for human language to express… (thank you Sigur Ros and Death Cab for Cutie… thanks Justin and James for the intro…) joy and sadness, my hopes and my deepest regrets… they seem to be fashioned, held together in that one moment… I get a sense of what it means to be human, to be fragile… no better place to be than the one I’m in, the present… I feel comfortable...yet the same time, I'm in the throes of an agonizing longing…

A madman once said “This life, your eternal life…”. I think he is right. Life is for living…frankly, nothing else would do...

2005-09-22T01:01:00.000+08:00

a utilitarian confession

had hot green tea and sashimi at mid-valley

simply heavenly

in the midst of painful monotony, there's pleasure still

tonite i can die happy

2005-09-13T17:20:00.000+08:00

i wonder whether despair is the right word...it creeps up on you sometimes...she's as faithful to me as my personal demons, sitting on both my shoulders. is it my time to weep, or wring my hands, hurling expletives at the sky? i don't know...

i just know that i'm small, looking out the window, beautiful grass being swayed by the wind...it reminds me of motion, at least...that life does not really stand still...

my eyes look ahead...now i see, a malaysian flag, frolicking in mid-air, protruding from a high-rise window... i think of my nation...how like this picture, suspended in mid-air, our possible futures still to be decided, to be experienced. malay, chinese, indian...how long? before we are truly family... is it history that taught me to cry? perhaps... i've never been hasty...

still we slouch, on our way...with life's troubles, both big and small... of these, we fashion our identities... my nietzschean self whispers:"see your life, as a work of art"...when i am dealt colours, grey and blue...the white, the purple...how to paint it true?... how to sculpture the broken?...your art may not see the light...

i see now, one beautiful coconut tree, its leaves are dancing...in a small little place...from my little room, at the heart of bangsar.

here i remain faithful to the earth...

i would give anything...

2005-09-09T16:12:00.000+08:00

photograph by Abbas Kiarostami

i would give anything for just one moment of lucidity; if i have the words, i would say it; say it like it matters; incredulous and intemperate; vitriolic and passionate; an eye for details, but blindness to solutions...

my blindness is my cure;
i am not at ease...
i stay awake, i'm no bodhisattva...
my chance existence;
is this of all paths the most enlightening?
Freud argues with Kant,
with Derrida we are all friends...
give me a socialism with individuals
a church only full of equals...

our temple is our bodies
our desires fashioned like prayers
ideas like kindness
that old, old divorce
Thought and Action
so divided, so separated...
my sins, my alienation
mon Marx call it what you will
you who trip up Hegel
only to face the Maos and Stalins

justice by the barrel of a gun
democratic violence and just wars
multiply and grow, spiral out of control
i don't know what's right, what's wrong
anymore...
but did we ever?...
does it matter?

i am haunted...
that pale man...
he stares at me
he lies in the dark
he is beyond
he is not me

2005-08-29T23:27:00.000+08:00

still down and about in petaling jaya...(as opposed to 'down and out' in pj... though i feel like that some days...)

these days, my consoling companion comes in the form and shape of Kierkegaard's Either/Or(a slightly abridged version I borrowed from Kairos)...my LRT reading, if you like...

the following quote of Kierkegaard's summarizes the absurdity and a certain amount of 'existential' worry that creeps up on me from time to time...

Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way. Whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the stupidities of the world, and you will regret it; weep over them, and you will also regret it. Laugh at the stupidities of the world or weep over them, you will regret it either way. Whether you laugh at the stupidities of the world or you weep over them, you will regret it either way. Trust a girl, and you will regret it. Do not trust her, and you will also regret it. Trust a girl or do not trust her, you will regret it either way. Whether you trust a girl or do not trust her, you will regret it either way. Hang yourself, and you will regret it. Do not hang yourself, and you will also regret it. Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. Whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom.

either way, our lives must go on...however way we may choose to live it... e.m.cioran once said that it is the very possibility of suicide that keeps him from committing suicide...

the possibilities in life keeps me going, far more than it's certainties...for the moment, at least i could get some 'comic relief' from good old SK's Either/Or =] (as i leave this entry, i have a stupid smile on my face...you know, the kind of Kevin Spacey "I couldn't care less about what you think..." smile, that we saw in his characters in American Beauty and K-Pax... and i don't mean i am even half as good-looking as he is).

ps. my grandma is recovering well...thank you all for your prayers and concern...
most of all, thank god she's still a living, breathing buddhist...

