twenty years

When i got baptised 9 years ago, and actually, for many years after that, i had curious non-believer friends who would get into long conversations with me about why i believed. i guess they found it hard to believe that someone like me would end up becoming a convert so relatively late in life: most people who convert to Christianity do so in their teens or perhaps early twenties (as do most people who convert away from Christianity ... ). In fact, come to think of it, i don't know anyone else in my circles who's come to faith in their late 20s / early 30s. i guess, by that age, most people have already more or less decided where they stand on the big questions of life; or they simply have no time to ask these questions anymore.
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It was always my friends who initiated these discussions. i never really wanted to have them -- my own journey had been so long, so complicated and convoluted, and in at least one way, so reason-defying, that to try to explain it in just one conversation, seemed quite an impossible task. i always ended up just talking about the theology of it, explaining things with the kind of reasoned argument found in so much contemporary apologetics. Which was certainly a big part of the process -- the intellectual conviction. But it definitely wasn't all of it, and perhaps, at the end of the day, not even the most important part. And talking in those terms always made me sound far more sorted than i really am.
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i guess, at the end of the day, what pushed / pulled me towards faith, was as much a matter of the heart as well as the mind. i'd been touched by the way the Christians i knew lived life differently from others, the way they were able to be genuinely loving and generous, the way they were patient and forgiving towards others, the way they were patient and forgiving towards me. It certainly didn't hurt that many of them were really intelligent, capable people whom i looked up to and respected -- some of them truly had first-rate minds, much sharper than mine, and the fact that they could believe suggested that faith and intelligence did not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.
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There was something about the way they lived that i wanted for myself. A love for others that i couldn't seem to muster, no matter how i tried; a light that just glowed, steadily and in the quietest, most unobtrusive ways. They had a peace about them that i wanted, but could not find. None of these people were evangelistic in the ways that word is usually understood. Their evangelism was their life.
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And then -- and this is the reason-defying bit that eventually pushed me over the line, i think -- there was that year of miraculous, ridiculous joy, a joy that i'd never felt before and that, given the circumstances, was completely unreasonable and counter-intuitive. It came, literally overnight, in a dark time, at the culmination of what had been years of greyness for me -- a greyness that i later understood to be mild depression. It came as an invasion -- i didn't expect it, had not asked for it specifically, and certainly, didn't expect it to last so long; and yet, it did. And at some point, i had to give in and call it God.
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It's been years since i've felt that joy. It faded away after a year, so gradually i hardly even noticed its disappearance. But i will always remember what the world looked like while that joy was mine. Everything was luminous; the world was a different colour, suffused with meaning and light. My friends and colleagues all noticed and commented on it; my boss thought i was getting married and asked me about my wedding plans. (i had just broken up with my ex a few months before the joy began ... ). i guess, in a way, i took it, still take it, as evidence of God's power, and more than that, of God's love and care for me. If God had control even over my emotions, and if God cared enough to give me joy when the rest of my life was falling apart left, right, and centre, then this was a God i could trust, a God that i could consider giving my life to.
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Years later, when i discovered Ignatian spirituality, i learned that the Jesuits have a name for this kind of experience: consolation without prior cause. Apparently, for some people, a few hours or even a few minutes of such 'consolation' is enough to convince them that they have a call to ministry. It took a year of it to convince me that God is real. i guess i was a particularly tough nut to crack.
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It took another 3 years after the arrival of that joy for me to finally decide to get baptised. There were too many questions to think through; too many implications and consequences that i was not sure i wanted to accept. What would it do to my life, to say Yes to something like that? There were all these things that were part of the Christian life, that i didn't want to commit to; there were all these consequences that i wasn't sure if i was able to bear. And always, there was that dark spectre of the shadow side of Christianity -- the unattractive, dogmatic, judgemental, puritanical side that still puts me off today. i didn't want to become part of that. And the truth is that i think it takes a constant vigilance, a leaning on Love, not to become part of that. i need to lean on Love more.
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Eventually, i made that crossing because God had become so real to me, there was no longer any good reason to keep on saying No. It's been 9 years. Honestly, it's been quite a journey. i've learnt a lot about myself since then that i hadn't been aware of before -- not-nice things that go against the nice-person image of myself that i'd built up over the years. Perhaps that's just a part of growing up -- this coming to terms with who we are. The Christian-jargon way of looking at it would say that it's about coming to terms with the fact that i am a sinner. Loved by God, yes, but still a sinner. i don't think it's a particularly Christian thing, even if the word 'sin' is a Christian word. It's just part of the human experience -- learning that we are flawed, limited creatures, that we make mistakes, that our intentions are always mixed, that, like King Lear, most of the time we hath ever but slenderly known ourselves. We are all wounded in some way, and out of these wounds we react and wound others. That is simply what life is. It is the human condition.
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i don't think i'm anywhere close to radiating the peace and love i so wanted for myself back before i became a believer. Perhaps there have been periods when i've felt closer to that. It really is a matter of faith -- and most of the time, i'm not as faith-ful as i could be. Sometimes i think i would give anything to taste that joy again. But then i check myself and ask, Would you really give ANYTHING? In fact, i did taste it again for a few days, a few years ago, and oh God -- what i had to give in exchange for it. i've learnt over the years to be careful of what i ask from and say to God.
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The last time i had one of those long conversations with my non-believer friends was just under a year and a half ago, in Oxford. And as usual, it wasn't me who started the conversation. To be honest i've never enjoyed these discussions -- i find them terribly stressful. i don't like being put on the spot, and these discussions somehow always feel like interrogations to me. Perhaps that is another reason why i try to avoid them. i don't make a very good evangelist -- i'm too aware of the buts and the whys, too full of my own uncertainties, too conscious of all the questions that can only be answered by resorting to Mystery. Talking with some of my Christian friends (not the ones who so impressed me all those years ago ...... ) almost always reminds me that i don't share their certainties. To be honest, i don't want to -- that certainty often feels to me so unthinking, so cage-like; and i dread to think what kind of person i'd become if i were to take it on for myself. But talking with my non-believer friends leaves me similarly aware of how significant that crossing into faith really was, how much it has changed me and the way i see life.
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i don't know. Life is complicated. It's been a long journey, since that moment 20 Easters ago when i picked up a book in the Geylang East Library that would eventually change my life. i didn't know it then, had no idea what the next 20 years would bring. It's been quite a story -- stranger than fiction, in some ways. i've always thought my life was rather like a novel. Maybe someday i'll write it all down.
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hidden with Christ in God

