Sleek Sam

I Judge Books By Their Covers

2012-01-23T11:54:00.001+08:00

I must admit – there are times when I pick books up purely for its aesthetic qualities - covert art, title design and its acid-free pages. Unfortunately, most Christian publishers like Word, Moody, Banner of Truth, IVP and Multnomah are not well-known for their brilliant book covers. I hope this will change after HarperCollins took over Nashville - based publisher Thomas Nelson. Their edition of C.S. Lewis' classics and favorites are all beautifully designed and perfect when arranged in a single row.

My C.S. Lewis collection holds a special place in my tiny bookshelf and I am determined to replace the Touchstone editions with HarperCollins

Nothing beats the Hardcourt design - A sure winner of Best Spine of the Year Award!

This is my favorite John R.W. Stott book. Unfortunately, the cover is just plain ugly.

The old edition of Tozer's books are all uniformly designed -- with powerful typography.

Books with gold medals are always irresistible specially if it is placed on the spine.

Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but people always do.

A Scene From a Korean Movie

2012-01-15T14:38:00.000+08:00

Korean films are always unique. Sometimes it has 3 endings, sometimes it's like you have only watch a single chapter. Their cinematography techniques will make you experience the movie - we watch and suffer like they do and the score will make you seat until the credits end.

She knew she was standing

in the middle of the road

Confuse and teary

She finally decided to run uphill

She run hard while crying out loud

and collapsed

She sunk herself for a long time in that highway,

clenching her fists while the rustling wind

swept the fallen leaves.

For minutes I thought that it would not affect me,

but it did.

Pictures of Unfinished Things

2012-01-09T10:26:00.000+08:00

I just caught The Book of Eli on HBO last night. The movie made me ashamed of the fact that I have not read the entire Bible yet. I have basically read all the books in the New Testament, picked my favorite Psalms and even retraced the missionary journeys of Paul. But all these I’ve done at my leisure and it’s all too easy to forget. I always get carried away by enthusiasm to read it straight through only to realize that I’ve not gone too far.

The list of important books is long (Eccl. 12:12) and I’ve lost a lot of time in the last few years. Perhaps this would now be the time to try a one-year Bible-reading plan. It may sound artificial but as suggested by Dan Philips ─ any plan is better than no plan.

As the Ruin Falls

2012-01-05T15:14:00.000+08:00

Thisis my favorite C.S. Lewis poem. Written in traditional form but it sounds like a free verse to me. The tone is similar to Wordsworth's "Surprised byJoy"but this one is with a fitting ending – hope and joy comes in at the last verse. Any anthology thatdoes not include this is incomplete.

As the Ruin Falls

Allthis is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I neverhad a selfless thought since I was born.
I ammercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I wantGod, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace,re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
Icannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talkof love—a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But,self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Onlythat now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I seethe chasm. And everything you are was making
Myheart into a bridge by which I might get back
Fromexile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

Forthis I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
Yougive me are more precious than all other gains.

~C.S.Lewis, Poems, “As the Ruin Falls”(1st pub. 1964), pp. 109-110.

25 Books

2012-01-03T11:21:00.000+08:00

For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens” when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius’ On The Incarnation

I saw this book the other day at National BookStore. I was disappointed after reading the blurb but I bought it anyway just tokill the “thrill of immediacy”. As pointedby the editors, this book is not the list of the best Christian books ever butbooks from dead authors that “served as the best guides for living life withGod”. Many of these books are considered “devotional classics” that I bet,except for Nouwen’s Prodigal are all availableon-line for free. Obviously, the reader will likely not agree with the choices.Here’s the list in order:

1. On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius

2. Confessions by St. Augustine

3. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

4. The Rule of St. Benedict by St. Benedict

5. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

6. The Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous

7. Revelations of Divine Love (Showings) by Julian of Norwich

8. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

9. The Philokalia

10. Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

11. The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila

12. Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

13. Pensées by Blaise Pascal

14. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

15. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

16. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law

17. The Way of a Pilgrim by Unknown Author

18. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

19. Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

20. The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

21. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

22. A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly

23. The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

24. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

25. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Interestingly, seven of these are in my sleekbookshelf including the surprising choices- The Brothers Karamazov and Hopkin’scollection of poems. Added as an extrais a list of Top 9 contemporary authors which disappointed me the more:

1. Wendell Berry
2. Richard J. Foster
3. Anne Lamott
4. Brian McLaren
5. Eugene H. Peterson
6. John Stott
7. Walter Wangerin, Jr.
8. Dallas Willard
9. N.T. Wright

Lamottin Top 3? I have read two of hernon-fiction works. Putting her even in Top 100 is a lousy choice.

A DONKEY'S DELIGHT

2011-12-24T09:38:00.000+08:00

Taught, oh how late! In anguish,the response

I might have made withexultation once.

C.S. Lewis, OLD POETS REMEMBERED

Hannah, my 3-year old daughter, opening the box for me

Tadaaaan!!!

I've been hunting for this book (locally) in vain and so when my loving wife askedme whatI wanted for Christmas I said, “AC.S. Lewis book.” Amazon delivered it just in time.

Monster Monster

2011-09-04T07:30:00.000+08:00

Do you know what you are?
Do you know what you are?

...Nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes
By itself
-Jars of Clay, Good Monsters

So foolish,and ignorant: I am before thee [as] was a monster.

-Psalm 73:22

Andbecause I too, hate liberal-humanism

Idecided to read Baudelaire.

ButI got offended by the very first poem:

‘You,hypocrite reader, resembling me, my brother’

Mon semblable, Mon frère

- Italmost smothered me even before I was done.

Theease came, no doubt,

after my three year old daughter

qspan style="fonu-family: 'TimesuNew Roman', seruf; font-size: 12pt;">showed me how to draw a monster face

- Thedistorted parts rightly joined together.

Untitled

2011-07-31T21:32:00.000+08:00

In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices.

Grey-headed whores are virgin again.

Out of the past dream brings long-buried choices,

All in a moment snaps the tenfold chain

That life took years in forging. There the stain

Of oldest sins—how do the good words go?—

Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow.

C.S. LEWIS, Narrative Poems

In his dream he was driving

in a column of verses.

Running neatly in parallel

like a mist in a windowpane.

Trying not to be swept away

by heavy curls

or the smell of tamarinds

from a distant.

Or the longing

that makes the flowers bloom

and the valleys more deep

out of season.

No one to talk to the road’s end—

he lost the last battle with himself.

