Rainy Days, Vaughan Roberts' "Life's Big Questions" and Prosperity and Possessions

When grey monsoon days sweep round, clearing schedules with their drenching and furious howling and bursts of lightning, it is for the luxury of french onion soup laced with leftover cider, and the unctuousness (her term not mine) of velvety beef stew laced with Guinness (not leftover) for some, and the oven-waft of bacon-and-spinach quiche and a throw-together of garden salad and cherry tomatoes for others, and, for all, for good thick hot chocolates studded with marshmellows, and snacky Jaffa cakes that speak of home in that other land, and sweet baked Granny Smiths with a core of melted marshmellows, and for saying "Hello, God!" without accidentally konking off, rudely in mid-conversation, from utter exhaustion.

(The story about actually having a Schedule is: after merrily and absently promising to meet up with two (and sometimes three (and sometimes four)) different sets of people on the same evening, each evening, for a whole fortnight, resulting in at least one tua a day, LS shook her head, decided to take things in hand and voilà!, there was a black Moleskine diary for an early Christmas present and for the encouragement (or at least, the non-discouragement) of others. LS is extremely proper and/but for this, we like LS.

Also, as LS is extremely proper, LS bakes chocolate cakes from Pierre Hermé's "Chocolate Desserts", where a chocolate cake is not just any ole chocolate cake, mind, but, attention! attention please!, a "dark-as-midnight chocolate cake" or a "luxuriously soft, rich cake" whose "center remains ever so slightly wet". But that is another story.)

And the monsoon days, they are

also

for cats, yawning and stretching mightily, tickling you with their whiskers and favouring you with Eskimo kisses before settling down (exactly on top of your notes) to twitch in their sleep, dreaming perhaps of bobbing butterflies amongst the sunshine and grass (or maybe of the new creation).

And

also

for hot baths and sitting snug and smug, beneath the warm incandescent glow of a floor lamp, by the large bay-windows (where the browned leaves from sunny days past rush by and down the dark soaked street in the swift stream of rainwater, knowing if they shouted,"Tarry Ho!" as they swept past, you'd have the occasion to reply,"Pip pip and all that!") and messy upsidedown apple tarte tatins and hot tea and working quietly.

It is possible that this has been said many a time previously, but I will reiterate, that Vaughan Roberts is spot-on on, not all, but very many things. His "Life's Big Questions" is masterful in its (relative) conciseness. For instance, on wealth and possessions, he writes:

Materialism and consumerism
Materialists think that observable things are the only reality. They think this world is all there is, and live on the basis of that assumption. Materialism leads automatically to consumerism...

1. Pattern of the kingdom - money and possessions are good gifts from God
Some religions see god as entirely separate from the material realm and concerned only with the spiritual realm. As a result, god has little or nothing to say about how we should regard and use our money and possessions. But [Christians] cannot think like that when we remember how the Bible starts:"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). He is the Creator and owner of all things, spiritual and material. "The earth is the LORD's and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1). As a result, we should be both grateful and good stewards.

We should be grateful
Paul writes,"...everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving..." (1 Timothy 4:4). In the context of 1 Timothy, Paul is opposing some ascetics who denied themselves good pleasures, such as marriage and certain foods, and told others that they should not enjoy them either. But Paul insists that they are good gifts of a loving Creator, which he wants us to enjoy. God wants us to take pleasure in what he gives us...

We should be good stewards
Our house, computer, money and all we own belong to God and not us...we should consider not how much of our money we will give to God's work but how much of God's money we will keep for ourselves. One day we will have to stand before him and give an account of how we have used what he has entrusted to us (Luke 16:1-2).

2. The perished kingdom - money and possession can be spiritually dangerous
Money and possession are good gifts of God's creation but, now that sin has entered the world, they can be...dangerous...

Idolatry
Jesus told one young man,"Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Mark 10:21). But the young man was rich and, faced with a choice between his wealth and following Christ, he chose the former. Jesus does not give a general command to each of his followers to forsake possessions, but he does say to all of us,"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24). We will have to decide which will come first...

"He who dies with the most toys wins." But such attitudes are idolatrous. There is only one God and we should live for him and not for anything in this world.

I have seen many keen young Christians lose their spiritual fervour as they get older. Often it is because they begin to worship money and possession. Their priorities gradually shift as their salary and mortgage increase, until Christ is relegated to second place in their lives, or even lower. We need to be on our guard against the idolatry of materialism.

Do not covet
The Bible never says,"Money is the root of all evil." As we have seen, money in itself is a good gift of God's creation and, even if it can lead to sin, there are plenty of other roots to evil. But Paul does write that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). He urges us to be content with what we have and not long for more...

A Christian who is relatively poor can allow bitterness and jealousy to creep in. She begins to feel resentful of the big houses, smart cars and expensive holidays enjoyed by others in the church. Instead of praising God for what she has, she complains about what she does not have. Another believer is comparatively rich, but he is never satisfied. Within days of settling into his first home he is dreaming of the next, with more bedrooms, a bigger garden and in a smarter area. He always wants more. Such discontentment can...lead to greed, jealousy, dishonesty and ingratitude and, in the end, it can lead away from Christ:"Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Timothy 6:10).

Do not hoard

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. (James 5:1-5)

James...is not condemning the rich simply because they are wealthy. There is nothing wrong with having wealth; everything depends on how we use it. James is provoked by the fact that these rich people have accumulated far more than they could ever use themselves, but instead of using the surplus for the good of others, they have let it rot...

