Hide & Seek

Some days, I just want to hide myself.

Because I wish that you might seek me.

Perhaps it is a child's game,

but

aren't we all just little children deep inside?

Appareled in sensible aloofness

and at the same time,

Exuding an inexorable charm; 

you make it seem so easy

to want to run away from it all

Just so that 

I can seek you when you hide away

in all the tumult of the world.

Like the delightful gradation of a well-timed

acciaccatura,

the hiding and seeking entails a well-defined

patience.

But when found, the grace-note brings about a

pleasant dissonance.

Even if 

it lasts for a brief instant,

I know, and you know, because we see

a knowing 

smile.

Do you want to play?

Let's

Hide & Seek.  

Better is one day in Your courts, than a thousand elsewhere.

 ~ Psalm 84:10a

Thank You, Lord.

Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow,

Thanks for heav'nly peace with Thee.

Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,

Thanks through all eternity.

Thank You, God.

bona fide

catching you 

when you are alone

is different from all else 

because

bona fide and truest is your form and self.

Away from that occasional laughter

which fleetingly comes 

and quickly goes,

there is

not an ephemeral evanescence,

but a simple, heartfelt sentiment. 

holding on

At two in the morn, I went outside.

Raising my head towards the heavens,

I remembered Your loveliness

And me being insignificant in lowliness

how could it be that You sought me first?

You redeemed me with Your mighty hand

and with Your hand,

You held on to me

at each step of the way.

And though I've acted like a little boy,

by throwing down your hold,

by naively throwing tantrums,

You still came back for me,

at each step of the way.

You persist in Your love,

and because of that,

You are so beautiful.

O Lord, nothing I say can be enough for You are beyond mere words.

Thank You.

The Leap of Faith

Hand in Hand,

Side by Side,

Shoulder to Shoulder,

you with me.

------

During each Olympics, I only selectively watch certain events.

While each sport has it's own allure, only some really captivate me.

They speak of years of harsh instruction and regimental training,

And nothing compares to the wonderful symmetry that is achieved.

Synchronised Diving consummately represents this.

It lasts all of 4 seconds on TV,

But behind that performance are 4 years of intense preparations.

While 4 seconds can do enough to inspire awe

 in the minds of those who might comprehend its fleeting beauty,

The frozen still picture above is etched

 in the hearts of those who can appreciate its enduring finesse.

The partners inhale at the same pace,

then they take their steps forward,

not faltering, never hesitating,

with no room for the minutest of errors,

they spring on the board.

And I can imagine the unspoken conversation,

"Ready? Shall we dance?"

and they then escalate and surge upwards,

glory-bound.

------

In some respects, we play out this scene in our lives.

And those who comprehend and appreciate each other would understand that

Beneath the equipoise of their unity rests the hallmarks of

Trust, Confidence and good Faith.

With that, they speak without words,

"Ready? Now? Shall we dance?"

------

God spoke in Amos 3:1 saying,

"Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?"

In many respects, He asks us the same question even today.

Are we ready to dance with Him and take the leap of faith

into the unknown, 

and be bound for celestial glory?

Some days I think to myself, that Christ Himself has already agreed with the Father,

and He lives in us through His Holy Spirit,

but yet,

we often relapse into faltering states of hesitation and pointless sins.

How can I walk with God, if I am not agreed with Him?

------

Play us a Song

Struggling between the facts and fiction, I'm alone
But I'm alive
Everyone around me is trying to make a statement
Then there's me,
I'm just trying to survive.

Some day I'm gonna find it,

I wished I knew what i was looking for
inside the disarray
I woke up this morning, don't know where I'm going but it's
Alright I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Play us a song!"

"Tinkle your ivories!"

No, but not today, not tonight, not for now.

Until I get it fixed, the piano, it's broken for now.

But i will get it up again, give it time, and I will play you a song.

"Play us a tune!"

"Raise a melody!"

