More pictures at http://meandmyslr.multiply.com/

Bizarreness of this news speaks for itself.

"Tibetan living Buddhas are no longer allowed to be reincarnated without permission from the atheist Chinese government … The new rules are "an important move to institutionalise the management of reincarnation of living Buddhas," the Xinhua news agency said.  According to the regulations, which take effect on September 1, all reincarnation applications must be submitted to religious affairs officials for approval, Xinhua said. … Often there is more than one candidate competing to be recognised as the actual reincarnation, and the authority to decide who is the true claimant carries significant power." (Source : AFP, 3 August 2007)

The Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan drags on.

Many have criticised the South Korean Christian aid workers, and more generally Christians, for their naive missionary idealism, and misplaced religious fervour, who travel to Afghanistan and Iraq to do humanitarian and covert evangelistic work.  Humanitarian work in these war-torn countries is dangerous enough.  Add to that the stiff opposition if not hatred for Christians (sadly for its apparent association with Western imperialism if nothing else), and you have a recipe for many more hostage situations.

I don’t know the details of how the South Korean Christians came to be kidnapped.  But I won’t deny the possibility that they might have been able to do more to protect themselves, or that they could have been more culturally sensitive.  Perhaps they were courting danger by openly distributing Bibles ?  Perhaps they attracted unnecessary attention by failing to dress more like locals ?

Whatever the case might be, it doesn’t change one fact - who else would travel to Afghanistan, apart from Christians ?

Not me (I’m not so noble).  Not the average Singaporean (it’s boom time - there’s money to be made here, remember ?).  And not the Government (hence the absence of an SAF presence).

You would go to Afghanistan, I suppose, if you were :
(i) an aspiring terrorist or aggrieved fundamentalist
(ii) a journalist (whether for fame and money or a nobler journalistic ideal); or
(iii) a soldier of the International Security Assistance Force (partly because, shorting of quitting the force, you wouldn’t really have a choice).

Or, if you were a Christian with a burden to do humanitarian work in a place where few others would.

"So [ Jesus and His disciples ] went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.  But many who saw them leaving recognised them and ran on foot from all the towns and got theer ahead of them.  When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  So He began teaching them many things."  (Mark 6 : 32 - 34)

… apparently, what the Bible says about breast milk.

Every once in a while clerics from Saudi Arabia or Iran will make a religious pronoucement of grave spiritual import.  See for example, these solemn religious edicts on the definition of pubic hair, whether it is permissible to use depilatory creams to remove armpit and pubic hair, and whether it is alright for females to help each other shave.

I feel every bit as important and authoritative as one of those clerics today, when the search engine pointed to my blog in response to a query on what the Bible says about breast milk.  (It’s just one query out of over a hundred others, but that’s a promising start).

(Well, in case you’re wondering what the Bible says about breast milk, I honestly don’t know.  There is an obscure Old Testament passage - Exodus 23 : 19 to be exact - which prohibits the Israelites from cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk.  So the applicable principle by extension is, er, don’t cook your babies in breast milk ?)

The wicked freely strut about, when what is vile is honoured among men.  (Psalms 11 : 8)

Perhaps I’m in a melancholy mood again.  While reading Psalms 11 this morning, verse 8 made me pause to think about the condition of the world.  (Sigh, world peace again, what weighty weights weigh upon my mind …)

I suppose there are some who think that the world is continuing on its onward march to happiness, prosperity and progress (in fact, such modernistic optimism is so passe; it died after the First World War).  Given that the Singapore economy is experiencing a boom, I guess there is a valid basis for feeling good.

However, I think that if we bother to examine the world carefully, the reality is that we are on the brink of collapse.  Wickedness struts about.  What is wrong, thrives.  From environmental disasters, depletion of natural resources, to wars and terrorist attacks, to societies and families falling apart.

Is it a problem of misplaced priorities - the vile, inconsequential or temporal being valued above what matters in the longer term ?

When the freedom to have access to pornography takes priority over creating other forms of more wholesome or less exploitative entertainment ?

When the freedom to engage in sexual relationships with whoever, whenever and of whatever kind, takes priority over the less permissive alternative of monogamous relationships ?

When the freedom to market violent and addictive computer games takes priority over creating as wholesome an environment as possible to bring up our children ?

When the freedom to own a gun takes priority over creating a society which eschews violence ?

When the freedom to indulge in excess consumerism (whether in foods or goods) takes priority over minimising damage to the environment, and giving to the less privileged ?