Of course, it is right that we save, so that we can make provision for ourselves and our families, not just for now but in the future as well. But there comes a time when prudent saving, which is right and good, becomes selfish hoarding.

3. The promised kingdom - promise of material blessing
God tells Abraham,"To your offspring I will give this land" (Genesis 12:7). The blessings God promises will, at least partly, be material. God is not just concerned with our spirits. His promises encompass the whole of life.

4. The partial kingdom - justice and prosperity in the land
God fulfils his promise to Abraham and brings the people of Israel into the Promised Land. The land is then divided so that every family receives a share in its blessings. But they are not free to use their property entirely as they wish. The land is God's gift and they are responsible to him as his stewards for how they use it.

God's concern for justice
God's law was intended to ensure justice and fair distribution of the material lessing in the land. There is a concern to help the needy and to prevent an increasing gap between rich and poor. The land was to lie fallow in the Sabbath year. That law is motivated not just by ecological concerns but also by humanitarian ones:"...during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it" (Exodus 23:11). Legislation also requires that debts should be cancelled every seven years and Hebrew slaves freed (Exodus 21:1-11; Deuteronomy 15:1-18)...

How should we regard these Old Testament laws? The New Testament never commands us to obey them to the letter or to put pressure on our governments to enact them. They were designed to be implemented at a time when the people of God were a nation living in his land. We live in very different days since the coming of Christ. But, even if the specifics of these laws are not binding on us, the principles behind them certainly are. We should care for the poor and needy ourselves and also, in so far as we can, influence our governments to have the same concern both within the nation and throughout the world.

Is prosperity a reward for obedience?
God presents two possibilities to the Israelites as they are about to enter the land. If they disobey, they will be cursed and ultimately evicted from the land. But if they obey, they will be blessed. That blessing is described in material terms:"The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity - in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground - in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you" (Deuteronomy 28:11)...Such passages are quoted by proponents of the "prosperity gospel", who teach that God will ensure that we prosper materially if we are obedient to Christ...

The fulfilment of God's covenant promises to Abraham was tied to this world in the Old Testament. Blessing from God came largely from peace and prosperity in the land. But the New Testament makes it clear that that fulfilment is only partial. What the Israelites enjoyed in the land was a shadow of the substance we can receive in Christ. Whereas they received material prosperity in a physical place, we praise God,"who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

Christians are not promised material prosperity in this world. When some believers were imprisoned for their faith and had their property confiscated, the writer to the Hebrews did not tell them that if they obeyed God he would release them and return their possessions. He rather reminded them that they had "better and lasting possessions" (Hebrews 10:22-23). There will be an important physical element to the ultimate fulfilment of God's promises, but it will be in the new heavens and new earth when his people will enjoy prosperity in every sense for ever.

5. The prophesied kingdom - God's concern for justice
God is concerned not just with religious life of the Israelites, but also with their greed and injustice. Through the prophets he gives frequent condemnations of their disobedience of his command to care for the poor:

You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine. (Amos 5:11)

I will come near to you for judgement. I will be quick to testify against... those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me. (Malachi 3:5)

...

Many of us in the course of work face difficult decisions that affect others. Sometimes in this fallen world we may be forced to make a decision between the lesser of two evils. But we all need to remember that ultimately we are not accountable to our employers or the shareholders; we are accountable to God, who is more concerned about justice than about profit margins. The market does not rule; God does. His Word calls us to submit to his authority, not just in church, but in the office, in the boardrooms and in the marketplace.

6. The present kingdom - money and possessions will not last

Is poverty a spiritual advantage?
Luke records that Jesus' public ministry begins when he stands up in the synagogue in Nazareth and reads from the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. (Luke 4:18-19)

[Jesus then claims that] he is the promised Messiah who has come to spread good news to the poor...he says,"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). Some conclude from these verses that poverty is a spiritual advantage...But the wider context of Luke's Gospel suggests that we misread these verses if we take them only in a literal way.

Jesus did give sight to the blind, but there is no record of his freeing prisoners from jail. He certainly had compassion on the poor...but he also saved rich tax-collectors...He was concerned about justice on earth, but that was not the chief aim of his mission. Above all, he wanted to rescue people, both rich and poor, from their sins so that they could be restored to a right relationship with his Father...

There is freedom for the oppressed and sight for the blind, but both are understood spiritually. We should understand the "poor" in Luke 4:18 and 6:20 in the same way.

The "poor" are the "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3), who recognise their helplessness and need before God, like David in the Psalms:"This poor man called and the LORD heard him" (Psalm 34:6). It may be that the materially poor are better placed to see how desperately they need God's help, whereas the rich are used to relying on their own resources; but poverty in itself does not guarantee spiritual blessing. God's kingdom advances when anyone, rich or poor, repents and believes in Christ.

"Moth and rust destroy"

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal". (Matthew 6:19-20)

Things in this world do not last...if we are wise, we will live not for this world but for the one to come. We will "seek first God's kingdom" (Matthew 6:33), which has broken into the present through the death and resurrection of Christ and will one day come in all its fullness when he returns.