2005-08-07T13:45:00.000+08:00

been down in kuala lumpur for the last week or so... then got a call from my mum saying that grandma has been admitted for an op...got back to ipoh this morning, saw her about 2 hours ago...her condition is stable...her heart-rate is still a bit weak... will have to remain in the ICU for at least another day... hopefully she can be transferred to a normal ward in a day or two...

she is very weak, when i saw her...just held her hand, and spoke some words of comfort by her ear...she seemed at peace when i left...

what pisses me off (pardon my language) is what my mum told me of some of my "christian" relatives, who want to capitalise on this poor woman's crisis, make her say the 'sinner's prayer' and so notch up another 'salvation hit'. in my more patient mode, i can understand why we want to do this, this whole crisis evangelism thing... but i just feel it is so wrong...particularly in the case of my grandma...

she has always been a devout believer in Buddhism...prays the mantras...vegetarian...and goes to the temple... i respect her for her devotion and generosity as a human being... she told my mum, when my christian relatives are not around, that she is so afraid that they will forcefully make her a christian, since she is so weak to do anything...

worse thing is one of my relatives, now claims that she has accepted Christ...what bullshit!!! "Nope"...I spoke to her just now... I whispered in her ear, that if any of those relatives pesters her anymore, I'll give them a piece of my mind... I really didn't know what to say to her...I just held her hand, and told her Buddha's example would be her guide in this difficult time... She has heard too much of promises of her being healed, tied with the condition that she believes in Jesus... I couldn't make myself say that cliche christian statement, 'I'll pray for you...'

if only christians, all of us, would just put on Christ, practice kenosis, a self-emptying, to give her space as a Buddhist to face this ordeal...maybe then she can see the solidarity of Jesus in our agenda-less prayers and comforting presences by her bedside...

how does it feel, living in the 21st century?...

2005-07-24T15:33:00.000+08:00

artwork by stanley donwood...

dearest friends,

how does it feel, living your life in the 21st century? are you plain happy, or just sad?... are you comfortable, or do you have panic attacks?... "God wants you to be a winner..."... the government will deliver what they promised... don't they speak for us?... i can't behave like this... phew... that wasn't me... i am back in control... i will conquer the world... what's this?... voices?... in my head?...

appreciate all your comments/impressions of the art-piece above... remember, they may reduce you to a piece of news, fit you nicely in labels, easily understood... but they can never take away our stories...

2005-07-17T16:10:00.000+08:00

Suck up to the cool
No, I don’t want to
behave like drones
bees working a mega-project
the millennial house of cards
tottering…

My T-shirt smells of money
I did not earn
plagiarizing piracy
A copy of a copy
Kid A… An amnesiac…
I am the next person
beside me
beside myself

Pejorative comments
a transcendental argument
“God, you don’t exist…”
if only
Nothing nothings
there is no love
I don’t know
I cannot decide

Pile on the pressure
watch the fires burn
my acidic tongue
your manic laughter
nocturnal submission
our world of abstractions
our egos crumble

Suck up to mortality
and forget yourself…
Keep your soul
God rest
all your restless souls...

22,787 civillian lives and counting...

2005-07-10T17:11:00.000+08:00

last count of Iraqi civillian deaths at 22,787...

lest I forget the bigger picture ...war is horrendous in all its forms, whether it's the terrorist attacks, the 'war on terrorism' or the 'war for iraqi freedom'.

www.iraqbodycount.net

a rescuer's account...

2005-07-09T11:14:00.000+08:00

One just could not fathom how devastating the bomb attacks actually were, until first-hand accounts by people working on the ground are released to the media...

The rescuer's story

Saturday July 9, 2005

Guardian

Sergeant Steve Betts of the British Transport police was one of the first rescuers to reach the Piccadilly line train between King's Cross and Russell Square on Thursday. This is his harrowing account:

It was pitch black and we had torches. The tunnel where the train was was about 150 metres down the track round a corner and there were still a few wounded coming towards us as we approached. As I walked down the track, I heard someone cry out for help but I could not see them. I called out back and looked around but it was very smoky and dusty and they did not answer.

I got into the train and it was quite obvious that this was something horrendous. There were people with limbs missing, huge open wounds with their organs showing and people were crying out and moaning and asking for help.

