The world is more broken than we think it is (or maybe, than we care to know). Life can be more painful than most of us expect. However, I’ve found that many of my friends who’ve been confronted by the excruciating realities in their lives are strangely able to gaze at their brokenness with a profound tone of laughter.

No, not flippancy. Just laughter. Pure happy laughter.

It puzzled me initially.

But now I think I understand. One thing that keeps life sustainable, which perhaps even helps restore some emotional and mental health to those who’ve been mercilessly scarred and battered by the storms of life, is humour.

At some point of life, when pain has so dulled one’s sense of survival in a stormy life, when even the most skilled psychotherapists can’t succeed in restoring one’s will to sail through the rest of his life journey, the divinely ordained mechanism for restoration comes through - humour.

We can laugh all we want at the silliest jokes and the wackiest humour we may have come across, but it’s those who’ve been through hopeless despair who truly know the value of humour and who value laughter. The rest of the world may be just laughing.

Sometimes I see people like these laughing at their brokenness, and I realise how insufficiently broken I am. Maybe I must be broken enough just so I can learn to laugh at life. Or laugh my way through life. Or has it already happened?

Posted by SK at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We visited her grave this morning.

It has been fourteen years since she departed. And yet, they still found themselves sobbing in the presence of her absence. There was a profound sense of fragility - an awkward stillness - in the moment. I never knew her, but I felt the loss.

The dead have left the ones they love, whilst the living keep loving the ones who’ve left.

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A Very Happy
Chinese
New Year
to All!

From Sherman Kuek

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I'm in Kuching now. After some hiccups with Air Asia, I managed to touchdown more than half an hour after the appointed time.

Air Asia! It's so affordable! "Now everyone can fly..."

... so long as you don't mind your flights being delayed indefinitely or changed in the last minute to a weirdest departure time at the blatant expense of your convenience (and sometimes not even being duly informed of the change)...

or all of the above. I've had all the above, and MORE than that. One of my flight times was changed at least 3 times!

I hate Air Asia - never had a pleasant experience with them so far. But yeah, "now everyone can fly".

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I'll be in Kuching from 15 (Thursday) to 25 (Sunday) February. Will be spending Chinese New Year there with the future in-laws.

Anyone interested to meet up?

Editor's Note: I'll be in Kuching by 1330 hours today. Will be back in West Malaysia at midnight on 25 February. I reckon there'll still be sufficient technical facilities available for me to blog... but still, one can't be too sure.

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For the first time in Malaysia, influential speaker and author Brian McLaren and Conversation Partners touch on challenges and opportunities facing the 21st Century Church. Join the conversations on:

Gospel - more than we imagined it to be

Church - ways forward beyond forms and technique

Discipleship - tired of shortcuts and superficiality

World - being ready for active engagement

For more information, click here.

Posted by SK at 01:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody keeps saying they need your time, your encouragement, your patience and all that jazz. And that's what you try to keep offering - time, patience, encouragement.

But after a while, you begin to be treated as the infinite source from which flows an unending supply of these virtues. It's as if this is a given which will never cease. You become more than human.

And when you suddenly can't find it in yourself to offer these things anymore for a moment, and you need someone to offer you time, patience, and encouragement - you find no one. Because they've been given your time, patience, and encouragement; and they've found enough energy to flee to other places to attend to other indulgences, and they tire themselves there rather than waste their resources on you.

So you just sit with yourself - dry. Because you're not supposed to expect anything in return. Give when others need from you. But when you're in need, sit down and shut up, because you shouldn't expect people to make time for you. Everyone has a right to complain when they're tired. Except you.

So what if all you want is a bit of their time, just so that they can tell you they know you're there? Fancy thinking you're significant enough for such acknowledgement.

Just sit and watch them going nowhere fast, hardly noticing you're there. Don't try to whine for help, because you musn't get in their way. In time when they need your time, patience, and encouragement, they'll come back.

Welcome to the Kingdom life.

Posted by SK at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The mystery of the Kingdom is like a secret…

It is revealed so openly, and yet it remains a profound mystery to those whose ears and eyes and hearts are shut to that which it reveals. To these, the Kingdom is little more than a visibly organised religion.

But to those with the capacity to listen, the Kingdom has an unsurpassable depth which requires a lifetime of learning, understanding, and living. To these, the secrets are revealed as paradoxes which captivate the heart and cause them to dance according to its rhythm towards the throne of the One who reigns in the realm of the now-and-not-yet.

To those whom the secrets of the Kingdom are revealed - they must carry the cross. For the world loves to punish these secret-carriers.

Posted by SK at 01:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Lindungilah aku di waktu-waktu dugaan.
Biarlah karuniaMu menjadi kekuatanku.

