David Crowder*Band – GENIUS.

DC*B was initially introduced to me by Aaron & my brother.

They loved the Remedy album, which had gorgeous acoustic tracks such as:

Their lyrics are so hauntingly beautiful..

When clouds veil sun,
And disaster comes,
Oh, my soul,
Oh, my soul.
When waters rise,
And hope takes flight,
Oh, my soul,
Oh, my soul.

Oh, my soul,
Overflows.
Oh, what love, oh, what love.
Oh, my soul.
Fills with hope.
Perfect love that never lets go.

Then, DC*B came up with their Church Music album. Aaron & my brother were turned off the electronic feel of the album, but I liked Church Music, despite the fact it really wasn’t very Church Music at all.

I mean:

Try playing THAT in a Catholic Church mass:

One of the communion songs for my wedding. So those who’re coming, listen.

However, I thought DC*B was absolutely brilliant for being able to come up with an album with that kind of sound, one which was so different from their previous album & from other Christian musicians.

So, I was overjoyed when my brother gave me their 2011 Christmas album, ‘Oh for Joy’ for Christmas 2011. And I loved ALL the tracks – again, unlike Aaron & my brother, who absolutely detested this one:

However, I maintain it’s their eccentricity which makes them the geniuses that they are, and this song is still incredibly innovative in its own way.

But the last track on the album is the one that takes the cake.. I was already impressed that David Crowder talked about Epiphany, but when they began that epic Carol of the Bells:

GENIUS.

Another version with animation here.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

From the fear of suffering rebukes.

I have spent the greater part of my time b*tching to all & sundry about the people I have to deal with at work, because I’m desperate for support, for sympathy from any quarter, for all the cr*p/cr*ppy people I have to deal with at work. For someone to empathise with the fear I feel every time I open my mouth at work that I am potentially subjecting myself to yet another rude & hurtful put-down.

Because, more than the truth of whether or not I was in the wrong, I need someone to assure me that I was/am in the right

- whether or not I actually was –

that I am better than everyone else at work

- whether or not I actually am –

because I can’t carry on going in to work, facing that perpetual barrage of (seemingly) personal attacks thinking that no one is “on my side.”

So, when I turn to the One who is supposedly my Rock & my Refuge, the one to whom I can pour my heart out, hoping that He, too, will sympathise with me, but end up being rebuked instead, it feels like a slap in the face.

“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

- Luke 12: 2-3, Friday’s daily reading.

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism.”

- Romans 2:1-11, Wednesday’s daily reading.

I know He has rebuked me because He loves me, and because He has made me to serve Him better than the way I’m serving now, but it’s HARD, because all I want right now is just for someone to agree with me that everyone else at work is cr*p. And the last thing I want right now is to be told that I am not better than the people I have blogged/b*tched about.

Because I’m not strong enough to cope with being told that I am in the wrong, or to cope with being challenged to grow.

“O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honoured,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I,
provided that I may become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
Our Lady of Humility, pray for us.”

- Cardinal Raphael Merry’s prayer.

A huge thank you to my little sister, who told me all about this prayer.

The battle for purity on my birthday.

Today, I spent my morning watching a hysterectomy & repair of anterior vaginal wall.
In the afternoon, I went to a colposcopy clinic, which turned out to be cancelled.
I subsequently went home & went to bed, hungry & depressed.

Hungry because I hadn’t had lunch, and didn’t have any food in the hospital accommodation where I was staying. Depressed because…

Well, to better understand my state of mind, let me rewind to midnight. Or a little before. When after much discussion, my boyfriend & I agreed that he wouldn’t come down & see me on my birthday because (i) if he did come down for the day, having to send him off at the end of the evening would be so upsetting for me that it would outweigh whatever earlier joy I’d derived from him being here, (ii) if he stayed the night, it wouldn’t be in my room so much as on the kitchen floor, to safeguard his & my honour, and I wouldn’t be able to deal with that as well.

Leaving (iii): He stays in Birmingham, and I stay in my hospital accommodation in Basingstoke.

Not to mention God tells him that he cannot come to Basingstoke on my birthday.

As dispassionate as this decision-making process sounds, it was a conclusion that was heart-breaking to arrive at.

I was frustrated, because avoiding “even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed,” which are “improper for God’s holy people,” meant I could not celebrate my birthday with my boyfriend. “Fleeing the evil desires of youth” demanded I make sacrifices that I resented having to make, and made me question the point of point of fighting this battle at all.

Thus passed my first hour of turning 26.

The battle for purity is a hard one, one that doesn’t show any signs of letting up, one that I lose time & time again, and it’s reached a point where I am guilty, frustrated, and angry with God for putting me in a position where I’m always fighting, and never able to let down my guard, even for a moment, lest anything slips past.

