That’s a bed. It consists of an old wooden platform and a really black and badly torn mattress, covered by piece of mat with holes all over it.

If this was your bed, and you were 55 years old, and you were working eleven hours a day, and your legs were frequently swelling and turning black and you didn’t know why, and you were earning RM 270 a month (USD 80), and you were supporting four stick-thin undernourished kids who weren’t even your children, and you had just been evacuated from your squatters by the government, the worries you had on your mind right now would have been entirely different.

If this was your bed, you wouldn’t have been worrying about how you’re now less respected and liked by others, or how you’ve been backstabbed by your colleagues, or how you’ve been betrayed by your friends, or how your reputation has been damaged, or how bleak your future is because you’ve just lost your somewhat lucrative job. If this was your bed, you might not even have known where to start worrying.

I met her tonight, this elderly lady. Her daughter had borne her four children (each one most probably belonging to a different father - the latest one now behind prison bars) and then taken off, leaving the four children behind.

After all the years I’ve spent in the seminary theologising about life and its purpose and meaning, I had nothing much to say to this lady except to ask, “Aunty, what will you and the children be eating tomorrow?” Now we have to bring them some food, find a home for her, and find a home for these children. So much for the glorious abstraction of theology and the intricate science of biblical exegesis.

They’re hardly 2 kilometres from where I live. Within this radius, there are a number of churches and even a theological training institute (the very people whose primary concern are supposed to be the widows and the orphans), but it’s somewhat strange how the plight of these nameless faces remains unnoticed. If you’re living somewhere in my vicinity and want to do something for them, tell me; there is quite a number of families with such a similar plight. If we made it known that our hearts and hands were open, they’d come lining up to receive any help they could get.

When we philosophise our concepts of the Christian faith and try to work it out within the church and seminary walls, it’s called “theology”. When we work these out beyond the church and seminary walls, it’s called “charity”. When both are so integrated that they are expressed as a way of life, it’s called spirituality.

Tonight, I'll go to sleep with the words of the aunty echoing in my mind: "I've been suffering since I was 12 years old". You see, I've always thought that I was a sufferer. But today, I met aunty. And her story has taught me a new bedtime prayer:

Forgive me, Lord; during my moments with you, I've said too much. Those were all words. Just words.