matter and spirit

One good thing about having been converted to Christianity partly via a miracle that was entirely internal, that took place in the midst of great external hardship, is that you are much less likely to make the mistake of thinking that the Christian life is about things going "well". You probably won't make the mistake of thinking that being a Christian guarantees wealth, health, good relationships, etc -- all the things that people normally pray for simply because we are human.
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The gifts of the Spirit -- God's deepest and truest gifts -- are independent of external circumstances. This is not to say that they cannot be given concurrently with those other, more sought-after gifts. Neither am i denigrating those other gifts. i'm just saying that the realm of the spirit is something quite quite different from the physical world that we can see and experience, and we forget this at our peril. i think much that is wrong with Christianity today -- both within the Church itself, and also, in people's perceptions of Christianity and the relationship between Christianity and the world outside the Church -- can be traced to our mistaking material blessings for spiritual ones, and forgetting that the ultimate goal of our faith is spiritual, and not of this world. Such very human mistakes to make.
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beauty

It's been said -- often by artists -- that beauty will save the world. It's a tempting thought, and i can see where it comes from. But i think it gets things the wrong way round. Surely, the truth is rather that a saved world will be beautiful.

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building

Morning, and a gentle morning rain. i woke up to an exuberant chweep-chweep-ing -- it was an olive-backed sunbird, perched on the edge of my window. i'm not sure if it was one of the pair that's nest-building under my back porch. But i'm glad to see that the nest-building is proceeding apace, and that they are making good progress.

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It's quite a wonder, how these little birds have managed, in the space of just over a week, to make a nest that looks set to be goodness-knows how many times their size / volume. It's been such a slow and gradual process. It takes so much patience. There's something that i have to learn here, i suspect.

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i've been thinking about writing, and about how, for the last few years, i've seen it as a calling. Perhaps all writers feel that way in the heat of inspiration -- but i can quite honestly say that my sense of a call came, not because of how i felt while writing, but from something else that i can only describe as a divine intrusion or invasion. This sense of vocation -- because of course that's the old-fashioned word -- has changed over time. i no longer think that i'm meant to be writing full-time, and i now feel that i need to find some other community other than the one i've known these few years to nourish and nurture the writer in me. 

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When i started out, things came easy to me -- the writing itself, recognition, all the things that most writers seek and want. i wanted the writing, of course: it was where i felt at home, in a deeply profound sense. When i was working on a piece of writing, everything else seemed to fall away, and all was peace and often a quiet joy. The recognition, however, was a rather different thing. i knew what i had to do, and i did it, because not to do it would mean that the writing would not get out to the world -- and i had things to say, and wanted others to hear them. But i never liked it, even though for a time, it gave me a sense of accomplishment to know that i knew how to play the game.

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The writing itself has slowed down over time. i think that good writing can only be born out of the fullness of having something to say, and i feel i've said what i had to say, or rather, wanted to say. i now want to say something else, something quite different from anything i've said before, from anything anyone here in Singapore has said before. But i need to find a way, and i suspect, i need to live into something very different before that can happen. And while that waiting is happening, the wise thing to do is to not try to force the process. To be, rather than do -- and let life take its course.

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i wonder if callings change over time. Most probably do, because everything changes over time. i know that i will always be writing in some form or other -- even if it's only this blog. But life changes, and we adapt along the way. For now, at least, my sense is that the call is still there, but in hibernation. And to try to awaken it before its time, would be damaging for me. i have no intention of walking down that well-trodden artistic path towards self-destruction. Art is not important enough to me, i guess -- life is more important, and family and friends, and my faith. The public writing -- the writing to publish and all the things that came with that -- was only ever a means to an end. Which may sound like sour grapes, but is not. It's just the way it is with me.

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静 夜 思

One good thing about having friends who are very different from each other is that one gets to compare and contrast: which is interesting in and of itself (very few things are more dynamically interesting than human behaviour, i think ... ), but it's also -- and perhaps more importantly for this pragmatic Singaporean -- deeply instructive and useful.
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Seeing different ways of living and being, different ways of prioritising and valuing the many aspects that make up a life, and then seeing the outcomes of these different choices -- is so useful when it comes to making one's own choices, crafting one's own life. My dad used to say that fools only learn from their own mistakes; smart people learn from the mistakes of others. Which does have a tinge of possibly not-very-pleasant Schadenfreude to it, i guess, but take away the political-correctness, and it is pretty much true. i'd add that it's not just about learning from others' mistakes; being inspired by people is a vital part of the equation, too.
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In other news. i wonder if working late into the night, or into the wee hours of the morning, is something that's particularly conducive to work that requires deep thought. If perhaps there is something special about the quiet, stillness, and even the feeling of working in a pool of light (or at most, a roomful of light) surrounded by an enveloping darkness. Someone should do a study.
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more distinctions

