Funeral Week

A long week spent taking turns overnighting at wakes.

Sometimes, there were no words of comfort to be spoken. Helpless to address the grief but unwilling that it should be be the sole companion of the bereaved, we sat and talked through the night. And there were stories: stories of Chinese schools, of the ill-disciplined students of prestigious schools, of Chinese teachers, of the optimal number of children in a family, of living abroad, of Cambodian history, of the ARPC Golden Group, of the foundational principles of martial arts and yoga, of Yuk Yee's egg-swapping illustration that explained the relationship between the law and sin, of Swiss dams and Dutch boys, of social osmosis and dissecting the question "Where are you from?"

After the last one, we stumbled home ashen-faced. The darkness was cool from the day's rain. With the last dredges of remnant strength, chucked some pizza into the oven, threw salad leaves, tomatoes and olives into a bowl, and sat outside in the quiet deepening night.

Then, did a faceplant into bed and did not move for many hours.

When we finally woke, the sun was streaming in the window. The sky was the colour of hope and new life. There was a good fry-up and a fresh pot of coffee. Pim-cotton henley dresses and soft pastel tees lazing about on the grass in the breeze.

But some realities grow harsher in the morning light.

Singapore Ultimate Open and Colleague's Funeral

Excellent! The Singapore Ultimate Open 2005 is here! And the forecast is clear blue skies and sunny days!

Click on box to download cheesy trailer.

will be there for some handholding. Wonder if their sports massages are as good as those by that Norwegian lady at Singapore Sports Council's Sports Medicine place at the National Stadium.

It seems a bit bipolar schizophrenic to be celebrating youth, life and energy with mad parties just after an extremely depressing funeral. Ah well, c'est la vie.

A strange ang moh pastor (SAMP) was helming my colleague's funeral.

General thoughts of attendees (GTA): GCA was Christian meh? Not like him. He never ever said anything all those years we knew him. May be we didn't know him that well after all...

SAMP [in an American tele-evanglist drawl]: I wish I'd known [pauses to look at name in his notes]...GCA...

GTA: Har? Don't know GCA? Stand there for what?

SAMP [continuing in an American tele-evangelist drawl]:...GCA was a kind, generous man who loved to joke. He was a good father, brother, husband and colleague...

GTA: Didn't you just say that you didn't know him? Such generalities can be said of any normal person what, as long as they didn't massacre many people. Hmmm...actually, even Pol Pot's wife said he was a good man so actually, you can say that even about evil-dictator-mass-murderer types! And what are you doing up there if you didn't know GCA?

SAMP: I am glad that GCA accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour in his last days...

GTA: !!! What folly is this???

SAMP: ...as GCA lay on the bed, unconscious, his wife and son had the opportunity to ask him once again to put his trust in Jesus. He indicated that he wished to do so, so we stand here today not in hopelessness but in the hope that GCA has gone to be with our Lord Jesus Christ...

GTA: Hullo? You just said that the man was unconscious! Si mi indicated that he wished to accept Christ?! Are you pulling a fast one on us?

SAMP: Just the other day, my wife went to...[relates some boring illustration]

GTA: Ok...what's happening here? We're not here to listen to you relating your wife's tai-tai schedule. When are you getting to the bit about GCA?

SAMP: ...there was hopelessness at that funeral, but I don't sense that hopelessness here today because GCA is with the Lord. You see, unlike many of those Asian religions...

GTA: *^*%#@ chao ang moh! Don't know GCA still hog the mike. Don't know bluff or real tell us that GCA is Christian when we all knew him and knew he was not. Now come and insult Asians?!!! #$(@)*!

SAMP [rambles on for some time]: [blah blah blah]...God... [blah blah blah]...Jesus... [blah blah blah]...Jesus... [blah blah blah]...Jesus... [blah blah blah]...grace...

GTA: Grrr. When are we getting to the part about GCA?
[stretch necks to look at how the family is taking this. They seem fine.]

GTA: Grrr. Ok, chao ang moh. They don't seem to mind. Maybe you brainwashed them when their defences were low. Ne'ermin. Give you face this time.

SAMP: I am not seeking to capitalise on the situation, but I would like to offer every one of you today an opportunity to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour today...[proceeds to pray Sinners' Prayer]

GTA: Ok ok... If you sincerely believe that's what's important for us that's fine. But get on with it and stop hogging the airtime.

SAMP: Thank you. Now please pay your last respects to GCA.

GTA: What?! You who didn't know GCA took up all the time talking about your God and your Jesus?!!! What about GCA? Ok, the tenuous link from GCA to your God and your Jesus is that he apparently accepted them on his deathbed but still!!! *&;#%@ Christians!

I am Christian. And I fully appreciate the urgency of telling people the danger they face and the rescue that is available to them in Jesus. But there are ways of doing that that are not impersonal, arrogant, high-handed, abrasive and ultimately, a stumbling block to those who do not yet believe. Sure, we preach Christ in season and out, because of the importance of the message of the gospel. So funerals are no exception. But if we love people, then we love them not generally and distantly but warmly and intimately. We grieve with those who grieve, and rejoice with those who rejoice, not by thrusting the gospel in their face via some stranger but by also celebrating the life of a human being who was so valuable in God's sight and so loved by him that he sent his son to die for him. And who better to celebrate that life and, as they believe, his afterlife than the people who knew and loved him most intimately.

