I’ve been reading this book titled “Tyrannicide Brief” by Geoffrey Robertson. It is a fascinating story about this guy called John Cooke, a lawyer in the 17^th century tasked with the taking poisoned chalice of prosecuting King Charles I. There was a part early in the book where Mr Robertson tried to explain what drove Cooke, a relatively poor commoner of Puritan roots in England, to devote his life to public service, ultimately to the point of death. He thought a lot of it had to do with the dominance of religion at that time, as there was little else going for people of his stock at that time in history. It may have been a serendipitous outcome in Mr Robertson’s mind but it anchored him so well that he was willing to prosecute his King. To me however, it was the other way around. I think his faith in God, while it may have given him inner conviction, stood alone in its truth. He may have been an insignificant public servant who stayed on in Ireland (where he first gained recognition as a lawyer) and made his money. He may have sailed to the New World (USA) with many of his kind and gained prominence there as a republican of a new order. He may have simply remained a farmer of sorts in 17^th century England, never to have attracted the attention of anyone including Mr Robertson. His faith in God was and still is an independent and all-relevant truth. I’m teetering on the edge of “huh?” but I guess what I’m saying is that by ascribing his religious propensity as a reason for his courageous act, Mr Robertson has relegated Mr Cooke’s faith to a secondary importance and sub-planted it with some other piece of history, important and illuminating the a prosecution of the sovereign may have been. One’s faith in God, one’s allegiance and obedience to Him, should be the be-all and end-all issue. Ecclesiastes says the whole purpose of man is to be happy in his work and fear God. Notice how Mr Cooke’s vocation is secondary to his religious duty, in terms of Ecclesiastes. That should be true for everyone. I have not finished reading this absorbing account and will certainly cherish every morsel left in the remaining few pages. I will however be reminded that whatever one’s achievement in history, if one fears God, it doesn’t matter what one does as long as he enjoys it.

Yesterday after church, we had lunch at this eat place serving good Malaysian food in Forrest Hill/Brentford area. It was pretentiously called Shangri La but the closest this joint came to resembling paradise was the special laksa, which has wonderful yong tau foo in it. We were there with some church people and after lunch, Theresa went with Auntie Hooi while I sent Raymond home. Elysia and I then went to the Glen Waverley library for a while. It was there the first of a series of mishaps took place, which were to make our weekend a lousy one. I had reserved Geoffrey Robertson’s “Tyrannicide Brief” and was going to pick it up. Elysia had however, used my card the previous day and had given the card back not to me but to Theresa. Never mind – we could still use Theresa’s card, which was with Elysia, to check out the book. We then went home and on the way home, we discussed what we would do when we reached home. It was about 3.30pm only and we had more than a couple of hours to go before it got dark, so I suggested we either do some gardening together or go for a walk in the park. We thought also of buying a basketball to go and play in her school yard, provided the advertised special for basketballs was on. It wasn’t, so we decided to work the garden. I suggested she walked around the block while I mow the lawn, and she worked herself into a bit of an excitement, probably happy she was getting some physical activity in and pleasing me while at it. We changed our clothes and I started mowing the lawn and she went for her walk. She was all excited when she came back, I was still doing the garden, and we also had a good chit chat with Therese, the elderly neighbour just across the road. So it was all turning out to be a pretty good afternoon. I continued with the mowing and Elysia went into the house. Two minutes later Elysia stood in front of me and made a door opening motion with her hands. She had closed the house door and locked ourselves out. She asked if I had the keys, probably knowing what she had done. I immediately good hot under the collar, walked around the house looking for any unlocked window, even considered climbing in through the roof. Of course the only real option for us was to get a locksmith, something I didn’t want to do for the obvious reason or avoiding costs. In the end we had to – went to another neighbour’s house (Yan’s) and called a locksmith. Cost us $100 and I didn’t have enough cash. I drove to the nearest ATM machine and before I knew it, was desperately looking at a screen saying I had entered a wrong PIN. After the third time the card was retained and I was wondering what had happened when I then realised I had fed my credit card into the ATM machine instead of my ATM card. So I lost a hundred bucks and my credit card. Hmmm… went home, put away the mower, cleaned up the garden and just sat on my front steps and opened a cold one. I needed this. Elysia came home from the Yan’s, sat with me, and we had a chat. Really. It was just a quiet chat. I didn’t want her earlier enthusiasm to be dampened by a common but costly mistake. I told Theresa this morning, of how tricky it can be for a parent to strike the balance between constantly teaching our children but not doing it so much or in ways which would discourage them or make them feel inadequate. Elysia is a bright and intelligent girl who occasionally does juvenile things, because she is one! We need to build her up and we need loads of wisdom and patience, to do it well. Anyway the lost credit card wasn’t the last mishap for the day. I put a clear iron mark on my pants when I did the ironing in the evening, capping off a wonderful weekend… and it was Father’s Day here in Melbourne yesterday…

