Trust

I am living by my life's theme verse, Proverbs 3: 5,6

I will trust in the Lord with all my heart
And lean not on my own understanding
But in all my ways acknowledge him
And he will make my path straight/ direct my path

Hurt

"p/s: i feel the hurt when i tell people i dont go to church anymore. dear God, do you feel hurt too?"

That's the parting thought of a former cell girl after a ranting session on her blog. As I read her entry, there is a great feeling of unbelief in it. Everything Christian seems to sink into the category of "cliche". Belief has been taken over by doubt. Trust in self has taken the place of trust in God. Once we doubted our abilities and trusted in God. Today's people put doubt in God and place themselves above all else. I let u read the reply I posted. I am not ashamed and I careless what her non-christian readers think about me. If we care so much about what other think about us then make sure that God gets the glory. To be a fool for God is more precious than being a pot of gold.

"p/s: i feel the hurt when i tell people i dont go to church anymore..."

I don't thing God give us a guilt trip if we don't go to church. What causes the hurt is the screaming of whatever spirituality your spirit has left after being saffocated by all the fats of mainstream ideal. That voice that screams out in pain is called "conscience". It's your soul's warning system that something has gone wrong. Listen and trust that soul's warning system. Pull up the aircraft before it collides with the mountain. The conscience is not the Holy Spirit, but the sky light which the sunlight shines through. How much is polluted will determined how much light reaches the ground.

I don't want you to hurt anymore. Get back to when everything was fine. WHen trusting God was everything eventhough u don't know what the future brings. The rut usually begins when we cease doing the things we used to do, i.e. praying, reading the bible, prefer hanging out elsewhere than church or with Church people. I thank God that u still feel the pinch of not going to church. Somewhere and somehow u have stopped doing one of these things that climax into this entry today. Get back to where u alighted and start living by faith again.

I don't know if God hurts(sic), but I know I do.

Always a FOOL(z) for YOU

: )X

edit: the last line should be "I don't know if God is hurting but I do"

God pls protect your precious few.

Kodawari

"Kodawari" - A passion; The seeking of perfection; an obsession; fetish you may call it. There is no definite defination for it, but this is roughly the concept, so I am told.

This Japan trip has been a great lesson in the Japanese concept of "Kodawari" in relationship with their food. They are not just satisfied with feeding their custormers or loved ones, but they also intend to satisfy the lust of their eyes with beautifully displayed dishes. No Japanese meal is complete if the satisfaction is only in the tates buds and stomach. Even the eyes has to be satisfied. The concept of "kodawari" is not found in food, but everything else. I guess that's why the Japanese are so good in whatever they set their minds to do. It's a great concept. I could identify with it immediately after I heard it's defination. My love for drumming, music, my family. I have to say that there is no "perfection" but we're always "perfecting" because we need progression. Until the day we die and those obsessions stayed in the last evolution of perfection, then do I call it perfection. Even so nothing beats the life there after, where perfection is in it's pristine! O heaven!

The Other Side of Glory

I have been looking for musicians to jam with for a long time. Each time I think about this project I get excited and my excitement is like that of little children waiting expectantly for their birthday or Christmas presents, but everytime I "open the present" I am disappointed because everyone, including me, is busy with family, school, work or ministry. I guess the timing was just not right. Like I always say, "good things comes to them that wait". So I baited my time and now the players have been confirmed and I'll be jamming with these musicians for about 3 months (Dec to Feb). I look forward to listen to the songs I wrote in a band setting and have the chance to work with great musicians on their materials as well.

I have asked Eve to play guitar for a guitar she wrote about 2 years ago, as our chat about the possibility to record the song when she comes back for her break (she is studying in Australia now), I asked her about the possiblity of jamming together while she is in Singapore.

I needed another guitarist and Josh suddenly appeared in my mind. Ok, it's not "suddenly", but I've always admire his guitar work when we were playing in Gloria. So I asked him and he agreed to join me. He is the only member in an active band at the moment.

Josh heard Eve's demo with Arpee and asked me to get her to sing. All I know is that as long as I am not singing, it's ok. Eve in turn thinks that Josh has a good voice and blah blah blah, and I said they can trade vocals. But I always love those girl-fronted bands like Paramore, Evanescense and Walls of Jericho (WOAH!!). It'll be interesting to see how she develope as a singer in this project.

I originally wanted to just jam with the guitarist and if we ever record in February, Josh or me will play bass while I play drums. Then while chatting with Josh I told him I'll get back to him after I ask a friend if he wanted to play with us. Enter Caleb. He is a drum prodigy. He might not be fantastically technical or fast; neither can he play any drum solo (at least I've yet to hear him), but he is the Quartz! The reliable backbeat that everyone musician loves to play with. After he played the intro of Dream Theatre's "Overture 1928" and Further Seems Forever "The Sound", I knew he is one for my future project. Knowing him, I knoe his passion for ministry and I didn't expect him to say yes, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask and I did. When he replied to my facebook message the next day I was surprised by his resounding "yes". Now, I am grateful that Eve and Josh agreed to help me out, but I am most grateful for Caleb because he hasn't said yes to me at all when I asked him to cover me at G2. Wahahahha...

