The life that I have

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

by Leo Marks


This poem started out life as part the Allied resistance in WWII, but has since become a favourite at weddings. (The New York Times reported that a friend of the couple read this lovely little ditty at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.) The reasons are not hard to see. There is something so instinctive in its description of love and self-giving, the giving of oneself to the beloved, one that is reiterated in countless love songs. I belong to you. You have my heart. I am yours.

The very dynamic of love draws out total commitment, complete vulnerability. Love is self-giving, because Love, gave Himself for us.

In the person of Jesus, God’s self-giving love becomes a particular human being – God truly with us as one of us. In a world that has become increasingly deaf to God and broken in its life together -- God enters, and never leaves. God the creator is God the redeemer – God, the repairer of all brokenness.

Carol Jacobson

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.

Lost in translation

At the 5:30 mark -

CNN host: Jay, you're a wealthy, single guy yet you still live at home with your mum. How come? Doesn't the bachelor life appeal to you? Having your own space?

Jay Chou: I don't think I'll move out. My parents divorced when I was a kid, and I've made up my mind that even if I get married someday, I'll still live with my mum so that I can take care of her and keep her company. I've been having this thought for many years. No matter what happens in the future, I'll live with my mum.

CNN host: [Laughs] You're kidding!

Jay Chou: Yeah, perhaps there are some cultural differences between Chinese and Western people. The Western kids grow up to break away from their families, to become totally independent and make their own lives, but I think Chinese people are very different. We value our roots a lot. No matter how much money you make outside, you still have to go home because we have this duty, this responsibility to take care of our parents. This is the difference I see, at least, from what I know.


I found this part of the interview particularly fascinating. I had a similar conversation with my British friends when I told them that I would live with my parents when I returned to Singapore. In the Western context, living with one's parents post-university comes close to an admission of personal failure - you do so because you cannot make it on your own. It's also seen as a compromise of personal freedom and individuality, signifying a prolonged adolescence and an inability to fully assume the responsibilities of real adulthood. It’s also seen as a failure of parenting, the failure of parents to equip their children to be independent adults. A recent example would be Matthew McConaughey's character in Failure to Launch. The title says it all. As a single man living at home with his parents, he is like a rocket that has failed to launch. In fact, his parents are so desperate to get rid of him that they hire Sarah Jessica Parker's character, a "professional motivator", specifically to achieve just that.

Almost the exact opposite is true in the Asian context. Asian graduates tend to live with their parents until they get married. In fact, parents are often dismayed when their unmarried adult children express a desire to live on their own (if they work in the same city where their parents live). Parents like to be able to provide and care for their children as long as possible, even when they are grown. Family unity is more important than individual liberty, and generally, the most "acceptable" reason for moving out of your parents' home is to start a family of your own.

Instead of individual independence, in the Asian context, being a responsible adult includes caring for your elderly parents. The Confucian ideal of "filial piety", a respect for parents and ancestors, is one of the most important virtues in Chinese culture. The point of view that Jay Chou expresses in this interview is not considered strange, but admirable. Though not all families would choose the same living arrangements, many adult children choose to live near their elderly parents so as to better care for them. There are also attendant benefits for these adult children, such as free child care for grandchildren, which elderly parents/grandparents are more than happy to provide in most instances. This happily symbiotic relationship is openly encouraged by the Singapore government through generous public housing subsidies.

This is not to say that one approach is necessarily better than the other. Each culture tends to be built around a dominant cultural narrative and the potential ill-effects are not hard to see. Excessive individualism can lead to an overly atomised society in which people only care about their own selfish interests, to the detriment of the greater good. Casual viewing of any Chinese TV series based on a large family would sufficiently inform the viewer of the potential pitfalls of exalting the family above all else. These shows are generally peopled by overbearing patriarchs, unreasonable mothers-in-laws and beleaguered adult children.

Different cultures hold up different versions of the good life and so very often, people are driven into the ground chasing after it. Tim Keller points out that the Bible says that all cultures are fallen (because all people are fallen), and that all cultures oppress. Every single culture, puts in front of men and women certain objects and says, "If you don't have them, you're nothing. If you don't have them, you have no worth, no significance. Your existence isn't justified."

