At work today, we read Isaiah 32:15 which says "till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest."

I thought if I am a bald man, this verse will fill me with hope more than if I'm not. So no matter how much we think we are okay, it is important to realise that we are in some form of desert and having some form of dryness. And only in that state, when the Spirit comes, will there be hope, abundance and the joy of empowerment. Let's not be proud or be defeated, let's have a vision of a forest.

Two consecutive days of disagreements, this is perhaps the most spiritual thing I did for my wife the whole week.

One of my uncle's friend told me that Christianity is a thinking religion. He is not wrong but I thought that Christianity is different things to different people depending how they want it to be. If they approach it with a lot of thought then its a thinking religion, if approach it with a lot of reading and studying, then its a academic or theological religion, if they approach it with strict observance, then its an legalistic religion and if they approach in an business sort of way then it is an organised religion.

However if they approach it with reading the bible, loving God and loving others through obeying what is God saying to them, then it's not just a so & so religion, it is a relationship. If they go a step further to obey EVERYTHING that God is saying to them and letting God help them obey, then it becomes an awesome relationship. That I think is what Christianity is all about.

This is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 (with Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw) and Symphony No. 9 (with Bernand Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic)

The type of control the great dutch maestro Haitink has on his orchestras always reminds me of the type of restraint I should have in my own life and leadership.

Symphony No. 5 almost made me cry the first time I heard it. Shostakovich's music has this "tragedy-with-joy" element with i really like (contrasting Mahler's "tragedy-and-i-really-mean-it" type).

May Ann is listening to "Highlights from London Symphony Orchestra", a little gift I gave to her because it contains one of her favourite songs "Canon in D" by Pacobel (It was her 'mummy and daddy's wedding song). The CD contains some of the best orchestra moments I ever heard.

Beside these, I'm also listening to my wife.

I'm not quite a handy man but I can do it because I have to do it being the only man in the house. Chern Han is still a boy. I finally fixed the leaking tap in my kitchen sink after 2 months of battle to savage the old one. Anyway I bought a $22 tap and had the old one replaced. As I'm not quite a handy man, i had to completely destroy the old one with a hammer in order to remove it. I could be a better handy man if I just took a minute to find out if I should turn clockwise or counter-clockwise to remove the nut. It was a dramatic lesson but I'm learning from every such domestic mistake I make.

The new tap looked fantastic, it doesn't leak at the location it used to leak but it's is leaking somewhere else. I moved the pail I used to collect water from the top of the sink to under the sink. It may still be leaking but its no big deal because this time i know exactly what is wrong. I just do not have the tools to remedy it but I just need some time to get the right tools. (Mag will find this statement familiar)

Anyway I'm still thinking about the extra $22 this month on the new tap. The last tap lasted only slightly more than a year. But I figure the nice lunch at Mag's aunty's house on Saturday and dinner at my grand-uncle's today sort of made up for it. Furthermore, i thought about someone whom I know spent $990 on a gold tap and I feel better just knowing that mine doesn't cost gold.

Actually I can go on counting, comparing and doing earthly economics but it'll never make sense in the heavenly realm. In God, He just knows about giving and about blessing us. A ll we need to do is cut the calculations, start following and receiving all that he wants us to have.

Frankly neither earthly or spiritually economics make much sense to me. All i know is that God loves me and my tap in heaven is golden.. (wouldn't it if the heavenly floor will be ?)

I should write about how grateful I am to be tired. It was a long day at the office. Had Katong Laksa for lunch together with Pastor Jeff and an old friend from Malaysia. Rushed back to send my daugthers to music class and picked up Wan Yueh who came over to have dinner and recorded the HopeKids LIVE! theme song. It went smoothly and I'm now mixing it ('til death). It's way past midnight and I'm so tired. But I'm grateful to be tired because I could instead be dead.

Treat our lives preciously but yet be willing to lose it. We ought to get rid of that life that is old and is of no use to us but keep the new one that God has given dearly. Gauge how much of life we should keep and how much we should break for we should not embrace everything that comes our way....

I'm really off to sleep now.

... zzzz

Last Sunday, after our second exciting HopeKids LIVE! service and meeting with the team to discuss outreach, we went to Marina Square to catch up with a group of my former university friends. One of them who was still staying in Australia came to town for a holiday with his family. The group have not caught up for almost 5 years and it was cool that we are able to pick up where we left off almost instantanously. Though all of us still look young and 'eh hem' beautiful, some of us have had new jobs and others a few more children. We talked and they were particularly curious about my new year-old job in the church. They were amazed that we have an IT department and some of the IT work we do there. They asked if there are vacancies.

Today .. err I mean yesterday (its 12:24 am right now), I got a chance to catch up with old collegues from NCS. Coincidentally on my way back from that, I bumped into my former senior manager (with another NCS manager) where we spoke for a while. Being an highly efficient manager that she is, the very first thing that she asked if I would like to come back. Jokingly I asked if she has a good job for me but before she could say anything, I prompted her that I'm happy where I am. I smiled and I proudly gave her my name card.

Actually I'm happy because i have given up looking for happiness. Happiness is a futile pursuit especially looking for it in the things we gain by ourselves. Instead I have learned to seek the abundance & fullness of the life that has been promised. And because I can not imagine anything more abundant or full than God Himself, I had decided to pursue God. I'm just happy and glad to be able to serve Him as a fulltime vocation. That gladness is a type of joy and I know that joy is an enduring thing.

Would I want to look back ? Not exactly though there have been times I've been tempted..... but those were after all just temptations and i'm learning to differentiate temporal happiness from enduring joy. And it is joy (in the Holy Ghost) that is what I really want to pursue.

I am so glad to have the chance to catch up with old friends again and think about the joy of an abundant life. I'm really happy where I am.

