A Shining Red Dot or A Cancerous Dark Spot

The Population White Paper marks a critical turning point in the history of our nation. We stand on the threshold of becoming a shiny tiny red dot on the blue spot of our planet earth or a cancerous spot in a dark world. We are just a tiny red dot and we cannot afford to make the mistakes of the Americans consuming the bulk of our world resources. The future of Singapore does not lie in managing the size of our population. We need to address the danger of greed and our spiritual poverty.

It is so important to address the right questions if we are to have the right answers. We can be a shining beacon of a small compassionate co-operative community to the world or we can be a selfish and greedy society, a cancerous dark spot consuming the world resources. We need to choose between greed or love as the motivating power for our lives.

E. F Schumacher, in his book, Small Is Beautiful, had drawn attention to the danger of Keynesian economics that is rooted in greed. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes had espoused the view that “for at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”

Keynes described capitalism as “the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. At the same time, Keynes also warned that “the decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.”

We reap what we sow. Hence the recent financial scandals in our world during the past two years come as no surprise. We are all living in an imperfect world and none of us are free from the temptations of the world. The news that Singapore “is at the heart of a global match-fixing empire” for football fixing matches all over the world casts a dark spot over our reputation for low corruption.  This, together with the sex scandals in 2012 and the indictment of a couple of civil servants by the CPIB  are but warning symptoms of a decline in morality in our society.  Our population problems pales in the light of our moral bankruptcy and spiritual poverty.

However, this is not a time for finger pointing which will only cultivate a culture of blame – this is a time for serious reflection by all Singaporeans. When we blame society for being materialistic we need to remember that we are the society as Mr. Tan Chuan Jin, the Acting Minister for Manpower and Senior Minister of State at the Ministry of National Development, rightly pointed out in a forum in November 2012. He made the point that “if everyone of us chooses to exercise our rights and fight for something we believe in, then society will change.”

Indeed all of us can be agents of change in our homes, our workplace and the communities that we are living in. However, in order to encourage our citizens to do so, we need a culture of safety – where people are not penalised for drawing attention to deficiencies in our social system. It is encouraging that the climate of fear has been reduced and this is seen in the results of the Punggol East by-election.

E.F. Schumacher has also drawn attention to the need for each one of us to find the strength to overcome the violence of greed, envy, hate and lust within ourselves. He believed that Gandhi had given us the answer:

“There must recognition of the existence of the soul apart from the body, and of its permanent nature, and this recognition must amount to a living faith; and, in the last resort, non-violence does not avail those who do not possess a living faith in the God of love.”

It is only with such a living faith that we will be better stewards of the resources of our world and to use them not just for our own good but for the good of others. We will also seek to humanise work so that work will not be “an inhuman chore” but the “true foundations of society” through the relationships established by work.

We need a spiritual revolution so that we will not see the “ avoidance of taxes as the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward” but as a responsibility to share our blessings and to be a blessing through paying our taxes. As Gandhi reminds us, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.” We need to live simple lives so that others may simply live.

Just we need a healthy immune system to resist and overcome disease, we need a healthy moral immune system to resist and overcome greed. Leonard Sweet warned the Americans that they are living under conditions of zero morality and there is a moral vacuum in their postmodern society.

It is sad that we did not follow the wisdom of the late Goh Keng Swee who introduced moral education in the schools. We need spiritual wisdom in order to make good use of information to nourish our souls, to build relationships and to harness technology for the common good rather than for selfish ends. 

The time has come for a "return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue - that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable." The time has come for us to come to our senses so that we will see that the love of money is the root of all evil, that “people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” and that there is no profit to gain the whole world but to lose our souls. We are in desperate need for wisdom and love so that we will be a shining red dot and not a cancerous dark spot.

Human & Divine

The inhuman rape and murder of the Indian medical student and the senseless massacre of innocent children in the Sandy Hooks Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut are grim reminders of the depravity inherent in our human nature. The sex scandals that rocked our tiny nation this year are but a reflection of how important our sexual desires can be. But before we cast the first stone we need to recognise that there is both a saint and a devil in each one of us.