There's a beautiful verse in Colossians 3 that resonates with me for some reason that i've never tried to articulate. Perhaps Easter Sunday is as good an occasion as any to try.
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For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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i'm sure there's a lot more theological depth to this than i'm able to comprehend. What do those words mean: died, life; how is that life 'hidden'; who or what is it hidden from; etc, etc. So many questions i haven't started thinking about, which will probably take a lifetime to begin to understand.
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What draws me to the verse, though, is the idea of hiddenness. Maybe it's the introvert in me: i don't like big public displays, and have always been drawn to the idea of faith as a quietly glowing light rather than a spectacular attention-grabbing laser-show. If one's life can also be understood as one's soul, the real essential you, then the idea of that life being hidden with Christ, is to me a beautiful idea. There's no need for showiness, no need to announce who you are to the world at large. Your soul is with Christ -- in other words, with the only thing that matters. And everything that springs from that soul -- including the reasons why you do, or don't do, things -- is with Christ, in God. It's like a secret song that you sing in your heart, and all that others can see is a something in the way you live that they cannot understand. There's a sense of something precious being held and protected, kept safe, from all that would damage or corrupt it.
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It's a beautiful idea, clothed in beautiful words.
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a divinity that shapes our ends

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."
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(Hamlet, Act V Sc II, Bill S)
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Strong-willed people can be a great danger to themselves if they do not also have the wisdom to discern whether the things they want are actually things that are good for them. They are precisely the kind of people who will push their way into situations that are damaging for them, simply because they can, and simply because they believe that they can somehow, miraculously, turn that situation in their favour just by sheer strength of will.
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Sorry. Life doesn't always work that way. That may be the stuff of internet self-motivational stories, but it doesn't represent the whole of reality. I'll bet the stories that involve having to admit that things don't always go the way we want them to, don't make it to publication.
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Sometimes, you just have to submit to Reality, otherwise known as God, and admit that there are things in life beyond our control.
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My Friend Who's Headed Towards Marital Disaster has always been an extremely strong-willed person, with a huge amount of self-belief (ie, a humongous ego) which borders on arrogance. She's the kind of person who will never admit a mistake or a failure. But she also has a very poor grasp of what reality is, and consistently overestimates herself, whether it comes to planning schedules (she's always late, because she thinks she can get things done much faster than she really can, and makes plans based on that inaccurate estimation), budgeting for finances, or basically, anything that requires you to estimate and plan beforehand how much resources you need to complete a task successfully.

