Grandchildren by Frederick Buechner
To have grandchildren is not only to be given something but to be given something back.
You are given back something of your children's childhood all those years ago. You are given back something of what it was like to be a young parent. You are given back something of your own childhood even, as on creaking knees you get down on the floor to play tiddlywinks, or sing about Old MacDonald and his farm, or watch Saturday morning cartoons till you're cross-eyed.
It is not only your own genes that are part of your grandchildren but the genes of all sorts of people they never knew but who, through them, will play some part in times and places they never dreamed of. And of course along with your genes, they will also carry their memories of you into those times and places too—the afternoon you lay in the hammock with them watching the breezes blow, the face you made when one of them stuck out a tongue dyed Popsicle blue at you, the time you got a splinter out for one of them with the tweezers of your Swiss army knife. On some distant day they will hold grandchildren of their own with the same hands you once held them by as you searched the beach at low tide for Spanish gold.
In the meantime, they are the freshest and fairest you have. After you're gone, it is mainly because of them that the earth will not be as if you never walked on it.
~originally published in Beyond Words
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Labels: Random Musings
posted by Alex Tang at 4:39 PM
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Saturday, December 21, 2013
Free ebook Spiritual Formation on the Run
Free download until 26 December 2013
Download from my website Kairos Spiritual Formation
Enjoy!
Have a blessed Christmas
Alex
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Random Glimpses of My Desktop (26)
Battlestar Pegasus as compared with Battlestar Galactica in term of dimensions
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Labels: Desktop, Really Random Pictures
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Smyrna and Polycarp
According to scholars of Christian history in Asia Minor, the Christians initially lived in peace as it was regarded as a sect of Judaism until the second half of the first century. Judaism enjoyed a special place in Roman Rule especially after the Maccabees revolts. Jews are allowed to worship their One True God and are exempted from Emperor worship. They are to offer sacrifices to the Caesar, not as to gods but as to rulers. This changed during the rule of Emperor Nero who threw suspicions on Christians as the one who started the Great Fire in Rome.
The Jews themselves were increasingly unhappy to be grouped together with Christian whom they regarded to be following a false messiah. There began to have religious conflicts between the Jews and Christians. In Smyrna, the Jews were said to have ‘slandered’ the Christians (v.9) and exposed them to the Roman authorities who would imprison them or execute them (v.10). By distancing Christianity from Judaism, these Jews showed the Roman authorities that Christians are not under the exemption that Judaism enjoyed. The word ‘satan’ means ‘adversary’. One important point is Emperor worship.
read more
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Labels: Bible lands, Revelation
Monday, December 09, 2013
Ancient Pergamum
About seventy miles north of Smyrna and fifteen miles inland lay the magnificent city of Pergamum, with a citadel nearly thirteen hundred feet above the plain of the Caicus River and a major city at its base. It became an important city in the third century B.C.
Pergamum was a center of
- Learning and education. Along with Athens and Alexandria it became a major intellectual center. Eumenes II was directly responsible for popularizing writing sheets made from animal skins that became known as περγαμηνή (pergamenē), known today as “parchment” (tradition says it was invented there, but that has been disproven).
- Art and culture
- Political capital
- Commercial
- Religious.
- Medical/healing.
- Emperor worship.
Friday, December 06, 2013
Advent 2013: Homecoming
As I write this, the sky outside is getting dark; ominous black clouds gathering, the harbinger of a coming tropical monsoon storm. Parts of my country Malaysia is submersed in the annual floods that plague this country in the monsoon period. The darkness of the gathering storm reflects the darkness of my soul. No, I did not have a bad year. In fact, 2013 will be considered by many to be a very successful year for me. I have received accolades for my medical work and medical teaching. I achieved the pinnacle in my academic development. I have presented a theological paper in an international conference, taught well received courses in theological seminaries, preached numerous sermons and led a couple of retreats. And many have been blessed by these. Yet, I feel empty. I feel a longing for something or someone. I feel homesick. C.S. Lewis has expressed what I am feeling well when he described that feeling he had as if hearing a familiar music from behind a door of a party you have not been invited to. The music invoking a sense of longing, a sense of homesickness of a home you have never seen before.
