Today is D's birthday, he who doesn't believe in making a big fuss of days and anniversaries. Still, Happy Birdday, dear, and Many Happy Returns! Pray that you may grow wiser and more like Christ each new day.
Lately, D has taken to reading murder mysteries, following my good example. He's always been reading tomes on theology, philosophy, education, especially home education, apologetics, Darwinism and creation science... He started with PD James' Death in Holy Orders, then bought Michael Connelly's Lost Light to compare between a British and an American murder mystery. James is slow, philosophical and eloquent while Connelly reads like a movie thriller with more action and drama. Now he's reading In the Presence of the Enemy written by Elizabeth George, a California resident whose mystery novels are set in England. EG's elegant, meticulously plotted Scotland Yard murder mysteries have been compared favourably with PD James' polished literary eloquence.
For a while, a few months ago, I was enamoured of both these ladies, especially with PD who was past 80 years old when Death in Holy Orders was published in 2001. Both books, together with several other novels, had been given by Suseela who had bought them second hand from Payless Books and finished with them. After that intro to PD, I found other titles, including an Omnibus PD James, and have read the following:
Death of an Expert Witness, Shroud for a Nightingale, The Skull beneath the Skin, A Taste for Death, Devices and Desires, Original Sin.
Of EG's, I've only read one more of her many: Deception on His Mind.
Satisfying, gratifying, and instructive.
What you learn: that in a murder case, one, everyone is a suspect, especially the immediate family and near relations and friends. Everyone is capable of murder, given the circumstances and opportunity.
Two, there are no secrets after a murder is discovered. The investigator probes and digs and unveils past events, actions, words... all is laid bare and will be revealed in a court of law if someone is charged with the murder. Witness the recent murder trials of Canny Ong, Noritta Samsuddin.
I had enough of murder mysteries after a while, but now I've begun The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It's a collection of stories written not by Conan Doyle but in the Conan Doyle style by various bestselling authors such as Anne Perry, Stephen King, Edward D. Hoch. So far the first 3 stories are good enough to make me want to go on with the 14 more.
Concerning my father-in-law, further tests have revealed that the cancer is confined to one lobe of the liver and is operable. Since he is a healthy 77 yr old (age according to the medical report), the doc recommends it, although statistically, the mortality rate for these kinds of operations is 20%, i.e. one in five don't make it out of the operating room alive. D's brothers and the 2 sisters in Singapore are now communicating by email and phone and praying.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Birthday and departure date and books and heaven
Yesterday was my birthday and I spent most of it in my favourite places: bookshops! Lunchtime, I took the boys to MPH at Jaya Jusco to use the 15% voucher which can only be used on a card member's birthdate. I bought Dorling Kindersley's 1000 Inventions & Discoveries. It's more for the boys than for me.
After a quick dinner at the Wangsa Square hawkers and dropping off the boys for their Malay language tuition, David and I drove to KLCC to visit the Times and Kinokuniya book stores. Times had sent a birthday voucher, so I bought Volume 7 of the Encyclopedia of Malaysia series: Early Modern History [1800-1940. David bought a Teach Yourself Jazz book from Kinokuniya and got a lovely big yellow umbrella with the words "Teach Yourself" on it Free. How appropriate: We are homeschoolers, and we teach ourselves!
So it's not just me, but D and the boys too, who love books, nay, are crazy about them, and do not mind spending on them. I give books for birthdays and Christmas most of the time, and we lend them out regularly. We also receive a lot of books as gifts (Sook Fern has given one which I have yet to collect from Si Khoon's later), and as second hand donations - homeschool books, novels etc. which we either use ourselves, give away or loan out.
So, I was thinking that when I go to heaven, Lord, I'll probably be happy to work in some industry to do with books, like a library, a bookshop or a school? Or maybe I could be a scribe or some kind of writer. Here and now, I'm thankful for what the Lord has given me: a husband who loves books and does not stinge on buying good books, boys who have come to love reading and enjoying good books, and homeschooling which allows us to read and learn together and enjoy great literature.
