The whole church should grieve together

 

My good friend Ee-Tan's close and beloved uncle had passed on, and I was there for the wake service today to be with her and to offer my condolences especially the family.

I remember Rev Wong Fong Yang had once talked about wake services and how the whole church should be there for the body of Christ to console the grieving, even if we do not know them that well. We are after all one body in the Lord, and we should be there to grieve together. And I agree with him, I haven't been good in this regard and when I reflected on it, I would like to emulate that. 

It goes without saying here that Ee-Tan is a dear friend of mine and of course I am there for her. There is nothing else I could do. 

And wake services always make me think of my own wake service. How would it be? Who would be there? 

pearlie

The Last Post

I attended William Chan's wake service this evening. He has gone home to the Lord on Saturday after a difficult fight with a rare form of cancer. I don't know him that well but from the eulogies and testimonies shared this evening, he had indeed fought a good fight and stayed faithful to the calling of the Lord till the end. 

He was the Captain of the Boy's Brigade 18th Petaling Jaya Company and at the end of the service, the Last Post was performed. In military tradition, the Last Post is the bugle call that signifies the end of the day's activities. It is also sounded at military funerals to indicate that the soldier has gone to his final rest. I never knew about it before and when it was played, I was so moved and touched by this very emotional and special moment of sending home a loved one to the Lord. 

Rest in peace, brother William.

pearlie

Suffer and be comforted as one in Christ

 

Pastor said something in church today that made me think. He was announcing and reporting on a wake service held for rather new member of the church and was commending the members of the church who turned up at the service. 

He commented that the situation is so different between churches in smaller towns like Batu Pahat compared to city churches in Kuala Lumpur. Whenever, a member of a small town church passes away, the whole church comes to pay their respect and to comfort the family members. But for a city church, few would make the effort. 

I never thought of it from that perspective before. I usually don't go unless I am close to the members of the family because if I am not known to them, I feel I won't be of much of a support.

But what the pastor said is true. We are all one body in the Lord and the local church is the body of the faith community in Christ. Therefore, when one suffers, all suffer and when one rejoices, all rejoice. 

When my father-in-law passed away several years ago, members from several churches came. He was sick and was not able to attend church much. But when he passed on, members of my family church, members of the church I was attending as well as members of the church my late father-in-law did manage to attend a few times, all came to the wake service to offer us their company and comfort. 

It meant a lot to me. 

I am now going to rethink this and work towards turning up at wake services of members of my church even though I may not be close to them. 

It does not matter that they do not know me. We are one body in the Lord, we suffer and be comforted as one. 

pearlie 

What you never realized about the writings of Tolkien and Lewis

 

A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and A Great War, How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

by Joseph Loconte

The book started off quite interestingly but I soon got bogged down on the first few chapters about the First World War. I am not a fan of writings or documentaries or movies about wars and combat and so I got on quite laboriously in the beginning. I was however very adamant on reading this book about my two all-time favourite authors and if I had to read about wars, I will have to read about wars. 

And I am glad I did. This book is exceptional. Very few books made me cry, and this one did.

It spent quite a bit of time to discuss the war that both Tolkien and Lewis were in. It was an important factor, if not one of the most, that influenced their writings. Winston Churchill said that this "Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness in which it was fought." I wouldn't know about Churchill's comment about future wars, what with the environment we are in right now, and we are not even at war, but I can see how the conditions that they had to encounter during the First World Wat were so bad. 

A German artist Otto Dix, who survived the war said this, “Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells bombs, underground caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel: that is what war is. It is the work of the devil.”

But what is interesting though is this, before the Great War, society then in America and Europe, was living in an era of the myth of progress. They have had so many breakthroughs in mechanicals and technologies that they look to a world of perfection and goodness and peace. Then came the war. With this, I can also see that we might be in the same myth of progress where we are now, and we need to be warned before we fall into its trap again.