So the line-up for "TOSOG: 2008" is complete. At the moment, it's not a full-flege band yet, but we'll jam in the next three months and see how it goes. I definitely can't commit like I did in Gloria, but if we could keep something constant going somehow I know it might go far. But I am just going to try this out for three months first.

I declare my TOSOG project resurrected and alive today:

"Compare: a bright, almost blinding light flashing through the sky in the shimmering mid-day sun, and in the darkest hour of night which is more magnificent? in good times and in health in jubilee and triumph are all forms of strength belittled all virtues overlooked all faithfulness deemed superficial and all effort non-existent in bad times and in sickness in desperation and apparent defeat is inner resolve magnified and fortified principles rooted firmly to the ground steadfast obedience bearing fruit and unwavering trust in the truth paramount for survival for growth for receiving the crown... a blinding light flashing through the sky in the darkest hour of night what a sight to behold! is that not more magnificent? so why do you still shun the other side of glory?"

-Serene Goh-

Blogging

I have read your blog like a thousand times

Personal thoughts hung out like dirty laundry

Scattered yourself across the pages with your thoughts and images
That's the only way I know how you are

Private lives made public rendering privacy irrelevant

Don't expect others not to have an opinion about you

Write all you want about yourself but stay safe

Say all you need but don't lose yourself

Eve wrote a very beautiful song called Phonecall.

Phonecall

When will we all come clean
With all that we have done
Our hands are smeared with sin
And He has none

The floodgates are open
But the harvest is yet to come
When the unexpected phone call arrives
Will you answer?

Stay sober, lay low
Not over, our dampened egos
Truth be told, and passed on
For all to know.

I liked it so much that I thought more should be added to expand it. I have to try my best not to touch the original lyrics and this is what I got. I even changed the title. She was very modest. I thought it was an old song, but she wrote this in one night, impromtu. I love it lah!

For all to know

When will we all come clean
with all that we have done
Our hands are smeared with dirt
Now we are one

The floodgates are open
but the harvest is yet to come
when the unexpected phone call arrives
will you answer?

Chorus 1
Stay sober, lay low
not over, our dampened egos
truth to hold, dun let go
for all we know.

When all has been said and done
A new beginning would have begun
We dare not make demands
When it’s over

Chorus 1
Stay sober, lay low
not over, our dampened egos
truth to hold, dun let go
for all we know.

Chorus 2
Stay sober, lay low
not over, our dampened egos
truth be told, and passed on
for all to know.

"No Apologies for War Actions" (now ex) Japanese Air Force Chief

In war there is always death
No need to apologise at all?
The Japs left their weapons in their playpen when they left Singapore
Killed my father's dad, one of the 48 million who died in the war
No need to apologise at all?
You should have left your imperialistic ideals to your own people and occupy the islands you already had in had.
Stay home, don't venture out.
Don't make other nations hate you
If being hated is so honourable then die honourably
But don't go about bragging to this new generation that you have no need to apologise for your brutal past actions.

Photographic Prayer

Turning up the heat...

...in pursuit of the light.

Casting out all fears with

...with the answers ringing in my ears

Everything is easier to bear....

...if I heed the warning and not stray anywhere

Please re-wire my mind...

...til my life is interwinded in your will

Guide me lest I turn my back on you

Hear my prayer as I reach out my hands to the sky

That I may reflect less of me and more of You

Thinking...

...alone

... but never lonely
... meditatively

...randomly

... from the inside

... out of the window

... of above

...of love

To be continued...

Embeded

Our memory is a very delicate but powerful gift for mankind. It can be considered a blessing or curse; some long to forget a terible past while others would give anything to try to remember their glorious ones; some are blessed with better ones than others. No matter what the state our memories are, there are surely things or events that are embedded in our memory like photos on paper. I'll share some with you.

What inspired this post was the song "Lover of my heart" which was playing on my iPod earlier while travelling to our first location of the day. While the song was playing I remembered the R-age Awareness weekend about 4 years ago- the one we did the R-age Rap (which is the best R-age Awareness performance to date!). We were all wearing our Yellow T-shirts and were standing/sitting in front of the stage. "Lover of my heart" was one of the worship songs of that weekend. The one at the 3rd service was the one I remembered best. The youth were choir for the day and they were led to lead the song for one verse and chorus. Dang, that singing and the look on th youths in ernest worship send chills all over me as my hair stood on it's ends followed by tears of immense joy streaming down my face. Peter was the worship leader and I'm he felt the same when he heard the youths in front of him. After hearing such passionate singing, how can u not let them take their "solo"?