Advent, the season which leads to Christmas offers me this opportunity to express my homesickness. Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of the Christ, God incarnate who took on human flesh. The almighty that became vulnerable as a newborn baby in Mary’s arms. The Messiah has come to take on the sins of the world so that all may be reconcile to the Holy Father. The Christ event has made possible my ticket home. This ticket was offered to me free by God’s loving grace. Like a person with amnesia, I may not remember what this home is like but I know that it will be a good place. This home will be where there is space for me to be me; with no pretensions or deceptions. Where I am loved for who I am, not what I do. Home is a space where I feel wanted and am comfortable in. Not an alien resident or squatter in a foreign land. This space is where I belong and am being part of. Coming to this home will be like I have never left. While I am here in this world, this home is still in me and will always be part of me.
Advent and Christmas promise new beginnings. Being at the end of December it is the closing of the year and a new year beckons. Many new journeys begin from home. We strike out from our safe comfortable homes on new quests of discoveries. Advent is coming back to base, rest and equip for another year ahead. Advent is homecoming. Christmas is home base. Then living forward to another quest; another year ahead of discovering the transcendent and immanent God in our daily lives.
Finally, Advent is coming home to another Christ event, that of His second coming. The return of the king will bring to an end the tremendous suffering of this groaning creation, and the billions of human souls on it. It will be an end to pain, suffering, loneliness and loss. The shalom of the Garden of Eden, the original perfect creation will be restored. And we will all come home, only to discover as T.S Eliot notes, it is where we all have began from.
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Thursday, December 05, 2013
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
The Calvinist by John Piper
See him on his knees,
Hear his constant pleas:
Heart of ev’ry aim:
“Hallowed be Your name.”
Hear his constant pleas:
Heart of ev’ry aim:
“Hallowed be Your name.”
See him in the Word,
Helpless, cool, unstirred,
Heaping on the pyre
Heed until the fire.
Helpless, cool, unstirred,
Heaping on the pyre
Heed until the fire.
See him with his books:
Tree beside the brooks,
Drinking at the root
Till the branch bear fruit.
Tree beside the brooks,
Drinking at the root
Till the branch bear fruit.
See him with his pen:
Written line, and then,
Better thought preferred,
Deep from in the Word.
Written line, and then,
Better thought preferred,
Deep from in the Word.
See him in the square,
Kept from subtle snare:
Unrelenting sleuth
On the scent of truth.
Kept from subtle snare:
Unrelenting sleuth
On the scent of truth.
See him on the street,
Seeking to entreat,
Meek and treasuring:
“Do you know my King?”
Seeking to entreat,
Meek and treasuring:
“Do you know my King?”
See him in dispute,
Firm and resolute,
Driven by the fame
Of his Father’s name.
Firm and resolute,
Driven by the fame
Of his Father’s name.
See him at his trade.
Done. The plan is made.
Men will have his skills,
If the Father wills.
Done. The plan is made.
Men will have his skills,
If the Father wills.
See him at his meal,
Praying now to feel
Thanks and, be it graced,
God in ev’ry taste.
Praying now to feel
Thanks and, be it graced,
God in ev’ry taste.
See him with his child:
Has he ever smiled
Such a smile before,
Playing on the floor?
Has he ever smiled
Such a smile before,
Playing on the floor?
See him with his wife,
Parable for life:
In this sacred scene
She is heaven’s queen.
Parable for life:
In this sacred scene
She is heaven’s queen.
See him stray. He groans.
“One is true,” he owns.
“What is left to me?
Fallibility.”
“One is true,” he owns.
“What is left to me?
Fallibility.”
See him in lament
“Should I now repent?”
“Yes. And then proclaim:
All is for my fame.”
“Should I now repent?”
“Yes. And then proclaim:
All is for my fame.”
See him worshipping.
Watch the sinner sing,
Spared the burning flood
Only by the blood.
