God, an elderly Jesuit once suggested to me, is something like an old carpenter in a small village in Vermont. If you ask the townspeople where to turn to for carpentry work or repairs, they will say, “There’s only one person to call. He does excellent work. He’s careful, he’s precise, he’s conscientious, he’s creative,…
Persons
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The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
The term ‘the road less travelled’ has its origins in the poem The Road Not Taken,written by the august American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Persons, Posts
The Clearing – Tomas Tranströmer
“Deep in the forest there’s an unexpected clearing that can be reached only by someone who has lost his way.” (Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015); Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, 2011)
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
Silence
Pope Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, was eloquent on the value of silence: “In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
Reflections on the Missal
Ministering to the Migrant Workers – Members of the St Vincent De Paul Society Conferences, Singapore James 2:14-18 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food…
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Surprises in Heaven – Only 3
“How God will judge my life I know not, but I trust he will see me with mercy and compassion. I am only certain there will be three surprises in Heaven. First of all, I will see some people whom I never expected to see. Second, there will be a number whom I expected…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
On Pain and Suffering
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ― C.S. Lewis Lewis’ quote incite in us the strength of God’s voice in the different moments of our life situations. Simplistically, the converse…
What the young ones said when the welcome ceremonies have ended and the regimentation sets in at the end of the first day of NS
“They will rob you of your identity”
“The memory of the time between lunch and this (evening) has been suppressed”
Complex & Simple, Persons, Places, Posts
Merdeka! Reflections on the Padang
“Merdeka! Reflections on the Padang. Time-stamp: 0541 hr, 27th March 2015 “Merdeka!” the rap guttural urgent cry of post-independent Mr Lee Kuan Yuan, resonating in my subconscious mind, was interrupted by the young man in army fatigues. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” the bespectacled young man in crew-cut shouted “move in and make yourself comfortable! There is…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Persons, Posts
Of Planting Trees
“A society grows great when old men plant trees, whose shade they know they shall never sit in” From an ancient Greek Proverb Mr Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), First Prime Minister of Singapore. He had never failed to plant a tree every year from 1963-2014 (picture from the Straits Times Archives)