Jadilah petunjukku supaya aku dapat mengharungi
ombak-ombak yang liar di semudera kehidupan.

Meskipun dunia ini menyebabkanku terumbang-ambing,
aku tidak takut,
sebab kehadiranMu bersertaku.

Misteri kehadiranMu sentiasa menjadi punca harapanku.

Shield me in moments of trial.
Let your grace be my strength.

The mystery of your presence will always be the source of my hope.

Posted by SK at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight, I've just been reminded of how you've amazingly chosen to love me despite knowing the many things you'll have to surrender for the cause of the Kingdom.

Even when you know I'm unable to be the perfect presence which fulfills your personal dreams and ambitions, you readily offer yourself to this cause... without even being sure it won't break you. Sometimes I fear for you, because it has broken me more than once.

And yet, this is the path you've chosen for yourself, embracing all the perils it promises to bring. If you didn't truly love God, you wouldn't really have kept treading this path... it wouldn't have been worth your while.

Surely, you're the one.

Posted by SK at 01:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

“I’ve known you for so many years, and yet you seem to have become closer to this other newer friend more than me.”

What makes the depth of a friendship? Is the depth of a relationship to be measured by the number of years you have known each other? Or is it to be measured by the stuff you’ve done together throughout your season of knowing each other.

Neither, I think.

The depth of a relationship isn’t even to be measured by how committed you both are to the same values in life or to the same religion.

It is to measured according to how deeply committed you are to each other. When you’re committed enough to choose to trust each other, committed enough to reveal your vulnerabilities to each other, committed enough to experience what it’s like to be hurt by someone you’ve deliberately chosen to trust, you know you have a deep friendship.

Because in the final analysis, it’s not about our similarities. It’s about our appreciation of each other’s personhood.

Posted by SK at 02:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There are those who ask because they desire to learn the ways of the Kingdom. These are those who truly seek to know what they don’t already know. Their hearts are open to the realities of the Kingdom, and they so wish that their eyes would be open too. To these, do not conceal the heartbeat of the Kingdom to them, for it is ordained that these who seek the Kingdom will gradually find their way to it and eventually find themselves dancing to the rhythm of its life.

There are also those who ask because they desire to ensnare, knowingly or unknowingly. They ask because they know the Kingdom is not for them. So they need to know what it is they’re not living out, for these are the very things they need to discredit in order to justify their choices. To these, the Kingdom must remain a secret. Their eyes are blinded and their hearts are hardened, no matter how “Christian” they think they are.

For these latter types, do not feel that you have a rightful duty to explain the ways of the Kingdom to them, for they’re not there to understand. Do not feel apologetic about allowing the things of the Kingdom to be concealed from them. For as you discern their spirits, you’ll see the waywardness of their inquisitive minds. And if you reveal to them the things of the Kingdom, you’re subjecting the rest of your Kingdom-mates to their mindless ridicule and merciless accusations.

In your desire to help them understand, don't compromise the safety of your fellow pilgrims to the predators. Conceal what needs to be concealed. To them, speak in riddles. Keep them guessing. Because the Kingdom is not something they want. It's not for them.

Be innocent. But be shrewed. Be pure, but not foolish.

Posted by SK at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a distinct difference in the Christian understanding of work.

In the Christian understanding of work, labour is offered as a gift of love. It is a worshipful act of representing God to nature. It maximises the dignity of the human person, for in his offering of himself through work, the human person finds his place of significance within the scheme of the created order. Therefore, work increases his sense of personhood.

Work in a capitalistic society, on the other hand, represents an impersonalisation of the human person. Human labour is but a commodity. For the person who provides labour for the sustenance of the production process, the offer of labour is more a contractual process than it is liturgical work offered to God. The end result of his work is so far removed from him that the only visible reward for his work is the financial returns he derives from that wilful exchange.

What about work in the contemporary ministerial context? I’m afraid that even in many vocations we relegate to the “fulltime ministry” today, work is nothing much more than a contractual exchange. For many ministers, "serving the Lord" has never been such an alienating experience before and it is threatening to become increasingly even more alienating than ever before.

The work of the Christian minister might now have become perceived as a demeaning vocation rather than a dignifying one. If the role of the minister in the past was primarily one of building lives, loving people, and in the process being loved himself, the role of the minister now is to run an organisation. And the sooner he turns his organisation into an automated production line, the greater returns he derives.

He is little more than a worker tasked with fulfilling the purpose of the organisational capitalists. His ministerial work is a commodity traded through a contractual exchange with his denominational leaders. The ordination title is a perk - and in some denominations, it indicates a privilege of lifelong employment.