As human beings we are all living in the prisons of our fears, anger, guilt, greed, lust and pride. We are not living the life that God wants us to live but we are living in the fallen world with quiet and resigned desperation. It is so easy to miss the real message of the Advent season – a time to remember and celebrate how Jesus came into the world to help us understand our human nature and to fulfill God’s promise that we can be both human and divine and be freed from the corruption of our sinful desires. The good news is that God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour (2 Peter 1:2-3).

Jesus came to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2 which he proclaimed at the beginning of his ministry in Nazareth:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.” (Luke 4:18-19)

The best and most wonderful gift of God is the gift of the Holy Spirit. But like our Christmas gifts, we tend to focus on the gifts rather than the Giver. We forget that the Holy Spirit is given to us, not to ensure that we will have health and wealth, but to search our hearts and to test us - so that we can understand our anxious thoughts and recognize anything that is offensive to God in our lives (Psalm 139:23-24).

We have been set free from the prison of our egos but that does not mean everything is permissible for us. We have been set free from our sinful nature so that our divine nature may grow in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. The good news of Christmas is the revelation of the spark of divinity that is present in our humanity. We are to remember that it only takes a spark to get a fire going. Instead of allowing our tongues to set our lives on fire we can seek to make our hearts an altar for God’s fire of love so that our lives will be a living sacrifice of praise to Him.

As we enter into a brand new year, let us use God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to delight in His Word and to turn our prayers into times of joy and wonder as we rest in His unfailing love and grace. Let us seek our Lord by feeding on the written Word to develop our divine nature which Christ came to give us. Let us surrender our sinful desires to the Lord through the spirit of repentance so that we may live out the wonderful truth of Psalm 37:4 in the new year of 2013:

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

May the Lord fill our hearts with the love of God and our minds with the hope of our inheritance as children of God to that we will grow to be more humane and more divine in the New Year. (Romans 5:5, 8:23-25)

When Up There Came Down Here

Christmas is a time of love, joy and peace – a time when we celebrate the greatest news of all time that Love came down from heaven to earth. But this good news in 2012 is marred by the tragic and senseless massacre of 20 children and 6 adults at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, USA. It is a grim reminder of the reality of evil. It brings to mind the slaughter of all boys two years old and younger in Bethlehem by King Herod on the first Christmas more than two thousand years ago.

In such times it may be very difficult to proclaim "Joy to the world! The Lord has come!" Some may wonder where is God in all this. But this is the greatest mystery that we share with the world – that God came down from heaven to transform the hellish conditions of our earth. The message of Christmas is that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can experience the reality of God with us.

Jesus taught us to pray for God's Kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. He died on the cross to answer his prayer that God's will be done. He came to show us how to make the world a better place by bringing a piece of heaven down to earth. Christmas is a time when we celebrate the greatest and most wonderful news of “When Up There Came Down Here.” When we truly have God with us, what more do we want or need?

The world celebrates Christmas with songs wishing one another a Merry Christmas. But the Christmas carols reminds us of a deeper spiritual reality of a silent and holy night; of the stillness that we need in order to experience the wonder of Christmas; of sharing our joy with the world for our Lord has come; and to tune our hearts and minds to the angelic voices in the heavenly realm.

In the Upper Room Daily Reflection on 22^nd December 2012, Beth A. Richardson shares the following insight:

“GOD COMES to the woman who feels in exile in her own marriage, for the man who grieves the loss of life dreams.

God comes to the child who lives on the street, for the parents who struggle to feed and clothe their children.

God comes to the one whose loneliness or depression intensifies every Christmas. …

Emmanuel – God-with-Us – is coming to us, to meet us wherever we are – happy or sad, joyous or grieving. God comes to stand with us, whatever our condition. And we thank God for that promised gift of presence.”