i think in this case, her eternal optimism is driving this rush towards marriage -- she believes she can somehow work out all their issues within the short space of the next few months, that she can will herself and her fiancé into changing the habits and inclinations of a lifetime (while also coping with the wedding planning, looking for a place to live, etc etc). She doesn't have a good grasp of what the reality is.
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The last time i told another friend (also a strong-willed, stubborn person -- there seems to be a pattern here ... ) that she shouldn't be pushing ahead with her wedding plans, she didn't speak to me for months. We only resumed communication after the relationship broke up (for the fourth time) and the engagement got called off. It's not easy to tell someone that something they dearly wish for needs to be re-considered. In this case, i think that what my friend and her fiancé need is more time. Time to get to know each other properly before making such a big life decision. Time for themselves to change, or rather, time to see if they are indeed capable of change, and if not, then time to ask themselves if they love each other enough to spend the rest of their lives behaving in ways that are contrary to their personalities. They need to be more patient.
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recipe for disaster

Watching a dear friend head determinedly towards marriage when i think she and the fiancé really need to take more time to think things through -- what is the best thing for a good friend to do in such a situation? i don't think i should just keep silent.
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i just met them together as a couple for the first time yesterday, and already i can feel the tension and see where the faultlines are. This is not what makes for a happy marriage. Why the rush? The argument that they know they want to be together anyway, and see no reason for delay, seems to me to be flimsy and full of loopholes. How can you be so sure that you want to be together, if you've only been 'together' for just over half a year, and when you yourselves admit that being together is stressful and forces you to be different people in each others' presence? If you can't be yourself with somebody, what makes you think that being married to that person is going to be good for either of you?
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i wonder how many more (happily) single people there would be in the world today if people didn't see marriage as some kind of ideal state that, if not attained, means that you have somehow failed in The Great Exam Of Life. Or, to put it another way, i wonder how many fewer unhappily married people there would be, if our cultures made it possible for people to live happy, fulfilled lives as singles -- if people didn't feel like they had to rush into marriage in order to find a place for themselves in the wider community, if social structures were organised such that singles could be meaningfully and securely integrated into the lives of the wider community.
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in memoriam

i wish he had been wrong. But i think the latest Brussels incidents -- together with the Ankara incidents, the Paris incidents, the Jakarta incidents, etc etc -- show that he was right (again).
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You can never be too paranoid.
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He was lucky, i guess, to have moved on before the same thing happens here. As i'm sure it will, sooner or later. It's only a matter of time.
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Rest in peace, Sir.
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hell on earth

B said once, many years ago, that the real sacrifice for Jesus was to have to come and live among us human beings. i'd never thought of it that way before, but the moment he said it, it was like a light went on in my head. No wonder He used such strong language when He got fed up -- nest of vipers, whitewashed tombs. Imagine being able to read the hearts and minds of every single person you meet. That sounds a bit like hell on earth.
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i've sometimes wondered if He might have seen crucifixion as more of a deliverance than anything else.
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essence, limitation

Still thinking about those Louis Glück lines.
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Some of my friends -- when they were younger (age has made them wiser, i think ... )-- used to think that they were capable of doing anything, being anything they wanted to be. It's the same kind of philosophy that gets hawked on self-help / self-motivation books and websites. i actually disagree. Actually, i think anyone who's ever had children of their own would probably disagree too. One thing i've heard from my friends who are parents -- especially the mothers, because they tend to be ones who are closer to their children -- is that from a very early age, children already have their very distinct, unique personalities. It's innate, and even though there are things that can be done to reinforce positive traits and re-direct or control the problematic ones, the basic blueprint is already there, right from the start.
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Human beings have essences. And this, of course, also implies limitations. Someone who is essentially a go-getter, is going to have to learn patience and contentment. Indeed, learning to be patient and content may well be a lifelong struggle for this person. Conversely, someone who is more easily content, is going to have to learn to go get, or else be resigned to a life of eternal under-achievement. Someone who essentially prefers order, stability, and security, is probably not going to make a very good entrepreneur, unless he/she finds some kind of structure or business context that allows for stability even amidst the inherent uncertainties of a business environment subject to the whims of the global economy. Etc etc.
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i think that accepting the idea of essence and limitation, is actually very important for contentment and general happiness in life. It's really about being able to see and accept the truth of things -- the essential truth, when you cut away all the noise and blather and expectations and false hopes and, yes, internet self-help articles. The truth shall set you free. It's true. Being able to accept essence, and hence limitation, sets us free to work within those limits to find a way that works best for us. It's about flowing with Life, or God's will, or Fate, or The Force, or whatever you choose to call it, rather than struggling pointlessly against something that is essentially not true. There's nothing more tiring, and futile, than trying to force Life into being what is not meant to be.
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Limitation is not a nice-sounding word. It connotes a lessening, an un-freedom. i think that's a rather limited (haha!) way of thinking about it. Life without limitations would be a nightmare. Limitations and boundaries help to define the scope of things, make for clarity, enable focus, makes safety possible. They enable people to know their place in the larger scheme of things, to understand their roles, and ultimately, to respond appropriately and in the best, most suitable manner, to various situations and contexts. Personally, i like knowing what the rules are. Perhaps this is what makes me so unlike most other artists -- i am actually a rule-keeper in life, and confine my rule-breaking to art.