Watch the sinner sing,
Spared the burning flood
Only by the blood.
See him on the shore:
“Whence this ocean store?”
“From your God above,
Thimbleful of love.”
“Whence this ocean store?”
“From your God above,
Thimbleful of love.”
See him now asleep.
Watch the helpless reap,
But no credit take,
Just as when awake.
Watch the helpless reap,
But no credit take,
Just as when awake.
See him nearing death.
Listen to his breath,
Through the ebbing pain:
Final whisper: “Gain!”
Listen to his breath,
Through the ebbing pain:
Final whisper: “Gain!”
Friday, November 29, 2013
Five reasons why I am teaching in a medical school
I have never visualized myself as a medical educator. I always thought that I will practise medicine until I cannot practise anymore and they will drag me feet first from the hospital. So when Monash University from Australia first explored setting up a medical school campus in Malaysia with its clinical school in Johor Bahru, I attended their first meeting in Johor Bahru in 2005 more out of curiosity than anything else. Things moved rapidly after that and before I knew it I was signed on as a teacher and the first batch of students started arriving in 2007. The first classrooms and lecture halls were located in the renovated Hospital Sultanah Aminah's administration block. Subsequently as the student population increased, more classrooms appeared in the rented Hokkien Association Building until the present ultra-modern looking faculty building was built.
- Teaching - I always thought of myself as a lover of learning so it was a surprise to discover that I also have a passion to teach. As I begin to interact with students, I find that I enjoy their interactions, their hunger to know more, and their willingness to experiment with different modes of learning. This is an eyeopener for me as it exposes me to the newer technologies and interconnectiveness of the era. I am still amused by a class discussion where there were 8 students and 8 open laptops and nobody was talking to each other. I also discovered that Dr Google is their new best friend. When I asked them a question they immediately asked Dr Google! It was their youthful enthusiasm for life that bowled me over. They makes me feel younger with their zeal for life.
- Sharing the hard knocks- in medicine we learn much more from our failures than from our successes. After three decades of practising medicine, I have collected enough hard knocks to share with these young aspiring doctors so that they do not (hopefully) have to repeat these same mistakes. These hard knocks are earned with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
- Practising the art of medicine - the science of medicine is usually the concern of most students as they have to assimilate enormous amount of information in their course. Medicine is as much an art as it is a science. The art of medicine comes from practice, reflection and the intrinsic character of the doctor. There is a integrity demanded from medical practitioners in order to be successful healers. Medicine is never a business.
- Learning from my students - my students are teaching me more that they suspected. From them I learnt about the latest academic writings, their hopes and aspirations, and the way to adapt to change as a constant in their lives.
- Medical legacy - medicine is built upon the foundations of apprenticeship/mentoring. As I looked back in my career, there have been many doctors who have influenced, challenged, and molded me to be a better doctor and subsequently a better person. To them I owe a great debt of gratitude. I will like to repay that debt by continuing this medical legacy.
The challenge in Malaysia with its large numbers of medical schools is to find excellent, committed competent doctors who are willing to sacrifice their time and money (to some, time is money) to teach the new generations of young doctors the art and science of medicine. Woe to the people of Malaysia if it is flooded with a large number of poorly trained doctors with their licences to 'kill' instead of heal.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013
The Storm
Reflections before Advent 2014
The storm crashed into a heart filled with pain,
tons of water flattening the dead and maimed,
waters that save will also destroy.
The eddy current in the heart causes consternation,
what to do, what to do, cries with aggravation,
clear clean water now murky and dark.
The storm smashes innocence and let in darkness,
tears mixes with salt water, colour into blackness,
on a face lined with despair.
Gale force wind chill into a soul’s grounds,
sputtering and gasping as one drowns,
watches in despair as the ship goes down.
The storm blows on, and the year wears on,
come month’s end and Advent’s dawn,
will the portal opens for homecoming?
Living waters from the wellspring of one’s core,
will you offers satiation to the thirsty once more?
and destroy the beast that ambles toward Jerusalem.
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Labels: Poetry
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