No, probably not today, not tonight, not this moment.

i have the tune, I have a sense of where I am headed for.

Yet it must wait, but, if you can wait, i will play you a song.

[½ adaptation from Lifehouse : ½ addition from RaisingMyEbenezer]

Exposé

There are some days when you so badly want to run away from it all.

When the world around you seems to lay siege of you,

And every breath you take only prolongs the agony of unspoken confusion.

Unspoken confusion, is the single way to describe Things.

Things that weren't meant to converge upon such An Outcome.

An Outcome that wasn't meant to inflict such chaos and Disarray.

Disarray, Quandary, Awkwardness. 

Double-cross? Duplicity??  Disappointment(s)???

A million whys, from a few people,

Seeking answers that come from the million whys,

not with the mouth, but through the gaze.

Yet I do not evade. 

I'm not copping out. 

I'm hanging on, to you, dear God. 

In the hope that you will emancipate not me, but us all, from this unnecessary predicament.

There are some days when you so badly want to run away from it all.

Today happens to be that day.

Quasi una fantasia

The bricks in the wall hold together even

As the pianist completes his 5"44 minutes. 

For six minutes, the pensive music that coursed from the soundboard

Was a marriage of melancholy and introspection, yet not so much a total reflection.

He asked for it to be a pianissimo 

he acquiesced with a slight hesitation, but, so it was.

It flowed like a river, so gently, so quietly

And then came the mezzo-forte.

An awakening of an unadorned sensibility occurs

That music induced moonlit trickles, coming from the windows to the soul.

He asked for the damper pedal to be depressed all through

but it brought too much discordance and he tried the celeste pedal in the middle.

Slowing down, he strikes a minor chord two times

Meaningfully.

at the turn of the 19th century, you wrote your piano sonata no. 14 in C# minor

in the 21st today, Beethoven, your music still resonates so strongly.

For the magical 5"44 minutes,

ich danke Ihnen

a psalm

Those gentle tinkling of the Piano keys kindle an awakening,

The slow strains of the Violin stir up glorious emotions,

Then Strings and Woodwind raise their anthems in a harmonious covenant.

Slowly, in their own delightful fashion, 

a 

crescendo 

of 

                   passion 

is 

                           evoked.

Eternity is stranded in the present. 

The beautiful, beautiful tunes are a testament to Your unspeakable Splendor.

For You are the Author of melodious refrains, the Creator of supernal strains.

 Resonating in heart-beat cadences,

Your honor, majesty, strength and beauty flood my soul. 

O Lord, 

if I used mere words to describe You, 

then, You would not be so... 

Marvelous

To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,

         And Your faithfulness every night,

On an instrument of ten strings,

         On the lute, 

         And on the harp, 

         With harmonious sound.

For You, LORD, have made me glad through Your work;

         I will triumph in the works of Your hands. 

~ psalm 92.2-4

morning reflections

I couldn't get to sleep so I sat down and thought of God.

The stillness of the night was comforting. 

Reassuring. 

Tranquil.

"My soul, wait silently for God alone,  For my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved." ~ psalm 62.5-6

Oh My God

"Oh My God"

Oh my God, look around this place
Your fingers reach around the bone
You set the break and set the tone
Flights of grace, and future falls
In present pain
All fools say, "Oh my God"

Oh my God, Why are we so afraid?
We make it worse when we don't bleed
There is no cure for our disease
Turn a phrase, and rise again
Or fake your death and only tell your closest friend
Oh my God.

