Spirituality – Page 29

Category: Spirituality

Reunion with Swiss Cottage classmates

1 October 2019 blogpastor 2 Comments

I was in Swiss Cottage Secondary School and Pre U center for seven years from 1968 to 1974. I have lost touch with most of my classmates from then. However, as we reach the empty nest and retirement years, there is a strong pull to reminisce about the shared school years. Furthermore, we have more time on our hands, and with the help of quick contact via social media, many school reunions suddenly spring to life. This year I got added into a Swiss Cottage chat group. It was such fun looking at old school photos, wondering who is who, and what happened to so-and-so, and talking about our form and “out of form” teachers.

As I was clearing leave before my sabbatical I decided to initiate contact with some classmates who I found out attend the same church near my home: the Bukit Batok Presbyterian Church. So I arranged to meet with them for breakfast before the service and and lunch after the service. We ended talking for about four hours at a coffeeshop opposite the church.

A few days later I had lunch and tea with one of them: Kuan Keng Seng, formerly a council member in All Saints Anglican Church. It was easily another four hours of catching up on our respective history since Secondary School. Higher education, career path, family and as in all reunions a miscellany of various emotions and memories of people and events as they arise.

We do have a great need to reminisce and recall the past in our later years. It is important to bring out the jig saws and try to make put the pieces together and make sense of what God had been doing and working in our life. We step into a needed process of wholeness and integration as we reflect on God’s presence and activity in our life. It can be a life-affirming and healing process.

Thankful, so thankful.

It is also another arena for gentle witness.

Regretting the National Day

13 August 2019 blogpastor Leave a comment

Hazy and lazy day

It was National Day. It was a hazy and lazy day for me. One I regretted. I went for a long ride to the Jurong Lake Gardens with my Brompton bike. The cloud cover and slight haze made for a cooler ride. The park was more crowded than usual but still pleasant to cycle on the park connector. It makes no difference marking out paths for cyclists, pedestrians and joggers. Most do not observe them anyway. Still it was a pleasant 10km ride back and forth from my home to the endpoint near the AYE expressway.

View from atop Passion Wave a new building for water sports at Jurong Lake Gardens

TV and internet

When I returned my brother in law and wife were visiting. They had been there an hour but I was riding. Talked a little before they too went off and my wife and I went out to the Yuhua hawker center and market for a yong tau fu lunch. We bought some kueh kueh for tea so when I got home I plonked myself in the sofa and surfed the web happily: Arsenal had bought some good players at the last day of the transfer window and I was reading all that different newspapers in England said about that. I also manage to catch a Korean variety show, a K-movie titled Microhabitat, and in the evening an African movie titled, The Queen of Katwa, based on a true story of a chess prodigy. The whole afternoon and evening was taken up with internet news and television.

Reviewing the day

On Saturday morning as I reviewed how I idled on National Day I regretted that I was throughout the day mostly oblivious to the presence of God with me. If the Holy Spirit had been a physical friend who was with me the whole day he would have felt offended, upset or saddened that I had hardly paid any attention to his presence with me throughout the day. So absorbed was I in relaxation activities I had forgotten His lovely presence. As I sat there I enjoyed His companionship. It was so peaceful, refreshing and enlightening. I felt sorry and told Him so. And I found my thoughts absorbed in the Korean movie I had watched. In God’s mercy and ability to recycle waste, I saw how the Microhabitat movie threw light on a verse that had puzzled me before. I even remember praying, Lord help me understand this verse. And now the Lord was shedding light on it using the Korean movie to give me some insights into the life of the Spirit.

I felt blessed and enjoyed God’s company throughout the Saturday as He helped me finalise the sermon I would preach on Sunday about the Holy Spirit. Life with the Spirit is always interesting.

Lord grant me your faith

5 August 2019 blogpastor Leave a comment

“O you of little faith! Why did you doubt?”

Why wouldn’t I doubt? If I were Peter and had to walk on churning mammoth waves with a strong wind screaming in my ears. Peter panicked and sank immediately. Even though the invitation of Jesus “Come” still rang in his heart, his mind and sensory experience shouted that he would sink. And he sank.

I thought it demanding of Jesus to expect Peter not to doubt. Probably to whom much was given, much was required. After all Peter had seen marvellous miracles of water turned to wine, of 5,000 men fed with five loaves and two fish, of miraculous healings of the sick, and deliverances of the demonised. Jesus had revealed himself to the disciples in ways that led him to expect much from them. He expected them to exercise a child like faith in His word.

I so identify with Peter. What I see, hear and feel conveys a lot of information to me. These often conflict with my faith in what God had said to me. I get discouraged, intimidated and despondent. I worry, panic, and become upset.

Lord, calm the whistling wind and overwhelming waves of confusion and hopelessness in me. Come Holy Spirit and grant me the kind of faith Jesus displayed: the kind that walks on water with singular poise, and dares to invite others to exercise faith and do the same.