The bad news we read every day is that the world is in a mess with an unpredictable future. Our hearts are filled with fear for what the future holds. But the good news is that perfect Love will cast out all fear. Jesus came to open the way for us to draw close to God as our Heavenly Father – to relate to Him out of love rather than out of fear. A secular writer made the following observation:

"Every moment of your life, you are offered the opportunity to choose - love or fear - to tread the earth, or to soar the heavens. Fear would walk you on a narrow path, promising to take you where you want to go. Love says, 'Open your arms and fly with me.'＂

Because of Christmas, we can choose love over fear. We can live by faith that God is with us because of the birth of Jesus Christ some two thousand years ago. What is more important is how this Christmas will make a difference to the rest of our lives in the years to come.

May this Christmas awaken us to look for God's movement in the world. Let us pray that each one of us will be a part of God's work in redeeming the world. Let us reflect this Christmas on what it means to live a life of compassion so that we can bring love, joy and peace to those who are suffering and in need of God's agape love.

Where Have All Our Morals Gone?

Where have all our morals gone? High flyers straying!

Where have all our morals gone? So many lusting.

Where have all our morals gone? Something is missing!

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

The year 2012 has been described as "a year of lust." Singaporeans have been entertained with R rated news this year with the juicy sex scandals involving a MP, high ranking civil servants, teachers and sadly, most recently, even our Speaker of Parliament. This is not a time for self -righteous condemnation but a time for deep reflection and self-examination for all Singaporeans. It is a time to recognise that we may be living in material prosperity but there is a famine of true love in our nation. We are in a deep spiritual poverty. It is time to understand that we need more than meritocracy in our nation – we need the spirit of compassion.

The loss of honour, status and power by those involved is heart-breaking, not only for those involved, but also for their families, friends, colleagues and even our nation at large. It is the price they have to pay for their indiscretion. We cannot condone their actions and turn their fall from grace into a badge of honour. It is foolish to think that one’s conduct in one’s personal affairs will not have an impact on one’s public service.  If one is not trustworthy in the little things of one’s personal life, how can one be trusted with the bigger responsibilities of public office?

It is critical to recognise the reality of evil forces that seek to deprive us of the goodness of life. This is the message of movies such as the Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. In our common humanity, we all desire pleasure and seek to avoid suffering. Those who fear suffering and death will seek comfort and solace from religion. But those who have been through suffering and who have to face death often find themselves, together with their families and friends on the narrow path of spirituality. This is the journey to live beyond ourselves and to recognise and relate to a transcendent Higher Power.

Viktor Frankl noted that the world is in a bad state, but everything will become worse unless each of us do our best. But more important than doing our best, is being our best. We can make the world a better place not by what we do or achieved but by who we have become. The most important and meaningful goal of life is to be a channel of love to those around us. Barbara De Angelis has described Love as the magician of the Universe. She noted that “love infuses life with meaning. It performs magic and miracles. It brings light where there is darkness and hope where there was despair. It is our greatest teacher and most constant blessing.”

The good news of the Christmas season is that Love came down at Christmas. But to receive the gift of the real and unconditional Love that so many of us are yearning for, we need the spirit of repentance. There has been much talk about honesty, transparency and governance. What is perhaps lacking is a spirit of repentance in our nation. This is not a feeling of remorse but a coming to our senses. It is sad that many confuse the counterfeits of love with true and unconditional Love – the Love that does not seek to get what it can from others but to give what it can to others, the Love that seeks the welfare of others even at the cost of one’s own.

The fruit of the spirit of repentance will then be seen in our increased sensitivity to the needs of others, a commitment to justice and equality and a responsible use of power. We will be set free from a culture of blame. We will be empowered to live in a culture of gratitude and forgiveness which will make it safe for anyone to confess their greed, lust, pride and other failings that keep them from living a life of love, joy and peace.

True love is more than a feeling. It is the power that overcomes our fears and gives us strength in times of adversity. Christmas is more than a season of merrymaking and parties. May the problems of our messy world drive us to find the true meaning of Christmas. As the following Christmas carol reminds us:

Christmas isn't Christmas, till it happens in your heart.

