"An empty mind is the devil's workshop."

"Be careful about emptying our minds," my friend reiterated after our taichi class last night. During the cooling down routine, our taichi teacher had asked us to empty our minds and relax our bodies. "I said a prayer when she asked us to empty our minds," my friend added. Coincidentally, I had also said a short prayer taught by a pastor friend: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." This is the Jesus Prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.

Some years ago when I was under severe stress which contributed to an illness, my pastor friend taught me the spiritual exercise of Silento (Silence) to mediate and relax my mind and body. The purpose of this exercise is to focus our attention on Jesus and discard all other thoughts in our minds. Here's how it's done:

Relax and take deep breaths.

While inhaling, pray in your heart: "Lord Jesus Christ , Son of God".

While exhaling, pray in your heart: "Have mercy on me, a sinner".

Repeat 10 to 20 times.

(Source: "Conversation with God - praying in the Scripture" by Goh Nai Li)

My pastor friend also taught me to relax my head, neck, shoulders, chest and abdomen progressively in tandem as I inhale and exhale while reciting the Jesus prayer in my heart. I find this spiritual exercise to be very helpful in quietening my heart and mind.

Granted that we should focus our hearts and minds on God when we enter into communion (conversation) with Him, but why is it risky to empty our minds as part of physical and mental relaxation?

Jesus tells the story of an evil spirit who comes out of a man. It goes through arid places seeking but not finding rest. So the evil spirit decides to return to the house that it left. It finds the house unoccupied and swept clean. Then it brings into the house another 7 spirits more wicked than itself. And so the man is worse off than before. (Matt 12:43-45)

The moral of the story? Just cleaning up one's life without filling it with God leaves plenty of room for Satan to enter (Life Application Study Bible). Likewise, emptying our minds during meditation or for relaxation and leaving our minds unguarded even for a moment may give the evil one a foothold in us.

Another friend had also advised me several years ago against learning yoga, as yoga teaches the practitioners to empty their minds. "An empty mind is the devil's workshop," she said to me. I didn't pay attention to her advice at first and proceeded to attend a 2nd yoga beginners' course. In the middle of this 2nd yoga course, I found my mind blanking out for a few seconds during the "corpse pose" (part of yoga cooling down routine, whereby we stretch out on the floor, totally relaxing our bodies and emptying our minds). This jolted me - gosh, I had emptied my mind for a few seconds! I promptly quitted the yoga course.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." (Philippines 4:8)

The same friend told me that she has been learning to memorise this verse to try to prevent the occurrence of memory loss due to ageing. Selwyn Hughes, the Welsh preacher, suggested in one of his devotions (Everyday with Jesus) that the first thing on our minds when we wake up in the morning should be God and the last thing on our minds when we go to bed in the night should be God. Godly advice worth taking up.

Many Tribes, Many Tongues

Last night, I dreamt that I failed a Chinese oral exam. I had not been dreaming about exams for a long, long time. Even after leaving school, I used to have recurring nightmares about failing Math exams. The nightmare was usually the same - going to the exam hall and not able to do the Math exam paper at all because I had not attended Math classes the whole year. It was a strange, traumatic experience in dreamland, filled with anguish and agony over calculus and differentiation. It was strange because it was contrary to my typical kiasu Singaporean nature, not like the real me who's always mugging up and faithfully doing my ten-year series.

Some people say dreams in our sleep reflect our thoughts in the day. I suppose my nightmares about Math exams are the vestiges of the stresses I went through during my school days. Might the exam stresses be so deeply ingrained that my nightmares occur long after I left school? It goes to show the long-lasting "damage" that the exam-oriented school system inflicted on my mental well-being even today?

But why the dream about failing oral Chinese exam last night? For the past one over year, I've been trying to brush up my Chinese-speaking ability, relearning hanyu pinyin (which I learnt as a working adult in a one-to-one course conducted by my sis's friend) and reading primary-school-level Chinese books which I bought from Shanghai two years ago. Sadly, my progress has been painfully slow, mainly because of distractions from other activities and not enough time spent on real study. My aspiration to become effectively bilingual still has a long way to go.

If only we have only one language for all peoples, life would be simpler and perhaps richer since we can devote more time to learning and enjoying the fine things of life instead of grappling with a 2nd or even 3rd language. After the earth was first created, the whole world indeed had one language and a common speech (Gen 3:1). But pride caused this idyllic state to be changed.

