Dearest Joyce,

Happy second anniversary ! 

I hope that in our two years of our marriage (to date), I have brought you more joy and laughter, than cause for grief or regret.

As for me, the past two years have left me even more convinced that you are my soulmate by divine appointment.  My life has become even more blessed, because of you.

Love - Mel

(downloadable wallpaper)

My worldview, based on an online test, is "Cultural Creative", whatever that means - weird !  What is Your World View?

"… the disillusion with Rome is also profound.  It is rooted in the elevation of the Church’s man-made laws into eternal truths - the deliberate confusion by the Vatican of the revelations of the Gospels with the fallible judgements of Christianity’s temporary custodians.  Moral absolutism has become the blunt instrument of the Church’s temporal power."

- Philip Stephens, "A Liberal Challenge for the New Pope" (Straits Times, 27 August 2005)

The above article in the Straits Times caught my attention on Saturday.  I’m not a Catholic, but I thought the above statement quite aptly describes my feelings about the Protestant church, to the extent that the Protestant church has been dogmatic about its practices. 

Although I’ve said elsewhere that Christians should be careful when tearing down boundaries erected by our fathers (link here), I’m also careful when it comes to church dogma (“speaking in tongues is a sin”, “church music must always be solemn”, etc.) because it sometimes leads to very absurd and divisive results. 

Take for example the Catholic proscription of condoms and other forms of artificial contraception (derived largely from the teachings in, not the Bible, but the Humanae Vitae!).  Sex, most people would agree, is one of the important elements in making a marriage relationship work.  Marriages often break down when couples deprive each other of physical intimacy over the long term.  (The Bible in fact confirms this in 1 Corinthians 7).

But what if a man has a wife with serious health problems which makes it inadvisable for her to get pregnant ? 

He can have sex without the use of contraceptives and, to put it bluntly, murder his wife.

Or he can choose not to have sex and thereby avoid pregnancy and risk to her health.  But then the couple put their marriage at risk of failure.

Murder or divorce – both sound like great options to me.

Or what about a husband who has HIV (maybe from a contaminated blood transfusion) which makes it inadvisable (an understatement) for him to have unprotected sex with his wife ?

Well, the husband can have unprotected sex with his wife which again is as good as murdering her.

Or he can choose not to have sex, but again this puts the marriage at risk to failure.

Hmmm … murder or divorce, now that’s a tough choice.

In our human enthusiasm, Christians sometimes miss the spirit of the law.  Dogmatism – elevating our human practices to Gospel truth – that was the error of the Pharisees.  In our post-modern world where people are generally intolerant of absolutes, Christians need to demonstrate how life can be lived with grace by applying Christian values, not erect obstacles and speak of dos and do-nots.

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  They don’t wash their hands before they eat !”

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition ?  For God said, ‘Honour your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death’.  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God’, he is not to ‘honour his father’ with it.  Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.  You hypocrites !

- Matthew 15 : 1 - 7

The Organisation I work in held a farewell celebration for one of its senior directors today.  (He is being posted to another affiliated organisation).  I’m not very impressed by him.  In fact I recall him saying rather callously once, when I informed him that my terms of employment were not very equitable, that I was free to quit if I was unhappy.  (That’s something I can figure out by myself thank you, I don’t need him to tell me that).  And then there are other incidents which I shan’t mention here.

So I found it very difficult to reconcile the mood of today’s celebration, where everyone was gushing with praise for his vision, willingness to listen and act on suggestions blah blah blah other virtues ad nauseum, with what I knew (admittedly not much, though enough to leave me unimpressed) about him.

Particularly painful to sit through was a chorale “performance” put together by the Organisation, which massacred Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” so badly that I’m sure it would have qualified for a screening on American Idol rejects.  This was followed by a heart arresting rendition of “If We Hold On Together”, complete with grown men and women holding hands and swaying to the music (which, amusingly, as if in protest against being played as the Organisation’s anthem, screeched midway because of a faulty soundtrack).

I messaged a friend to say that “this is a cult man, or some free love community”.

Oh, the Organisation published a book too, of a collection of “inspirational” stories written by the senior director.  

Printed on the last page was “this [ book ] is put together by [ Organisation ] as a special dedication to a great leader Mr [ So and So ]”.  (Bet those guys haven’t noticed that Communist North Korea also likes to address its leaders as “dear” or “great leader”).