Somewhere deep inside you is where Christmas really starts

So give your heart to Jesus and you’ll find that it is really true,

That it’s Christmas, really Christmas, for you.

The Message Of The Cross

In the times before Martin Luther, the early Christians did not have the printed bible. In our modern age, we not only have the printed bible but we can have so many versions of the bible on our smartphones, tablets and computers. We have such easy and complete access to God's truth. We have God's written Word in our hands. We may memorize verses and keep them in our heads.  But it is an exercise in futility if God’s written and spoken Word does not become a Living Word in our hearts and transform us from inside out. Our problem is not that we don't know the truth - it is that we are not living out the truth. We forget that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

As Christians we profess and preach about agape love but so often we do not practice compassion. Our society is materially rich but we have a famine of love. Jesus gave us a new commandment to love one another as He has loved us. It is a love that comes from Him and is unlimited unlike our human love which is limited. It is only with the love of Christ that we can treat others with compassion and to love ourselves even with our imperfections.

The prophet Jeremiah gave us the following promise of God:

“I will put my teachings inside them, and I will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will each person teach their neighbours  or his relatives by saying, ‘Know the Lord.’ All of them, from the least important, will know me, declares the Lord, “because I will forgive their wickedness and I will no longer hold their sins against them.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to fulfill the above promise. He opened the door for us to have a living relationship with our Heavenly Father so that He may reveal His Truth and Love for us. Jesus came to set us free from authoritarian leadership and to empower us to live authoritative lives that are rooted in His Love. Jesus was crucified by the Pharisees who saw him as a threat to their authoritarian leadership.

Unfortunately, we tend to make the bible our god instead of using it as God’s instrument to draw us to repentance so that we will come to our senses and return home to Him. We add the bible to the work of God instead of letting the bible draw us to the grace of God and awaken us to our self-centeredness and our need for transformation. We use the bible to judge others instead of using it to share the good news of God’s Love.

The message of the cross is not a call to suffering but a promise that we can find joy in suffering because we have Christ in us. The bible is to help us to declare the praise of God and to trust Him for anything. The bible is to remind us to thank God in everything. It is through trust and thanksgiving that our hearts will be filled with the steadfast love of God. We will then be set free from the fear of death and suffering so that we can worship God in spirit and in truth in all circumstances.

The message of the cross is to bring us to God’s throne of grace so that we can hear God speaking to us through His written Word.  Prayer will then become the breath of our life and our life will be our prayer.  We will not study the bible as worldly Christians to seek knowledge and spiritual power. But as the children of God, we will read and reflect on the bible as God’s Love Letter to us – to search for a promise to cherish, a commandment to obey, a warning to heed, a temptation to avoid, a sin to confess or a nugget of wisdom to share. As we do so, we will be led to Christ who is our Living Word, our Light that shines in the dark times of our lives, our Provider in times of need, a Shelter from the storms of life, our King as we live in this fallen world, our Defender in our battle against evil and the Saviour and Lover of our souls. 

Spiritual Depression - A Deficiency of Joyful Moments

We are living in depressing times. The world is in a mess and the future appears bleak and uncertain. We try to deny or bury our sorrows and we end up becoming addicted to things, pleasure, and other hedonistic pursuits. Such addictions provide us with temporary relief but leave our hearts empty and only increase our desire for more satisfaction.  We are living in a rat race and behaving more like rats and we wonder why we are not happy in spite of all the material gains we have made.

We have made money our god – we measure our success by how much we have or achieved. We pursue happiness by getting things or people or activities to fill our lives.  We read news reports about “top-earning dead celebrities” – Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley have been named by Forbes as the richest dead celebrities!

Unfortunately, we are blind to the truth that many of the celebrities do not have happy lives.  We fail to see that money, fame and pleasure are the very things that can become robbers of our joy.  We spend our lives pursuing happiness and end up with frustration and despair when death reminds us of non being, non doing and no where. 