In the days after the big flood, Scripture tells of men building a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that they may make a name for themselves. God saw the tower of Babel that the men were building and He said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." (Gen 3:3-9) And here we have the genesis of the multiple languages in the world today - men's pride and ambition to build a monument to their own greatness, for themselves rather than to God.

Will my aspiration to build up my Chinese-speaking ability become my "tower of Babel"? Admittedly, I'm most envious of Singaporean friends who speak well in Chinese. Speaking as well as them will increase my sense of self-worth and significance. But I need to guard against pride in any human achievement. The story of the tower of Babel is a good reminder.

We Are Family

Wow, S$6m left to the maid - a 47-year-old Filipina, who served her employer faithfully for more than two decades since 1986 and whom the late employer treated "like a daughter". My immediate thought was: how many people would treat their maids as part of the family to the extent of leaving them a huge inheritance, especially in an Asian context where blood is thicker than water and where paternal blood-ties often matter much more than maternal blood-ties? We are the "inner" grandchildren or nieces/nephews when we carry the same surname but "outer" grandchildren or nieces/nephews on the maternal side, and being the "inner" grandchildren or nieces/nephews, we enjoy privileges and favouritism.

I employed a maid for about three years some time ago, initially to take care of my bedridden mother and after my mom passed away, to cook and do the household chores. What struck me during my pre-employment interview of my maid was a statement that she wrote in her application form - that she hoped her employer would treat her as part of the family. And so, I had sought to treat her well, being reminded of what the Bible says when Moses gave God's commandments to the Israelites:

"Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt." (Exodus 22:21)

At the root of all relationships (including our relationship with our maids) is love and mercy. Jesus often taught this. In the story of the good Samaritan, a Jew was robbed and injured while out travelling. A priest saw the injured man but he passed by on the other side of the road. Then a Levite (member of the Israelite tribe chosen by God to serve in His temple and assist the priests) came by and saw the injured man, but he too passed by on the other side. Next came a Samaritan who took pity on the injured man, bound up his wounds and placed him under the care of an innkeeper. So who is a neighbour to the man who was robbed and injured? "The one who had mercy on him." (Luke 10:29-37)

The action of the good Samaritan was unusual as a deep hatred existed between Jews and Samaritans. The Jews saw themselves as pure descendants of Abraham, while the Samaritans were a mixed race produced when Jews intermarried with other peoples. The Life Application Study Bible says:

Only the Samaritan treated him (the injured man) as a person to love. From the parable we learn three principles about loving our neighbour: (1) lack of love is often easy to justify, even though it is never right; (2) our neighbour is anyone of any race, creed or social background who is in need; (3) love means acting to meet the person's need.

Whether we are Christians or not, we need to remember that our maids are humans too, with their personal needs and failings that we should give allowance for. We grumble and murmur when we feel over-worked and unpaid by our bosses; but when it comes to our maids, are we making them work day and night to get our "money's worth"? Do we have one set of values for ourselves and another set for our maids? Scripture says:

"Do to others as you would have them do to you..... Be merciful, just as your father is merciful." (Luke 6:31, 36)

Water, Water Everywhere

The frontpage news headline yesterday caught my eye: "PM: Don't expect flood-free Singapore". I had earlier paid scant attention to the news some two weeks ago on the Orchard Road floods after a heavy downpour. Snug and cozy at home, I was oblivious to the traffic jams and millions of dollars in damages for retailers in Orchard Road as floodwaters came up to waist-level. About 100mm of rain fell within just 2 hours that morning. A week later, floods submerged other areas (Thomson, Bt Timah and Tg Katong) albeit with less damage.

Elsewhere in China, torrential rains have been pouring down this month on the eastern, central and southern parts and the ensuing floods affect nearly 69 million people. Offical records estimate at least 379 people have perished so far this year in the floods in China, with economic losses of some 82 billion yuan.

While floods have been inundating various parts of the world every year, they are localised, that is, they are local events restricted to specific geographical localities. We have God's promise that "never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Gen 9:11). This was God's covenant with Noah after the big flood that destroyed all life on the earth.

In the days of Noah, God was grieved by man's great wickedness and brought about a vast flood that wiped out all the people, for the earth was filled with corruption and violence because of them. Only Noah and his family who still worshipped God and the living creatures that Noah brought into the ark were saved. (Gen 6 - 8)

Some interesting facts and figures on the big flood in Noah's time:

• The flood was caused by the bursting of all the springs of the deep and the opening of the floodgates of heaven.


• Rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights. (This works out to 4800cm of rainwater based on the same rate of rain that fell on Orchard Road on 16 June 2010.)


• The floodwaters covered the mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet (or 6.9 metres).


• The waters flooded the earth for 150 days.


• Every living thing that moved on the earth perished - birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.


• The ark that Noah built was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, according to God's command. (The Life Application Study Bible likens the ark to a boat with a length of 1 1/2 football fields and as high as a 4-storey building.)


• As commanded by God, Noah took with him into the ark: 7 (pairs) of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; 2 (pairs) of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and 7 (pairs) of every kind of bird, male and female - to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. (According to the Life Application Study Bible, scholars have estimated that almost 45,000 animals could have fit into the ark.)


• Noah, his family and the creatures taken by Noah spent an entire year in the ark.

While the big flood in Noah's time was God's judgement on the wickedness of mankind, we see His grace and mercy in preserving a remnant of life to repopulate the earth. He is gracious and compassionate too, in His promise to Noah, for all generations to come, that never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood.

But the day will come, when Jesus comes again, when the earth will be judged by fire. With this second judgement of the earth comes a promise as well - that there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

" ..... long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men..... But the day of the LORD will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare..... But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. " (2 Peter 3:5-7,10)

We also have the assurance that:

"The LORD is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)

There is hope in God's patience, grace and mercy.

Of Food and Ghosts

The morning downpour gave the air a cool, refreshing feel yesterday when I brought my old aunts and uncles to the Choa Chu Kang columbarium. The Chinese "qingming" festival (清明节 or so-called "tomb-sweeping" day) has already passed but I reckon any time is a good time to visit my mother's niche at the columbarium. Our remembrance of our dear departed ones need not be tied to any ritualistic adherence to any particular day or to the Chinese tradition.

I've always enjoyed looking at the niches in the columbarium. Many families adorn the niches of their loved ones with not only colourful flowers but also fanciful decorations and even angpows. What strikes me particularly is the decoration with miniature artificial food - tiny dianxin in their baskets, multi-layered hamburgers, bowls of what looked like noodle soup, plates of poultry, etc.

Offering of food to the deceased on special occasions is an enduring Chinese custom among non-Christians who practise so-called "pai-sin" (mixture of ancestor worship and elements of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism). This offering of food may be motivated by filial piety to provide for the afterlife of the deceased, by the desire to gain their favours in supernatural blessings and assistance, or perhaps by fear of the supernatural powers of "ghosts" and the perception of the need to appease them not to inflict curses or do evil.

So do "ghosts" exist after death? Many non-Christian traditional Chinese clearly believe in the existence of ghosts and celebrate the festival of "hungry ghosts" with much fanfare. My mother, before she became a Christian, used to cook my late father's favourite dishes for his death anniversary and invite him (his "ghost"?) to eat the food offerings. At the festival of "hungry ghosts", she would pay the temple monks to burn offerings of paper money and other material stuff of paper eg clothes.

What about the Christian view of "ghosts"? Do "ghosts" exist from the biblical perspective? The answer is "No, there are no ghosts."

I've learnt from Dr Violet James (whose course on Asian religions I attended at the Singapore Bible College years ago):
* Death is a radical break with life, a final separation with no possibility of returning to heaven or hell.
* There is no communication between the living and the dead (Luke 16:19-31).
* God forbids acts of worship or prayers to the dead.
(Course manual by Dr Violet James)

In the gospel of Luke cited by Dr James, Jesus tells about the rich man who was cast into the torment of fire in hell after he died and pleaded with father Abraham (in heaven) for water to cool his tongue. Abraham replied that "... between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us". Just as the dead cannot go from hell to heaven and vice versa, they cannot go from hell or heaven to earth.

But what about the "ghost" of the prophet Samuel who was summoned by a medium (the witch of Endor) for King Saul? (1 Samuel 28). Dr James explained that this apparition was not a "ghost" of the deceased but a "spirit" purporting to be Samuel.

Finally, the exhortation from Dr Violet James is a good reminder to us:
"But Christians must do the following:
- Love and care for family members while they are alive.
- Set examples as children of God in life and action, thought and deed.
- Remember the dead on special days by thanking God for their love, care and concern while they were alive."

House of God

I felt uneasy when I saw the fundraising video of a so-called "mega-church" posted on youtube. I was uneasy with the opening words in the video: "We want to build God a house, and it's not just for our members, it's for the King of kings and the Lord of lords .....". The concluding words in the video? "And the house that is to be built for the Lord, it must be exceedingly magnificient, famous and glorious to all countries ....."