Cold, Dark, Urban Monotony was done using Mixed Media on Canvas. The outcome was a result of an accident because its one painting when I started without having the concept in my head. It resulted in a reminder that the world can be cold, dark, urban and monotonous and we risk living in one. (And Praise God we now have a choice)

Water Color picture I did in 1990 

Hey I got a new Rags Journal banner ? What do you think of this featuring my kids, my New American Standard Version Bible and my made in China Halena fountain pen ? 

I can watch 2 hours of sitcoms but almost never agonised through 2 hours of stuff which I just did. I sat through 'Boston Legal' (a show about law) and 'TRU Calling' (a show about mortuaries?) for the first time. I figure if I'm going to live, I may as well watch them at least once in my lifetime knowing that there's a high chance never watching them again. Well right now, I think I'll be right.

It's one of those nights that I cannot really sleep. I'm thinking of how lonely people can be to be spending the whole night watching TV. I don't think people can really get a thrill out of TV watching because it is the sort of thing that numbs you more than it gives you something. Too much TV has the effect of putting your brain into sleep and stop all active thinking for the duration of the program. You don't want it but you just keep sitting in front of it.

I've been dissapointed in 90% of the shows I watch so TV or movies have never been high on my list of things to do. However I almost enjoy every situational comedies or sitcoms I ever watched. Comedy, that's what the 'screen' is all about for me. Yeah TV and movies are just a big joke that somebody played on us and I have accepted it at face value (as a joke). That's why I like comedies. My favourites are Frasier, Kumars at Number 42, David Letterman Show, Who's Line Is It Anyway, Family Ties, Cheers, Seinfeld and many more. For work I will also try to catch the latest children programmes which are mostly funny anyway

I do like serious movies like A Beautiful Mind, The Messenger, Patch Adams, Amadeus and Lord of the Rings but I realise these movies has the common theme which is 'insanity'. ?? hmm.. I watched Patch Adams with my kids and with a bit of guidance, it completely thrilled them because it was about the ways of clowns. I am a great fan of clowns. I like who they are, what they do, and what they represent. I watch street clowns, I had the privilege of watching high quality clowns in Slava Snowshow and tries to see them whenever I can cos deep inside me there's a secret ambition to be one. I have yet to have the guts to try it though the closest I got to being a clown was as a pirate in our previous camp.

I share Henry Nouwen's philosophy about clowns. He said in his book "Clowning in Rome": "The clowns are not the center of events. They appear between the great acts, fumble and fall and make us smile again after the tensions created by the heroes we came to admire. The clowns don't have it together--they are awkward, out of balance and left-handed, but--they are on our side. The clowns remind us with a tear and a smile that we are sharing the same human weakness. The longer I was in Rome, the more I enjoyed the clowns, those peripheral people who by their humble, saintly lives evoke a smile and awaken hope, even in a city terrorized by kidnapping and street violence." Ah how lovely ...

One of my all time favourite broadway songs is "Send in the Clowns" where Babra Streisand sang "Where are the Clowns .... we ought to be Clowns...". Yes I agree we all ought to be one.

It's Mei Si's birthday today. If i'm superstitious, she should bring us lots of prosperity because her birthdate 8/8 means 'double riches' in Chinese. Well I don't believe in luck (at least the chinese numerological type). I believe in the type that God blesses just because we are His. The type that is more subtle but yet zillion times more abundant.

I spent the day at Wild Wild Wet because Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would cost more and because its rated PG, I'll have to do some parental guiding which I wasn't in 100% condition for. How blessed was I to be playing water today.. The Yakult Professor's Playground is an excellent part of the theme park to be if you want to be playing with kids. It was excellently designed that it keeps the excitement going by having waters splashing from everywhere. You kind of get surprises from all sides. I saw an old lady of at least 70-80 years old queuing up at the ultra high "Ular-lah" slide down to the Playground. She was huge and wore a tight skirted bikini. I didn't dare to take pictures to prove it but you have to be there to see that its really a place of eternal youth! It was never a dull moment whenever you are at Wild Wild Wet.

HopeKids LIVE! was exactly what we wanted it to be. It was also never a dull moment there as well. The first feedback we got was from Renae Smith who said that "It was fabulous" and the only negative thing she could say is that the background music was too loud during the Games instructions. The vision of HopeKids LIVE! is that all of us just put in a little bit more to make the 1.5 hours the best learning time in a kids week and it has come to pass (well at least for the first week). Kudos to the team and to the BIG Leader of the team (the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the God of all of us).

There were 4 new kids and we will be expecting a few thousands more later. OK I'm exaggerating .. but many times we think that God exaggerated too... but He wasn't ..hmm we are all so excited about the prospect that HopeKids LIVE! can bring more children to a blessed life!

We will be celebrating Mei Si's birthday this weekend, Mag will be away on a company trip and HopeKids LIVE! will be launching on the very same weekend.

The thing about anticipating is that it'll always affect your present. It'll make you work out what needs to be done in anticipation. And while its stressful its quite necessary. While its quite necessary, it may sometimes be not so important.

What I think is important is that we love and be loved. We ought to anticipate more of these types of things though there's nothing wrong with the other.

Instead of oh no, I need to prepare for this and that or have I done this or that.. maybe we should have some anticipation like .."oh have I loved this person or cared for him ? Hey, I really need to write her a card or give him a call. I need to do this by tomorrow or else it'll be bad for this person".

We ought to also say ..."I really need God's love today... I'll spend some time with him to tell him about my problems with the things I anticipate & I need to do it RIGHT NOW".

We live in such a fast society which cannot be caught. But we can catch God and things of him because he has made those things catchable (and really worth catching). It'll affect the fruits of the rest of the things we anticipate.