I thought, this is the worst thing I have ever seen. I am not very good in enclosed spaces at the best of times and we had to climb over bodies and body parts to try to help people and see who was still alive. I thought this is the end of the world, right here in this carriage, but you have to do your job.

I found a man and his leg had been blown off below the knee, there was another body next to him. There was also what I thought was a pile of clothes but as I passed to try and get to the man, it moaned and asked me for help. It was a woman. She had all her limbs blown off. I think she died on the concourse.

We had not yet got into the carriage where the bomb had exploded but we had to get in there to make sure no one else was alive. That was a scene I cannot describe.

The roof had collapsed and we had to almost crawl in. There were body parts everywhere, there was not one bit as far as I could see that was not covered with organs or blood or bits of body. I was squashed in by chairs and dead bodies as we searched for anyone alive. I could not help standing on things but I had to carry on and do my job. It was like collecting a lot of shop dummies and then cutting them up, pouring black paint over them, and filling the carriage.

After a couple of hours, I came up. The station was pretty quiet by now but someone asked me for directions which made me smile and that made me feel more human. But, as I stood there I felt lonelier than I thought was possible, I just wanted to see a friend or somebody new and give them a hug.

long before 7/7...

2005-07-08T20:38:00.000+08:00

Interior of a Piccadilly line train on it's way to King's Cross...

A photo I took, when I was alone in a tube carriage, during my last visit to London at the end of April... The horror of being trapped inside in the aftermath of an exploded carriage is absolutely unimaginable...

2005-07-08T10:28:00.000+08:00

carnage at tavistock square...

London pain...

2005-07-07T21:52:00.000+08:00

Watching the on-going news reports and images on the terrorist attacks in London today was particularly emotional for me... I spent the last 4 years of my life living in this city and have wonderful memories of the place...gosh...in many ways, London was my home away from home(ipoh)... The bus exploded near Tavistock Square, one of the regular routes I used to travel on, almost daily when I had classes at UCL near Russell Square... It's almost unreal to realise a part of me being connected to these locations, now so full of wreckage and tragedy... This is a sad, sad day... I just hope all my friends are safe...

"Clocks", "X & Y", and the mess we're in...

2005-07-01T16:57:00.000+08:00

I first heard of them when I was out shopping for an acoustic guitar in one of those guitar shops in Tottenham Court Road... I didn't know it at the time...the raw sound of fingers sliding on strings along a guitar fret, the slow melancholic music conjuring images of a dimly-lit living room, the orange flicker of fire in an old English fireplace, cups of tea on a low glass table in the middle... Such were my sentiments when I heard music from Coldplay's debut album 'Parachutes' back in the winter of 2001... It is still one of the best 'mood-piece' albums I have heard in a long time.

"Clocks" seem to be the soundtrack of my life, over the last year...Somehow I can never grow tired of that haunting riff, the notes from Chris Martin's piano drawing me in, helping me capture life as mediated through music. It is an existential moment best represented in musical form...No words, prose, logic or art could do it for me...

Yesterday, I listened to their new album "X & Y", probably for the second time. The first 3 tracks of the album immediately resonated with my current state of being...uncanny, effortless connection with the soul... I love Coldplay for their sound, their humble, honest lyrics, and their social conscience, using their rock persona in campaigning for a greener, fairer and less poverty-stricken world.

I have my doubts about Mr. Geldof's efforts, Live8... I admire the sincere activism of these artistes, but somehow social justice could very well have been co-opted by Profiteering Corporations... In the end, world poverty and social concern is just another option in the life-style choices of citizens in the developed West and the developing world... But, I do hope Live8 would make a difference and that the G8 would cease to be a 'talk-shop' and really make poverty history.

I can't help but feel how much we are connected, implicated in the whole way our greedy world economy is set up, small Xs and Ys in a matrix of consumption and accumulation. I want out... Perhaps, God's people could be a real, concrete alternative... I hope revolution is on the way... The seeds of simple kindness are already sprouting, often hidden from our eyes...

A song from "X & Y" that speaks of how I feel about the things that matters most to me, these days...

"Fix You" by Coldplay

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

High up above or down below
when you're too in love to let it go
If you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears streaming down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears streaming down your face and I

Tears streaming down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

the threat of becoming...