My uneasiness stems from my comparison with the words ingrained in me from Scripture - the words of the Lord Jesus Himself and the words of the Apostle Paul in his address to the Athenians.

The gospel of John records Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in Sychar. During their conversation, Jesus told the woman that God is spirit and his worshippers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

"19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." " (John 4:19-24)

The Apostle Paul's words to the Athenians almost 2,000 years ago (around the time of his 2nd missionary journey in AD 50-52) are still relevant today - God does not live in temples built by hands and he is not served by human hands.

"24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the LORD of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' 29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill." (Acts 17:24-29)

Indeed, we the believers in God are His temple and God's Spirit lives in us (1 Cor 3:16). We are "like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2: 5)

But isn't there a need for a "house" - a "physical" place - for believers to gather together, to worship the Lord, to have communion with one another?

In the OT days, the temple built by King Solomon was a magnificient building containing gold, silver, bronze and cedar, taking over 7 years to build but was later destroyed by the Babylonians. The expense for Solomon's temple came largely from the spoils that King David took from his wars and from tributes paid by the vanquished peoples. And yes, even in NT days during the medieval times, cathedrals were grandiose structures. It is said that "the more splendid the architecture, the more the church believed it was praising God" (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval_church_architecture.htm). The vast building funds are also said to come primarily from the poorer classes.

Today, should believers in Christ seek to have church buildings that are magnificient, that seek to be famous and glorious? While many may argue that they willingly contribute to such church buildings, I would think the humility of Christ provides a key principle in what a church building should be. When we take the attitude of Jesus who humbled himself and made himself nothing (Phil 2:5-8), God is glorified in how we live our Christian lives - in love and humility - and not how we build our church buildings.

In Ban-On (northern Thailand) where my church carried out short-term missionary trips, the local church building is a simple wooden structure, with cement floor, ceiling and standing fans and wooden benches. When I was in Wuhan earlier this year, the local Christians had their worship service and meetings in a rented space at the top floor of a building. The Wuhan "Root and Fruit Church" (上下堂) has only basic amenities but the local Christians' fervour permeated the whole place despite its humbleness.

God does not need us to build a house for Him. Where 2 or 3 are gathered in Jesus' name, there God will be.

How Do You Justify Your Existence?

"How do you justify your existence?" This was the traditional opening question that was asked of each special dinner guest to the monthly banquets of the Black Widowers club (a literary creation of Issac Asimov). And it was the tradition of the 6 members of the Black Widowers club to grill their guest and exercise their collective mind and deductive wit to solve a mind-teasing puzzle or perplexing mystery.

Interestingly to me, nine out of ten of the Black Widowers' dinner guests cited their professional vocation as the reason why they existed. Throughout my entire working life, work was also what kept me going, occupying most of my time, filling my mind and driving most of my thoughts and emotions. Yes, family, friends, health did matter to me but it was always work which was foremost in almost all my adult years.

After I quitted working for a living, I was filled with an intense, sad feeling of being a "nobody". This feeling was with me for quite a while even as I took up new challenges (of the culinary kind, having virtually no cooking or baking experience), pursued my old love (of reading, especially crime and mystery stories), renewed my long-time aspiration (to improve my diction in Mandarin) and acquired new interests (becoming a Korean drama junkie and then developing into a China TV serial addict).

As I wrestled within myself to reconcile to not having "work" to justify my existence, I kept reminding myself that I am a child of God. As a child of God, I do not need to justify my existence.

"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:26)

"14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry , Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God , and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together ." (Rom 8:14-17)

It is God who justifies my existence. God has made me and He has a purpose for doing so. What is His purpose for me in this life? I do not know but it does not matter now to me that I do not know. I believe day by day the good God will lead me to do what He wants me to do, for His glory. Even in the simple activity of watching of China DVDs, I believe there's a purpose for me to brush up on my Mandarin listening and speaking skills - perhaps to interact better with Christian friends from China. Or even cooking for family and friends - I feel this is still a personal ministry, albeit mundane and ordinary, nonetheless a channel to bring blessings of joy and enjoyment.

I am particularly touched by a sonnet by John Milton (which Asimov used for one of his Black Widowers stories): "They also serve who only stand and wait."

On His Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.

His stateIs kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."
(John Milton. 1608–1674)

And so, while I may not justify my existence, I have hope in the Lord and take heart in waiting upon Him.