Utterly trapped and without hope

he wished he was dead.

As a dream when one awakes,

So, Lord, when You awake,

You shall despise their image.

Ps 73:20

Camera Poems on Hanna's 3rd Birthday

2011-07-12T22:47:00.000+08:00

Torrens Voluptatis

2011-04-22T11:41:00.001+08:00

Torrens Voluptatis

For God is not merely mending, not simply

restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity

is to be something more glorious than any

unfallen race now is (if at this moment the night sky

conceals any such)…those who have never fallen will

thus bless Adam’s fall. – C.S. Lewis, Miracles

The angry thorns

created an applauding blood

to drip in Your face

The nails

that made Your ankle crossed the other

and arms raised down

are my unbendable links to You

The soldier’s spear

made sure Your death becomes mine

Flowers of Chateau

2011-04-17T20:50:00.000+08:00

It’s Mid-April

But the flowers bloom like May

A million raindrops will soon strip the blossom

Frame it now or just ignore and walk by

For Samantha Jin (on her first birthday)

2011-04-09T21:07:00.002+08:00

A birthday balloon flew over the Bluewave

as Ticko played the party blower

Toot sweets

You’re too little for a wish

and your table is crowded

and so we made one for you

A blessed April day!

In the Train (Part 2)

2011-03-27T15:05:00.002+08:00

A man with a punk hair

is reading his pocket Bible

I tried to “read” from inches away

while a full breast is pressed

against my side.

The insinuating arrows

Remind me of a fire-hot verse:

The sperm of our long woes,

our large disgrace.

In the Train (Part 1)

2011-03-23T18:40:00.001+08:00

Today I encountered a young preacher

he carries no basket or envelope

Just a pocket Bible and an Invitation

He expounded the third chapter of John

like a man digging a Roman Gravemound

while others look away

and I pretend reading a book of poem.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it,

but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes…

I think we should thank preachers

who moves

from car to car

from train to train

more than poets

that just sit on pages.

The Big One

2011-03-19T15:41:00.000+08:00

In terms of attention and news coverage, none will match the earthquake that hit Japan compared to Haiti and Christchurch, not even the unfolding political events in the Middle East. Perhaps because of the magnitude that culminated in the catastrophic destruction of a nuclear station and surprisingly a stronger yen. Again one will wonder how a secular nation will face such triad of catastrophe knowing that this is not yet the ‘Big One”. One of the things that hits visitors to Japan is that they are not religious (whatever form it is) though in times of tragedy and like many Catholics, their religiosity tends to go up. More so when people die in groups of hundreds which is an indication of our helplessness. People die not because “they are worse than everybody else” (Luke 13:4) but because death is inevitable. When seawalls and thick walls fail, may we all run to ‘The Real Big One’ for mercy.

For Samantha Jin

2011-02-22T10:47:00.000+08:00

We were not born to be free

But to adore and obey. – C.S. Lewis

As I gaze at you beside me

Your serene face

Soft and warm and continuing

Reflecting the glow of summer

Like the love of the Savior

Oh! Thank you God, for a lovely day!

Your dancing shoes wait

Beyond the rainbow

I will fly you there

On a carpet ride

My Waitress

2011-02-19T12:35:00.001+08:00

Thy Maid? Ah, find some nobler theame

Whereon thy doubts to place;

Nor by a low suspect blaspheme

The glories of thy face.

–Abraham Cowley,

from The Waiting-Maid

She’s your fantasy figure

but not a woman

tangled up in ropes.

Like a waiting-maid,

She wears a black apron

(but not for me to hold).

She moves perfectly

to capture my words.

She sweetens my tea

and will serve me

till I die.

Beautiful enough

to let me go…

RED – A Review

2011-02-06T18:52:00.005+08:00

I should be reviewing RED’s latest studio release Until We Have Faces only but because I just recently discovered this great band, I ended up reviewing all their 3 albums.

Though there are exceptions, I believe that a great band should not be redundant and at the same time not diversified. Also, one of my criteria in choosing a great album is that the tracks should be somehow connected, meticulously arranged and mostly not fillers. This generally characterized RED and other band with grand slam releases (first 3 albums) like Switchfoot, Smalltown Poets and Jars of Clay.

Until We Have Faces is a combination of their first 2 albums – full of hope and honest lyrics (“Best is Yet to Come” and “Not Alone”) orchestrated with cinematic endings. I can trace a Linkin’ Park style and intensity and I notice a slow version of a Metallica song from a couple of tracks but nevertheless originally put out. The depiction musically of a diminishing face in the album cover at the end of "Faceless" will show how creative RED is. It is no surprising that a non-mainstream band and music rocked to #1 spot in the i-Tunes Album Chart even before the street release date.

Hanna's Abstract

2011-01-22T14:46:00.001+08:00

You painted the wall with crayons
The reds and greens

and yellows and purples

Jumble and comes to life

Like a stolen rainbow

from your favorite Dibo

Your a doodle-doos

Widens my horizon

FORGIVENESS

2011-01-01T11:52:00.001+08:00

‘…the problem of forgiveness begins with the one percent of guilt which is left over.’

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I started the New Year by reading Robin Givens’ meditative memoir Grace Will Lead Me Home. Fittingly, the narrative begins on the morning of New Year’s Day on the theme of redemption and forgiveness. This is hard. To mention the subject at all, as C.S. Lewis puts it, is to be greeted with howls of anger. Nonetheless, let me ask for forgiveness for all the people I have wronged, cheated or bullied. I am not doing this as a ritual or out of necessity. It’s never too soon to begin forgiving as we are commanded to do it not only ‘seven times’ but ‘seven times seven’. In Givens’ words:

‘…nothing is more empowering than the act of forgiving. True forgiveness is simply, purely redemptive.

A Day in a Life

2010-12-12T22:14:00.001+08:00

Just got home from a nearby hospital for a rabies vaccination. I accidentally stepped on a Persian black cat last night. Ironically that same night, I was reading a collection of poems called Walking the Black Cat, unaware that Ogie scratched or bitten me. I just discovered an itchy wound on my right leg this morning. The dilemma is I’m not sure if it is just a scratch or a bite so I decided to have a shot.
At the basement parking, a Revo blocked my way out so the guard on duty called the attention of the driver. The owner of the car was storming furiously and he asked me if I’m in a hurry and I did not bother to answer him (ironically he is in a hurry because he parked illegally). Again it was ironic. I should be in fury and not him.
At the ER, my 2nd shot was interrupted by an emergency case. A big guy that looks like the mad man in the parking appears lifeless. Medical personnel scrambled to revive him. Again, I ask myself if this is ironic.
Going home, I was driving so fast when out of the blue, a little boy crossed from the left and I nearly killed him. I said to myself that this is not ironic anymore.
Oh, the brevity of life!