7. The proclaimed kingdom - we should use our resources for this world and the next
We live in the last days after God's kingdom has been inaugurated in Christ, but before it has fully come. We are citizens of heaven who are called to have our eyes focused on the new creation that Christ will establish when he returns. But, meanwhile, we must live on earth in this fallen world. These two foci of our existence are reflected in the New Testament's teaching about how we should use the resources that God has given us.

We should provide for ourselves and our families
"If a man will not work, he shall not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). It is obviously right that those who are unable to work, because of incapacity or a lack of jobs, should be supported by others, but the general principle is that we should earn money to provide for our own needs.

We are also commanded to support our families. Paul writes,"If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8)...

But what does "support" mean? What standard of living should we aspire to for ourselves and our families? Should Christians simply cover the bare necessities and give the rest away or is it justifiable to aim higher than that? Should we make do with a terraced house, caravan holidays, a clapped-out old car and state education for the children; or can we justify a detached cottage, exotic holidays, a brand new sports car and private school education? There is no chapter in the Bible that gives us detailed instructions about exactly how we should spend our money. It simply gives us principles and then leaves us with the responsibility of applying them. In doing so we should resist the temptation to judge others; we are each accountable to God.

I will limit myself to one of the Bible's principles: sufficiency. It is well-expressed by Agur in Proverbs:

...give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise I may have too much and disown you
and say "Who is the LORD?"
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonour the name of my God (Proverbs 30:8-9)

His chief concern is godliness and, for that reason, he is nervous of the extremes of both poverty and riches...

We should pay taxes
Jesus said,"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Matthew 22:21). Caesar does not have the right to demand worship, but he does have the right to levy taxes. Paul writes,"Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue" (Romans 13:7). Christians are not to be dishonest or search for loopholes, but should rather gladly pay our taxes in full.

We should provide for the needy
As we have seen already, concern for the poor is an important theme throughout the Bible. It remains a responsibility for Christians. Paul tells the Galatians,"...as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). We should be concerned for all people, but above all we should care for those within the family of the church...

We should support gospel work
The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says,"Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain" and "The worker deserves his wages". (1 Timothy 5:17-18)

Paul chose not to receive financial support from Christians but to work as a tentmaker instead, to avoid the accusation that he preached only to make money. However, he insisted that he did have the right to such payment (1 Corinthians 9:3-12), and he expected churches to provide it for others. As the ox should be able to benefit from its labour, so should gospel workers. They should be freed from the necessity of earning a living by the generous giving of Christian people. That enables them to concentrate on their work without distraction.

8. The perfected kingdom - true prosperity for ever

Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7:16-17)

The struggles of this life will not continue for ever. When Christ returns, he will remove all that spoils life on earth. There will be no more poverty or injustice. All his people will enjoy eternal life in the perfect new creation. The Lamb who was slain for us will be the shepherd who provides for us in every way, both materially and spiritually.

And in the morning, the fresh clean air is for a smooth 5km run and then a stack of strawberries and muesli and yoghurt for breakfast. In the afternoon, another thunderstorm, for a leisurely game of tennis in the evening and supper at Keong Saik Road after.

Yay weather! Yay earth and sky! Yay body! Yay health! Yay food! Yay friends! Yay God who gives us good things! But even when the weather's mad and the body breaks down and our health fails and food is tasteless and friends let us down and (if we are a Certain Cat) humans insist on tickling our tummies when we're trying to get some shuteye, yay God who gave us his Son, that in the present in this world, we can know him and live as his good stewards and his agents, and in the future in the new creation, delight in Him forever.

Celebrating Birthdays

The month has been a completely mad rush of Bible study prep, actual Bible studies, recce-ing camp locales, writing seminars during conference calls, re-writing talks, late-night meetings, rescheduling timetable clashes, planning games, all on top of the usual workweek featuring a rash of board meetings and an outbreak of crossborder negotiations.

But still. November was for birthdays. And there were birthday boys and birthday girls and celebrations galore.
At Rochester Park, the numero sette of the Da Paolo stable: a bistro and bar in and around a colonial black-and-white, with an outdoor showkitchen and a line of chef whites, like dancers in a modern ballet, bustling to the music of anchovies thick on brushetta and stolid dependable pastas and meats. "Excuse me," said someone, looking around distractedly after the Lilliputian portions'd been polished off,"did I accidentally inhale something?"

On another celebratory night, the allegedly JIA/OPIA-inspired Graze next door: silent black-and-white films, pre-dinner aperitifs at Mint Bar for the tough day at work, a mound of thick hot chips and fierce portions of barbecued meat and fish (which put paid to all rabbit-nibbling grass-munching fears). After the excitement over presents and a surprise! birthday cake, into the night and under the stars we went, spilling the dirt on our own lives, in full joyful assurance of being kicked swiftly in the ass as needed but also of being loved unconditionally nonetheless.

Over in the area-formerly-known-as-Dempsey: the mushrooming of new watering holes; ordered trendiness, courtesy, alas, of a Singapore Land Authority initiative. Apparently sprouting fully-formed from the same minds that thought "good class bungalows" a thoroughly fetching description and "nestled in the lush greenery of" a glowing literary turn of phrase, the area was renamed Tanglin Village, much to the derision of the spirits haunting the institutions of Wine Network, The Wine Company, P.S. Café and Highwood and Samy's Curry, whose leasehold days are numbered.

