View of Marine Parade (Laguna Park) at dawn, from across the Lagoon at the East Coast Park.

The 16th TJ Council had a gathering at my place on Thursday, together with our affiliates (spouses) and juniors (kids).

For everyone, including Christians, who have been hurt or stumbled by other Christians before, I read on another blog that there exists this really cool t-shirt which has the following print :

"JESUS, PLEASE PROTECT ME FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS !"

Love this song by Simple Plan.  The lyrics speak for itself.

Tell me what’s wrong with society
When everywhere I look I see
Young girls dying to be on TV
They wont stop ’til they’ve reached their dreams

Diet pills, surgery
Photoshoped pictures in magazines
Telling them how they should be
It doesn’t make sense to me

Is everybody going crazy?
Is anybody gonna save me?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something is wrong

I guess things are not how they used to be
There’s no more normal families
Parents act like enemies
Making kids feel like it’s world war III

No one cares, no one’s there
I guess we’re all just too damn busy
Money’s our first priority
It doesn’t make sense to me

…

Tell me what’s wrong with society
When everywhere I look I see
Rich guys driving big SUV’s
While kids are starving in the streets
No one cares
No one likes to share
I guess life’s unfair

…

Yesterday was a painful day at work for my colleagues and myself.  We each had to attend some excruciatingly inane meetings unrelated to real, productive work.

Mine concerned the Organisation’s annual publication, which was spearheaded by the most uninspiring archives department.  They had discovered some e-book software and decided to publish an electronic rather than a conventional, paper-based book, but were unfortunately (and rather painfully for me, since I had to sit through a meeting that wasn’t getting anywhere) rather clueless about how to go about it.  (To be fair, one would generally not expect an archives department run by people older than the Organisation itself to be very familiar with electronics and new technology.  The other plus point about an e-book would be that fewer trees would have to die).  I guess I could have been nice and offered to help, but seeing how I am already underpaid to perform my own work, there really isn’t a point toiling for a cause I hardly believe in.

My colleague attended some innovation meeting where everyone spoke in acronyms instead of English.  As he was quite new to the Organisation, he faithfully copied down each acronym so that he could check what it stood for after the meeting.  However, the meeting stretched his patience to the limits.  He eventually tuned out and scribbled "WTF FFS" on his paper.  (Since this is a child-friendly website, I won’t be elaborating on what "WTF FFS" stands for).

The ultimate in inanity, however, has to go to an e-mail that another colleague received concerning yet another innovation meeting in the afternoon.

"The need is for our … community to move its IDEAL II ship at a faster pace to reach PRIDE KPIs destination.  A briefing cannot resolve many ground issues related to the PRIDE journey.  We innovate together (WIT), walk the ground to serve with our helping hands, do what we know how and bring more people to add value together as they come aboard the ship.

We energise with new approaches and not prescript (sic) solutions for problems.  Currently, we still have to measure outcome so share yr ideas on how value-added per person can be countable.  Perhaps, we could soon replace number of Suggs & Wits proj as indicators of Productivity.  Meanwhile, record super positive outcomes as WITs Proj for award purpose and new value created idea as Sugg.  Unbounded by just cost savings or safety kind of Suggs.  Just press on to try new format & do not take too long to meet PRIDE tgts".

It’s painfully amusing to read the e-mail as it progresses (or sould I say regresses ?) from barely comprehensible English to completely nonsensical gibberish.  I also thought the part about "not prescript[ing] (sic) solutions for problems" was an appropriate description of the work that these "innovators" do - they don’t prescribe solutions; they’re creating bull crap projects that distract me from real, productive work !

God had used the apostle Paul - a former blasphemer and murderer of Christians - to start a great ministry amongst the Gentiles that continues till today.  The church that exists today is the legacy of his work.

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that He considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.  Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.  The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.

- 1 Timothy 1 : 12 - 16

This encourages me.  That God also accepts the imperfect, the twisted, the broken, the scum.  I think there is a greater passion, when we realise the depths of imperfection from which we have been saved.

Jed is now a delightful bundle of squeals, coos, gurgles and goo-gaas.

Since we have no intention of allowing Jed to default on his NS, we decided to start his training early.  Here he is doing the leopard crawl …