Flight PR146 (Nov. 12, 2010)

2010-11-15T09:57:00.002+08:00

We talked about songs for the dead

as we board the plane.

The captain said, ‘Prepare for departure’
(Is there such thing as 'timely death'
as Nietzsche said?)

as I started reading Philip Schultz’s

failure poems.

The pages of his book are full of death.

He used to think that

‘the dead preferred their own company.

They don’t. They prefer ours.’

Could anyone be saved from death

by clever turns of phrase?

I never felt the touchdown

and wondered if death

slowed us down.

When I heard a lot of ‘ba-byes’,

I knew I wasn’t dead.

Boracay Island

2010-10-22T17:48:00.006+08:00

Sitting in the beachfront

Watching people

Others are ending their day

Some are just beginning

Trying to figure out
which is which

But what if all will get down

On their knees

Like Hudson Taylor

Like the palm trees

That bends over to pray

—In agony

for ‘twenty-four

willing skillful laborers’

The rays of light

Dying out in the distance

A Self Portrait

2010-10-18T13:20:00.000+08:00

Look what I’ve done/This picture I’ve painted

It looks like my heart/Or what still remains

Convince of the weight/Your interpretations

Are not what I see/ I wish they could be

‘Cause I remember it much redder

And I remember it much better

Try to explain/ The way that the frame

Doesn’t quite fit the image/Or surround the edge

It stands in display/What do you see

Behold all the new grey/What’s become of the old me

—Jars of Clay, Portrait of an Apology

Congealed expressions in a

Concealed frame — A miserable frame

How can life exist without a frame?

It could have perfectly stand

If I made it scream like Munch’s

Should I return and redo it?

And find myself changed?

Or just wait for the Northern Wind

To clash the colors in my face

Am I safe?

Will You erase me

To frame no message for anyone

I’m still whole

Without a golden frame

Is this a portrait or an apology?

Metamorphoses

2010-10-07T08:06:00.000+08:00

How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?                                 – C.S. Lewis

You are ugly,
You hate that Psyche is hideous;
You disguised love for jealousy,
You traversed Cupid’s best-laid plans.

You said ‘I looked on the things about me with a new eye’, but
You hide your face in a thick frippery;
          Nothing that’s beautiful hides its face
          Nothing that’s honest hides its name
You said to Psyche ‘In your heart you must see the truth’
In truth – in reality that’s more real than you know-you are more ugly.

You also shall be Psyche –Cupid cursed,
After she came up and switches on the light;
But you won’t succumbed to the power of gods easily as I imagined,
I am Ungit. Yes, you look more like Ungit.

And so Psyche must die in order to die
Die before you die

When she returned from the land of the dead,
You throw yourself down fully;
You sink back into your real world,
Cry out that you did not loved Psyche truly.

But Psyche –the real Psyche carried you with delight,
And you fled your veiled existence;
Who can feel ugly when the heart meets delight?
You also are Psyche.

Lines to my Father

2010-10-05T08:24:00.003+08:00

We grew up poor. I guess by choice. When I was in 2nd Grade, my father left a promising insurance job and pursued carpentry instead. To this day, I haven’t asked him why but I believe this is something he loved to do from the very start. And doing what you love is complicated. For me, this is the inclination of a true artist. He is not one of Tolstoy’s ‘gangs of carpenters hoping for high pay’ in Moscow.

My father’s name is Romeo
But people call him ‘Joe’

He can hoist a giant rafter

And build a house without a helper

No, Joe is a not a Superman

Joe is just a carpenter and a creative man

Like the Joe with a halo

From a small village of Tobago

At 15, I became his helper

But he never wished me to become a carpenter

I remember when we shared a meal together

And said he did the same with his father

I started working with my father during school breaks until I graduated in college. I can count on my fingers and remember all the ones he constructed for 20 years because he almost build houses-elegant and inexpensive, single-handedly. Today, my father is turning 60- still pre- occupied with calculations and combinations. I need to do nothing but give him tools.

Lord of the Dance

2010-10-01T16:00:00.001+08:00

And David danced before the LORD…
2 Samuel 6:14 (ESV)

The Great Dance does not wait to be perfect until the peoples of the Low Worlds are gathered into it. We speak not of when it will begin. It has begun from before always. There was no time when we did not rejoice before His face as now. The dance which we dance is at the centre and for the dance all things were made. Blessed be He!
— Perelandra, C. S. Lewis

We all appear as dunces;
Ran down blind and dance to the abyss.

Where Shakespeare’s ruffians dance and trot like puppets.

Before the stage goes dark, — dance with the One who brung you!

Lifted High

2010-09-28T13:08:00.001+08:00

My deft hands are tied
but i'm not a burnout hippie
throwing his hands waiting for E.T.
Father, I came home again
with two hands to hold my baby!

When Susan Minot met Philip Roth

2010-09-23T17:17:00.001+08:00

As you tacked the bedsheet tight
        'round my waist
A pretty pyramid slowly rising
        with roundlike apex
It would overtake the Sphinx
And even the crumbling pyramid of dirt
        to fill my grave

Everyman

2010-09-20T09:30:00.013+08:00

After reading a hundred page workshop transcripts last Friday, I challenged myself to read a couple hundred pages of autobiographical fiction over the weekend. “Everyman” by Philip Roth is like a sequel to Morley’s “The Man in the Mirror”. Roth’s unnamed protagonist is a bulky man disturbed by 'the blackest blackness of the lavish sky'. Haunted by the nearness of illness and death all his life, 'Imperishable' is a word he loved to savor. The comic horror book opens with his funeral, then flashes back to review his life. One can picture the narrative in the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby”:

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.

Nobody came.

Acclaimed by LA Times as ‘an exquisite effort…spare and unrelenting in its evocation of the limits of mortality’, the book begins and ends in tragedy. One reviewer said, ‘Roth manages to touch on so many universal truths, and for me, there were many times I found myself nodding my head in understanding.’ I nod silently to that. This is the biography of every fallen man as well. The only missing is a chapter with the title ‘How Can a Man Change?’ but that is given,

Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walk from the grave.

No one was saved.