What people?

Posted by SK at 02:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the realities I've noticed in the past years of living in a community which is intent on living out the life of the Kingdom is that people who don't consider themselves part of the community tend to form all sorts of perceptions about us. These perceptions range from those which look at us with great admiration as if we're exalted heroes of the faith to those which perceive us to be the disdainful freaks we admittedly sometimes make ourselves to look like.

Either way, there'll inevitably be a time when living within intimate Trinitarian communities (like the early church did) begins to invoke a social cost. Those who previously exalted you get disappointed at just how human you can be after all, and those who previously looked at you with disdain simply persist in this rhythm of perception.

What should one do? Go around explaining to everyone what it means to live the Kingdom life, what it means to stand on the side of the marginalised (or even what the term "marginalised" actually means), and what it has cost us who have chosen to embrace this life? And then they'll just be convinced and let us work out our convictions in peace? And if we're lucky, we'll get their blessings too? One can only wish it were that simple.

Some realities about the Kingdom life can only be understood when they're lived out. They can't be adequately explained when people demand an explanation or justification for what we're doing or who we're trying to be. Conviction grows when we've tasted these realities and we know them to be true even if we have no adequate words to use in attempting to describe them.

So we keep living out the dream anyway - because we know of no higher way.

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Yesterday morning, I witnessed what must've been the most meaningful eucharist I've ever experienced before in my life. The irony of it is, I experienced this in an independent charismatic church using a series of liturgical prayers commonly heard being recited in the mainline churches. But it was all done with so much liveliness and meaning as the people lifted their hands, wholeheartedly saying:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!

Guess what - there wasn't a single ordained leader presiding over this occasion. It was led by a group of largely lay leaders who loved the Lord and loved the people. And the result? A powerfully sacramental eucharist duringwhich many people teared and some people wept. Around the table, I even saw some people approaching their estranged friends in a spirit reconciliation just so that they could eat together at Christ's table of friendship.

So here's what gets me thinking now - many of our church institutions accord the eucharistic dispensation only to ordained ministers who're tasked with the responsibility of discharging the sacrament through mechanical recitations of the liturgies. I understand the fear of abuse if the dispensation were to be given to the lay people. But does the relegation of this role to the confined authority of an ordained minister necessarily prevent abuse and preserve the significance of the sacrament?

Who is the host of the table - the ordained minister?

There are the traditions, and there are the traditions.

Posted by SK at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lord, you have given me much trouble...

You have obligated me to decide if the Kingdom of God is what I truly desire, or if it's just the Christian religion I really want after all.

Thank you.

Good night Lord. Amen.

Posted by SK at 01:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are created in the imago Dei (“image of God”). For centuries, it has been a point of debate concerning what the imago Dei really means. One speculation after another emerged from the time of the Patristics (who distinguished between the “image” and the “likeness” and posited that the image was retained at the fall but the likeness was lost) right up to the time of the Protestant Reformers (who held that both the “image” and the “likeness” are synonymous and that this image had been distorted at the fall).

Understanding this from a Trinitarian perspective – which is essentially the foundation of our Christian faith anyway – one would realise that the “image” concerns God’s Trinitarian nature. If God has existed in all eternity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – COMMUNITY – then the impartation of his “image” must mean the communication of his Trinitarian communal nature. We are made in the image of God such that we possess the capacity and the desire to live in community.

The Fall, which is traditionally understood as a “rebellion” against God, might be more accurately seen as the severance of humanity’s life in community with God and with one another, as well as with all creation. Consequently, sin may be appropriately seen as an inability to live in community; perhaps even an aversion towards life in community. Perhaps it is true then that sin always takes place in a social setting. After all, the failure to love God and one’s neighbour involves an “otherly” dimension.

The human race has forgotten that it was created for life in community. The remnant of the distorted image which John Calvin talks about is observable in our inclination towards having a “social life” or sorts. So in that sense, we are still the “social animals” Aristotle spoke about. But the brokenness of the image is distinctly vivid in the way we draw boundaries between ourselves and other people for the sake of our own emotional, physical, and mental survival. It is also made apparent in the way we feel a sense of intrusion when others invade our private space.

We have forgotten that we were created by community for community. And we have forgotten how to live in community. The norm for communal living has shifted from intimate Trinitarian communities to one of superficial non-threatening relationships. Even for Christians.

Posted by SK at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Prayer is my conversation with you,
but sometimes my words dry up.

And yet it doesn't mean that my heart is hollow.
It simply means that my heart is so full to the brim,
that it overflows in a language that can't be expressed with words.

So I'll let my words be few,
and simply enjoy you for you.

Posted by SK at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)