Hullo there !  As you can see, I’m playing with my toes again …

Do you want to see my new trick ?

Watch me as I contort …

… and suck my toes !  Do you know it’s quite yummy ?

Ta da !  Aren’t you terribly impressed ?

This is a belated update on Jed because I had lent my CPU to brother-in-law last week, and couldn’t edit and upload the pictures.

Anyway, Jed finally managed to do the flip entirely by himself last Saturday morning.  I had left him on the bed, gone to brush my teeth and discovered, when I returned, that he had flipped onto his tummy all by himself !

On Saturday afternoon Jed seemed to have discovered that he has toes.  So he spent the rest of the day fiddling around with it.  Quite cute, I must say !

This is another one of those frivolous posts, because Joyce pointed out that unlike one of my colleagues (whose blog address shall not be disclosed), I’m almost always writing serious stuff. 

Extract from the Independent Online of 5 April 2006 :

Some parts, it seems, are more private than others. Sunderland may have declined to elaborate on the injury that kept Kevin Kyle out of Saturday’s match at Everton, but the Premiership’s bottom club are not pouring cold water on reports that the Scotland player’s testicles were scalded by boiling water after his baby son kicked over a jug during a feed.

Kyle was cradling eight-month-old Max when the baby knocked into his lap a jug of water that was being used to warm his milk. His burns were bad enough for him to be kept in hospital overnight and to miss both the 2-2 draw at Goodison Park and training on Monday. A Sunderland insider claimed an embarrassed Kyle (right) was "walking like John Wayne".

…

Well, there’s another good reason for mothers to breast instead of getting father to bottle feed junior.

A Christian friend commented last week how difficult it was to love people whom he hardly knew.  How do you pray and show concern for someone whom you hear is hurting, but whom you barely know, and whose struggle you can hardly understand ?  What can you do, aside from taking practical steps to get to know that someone better ?

I was tempted to offer the standard "we love others because God first loved us" (1 John 3 and 4, esp. 4 : 19) and "the love of Christ compels us" (2 Corinthians 5 : 14) type answers, which I think can sometimes come across (whether intentionally or not) as awfully academic, if not self-righteous.

Thankfully, I did not.  Because certain events that followed after our conversation led me to a new understanding on how (or what it takes) to love people more.  What happened ? 

Well, there was first of all the disappointing (to say the least) news of my performance bonus.  I didn’t expect a huge bonus or, for that matter, a bonus larger than the one I received last year.  I would have been happy enough to receive the same amount, or just a dollar more.  However, I was awarded a smaller bonus, despite the fact that my performance, based on the annual performance management report, had improved.  (This makes the "performance based" system (or PMS, yes some brilliant HR idiot had really called it that when it was first launched) at my workplace more unpredictable than a woman at that time of the month, and less equitable than Communism.  In capitalism / meritocracy, you are rewarded based on your contribution.  In Communism, everyone is rewarded the same regardless of how much they contribute.  At my workplace, we have "reverse capitalism / meritocracy", where you are rewarded less when you contribute more).  Although the difference between my bonus this year and the last is not very large, the feeling that I was unappreciated really got me worked up.

Add to that my colleagues, including my boss, who popped by my room from time to time - without any knowledge of my bonus - to tell me that they didn’t see any hope of the(ir) employment terms improving, and that they would quit if they were my age.  (No, they are not subtly hinting that they don’t like me around - I am quite sure of that).

As I sulked and pondered and murderously plotted revenge on whoever it is that was responsible for the screwed-up PMS (I’m not very sure who exactly is to blame, so let the reader be assured that this is just an empty threat), the meaning of one of the passages I read for my devotions - Exodus 23 : 9 - suddenly became clear and, together with that, I believe, a new understanding on how (or what it takes) to love people more.  In that verse, God commands

Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.

At first glance, that verse appeared to be nothing more than an enlightened law on treating aliens (ie. foreigners living amongst the Israelites) with mercy.

But if God simply wanted the Israelites to love the foreigners amongst them, why did He have to remind the Israelites that "you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt" ?

It struck me that God had permitted the Israelites to suffer the disappointment and pain of being slaves and foreigners in Egypt, so that they would be able to identify with the difficulties of the foreigners living in their midst.  Without the Egypt experience, the Israelites would love the foreigners amongst them only grudgingly  ("because God says so and not because I want to") or superficially (ie. go through the motions without real concern).

Which, I believe, is also the reason why Jesus also came to live as a man on the earth.  So that, as our mediator before God, He can thoroughly identify with and understand our struggles, and represent our case before God.  Just like us, Jesus experienced the pain of seeing people whom He loved die (eg. His father, Lazarus), of being abandoned and betrayed by friends (eg. Peter and Judas), of being taken advantage of (eg. the crowd that wanted to make Him king after he fed the five thousand), of being treated unfairly and falsely accused (eg. His trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate), of being mocked because He chose to abide by God’s rather than the world’s moral standards.  Scripture confirms this - Hebrews 4 : 15 tells us that

For we do not have a High Priest [ ie. Jesus ] who is unable to sympathise with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin.