So yeah, that song always reminded me of R-age. Forever embeded in my memory. Not like a photograph in this case but like a music video of the song with the boys and girls in Yellow the stars. As for the rap? It should have been our R-age anthem! I loved it!

Roadtrip: What's playhing in my iPod?

This post was recorded onto my PDA when I was in Korea about 2 weeks ago. It was written on the day we travelled from Seoul to Gwangju which was a 3 hours drive.

On the road now travelling to a mountais region east of Korea. Popped in my iPod. The journey will be about 5 hours long. Was listening to loads of Mortification and Mychildren Mybride then I felt that my ears needed some rest so I softened down with Newsboys' selection from "Take Me To Your Leader". This album was as good as the album before that "Going Public" and theirlater album "Thrive". These were albums where Steve Taylor were involved in either producing or co-songwriter. I could here their lyrical influence from Taylor (I have his last CD "Squint" in my iPod). I was trying to distinguish James' voice from Furler. I think I finally heard the finally heard the difference. The sounded like each othe yet they have their distinct styles.

Up next was my demo of "Mask". I dunno how come the song will skip to the next track at the 1:00 mark. So I had to scroll the bar to 1:02 everytime I listen to it. I might as well do it even if it doesn't skip because my guitar playing was way off, but I found the rhythm at the first chorus. The rest of the song was fine. I'm pretty impressed by my effort. Now I just have to re-write some of the lyrics to complete the song. I tried to figure out a drum part for the song but all I could come up with was a rock groove which doesn't fit the song at all. I needed a reference and I found it in Tracy Chapman's "Subcity" from her 2nd album "Crossroad". Playing "Mask" always remind me of that song. The drum groove was surprisingly simple. The verse was a half-time groove and the chorus was a nomal rock groove. What made the groove diffrent from mine was 1) the hi-hats were playing quarter notes and thus letting the guitar strumming rhythm fill in the 16th and in-betweens; 2) the snare parts we all side-sticking! 3) A tambourine accompanied the side-sticking at every chorus. Inspite of that, the song still managed to build up smoothly to a climax thru clever instrumentation. I dunno why but I suddenly thought of Samant Halim because I knew I needed a keyboard player if I ever jam as TOSoG. When O when?

Just had a breakfast stop. We're now back on the road. There is another 3 hours to go before we arrive at hour destination for lunch. This will also be our last locationin Korea before flying to Japan to begin filming the episode about Japanese food. We'll be filming a farmer who plays the cello to her crop of beans to help them grow into better crops. Ah! If I could only find someone who knows how to play the cello back home. I definitely have parts for them in a song or two I wrote.

A couple of nights ago I downlooaded (legally) 4 albums of Metal with Christianity as it's central theme. These were bands that are not covered much in HM and 4 of the five bands are not from US except Feast Eternal (what a name these bands have!). A.W.A.S is from Germany. Admonish is from Sweden. And the last two bands, one is Holy Blood but i forgot the name hard-to-pronounce band. Guess where these last two bands are from? Ukraine! I was so happy to know Christian Metal is thriving in Europe. Holy Blood plays a sub-genre of metal which is new to me. They call it Folk Metal.To further describe their sound, it's known as Folk/ Melodic metal. They are currently the most successful band in this European Christian metal label (according to their website). What's interesting is all these bands do not just sing in one language. Most of the German, Norwegian and Swedish bands do sing (or growl/ squeel/ scream/ shout), but hthe eastern European does theirs, in Holy Blood's case, Ukrainian! It's really refreshing. However I still can't bring myself to listen to it while I'm on the road filled with fatigue. My ears are not ready to take the punishment by hard music (notice I didn't say "loud? Cos I trasure my hearing and I rely on a good pair of ears in my work).

We drove past some valleys where you see the change of colours in the leaves of the trees. This is the first time I see bright red trees. It only mid autumn now. It's a matter of time before the whole mountain turns firey red and yellow. All I could only say is "My Lord, How Great Thou Art" (coz that's what spinningin my iPod right now)!

Two hours more...

In Kyoto

The only thing one can do her is shop shop shop. Simon the Cameraman and I did just that. We've been here for 4 days already and since the Bic Camera shop is near our hotel, I thought it'd be great to go. I saw a Sony PCM-50 which was screaming at me to buy it, but I refrained coz I already have a digital recorder. Although mine is abit old and inferior in fuctionality and aesthetics, it's still a working machine that serve it's purpose when i needed it. It cost about 800 sing, but it's very beautiful... Ooooooh.

Back in the hotel there is nothing much to do. Most of the TV programes are in Japanese. The have Pay TV with 3 channels, one Jap movie channel, one sports channel with boring sports (no football, only the American version) and an "Adult Channel". A waste of money. Thank God for the laptop so that I could chat and surf the net. I even brought my drum pad to add some spice to the work out I am already doing at work and with the dura-band.

Fifi reading the pamphlets with the Skinny Twins.