At Michael Lu's Hacienda: white tentage, lazy ceiling fans, rows of deck chairs, cosy cul-de-sacs, downtempo chillout sounds, passable pints, decent kir royales, very watery watermelon margaritas and al fresco attempts to fly to the moon on a squeaky swing. The watery watermelon margaritas were sent back to the bartender and they returned just as watery. "Maybe," said a wag as we peered condescendingly at the contents of the glass,"it's just that watermelon, you know, like, water.melon. has water?" And he beamed smugly at his own genius.

On another night, Yeow of Whitelabel, fresh from his New York trip, thumped out great tunes for all amongst the red heliconias and under the giant banyan tree, for the hipsters who wore nothing but cologne, structured cotton jackets and skinny jeans, and for the alluring tanned transcontinentals with mixed-up accents and mixed-up features and new clothes shops in the offing - guerrilla like Comme des Garçons, and for us who sauntered in shamelessly, togged most fashionably in old T-shirts and flipflops.

On yet another night, at The Wine Company, there was much wine and cheese and gesturing and then more wine and cheese and gesturing until we were hustled out at 1am, whereupon we took the remains of the wine and cheese and gestures round to the front and sat by the road drinking and nibbling and talking and gesturing until the cheese spiked the wine, or was it the wine that spiked the cheese.

And on still yet another night, at Oosh, with Bjork on the screens and outdoor terraces still wrapped in plastic, a waiter, when asked how big a portion of dessert was, pointed politely with his thumb at the empty plates on the next table and replied confidently,"Exactly that size."

Down by the Singapore River, at the Esmirada-owned Brasserie Wolf: easy-going Philippe Nouzillat, mopping up the remains of demi-douzaine d’escargots au beurre d'ail with pieces of bread, pan-fried foie gras better than the most recent chunks at Saint Pierre, stealing bits of other people's carré d'agneau, blindsiding the coq au vin and trashing out, with many detours, the structure of a talk (itself, a detour from other discussions on a kaleidoscope of topics). Later, by the Singapore River, the path was shiny like a road of fairy lights, an umbrella was opened for spin-drying, an empty 1-litre Evian bottle was brandished threateningly to halt the stream of effusive thanks, and we strolled along, laughing, like viva la compagnie:

Let every good fellow now join in a song
Viva la compagnie!
Success to each other and pass it along
Viva la compagnie!

Viva la, viva la, viva l'amour
Viva la, viva la, viva l'amour
Viva l'amour, viva l'amour
Viva la compagnie.

A friend on the left and a friend on the right
Viva la compagnie!
In love and good fellowship, let us unite
Viva la compagnie!

[Chorus]

Now wider and wider our circle expands
Viva la compagnie!
We sing to our comrades in far away lands
Viva la compagnie!

[Chorus]

Should time or occasion compel us to part
Vive la compagnie!
These days shall forever enliven our heart
Vive la compagnie!

[Chorus]

And on some other occasion, Zouk hosted the crazy chicks from Chicks On Speed, whom, it has been said, are all electroclash, electro-trash, punk-rock, new wave, synth-pop, indie design, avant-garde paper and leather clothing, deconstructed art, interactive gigs and cutting-edge vibes.

Whatever, we said. "Creatives" we are not.

So for the last Heineken Green Room session of 2006, there was making like a universal blank canvas and drawing and painting everywhere: the clear panel outside, the white walls around the dancefloor, the lean bodies of a male and female model each on a pedestal, our faces with black mascara and garish body paint, the T-shirts...

About the T-shirts: because there were cardboard robots bleeping "Customise. Customise. Customise." before they tripped over each other in the dim light, and because there was a station to accessorise one's couture with rips and tears and pompoms and feathers and clothes pegs and fluorescent markers and light sticks, and then another for feather boas and tiaras and aviator glasses, and then yet another for wigs of all colours (sometimes more than one on each wig), there was an excess of people with afros and, on their backs, downward arrows of glowing tape. One read so enthusiastically and so pleadingly:"Hi! I'm Edmund! Touch my butt!", that we reached out a charitable leg to kick him.

It is possible that "bitch" has not been uttered so affectionately in one place in Singapore by so many happy men as that fateful night. On stage, the crazy Chicks were prancing, dancing, jiiving, screaming, stripping, mixing, clanging paint strippers. On the multimedia screen: rappinghoodgirlmonsters and several minutes of "Woah. Was that a full-frontal pre-Brazilian?!" before the management hastily pulled the plug. On the dancefloor: rainbow wigs, arms in the air, strawberry smokes, Heineken glugging and penguin-shuffling while clutching jugs of Long Island Tea. And then, a moment of feather boa envy as a German snuck mine off and twirled it around his neck like a trophy, grinning triumphantly.

And when the revelry'd wrapped up, the birthday boys and the birthday girls were snug and quiet in their passenger seats, eyelashes soft on their cheeks, like the happy tiredness of a good night out.

Celebrating Birthdays
If birthday celebrations are nothing more than a bit of vacuous existentialist fun, why do we even bother with them?