So long as this world is physically and morally imperfect, there will always be victims of that imperfection - some will succumb to disease and death, or be harmed by natural disasters (physical / environmental imperfection), others will be hurt by the criminal or unethical acts of others (moral imperfection).

I have no doubt that God is able to protect His people from all of these.  But if all Christians led perfect lives, we would love others only grudgingly or superficially, unable to truly sympathise with the difficulties that they are going through.  And few people would believe that God, and Christians, truly cared for them.  (In this connection, I think it is interesting how even the new PAP candidates - even the well-to-do ones - are keen to emphasise their "heartlander" credentials and their ability to empathise with the man in the street).

And so I believe that God sometimes allows Christians to suffer disappointment, pain and hurt, so that we will be able to identify with other believers and non-believers who are hurting, and love them deeply and genuinely, the way that Jesus loves us.

All the disappointments that I’ve encountered in life, including the latest, make more sense in the light of the above.

Comment made at the table next to ours during Saturday dinner.  The diners are talking about the MDC.

"Is it true that down there is all brokeback mountain one ?"

We were amused.

I think the Singapore economy is looking up, thanks to what the incumbent government will probably claim as the fruit of its sound governance.

Why do I claim the former ?

Joyce and I went out for a rare dinner with our friends at Suntec on Saturday night.  Jed came along, but obviously wasn’t too happy about being stuck in his pram.  And so, dutiful father that I am, I took Jed for a stroll around the Fountain of Wealth, where most of the restaurants are located.

I saw that all the restaurants were packed, and quite a number had a long queue of people waiting for a table.  Amongst the diners were teenagers whom I suppose were spending money given to them by (their well-to-do) parents.  I have not seen such a huge crowd in such a long time.  And so I suppose the economy must be doing quite well.

There was something else that I saw on Saturday night.  It was about 8pm, and several volunteers for Youth Challenge had deployed themselves around the Fountain with donation boxes to ask passerbys for contributions.  I took Jed out of his pram and sat at one corner to observe one volunteer as she went about her business.

I think not more than one or two passerbys out of every twenty - teens, adults, elderly, all well-dressed in their Saturday best - stopped and make a donation.  And out of the passerbys that made a contribution, I noticed that a fair number were caucasians (and presumably, non-Singaporeans).

After watching her for about ten minutes, I waved her over to speak to her.  She said that was volunteering with Youth Challenge between JC and university, that she had been working since ten that morning, and that she had not had her dinner.

I made a small contribution, and as an encouragement, said that I appreciated that she was doing volunteer work for a charity.

Singapore’s economy is looking up, but sadly I think it’s heart has not grown any bigger.

A friend told me today about how he was amused by the changes in tone in my blog.  In one post I am gushing over Jed, in another discussing serious matters of faith and current affairs, and in yet another calling people "freaking idiots".

To avoid confusing readers I thought I should clarify two things. 

Firstly, though I try very hard not to be duplicitous, there is probably a slight difference between my online and real life persona.  I think that in real life I am milder than how I appear online (though I very much wish that I had a fiery personality so that I’m not such a pushover).

Secondly (and here I have to caution that I am being radical), the issue of "righteous anger" against injustice aside, I don’t see being angry about personal events in our lives, and being Christian, as necessarily incompatible.   God gave us (maybe me a little less more so than the average individual) anger as emotional response to unfair events in our life, as a natural protective mechanism.  When we feel angry, we are able to put our foot down and say we would no longer put up with someone else’s bad behaviour, or walk away from a situation where we would be victimised.

That said, what also matters is how we deal with anger.

I believe in committing our anger to the Lord.  When I first read Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge in JC, I was horrified to discover one of the principal characters (the Mayor, who else ?) cursing his enemy by reading from a psalm written by King David.  Some of the more colourful verses in Psalms 109 (v 6 - 14) say this -

Appoint an evil man to oppose him;
       let an accuser stand at his right hand.

When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
       and may his prayers condemn him.

May his days be few;
       may another take his place of leadership.

May his children be fatherless
       and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars;
       may they be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all he has;
       may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

May no one extend kindness to him
       or take pity on his fatherless children.

May his descendants be cut off,
       their names blotted out from the next generation.

May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
       may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

It would be an understatement to say that the Biblical exhortation to "love your enemies" and the above are poles apart.

But I’ve come to realise that the big deal is not that David had said such nasty things about his enemies at all.  Rather, it is that David had committed his negative feelings to the Lord (through this psalm), trusting that God would act fairly towards him, instead of secretly harbouring his bitterness and plotting terrible revenge on his enemies.  One would know, from reading about David’s life, that he was quite magnaminous by nature, refusing, for example, to kill King Saul - who was after his head - despite the many opportunities to do so.  I believe King David could do so only because he completely surrendered his anger to the Lord.

And it is this attitude of submission and surrender that Christians must have in order for us to exhibit the love and grace of Jesus Christ, by loving our neighbours and enemies, and turning our other cheek to someone who is out to bully us (Matthew 5).  Because it is only by the quickening of the Holy Spirit that we can find the love to love our enemies.

I would add that those who say that Christians must suppress their anger and love their enemies, as if this can be done on the strength of the human will alone, are just kidding themselves and setting themselves up for emotional frustration.