Talking about heaven, last Saturday, we received news that D's father, the boys' 79 year old Kong Kong, has liver cancer. He had been losing weight for some days and Albert, D's younger bro who's a gynae, arranged for him to have a medical checkup that morning. Tomorrow the results from the tests will come out and give a clearer picture of his condition and what may be done. According to Albert, at his advanced age, not much can be done and it can be quite a fast decline in health. My father in law has taken the news calmly apparently and seems prepared to wait for "the eventuality". He hasn't told his wife yet though, and the 4 sons are planning to meet with him and mother and tell her after the second opinion results are confimed tomorrow night. It will mean changes and adjustments have to be made.
When I shared with Jessy, my downstairs homeschool mom and prayer partner, she prayed for healing and asked forgiveness for us saying that "nothing much can be done". Strangely indeed, none of us, including father in law, cried out instinctively for healing from God. Why not? D said that death is also a healing from God. It is a release from the trials of this life, the end of a long hard race...as Paul said, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..." I think that uppermost in all our minds is that God's will be done and His name be glorified, whether in life or death.
Si Khoon, my ever optimistic bro, told me over the phone last night about a 60 something wife of his client who had just overcome serious liver cancer using a new powerful drug. The whole treatment costs over RM80,000. Yuen Pin, D's dentist cousin, whose Dad also had liver cancer, had a different tale. Her Dad decided not to undergo any treatment but let the disease take its course, with only pain killers to ease him. He died within 4 months of the diagnosis. But, YP said, those 4 months were the most precious memories she has of him and the family. There was time and opportunity to say many things left unsaid so long, and to prepare his widow and children for life without him, and for him to prepare himself for life in heaven.
I think that is the grace of God: for Him to give us this time of preparation with Father. It's better than for him to drop dead of a heart attack or of an accident and leave us suddenly. That was what happened last Sunday morning when Lingam got a phone call just as the sermon was about to start, and it turned out his younger brother had just died of a heart attack in the hospital, and he had to leave then.
Today is also the day Linda, a 40 something wife and mother of 2 grown sons, is going through her second course of chemotherapy at the UH to fight the cancer in her liver. Her first course was against the cancer of the colon some time back. This time the drug is more aggressive and powerful, and we're praying that the side effects will be minimal and bearable.
After a quick dinner at the Wangsa Square hawkers and dropping off the boys for their Malay language tuition, David and I drove to KLCC to visit the Times and Kinokuniya book stores. Times had sent a birthday voucher, so I bought Volume 7 of the Encyclopedia of Malaysia series: Early Modern History [1800-1940. David bought a Teach Yourself Jazz book from Kinokuniya and got a lovely big yellow umbrella with the words "Teach Yourself" on it Free. How appropriate: We are homeschoolers, and we teach ourselves!
So it's not just me, but D and the boys too, who love books, nay, are crazy about them, and do not mind spending on them. I give books for birthdays and Christmas most of the time, and we lend them out regularly. We also receive a lot of books as gifts (Sook Fern has given one which I have yet to collect from Si Khoon's later), and as second hand donations - homeschool books, novels etc. which we either use ourselves, give away or loan out.
So, I was thinking that when I go to heaven, Lord, I'll probably be happy to work in some industry to do with books, like a library, a bookshop or a school? Or maybe I could be a scribe or some kind of writer. Here and now, I'm thankful for what the Lord has given me: a husband who loves books and does not stinge on buying good books, boys who have come to love reading and enjoying good books, and homeschooling which allows us to read and learn together and enjoy great literature.
Talking about heaven, last Saturday, we received news that D's father, the boys' 79 year old Kong Kong, has liver cancer. He had been losing weight for some days and Albert, D's younger bro who's a gynae, arranged for him to have a medical checkup that morning. Tomorrow the results from the tests will come out and give a clearer picture of his condition and what may be done. According to Albert, at his advanced age, not much can be done and it can be quite a fast decline in health. My father in law has taken the news calmly apparently and seems prepared to wait for "the eventuality". He hasn't told his wife yet though, and the 4 sons are planning to meet with him and mother and tell her after the second opinion results are confimed tomorrow night. It will mean changes and adjustments have to be made.