Yes, still harping on the theme of different kinds of resilience. It rather horrifies me, how it's possible to survive great pain and hardship, only to become the kind of person who's closed to others, who would never admit weakness, who would never ask for help or let other people in, who keeps others at a distance and makes others feel weak and useless if they ever find themselves needing help and support. A person who worships strength for its own sake, as a kind of self-defence. In other words, a tall, isolated tower with no windows and a moat around it. A moat with crocodiles.
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What makes the difference, i wonder, between the person who suffers and survives, and allows that suffering to make him/her kinder, more compassionate, more approachable, more human; and the person who suffers and and survives, and wears that survival like an impenetrable full-body steel armour that keeps everyone else out, and hides a withering soul inside?
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roll of thunder, hear my cry

In other news, i must say that it's been a long time since i've heard such dramatic thunder-rolling in the lead-up to a storm. Some of it really does sound like a long and extended drumroll.
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on the tip of my tongue

For the third night in a row: a visitation of rain, cool and much-welcomed. i was about to say earlier today that they're Sumatra squalls -- the first two nights' rains came after midnight, at just about the right time for them to be the sort of storm that sweeps in from Sumatra, over the Malacca Straits. But tonight they've started early, so i don't know if i can put that label on them anymore. Maybe just a plain and simple 'rain' will do. We don't always need fancy words to dress up our knowledge of the world.
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Coming after the lurid daytime heat and humidity that's been swallowing this island alive the past few months, these rains are so very welcome. But now, as i watch the sky irradiated by the white-heat of yet another lightning strike, i also worry about the pair of olive-backed sunbirds that have been building a nest under the eaves of the back porch. i worry about their half-finished nest, that it might be destroyed by the wind. And i worry about the birds themselves, and hope they find good shelter in the storm.
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i've come across a similar story before somewhere -- this story about encountering the other creatures that we share our planet with and learning to worry about them and therefore to care. i just can't remember where. It's that feeling you get when you have a word on the tip of your tongue, somewhere hovering between your mouth and nose and eyes, and you just. Can't. Remember. It. Argh.
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distinctions

There are many different types of teaching. The ones i've done the most of, are classroom teaching, and mentoring. (Warning: Blatant over-generalising ahead.)
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The best classroom teachers are control freaks. i've seen this, over and over again. It's got to do with having to organise big groups of people towards a single specific objective -- you've got to think of how to move all of them from Point A to Point Z, and every step of the process has to be carefully staged in your mind. You have to anticipate their reactions, and think of how to respond to glitches in the process. Everything has to be planned out before the lesson takes place.
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On the other hand, the best mentors are the ones who know how to let go. They hand autonomy over to their students, and know the fine art of guiding without imposing. This takes flexibility and responsiveness, and is far more difficult than it sounds. It's about trusting your students, seeing what they want to achieve, and helping them get there without forcing your own vision on them.

i've known quite a few excellent classroom teachers, but none of them make good mentors. They're just not very good at letting go. This can be particularly crippling for the student if the mentor has a very strong personality which the student has not yet learned to resist: it can throw the student way off-track and destroy his/her faith in his/her own vision.
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Interestingly, the good mentors i know, are both from overseas. (i know, 'both' as opposed to the 'all' implied by 'none of them'.) i wonder if the numbers are representative. If they are, i wonder if it's simply because there's a greater demand for classroom teachers than mentors, both here in Singapore and arguably everywhere, leading to there simply being more classroom teachers than mentors overall; or if there is some sort of larger cultural factor going on that makes 'letting go' particularly hard for educators in Singapore.
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to kinden