2005-06-28T18:26:00.000+08:00

Can a man’s life be summed up in a matter weeks, days or months? The last 2 weeks of my life, has been so filled with the sublime and beautiful, weaved together with pain and sadness… I experienced the simple kindness of strangers and old friends; celebrated the marriage of my best friends; took in the beauty of my country and culture (it took the fresh ‘seeing’ eyes of my Californian friends to help me perceive KL anew…); wrestled with guilt and pain towards a dear companion…

How could one say there is no meaning in life? Being human is so pregnant with possibilities, feelings, layers of meaning… I find it so hard to take it all in, to streamline or smooth out the rough edges of human experience… to know that each human life is a unique story, lived in the particular, constrained by limitations and contingent events. Our lives are so horribly precarious, a hopelessly beautiful vulnerability… Laughing and crying, feasting and hunger; their place forever dignified (or deified in the terms of Orthodox spirituality) and invested with truthful meaning, through the historically conditioned, precarious life of Jesus of Nazareth… turning water into wine while celebrating a friend’s wedding, his enduring of every trial and temptation imaginable with much tears and cries, and his annihilation on the cross… the wideness and depth of human experience and suffering becomes the wideness and depth of the Father’s mercy and reconciliation…

I am and feel so painfully unfinished…but I do hear him say ‘Become…’.

Fever Pitch... Confessions of a Koppite

2005-06-10T15:55:00.000+08:00

Half a million supporters celebrate at St. George's in Liverpool...

I have supported Liverpool Football Club for more than 10 years now... Them winning the Champions League this season, is without doubt the highest point in the life of a person who supports a football team... Especially after all those years of under-achievement and suffering from the haughty gloatings of Manchester United supporters :D

It's not just the fact that they won the Cup, but the remarkable manner they did it, coming back from 3-0 at half-time, makes it the most fulfilling experience a football fan could have... At half-time I did think it was over... but, boy am I glad that I persisted watching the match till the end... A night I will never forget, to be passed on to future football posterity :D

It just feels sweeter, the fact that I was at Anfield back in 1997...but those were the days Liverpool were struggling to recapture their glory days in the late 70s and early 80s... I was part of the new generation of Reds' supporters who did not see the team achieve much success in the 90s (the era of Manchester United domination). Hence the deeper appreciation of this victory, a climactic moment after years and years of disappointment... To think that I bumped into Jamie Carragher, one of the current Liverpool heros, in Manchester Airport back in 1999, feels absolutely amazing now. I remember walking towards him and his friend and asking him for an autograph. I still have that in my room today!!! WOOHOO!!!

YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE...

2005-06-10T15:48:00.000+08:00

The Cup paraded by the Kop in Anfield, the spiritual home of all Liverpool supporters...

2005-06-10T15:44:00.000+08:00

CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE FOR THE 5TH TIME!!!

2005-06-10T15:42:00.000+08:00

Liverpool captain Steven Gerard lifts the European Champions Cup!!!

2005-06-10T15:40:00.000+08:00

Liverpool players jubilant as they win the shoot-out!!! The most unlikely of all comebacks is complete...

2005-06-10T15:37:00.000+08:00

Dudek stops the decisive penalty... LIVERPOOL WIN THE PENALTY SHOOTOUT 3-2!!!

2005-06-10T15:35:00.000+08:00

Dudek pulls off a miraculous double save against Shevcenko at the end of extra-time!!!

2005-06-10T15:31:00.000+08:00

The unthinkable happens... Xabi Alonso completing the amazing comeback... Liverpool 3 Milan 3... 3 goals in the matter of 6 minutes, after trailing 3-0 at half-time!!!

2005-06-10T15:27:00.000+08:00

Smicer hits the second in the space of 2 minutes... Liverpool 2 Milan 3

2005-06-10T15:23:00.000+08:00

Captain Gerard pulls back an unlikely goal... Score 1-3

2005-06-10T15:20:00.000+08:00

Staring at defeat...Half-time Milan 3 Liverpool 0

2005-06-10T15:07:00.000+08:00

The Cup seems headed to Milan with the half-time score at 3-0...

2005-06-10T15:05:00.000+08:00

Milan hits three before half-time...

coincidence that it's a day away...

2005-06-09T23:27:00.000+08:00

Your Birthdate: June 11

Your birth on the 11th day of the month makes you something of a dreamer and an idealist.

You work well with people because you know how to use persuasion rather than force.

There is a strong spiritual side to your nature, and you may have intuitive qualities inherent in your make up, too.

You are very aware and sensitive, though often temperamental.