And so our protagonist,on his 7th year in a row of hospitalization at age 71, died in a stoic mood.

This is a book that you will not re-read and so I immortalized it below with a fitting ending.

Everyman

Certainly every man at his best state
is but vapor. Psalm 39:5

Man change seven times a day:

Agility

Joviality

Banality

Senility

Debility

Fragility

Futility

With identical biographies

of illness and death.

Seventy times seven in all

for lessened multiformity.

Man, walk and talk to the gravedigger
As well as to the Graverobber.

A Cosmic Drama

2010-09-16T13:29:00.018+08:00

"ETHER"
(photo taken by Hannah, my cute 2 y/o daughter)

Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,

Or loose the belt of Orion?

Can you bring out constellations in its season?

Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?

Job 38:31-32

…in Christianity God is not a static thing - not even a person - but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

A COSMIC DRAMA

Something far beyond the shadow

Of a bursting supernova-

A mysterious frequency resonating,
Not hollow but a holy Shape is surging
At infinite speed.
Passed the chambers of the south,
Radiation-driven Andromeda
And the dark-faced Electra.
Entropy bound, gravity-darkening.
Fall down! Fall down!
One movement of the dance is enough
The Wounded World watches by chance!

God's Signpost

2010-09-13T10:28:00.013+08:00

When we are lost in the woods

the sight of a sign post is a great matter

C.S. LEWIS, Surprised by Joy

While walking one Monday morning

A couple did ask me the meaning of an acronym

I said ‘it must be Wireless Fidelity

for Hi-Fi means High Fidelity’

Weil’s Beatitudes’*

2010-09-05T14:31:00.014+08:00

(An Evocation on the Fallen Man)

Blessed are the shallow,

Depth they’ll never find.

-Jars of Clay, Frail

Happy are those who volunteer for mutilation;

Imploring vegetative state,

For the cost is heavy and commit the sin of envy[1]

Happy is the one who observe nature;

And experience numinous awe,[2]

For nature observes back with familiar gazes[3]

Happy are those who have no power for abstraction,

For they see their objects always near,

Never in the horizon[4]

Happy are those who have been Freudianised too long,

For they are incurable[5]

Happy is the man who cannot make worm,

For he will make gods by the dozen[6]

Happy is the most audacious despiser of God,

For he is most easily disturbed,

Trembling at the sound of a falling leaf[7]

…mourn man because you are not yet dirt.

Receive your ashes and rejoice.[8]

[1] From Simone Weil: Thinking Poetically (pp.43-46) by Joan Dargan. Marina Tsvetaeva’s Prayer come to mind: “I don’t need bliss that comes at the price of debasement”.

[2] Introduced by C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

[3] Based on Baudelaire’s “Correspondances” and Weil’s “Necessite” as appeared in Simone Weil: Thinking Poetically (pp.91-93) by Joan Dargan.

[4] Hazlitt, from The Pilgrim’s Regress (p.149) by C.S. Lewis

[5] C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress, 73

[6] Montaigne

[7] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 1)

[8] Merton, The Sign of Jonas,340

*This is not a variation of Matthew 5 or its travesty. It is an imitation of the first part of Simone Weils’ “terrible prayer” and the lines are either alterations or imitations of prominent works. To borrow C.S Lewis’ words, ‘they are the work of a layman and an amateur’. I have already settled for the title before reading Weil’s beatitude:

“Happy are they for whom the misfortune penetrating their body is also the misfortune of the world itself in their time. They have the ability and the function to know the misfortune of the world in truth.”
(Correspondance 38-40 from Simone Weil: Thinking Poetically (p.122) by Joan Dargan)

Elevator Journey

2010-08-14T21:08:00.009+08:00

But man needs to be triply protected

by humility if he is to eat the bread

of angels without risk.

-C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves”

Busy crowds hover

Among still shadows

People in the know

With angelic shoulders

And sophisticated faces

Converse very loud and vulgar

To impress inoffensively

Almost indefinable way

An unenduring bore

Yawning at my feet

Clutched fast my bag
Eyes quickly dart down

And keep my feet

Off the Invisible Line.

With uncolored cellarage

And attentive air,

You can cover your ears

And shriek

Or roll up the base

And vanish

The blah

Will fly past vertically

Like a fallen angel

A blur

In the sky

We are all Outsiders

We have tasted the bread

And all the world is falling

God willing

We shall get in

And steel was at their backs.

They had to go.

-C.S. Lewis, “Narrative Poems”

For Hannah Jewel & Samantha Jin

2010-07-20T08:34:00.012+08:00

The world rings with joy

Of two girls dancing on the moon

A super-added gift

Like the butterfly wings of Little Lea

It's not merely cute,

The sweet arching of their eyes

To bloom and sing

You are both Love

I will not turn over the brush

Or cut the moon in half

"Day of Valour" Baby

2010-04-10T08:34:00.004+08:00

Samantha Jin. "Baby Sam" born April 9, 2010 11:55am
Another cute girl for us. Above, our 1st family photo.

Watching the Diver

2010-04-07T08:52:00.012+08:00

The writings of C.S. Lewis gratify the poetical sense and inspire grand thoughts of God using the power of imagery and the drama of narrative. Elsewhere he wrote, “The story of Christ demands from us, and repays, not only a religious and historical but also an imaginative response. It is directed to the child, the poet, and the savage in us as well as to the conscience and to the intellect. One of its functions is to break down dividing walls.”

Here’s how he depicts the Resurrection and our Redemption:

“…one may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to colour and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both coloured now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colourless in the dark, he lost his colour too.” (Miracles)

A POST NOT STRICTLY NECESSARY

2010-04-01T14:22:00.001+08:00

Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord”. It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received. C.S. LEWIS, The Weight of Glory

My new work assignment hasn't been giving me the greatest hours for blogging. Not even in the brackish borderland of work and play. But thanks to contemporary music that keeps me from having a ‘cubicle fever’. Here are some of my picks (I believe Christian music publishers are not that greedy so I highlighted portions of the lyrics here) :

"Plenty of Paper" by Eisley. The title is perfect to the Dilberts of the world cramming for powerpoint presentation. An irresistibly perfect song that can be easily mistaken as Sixpense-non-the-Richer album cut but this one is more poetic - full of playful imagery and fanciful narratives. You will get tugged along by the gorgeous melody.