Traditional societies tend to make the family unit and the clan into an absolute, ultimate thing. This can lead to honor killings, the treatment of women as chattel, and violence toward gay people. Western, secular cultures make an idol out of individual freedom, and this leads to the breakdown of the family, rampant materialism, careerism, and the idolization of romantic love, physical beauty and profit.

In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about the elders of Israel, "These men have set up their idols in their hearts." ... God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.


In Romans 1:21-25 St Paul shows that idolatry is not only one sin among many, but what is fundamentally wrong with the human heart:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him... They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. (Romans 1:21, 25)

Paul goes on to make a long list of sins that create misery and evil in the world, but they all find their roots in this soil, the inexorable human drive for "god-making." In other words, idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong. No one grasped this better than Martin Luther. In his Larger Catechism (1528) and also his Treatise on Good Works he wrote that the Ten Commandments begin with a commandment against idolatry. Why does this come first in the order? Because, he argued, the fundamental motivation behind law-breaking is idolatry. We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one. Why do we ever fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is "because we are weak and sinful", but the specific answer in any actual circumstance is that there is something you feel you must have to be happy, that is more important to your heart than God himself. We would not lie unless first we had made something — human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage — more important and valuable to our hearts than the grace and favor of God. The secret to change is always to identify and dismantle the basic idols of the heart.

Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods,
and How to Find Your Rival Gods

One has only the choice between God and idolatry. If one denies God ... one is worshiping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such, but in fact, though unknown to oneself imagining the attributes of Divinity in them.

Simone Weil

A beautiful sadness

Listening to Jay Chou, I can't help but wonder why so much of Chinese pop music consists of sentimental ballads about heartbreak, loss and regret. The compact beauty of the Chinese language, in which great depth of emotion is expressed in but a few words, seems to be uniquely suited for such lyrical lament. The end theme from the movie Curse of the Golden Flower, is a wonderful case in point. A valiant attempt is made to render the song in English, but even so, it is hard to capture the full richness of the original Chinese. The combination of poetic lyrics with intricate minor-key melody creates a feeling of exquisitely beautiful sadness.



Perhaps sadness is always preceded by joy, and a heart will only break for losing what it once treasured. Perhaps the beauty of sadness is in the joy of what once was. Perhaps joy and sadness are inextricably intertwined.

Is there no beauty, no joy, no love, that lasts?


The earth will never be the same again.
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this grief
As distant stars participate in pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
Is Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried,
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies then would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
That every life is noted and is cherished,
And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

Madeleine L'Engle, from A Ring of Endless Light

God lives in eternity, and although we live in time, through the grace of the Spirit we may also be freed from time. But that is difficult for us to understand in the dailiness of living. We are born into time. Our bodies age according to time, and in time they will die. It is not easy for us to understand that eternity is not a time concept, that it has nothing to do with time at all, but is that fullness of God's love which transcends time.

Madeleine L'Engle, "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth"

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Psalm 136

If Christ rose not

If it be all for nought, for nothingness
At last, why does God make the world so fair?
Why spill this golden splendour out across
The western hills, and light the silver land
Of eve? Why give me eyes to see, and soul
To love so strong and deep? Then with a pang
This brightness stabs me through, and makes within
Rebellious voice to cry against all death?
Why set this hunger for eternity
To gnaw my heart strings through if death ends all?
If death ends all, then evil must be good,
Wrong must be right, and beauty ugliness.
God is a Judas who betrays his son
And with a kiss, damns all the world to hell -
If Christ rose not again.

By an unknown soldier killed in World War I

Leaf Peeping

Leaf peeping is the art of being at the right place at the right time. To be there just as the perfect combination of sunny days and cool nights turns the leaves into the brightest shades crimson, orange and gold.

It was a perfect day. The autumnal air was crisp and fresh. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. The sun set the leaves ablaze.

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing ...to find the place where all the beauty came from ...the place where I ought to have been born.

Psyche, in Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet.

