Author: Eikon Theou

Washed up, grateful for tender mercies from above

Another turn


Back in Malaysia all those years ago, we used to go up for holidays in Penang. We’d stay in one of those beach hotels in Ferringhi and my recollection is always sweet. I remember when as a very little girl, kiddo was afraid even to tread on sand. We had to ease her into it – taking one literal baby step at a time. I saw fear and held her hand.

Soon however she loved the beach. But the heat and humidity meant we weren’t at the beach a lot. Strange I know, that we’d stay in a beach hotel and didn’t spend virtually all the time at the beach. We would however, spend hours in the pool. We’d be at the beach for a short while and then come back to the pool and be there for the most part.

In one of the hotels there were slides on the edge of the pool and kids would have a whale of a time climbing up to the top and sliding into the pool. I remember one had two slides – a low and gradually sloped one and a higher, steeper one.

Once kiddo decided to be adventurous and decided to go for the higher one. At some point between scaling the height of that slide and hitting the water, her excitement clearly turned into fear. That point of transformation was in the lower half. She must have picked up speed somewhat. As I often did, I was waiting at the point where she’d hit the water, ready to pick her up from the water. As I looked at her, I saw the fear in her eyes. There are several points in her life I remember well. That was one of them and I still see it when I close my eyes and reminisce.

Like I said, there were others. Obviously the moment of her birth is up there. I hope even if the day comes where I am struck by dementia, I would never forget that moment, when a dark purplish bulb turned, in a twinkling of an eye, into a beautiful angelic pink face. Then there was the time she was in a park for a corporate family function. She had climbed a structure all the way to the top. When she stopped to look down she swore for the first time – she was maybe 4 years old then and I saw that fear in her eyes. Then there was that hot soup scalding she had and the days of treatment – after that. The trips to the doctors, with the gauze removed, wound cleaned and new gauze applied. She was resolute but I saw fear in her eyes.

I can no longer hold her hand as she treads sand for the first time, or be at the bottom of the waterslide to pick her up, or climb up the monkey bar to carry her down. Or hold her hand as she lay on the doctor’s bed. But every day, I still pray she would not have that look of fear in her eyes.

Effort and Cost


There’s a bunch of guys in the gym who take it upon themselves to make sure everyone knew the locker room is a locker room. The 5 minutes before and 10-15 minutes after that I spend in that locker room, is constantly peppered with vulgarity, profanity, abuse and sexual derision that is constant and gratuitous.

This morning there was “something entirely different” – they “discussed” the case of a baby (yet to be born) who has two faces, two brains but just the one body. That case was going to be a feature story of a magazine styled tv show later tonight and was advertised extensively this morning. I guess we must have been seeing the same things on the tv screens facing the cardiovascular exercise machines.

A member of this usually loud and bothersome trio opined loudly that if the baby is still unborn and it is a known fact that he/she would be born with this complication, the pregnancy should be terminated forthwith and the child spared the agony of social, physical and emotional wars he or she would surely have to fight for the most part of his or her life.

Last Thursday at the home group of our church, someone mentioned Melinda Tankard Reist and I remember reading about her work iin Caberra, where she established a halfway house sort of facility for pregnant women. Tankard Reist is a pro-life campaigner and founded the home to support women who would otherwise have terminated their pregnancies. At that time I thought it was compelling work. I have a vague sense of the mountains of challenges single women and women without the support or means to bring up a child, face when the contemplate bringing a child into this world. Pro-life campaigners may mount the most compelling argument against abortion but that still leaves the issue of the practical challenges facing women with unwanted pregnancies. The halfway home Tankard Reist founded gave credence and real help to back up its convictions.

Life is indeed sacred. So terminating life for no other reasons than the mother’s right to live a life of certain quality on the one hand seems difficult to support. But equally difficult to support is an argument for preserving that life if this would then mean years of untold agony the mother and many others, would face given the pregnancy was unwanted. This would be especially true if that child is also saddled with the sort of complications the tv show would highlight tonight. No doubt with state of the art graphics that would tell a most visual story.