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Age
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As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blades mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.
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(Kay Ryan)
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i've long been interested in adversity and suffering -- how they are perceived, what they do to people, and how people respond to them.
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The current wisdom is all about resilience. About bouncing back from setbacks and failure, no matter how painful and difficult. About picking yourself up and finding the strength to move on. All good things. And hard enough to do, when things really hit rock bottom. Kudos to those who succeed.
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Still, i can't help but find something missing in all the current discourse. And i think the key to my unease lies in something i've observed in some (not all) people: that suffering sometimes results, not just / only in a strengthening, but also, a hardening. It's as if they develop thick calluses on the surface of their souls that make them harsh and unempathetic towards others. i've seen it in at least two of my old friends -- difficult circumstances have made them into the kind of person you'd never go to when you have a problem, because you know that their attitude will basically be something along the lines of Suck it up, babe. And it's not just me who feels this way about them.
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Maybe it's self-protection, this toughness. I've been hurt before, and I'll never allow myself to be hurt again; so I will be tough, and I will expect others to be tough, just as I am, because this is how one deals with Life. And i can well understand why anyone would feel this way -- i've felt its temptation too, in myself. It's a deeply human response.
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But it's also a response that's born of fear; and, a response that's deeply frightening. And it's not the only response. There are other people who survive hardship and come out of the other side, in a very different way. Kinder. More empathetic. More humane. These are the people you want to go to when your own life seems to be falling apart -- they offer hope, because they have survived hard things; but they also offer warmth, empathy, patience, an ability to understand what you're going through and be there with you, without judgement, and yet in a way that points you to the light that you cannot yet see.
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Henri Nouwen talked about this second kind of resilience a lot, and he called the kind of person who learns it, a wounded healer. i like that idea. It takes a lot of love to live that way. One can feel that love radiating from his writing. From all accounts, people who met Nouwen felt that love radiating from Nouwen himself, too -- it was genuine, and not just a writerly posture that he affected in order to sell himself.
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It takes so much vigilance to keep to the light, to prevent yourself from slowly sliding towards the not-light, especially when the noise from Society presents a version of half-light that's not quite the genuine article. Strength in hardship is only one half of the story. An important half, no doubt, but not the only thing. Reading the stuff that's circulating Out There at the moment leaves me feeling the need to go read more Nouwen.
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a bend in the river

i can't remember exactly when it was -- the last time i felt this shift happening in my mind, a change in the things i'm interested in. i do remember i became aware of it over dinner with a friend whom i used to have so much in common with intellectually -- we used to be interested in broadly the same things, but during our conversation that day, i found myself feeling so distant from the things she was talking about. She hadn't changed; so it was clear that i had.
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i'm wondering if this evening might end up in my memory as another example of a turning point in my -- ok this is going to sound soooooooo pretentious -- 'intellectual journey', for want of a better way to put it. A similar pattern -- an encounter with something that, in the past, i was pretty deeply invested in; a realisation that i really don't care that much anymore even though i will always take a friendly and curious interest in the latest goings-on; a crystallisation or mental articulation of the brave new thing that i am becoming more and more interested in; and a concurrent realisation that this shift has been taking place for a long time -- for years, in fact -- without me being entirely / consciously aware of it.
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i was about to say that there's a kind of sadness or sense of loss in this moving on; but on second thoughts, no, there is no sadness. The shift has been taking place for too long for any sadness to be felt. On the contrary, this all feels rather exciting, especially coming at this point in time when i'm once again being tempted towards a PhD. If i do decide to take that route, it certainly will be very, very useful to know where my intellectual interests are heading, so that i don't make the mistake of going back to old territory that i don't actually care very much about anymore, simply because it is comfortable and familiar. And even if i don't take the further studies route eventually, it's still nice to know that one's mind has not stagnated entirely and is still capable of renewal and discovery. New ground means new knowledge, new people, maybe even a new community, outside the confines of what i already know and am starting to find stale and limiting. All good things to look forward to.
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sanctuary

Everyone needs to find a place -- whether literal or metaphorical -- where they can go to rest, recoup, and refresh themselves, once in a while. A sanctuary, in other words. A place of peace and safety. And once that place has been found, to never let it go.
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a thousand lightbulbs

Long drives at night are conducive to thought. (That is, as long as you make sure you drive safely as well ... ). Today, the thoughts that crossed my mind: Thomas Edison's (probably apocryphal) thousand lightbulbs -- the 999 lightbulbs that failed before the one that finally worked. It's one of the stories that students inevitably use in essays about failure and perseverance. i suspect it's because the story is still being used in secondary school textbooks today -- so students just recycle it because it's convenient and easy to remember. (The thought that it's most likely inaccurate doesn't seem to cross their minds ... )
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So many questions, really, from that one story. The easy moral about failure and perseverance is, perhaps, too easy. Is life ever that simple?
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Maybe the lesson in all this is that i need to think a bit less, and just enjoy the journey a bit more. i do like driving, after all.
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