One would have thought US would be pretty good at crisis management. Many Australians were very impressed with the way the Canadians handled a recent plane take-off accident, where there were zero casualties. Equally impressive was the way the British authorities handled the aftermath of the recent bombings in London. It came as a shock to me therefore to wake up to the news that New Orleans is in utter chaos after Katrina’s destructive blast. What caused such chaotic aftermaths? Rescue missions had to be held back because of shootings in the streets? Why were there shootings in the first place? Was uncontrolled looting the cause? I’ve heard of New Orleans being a pretty free sort of a place but there appears to be absolutely no restrains of any kind going on here. I prayed for that city for the first time ever. I think it was the first time I prayed for any city in the US. Not even when the World Trade Centre was attacked, did I pray for the US. Later when Elysia and I prayed before leaving the house, we prayed for New Orleans again. It is tempting to think of it as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah type of retribution, seeing that New Orleans is probably what one may call a city of sins of sorts, but it is a city full of loving, ordinary decent people, I’m sure. May God have mercy on the people there and bring deliverance soon.

2 senior Berkeley professors of law recently wrote a piece http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol2/iss3/art4/  suggesting Americans’ low contributions to charity can perhaps be nursed to more respectable health by creating a public registry where details of donations to charity are detailed for all to see. It was suggested that such publicity would encourage more generosity and discourage miserly behavior.  It is refreshing to have such clear, simple, unadulterated and intuitively correct propositions by law academics. Overseas Chinese guilds have for generations practiced such a public registry system. I remember staring at huge wall panels on which row after row of donors’ names and the amounts donated are all carved with gold calligraphy. Such public displays of donations have or course been instrumental in funding causes which would otherwise not have taken off at all. Chinese schools and Chinese hospitals have for years been beneficiaries of such largesse harvested largely through a public registry tool. Chinese funerals are another example. Almost all such funerals I have attended have cash registers at the front where cash contributions are collected and at the end of the 3 or 4 day wake, the family would announce the amounts to be donated to various Chinese schools or associations. Each one of these cash contributions is painstakingly recorded and such records are kept for generations. I also recall going to my grandfather’s Hokkien Association or his HuiAnn Association annual do. Go to any such Chinese guild and association functions and you would have public auctions of items where local tycoons would outwardly and ceremoniously attempt to outbid some other competing local tycoons to buy a tv or fan, to raise funds for the hosts. Leaving aside the fact that these bidders are often in a mode of drunken bravado, these “public auctions” can reap a small fortune for the guild or association. The idea of course is the concept of “face”. It has been said to be an Asian trait but I have always suspected it is universal. Everyone (ie all races) is conscious of attracting accolades or avoiding embarrassment. Heck even in my church in Klang, the monthly and special offerings are published in full. The official rationale is accountability but I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that it is a Chinese church and it is saddled with a lot of traditional Chinese practices, including keeping public registries of donations. It may not be biblical (do not let your right hand know what your left hand does) but it tends to work. As a Christian I should obey God’s words and not seek to have my charity be public knowledge but I have to acknowledge the efficacy of keeping such acts public. Of course it boosts the coffers of public charity.