Maybe the community of faith is meant to step in here. It may work better if the prolife camp had “more skin in the game” i.e. when an unwanted pregnancy isn’t terminated, the baby would be assured of a village he or she would require to bring him or her up. Extended somewhat, a community of faith in obedience to our Lord’s teaching can ensure that even that child with such astounding complications (as we shall no doubt find out tonight) would be provided with the best chance of being loved and becoming a cherished member of a community. It is when we each look after ourselves that we look for the easiest way to deal with issues like unwanted pregnancies – make the problem go away…

Uncle Jin, New Quite Mornings…


A couple of nights ago Tress and I felt a wave of sadness as we received news of Uncle Jin’s diagnosis. Tress then rang her parents in Klang and after that she must sat up reading to learn more about the condition.

 

While Uncle Jin came across as positive when we met him last weekend, so he is determined to deal with this head on. I hope he does well through the treatment process.

 

Other than the confronting news, other matters have added up to make this a full on week. Work continues to be unrelenting and while I still take a hardnosed approach in leaving on time (by 5.30) I now leave knowing there is so much more to do and so the pressure builds up. But I tell myself there will always be loads to do in any event so just deal with each day as it comes. But I do go home tired every day now, and can’t wait to take the little fellow out, do my gym laundry, fix lunch for the next day and then settle down with Tress and my glass of wine. It is often the best time of the day.

 

Or maybe that moment of a glass in one hand is being challenged as the best part of the day… I now enjoy reading the scriptures again and am working hard at going through a few chapters every morning. The sense of letting God reveal to me who He is, what He does and what please Him and what displeases Him – all of this is taking me to a place that gives me joy and peace. And so that 20-30 minute between waiting at the train platform and arriving at Parliament Station is now taken up with reading, reflecting and praying. It has been a good few weeks that way. 2014 has been good that way.

 

Officially there is only 3 weeks left this summer. But the unrelenting heat makes it feel like it would be a very long 3 weeks, and more likely than not, it would remain warm till at least mid April. Anyway, it would be another hot weekend, with temperatures forecast for 40 degree tomorrow… sigh…

Work Grind


Earlier today I had a series of palpitations and while I’ve had them before – once a few years ago when I’ve had a few coffees – it was a bit of a worry.

The only source of stress for me is work, as I now have little interests outside of work which may have caused any sensation of any sort.

Sure, United’s abysmal struggles to cope with the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson have been a source of consternation but it isn’t anxiety. I am a long term fan but I seldom feel fanatical about its prospects.

At work the pressure is mounting. It has been. And with a colleague recently welcoming the arrival of his firstborn, his ensuing absence has meant an escalation of work streaming in towards yours truly. Somehow the boss too, has been funnelling a certain type of work towards me. Maybe that’s the source of it.

Increasingly in any event, the sentiments which drove me out of practice into not for profit work back in 2011, have been swarming back. The constant focus on matters which entail subjective, soft and obscure concepts all for the apparent objective of documenting thought processes, deliberations and decisions, often come across as paper generating and shuffling which does little to add real value. Often such work appear to come about not because it actually improves the operations of the company or reduces the risk it wears but simply because the boss (or his boss) wanted it done, and that could have come about from any angle, including to satisfy his/her/their boss’ KRAs.

I am still warding off work beyond regular hours but that too increasingly means my work is falling behind. Longer hours may no longer be an optional matter.

Phillip Symour Hoffman and Uncle Jin


I was at the gym this morning when breaking news flashed across the television screen in front of me, saying Phillip Seymour Hoffman has died. He was 46 years old. I have come to like his acting a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed “Doubt” where he played a catholic Father alongside Meryl Streep to great effect. For one reason or another I have never got around to watching “Capote” and so probably missed his most acclaimed performance.

I was quickly scanning his responses to interviews about how he struggled to cope with everyday activities. He said something to the effect that he, like many people, woke up each morning and struggled in wondering if he knew he was going to spend the day doing something that he would feel good about at the end of that day so that he could end that day sleeping well.