Jehovah Witnesses abstain from birthday celebrations. Their topical Bible guidebook, "Reasoning from the Scriptures" notes that the Bible makes reference to only two birthday celebrations and in both cases they are held in a somewhat negative light: (1) the Pharaoh's birthday when he has his chief baker hanged (Genesis 40:20-22); and (2) Herod's birthday when John the Baptist is beheaded (Matthew 14:6-10). It then concludes that God isn't too keen on birthday celebrations and officially forbids them as a result. Origen, writing in 245AD reached a similar conclusion, saying:

A certain one of those before us has observed what is written in Genesis about the birthday of Pharaoh, and has told that the worthless man who loves things connected with birth keeps birthday festivals; and we, taking this suggestion from him, find in no Scripture that a birthday was kept by a righteous man. (Second Tome of the Commentary on Matthew, Book X, Chapter 22)

(Job 1:4, on this matter, seems pretty inconclusive.)

However, the JW's use of the Genesis and Matthew passages seems to be a misreading of a descriptive as a prescriptive. In any case, like much of the glorious freedom of a Christian's life, it is not rules and regulations that please God but the heart and mind behind our actions: do we follow the ways of the world, the magisterium of materialism, that presents birthdays as excuses for self-centredness and self-glorification? Or do we see them as occasions for centering on and glorifying God?

Immense joy can be derived from having the birthday boys and girls in our lives and we are right to rejoice in such stupendous serendipity.

Yet, life is not something manufactured by the hands of man, nor relationships by a nebulous concept called "fate". All life and all joy in life are ultimately gifts from God and it is right that we celebrate his goodness in forming us and continuing to sustain us with lifebreath each passing year, month, day, hour, minute and second. So the psalmist waxes lyrical in Psalm 139:

you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

If any one should be celebrated on the anniversaries of the dates of our biological births, it should be God, for only he is truly deserving of such celebration. We did nothing to give ourselves life. Additionally, as Christians, our biological birthdates point us to our spiritual birthdates for the Bible delights in using the universal phenomena of birth and life as metaphors to speak of our salvation:

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.(John 3:5-6)

since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23)

So even as we celebrate the God who gave us lifebreath, we also celebrate the God who chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (Ephesians 1:4) and we celebrate Jesus our Christ, who gave himself up for us, that by believing in him we shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Furthermore, as children of God, assured of our place in the new heavens and new earth, we celebrate each passing year as a year nearer to glory. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul speaks of the importance of the historical veracity of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead:

if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

"Death is swallowed up in victory."
"O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We celebrate our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters in full gratitude to the Creator and Sustainer of all creation, who provides us with all good things - family, friendships, our bodies, our minds, our senses, loving relationships, food, drink, yea, even the undeserved forgiveness of our rebellion against him and so, eternal life in relationship with him. We celebrate our confidence and the confidence of our brothers and sisters that because of the historical truthfulness of the death and resurrection of Jesus, there will come a day when death will be no more and our painful struggle with sin will be no more and our perishable dishonourable bodies will be raised imperishable and glorious forever.

*************
DA PAOLO BISTRO BAR
3 Rochester Park, Singapore 139214
Tel: (65) 6774 5537

GRAZE
4 Rochester Park, Singapore 139215
Tel: (65) 6775 9000

HACIENDA
13A Dempsey Road, Singapore 249674
Tel: (65) 6476 2922

THE WINE COMPANY
Block 14-3 Dempsey Road, Singapore 249688
Tel: (65) 6479 9341

OOSH
22 Dempsey Road, Singapore 249679
Tel: (65)

BRASSERIE WOLF
#01-13 The Pier at Robertson
80 Mohamed Sultan Road, Singapore 239013
Tel: (65) 6835 7818

Colleague's Retirement Plans

Over lunch, a colleague related his retirement plans: Where is good money to be found? Not in the volatile stock market nor in commodity or derivative trading nor the rental off prime real estate. The good money is to be found in the pockets of the superstitious and this is how he will get his paws on some of that stuff:

1. buy a plot of land and build a temple
   
2. engage the services of a popular monk (like the one who rappelled down Suntec City) to head the temple
   
3. install a grotty (cheap) but ginormous Buddha statue, the grottier (cheaper), the better, for authenticity
   
4. provide the usual temple-y services including divination by lots (and at the back of each lot, the Chinese mainlander who wrote the whole Buddhist canon on a grain of rice shall inscribe exclusion clauses to protect the temple from liability)
5. draw the crowds by procuring that someone win the lottery with numbers chosen from divination in the temple
   
6. sell gold-leaf to the pious to plaster the statue with and so earn karma points
   

(And he smiled a beautific smile and spread his arms wide to indicate the riches of the world for the taking.)

7. scrape the gold-leaf off the Buddha for resale at the same absorbitant prices
8. start a funeral business and gloriously overcharge the bereaved for prayers, rituals and, even, entry into heaven!
   
9. charge a yearly rate for the upkeep of the tablets (polishing, dusting, not accidentally stepping on the said tablets etc)

When he'd done telling us his nefarious plan, he threw back his head and laughed loudly. HAHAHAHAHAHA. One minute later, he was still laughing, alone and as loudly, like the evil corrupt man in a kung-fu movie, dressed in black clothes to match the blackness of his heart.

In the far corner, an old man looked at us with watery eyes, and shook his head, slowly.

Existentialism: Exit Stage Left, Hotly Pursued By A Lobster (Boiled and Slathered with Butter. The lobster, that is.)

The nights (and days even) this last week were cold and dark and cold, bitter wind howling through the eaves, roof creaking under the heavy drumming of the rain, thunder rumbling grumbling nearby.

So we took a break from wanting to throttle a really rather garrulous apostle and writing a talk to horse around messily with a 1 kg slab of chocolate, a hot oven and the last bits of a punnet of raspberries.