I cut the moon in half
And stuck a piece to my hair
It made the back of my head glow
Golden yellow and then I took
Ten stars on sticks and placed them in my small metal
Bucket and I gave the other half of the moon to you
Ooh, so you wouldn't forget me while I'm gone…

And wouldn't we be attractive
Riding in our shiny motor cars
With eyeglasses full of stars
And plenty of paper for scenery paintings

“Not Alone” by Seabird / "Lead Me" by Sanctus Real. These piano-driven /melodic songs about forgiveness and hope/marriage and parenthood are intertwined lyrically. Perfect for baby Sam's arrival.

At arms length you held your spouse and children
Your lack of grace, so nearly killed them…

Back home to find the garden as you left it
Roses in full bloom, so glad you invested
So you found this room couldn’t hold you down
Step through these walls and listen for the sound/

So Father, give me the strength to be everything I’m called to be

Oh, Father, show me the way to lead them

Won’t You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands

To stand up when they can’t

Don’t want to leave them hungry for love

Chasing things that I could give up

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight

And give them the best of my life

So we can call this a home

Lead me, ‘cause I can’t do this alone

Father, lead me, ‘cause I can’t do this alone

"True Faith" by Anberlin / "Redeemer" by Kutless . Both are cover songs of well-known classics but these are the best versions so far. Perfectly done and fitting backdrop for the Lent.

"What Faith Can Do” by Kutless. Reminds me of a Kris Allen song but this pleasantly melodic song is more profound and very encouraging.

Everybody falls sometimes

You gotta find the strength to rise

From the ashes and make a new beginning

Anyone can feel the ache

You think it’s more than you can take

But you’re stronger, stronger than you know

And don’t you give up now

The sun will soon be shining

You gotta face the clouds

To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains

Hope that doesn’t ever end

Even when the sky is falling

I’ve seen miracles just happen

Silent prayers get answered

Broken hearts become brand new

That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard

Impossible is not a word

It’s just a reason for someone not to try

Everybody’s scared to death

You may decide to take that step

Out on the water

But it’ll be all right

Life is so much more

Than what your eyes are seeing

You will find your way

If you keep believing

Overcome the odds

When you don’t have a chance

(That’s what faith can do)

When the world says you can’t

It will tell you that it can

The Blind Side: FOUR-THUMBS-UP!!!

2010-02-15T16:46:00.011+08:00

The incomplete and crippled lives of those who are tone deaf, have never been in love, never known true friendship, never cared for a good book, never enjoyed the feel of the morning air on their cheeks, never (I am one of these) enjoyed football... C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

The left tackle's job is to protect the quarterback from what he can't see coming. To protect his blind side. Leigh Anne Touhy

Several years ago during a Japanese language for beginner’s class, I was asked by a bunch of instructors to choose between sumo wrestling and football. I said football because 'tackling' is a sumo ingredient of the game. But bluntly, it is like choosing between a thrilling game and a boring one. I enjoyed every football game and film I have watched. I even cried last night after watching The Blind Side. It turns out that it is much better than how it was depicted on the poster. It is like putting "Radio" in the shoes of "Rudy" and become "Invincible" with the blessings of a prayerful team in "Facing the Giants" and the humour and character of "The Replacements". One of my favorite scenes was when the family prayed together during a Thanksgiving dinner and of course the part when Tim McGraw read the narrative poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" to Michael. Lesson learned? A crisis emerged when an investigator from NCAA popped-up and questioned the motives of the Touhy’s in adopting Michael. This made Michael doubt about the sincerity of the Touhy's but soon realized that he was wrong. The extra-ordinary kindness extended to him was not motivated by selfishness but out of duty and delight. Even if his doubts were valid, the self-interested pursuit of joy as C.S. Lewis said, is not something ugly and wrong - insisting that it is a Christian duty for everyone to be as happy as he can be. Not at the expense of the object, that is. What starts out as a little deed of kindness in the dead of winter turns into something more--Michael Oher is the first-round pick of the Ravens in the 2009 NFL Draft.

THE SINGER - a Sacred Delight

2010-02-01T08:46:00.003+08:00

I could not perswade my self to attempt any thing above six Lines, which had not been made, were it not at the Request of a Musical Gentleman. SAMUEL COBB, Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry

After purchasing five poetry books in a month’s time, I’ve been pondering whether or not to use this blog exclusively as a pad for poetry. Much more after reading in delight Calvin Miller’s book ‘The Singer’. Like poetry itself, this book came inexplicably out of nowhere. It was placed discreetly in the philosophy section and I just stumbled upon it. Well, I will not give my review on this one but I tell you what- I’m not a voracious reader but devoured on it twice above 33,000 feet going to Puerto Princesa City and like Gerard Butler in the movie The Ugly Truth--the only person in the sidewalk reading while walking, even when crossing down the street (A dramatic reading, are you on the list?). There’s really joy in book hunting, it's quite another to get thrilled to a ‘classic retelling of cosmic conflict’.

2010-01-01T14:42:00.001+08:00

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

I’ve been blogging now for a year and I have used C.S. Lewis as inspiration for writing many times (I wouldn’t blame the Lewis Estate if they hated this). For a ‘Sunday writer’ like me, I’d be flattered if my small blog deserves any attention at all. At least, I now know how to use suspension points without offending Umberto Eco. Getting a hit is not the point why I created this blog. Though I post sparingly, I am satisfied with the blog not because I created a chamber to stroke and echo my ego but because I know what’s it like inside the bubble [Psalms 39:5]. Again, C.S. Lewis said it best,

It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with (the perfect hearer died a year ago)...But how if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection – utterly ‘get out’ in poetry or music or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost bursts you?

…and happy souls to whom this happens often.

The Other Side of Me

2009-12-20T16:08:00.001+08:00

"CONVERSATIONS" (pastel, 01/06-02)

I painted this after a long telephone conversation with a girl I met in church. Three years later, she became ‘the other side of me’ and today is our fifth wedding anniversary.

Another Saturday Post

2009-11-28T11:08:00.018+08:00

Graceland

On, on I travel to distant Oku

The moon is low in the sky

As I tread on muddy roads in November

I ignored God’s signposts all over

I got lost and saw a mountain Lion track

Then I encountered an elephant lurking in darkness

I wrestled with it and made my blood run so cold

A dead man walking; a shaken monster in me

Swallowed up in a driftwood whilst limping away,

I heard the weeping fish

My sleeve is with tears

How lonely it is!

You made me recall a poet’s line

And the fool dwarfs in The Last Battle

You broke a vase for me

Filled with a sunflower seed!

You heard my lament

And turn them into dancing

No Saturday Post?