I guess that struggle often meant he didn’t think so which lead to his reported problems with heroin. Like many people, I guess when a celebrity who performs heroically on screen reveals such vulnerability there is a certain level of comfort on the part of plebs like me. And yet it also reveals how we can over-rate the role of performance and making a difference in the workspace.

Work, like a mate of mine often said, is a means to an end. In as much as it takes a huge chunk of our time, performance should probably make a difference in other spheres more than in work. I’m sure many would not share this view. Work and its focus, and centrality in life, tends to underpin wealth creation and wellness of one’s body and to a lesser extent, soul. To relegate it to any other level can feel like a cop out. Yet it looks like it is the source of turmoil and lair of demons to souls like Hoffman.

Tress and I visited Uncle Jin in his home at Point Cook over the weekend and the simplicity of life appears to be the takeaway. Here’s a wealthy man who now confronts the vagaries of life in the form of medical uncertainty. His wife is a pillar of strength but has her moments of weakness. All he wants now is knowledge of what confronts him and what that means to the future. His future. His wife’s future. His soon to be married daughter’s future. The future of all of his children and his grandchildren.

All Tress and I could do is to be there for him. We didn’t perform in a way that made a difference. Sometimes one doesn’t have tasks to be accomplished to make a difference. I hope we made a difference simply by being there. But it doesn’t matter. It is not about us making a difference. It is about the welfare of those around us. Or are they just different sides to a coin? Maybe. But when we focus on just one side as we often do, something doesn’t sit right…

I hope Uncle Jin finds peace soon. I hope the doctors give him positive news and soon. I hope he finds true peace – peace with God – soon.

Work Ethics


The following story reflects a lot of what I’ve been wrestling with in recent months. Well not really wrestling but just thinking it through quite often.

I now get off work between 5 and 5.30 and hardly ever work on weekends or at night. There is always tons of work but quite often – almost always – I don’t go out of my way to complete as much as possible. If I did I wouldn’t have been able to avoid working later and possibly also work on weekends.

This is a change I have undergone in recent years. Maybe like the writer below said, it is a change as a result of having lived and worked here in recent years, where it’s ok to head home at “home time” and not worry about working longer or harder beyond that. In fact, in my previous comparable job (where I was working late and on weekends) I have had friends say to me why I bothered coming to Australia if I worked like that. I might as well have remained in Asia. That was 4+ years ago now.

After a short stint in state government and a not-for-profit concern, my return to my old haunt has entailed a much more laidback approach. There are the odd post 6pm’s and occasional weekend work. But those are rare and far in between. By and large I am now an 8-5 worker with no weekend work. Is this good?

I am reading through the intricate accounts of the latter half of Exodus and the start of Leviticus and one of the messages that came out of this part of the Scriptures is that work to strive for excellence is something which either the Lord requires or would please Him. The attention to details on matters such as construction of the ark, the washing utensils, the altar, the lampstand, the tabernacle and the priests attire is an eye opening revelation. 

I had in the past, laboured through this section of my sequential reading by trying to ascertain the symbolism and functionalities of these apparatus. Little did it dawn on me that the simple and sheer emphasis on good craftsmanship, attention to details and commitment to beauty and quality are all given recognition too, in these narratives.  

Does that say something about our work? Maybe it does. I think Paul too alluded to the giving of one’s best while at work. Does that entail working beyond designated working hours? What if dedication to quality and good workmanship requires long working hours? Is the modern day exaltation of quality of life and/or work life balance over-rated? Certainly the designated working hours is a modern day invention – probably to ensure labour is not exploited by owners of capital. So are we to seek shelter if to do so is not to seek protection from exploitation but to protect our own enjoyment of that part of our lives which are outside of work?