I prayed, I you-tubed.

I wept. I remembered. And I battle on.

Thank God for battle-companions such as these.

“You were bought at a price. Therefore, honour God with your body.”
- 2 Corinthians 6:20.

Snowing in Southampton: Pictures from February 2009.

I woke up this morning to the sun shining brightly through my window. Which, for the UK, is definitely something note-worthy/blog-worthy. Especially since it’s only April, which is supposed to be the time of “spring showers”. (Read: Clouds. Rain. ) But, this sunny weather is something even more blog-worthy considering that only 2 months ago, the weather looked like this:

Our house, for some reason, all woke up at 4am that morning – without being awokened by the other housemates, or even realising the other housemates were awake. (YK reckons it was the cold.) All I know is, I suddenly woke up, and was prompted to look outside for some reason:

To paraphrase Demelza, “The snow makes even [Pansy Road] look good.” The litter in the yards & cars with broken glass are covered with snow, and more pertinently, EVERYONE’S QUIET AND ASLEEP. I went back to sleep after taking a few pictures; convinced that in true Southampton fashion, all the snow was going to melt by 7am. I was wrong:

If anything, the snow had gotten heavier.

“The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

Unfortunately, we did have someplace to go:
School.

I would have skived, if it weren’t for the fact that we were supposed to have a lecture on Medical Emergencies that day. (In the end, the Emergency Dept. consultant didn’t give us the lecture that day, since he was kept busy dealing with the avalanche of people coming into the ED with snow-accidents. Such is medical school.)

Not to mention Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, in his own words, also claimed he doesn’t think the snow “should be an excuse for a mass-skive by the entire, you know, people of this country.”

Thus inspired, Parti Jalan Pansy set off to the bus-stop to wait for the bus. On the way, we practised listening to pleural rub*.

*The sound of walking on crisp, newly-fallen snow. ***
** Picture also to illustrate how much snow had fallen.
*** We had to practise! We have our finals. in June, OK! Besides, I defy any other medical student to say that pleural rub doesn’t occur to them when they crunch through snow!

A picture of Lover’s Lane, turned from rape-magnet territory to a Winter’s Wonderland by virtue of a few inches of snow.

However, when we got to the bus-stop, we found out that there were no buses running that day. Meaning that to get to school, we would have to WALK to the Southampton General Hospital. All of 40 mins. In the snow. And suddenly, snow didn’t seem so nice anymore.

To be honest, it wasn’t that bad; and this is coming from a well-known walk-hater like me. Our route took us through a cemetery, which is picturesque with snow.

Plus, we had some amusing moments when my always-known-for-her-co-ordination housemate slipped on the ice:

She was distinctly unamused by how upon her falling down, instead of checking she was alright, I laughed. And then proceeded to reach for my mobile to take pictures of her. She was even less amused by the subsequent “Icy butt!” nickname I accorded her for the next 2 days.

Funny, what. Not, meh?

Peace offering: A picture of my housemates in front of a church in the cemetery.

I really shouldn’t take the architecture here for granted… ‘cos I will miss these quaint & beautiful churches when I go back to Malaysia. Specifically, Church of Mater Dei, Lutong, and its green roof & badminton hall-like appearance. Ugh.

I do feel blessed to have had ONE experience of a proper winter with snow before I leave. I was even about to buy a magnifying-glass, as per Enid Blyton’s instructions, to verify what I’d read all those years ago in her books about snow-crystals. I forgot, however, that in her time, Enid Blyton didn’t have digital cameras with macro-function and 3x optical zoom.

I didn’t know then that it was possible to fossilise snowflakes AKhoo says:

“Put a glass slide and a tube of superglue (the runny kind, not the gel kind) into the freezer. When it snows, run out (don’t let the slide or superglue warm up). And catch a couple of flakes onto the cold slide. Immediately put a drop of cold superglue onto the flake, put a coverslip on and put it back in the freezer. Wait 4-7 days for the superglue to polymerise (yes, it still does at -20, just takes a little longer). Then you can take it out and presto- snowflake fossil.”

Ah, well, some thingskan, sometimes, all you can do is stand back and be content to be awed.

To quote Mr. Johnson, “I think we’ve done pretty well in what are absolutely extraordinary circumstances. There’s no doubt about it, this is the right kind of snow, it’s just the wrong kind of quantities. My message to the heavens is: ‘You’ve put on a fantastic display of snow power but that is probably quite enough’.”

LOL.

“From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea,
Creation’s revealing Your majesty.
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring,
Every creature unique in the song that it sings.
All exclaiming,

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing, God.
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim,
You are amazing, God.

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go?
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light?
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?
None can fathom.

- Indescribable, Chris Tomlin