NUS Catholic Students' Society 60th Anniversary Celebrations

It has been quite some time since I last blogged. I guess the convenience of facebook just took over. Also, with the formating of my com, I lost all the links to my friends' blogs and just stopped blog surfing, although I really did used to do that ardently. It was and is, so much easier just putting in regular updates or putting in biblical quotes which summarised how I felt in a status line, rather than blogging my heart out.

You know how it happens when you are caught up with a million and one activities as you try to organise that one activity and then suddenly in a twinkling of an eye it's over? Just like that, the CSS 60AC came, swept us off our feet, then disappeared in a span of a couple of hours. It still seems very much like a dream to me - the hours spent planning the event over tau hwey, the heated arguments that ensued in our meetings, simply because we were all so passonate about what we truly believed in, the blood, toil, sweat put in trying to raise the needed (and very expensive) funds for the event, the countless edits and changes in the publications, grappling with the many obstacles that came our way, both spiritual and physical... I guess with every event, there are a million and one things that could have been done better like how the welcome and thank you speech should have been, but as with all the CSS events that I have been priviledged to have partaken in, the 60AC was truly another testimony of God's infinite grace, mercy and love for the CSS and its endeavours. God was truly present and He reminded us of His presence throughout the journey - with quiet promptings like the reading of taking the five loaves and two fishes and feeding 5000, with verses like "I am the vine and you are the branches, abide in me and you will bear fruit to abundance..." We started off with empty baskets, but God took the little we had and made that overflow with abundance.

It amazes me how everything seems almost planned - that there was always an angel looking out for us. We started literally from Groundzero - no money, no support... nothing. Yet God constantly provided - from the sponsors, the ministries who responded to our call, to the contributors who contributed not only of their stories and photographs, but also of their time and of themselves, the outpouring of love from the churches that supported our outreach efforts, the people who stepped up to be in this ad-hoc committee, the people who were moved to purchase tickets. I have met so many people in the course of sitting quietly in church with a make-shift sign selling ko-yok... the various people from the different generations who moved and humbled me in turn with their sharings of their time in the CSS.

It was simultaneously an experience of great joy and sadness as I looked around the hall and saw the people who bothered to attend the event. Joy, because this was precisely the reason for celebrating the event in the first place -a community of faith in a secular institution who can come together without pretense. It was heartwarming to see how people re-connected, kindled and re-kindled their friendships. Sadness, on the other hand, for if the CSS truly meant something, it wouldn't have been so difficult to sell tickets for the event and let's not even talk about cost, for at $60 a ticket, $50 for undergraduates, it was already a heavily subsidised rate from the $74.50 that comes from the venue, dinner and publications costs not counting other costs like publicity, costs of making the collar pins, programme and administrative costs... on hand.

Perhaps the problem lies with the perceived notion of the transitory nature of the CSS. The CSS doesn't mean much to quite a number, because it is that, a time-filler, a passing phase. Maybe in the past, it was valid that the CSS be a transitory zone because the churches needed harvesters in their ministries, but now, it is a different case, because the majority of the people who serve in the CSS are also simultaneously active servers in their own parishes. There is so much more that could be achieve in maintaining ties and continuity. For example, in trying to sell tickets, we were practically digging for needles in haystacks as we set up booths at the few parishes that actually supported us and just waited in faith that memebrs of the CSS past would see our signs, stop by and purchase a ticket. It would have been easier if there was a database to access, but it seems apparant that the thoughts of it have been around since the 1980s, but nothing has really been done about it.

What needs to be done, if we are really serious about setting up a proper alumni, is to do a church-wide census - and we are barley touching base with those CSS members in Malaysia and those who have left Singapore. Yet this is quite difficult is there are only a few parish priests generous enough to support our endeavours. Being a student body, it is also extremely difficult if we are not given enough financial support to carry out our activities. Who is out there that cares enough for the CSS to maintain a CSS office where records and archives and databases can be kept or even to fund then? The churches who are truly supportive are really quite few and because we keep going to the same churches they too experience fundraising fatigue. Come on, 7 churches out of the 32 in Singapore?!? I think it's time to step out of the parochial line of vision that perceives anything not from the parish to be a threat and as competition.

So, the question that comes naturally after is, Quo Vadis? Where are we going to?