As GCA's shell of a blotted body was wheeled out to be cremated, his sister-in-law brawled out repeatedly in Hainanese,"I want to talk to you! I want to see you! Where are you?!"

There was not a dry eye in the room. The hall was deathly silent. White lilies never smelled more sickly and cloying.

Was hopelessness really absent in that place?

But I trust God to work, even in our weakness and unlovingness and good intentioned-folly to do his will. May his will be done.

La Vela and Helping the Grieving

We sat on the terrace outside La Vela and watched the sparrows dashing above the treetops in the falling light, soon replaced by bats gliding about in the dark, illuminated here and there by the spotlights below. After incessant questioning by the maître d' throughout the meal, we finally admitted that the food was merely passable. He earnestly promised to shoot his chef.

During the merely passable dinner with accountability partners, I sought advice, in confidence, about someone ("MLB"*) I loved but was at wit's end trying to help. He had just lost his brother to cancer. The brother had accepted Christ just before he died (thanks to God working through the wonderful service of a courageous ARPC lady) to the great relief of MLB. MLB and I used to do 1-on-1 studies weekly until his brother's health started failing. Then MLB went MIA: previously rather eager to get to know God better, he'd stopped turning up for DG and came very late and rather grudgingly to service. Naturally I was concerned for his whole wellbeing and since he said he was, understandably, too busy to meet-up or talk over the phone, I offered to accompany him at the hospital where he was spending long hours. He declined and said he was really "too busy". I wanted to give him space to grieve etc so thereafter limited my enquires as to his welfare to once every week. Even that proved too frequent for him and he flared up and said I wasn't his boyfriend so I should stop asking. So I lay low. Then during the funeral, he accused me of not having ministered to him enough while his brother was dying. Fortunately, I am blessed with the little-acknowledged gift of Thick-Skin-ness and wasn't at all bothered.

Now, even after he has been relieved of hospital duty, he hasn't gone back to his DG, nor resumed bible studies and continues to refuse to answer queries as to his health (mental, spiritual and otherwise). Of course I am very very concerned for him and the external outlook is bad. However, the last time I enquired again politely how he was, he told me categorically to "stop it!" and followed that with some other accusations.

Since I have the Gift of Thick-Skin-ness and can't really be bothered to prove myself to anyone in anyway, and also trusting that God knows and searches my heart (eg. Psalm 7:9, Romans 8:27, Revelation 2:23), I am not so much concerned with his accusations but more that he know and understand that there are people who love him and want to care for him...and are just trying in their actions to love him and care for him.

Someone who had lived longer explained that as he read the situation, when MLB said to go away, he actually meant come here.

A slightly bewildered shadow,"You mean when he shouts at me and tells me that he doesn't ever want to hear me ask that question again, I should go and hug him and ask that question?"

"Trust me."

"Then why can't he just say,"Hug me?"

*shrugs* "Dunno."

".......!!!"

That sounded as illogical and as suicidal as hugging a hedgehog.

PP is right. My generation is fast growing to the age when more and more of our immediate family members will start dying off. I will have to learn what it means to serve my brothers and sisters in this stage of life.

"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law." (1 Corinthians 9:19-21)

And for love of MLB, I'd be more than happy to hug a hedgehog. With God's help.

*details have been changed to protect the grieving and grumpified
la velagrieving ministry arpc

有一位神

What if the last time you saw someone, she appeared fairly healthy and the doctors had given her many more months to live? What if all future plans were about possible cures, the alleviation of bedsore problems and what she would do after she got out of hospital? What if you planned to talk to her about her very recent declaration of faith? What if she had questions about God and suffering that you planned to answer in private and at leisure?

And what if you get an sms the very next day that tells you that all plans are off. She is dead.

What did she really believe in? Did she trust in the right God? Why didn't we just answer her questions there and then? There is shock. Then grief and sorrow. Then lamentation and regret.

Then realisation what trust in God is about:

• trusting in God is trusting in his grace to save. Salvation is not about ticking a theological box but about God's undeserved favour. We are all saved by his grace alone, not beause we are good and deserve to be saved, not because of anything that we have done or could ever do, but purely because of God's mercy;
• trusting in God is trusting in his character of goodness and faithfulness; that he will always do the right thing and that he will always gather those that are his to himself, no matter what they have or have not done;
• trusting in God is trusting in his ability to do all that his Son has promised: there are many rooms in his house and Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. We trust that if we believe in him, there is no fear in death and no dreadful judgement and painful emptiness after death, but confidence and assurance in death and salvation from God's wrath and life everlasting after death.
  

The song that Boon Yong sang at his ordination was on repeat mode in my mind:
(1)
有一位神
有權能創造宇宙萬物
也有溫柔雙手安慰受傷靈魂
有一位神
有權柄審判一切罪惡
也有慈悲體貼人的軟弱

(2)
有一位神
有權能創造宇宙萬物
也有溫柔雙手安慰受傷靈魂
有一位神
高坐在榮耀的寶座
卻死在十架挽救人墮落

有一位神
我們的神
唯一的神
名叫耶和華
有權威榮光
有恩典慈愛
是昔在今在永在的神

Some people resent Christians talking about the gospel at Christian funerals. But therein lies the truth, the good news, the hope and the comfort that only God, and no one else, can give! What miserable solace can you get from condolence cards that wish fruitlessly that "time may somehow ease your loss" or that "your memories may comfort you for tomorrow"? None. But that you too will die fearful, anxious and alone someday.