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory

Lost and Found

When Billy is asked at The Royal Ballet School auditions how he feels when he dances, he says:

I can't really explain it,
I haven't got the words
It's a feeling that you can't control
I suppose it's like forgetting, losing who you are
And at the same time something makes you whole

...in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm of all creation and of all being. For the Eternal Word gives Himself in mortal sacrifice; and that not only on Calvary. For when He was crucified on Calvary He did that in the wild weather of His outlying provinces what He had done at home in glory and gladness. From before the foundation of the world, Christ surrenders begotten deity back to begetting Deity, in obedience. And as the Son glorifies the Father, so also the Father glorifies the Son. ...From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever. This is not a ...law which we can escape ...What is outside the system of self-giving is ...simply and solely Hell ...that fierce imprisonment in the self ...Self-giving is absolute reality.

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Perhaps what is true of dancing, is also true of life.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
Matthew 16:25

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Amazing Grace

They sang mostly in their native Zulu language, and they danced the dances of their people. Their harmonies were so tight, you could not differentiate individual voices - it was as if only one person was singing, in a tone so rich and so pure that the concert hall was filled with perfect melody. They sang about hope amidst suffering, the beauty of their homeland, their people's struggle for freedom, the need for all of us to come together to work for peace.

But when the lights dimmed and the audience clapped them back on stage for their last song, this is what they sang.

Drag Me to Hell?

Though not a fan of horror movies (I avoid them almost entirely - the last horror movie I saw was the The Sixth Sense and I must confess that it scared me quite a bit), I was persuaded to go to a screening of Drag Me to Hell with the assurance that the movie had received rave reviews.

The movie was full of well-executed thrills and scares, topped off with wacky humour and numerous "gross-out" moments, though it was surprisingly free of gore. The story revolves around a young woman who humiliates and angers an old gypsy lady, who then puts a curse on her. Predictably, said young woman is in imminent danger of being dragged to hell by an evil spirit, and most of the movie revolves around her valiant efforts to avoid this nasty fate. The zany humour and the over-the-top action tempered the scariness of the film, and I was relieved to leave the cinema mostly untraumatised.

I was struck by the film's implicit acceptance of good and evil, the need for atonement and forgiveness of one's transgressions (at one point a poor goat is led out to be slaughtered), and the existence of a supernatural realm - hell included, of course.

The hell depicted in the movie seemed to be typical of most horror movies, full of raging fires and ghoulish souls reluctantly condemned to eternal punishment for the wrong that they did while they were alive on earth. People are dragged there kicking and screaming.

Most biblical commentators agree that the language that is used to describe hell in the Scriptures is metaphorical - hell is portrayed as eternal fire as well as the outer darkness (which are of course literal contradictions). Tim Keller points out that "[t]hey are vivid ways to describe what happens when we lose the presence of God. Darkness refers to the isolation, and fire to the disintegration of being separated from God. Away from the favor and face of God, we literally, horrifically, and endlessly fall apart."

The scariest part of all of this, is that no one is reluctantly "dragged" to hell as the movie suggests with equal amounts of hilarity and horror. We chose it.

In short, hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity. We see this process "writ small" in addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography. First, there is disintegration, because as time goes on you need more and more of the addictive substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction. Second, there is the isolation, as increasingly you blame others and circumstances in order to justify your behaviour. "No one understands! Everyone is against me!" is muttered in greater and greater self-pity and self-absorption. When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing - though a good thing - becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. Personal disintegration happens on a broader scale. In eternity, this disintegration goes on forever. There is increasing isolation, denial, delusion and self-absorption. When you lose all humility you are out of touch with reality. No one ever asks to leave hell [note: as is the case in Jesus' parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus]. The very idea of heaven seems to them a sham.

Tim Keller in The Reason for God

In the words of C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, "Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticise it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud."

The Christian doctrine of hell has never been a popular one. It's one that has often been caricatured and trivialised. However, as Tim Keller points out:

Unless we come to grips with this "terrible" doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him he was experiencing hell itself. But consider - if our debt for sin is so great that it is never paid off there, but our hell stretches on for eternity, then what are we to conclude from the fact that Jesus said the payment was "finished" (John 19:30) after only three hours? We learn that what he felt on the cross was far worse and deeper than all of our deserved hells put together.

And this makes emotional sense when we consider the relationship he lost. If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you - that hurts. If a good friend does the same - that hurts far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you saying, "I never want to see you again," that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more tortuous is any separation. But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginningless and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. He experienced the full wrath of the Father. And he did it voluntarily, for us.

