The Atonement

As the year comes to a close, let me end it with a story of a girl whom I knew once upon a time.

Seven years ago, when I was still struggling through adolescence, I met a girl at a crossroad. As we both waited for the lights to change, the girl turned and spoke to me.

She told me about how she was blessed with two very good friends. She described one of them as her confidant, whom she could talk about anything under the sun. They had met each other at college, found that they had a lot in common and became fast friends. The other friend was her working partner in a committee she was on - apparently a very sweet person with a good and gentle heart. They not only had the best job in the house; with complementary personalities and interests, they worked seamlessly together. As she rambled on, I could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she was very fond of them.

Curious to know more, I implored her to go on. But as she continued, her face began to change. One day, around this time of the year, things took a unexpected twist. In the blink of an eye and the turn of a corner, the relationships between the three friends evolved, some for better, some for worse. Because the girl was not prepared for the change, she was devastated. She told me regretfully that in her desperate attempt of self-preservation, she did many foolish things that she should not have done, and made many people worry over things they should not have. In order to reach her, her two friends kept knocking on her door, but she chose to shut the door on them until the knocking stopped.

So how did the story end? Well, the shield that she was using, became the weapon that hurt her. She still got wounded in the end, along with the two whom she had treasured. All were hurt, all were sad. All suffered, and all had lost. It could have been one, but due to the wickedness of her heart, she multiplied the pain and distributed it among the three of them.

Shortly after, the girl disappeared and I never thought I would see her again. But recently, she crossed my path for the second time. Strange enough, I bumped into her at the same crossroad where I met her years ago. The roads were busy and the junction was filled with people eager to get over to the other side. When she spotted me among the crowd, her blank face turned into a look of bewilderment. As I approached her, she shook her head at the awkwardness, if not the disbelief of finding herself back at the same spot.

"You know," she laughed as she made the opening remark, "God has a funny way of teaching us a lesson..."

As I stood before her, I drew my full attention to this uncanny acquaintance. I was surprised to realise that she hasn't aged at all despite all these years. While I had long moved out of adolescence, she was the same pubescent girl from the past. When I held her with my eyes, I saw that she was trembling behind her nonchalant front. Her gaze was still and hollow, her mind seemed to be in a faraway place beyond my reach. Her shoes were torn, her feet were worn, her veins had risen from the surface of her pale skin. As she stood at the junction, looking lost and forlorn, I felt a tight squeeze on my heart.

I didn't know what to say to pull her out of the emotional quicksand she was in. To my relief, she was the one who broke the staleness of the moment. With a deliberate pause and a grim chuckle, she shifted her gaze to me and murmured with a tinge of resignation, "I guess He doesn't stop until we repent. He won't stop until we pay the dues that we owe, until we learn the rules, until we pass His exam."

It came to me that perhaps she was still atoning for her mistakes from the yesteryears. I did not know what wrongs she had committed, but somehow when our eyes met, I found myself nodding in unison.

The silence lingered for a while before the lights finally switched. Then, all of a sudden, our surroundings sprang into life as everyone around us started to move off. She took a step out of the shade, and placed her right foot in front. Under the blaze of the afternoon sun, I could see that her face was bare, her shadow was right beneath her feet. It was time for her to go, and it was time for me to run along too. Just as she was about to leave my side once again, she turned back and gave me a departing look.

With a feeble smile she said, "This time round, to save the both of us, I'm going to draw a different face and walk out of the door."

--

Today is the last day of the year, but I guess I won't be doing the usual thank you message anymore. I just want to give thanks to Him, who finally knocked on my door hard enough that if I didn't open, maybe He would start knocking on my head instead. It's been such a long six months, crawling up a steep learning curve. But I'm happy to say that He's been very kind, sending people to help me up the slope towards Him.

People like you, whom I've decided to share an intimate part of me with; people like you, who care and take a personal interest in my life by dropping by this place.

My heartfelt thanks. Have a good year ahead, and may you be with the Lord always.

Love, unrequited

Have you ever been in love? Not just in love, but very deeply in love?

Have you ever loved somebody so much that all you want to do is to help the subject of your affection? Have you ever loved somebody so much that you just want to give your best to the person, you just want to meet the person's needs, you just want to make the person's life a little better?

In the toughest of times, you just want to face the challenges with the person, to share the burden, to work through the problems so that the person doesn't have to bear the full weight of the yoke. In the darkest of days, you just want to walk beside the person, to put a smile on the person's face, to shine some light on the person's path, so that the person doesn't get overwhelmed by the pain of loneliness and the malaise of melancholy. In the numbest, coldest of nights, you just want to hold the person's hand tightly in yours, so that the person can feel the affirming grip of your fingers, the gentleness of your touch, and the warmth of your palms.

And even when your love is unreciprocated, you still continue to hold on to the desire to give, the yearning to help. You may have fallen out of love, and the love has not fallen out of you. The person may scold you, push you, judge you, blame you, misunderstand you, turn away from you, disown you, and yet you only wish for joy upon the person. You only wish for the good of the person.