Although you have a good mind and you are very analytical, you may not be comfortable in the business world.

You are definitely creative and this influence tends to make you more of a dreamer than a doer.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

2005-03-31T14:46:00.000+08:00

The madness of our times
Reason seeks regulation
The moral police, the defender of the faith
To be masters of
our Human Fate, dictating Human Salvation;
manipulate the Earth, coerce the People
manufacture consent, and profit the rich
It's all the same...
here and everywhere
masquerading Power
through indoctrination-"education"
of the Young, the Faithful
We kid ourselves, "We are not
Collaborators, Progenitors or Perpetrators."
To be model citizens
pay our taxes and stay out of trouble
make sure our GDP is better by the year...
Can dollars and cents
numbers and figures
give us the Clarity we so desperately need
an apocalyptic revelation
'to interpret the signs of our times'?
"Why do you so rage, O Dissident?
Tell us what you want from us..."
No more Last Word, no more Experts
No Final Answers or Solutions
Only speak after you've listened...
please speak after you've listened...

faith and aporia...

2005-02-18T16:58:00.000+08:00

Aporia in Gethsemane...

Why our insatiable need for reasons and justifications when things don’t go our way in life?
“God allowed this to happen…so I will learn such and such a lesson (blah,blah,blah)”. Do we need such explanations to make us feel better? To console ourselves?
What if, the world is harsh, bitter, unrelentingly unjust? What if Nietzsche is right, that all of life is just the will to power, the domination of the strong over the weak? Morality is just our way of consoling ourselves, that the good guys will win in the end, that somehow our suffering would count for a greater good? What if there is no vindication at all in this world or the next? Can we not stare straight in the face of pain and suffering, and not try to explain it?
Contrary to popular belief and all the cheap slogans about ‘Jesus is the answer’, what if Christ is the troubling question, the One who provokes, the one who stirs up a controversy, who confronts our complacency and heartlessness in a tragic world?
Jesus is no simple answer, a nice finishing tag-line to all man’s troubles and problems… He unsettles our way of living and doing things… He did not explain and give easy answers to the problems of humanity… He got involved… He become one with the oppressed and hopeless… His was a most magnificent defeat… The death of an insignificant rebel in the backwater of the Roman Empire… His story is meant to be forgotten. The victim or loser has no voice. Rome and Jerusalem of the priests are those meant to write history… Still his story got out…under the very noses of powerful enemies…
Why this proclamation that a helpless, poor carpenter from Nazareth, a death-row prisoner killed for treason, that he is really the King and Lord of The World, and not Caesar? Isn’t that strange? A prisoner, judged and killed as a terrorist, is the TRUE King over every nation on this earth?
His was a tragic end… Vindication came as a surprise… Resurrection was not some pre-programmed victorious end we just take for granted, as if it was inevitable… It was an absolute surprise… To be a Christian, to be fully human, we need to linger and experience the depth of that tragedy, that sense of meaninglessness, that dark Saturday, just after the tragedy of Good Friday, not knowing that Easter Sunday might come…
Why do we live as if everything is nice and tidy, refusing to come to terms with our messy existence and intransigent vulnerability? Some things can never be undone, the scars and wounds are permanent... No amount of prayer would change that… Even the Son of Man did not get his prayers answered near the end of his life. We savor the crown without the cross, the victory without the darkness… We want Easter Sunday, without Good Friday and the unsung Saturday, when Christ lies dead in the tomb and the disciples despondent in their defeat…
We did not learn lament, how to mourn or weep… only positive thinking, steps to become successful Christians and the so-called ‘claiming the victory of Christ’…
Why our quick diagnosis and reasoned declarations about what was “God’s righteous judgment against sin” in the Tsunami Disaster? Can we not just stand with the victims?
The Gospel, is Absolute Paradox… True power in powerlessness, joy in suffering, winning in losing, living in dying, true wealth in giving our substance away, healing in brokenness, peace as resistance, making friends of our mortal enemies…
There may still be aporias in genuine faith, moments of utter human resourcelessness, emptiness, where my reason is unraveled before the Enigma, the Unreasonable, the Paradox, that cry of anguish in the face of nihilism…
Jesus, the truly Human One… teach us by your Holy Spirit, how to live… to struggle alongside the poor, oppressed, the victimized… and then to die…

belated derrida tribute...

2005-02-03T20:57:00.000+08:00

remembering derrida...