Another strange sight were the people that rushed to get their books autographed by the senior director.  The entire proceedings and the autograph session prompted a friend present, who was formerly a Christian, to remark that the celebration was like a church service, and that the people were now going forward to get healed.  Sigh.

Moral of today’s events :

1.  The Organisation I work for is filled with morons, or is a clandestine Communist setup;

2.  People so desperately need meaning in their lives that they’ve elevated our “great leader” to some cult-like Messiah status.  These people could do with a dose of the real thing (ie. God).  We as a society are more lost than we realise.

Before bed today, Joyce and I talked about an article she read from the Focus on the Family (US) website, concerning a pastor who had an addiction to pornography.  The pastor, who was initially on a programme to get over his addiction, was forced to make a public confession and out of leadership when a church member (another pastor’s wife) discovered it.  (Read article here).

Joyce felt that it wasn’t necessarily wrong that the pastor should be asked to make a public confession and step down.  I on the other hand thought that how this matter was handled was not the most gracious of Christian behaviour.  Where a pastor’s sin has affected a member of his congregation (eg. committing adultery with a member of church), or where he is clearly unable to control his addiction – I think those would be an appropriate cases for a pastor to step down or take a break from ministry.  But where he is as in this case earnest about changing and on the road to recovery ?  I don’t think so.

There is no one without sin, and I believe the leader that God values is one who is constantly in communion with Him, aware of his moral failures, repentant and constantly seeking to overcome his weaknesses.  We talked about King David, who had committed adultery with Bathsheba.  While God punished King David, he was not removed him from leadership.  This is because, for all his moral failures, David was a leader was passionately sought after God and who sought to repent of his sin.

Personally, I would rather follow a leader who, though imperfect in some ways, passionately seeks after God, than one who is close to perfect but who has a bland relationship with God.

American TV evangelist Pat Robertson has apparently called for the Venezuelan President to be assassinated.  There is no question that a Christian must speak against wickedness, and stand up for justice.  But calling for someone to be assassinated doesn’t sound very much like justice.  When will Christians stop embarrassing God ?

This letter was published at page 16 of TODAY (23 August) :

I REFER to the report, “Stay away from my husband, you hear!” (Aug 19) and the letter “Don’t blame the other woman if he strays” (Aug 22) by Mrs Lam.

I am nearing middle age and all of my male friends are married — most with children.
When we get together, we always reminisce about the days gone by and take stock of what’s left of our lives. And almost inevitably we end up talking about women in general and our wives in particular.
I discovered, at first to my shock, how commonplace it was that so many of my friends cheated on their wives.

Most confessed to doing so mostly on business trips, but others also told me that they had flings nearer home — usually with their colleagues.  These friends have no intention to file for divorce or pursue a life with the “other” woman.

Mrs Lam has correctly identified the key reason why they do this — after marriage and especially
after childbirth, wives lose their sexual drive, creating a pent-up desire in men who are used to a higher degree of physical sexual expression.

This gets worse when the children are born, as wives not only lose their shape but also spend almost all their time and energy on the kids, almost ignoring their husbands.  So, is this an excuse for men to stray?

It depends on the age-old “nature-vs-nurture” debate and whether the male of a species conditioned to “go forth and multiply” can — by sheer exercise of discipline — curb his natural need to keep sowing his seed.

And it seems the older a man gets, and the more he is confronted with his mortality, the more he desires to prove — both to himself and maybe even his friends — that he is still able to “perform”.  Certainly, all men stray if not physically, at least psychologically — by either looking at attractive women, watching porn or even fantasising about sex with others.

Traditions of love and marriage are nice. But reading all the letters and various discussions on the matter, I am tempted to say — and I know that this will cause controversy — that there is nothing to recommend marriage to a man.  Certainly not in law, where men always lose out in marriage, and neither in reality, where men face self-imposed restrictions on their natural tendencies.

Looking back, almost all my friends regret the act of marriage. (Comment : I feel sorry for you and the company that you keep).  Given a second chance, most would rather cohabit — not least because the legal consequences are less serious.  The concept of marriage was intended to protect women: It does nothing for the man. But times have changed and with the growing affluence of women, there is no longer a need for a man to provide for a woman.