Oh my God, can I complain?
You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon your grief
Weddings, boats and alibis
All drift away, and a mother cries

Liars and fools; sons and failures
Thieves will always say
Lost and found; ailing wanderers
Healers always say
Whores and angels; men with problems
Leavers always say
Broken hearted; separated
Orphans always say
War creators; racial haters
Preachers always say
Distant fathers; fallen warriors
Givers always say
Pilgrim saints; lonely widows
Users always say
Fearful mothers; watchful doubters
Saviors always say

Sometimes I cannot forgive
And these days, mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep
While I lay, I dream we're better,
Scales were gone and faces light
When we wake, we hate our brother
We still move to hurt each other
Sometimes I can close my eyes,
And all the fear that keeps me silent falls below my heavy breathing,
What makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder
We all feel the need for wonder
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the thunder

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give
Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat all the wounds that money causes,
All the comforts of cathedrals
All the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense

Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God

(lyrics: Dan Haseltine, JOC)

(Psalm 25:2)

Can you avoid what you cannot see?

Just the other day, I was taking a short walk with one of the younger brothers in church. We were walking along a pavement strewn with bizarrely-shaped dried leaves and the occasional unfortunate branch that fell off a tree. So yes, there was lots of nature to keep us in step with God’s creation.


Being the young minds that we were, we started to chat about the humorous, silly stuff that young minds tend to engage themselves with. I observed that he was walking in a funny way – swaggering to and fro – and I asked him what he was doing.


“I’m trying to avoid the leaves. It’s more fun if you do not walk onto the leaves and branches”, said Younger Brother.


I told Younger Brother that I used to do such silly things too and we had a good laugh about how we would walk in equally-measured steps so that each footing would land within the area of a floor tile, and stuff like that. Admittedly these were silly endeavors, but at the same time they were fun things to do when growing up.


While we continued walking, I told him to try to walk in a manner such that he would not step on the hairline cracks along the pavement. We started to have a go at our new silly, youthful attempt of patterning. We didn't do very well because those hairline cracks were rather ambiguous.
Then I had a sudden motivation to raise a question. It went something like this:

“Hey, whaddya think? Can one avoid what one cannot see?”


*Silent rumintation*


So I continued, “If we try harder, maybe we could…Hey wait…Actually I think we can’t, really.”


We left it at that.

--------------------


When I reached home, the self-question was still simmering in my mind, begging for a self-answer from some self-reflection.


We can’t see the devil.
As Christians, we wage war against enemies that are not physical but spiritual. As Paul puts it so succinctly in Eph 6:12 that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places”.


The reality is that we are waging a spiritual war each day that we have our breath. This war cannot be avoided because this is a spiritual training and exercise for our betterment, and ultimately for the glory of God. If the whole world as we know it lies sway under the control of Satan (1 Jn 5:19), then this is no mere child’s play of trying to avoid the tessellations of the floor or to side-step the twigs and leaves on the pathway.


The spiritual battle comes to us on 2 fronts:
i)We wage a war to snatch the souls of the unbelievers,
ii)We do battle to protect our own temples – our own persons – through pastoring and cultivation of ourselves.


For these 2 battles, we find the 2 methods recommended by Paul, through the revelation and inspiration of God. In soul-saving, though we “walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Cor 10:3-4). In personal spiritual nurture, we seek to “put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph 6:11).


I believe it is worth noting that within the space of 2 verses, Paul reiterates this reminder for us in Eph 6:13. Given that we cannot avoid what we cannot see (namely, the devil), we ought “therefore take up the whole armor of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”.


This I think is the reality of it all:
That having done all we can in spiritual nurture, we still need to put on the full armor of God.
That having done all we can, we still cannot avoid what we cannot see.
That having done all we can to avoid the hairline cracks in our pathway of faith, we still remain susceptible to the ambiguous attacks and manifestation of the crafty spiritual charlatan.



Thankfully we have a God who is far superior above all our weaknesses.
Yes, this God is invisible for He is a spirit.
But at the same time, through a great paradox that requires faith to comprehend, we have been able to clearly see His invisible attributes, through the creation, through the Word that is Himself, and we arrive at an understanding of God:

We are able to see God even though we want to avoid Him – that is when we sin.
We are not able to avoid God even though we cannot see Him – that is His great grace.


So I conclude, “If we try harder, maybe we could…Hey wait…Actually I think we can’t, really.”