2009-10-03T23:39:00.008+08:00

‘The god themselves know pain, the eternal forms.

In realms beyond the reach of cloud, and skies

Nearest the ends of air, where comes no storms

Nor sound of earth, I have looked into their eyes

Peaceful and filled with pain beyond surmise,

Filled with an ancient woe man cannot reach

One moment though in fire; yet calm their speech.’

C.S. Lewis, Narrative Poems

I don’t want to ‘flood’ the blogosphere with another “Ondoy” post but to be dead silent is apathetic. We are not cocoons. We are human beings. And human beings are very complex. Indeed, it is hard to understand humans without reference to their spiritual dimensions. With every human disorder we have—we blame everyone but ourselves and before long, we are questioning the existence of God. That is an inherent human inclination. It has always been the way of the world. But what is admiring amidst the aftermath of the horrible floods is that I never heard anyone blamed God. We even reacted to the way insurance company’s labeling of luxurious vehicles being tossed around like matchbox cars as an ‘Act of God’. It burned me from within.

‘Wilt Thou yet change, as though God were a god?’

Why not call it ‘acts of divided or disunified gods’ instead. At least, the term is ontologically different to the Creator of the universe. The gods will know it knows but they will never tell us what they would have us do. I must write it all quickly before the gods found some way to silence me.

Blessed are all who take refuge in Him [Psalm 2:10-12].

RUMORS of another world

2009-09-07T17:19:00.008+08:00

There is a glamour on the leaf and flower
And April comes and whistles to a boy
C.S. LEWIS, Narrative Poems

First, sorry about the lack of posts here lately. I guess there is correlation between "baby vs. blogging time". Things aren't all just about me.

Second, my tribe is growing. There is always another story to tell and keep me in the blogosphere.

"Babydot" is 7 weeks with a heart rate of 129 beats per
minute.

I would not blame you if you expect and look forward to seeing my next entry in April 2010. :)

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY Hannah Jewel

2009-07-12T19:23:00.003+08:00

A Father's Day

2009-06-21T09:44:00.007+08:00

It is a delight above all delights to see one's children turn out-as ours have done-all that the heart covets in children; and my delight is so full that I sometimes fancy my heart will have to burst for its own relief.-HENRY JAMES, SR.

Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch

The Task and Other Poems
William Cowper

Two years ago, my pastor friend sent me a text message like this “Happy Father’s to you next year”. I am not a mystic person but I considered his word as prophetic. And four months after I got that message, Jing got pregnant. It took three years before the stork visited us. I’ve even received a Father’s Day present a month before Hannah was born. Today, I can officially celebrate Father’s Day. It is sweet and encouraging.

5 (KUSING)

2009-05-09T13:48:00.009+08:00

I’m a huge fan of Christian music and it has been a big part of my life in general. For several years now, I’ve been hunting Emmanuel’s underrated album “KUSING” that was released a decade ago. By the time it hit the stores, I can’t afford to buy one and what would you expect after ten years? The other day, while strolling in a mall, I spotted the cd on sale from a Praise Inc. stand. It’s a great adrenaline rush. What kept me pursuing? The first track “Tingnan mo” which I first heard from NU 107 when the band was the guest in a late night show ‘Against the Flow’. No, not the song in itself that strike me but the lovely voice of a boy singing/chanting an acapella in the intro. If anyone ever asks me for my opinion of what creativity is, musically, I’d hand them a copy of this record and that would be all they would need.

BEST BLOG POST EVER

2009-04-22T11:04:00.005+08:00

Porn & Paper

YOU CAN CALL “GOOD FRIDAY” GOOD.

2009-04-10T13:08:00.008+08:00

I always admire writers and artists who explicitly intertwine their religious convictions in their crafts. And the religion tends not to be mystical, but more or less traditionally Christian. Johnny Hart,, the brilliant and highly honored cartoonist, the creator of “B.C.” and “The Wizard of Id”, exemplifies this best. The most famous of these has come to be known as “The Good Friday Strip”. My favorite is a strip were Wiley,, one of his well-known “B.C.” characters writing on a stone tablet:

Now, who can call “Good Friday” good?

-A term too oft misunderstood-

You, who were bought by the blood of His cross

You can call ”Good Friday” good.

PICTURING THE PASSION

2009-04-09T22:03:00.005+08:00

Mel Gibson’s use of sustained, graphic violence in The Passion, as one critic rightly said, has ‘turned Jesus as a gold medalist in the Olympics of Suffering’. The Romans, who perfected the art of slow torture, view the cross as a sign of shame (Gal. 3:13). The Jewish attitude was worse. They saw crucifixion not only as a social stigma but as a divine curse (Deut. 21:23). But the writers of the Gospels choose to depict it differently. Instead of evoking empathy, as another critic said of The Passion, they invite us to grateful, respectful awe, because they had different understanding of the meaning of his suffering.

The evangelist Reinhard Bonke has a marvelous picture of this:

The Cross of Jesus consists of two beams, one vertical and one horizontal. Those crossed timbers are twin symbols of human misery and God’s salvation. The horizontal beam is like a dash, the very sign used for minus. And that is the human story. We were born a minus, a deficit, a void. Sin has destroyed something. That something is missing, but people are at a complete loss to know what it is. They talk about their search for truth, but they don’t even know what they mean by truth. They are like Pontius Pilate who, standing before Jesus, nearly fell over The Truth asking, “what is truth?” That is man’s minus outlook.
But Jesus came, and outside Jerusalem, a vertical timber was raised which crossed through our minus sign. Jesus hung there on that upright, and He turned our minus into plus. The Romans thought the Cross was just an instrument of execution, but it was God’s plus sign for minus minded mankind.
Indeed, give the cross a second look, and it is even more than a plus---it is a multiplication sign. (EVANGELISM BY FIRE)

The focus was not even on his humiliation but on his victory. They saw calvary as a truth-telling place and not a killing field.

