A novelist is different

from a journalist.

I just read a blog entry of an old friend on Facebook. Cyberspace is kind of strange, the way it shrinks the space between people and make them feel closer to each other than they really are. Or the truth could be that it makes them realise that they are closer to each other than they appear.

The entry talked about observing an old uncle with a paper bag trying to cross the road. He was mumbling  and singing softly to himself, but failed repeatedly to cross that bustling road. 

A helpless look on his face. Strange looks from all around, those who gathered at the bus stop waiting for each of their rides. 

Was he singing a Hokkien song, or some inconceivable dialect? 

No one really knows. 

Some at the bus stop thought, perhaps he's quite mad. Not my friend. The old man continued to hum to himself, a secret song. And my friend thought secret thoughts. "I wish you happiness, singing-uncle-by-the-bus-stop."

A novelist writes. And so does a journalist. Both observe the common life, and also the very uncommon.

A journalist, seeing such an old man, will think: Why what when where how? Is there a news peg? Is there a story? What's my lead?

But a novelist. Ah. Sure, he thinks, is there a story?

But he is also a quiet observer, drinking in the people seen, the sounds heard. For in them, the secrets of life lie.

The novelist, upon seeing the old man with two paper bags, will think - and write - that it just is.

Yep it just is.

How can one boy

have so much anger in him?

It has to come from somewhere, hidden in time.

So much hatred and poison spewing forth. He must be hurting very much inside.

He's so young, so very young. Everything seems hunky-dory on the outside. He's all smiley, mild-mannered, even pleasant to everyone.

Somewhere else in his mind, at the same time, he's wishing death to the people he hates.

This is the youth of today.

This is him, crying out for help, but at the same time making sure you don't get to come close enough to do so.

It's 'please help me, but stay the eff away'.

How, God, do we do this? There's only You.

Another story

from the same night.

It wasn't told during the Festival of Praise, no.

But Hillsong did a few songs from their new album This is our God.

Simon bought the album (CD+DVD) a few days ago, but I didn't get a chance to see it nor the DVD features.

But tonight, after I came home from FOP, I started looking up stuff from the album. And I unearthed Mike Guglielmucci's story.

From an excerpt on the web:

Mike has touched thousands upon thousands of lives with his passion for God and love for mankind.
In Oct 2006 Mike was diagnosed with a blood disease, later the diagnosis was changed to cancer.
Mike is at this point of time quite sick, spending time in Sydney in hospital.
Mike believes strongly that God will heal him, and is remaining strong, still using every opportinity to share Gods love to those around him.

Mike wrote the song Healer, featured in Hillsong's new album. Here is the video testimony by Mike and the Hillsong team. It's a powerful song of faith.





Watch the worship session live here.

When pain wracks your body and cancer eats away at your bones, and you still say 'it is well with me soul' - that's security in knowing who God is. Because He's more than enough.

Healer

You're my Healer

You hold my every moment

You calm my raging seas

You walk with me through fire

And heal all my disease

I trust in You

I trust in You

I believe You're my Healer

I believe You are all I need

I believe You're my Portion

I believe You're more than enough for me

Jesus You're all I need

My Healer, You're my Healer

Nothing is impossible for You

Nothing is impossible for You

Nothing is impossible for You

You hold my world in Your hands

I went to the Festival

of Praise this evening.

It's good to see Hillsong reinventing itself with new sounds, and to see such young, gifted people writing and jamming praise songs from Parachute band. Omega Levine has quite a story to tell.

So he was born with his finger stuck to his nose bridge - thus he was born without a nose. Many painful memories and major operations later, his nose was reconstructed.

But the damage of childhood rejection and the pain of difference, and the 'why have you done this to me, God?', coupled with a seething hate for God and everyone around him, Omega almost ended his life.

Until the Maker of heaven and earth spoke.

'I love you,' He said.

That was how He created heaven and earth, I suppose. 'I love you' was what He meant.

A million thoughts running

through my head at once.

But which one is it I commit to paper? Ink to parchment. Or rather, font to digital memory. 

It's all about choices. 

What, when, how you speak. 

Like Lucky's unstoppable stream of consciousness in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the insufferable multitude of 'think' ensuing from him lays bare the human predicament. 

Beckett's tragicomic absurdist play was my lit text in JC. The fullness of its meaning didn't fall on me then. 

We're indeed waiting for Godot, or God, but meanwhile the spaces are filled with the monotony of thoughts translated into insomany words. 

I think postmodernism is just a generation trying to cope with technological advancement, heightened education and literacy, 'freedom' of thought, and other ideological freedoms. Since there are too many freedoms to choose from, pluralism is the keyword of the day. 

Keyword being highly associated with the newly-founded verb of 'googling'. No longer just a noun. 'Let's google the meaning of the word "metanarrative".'

But no, 'little narratives' (Lyotard) are the soup of the day, so let's tell your/his/her/my story, our way.

And definitely, if you hold on to any monolithic, absolute truth(s), you're in hot soup if you're in postmodern company.

See, one thought leads to another, and another to another's other. 

Just please, let there be an absolute something or Someone, or somebody else could get hurt ingesting too much or too little Prozac. 