Loconte then proceeded on to tell the story of how Tolkien and Lewis met after the war, and this part of the book warmed my heart. It is a delight to read how they met every week to discuss their thoughts and ideas, and how they read their writings to each other for comment and critique. It was in such a setting that Tolkien and a friend helped Lewis worked out his logic and thinking to believe in God and Jesus as his Saviour. And it amazes me that it had to do with the theme of myth. Lewis said the understanding of the nature of myth was crucial to his conversion. 

“Do you mean,” Lewis asked, “that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that has really happened? In that case, I begin to understand.”

The subsequent section of the book is now my favourite of all in books I've ever read, which I believe I will read again and again. I have practically highlighted almost every other sentence in the paragraphs. Loconte provided me with a better background and perspective which I will take to when I re-read The Lord of the Rings and when I get into The Chronicles of Narnia. Their experience in the war, and the atrocities they have lived in, they have looked at it as the struggle of human against evil and the clamor for power, which is evident in the stories they told. 

Their heroes are unlike the heroes of our day. We look up to the heroes who are the only ones who can save the world, whereas the heroes of these two gentlemen are men who struggled with the weaknesses and yet gain victory not really by their doings, but through the most unexpected means. 

And on top of it, it is not us human that gains the ultimate glory of victory. In all wars or conquests that we see, victory was short-term if not futile. We await for the Return of the King, and only then will it be truly and finally victorious. 

pearlie 

How I got my airbag changed in half a day

Honda has announced the recall of cars with relation to the faulty airbag some time last year and I had immediately checked to see if my car was affected.

It was.

But when I called my regular Honda workshop to get it changed, they kept telling me that I need to wait for the letter from Honda.

I just got the letter last week on Thursday.

A death was reported this week on Monday of a woman who got involved in a small collision. The airbag was deployed and she was killed from material protruding from the steering wheel.

I went on the alert and felt I need to get the airbag in my steering wheel changed immediately. I called the same Honda workshop. The earliest date that they can set an appointment for me was August 18! This means I will be at risk for one and a half months. I know I have driven my car for seven years without any incidents, but because of the reported death, I am getting paranoid.

I quickly called another workshop and thankfully they welcomed walk-ins. I went there immediately, waited two and a half hours to get registered, and another hour for the airbag to be changed.

But I got it done in a half a day. At least now I can drive around without a nagging feeling that I might get into an accident and die.

pearlie

When I die

I was looking through my list of passwords to housekeep it when I noticed one on this website I had subscribed to before back in 2013 - www.ifidie.org.

I have blogged about it before here and here.

Almost three years have passed and I have not really got it all in place. I am such a procrastinator. It is time I relook into this and keep it updated.

The idea behind this website is simple. It give us a way to say some last words to someone when we can no longer do it in person.

The process is simple, you first write notes and letters to family and friends, as many as you like, as long as you like. These letters will be encrypted and stored securely on the website. You then specify several people as SafeGuards to help protect your notes. They will not be able to read your notes but they will be the ones to confirm when your notes are to be read, yes, when you die.

If you are interested yourself, check it out here.

pearlie

P/S on 30 June 2016: my good friend Ee-Tan commented on Facebook that the right thing to say is "When I Die" rather than "If I Die". The reason is self-explanatory. I have changed my title of this post to the right one, though the website is still on "If I die".

All bluff I think

I had wanted to blog about impending death, with the growing number of people around me suffering from cancer, which scares me. I wanted to think about what I will do if I had only several months to live.

I then found this very interesting article, which seem to be trending as we speak: When I'm Gone.

It's a very poignant story about a man whose father died very young from cancer. Before the father died, he had written him letters to be opened at specific events, for example When You Had Your Worst Fight With Your Mom or When You Have Your First Kiss, etc.

But as I read along, I began to think that it is all made up. Then came this sentence at the end of the article, for When Your Time Comes, i.e. for when the son is himself on his death bed.

The father wrote, "You know, this letter was the easiest to write, and the first I wrote."