It’s probably a fine line. Maybe it is all to do with the heart and the intention and bona fides of each worker. If I work long hours to deliver good workmanship and not because I want to get ahead of my colleague and grab that promotion at his expense, maybe then I shouldn’t be working those long hours. Ditto if promotion is replaced by other forms of “rewards” like a fatter bonus or increment. If I am committed for no other reason than good workmanship maybe it is acceptable.

I guess the countervailing factor is our commitment to our family. Maybe work-life balance in terms of actually spending non-working hours with our spouses and children is not over-rated and warrant cutting short our working hours. One can go on and set out different scenarios I guess but I think it is probably settled in my mind, that working long hours per se is not necessarily something God would not want me to do…

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/its-just-crazy-being-lazy/story-e6frg6zo-1226813365787

It’s just crazy being lazy by: TANIA DE JONG |From: The Australian |January 30, 2014

EARLIER this month I was down at Manly Beach on a perfect Sydney summer Sunday. Lying on my towel, I noticed a vibrant guy talking in a foreign language that turned out to be Spanish.

His name was Jose, and he was at the beach with his wife and kids. He’d been in Australia only a few months. I asked him what he thought of this special land and he said he loved it. I asked what had brought him here and he said he was looking to work in another country and asked the multinational company for which he worked if he might transfer to Australia. They agreed.

He told me that in Spain he used to work most days until 7pm, often even later, and on weekends. At work in Sydney he was asked how long it would take to complete a certain project. He said three days. The unbelieving manager said the work usually took them two to three weeks. Sure enough, Jose completed the job in three days.

He was also being paid much more in Australia for doing similar work to what he did in Spain.

However, after a few months here, Jose said he now just works like everyone else. He doesn’t go above and beyond to complete things quickly because everyone just expects the team to work at the same rate. Those who try to get ahead are frowned upon. Now he is always home by 5.15pm and never works weekends. Unsurprisingly, he says life is great here in Australia.

What sort of culture do we have where achievers put their heads in the sand just to conform? Are we teaching our children that it’s OK just to be OK? Who would ever bother being an entrepreneur in this country? And why would anyone ever start a company in Australia?

We are an ingenious people, but we have ridden on our luck, especially in relying on our natural resources to get us through. But being lucky is no longer enough. We need to act now to harness our potential or we will be remembered as a country that blew its chances of economic greatness: another Argentina.

Don’t get me wrong, Australians aren’t short of great ideas, but the costs of labour, rigid workplace cultures, risk-averse managements and a belief that government is there to pick up the pieces when businesses go wrong together make for a climate toxic to innovation.

Our default complacency, with our leisure-loving lifestyles, and pay and conditions more generous than we can afford, affect our productivity and ability to compete on a global stage with leaner, hungrier and more internationalised economies.

We are losing much of our innovative and entrepreneurial talent to other nations that promote innovation and celebrate achievement. That applies to businesses, too. To sustain our national lifestyle, our economy needs to grow, and growth depends on individual courage, imagination and entrepreneurship. We need policy, regulatory, taxation and cultural changes to help innovation flourish. Creative leaders and entrepreneurs should be feted like sporting stars and, indeed, heroic failures honoured just as much as successes. Australia should be a place where being good is something to be proud of, where trying to be the best is worthwhile in itself.

 

Jose feeling that he had to dumb himself down to fit into the “manana is good enough for me” mentality in his Australian workplace not only is a shame, but reflects poorly on all of us.

Tania de Jong AM is a soprano, social entrepreneur and speaker.

Summer Grinds On


It has been a hazy sort of fortnight. We were in Sydney and on the NSW coast this time 2 weeks ago, ready to say goodbye to kiddo and make our way back to Melbourne through the coast. We got home a couple of days later to a searing hot few days. I got sick the next day and so didn’t get in to work and on Friday “laboured” through yet another very hot day.

That weekend Tress and I got ready for our guest (OG), who arrived early on Sunday morning. She came here for the tennis and went back (to KL) a couple of days ago. While here, our days were focused on making her stay as pleasant and smooth as possible. Perhaps in some ways, I had subconsciously subscribed to a belief in karma and so thought if we were hospitable to our guest who is a single lady living with her parents as the only child, someone would in turn return the favour at the other side of this sometimes inhospitable world.