Mrs Lam’s letter may have struck a cord. Is it time for women to expect less from their man? To realise and even to expect that their man cannot, by nature, only have one woman for ever and ever? Is it time for the concept of marriage to be done away with, and be replaced with a contract where both parties negotiate the terms of their cohabitation? Even to the extent where each party may have an allowable number of affairs a year?

As times change, maybe social expectations should too.

It’s amazing that such a view of women of still exists in this day and age. 

So if we discover that it’s in the “nature” of a particular person to be murderous or to be inclined towards violence, he should be allowed freely kill and destroy ?

And it is not true that marriage does nothing for the man.  If the institution of marriage is replaced by contract, I think that fewer children will be born.  And even of those which are born, quite a number will be dysfunctional due to the absence of a supportive family.  Replacing the institution of marriage with a contract, as the enlightened writer suggests, is fun for only about a century, after which we’ll find our population dwindling and soon after, extinct.

At my Dad’s last check up, his doctor found that his platelet count wasn’t going up.  No one’s exactly sure of what that means, but at worst it could mean that the cancer hasn’t been completely eliminated.

Dad had a follow up check up in hospital today.  In office I ran through the whole gamut of emotions that I would feel if I received news that there was a relapse or some other complication – bitter at God ?  Resigned ?  Brave “He-gives-and-takes-away-blessed-be-the-Name-of-the-Lord” ?

Thankfully, my Dad’s platelet count had gone up (finally).  All other indicators (red blood, white blood count, etc.) are normal.  He is recovering well from his cancer.

Did a Bible study today on John 5 with some youths.  I’ve been struggling with this passage for a couple of weeks because what it says is pretty obvious – is there anything more for me to add ?  The inspiration finally came as I re-read the passage this morning (that’s so typically God – not by my might or my power, but by His Spirit). 

I believe that death and disease is the physical manifestation of man’s fallen spiritual condition – sinfulness.  What Jesus did in John 5 was reverse the physical effects of sin, by healing a man who was lame for 38 years, a paralysis that was clearly the result of his sin (v 14).  This act is significant because by healing the physical, Jesus also proved that He could restore the spiritual.  He proved that He had the authority to judge, forgive and renew.

Hence, Jesus proclaimed after the healing that “just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son [ Jesus ] gives life to whom He is pleased to give it … For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.  And He has given Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man” (v 21 - 27).

I found in this a great hope.  Whereas other religions teach that heaven (or a less severe form of hell) is simply a reward for good behaviour (or one’s meritorious deeds exceeding wicked deeds), only the God of the Bible is able to make all things new, restoring man to his original, perfect, sinless condition, as he was meant to be from the beginning (Genesis 1 - 3).  And this is not based on how good we are in this lifetime – if so no one will qualify as we all fall short of God’s perfect moral standards in some way or other – but an act of grace, an undeserved extension of mercy on God’s part.  (In the same way Jesus healed the lame man in John 5 even though the lame man – he didn’t even seem to have much faith ! – had done little or nothing to deserve it).

Isn’t it amazing, this promise that God will make all things new, restoring all that is corrupt to its original, perfect condition ?

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.  They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear away from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’.  He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new !’"
- Revelation 21 : 1 - 4

Caught the National Day Rally speech.  What I found agreeable was the direction that the Government is taking with regard to education.  It’s my view that our education system tends to create an “elite” class of students, who are placed in “elite” streams in “elite” schools, without much of an opportunity to mingle with “heartlander” students who, being generally poorer at their studies, get left behind.  The system is also unforgiving – flop once and you’re likely to be consigned to the “heartlander” class – a hole from which it’ll be quite difficult to claw into the “elite”.

Unfortunately many of these elite students are also more likely to become the leaders in society (business or government), who tend not to be very sympathetic to the bread and butter issues that heartlanders face.  (I had a colleague from an “elite” school once.  He had to deliver a document to a HDB apartment and was appalled to discover that dingy one room flats still exist.  This colleague was also appalled to discover that soldiers in army camps don’t shower in individual cubicles with doors.  Then, there’s the recent infamous $600,000 peanuts comment by another “elite” member of society).

The revised policy promised by PM Lee will allow more polytechnic students to get degrees (from foreign universities), and provide quality education for ITE students.  This will give these non-elite students a fighting chance at doing well in society, instead of always being regarded as a lesser class.