What maketh man is his very, very fine mind; yet it is also his undoing.

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Brilliant sunsets are

God's way of showcasing simple, glorious beauty.

Why?

Because it happens every day without fail. Yet it lights up the entire land with its fierce, captivating fire every day, as if it was the last every time.

I saw this, in the hyperordinary act of walking out of my office. One of my rare early clock-outs, of course.

The burning watercolour of red, orange, yellow ebbs as the light scorches the horizon. It almost burns your retinas just looking at it, but not quite.

But enough to burn something deep in your heart.

That if God could create a new sunset every day's end, and a new sunrise every morning, what couldn't He do?

Everything may be in a one lumpy mess, all gooey and grey and black and hideous. Hate, deceit, anger, disappointment, all that leaving and quitting and giant mountains that you must climb; and fall, dust off your bleedin' knees, and climb again - the sun rises, and the sun sets.

And everything, new the next morning.

No, your problems don't go away. Just like cancer, Aids, and bad governments don't go away. But yet, the morning is new.

So is the enduring love of God. New, every morning.

He will see YMM through anything, because the church is His, the Church is Him.

Even if I'm unsure of anything else, of that I'm certain.

I don't need a conduit

to God.

That was all done with when the veil to the Holy of Holies tore into half, all the way down the centre of the temple. And when Christ said 'It is finished.' It certainly was finished, completed, dust-both-hands done.

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. - Matthew 27:50-1

Now I can approach God myself. Or rather, it is Him who approaches me. 

So, beware of people who claim to be conduits to God. Only Christ is the Way... and even then, it's not quite the same as being a conduit, because Christ is also God. But he is the Way to the Father, that's certain.

Beware of those who don't claim to be conduits, but simply act like so.

Because we can listen to God, we can have a direct line to God ourselves.

It amazes me that even when I don't have time for Him sometimes to listen to what He has to say. I'm so occupied by thoughts, work, miscellaneous trivialities.

But the moment I drop them - the moment I turn away from them and look towards Him, He speaks. At the drop of the hat. That's how much I'm loved. I'm forgiven for forgetting, and He just speaks.

He can't wait to speak to His children. We just have to listen. 

       God, you're so faithful, merciful, and infinite in your love. I don't understand. But sometimes I catch glimpses of your glory. And that is enough.

A new, unknown future

and I don't know what's coming at me.

But God says, hey, it's okay. Every little thing's gonna be alright. You'll see. Hasn't it been this way all this while?

That's true, God.

Every day, work changes, and becomes something else. My work scope changes, people come and go, expectations pounce suddenly.

But it's not this I'm concerned about.

Things are moving fast elsewhere too. People are going, in dribs and drabs, sometimes in an avalanche. Loyalties shift, dreams die, confusion sets in, anger rises.

Does it hurt? Yes it does, goodbyes aren't exactly the mood of 'pop the champagne'.

But we move on, we press on. Why?

Because 'there must be more than this'. There is more than this, and I know it. What are we fighting for? What are we willing to die for?

And also because it's not about me.

How I feel, how I imagine things to be, how I perceive things ought to be done - this is all secondary to our higher calling. Nothing to lose sleep over.

And if we don't move on, things will start moving without us. Yes, God is on the move.

In the film Chronicles of Narnia, it was said that 'Aslan is on the move' - cue emotive, heart-thumping music, and bring on The Lion.

But, away from reel life, God is on the move - in ways that are unseen, unheard (of), and sometimes unnoticed.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. - 2 Corinthians 4:18

Sad or afraid I may be, but I know I am loved - and I'm loved the same yesterday, today and forever.

Every little thing's gonna be alright.

This is how Delirious has it -

Every Little Thing

Everything must change
There’s a mirror showing me the ugly truth
These bones they ache with holy fire
But I’ve got nothing to give, just a life to live
If your world is without colour
I will carry you, if you carry me

Every little thing’s gonna be alright
Every little thing’s gonna be alright [x2]

There’s no-one else to blame
I live my life between the fire and the flame
I’ve built my house where the ocean meets the land
It’s time to live again, pull my dreams out of the sand
Let your world be full of colour
I will carry you, if you carry me

When it’s all falling down on you
You’re crying out but you’re breaking in two
When it’s all crashing down on you
When there’s nothing you can do
There is someone who can carry you

Written by Martin Smith/Stuart Garrard ©2003 Curious? Music UK

It's interesting how

Simon and I were just discussing about how some blogs go on and on only about food, and nothing else.

Of course, those are called food blogs. That's a focused theme of great human interest.

Food is a tag of choice, of identity even. There are even scholastic views on the tenets of food practices founding the identity of a diaspora... or imagined community, Anderson-ian style.

But really, for the bloggers who call their online musings food blogs simply because they have nothing else to write about - that's a totally different ball game.

Don't get me wrong, I love to talk about food as much as I love food itself. I can go on and on about it. And I love hunting down the best food places - hawker, attas and inbetween.

But that can't be all there is.

Then again, there are those who do exceedingly well with food blogs (and it's not just the wonderful photos). I love those.

I won't offer a Hollywood ending by giving an intro-body-conclusion deal.

This is an indie ending.

You go figure.