The Perfect Penitent

2009-04-08T22:58:00.008+08:00

One only Word has come to men,
And was incarnate and had hands
And feet and walked in earthly lands
And died, and rose. And nothing more
Will come or ever came before
With certainty. And to obey
Is better than the hard assay
C.S. LEWIS, Narrative Poems

There is a book that I always love to give during the Lent. Sleek and beautifully written, Jesus on Trial is one of the few that focuses on the astonishing events of Jesus' trial. After reading it for the nth time, two staggering questions pop-up in my mind – How could a holy God, if He is all-powerful, have permitted the existence of sin? Is there alternative to the giving of God’s only-begotten Son and his being crucified on the cross? No, don’t rebuke me for the ingratitude and ungraciousness of my thought. As J. Gresham Machen puts it:

God has told us much. He has told us much even about sin. He has told us how at infinite cost, by the gift of His Son, He has provided a way of escape from it. Yes, God has told us much. Is it surprising that He has not told us all? I do not think so my friends. After all, we are but finite creatures. Is it surprising that there are some mysteries which God in His infinite goodness and wisdom has hidden from our eyes? Is it surprising that there are some things in His counsels about which He has bidden us be content not to know but instead just to trust Him who knows all? (The Christian View of Man)

Further, C.S. Lewis may be right that “…God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been, more glorious than any unfallen race now is (if at this moment the night sky conceals any such).”

As to the connecting question, Paul insisted somewhere in his letter to the Galatians that if justification could have been secured by any other method than that of faith in Christ, by that method it would have been. There is no other alternative.

CREATIVITY pt.1

2009-03-16T14:46:00.009+08:00

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. C.S. LEWIS

One of my "original" artwork Mona La Fea. I displayed it once in our comfort room but she keeps on staring and worst, i can't 'concetrate' so i rolled it for good.

SOUND CHECK- The Day the Music Died

2009-03-06T22:24:00.024+08:00

An excellently performed piece of music, as natural operation which reveals in a very high degree the peculiar powers given to man, will thus always glorify God whatever the intention of the performers may be. But that is a kind of glorifying which we share with the ‘dragons and great deeps’, with the ‘frost and snows’. What is looked for in us, as men, is another kind of glorifying, which depends on intention.

C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections

~~I am still young but wise enough to recognize good music no matter how old it is.~~
I hate to brag, but I am a musical genius. In fact, I can torture a roomful of strangers with my sincere rendition of “My Way’ without being stabbed to death. But alone in the shower with the radio up, I sound pretty terrific; you cannot tell whether it is me or Sinatra [Spurgeon said in a funny sermon: Those with cracked voices would be kind if they would not sing quite so loudly in the congregation, for they grievously disturb other people; but they might get alone and have good times with themselves, where nobody could complain of their strong voices and lusty tones.]
Yes, I don’t have a melodic voice and no, I can’t reproduce the sound of a 50-piece orchestra but I’m a music junkie anyway. Do you know what a vinyl is? Well, DJs scratch it on purpose but I still remember my father’s vinyl collection from The Beatles to The Commodores (we call his turntable ‘stereo’ because the pre-amp setup makes the speakers and walls disappear and my pants...shake). Ever heard of experimental music called Cosmic Industrial? Except for reggae --the sheriff shot Bob Marley, name any genre and I have it on my iPod and the playlist is more than the longest blogroll in the universe.
We all love music no doubt. Our world is preoccupied with it and for some of us, in every room in our home. Martin Luther, who wrote several hymns, says it well: “Music is…the only art that can calm the agitation of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us”. “Secular” analysts and critics elevate it as close to literature and there is a debate whether this ‘charming art’ is salvific or is just one of those things which give value to survival. But while some stupid and unmusical scientists are tying to work out why it affects emotion (Well, they should ask Asaph), I believe that music has lost its rightful place in our lives. So much of the music you and I listen to is little more than background noise to the rest of our lives. Take the case of the so-called ‘praise and worship’ songs of user-friendly churches. The mushy lyrics are more shocking than the weird children’s songs and nursery rhymes.

While they try to hum and haw in a contemporary way, the heart of their music is cheeky--like those of Prince, and obviously egoistic:
Jesus lover of my soul,
He is my friend,
this is why,
this is why,
this is why I feel like I’m in heaven,
‘feels like heaven…

Amos 5 says, ”Stop singing your songs; it is not right--there is no depth in it”. Perhaps this is the reason one of the things God will do during the Tribulation is to cause all music to stop [Rev. 18:22]. He will pull the plug on the world’s party. Grammys be damned. The chilling ‘Sound of Silence’ will make the whole world go crazy.

The sound of music, never ceasing, took the role
Of silence and like silence numbed his soul

Thy note--it is silent, thy song--it is hushed,

No more shall thy music entrance or enthrall,
The music that like the blue rivulet gushed,
A finger of terror has silenced it all.
Lennox Amott,THE MUSICIAN'S GRAVE

And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,

Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,
The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.
C,.S. Lewis, SPIRITS IN BONDAGE

A Call for Extravagant Love

2009-02-12T09:23:00.008+08:00

“…there is a love deeper than theirs who seek only the happiness of their beloved.”
C.S. Lewis, TILL WE HAVE FACES

“For true friendship cannot really be true unless the love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit cements the friends together.”

St. Augustine, CONFESSIONS

Prior to his conversion, Augustine in his Confessions, movingly describes the misery he felt on the death of a close friend. This is the result, he says, of loving a fellow-creature too much. That mood of disappointment is nicely captured by C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves. Although he mistakenly identified this particular friend as Nebridius, Lewis rightly suggests that this aspect of Augustine’s thought is closer to ‘Stoic “apathy” or Neo-Platonic mysticism than to charity’. Rejecting what he takes to be Augustine’s quest for a risk-free-love, he overlooked the fact that this is from the hindsight of Augustine’s Christian conversion. Thus, his reflections on human love does not contradict Augustine’s view but rather strengthens it. Here’s what he said ( I don’t know how many times I have enjoyed reading this):

There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (The Four Loves)

Here’s more:

Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it. (The Four Loves)

Need I say more?

My thought for today---- over-the-shoulder bag

2009-02-03T07:27:00.017+08:00

“Is that your bag?” That seems to be the question I get whenever I wear my tote bag going around. Call me crazy but five years ago I let go of the backpack and late last year dumped off my messenger bag, too. Not that they're out of style but I would cringe because the kid next door have the same taste. I commute everyday for work and I get a lot of unexpected looks especially in the MRT. This usually elicits dagger looks from me-Hey! Do I look glitzy with my tote bag? Or do I look very girly? Fussy I know but I think a man with confidence can really pull off a situation like that.
When I visited Tokyo a few years ago, it was not uncommon to see Japanese men (mostly in their 20s and 30s) carrying cool looking tote bags, It was more uncommon to see men not carrying such an accessory. Trendy men in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan have started carrying similar totes. Here in the Philippines, I suspect that it will make its way through after a couple of years more. Recently, one of my colleagues has followed suit and I expect to see men’s tote lines expanding soon.