Limits, properly and sensibly defined, can actually be incredibly freeing. That is certainly the way it works with art -- cf. Robert Frost's comment that writing free verse is like playing tennis with no nets -- and it's the way things work with life as well.
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And because this is Life, and because Life is always in a flux of dialectic give-and-take, a continuous balancing out, there will always be those individuals who are essentially (haha!) rebels, iconoclasts, boundary-breakers, pioneers. It is just their nature to want to transcend limits and build new things. They are the ones who prevent life from stagnating, bring fresh perspectives, enable renewal by tearing down what's not working, and starting something new. So that is exactly what they will do. And because it is in line with their essential role, because it is in accord with a larger truth, a larger reality, it is exactly how things are meant to be.
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Q.E.D.
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a pragmatist at heart (4)

Pragmatism has a funny reputation in Singapore. Most Singaporeans take the word to mean "materialism", or "money-minded-ness" -- which is of course not exactly accurate. Pragmatism is about doing what works. And what works naturally includes material realities like physical resources, money, etc. But there's more to it than that. What "works" for one place or individual, may not "work" elsewhere or for someone else, not just because of the material realities, but because of things like culture, history, values, etc.

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i consider myself a fairly pragmatic person. Which is probably not how most people see me -- i probably look like a hopeless idealist to people who don't know me well.

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But if pragmatism is basically about doing what works, i think that for most of my life, i've managed to make choices that work for me. They might not have worked for someone else with different values, priorities, resources, and needs, but they have worked for me. Even the sacrifices that i've made -- sacrifices that have cost me a great deal -- i've made because i knew that the alternative, to not make them, would hurt me more, in ways that perhaps most people would not understand. 

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i guess i've been lucky in the sense that i've been fairly comfortable materially, which always helps in making things work. It also probably helps to be quite easily contented -- i don't really need much to keep me happy. Or rather, the things i need are usually not so much the material things. i'm fairly happy living a pretty simple life, materially. Also, i'm fairly OK with being a bit out of step with other people -- probably an example of making a virtue out of necessity, because, thanks to my background, i usually end up feeling out-of-sync with the majority, no matter what group / community i happen to be hanging out with. It's not a nice feeling, but i'm, unfortunately, used to it.

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So in a sense, it doesn't take as much to make things "work" for me as it does for other people. i can be relatively idealistic compared to most people around me, and still live a life that "works" -- for me -- even though i'm fairly certain it wouldn't work for many others. 

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Being a pragmatist is about being able to see essence, and to understand that essence necessitates limitation. It's what Louise Gluck said in her poem, 'Circe's Power': 

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... every sorceress is 

a pragmatist at heart; nobody 

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sees essence who can't 

face limitation. 

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i love those lines. They are so true. To be pragmatic, to make things work, requires an understanding of the essence of things. Self-knowledge, knowledge of other people. Knowledge of situations, communities, etc. It requires the ability to take the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. (Which is not as simple as it seems. Often what is, is not truly the essence of something, but a distorted or lesser version of what the essence actually is. It's not easy to tell the difference.)

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i've been learning, over the years, to listen to my intuition when it comes to understanding people and situations, when it comes to seeing their essence. My gut feelings are usually right, and most of the time, when i make mistakes, it's because i've ignored my intuition. Which usually happens when it's saying things that i don't like to hear. Sometimes, this is because i want to think well of people, and my intuition is telling me that i shouldn't be thinking well of them. Sometimes, it's because i want something so much that i ignore the warnings that my intuition is screaming at me in the depths of my gut. The consequences are usually very bad.