OG has made a number of facebook entries which suggest she had a really good time here and the tennis has been very entertaining so although the tickets cost a small fortune in terms of Malaysian ringgit, it looked like money well spent and any pain in that department would have been further abated by a homely surrounding throughout her stay.

We brought her along to a couple of home dinner parties. I think she liked our hosts in those parties and Tress noticed that she had made facebook friends with them. I’m glad she enjoyed those encounters although for a short while I was a little bit concerned when she used a bit of language in one of those parties. She was sitting next to me and it wasn’t uttered too loudly so hopefully I was the only one who heard it and thought it was surprising. Or maybe I’m just a prude.

Unfortunately I find myself swearing more often that I like. I accept responsibility and think I should really be more restrained but I also think this is a partly a product of our times and environment.

The 5 lawyers and 1 EA in the team all swear. Certainly not gratuitously but more habitually than I’d like. Still, the context is within a team who work and share physical space together for up to 10 hours a day. Utopia would be where there is either an absence of stress and challenges, or when these are met with steely resolute that excludes all forms of swearing. Utopia is as far away as it has always been. And so we swear. More than I like.

At home, now that there is no one other than Tress and LBJ, I am also less restrained. Again, it is rare and I am conscious of letting this become a pattern or habit but I do swear. More than I like.

Socially however, I am far more circumspect and far more restrained. It is not a question of putting on a façade. It is a question of respecting the host and upholding good standards of behaviour in a public or social context. It is also respecting the hosts’ other guests. Any swearing is more than I like. Most would probably say this is all subjective and it is up to individuals to adopt standards of behaviour most suited to an individual or which that individual is comfortable with.

It really was only a tiny aberration. I’m confident OG had a good time and I trust her experience would be something she’d like to replicate for others. Anyway, she left late Sunday night, just as the men’s final match was coming to an end. We heard the match finish up on the radio on the way to the airport. We dropped her off, and got back home just before midnight.

On Monday Tress and I went to the fruit and vege market early, got stuff to make loads of juice to keep in the fridge for the coming very warm days this week and had wanted to go watch “Saving Mr Banks” but surprisingly, the cinema in Forest Hill Chase was quite full for that screening and no good seats were available so we wandered through the shopping centre, went for lunch and then went home.

Late in the evening – after 8pm – I decided to go water the plants with some nutrients mixed in. Lately, watering the garden/plants has become a serene late afternoon activity for me. I have found it soothing and therapeutic to just go to each plant with either a watering can or the hose, and give each a good soaking. It is a great 30-45/45-60 minutes to make that “very full” feeling after dinner go away, before getting ready for bed and psychologically setting myself up for the next day. Usually that means some tv and a few drinks. I have been thinking the past couple of days, that the tv’s got to be reduced substantially so that I get to read more. I hope I do that…

Church leadership must help member, not allow issues to fester


A LifeGate church member had her car vandalised while it was parked on church compound in Glen Waverley during normal church service time on a Sunday.

That member has had a long running complaint against the leadership for a while now, for the same reason many entries in this blog have set out. Unfortunately that complaint has gone unaddressed and so this recent vandalism probably got magnified as a result.

It is of course regrettable that a car parked in church compound should be vandalised while a normal church service is under way.

Even more regrettable however, is the painful thoughts and emotions of this member, so much so that the role of the devil is alluded to. To ascribe a property vandalism to satanic attack shows how disaffected one has become. In response to the member’s complaint, the leadership has promised to investigate the vandalism.  

To my mind, it is far more important for the leadership to look at the root cause of the member’s state of mind and emotion. If the leadership is able to do something to rectify the wrong, why has it chosen not to do so, and allowed the matter to fester – so much so that this member’s view of church, God and the devil has become so intertwined (twisted even) to such an extent? Everyone needs to do whatever necessary so that he or she is always in a ready state to love and serve the Lord and His people.