The question is how would he know that this was the easiest letter to write when he hasn't even written the other letters yet?

pearlie

Distant and Dream and Dead

Today is Holy Saturday and we all need to wait on God and meditate on his forgiving and steadfast love.

But I must admit, I have not been spending time with my God lately. This Lent, Holy Week and Easter season is one where I feel quite distant from him.

And I dreamt that I died. I was in a flying contraption and it could not take off and it crashed and I died. Even though I do not have an actual phobia of flying but even before the many recent plane disasters, I did not and do not like being in a plane.

There isn't much of a connection here I know but this is what marked my day today. The fact that I feel distant from God and I dreamt that I'm dead.

pearlie

Book Review: (1) Malaysia Flight MH370 - Lost in the Dark, and (2) Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11

Malaysia Flight MH370 - Lost in the Dark: In Defense of the Pilots: An Engineer's Perspective
by John P. Choisser

I was looking for a book to read yesterday after finishing a book that took me too long to finish and I came across this book on the recent disappearance of flight MH370. I did some research and found two other titles, one conjectured that it was pilot suicide while the other said it was a test missile failure cover up. That was when I decided to get this volume by Choisser - solely because the author presented what he thinks has happened based on actual facts and stated assumptions.

It was a short read with less than a hundred pages. He started by providing some facts about the B777, he addressed some possibilities especially those mentioned in the media and what he thought of them, and then he presented what he thought could have happened. And it is indeed very plausible.

After the short MH370 read, I wanted another one. I tried a few titles but found them a tad too perky after Choisser's MH370. I thought to myself, would there be another book on recent disasters...and found Tower Stories, a tome of oral accounts of the epitome of all disasters.


Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11
by Damon DiMarco

I was glued to this volume of 528 pages. I read two thirds of it in just one sitting and finished it this evening. DiMarco interviewed different sets of people right after the disaster and caught up with some of them again several years down the line for an update that was also included in this volume.

He segregated them into 4 groups:
1. At the Towers - first person accounts of the survivors from the towers
2. Outside the Towers - spectators as well as surviving victims from the surrounding areas
3. Ground Zero and the Volunteers - stories from the surviving police officers, firefighters and paramedics including a very good story about this lady who just got herself into Ground Zero and inadvertently became in-charge of the survival center
4. The Aftermath - stories from relatives and friends of the victims of the towers

It was a long read and I had a bitter sweet feeling after reading it. The pain and the grief it all caused was just uncalled for and yet it happened. I may be thousands of miles away but I still remember where I was and what I was doing when it happened. And even though it was more than 10 years ago and I can still remember how I felt, what more those who were there.

pearlie

Death for food

I was in a Chinese wedding dinner this evening and we were served a suckling piglet.

I felt guilty looking at it.



I felt guilty both for the piglet and myself: the poor piglet having to die to be food and me eating this fat laden food after all the gym-ing I've done.

But I felt more for the piglet.

I've seen chicken being slaughtered before, back in my school days when I watched my late grandmother slaughtering one. I was ok with it then.

But I have not seen the slaughter of a pig before and I am not sure if I want to see it, much less the slaughter of a piglet.

And here I am eating one.

I found this interesting article: A day two pigs would die: ethical slaughter. And I began to wonder why God allow us to eat meat.

To eat meat means an animal has to die. The verse where God said meat can be eaten is found in Genesis 9:3, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything."

This was after the flood in Noah's time. I had thought God said it right after the fall of Adam and Eve.

Why after the flood? The only logical thing I could think of is that with the flood destroying every plant on earth, the only food now available to eat are the animals. But there weren't many of them to begin with.

I don't see myself going vegetarian. But I'm certainly going to read up more on this.

Meanwhile, the suckling pig was absolutely delicious.

pearlie

If I die...a follow up

I blogged about this last week. I could not get it off my mind and have been thinking of it quite a lot. I was not sure what and how to get about it but I am now a bit clearer as to what I need to do.