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road hazards

1) Black cars at night. Especially when their headlights aren't working properly. Navy blue cars are pretty hazardous at night too.
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2) Motorcyclists riding tandem on 90km/hr expressways.
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3) Old folks who insist on walking on the road instead of on the pavement. (What is it about walking on the road that so fascinates them? Are our pavements inadequate?? And why is it always older people who do this???)
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Speaking of hazards. Surely the Americans who are giving Trump the lead in the nominations race are a biohazard to humanity.
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the long line

One thing i've always been grateful for, and in fact become more and more grateful for the more i hear about other people's experiences, is that fact that i had a really good music education, one which actually taught me how to appreciate music as opposed to simply passing exams. And one of the things i'll always remember being taught, is how to listen for the long line.

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YH talked about it a lot -- the fact that a piece of music has a narrative arc, just like a piece of writing, and that even as you're shaping each phrase and making sure the details are in place, you need to have in mind that long line, so that your playing has direction and coherence. Years after i stopped taking piano lessons, i found out the reason for her obsession with the long line: her teacher had passed it on to her. YH was taught by Ron Turini, one of very few people whom Vladimir Horowitz actually acknowledged as his students, and apparently, Horowitz and the other old masters like him had a thing for long lines. And passed that thing down to their students, who passed it down to their students, who passed it down ...... And so it goes. (And that line of succession, is a pretty cool example of a long line in itself.)

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i think it's partly because of what YH taught me, that i tend to listen for long lines not just in music, but in life as well. It's a habit of thought which i think can be very useful. It prevents myopia, and helps to put things in perspective. You see events and occurrences not just discretely, but also as part of a larger whole. Which is an incredibly useful skill to pick up from one's childhood piano lessons.

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lead

Mozart's piano music -- when played well -- has this pearly quality to it. Even and even-tempered, with a calm lustrous patina to it that you know goes deeper than just the surface. i wonder how many thousands of hours of practice go into creating that tone. A pianist friend told me once that his teacher had (somehow) inserted extra lead weights into the keys of her piano, so that she could strengthen her fingers while practising. Talk about dedication! (And, surely, just a teeny bit of masochism as well?) i guess that if you can produce that pearly Mozart tone on a piano with extra-lead-weighted keys, you're probably on the way to hitting the bigtime in the piano world.
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becoming a teacher

Slowly, imperceptibly, i have become a person who likes teaching. Perhaps this goes with feeling like one has something genuinely valuable to give to people who genuinely need it. And with that, comes the desire to see one's students learn and grow. This is so different from the days when i saw teaching as merely a means to an end. It's a nice feeling.
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very like a tree

It's interesting, how people grow into things, or out of them. Life is a very organic thing, always changing. In some ways, human beings are almost infinitely flexible, it seems. Like trees. Yes, very like trees.
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context

The more i think about Singapore, the more i realise what a special place this is. Just writing about secularism and religion in the previous post, for example, made me realise that these words mean different things here from what they mean anywhere else in the world. Or rather, the connotations are different here, the tone is different. Religion elsewhere has a chequered history. It has been a force for good, yes; it has been the inspiration behind acts of great charity and compassion; but a twisted version of religious fervour, founded on misunderstandings of what faith is, and distorted by human weakness and ego, has also motivated great evil. It is thus understandable that so many societies elsewhere, especially in most of the first world, have become wary of religion. How could it be otherwise, when your experience of religion has been one that includes not only goodness and mercy, but also war, terrorism, oppression? There is so much negative historical baggage that gets tied to religion in places like the US and Europe; if i were American or European, i'd probably have ended up as an atheist or agnostic, too.
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It's different here. Religion here has historically been benign. We don't have that shadowed history that other countries have. And so when we speak of religion here, these darker connotations are things that we do not associate with our immediate local context. At least, that has been the case until the debates and kerfuffles of the last few years.
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i've had to go back and edit the previous post about kerfuffles and compromise -- in fact, will probably have to keep on thinking about it and editing it, firstly because there were inaccuracies there that needed to be corrected, secondly because the tone was wrong, and thirdly because things needed to be put in context. Singapore is just different from other places. We need to bear this in mind in all the debates and discussions we have about what can or cannot be done here, what will or will not work for this place. We have to think for ourselves what different words and ideas mean for us, here, and what connotations they carry. Big words like 'religion', 'secularism', 'democracy', 'freedom'. In many ways, we are a society that has always been borrowing and adapting ideas from elsewhere. That is how we got where we are today. We need to keep that balance, between learning from others, and finding ways to make that learning work in our unique context. i think it's going to be a challenge, but a challenge well worth taking up.
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