‘Taught you anything? For a new dad like me, tote bags are not just cool, they’re great for diapers, too.

What The…HELL???!

2009-01-28T14:31:00.018+08:00

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth. C. S. LEWIS (The Screwtape Letters)

For the past week, I've been digging materials from my sleek bookshelf for some serious posts on theology. Then, out of the blue, a quotation of C.S. Lewis on hell caught my attention:

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one---the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. (The Screwtape Letters)

And then on my way home from a field assignment northeast of Laguna, I encountered a preacher inside a passenger jeep. He shared the gospel briefly and the centerpiece of it is Hell. So I said, What the heck! Why not start on a "helly" note.

Introduction
The authors of the Scripture made no trivial declaration when they talk about hell. Language cannot describe the severity of divine punishment from an offended God. [It is certain that by such modes of expression the Holy Spirit designed to impress all our senses with dread-John Calvin, Institutes]
John Piper put it another way:
The infinite horrors of hell are intended by God to be a vivid demonstration of the infinite value of the glory of God.(Let the Nations be Glad)

Historic Biblical View of Hell
Illustrated poetically in Isaiah 30:33,

For Tophet was established of old,
Yes, for the king it is prepared.
He has made it deep and large;
Its pyre is fire with much wood;
The breath of the Lord, like a
stream of brimstone,
Kindles it.

Hell itself was originally prepared for the devil and his angels,not for humans (Matt 2541).
No one at the present is in hell, i.e. the final hell. (Rev 20:10).
Hades, equivalent to the OT Sheol is the place of the wicked prior to the final judgment in hell (Luke 16:23).
Between Christ's death and resurrection, His living spirit descended to the bottomless pit and proclaimed triumph over the demons bound there. (1Pet.3:19/2Pet.2:4)
The Anti-Christ and his winsome prophet will be the first to arrive in the dreadful place after their defeat and capture in the Battle of Armageddon (Rev 19:20/20:10).
At the end of the Millennial Kingdom, Satan will be released from the bottomless pit-gather all the army of rebels worldwide and stage a final uprising – (The Last Battle)against the saints in the "beloved city" of Jerusalem. "And fire came down from heaven and devoured them. The devil…was cast into the like of fire…"(Rev 209b-10a)
The Great White Throne Judgment will follow and "…anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:15)

Some Insights and Footnotes
*Hell is a place of eternal punishment for Satan, fallen angels, and unredeemed men and not an event of annihilation (2 Thes 1:9). Currently, John R.W. Stott is the most popular advocate of the false doctrine of annihilationism. Revelation 20:10 refutes this view.

*There is no purgation of the wicked in temporary hell (the concept of purgatory is not supported by Scripture) much more in the final hell. Their hands are full –there's nowhere for God to place His forgiveness. From the very beginning, men prefer darkness to light and God will allow their sin to run its inevitable course there. The lost soul is eternally fixed in its diabolical attitude. C.S. Lewis said wittingly, '...that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside…They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.' (The Problem of the Pain)

*The depiction-'Lake of Fire' indicates that there are degrees of punishment in hell-the core would be hotter than the 'shore'. The line "And they were judged, …according to their works" from Revelation 20:12 implies this.

*Those who go to hell, go because they have rejected the only remedy, Jesus Christ, not because they were created for hell. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek.33:11), He must judge wickedness because His holiness requires it (2Thess.1:7-9). Even hell will acknowledge the perfect justice of God (Psalm 76:10); those who are there will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are to blame.(Deut. 32-3-5)[This important insights were taken from The MacArthur Study Bible] From the standpoint of the redeemed , the punishment of the wicked is an act of unspeakable mercy.(A.W.Pink, The Attributes of God)

* Hell is also a proof of God's boundless mercy. As John Calvin says somewhere that the wicked deserved to be utterly destroyed but 'by the admirable counsel of God, an intermediate state was prepared' as 'a light punishment' to them. Even in their final destination, God showed mercy by just plunging them into abysses and whirpools than endure the terrors for a moment. (Institutes)

*Babies--and anyone else who has not reached the condition of accountability--go to heaven when they die.(2 Samuel 12:23; Mark. 10:14; Matt. 19:14)

Conclusion
Hell is hell. It is a detestable doctrine yet is to be contemplated.Does it kindle in us some taste of 'sweetness'? Let me quote again C.S. Lewis for the last time (here):
In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question:'What are you asking God to do?' To wipe out their sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.' (The Problem of the Pain)
I pray that when the wicked has burned, you would say that it's all about love.

Why I Created This Blog (Very Late)

2009-01-19T07:58:00.014+08:00

More than those who watch for the morning---
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.
Psalm 130
There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.
CS Lewis, The Last Battle

Blogs come and go and most of the good spots in the blogosphere have been taken. So, why create another one? I’m not a writer but, like Sid the caterpillar, I don’t want to be stranded in a photographic memory. I want to enjoy the sweet nectar in God’s creation and the joy would be incomplete without the praise.

C.S Lewis still said it best:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. ( Reflections on the Psalms)

…Can it be possible
That joy flows through and, when the course is run,
It leaves no change, no mark on us to tell
Its passing? And as poor as we’ve begun
We end the richest day? What we have won,
Can it all die like this?...Joy flickers on (Narrative Poems)

This blog is for anyone who acknowledges the dilemma of being human. I write and “cover” stuff I love because I know there is someone in this world who understands them (in all its beauty and horror).

I have had a hard time describing my blog but surely I have calmed and quieted my soul.

An Unlikely Song on Being Humble

2009-01-11T22:34:00.011+08:00

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Matt. 5:5

The first time I heard this song I thought it's about an
old fairytale like Cinderella but after ‘googling’ it, I was
surprised by its meaning. It makes me nauseatingly humble.

caricature art courtesy of

Gerard Bobis, a talented fellow

The Frog Prince
Artist: Keane
Album: Under The Iron Sea

An old fairytale told me
The simple heart will be prized again
A toad will be our king
And ugly ogres are heroes

Then you'll shake
Your fist at the sky
Oh why did I rely
On fashions and small fry?

All promises broken
Feed your people or lose your throne
And forfeit your whole kingdom
I'd sooner lose it than still live in it alone

You were our golden child
But the gentle and the mild
Inherit the earth, while

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know

Soon, someone will put a spell on you
Perfume, treasure, sorcery, every trick they know
You will lie in a deep sleep
That's when

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know