Anything that becomes a hindrance to a church member’s ability to love and serve the Lord and His people should be addressed and resolved without delay.

The leadership and pastoral team would be derelict to let it fester and allow the member to continue to harbour such stumbling blocks and fail to grow and serve as a result.

Great tennis, great expectations


I got up this morning feeling groggy and had to focus to get through my morning routine. Tress and I had fun watching the tennis last night, soaking up the quality tennis on display. It was a bit sad to see Novak the reigning champion exit the tournament but Stan Wawrinka looked like a really nice fellow, gruff notwithstanding – so it was all just a great treat.

After the match, we waited a little while and then drove to the Blackburn station to pick up our visitor, who was lucky enough to have been able to watch that fabulous match in situ. We got home around 1am, and Tress and I went to bed straight away.

My 4.30 alarm went off too quickly and the snooze went unheeded for a few extra minutes. I eventually reacted and stumbled out feeling groggy.

The car park at Blackburn station has been closed since the new year started and I have had to get in for the 5.30 train, if I were to get a park. So I had no choice but to stick to this routine, and still got to the gym a bit after 6.

I’ve re-started reading the scriptures from Genesis and as I was making my way through Moses, Aaron and the numerous plagues befalling the Pharaoh’s land, I tried to think of different tacks to knowing God from these narratives.  God is in control, He has a purpose, uses His people to achieve His plan and He too, caused a hardening of heart to apparently thwart His plans. Yet, it also looked like those “setbacks” were also designed/built into the scheme of things so that more aspects of His power may be seen.

I wonder therefore, if the obstinacy seen in LifeGate church leaders is a parallel of sorts. Could the refusal of these people to own up to what they did to Jason be just what the Lord has designed and is there a purpose to that which either we have missed or is yet to be revealed?

Either way, I hope this episode no longer becomes something which holds back progress in the lives of people involved. The seeds were sown back in the second half of 2012 and so they have been distractions long enough. Too long, in fact. Ordinarily this sort of issues should have been resolved very quickly – within weeks at most. Be that as it may, I hope the focus now is how everyone involved should work out best to reach out to others who need the Lord.

Where to start or where is the circuit breaker?


From: Teh, Ian
Sent: Monday, 20 January 2014 10:51 AM
To:
Subject: RE: Ben Foo

At church yesterday – cant quite remember the trigger now, could be a song/hymn or could be one of those congregation/pulpit exchange in reciting creeds.

But what I distinctly felt during the service at St Alf’s yesterday was I have forgiven that lot in Lifegate. I have totally forgiven them. But that isn’t what matters. That isn’t the point. I think the creed we recited says God has forgiven our sins in Jesus and this includes all sins – past present and future. In that sense, God has already forgiven us even before any act occurs on our part and so I too ought to do likewise. And I so I have forgiven that lot in LifeGate.

That however, is not the point and isn’t what matters. Because just as God’s forgiveness does me no good unless I come to him in repentance, my forgiveness of that lot would do no good unless there is a desire on their part, to correct what is wrong.

In that sense, all you have said all along, needs to be acted on – i.e. they need to see what they did was wrong and want to correct that. Only then would your forgiveness mean anything and be relevant. That first step on their part is what you have asked for all this while. Until that piece falls into place, nothing else would be beneficial.

Can Ben not see that? As a leader of a church, can he not see that? Why does he push you to “talk” when he doesn’t see that? Maybe ask him that, and ask if that is not a relevant thing to address. If not, who is the one going in circles and avoiding what is necessary?

Re [ ] and others who need accommodation – we just do what we can la. Learning to cope with inconveniences… and look beyond them. Hopefully we do a tiny bit of good in this world which needs huge doses of it. You were talking to her at Gerry’s the other night so that was your support and I appreciate that. I was wondering how a KL girl who speaks no mandarin or hokkien, was enjoying herself in a household like the Hipo’s so your contribution is much appreciated… Kamsiah!

Regards
IAN TEH