I have been enriched greatly with my time in the CSS and I hope the adventures don't end here but continue. I thank God each time I think of how the people and the events in the CSS have moved me and touched me and how God has promised to be with us, every step of the way. Anyone remembers the rainbows at FOC for three years in a row? Yet, we too have to do our part by abiding in Him, by Faith and by leading a prayer-centric life.

Guess what? We've been praying to the wrong saint for love! St. Valentine's actually the patron Saint of those who have ALREADY found their soul mates. St. Raphael is the one to pray to if you are searching for love. Afterall, it was he who brought Tobias and his wife together!!! (See Sunday Times, February 15th, 2009)

The Christmas Song

(Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) : Lyrics

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping on your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.
And every mother's child is going to spy,
To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
A very Merry Christmas to you

Having put the card in to the box, I closed it to place it on the top of the shelf, where its rightful place was, but somehow my fingers slipped and the box fell to the ground, scattering the paper memories.

The box contained every note and every card I had received, every ticket to a play or movie that I watched, every bus pass I had carried, since my primary school days. I am a hoarder you see, and I believe that every thing has its own story to tell.

Well, in some sense, dropping that box allowed me to re-live the memories of days gone by, but as I picked every piece up and examined it, I realised that there were things that were simply not worth keeping, things like the obligatory cards I had received in return for the cards I had sent out and cards from primary school friends who claimed to be best friends, but who turned out to be superficial backstabbers. I have lived out twenty five years and as each year passes, I put more memories into my memory box - memories that are forgotten as time passes, but are vivid when that box is opened after a time. Some are good memories of cameradarie and friendship, some are memories that beg to be erased away. Some memories are lost while others remain and thinking about memories makes me think, what memories do others have of me?

It is either the overload of Mcdonald's or the overeating, or the lack of exercise that is causing it, but I felt a contraction in my chest today. It wasn't a drawn out contraction, just felt like a lump of food was stuck in my lungs for a couple of minutes, very much like how the oesophagus feels when you swallow a large chunk peanut buttered bread too quickly without sufficient chewing.

I hope it is nothing serious.

A ceaseless quest for perfection may begin as an amusing quirk, but it gets frustrating and tiring when you start applying that to everything you do. It consumes you and governs your life. You throw away a humongous bowl of batter, that you had spent an hour mixing because it doesn't taste the way you want it to; you throw away iced butterflies and fondant shapes because in your eyes they look ugly, and you couldn't possibly have the heart to give them to anyone. You look in the mirror and truly despise that ugly thing that stares dolefully back at you.

"And why does it keep spewing that way?
I mean, you know, I mean..."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said,
Eyeing the blond highlights in your black hair
And your blue lenses the shadow of a foreign sky.
"It spews continually if only to ruffle
its own reflection in the water; such reminders
will only scare a creature so eager to reinvent itself."

-Sa'at, Alfian, 1998 "The Merlion", One Fierce Hour, p. 22

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it" ---- Blaise Pascal, Pensees

"Lots of people try to say that all truth is relative or subjective but no one lives that way. Most of the time when we cop out on truth, we have a reason: we don't want to live by it."

I've taken the above quotes from a reply D. made to C.'s note. In a strange way, they sum up what I've been battling with today. God perhaps does have a quirky sense of humour, but it's amazing how He speaks to us. Sometimes, just sometimes, like today, out of free will, we, or rather I choose to live my life not according to truth, but rather by falsehood. This is a little hard to explain, but when there's a moral battle at stake, sometimes, it's vanity which governs the way we think and feel. In this case, I chose to allow vanity to consume me. It is so deceptive, this green, azure serpent that coils around your heart. It persuades, it cajoles and finally you give in only to be bitten and you realise that momentary pleasure leads only to a spiral of darkness and a vicious cycle of sin. Sin perpetuates itself and spiritual attacks strike fast and fatally - where it hurts the most. Sin can be likened to Pandora's box - you open it just for a mere glimpse and it swallows you completely. It only takes a tiny taste of that poisoned apple, before you become addicted to its temporal sweetness and you crave more of it. It's like power. Power excites the mind and drives the senses. We forget however how poisonous it is and slowly we die from the deadly venom. We die because it's dangerous. It's dangerous because you are not aware of its influence. It's dangerous because we crave the false security it provides and because we choose to succumb to its siren's call, only to feel worse than we first began. Sin, Vanity, Pride... many guises, but all fatal, eats you, devours you, renders you impotent. It laughs at your stupidity and delights in your fall from Grace.

God help us, God help me - stupid people we are.