When I shared with Jessy, my downstairs homeschool mom and prayer partner, she prayed for healing and asked forgiveness for us saying that "nothing much can be done". Strangely indeed, none of us, including father in law, cried out instinctively for healing from God. Why not? D said that death is also a healing from God. It is a release from the trials of this life, the end of a long hard race...as Paul said, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..." I think that uppermost in all our minds is that God's will be done and His name be glorified, whether in life or death.
Si Khoon, my ever optimistic bro, told me over the phone last night about a 60 something wife of his client who had just overcome serious liver cancer using a new powerful drug. The whole treatment costs over RM80,000. Yuen Pin, D's dentist cousin, whose Dad also had liver cancer, had a different tale. Her Dad decided not to undergo any treatment but let the disease take its course, with only pain killers to ease him. He died within 4 months of the diagnosis. But, YP said, those 4 months were the most precious memories she has of him and the family. There was time and opportunity to say many things left unsaid so long, and to prepare his widow and children for life without him, and for him to prepare himself for life in heaven.
I think that is the grace of God: for Him to give us this time of preparation with Father. It's better than for him to drop dead of a heart attack or of an accident and leave us suddenly. That was what happened last Sunday morning when Lingam got a phone call just as the sermon was about to start, and it turned out his younger brother had just died of a heart attack in the hospital, and he had to leave then.
Today is also the day Linda, a 40 something wife and mother of 2 grown sons, is going through her second course of chemotherapy at the UH to fight the cancer in her liver. Her first course was against the cancer of the colon some time back. This time the drug is more aggressive and powerful, and we're praying that the side effects will be minimal and bearable.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Pro -life or Pro-choice
I know! I haven't written for 9 days today. This is the life of a homeschool mum of 2 fast-growing always-hungry teenagers (Ethan is 14 and Elliot is 12) living in a 2500 sq ft apartment. So, as I've mentioned, I read in the toilet, and I take days and weeks to finish a book.
I finished Richard North Patterson's Protect and Defend a few days back. It's a thriller dealing with the divisive issue of abortion in the context of the politics of a new president of the US nominating a new chief justice to the Supreme Court.
The author is biased towards the pro-choice and paints a sympathetic picture of the lady lawyer who helps a teenage pregnant girl go to court to declare a state law mandating parental consent for a late term abortion unconstitutional and void. The parents of the girl appear in the court case in support of the law. The conversations, testimonies and cross-examinations are painful to read. The girl and her lawyer insist on an abortion because the foetus has been found to have hydrocephalus or water on the brain and may not survive long after birth. But the reason put forward for abortion is that the girl's mental health and reproductive rights may be infringed, i.e., there is a 5% chance of her becoming infertile if she were to have a classical C-section which is the only way of delivering such a foetus.
The parents argued that a life is a life and they were prepared to take care of the girl and the baby. Loss of the ability to have more babies is not to be compared with the loss of a life. One can always adopt.
The story was probably inspired by the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v Wade which involved two feminist lady lawyers (one of them named Sarah as in the book) helping or, you could say, using a pregnant young girl to challenge "the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life"
The decision of the Court effectually opened the gates to abortion on demand in the US. The majority judgment, written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, is the most convoluted argument I've read recently, basing the right of a woman to abort on her right of privacy.
"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution.
"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
"We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation."
Then he went on to find that a foetus is not legally a "person" and to divide the gestation period into three trimesters with differing rules as to how the State may regulate the right to abort.
I felt a little sick after reading all that as well as a few other websites on the subject. In Malaysia, abortion is generally illegal unless the doctors certify that continuation of pregnancy or delivery of the baby will threaten the life or physical or mental health of the woman. But the fact is, abortions take place every day here as in the US or Canada or elsewhere in the world.