For one, I have finally gotten my will done up. I have wanted to do this for a really, really long time but I kept putting it off. In my opinion, he is a responsible person who gets his last will and testament done.

My next step is to deal with the small stuff.

As it is with most people these days, my life is quite tied up to the digital world. I find it weird if this blog and my Facebook, though not very active, would be left unattended and silent if I die suddenly. I want my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts removed, but I would like my blog to live on, albeit left suspended.

And what about all the books that I have amassed? If my son does not want them, I would prefer them to be given to a library than to have them left unused. As far as my ebooks are concerned, I have already accepted the fact that they are really just for my consumption.

And what about my passwords - my husband or son need to have them, in a safe way.

I have figured what I want to do with www.ifidie.org and I hope it works when the time comes.

After doing all that, i.e. coming up with instructions and wishes, the next step is a pretty tough one I'd say - writing notes and letters. It feels weird writing them when you are not dead and I wonder how it would be for others reading them when I am actually dead.

pearlie

If I die

I am taking audit classes on Ezekiel for the past couple of months. This question was asked by one of my classmates on Monday in his presentation requirements for credit on Ezekiel 36: what is one thing that you really hope for?

The first thing that entered my mind was death, so that I may live. It is a complicated thought. No, I am not thinking about suicide. Yes, I still want to live on here on earth - for the sake of my family at least. I am thinking more in line of Paul's "for me to live and to die is gain." 

But that is not what I am trying to get at here.

What has been filling my thoughts for the past few days is this: what will happen if I die suddenly?

It will be too late to say what I want to say to people I want to say them to. It will be too late to tell them what I need to get done and not done. It will be too late to tell them how to get access to my digital stuff. Mostly trivial stuff, but still...I need them to know.

Then I thought there should be an email service provided for that purpose, in that you write your notes while you are alive and when you die, the letters will be sent to the recipients.

And yes, I found this site that does that exactly: http://ifidie.org/. 

I have created an account but I have not done anything yet. I don't know how and where to start.

pearlie

The Hope of Dying

I was reading some articles this morning when I happened upon an excerpt of an article with a parable that goes this way:

A man was leaning over the rail of a ship sailing a stormy sea. The ship's doctor came along with the cheerful greeting, "Don't worry; nobody ever died of seasickness!" To which the suffering wretch heaved back a weary reply: "Don't say that, Doc; only the hope of dying is keeping me alive."*

I went, "Whoa! What was that?"

The hope of dying keeps us alive?

As I thought of about it, it began to make sense. We do not live and live forever in this world, but sometimes we live as if we have the elixir of life to just go on and on living as if there is no end. (I am of course not referring to the eternal life in Christ but to our physical life on earth.)

It is because of this hope that we die that we live. I am not sure if you get that because I have to repeat that a few times and strain my mind each time to realise how truthful it is. It is because of the hope of dying that we live.

Hmm ... Profound.

pearlie

* The Christian Century, 19 Oct 1977

Death is sure to be. But after that?

I have been thinking off and on about death lately. I am not sure if it is just me, but this year seem to have more deaths. My strands of thought are two:

(1) Our conjecture about afterlife as God's people differ through the ages, from Sheol, to paradise, to cloudy heaven with angels and harps, to a renewed earth, to a new earth, to whatever next. What makes us think we are right? Does it matter?

(2) Even though we are not sure but we are sure about a definite place. We are firm about the hope. We are definite about the eternal life. I always wonder about non-believers, how can one live without that hope? How do they live with the believe that life is just here on earth and all I am doing now is all there is? I find that so hopeless and meaningless it disturbs me tremendously. God offers life, we need to make a decision to receive it, and it is ours, but it is not without cost.

Note: Picture was taken during a visit to Labuan last year. I have posted them before ... but looking back, in trying to pick one to head this post, I found this one rather dismal - remembrance? That's all? (click picture for a clearer view)

pearlie
Photo © 2007 Pearlie Ng