Late in the week, family friends were doing their own horsing around (an intense programme of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" and Prokofiev's "Sonata No.2 in D Major", with a pretty Paganini Cantabile and Wieniawski's showpiece "Scherzo-Tarantella" thrown in for good measure), on their own instruments of choice, for a good cause. After strings were spectacularly broken and manicured hands were wrung and big taitai hair was bobbed about, there were 5 ovations and a cheeky section of the audience demanding an encore.

Later still, thanks to someone's generosity and a timetable swept clear by the rain, there was the drapping of bodies over cushy armchairs and picking up where we'd left off in our distant past, bridging that gap between the cold harsh plateau where Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche were encamped, and the psychedelic drug-addled bivouac of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S Burrough. After much girding of loins (the loins, that is, of the lamb that was in the stew - with splashes of red wine), there was settling into the stacks of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger tottering beckoningly on the table. And in the wee hours of the morning, when the storm had exhausted itself into a tired sullen patter, we moved onto the sea of Jean-Paul Sartre (also garrulous), Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus (well, if Dubya can...), Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Fyodor Dostoevsky spread across the floor. Balanced precariously on one pile was a healthy snifter of single malt whisky, neat, for mouthwash, because existentialists leave behind a nauseating blandness in the oral cavities.

In between readings, there was some cheese and port for fortification (pun fully intended). And, because of Sartre's smoky underground St.-Germain-des-Prés dancehalls and "Le jazz, c’est comme les bananes, ça se mange sur place" ("Jazz is like a banana. It has to be consumed on the spot."), there was very bad jitterbugging to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Benny Goodman and Miles Davies. Then bhangra-ing and slowdancing to Nouvelle Vague. Then also, because it is only by making decisions that we become significant, there was hilarious pretendingtobeinthethroesofunrequitedlove singing along to Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Yves Montand.

But if making decisions to please only ourselves and instant gratification are the only things that give us value in life, then we would be very sad gits indeed. No wonder Sartre and Beauvoir spent a good bit of their lives hepped up on caffeine, drugs and whisky (well, Sartre more than Beauvoir: late in life, he was haunted by the delusion that he was being stalked by a giant lobster).

(The story about reading existentialists is this: that just like how it is by living abroad for a period that one understands more distinctly what it is to be a born and bred Singaporean, so it is by touring (touring only hor, correctives welcome!) foreign worldviews that one sees more clearly, by contrast, contradiction and negation, what it means to be Christian.)

Lots of things need more thinking about than there was time for, just me 2¢:
Rude First Intro
I first knew of Simone de Beauvoir, in the most unlikely of ways, as the woman who denied A.J. Liebling (famed, amongst other things, for his Rabelaisian appetite and memorable gastronomic descriptions of Parisian meals, a journalist of a golden generation) a pleasant dinner at Mme. G.'s. Mme. G's, according to Liebling had been "more than a place to eat, although one ate superbly there...Madame was a bosomy woman - voluble, tawny, with a big nose and lank black hair - who made one think of a Saracen...Her conversation was a chronicle of letters and the theater" ("Between Meals"). Returning to Mme. G's some months later, Liebling was distraught to find that the original restaurant had been replaced by poor pretenders to the throne. Upon enquiry, he confirmed that Mme. G., ill, had sold the lease and the good will and had definitely retired.

"What is the matter with her?" I asked in a tone appropriate to fatal disease.
"I think it was trying to read Simone de Beauvoir," he said. "A syncope."

(A.J. Liebling, "Between Meals")

Nihilism
Understandably, those historically categorised as existentialists do not seem to have agreed to a definition of existentialism amongst themselves. If we go with Sartre, whose name is unremittingly linked to the philosophy, existentialism is "the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism".

Assume as Nietzsche's soundbyte goes, "God is dead" and matter is all there is and we live in a closed universe, then humans are the only conscious beings. But we have no way of knowing that it is true that matter is all there is or that we live in a closed universe; we have no way of knowing what is reality. Then, there is also no such thing as right or wrong, moral or immoral, and everything is meaningless. Life and death are meaningless. Suicide is a mere act amongst many other acts like ordering food in a restaurant or writing a note. There is no value, significance, dignity or worth in anything. The examined life is not worth living. Complete nihilism.

Atheistic Existentialism
However, very few people can continue to subscribe to nihilism and live. Enter stage right: the atheistic existentialists. James Sire elucidates his understanding of the basic beliefs of atheistic existentialists and how they attempt to save themselves from the dark void of nihilism, from a universe devoid of any meaning:

1. The cosmos is composed solely of matter, but to human beings reality appears in two forms - subjective and objective. The objective world is the world of material, of inexorable law, of cause and effect, of chronology, of flux, of mechanism. Human beings know of the external, objective world by virtue of careful observation, recording, hypothesizing, checking hypotheses by experiment and ever refining theories and proving guesses about the lay of the cosmos we live in. The subjective world is the world of the mind, of consciousness, of awareness, of freedom, of stability. Because, Sartre says, "the effect of all materialism is to treat all men, including the one philosophising, as objects, that is, as an ensemble of determined reactions in no way distinguished from the ensemble of qualities and phenomena which constitute a table or a chair or a stone" ("Existentialism") and yet, the one philosophising is self-conscious and self-aware (unlike the unconsciousness of the machinery of the universe), so self-conscious and self-aware beings are to find their value and meaning and significance in the subjective world. Our significance is not dependent on the facts of the material objective world over which we have no control, but on the consciousness of the subjective world over which we have complete control.
   