I never had the chance to study Derrida in university... I remember my tutor saying rather smugly when I told him I would like to read Derrida... He said, "We only do serious philosophy here at King's".

Still, like a ghost, Derrida haunts me with his scepticism towards our logocentrism(our privileging of logic/reason over the affective/emotive side of humanity), his vigilance towards any possible violence committed by our notions of ends/metanarratives). He was concerned with the inbreaking of the absolute surprise, that which comes above and beyond our programmatic inventions and scientific/reasoned progress, the future as the progression of linear time... He warns us to always be ready for the coming of The Other, that which defies our categories that seeks to homogenize real difference in the other, the stranger... His was a certain kind of messianism without claiming the moral high ground of speaking on behalf of the divine...

Perhaps, the biblical injunction to welcome strangers (where we might inadvertently had entertained angels), the Jewish expectation of the coming of Elijah, who stands at our doorstep... ultimately our Master's promise to return at a time we least expect it, hence his encouragement to us to 'Watch and pray'... Could all these be a challenge that we be open to meeting our Messiah in meeting the hungry, the poor, the dispossessed, the refugees... to give justice where it is within our power to provide... I have been made more sensitive to the Other, through Jacques' work...

God still speaks through others who are different from us... We only need to learn the patience to listen... even from Jacques Derrida...

(a nice obituary of Jacques at The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1324160,00.html)

somewhere i belong...

2005-02-03T15:44:00.000+08:00

LINKIN PARK

I remember listening to the lyrics of "Somewhere I belong", thinking, 'Gosh...This is my generation's cry for authentic community..." The chorus goes :

"Somewhere I Belong"

Chorus:

I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I’ve held so long

(Erase all the pain till it’s gone)

I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real

I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along

Somewhere I belong

This is a genuine cry, beneath all the rage and screaming, a deep longing for community, intimacy and healing... I've always felt that if we seek first to connect and include, we can often see the Spirit of God hovering over the chaos of our lives... in this case, let us not judge the exteriors of hard music, or the spikey haired, tatoo-laden bodies of post-modern youth... We are all seeking a genuine place where real listening and communication happens.

I pray that the church of our Lord Jesus Christ would be a place of genuine inclusion, where belonging and believing is centred on the mercy and love of the Crucified One...

Peace...

meeting wendell berry...

2005-01-24T15:09:00.000+08:00

One of the highlites of my trip to London was meeting Wendell Berry in person, at a poetry-reading event. Wendell has been considered one of the most important living prophetic voices in America today. A farmer, poet, novelist, essayist, conservationist, former professor of English, Wendell Berry is probably one of the most eclectic, unique and iconoclastic person you will ever meet. I remember Brian McLaren recommending his writings to me, almost 3 years ago at an emergent event. Brian even read a Berry poem in one of the sessions. It was an unforgettable experience. Here's one of my personal favourites:

MANIFESTO : The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

dreams...

2005-01-23T00:53:00.000+08:00

What do dreams tell you, about your life, where you’re at perhaps, emotionally? In the space of this week alone, I’ve had 3 vivid ones… at least the ones I do remember…
The first one: I saw in the horizon, against the blue sunny sky, a hundred foot tsunami-like wave heading towards me and others... I frantically try to run away, knowing well that I won’t escape that imminent monster…

The second: I dreamt I had a friend who were buddies with the band members of Butterfingers (a Malaysian grunge band). I turned up for their gig just before the show starts… Suddenly they tell me that I had to stand in for their lead singer… I panicked as I realized I do not know the lyrics of their songs…Last I remember, I was trying to convince Loque, the lead guitarist, that I wasn’t up to the job, that I just don’t know the words… yet they insisted… As the music starts, I face the mic and crowd, fear clouding my thoughts…

3rd dream, just this afternoon: I was in Greece, visiting my old friend, Pandelis… I remember being in the hotel room, when the thought hit me that I was about to miss my return flight… The fear and tension was so heavy, as I think of ways to solve the problem… I try to call the airline to change my departure time…

They say dreams reveal the preoccupation of your subconscious… Is my body trying to say something? Am I stuck in a place where I feel there’s no way out? I wonder what Jung or Freud said about dreams...

in God's country...