To me, abortion is murder, or more precisely, infanticide: child-murder, the killing of an infant before or after birth. The pro-choicers will say, what about those who were raped, what about when it affects the physical or mental health of the pregnant, especially the very young females? It is not easy at all to answer these. I found a website www.standupgirl.com which was set up by a young girl to let "young women who've had or wanted an abortion tell their stories." "So you're pregnant, scared and alone?" Becky says "I know. I was there too, and I'd like to help." Now there's something pro-active and pro-life!
I finished Richard North Patterson's Protect and Defend a few days back. It's a thriller dealing with the divisive issue of abortion in the context of the politics of a new president of the US nominating a new chief justice to the Supreme Court.
The author is biased towards the pro-choice and paints a sympathetic picture of the lady lawyer who helps a teenage pregnant girl go to court to declare a state law mandating parental consent for a late term abortion unconstitutional and void. The parents of the girl appear in the court case in support of the law. The conversations, testimonies and cross-examinations are painful to read. The girl and her lawyer insist on an abortion because the foetus has been found to have hydrocephalus or water on the brain and may not survive long after birth. But the reason put forward for abortion is that the girl's mental health and reproductive rights may be infringed, i.e., there is a 5% chance of her becoming infertile if she were to have a classical C-section which is the only way of delivering such a foetus.
The parents argued that a life is a life and they were prepared to take care of the girl and the baby. Loss of the ability to have more babies is not to be compared with the loss of a life. One can always adopt.
The story was probably inspired by the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v Wade which involved two feminist lady lawyers (one of them named Sarah as in the book) helping or, you could say, using a pregnant young girl to challenge "the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life"
The decision of the Court effectually opened the gates to abortion on demand in the US. The majority judgment, written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, is the most convoluted argument I've read recently, basing the right of a woman to abort on her right of privacy.
"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution.
"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
"We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation."
Then he went on to find that a foetus is not legally a "person" and to divide the gestation period into three trimesters with differing rules as to how the State may regulate the right to abort.
I felt a little sick after reading all that as well as a few other websites on the subject. In Malaysia, abortion is generally illegal unless the doctors certify that continuation of pregnancy or delivery of the baby will threaten the life or physical or mental health of the woman. But the fact is, abortions take place every day here as in the US or Canada or elsewhere in the world.
To me, abortion is murder, or more precisely, infanticide: child-murder, the killing of an infant before or after birth. The pro-choicers will say, what about those who were raped, what about when it affects the physical or mental health of the pregnant, especially the very young females? It is not easy at all to answer these. I found a website www.standupgirl.com which was set up by a young girl to let "young women who've had or wanted an abortion tell their stories." "So you're pregnant, scared and alone?" Becky says "I know. I was there too, and I'd like to help." Now there's something pro-active and pro-life!
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Singapore History
On the Nice bus from KL to Singapore last Wednesday, I started on, what else, a book by a Singaporean lawyer Philip Jeyaretnam. It's his third book, Abraham's Promise, (pub. 1995) about an old man, Abraham Isaac, who grew up in Singapore and lived through the Japanese Occupation and the politics of the newly independent Singapore. For a young man, the author certainly drew a credible character in Abraham and the times he lived in. It was like a walk through history, his own as well as that of the country.
I felt like I went through the time tunnel to the 50's and 60's too when we visited the Images of Singapore Museum on Sentosa Island. The mannequins were so well done they seemed almost alive. The whole display of the historical events and daily life in the streets and shops and festivals was artfully and superbly put together so that, as I said, I felt like I was back in those days when I was a child. I recognised kitchen implements and china, and a baby chair made of bamboo which doubled as a small table when turned over. Hey, I used to sit in that chair when I was a toddler!
Then suddenly, as we were walking along the exhibits showing the Japanese Occupation period and turned the corner, we saw... my name in big black print on a banner! It was the Sook Ching operation! It was to purge or wipe out the Chinese rebels. Under the operation, thousands of Chinese young men were rounded up and examined as to whether they were rebels or harmless. It was arbitrarily done, as those with glasses or those with tattoos may be deemed dangerous and sent to be killed. Those who passed the test were given a stamp on their bodies or clothes, a stamp of life.