2. For human beings alone, existence precedes essence; people make themselves who they are. "If God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept and...this being is man. First of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself" (Sartre, "Existentialism"). Remember the distinction drawn between the objective and the subjective worlds. The objective world is a world of essences - everything comes bearing its nature: salt is salt, trees are tree, ants are ant. Only human beings are not human before they make themselves to be so. Each of us makes himself to be human by what we do with our self-consciousness and our self-determinacy. "At first [man] is nothing. Only afterwards will he be something, and he himself will have made him what he will be" (Sartre, "Existentialism").
   
3. It follows from proposition 2 that each person is totally free as regards their nature and destiny. Each of us is uncoerced, radically capable of doing anything imaginable with our subjectivity. We can think, will, imagine, dream, project visions, consider, ponder, invent. Each of us is king in our own subjective world.
4. However, the highly wrought and tightly organised objective world stands over against human beings and appears absurd. To us subjective beings, the facticity, the hard coldness, of the objective world seems alien. As we make ourselves to be by fashioning our subjective world, we see the objective world as absurd: it does not fit us. Our dreams and visions, our desires, all our inner world of value runs smack up against a universe that is impervious to our wishes. The toughest fact to transcend is the ultimate absurdity - death. We are free only as long as we are alive. When we die, each of us is just an object among other objects.
5. In full recognition of and against the absurdity of the objective world, the authentic person must revolt and create value. Because nothing is of value in the objective world in which we become conscious, we are free to choose our meanings and our significance. We are "condemned to be free", but in this freedom, while we are conscious, we can create value for ourselves and affirm our own worth. Our objective should be to live an "authentic" existence by keeping ever aware of the absurdity of the cosmos but rebelling against that absurdity by creating meaning in life. "The meaning of a man's life consists in proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key" (Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From Underground"). A good action, therefore, is a consciously chosen action. "To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good" (Sartre, "Existentialism"). So the good is whatever a person chooses; the good is part of subjectivity, it is not measured by a standard outside the individual's consciousness.
   

Though I knew not existentialism by name, I was greatly attracted to it, for a short while, as a kid. Thanks, amongst other things, to a S$5 copy of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (unearthed in a secondhand bookshop in Holland Village while hiding from wrath of the school principal) and its logical consequences, I was very early on appraised of the nihilistic notion that life was meaningless and therefore not worth living. However, while systematically thinking about the suicide option and methodically researching various methods of committing it, I came upon Rollo May, an existential psychologist. Having already wandered through various psychological texts by the end of primary school and having thought rather poorly of the likes of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Rollo May came as the proverbial breath of fresh air because, to my puny nub of grey matter, his theories considered situations that identified with my perception of reality and offered solutions that majored neither in self-help superficiality nor wayout weirdity. (He also disagreed somewhat with Freud and itching ears like these things.) Yes, he said, the lack of absolutes in the world does necessarily cause uncertainty and despair. Yes, there is evil in everyone. But we find our value in having the courage to move forward inspite of our despair, in taking responsibility for our anxiety. We are to live a radical, passionate, authentic existence - life without passion and risk and commitment is phony. (See, for example, Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus")

Problems With Existentialism
Enamoured as I was for, maybe, 2 months, it was distasteful to live life purposefully when, infact, in reality, there was no purpose to be found. That was phony. It smacked of both the blinkered positive-thinking and pearlywhite dentalwork of American motivational speakers and the ineffectual intellectual games one plays to mess with the minds of school discipline masters. (Kierkgaard's prescription of a "leap of faith" in face of the absurd, posited by many a vocational religious, seemed no better. Pascal's wager seemed a common-sensical enough way to proceed, but the question in this pluralistic society would be: which God or gods? Sartre simply condemned all these practices as "bad faith", and they are rather cowardly self-delusions.)

Solipsism
Also, various practical problems are associated with the universal subjectivity of ultimate worth (other than the issue of whether existentialism itself is subject to subjectivity). What follows on from subjectivity is solipsism, the affirmation that each person alone is the determiner of values and there are thus as many centers of value as there are persons in the cosmos at any one time.

Sartre countered this objection by insisting that every person in meeting other persons encounters a recognisable center of subjectivity. So others like us must be involved in making meaning for themselves. We are all in this absurd world together and our actions affect each other in such a way that "nothing can be good for us without being good for all" (Sartre, "Existentialism"). Moreover, as I act and think and effect my subjectivity, I am engaged in a social activity:"I am creating a certain image of a man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man" (Sartre, "Existentialism"). People living authentic lives create value not only for themselves, but for others too (Sire, "The Universe Next Door").

Ethics
In a Sartrean universe, the definitions of "good" and "evil" are turned on their heads. Good means the creation of value by choosing. Evil, then is not-choosing; it is passivity, living by the direction of others, being blown around by one's society, not recognising the absurdity of the universe.

Sartre assumes the existence of some standard of morality, even if such morality is on his terms. But his philosophical structure disallows him from having any basis or foundation for such a morality.