2005-01-20T17:11:00.000+08:00

2005 is up and running... i just spent 2 weeks back in London, with a fine 3 days up in God's country, Dublin, Ireland, to be exact... had my first glass of Guinness in an Irish pub, surrounded by the friendliest people I've met for a long time... was hoping to bump into Bono and philosophize over a pint or two, but no such luck... i did get to see the Clarence hotel owned by the U2 bhoys. (let's hope they put the profits to good use, eh?!! :)

the day before i flew into Dublin, i was surfing the net randomly... came across this link: www.ploughsharesireland.org I decided to contact Damien Moran, one of the Irish Catholic Worker, an organization founded by Dorothy Day in New York City, famed for her houses of hospitality for the homeless and destitute. We decided to hook up...and lo and behold, I met him at 4.30pm in front of the Irish Aviation Authority(IAA), holding a peace vigil with his 2 colleagues. They are protesting against the fact that the IAA allows the U.S. Army to refuel and transport military personnel through Shannon Airport. According to their site 'The I.A.A. have permitted 360,000 U.S. troops to pass through Shannon Airport in the past 3 years. An average of 10,000 U.S. soldiers along with various munitions of war passing through Shannon each month, en route to the invasion, occupation & plunder of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. '

The last 15 minutes of the vigil was a time where we read out the names of those whose lives had been destroyed by the war in Iraq. We took turns reading 20 names plus each, remembering them and their families before the Lord in prayer... I read the names of Iraqi people who perished in the war, people with names, age, and homes.... mothers, infants as young as a year and a half, fathers, brothers... A sense of how the war has dehumanized and depersonalized human existence and livelihood. Today the Iraq War is just an abstract notion, propagandized by our media... we hardly blink our eyes or put a human face to our suffering brothers and sisters in Iraq... and this includes our American brothers as well... The war on terrorism and ideological battles for freedom and democracy aside, why can't we see that no human life is expendable or 'sacrificeable': war is our modern-day practice of human sacrifice at the altars of Domination, Power, Mammon and Race.

These Irish friends that I made, Damien and Ciaran (a fantastic Aussie of Irish descent, banned from the USA for sabotaging/disarming a B-52 bomber during the first Gulf War) are a part of the ploughshares movement, inspired by the following text in Isaiah 2:4,5 :

4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. 5 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the Lord.

Together with 3 other people, they are facing trial on March 7th for damaging a US warplane in Shannon Airport. As a middle-class, 'well-brought up' Christian Malaysian, my initial thoughts while conversing with them was ' Man...How can one be so irresponsible and disobey the laws of our country, face the possibility of having a criminal record, not to mention the time spent behind bars?!...' Then again, I am reminded of our O.T. prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos etc. who really did some far-out things, often imprisoned for their protestations against the injustice and militarism (ie trust in military power) of their times. What more if one is to speak of the crucified Nazarene in first century Palestine. My Irish friends are far more 'prophetic' than the whole lot of us, so-called 'responsible Christians'.

In prayer and solidarity with them as they face the Powers on March 7th 2005...

a promise to keep...

2004-12-21T16:50:00.000+08:00

here comes the splash!!! been meaning to blog for some time, but never got down to it.... it's terrific to be back in good ole' ipoh, very much my own "shire"...clean air, delicious food, beautiful green hills...(haven't seen many of the renowned 'pretty ipoh girls' around...my guy friends keep telling me that that's a fact...still to be empirically proven, in my opinion :)

i promised to keep a blog, so i could keep in touch with friends overseas... i'm absolutely crap in writing emails. so here goes my humble attempt... of course this could very well be evidence of the narcissism i so want to express... heck... life is so short. been really confused recently, with my job-hunt and all... existential angst seem to be hovering over me more heavily these days... i was so scared that i would die in a car crash or something.. i remember not being able to sleep the nite before i had to travel to kuala lumpur for some friends' wedding.

it's not that i am afraid of the after-life... for me at the moment, there is just no concept of pearly gates or a fiery inferno waiting for me when i die... what if it's just absolute solitude, where nothing happens? isn't that a scarier prospect? the despair for me, if i would die today, is the question of whether i had been of some good to people around me... then again, i'm absolutely grateful for every day that comes, having met the people i did meet, listened to music that made me cry because i can't believe it could be this beautiful...so outrageously pleasureable!!! how can i get enough of you, my life, both my blessing and my curse...d*** it!!!

maybe in aporia falls, i can begin to let some of my regrets be washed away, where silence is all i've got to be here with me... i wait...