When we came home and I did a google search on Japanese occupation and my name, wow! 342 results. I didn't know that my name meant "to eliminate" in Chinese. Did my parents when they gave me that name? I must ask them soon.
It was in Feb 1942, that fateful month in which the "impregnable fortress" fell, that the Japanese Imperial Army carried out an operation to purge people who were deemed anti-Japanese. Local Chinese came to term this as "Sook Ching" which, literally translated, means "to eliminate". The Chinese had supported the war effort in China through fund-raising campaigns and the boycott of Japanese goods. Besides that, they also served as volunteers in the defence of Singapore and Malaya. So they were the natural targets.(http://www.mindef.gov.sg/history/index.asp?cat=histdisp&id=1)
Quote
"...I will never understand how decisions affecting life and death could be taken so capriciously and casually. I had had a narrow escape from an exercise called "Sook Ching", meaning to "wipe out" rebels..."
Senior Minister, MR LEE KUAN YEW in "The Singapore Story - Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew".
The thought came to me too: what if my Dad had been killed in the war before he could marry my mother and before I, the eldest of his four children, could be conceived and born? Why I wouldn't be here then, I wouldn't exist! And neither would Ethan nor Elliot today.
No, I don't believe the decisions affecting life and death were arbitrary and capricious in God's view. They may have seemed so, to the human eye, but because I believe in a God who made and designed me and each and every one of us humans, they were not at all in God's plan and story. History is not merely the story of man but even more, it is His Story, His working in and through man.
I felt like I went through the time tunnel to the 50's and 60's too when we visited the Images of Singapore Museum on Sentosa Island. The mannequins were so well done they seemed almost alive. The whole display of the historical events and daily life in the streets and shops and festivals was artfully and superbly put together so that, as I said, I felt like I was back in those days when I was a child. I recognised kitchen implements and china, and a baby chair made of bamboo which doubled as a small table when turned over. Hey, I used to sit in that chair when I was a toddler!
Then suddenly, as we were walking along the exhibits showing the Japanese Occupation period and turned the corner, we saw... my name in big black print on a banner! It was the Sook Ching operation! It was to purge or wipe out the Chinese rebels. Under the operation, thousands of Chinese young men were rounded up and examined as to whether they were rebels or harmless. It was arbitrarily done, as those with glasses or those with tattoos may be deemed dangerous and sent to be killed. Those who passed the test were given a stamp on their bodies or clothes, a stamp of life.
When we came home and I did a google search on Japanese occupation and my name, wow! 342 results. I didn't know that my name meant "to eliminate" in Chinese. Did my parents when they gave me that name? I must ask them soon.
It was in Feb 1942, that fateful month in which the "impregnable fortress" fell, that the Japanese Imperial Army carried out an operation to purge people who were deemed anti-Japanese. Local Chinese came to term this as "Sook Ching" which, literally translated, means "to eliminate". The Chinese had supported the war effort in China through fund-raising campaigns and the boycott of Japanese goods. Besides that, they also served as volunteers in the defence of Singapore and Malaya. So they were the natural targets.(http://www.mindef.gov.sg/history/index.asp?cat=histdisp&id=1)
Quote
"...I will never understand how decisions affecting life and death could be taken so capriciously and casually. I had had a narrow escape from an exercise called "Sook Ching", meaning to "wipe out" rebels..."
Senior Minister, MR LEE KUAN YEW in "The Singapore Story - Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew".
The thought came to me too: what if my Dad had been killed in the war before he could marry my mother and before I, the eldest of his four children, could be conceived and born? Why I wouldn't be here then, I wouldn't exist! And neither would Ethan nor Elliot today.
No, I don't believe the decisions affecting life and death were arbitrary and capricious in God's view. They may have seemed so, to the human eye, but because I believe in a God who made and designed me and each and every one of us humans, they were not at all in God's plan and story. History is not merely the story of man but even more, it is His Story, His working in and through man.
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