This does not explain our universal innate sense of right and wrong, of fairness and justice, of the value of another human life. If goodness is authenticity and authenticity is being true to one's own conscience, integrity, spirit, or character, despite external pressures to the contrary, then I choose whatever pleases me and me alone. But my choice may not be the desired choice of others though in my choosing I choose for others. Therefore, the Nazis, were praiseworthily authentic when they systematically ferreted out and killed Jewish men, women and children; therefore, the Khmer Rouge were doing "good" in wiping out 1.7 - 3 million of their own people.

Even in matters not directly related to life and death, Beauvoir's characters experience the painful consequences of the choices of another - they are taut, nervy, watchful, frantic, manic, depressive and lonely. The lack of values or morals means that no one can be trusted because everyone acts purely for their own pleasure and comfort. Everyone lies to each other. Their husbands while assuring them of transparency and honesty were not, in fact, faithful and, even when their wives were understanding of their dalliances, the husbands did not deign to tell the truth about their affairs. The wives are left yearning for relational stability, significance, value and certainty of the future. (Beauvoir's answer to this seems to be that they too should inflict themselves on others in similar ways.)

The truth is that we live life predicated on the unconscious tenet that there is an objective standard external to ourselves and that standard necessarily shapes the proper actions and relationships between subjects.

(Also, the mere methods by which Sartre conveys his thoughts on existentialism - essays, novels, plays, lectures, suggest a deterministic world where there are rules about communication and language. How self-stultifying.)

Greatness of Nihilism and Existentialism
The greatness of nihilism, though, is that it courageously and clearly presents the implications of a world without God. It honestly acknowledges that people do actually live as though God is non-existent or dead. No faffing about, no hiding behind pretty intellectual theories. The basic truth about man and his condition in a world without God is that life is meaningless and bleak. And what is interesting about existentialism is that underlying all the variations on a theme is the concept that man is somehow estranged from his essential nature.

But existentialism as salvation from nihilism is, to put it mildly and politely, both externally and internally incoherent and practically untenable.

Exit Stage Left

Ultimately, Sartre's pour-soi philosophy seems more a lifetime's work of justifying his rebellious urge, intellectual posturing and selfish self-indulgence than vice versa. The diaries, letters and autobiographies of Sartre and Beauvoir show that in real life, they sought to attain their worth not from their own choices or being true to that which was internal and within them, but to the external pleasures and affirmation that those choices afforded - young lovers to stave off the fear of mortality, aging and death, attention and approval from others. Beauvoir said of one of her lovers, Claude Lanzmann, 17 years her junior, that above all, he gave her "freedom from [her] age" (note, not freedom from oppressive societal values etc). Despair and depression ensued when the result of their choices was not as they desired, and drugs and alcohol were abused to rid them of this ennui, this meaningless void in themselves and the hollow emptiness they saw at the heart of all things.

Existentialists lived, communicated, felt and made decisions according to certain values that were not the direct outworking of their philosophy. Even if atheistic existentialists say they are more moral or ethical than theists, by their own stated beliefs, they have no claim on any system of morality or ethics. Arguably, this does not necessarily prove that there is a higher moral order or a higher being; social contract, Darwanian social theory, utilitarianism or one's pick-and-mix of sociological-ethical theories might be able to explain perceived social codes without resorting to the presence of a god.

But...

...while it may not be a terribly intellectually-sexy observation, if human beings do actually live according to certain epistemologies even if they cannot theoretically prove the truth of such epistemologies, then whatever the niceties and fetching intricacies of these epistemologies, they cannot practically hold water unless they assume that however absurd the objective world, it cannot be ignored. For if you think the world is illusory or that you can out-think the law of gravity, and you step off the top of a tall building, you can be sure that you'll end up a sorry splat on the pavement below.

And of all the competing worldviews, the Christian one contains an eminently viable epistemology based on historical facts. It is deliciously coherent both externally and internally. Christians are given a strong foundation for ultimate knowledge, meaning, love, hope, truth, joy, and assurance for the future. But it is not mere cowardly "bad faith" or wishful thinking or living on Cloud Cuckoo Land, it is based on objective facts, the same facts that we depend upon throughout our daily lives. Fierce!

...

In the morning, the air was fresh. The Planetshakers were "Arise"-ing (for the textured, layered sound; definitely not for the existential saturated-self lyrics) and Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams" was discovered in between the pages of a book where someone at some point in spacetime had co-opted it as a bookmark. There was basking in the sunshine, birds in the azure sky, croissants and a tin of crème de marrons chestnut spread each (yay, Clement Faugier!) and strong coffee.

Jabba the Hutt exits stage right

Righto. So much for me 2¢. Now that that's been pensieved, back to writing that elusive talk.

PS: One is immensely tempted to pun "the wall-eyed Sartre", but that, even to the existentialist, would be cruel.

Compelled By Love

Compelled By Love
Compelled by love Christ left His Father's glory
The Word took flesh as man He did appear
The Son of God took on the role of servant
And emptied all to bring salvation near

Compelled by love Christ heralded the Gospel
Repent believe the Kingdom is at hand
Despite His call Israel failed to follow
They turned aside despised the Son of Man

Compelled by love Christ set His face to Zion
He gave His life nailed to the tree in pain
Though without sin He took our place in suffering
To set us free from all our guilt and shame

Compelled by love Christ will return in glory
And all the earth will join in endless praise
But until then we go to all the nations
Compelled by love to share the news of grace
Bryson Smith and Philip Percival