Fairly often I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all." Why, I ask? "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin." But this shows a deep misunderstanding of both God and the cross. On the cross, God HIMSELF, incarnated as Jesus, took the punishment. He didn't visit it on a third party, however willing.

So the question becomes: what did it cost your kind of god to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this god agonize, cry out, and where were his nails and thorns? The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary." But then ironically, in our effort to make God more loving, we have made him less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a god like this will be at most impersonal, cognitive, and ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We could not sing to him "love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." Only through the cross could our separation from God be removed, and we will spend all eternity loving and praising God for what he has done (Revelation 5:9-14).

And if Jesus did not experience hell itself for us, then we ourselves are devalued. In Isaiah, we are told, "The results of his suffering he shall see, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). This is a stupendous thought. Jesus suffered infinitely more than any human soul in eternal hell, yet he looks at us and says, "It was worth it." What could make us feel more loved and valued than that? The Savior presented in the gospel waded through hell itself rather than lose us, and no other savior ever depicted has loved us at such a cost.

From The Importance of Hell

See also Hell: Isn't the God of Christianity an angry Judge?

How Tim Keller Found Manhattan

Great article about the wonderful story of Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church and New York City. It's not hard to see why Dr Keller and Redeemer's ministry has grown so quickly and touched so many, myself included.

The Kellers stick to a few rules. They never talk about politics. Tim always preaches with a non-Christian audience in mind, not merely avoiding offense, but exploring the text to find its good news for unbelievers as well as believers. The church emphasizes excellence in music and art, to the point of paying their musicians well (though not union scale). And it calls people to love and bless the city. It isn't an appeal based on guilt toward a poor, lost community.

... Keller's reading of Scripture fueled his enthusiasm. Conn had taught him a positive biblical view of cities. As he studied New York, he began to draw out that understanding. Surely God's command to exiled Israelites applied to Christians in New York: "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you" (Jer. 29:7). Long before that, God had designated cities as places of refuge when Israel entered the Promised Land. They remain so today, Keller noted—which explains why poor people, immigrants, and vulnerable minorities such as homosexuals cluster in cities. They attract people who are open to change. Paul did most of his missionary work in cities, and early Christianity flourished within them. Revelation portrays the final descent of the kingdom of God to earth as a city, although a garden city, with fruit trees and a life-giving river at its center. Keller suggests that, had Adam and Eve lived sinlessly and obeyed God's directions, they would have made Eden into just such a city.

The New Jerusalem
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Now the dwelling of God is with men,
and he will live with them.
They will be his people,
and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away."

He who was seated on the throne said,
"I am making everything new!"
Then he said, "Write this down,
for these words are trustworthy and true."
Revelation 21:1-5

The Ultimate Boyband Song

Undoubtedly the gold standard by which all boyband songs are measured, and the template according to which all such songs are written. Performed by Oxford's very own "boyband", the all-male a cappella group, Out of the Blue.

Declaration of my feelings for you
Elaboration of those feelings
Description of how long those feelings have existed
Belief that no one else could feel the same as I

Reminiscence of those pleasant times we shared
And our relationship's perfection
Recounting of the steps that led to our love's dissolution
Mostly involving my unfaithfulness and lies

Penitent admission of wrongdoing
Discovery of the depth of my affection
Regret over the lateness of my epiphany

Title of the song
Naïve expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time
And rectify my wrong
Repetition of the title of the song

Enumeration of my various transgressive actions
And insufficient motivation
Realisation that these actions led to your departure
And my resultant lack of sleep and appetite

Renunciation of my past insensitive behavior
Promise of my reformation
Reassurance that you still are foremost in my thoughts now
Plead for instruction how to gain your trust again

Request for reconciliation
Listing of the numerous tasks that I'd perform
Of physical and emotional compensation

Acknowledgment that I acted foolishly
Increasingly desperate pleas for your return
Sorrow for my infidelity
Vain hope that my sins are forgivable

Appeal for one last opportunity
Drop to my knees to elicit crowd response
Prayers to my chosen deity
Modulation and I hold a high note...