Barbara De Angelis, a secular writer, has described the phenomenon of “real moments deficiency” as the cause of our being deficient in peace, contentment and joy.  We are in fact suffering from a deficiency of joyful moments which results in spiritual depression. Jesus came to bring joy to the world. When we receive Christ as our Saviour, we have the joy of salvation and the wonderful promise of an intimate relationship with God as our Heavenly Father.

In his testimony in November last year, Dr.  Richard Teo who died recently shared the following:

“True joy I discovered comes from interaction. Over the last few months I
was so down. Interaction with my loved ones, my friends, my brothers in
Christ, my sisters in Christ, and only then was I able to be motivated,
able to be uplifted. To share your sorrow, to share your happiness – that’s
true joy.”

It is sad that so often it is only when we are faced with a terminal illness that we discover what true joy is. How simple life becomes when we pay attention to the joyful moments that God sends into our lives when we enjoy the wonders of God’s creation and the loving encounters with our loved ones. Our task is to become more aware of the things that rob us of joy – when we live our lives through the lives of others, when we are judgmental and critical, or when we are too busy with pleasing others instead of being true to ourselves.

It is inevitable that we will have spiritual depression when we are slaves of money in our materialistic world.  The prescription for spiritual depression is to understand the truth that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to deliver us from the “Egypts” of our lives. Only then can we pray for God to take our lives and make them the instruments of His love and grace. As we do so, our moments and our days will flow in ceaseless praise to God.

Spiritual Amnesia

After the Jews were delivered from their slavery in Egypt, they were warned of the danger of forgetting God when they enter the Promised Land. We read in Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17-18:

"But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt…..

He did all this so you would never say to yourself, "I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy." Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath."

The story of the exodus of the Jews from their slavery in Egypt is a graphic description of our own spiritual journey. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to set us free from slavery to greed, pride and the fear of death. But in our materialistic and successful world, we have forgotten God - we are suffering from spiritual amnesia. St Paul has described our human condition as follows in his letter to the Romans in Chapter 1 verses 21-24:

"Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired."

We have forgotten that we are but creatures endowed with the special ability to create and not the Creator of our amazing and wonderful world. We have lost the original simplicity of man.  We need to reflect on the five enemies of true life described by Chuang Tzu:

"Love of colors bewilders the eye

And it fails to see right.

Love of harmonies bewitches the ear

And it loses its true hearing.

Love of perfumes

Fills the head with dizziness.

Love of flavors

Ruins the taste.

Desires unsettle the heart

Until the original nature runs amok.

These five are the enemies of true life.

Yet these are what "men of discernment" claim to live for.

They are not what I live for:

If this if life, then pigeons in a cage

Have found happiness!"

We have been brainwashed and corrupted by our consumeristic society that success and happiness comes from satisfying our five senses. In fact it is only when our five senses are directed towards the appreciation and awe of God's creation that we will find love, joy and peace.

The cure for spiritual amnesia is to recall what Jesus has done for us on the cross – to restore our identity as the children of God so that we can pray, Our Father Who is in Heaven.  As we do so, we will return to our Heavenly Father just as the prodigal son did when he came to his senses (Luke 15:17).  Without repentance, we cannot receive the salvation that God has given us in Jesus Christ.  But when we receive God’s gift of salvation, we will rekindle the fire of Love in our hearts.

Without the love of God, our pursuit of sanctification will lead to arrogance. Without the love of God our acts of sacrifice will only give birth to bitterness. Without the love of God, our service to and for others will become burdensome chores. Without the love of God, we turn scripture into our god and we fail to seek and obey the God of the bible.

We  need to pay attention to the Presence of God around us so that we will enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and to our listening ears, “all nature sings and around me rings the music of the spheres.” As we learn to live by the Holy Spirit we will become more aware of His activity working through and amongst us. Let us cultivate the discipline of silence and solitude so that we will abide in Christ and reap the fruit of a life that is totally surrendered to His Lordship and a mind cured of spiritual amnesia.