You may feel foolish for being so, you may blame yourself for holding on. You may ask yourself why, you may not understand how this is possible. But if you have loved like this, then you're not alone. There is someone I know who loves despite not being loved; someone who is rejected on a daily basis, but never stops giving, never stops forgiving, never stops helping, never stops providing, never stops holding, never stops hoping, never stops blessing and never stops loving.

I imagine this kind of love to be impossible, but it's actually everywhere. It is here, right in front of me, right in front of you. Standing at your door, is One who loves us, even though we can never reciprocate with the same magnitude of love.

My dear, I just want you to know that He understands your pain of a love unrequited.

Claus the false

"You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not shout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town"

Tell me who is Santa Claus?
the one with a beard and curly white hair
he bears the image of a wise grandfather
to the little ones he's eternal

Children welcome him with loud applause
he comes across as just and fair
he assesses children based on their behaviour
he weighs their works, his judgment is final

He is rumored to live in the north
in a big house with elves as his helpers
he "sees us when we're sleeping and knows when we're awake"
it's as though he's omniscient!

Every December on the twenty fourth
he sits in his sleigh, carried by his reindeers
rewards all the good ones, and finishes by daybreak
surely he must be very efficient!

Come to think about it carefully
doesn't SC reminds us of somebody?
Compared to Him, the One who's holy
doesn't SC strike you as a parody?

So Santa, if you're coming to town
Sorry I have to turn you down
you shall only have my frown.

The lazy way of charity

Organised charity have turned us into lazy bums
by providing easy access to donate our incomes
Whether it's the poor, the disabled, or the sick
a wide range of choices for us to pick

We can write a cheque and send it by mail
or pay online by filling in our credit card details
Have none of these? No worries!
They have tin cans for us to drop our loose pennies

Now, the actors on tv are urging us to call the hotlines
"Dial 1800 and stand a chance to win a trip to philippines"
Sounds a lot like lottery?
But packaged as an act of philanthropy

I'd like to think we usually give with good intentions
and organised charity do serve many useful functions
They make it convenient for us to make a contribution
because we "trust" them to carry out the mission

But how much goes into operations and how much into welfare?
Do we know and do we care?
Or it is "once I give, I have done my part"??
I've stored a good deed in my conceited heart

See a beggar on the street?
Let's put a dollar by his feet
What about buying him something to eat?
The former too easy, the latter a feat

It's good to give and it's good to share
It's up to us to decide how and where
We can always choose the convenient way
or a more thoughtful and meaningful way to pay

PS: A friend also shared the following video with me, which you may find interesting:

When the pen stops bleeding

Often, I fall asleep on a plateau and wake up at the bottom of a deep canyon.

It's coming to a decade since I last came to this virtual plain, erected four poles, threw some hay over as the roof and built a hideout for myself. In the early days before the advent of weblogs, I was shifting from place to place, focusing more on the exterior of the hut than the interior. I enjoyed designing and experimenting with html, I remember the good old days of free web hosting with no ads.

The second half of my journey was spent here, after weblogs became the more convenient choice. If you have camped with me long enough, you will remember the small television screen, with a few functional buttons and tiny fonts. "Split screen sadness" was the last and the longest layout, before I got lazy and adopted one of the host's. The focus gradually shifted to the interiors, filling up the space with pages of scribblings instead. The house provided me with a safe avenue to express myself, and was occasionally used as a medium to communicate with those whom I hold dear in my heart.

So ten years have gone, an undulating ten years. The dark clouds are still parked outside. I don't know why they have to follow me like shadows, always sticking to my feet. When the light is above, they shrink to a small silhouette. When the lightsource is far, they elongate to become bigger than me. Sometimes they get the better of me. On such days, you may find me caught beneath a landslide because the rain came unpredictably, dragging the soil down along with it.

But anyhow, this is just an imagery that I've painted in a moment of self-indulgence. This is a piece of prose I've written in a moment of forgetfulness. This is a signpost, like a cross that you mark on the trees when you're lost in the forest to remind you where you have come from.

I don't know when I can bring myself to write here again. My pen must stop bleeding.

Do not be afraid, love. The Lord is with you, and with me.

A letter to Z

Two roads converge into one
our journey together has just begun
Fasten the seatbelts and sit tight
as the airplane takes its flight

Some turbulence as we weave through the clouds
A desire to escape from the maddening shroud
Turn your face towards the next passenger
he may just turn out to be His messenger

When one door closes, another one opens
but pay your dues before collecting your tokens
And please do not feel too dejected,
He may send us to where it's least expected

What He gives, He can also take
So know when to accelerate and when to brake
The cycle will always repeat itself
So another story can be added to the shelf

The main road will eventually diverge into two,
but we must still continue to do
It's never a dead end until it's over
when we finally meet the Creator

Going back to SW1101

Today, I woke up with a jolt.

In the social work context, if a client doesn't feel helped by me, then I must have failed in my helping. I have not met their needs, nor made their life better. It may have been an honest mistake on my part, but what was wrong, is still wrong. If it was a misfit of intervention and need, I can still try to change myself, my theoretical framework, or my methods. But what it was just a misfit of worker and client?

I'm moving my heart elsewhere. There is much work to be done.