Black and White

Peace is a journalist and a ‘recent’ graduate from the National University of Singapore (or so she believes to convince herself she’s still young). But maybe she really is still young at heart, taking baby steps at learning about this world she’s living in. Peace grew up in a loving family and hadn’t had much to worry about for the most of her childhood. Easily affected and touched by what she encounters, Peace spent most of her younger days avoiding the not-so-rosy picture of our society. But she’s grown to understand that she can no longer hide from the imperfection and appreciate that the knowledge of it can help effect change in our society. 

Since young, I’ve always been fascinated by TV serials about law. My parents have always instilled a sense of right and wrong in me, which I thank them for, as it protected me from many dangerous aspects of our society. Things were always black and white. I’ve also conveniently (and mistakenly) equated legality to morality. In a sense, I had been very fortunate that I never had to encounter a situation where I had to deal with the ‘grey areas’. 

A few years back, I went with my university friends for a school field trip to Thailand. I admit that one of the main reasons I went for the trip was that I thought it was a fun way to clear modules. But I’ve gained a lot more from the trip. 

We went to many regions in Thailand, but it was the stay at Mae Sot that was particularly entrenched in my memory. It is a town in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar. I remember that we visited a school that had many students from Myanmar. We were also told that there were many of such schools and that these students were illegal migrants. Our instructors told us that Thai authorities there often close one eye to such cases and allow these students to stay in Thailand to seek better education and their families, better job opportunities. I must say that the idea of it being illegal did make me feel uncomfortable for a moment, but the compassion of the Thai authorities and schools as well as the enthusiasm of the Myanmar students for learning immediately eradicated all the rigid black-and-white thinking that I had all these years. 

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"The Action Collective" features six guests involved in humanitarian and environmental work. Our last guest will be Huishan Aprilene Goh, who helped founded Save That Pen, an organization that refills donated used pens and ships them to school children in Southeast Asia.

The realisation

Say Lin is an animal welfare and wildlife conservation advocate newly based in Vientiane Province, Laos. As a representative of a Singaporean NGO, ACRES, he is there to set up Laos’ first ever wildlife sanctuary for rescued, surrendered and confiscated animals. He hopes to learn the Lao language and visit as many places in the Indochina region as possible. Say Lin also enjoys cycling and one day hopes to tour Laos by bicycle.

            I haven’t always been passionate about protecting animals and the environment. In fact, even as recently as 2008, I was largely unaware of the many issues that animals and the environment face.

            This isn’t to say that I didn’t like animals. I did, only I wasn’t as informed as I am now. With hundreds of dogs in shelters, daily cases of dog abandonment and countless more being euthanized daily, I bought Buddy in 2008, a pure-bred Shetland Sheepdog, for SGD$1,500 from a local breeder. I love him dearly and do not regret my decision to buy him, but I probably wouldn’t have bought him if I knew of the aforementioned statistics, and the problem with puppy mills.

            2008 was the same year I witnessed an army platoon mate shoot at an innocent Javan Myna at the shooting range. I felt highly uncomfortable as I looked at the mangled mess amidst its feathers, but I did nothing.

            I was the usual child who loved watching Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, and enjoyed my visits to the zoo, circus or marine park. Despite being oblivious to the plight of wild animals in captivity back then, I had questions, many questions. I remember watching the Orcas at the San Diego Sea World and asking my father this: “Why are some of their dorsal fins upright, while others are bent or curled in an arc?”

My father didn’t know the answer, but his best guess was that this was genetically predetermined, just like how some of us have brown eyes while others have blue eyes. I learnt many years later that those bent dorsal fins were a phenomenon only seen in captive whales. Captive whales spend all their time swimming in circles, within tanks of still, sterile water, only a tiny fraction of space compared to their natural habitat. Their fins are bent due to muscle degeneration caused by the lack of use in a captive environment.

2008 was also the same year I joined the Singapore Night Safari as a Junior Trainer-Presenter at the Animal Shows Department. I believe this was when I begun a journey of realisation. Working with wild animals in cages on a weekly basis, beginning to know them as individuals and how their moods change, I gradually had more and more questions. The only difference this time was that I was old enough to seek answers for myself now, and I didn’t like the answers I found.

I began to understand that many of the human-animal relationships that exist in our world today are highly flawed. Factory farming, bear bile farming, puppy mills, poaching of wild animals for exotic dishes, pets or entertainment, these examples would arguably be okay if the following assumption held true: “Animals are inanimate objects devoid of any cognitive function.”

This isn’t the case at all. Animals, no matter what species or degree of cognitive function, may have feelings or at least an important role to play in this world. Over many years, with the ability of language and technology, humans have managed to engineer a world of our own. We think we have managed to isolate ourselves from the natural world, and we take everything from the environment for our self-benefit and call it our own. I think that it is pure arrogance as a human race, to think that we are different from other animals, and we can extract and exploit them as we wish. I find it ironic that the word “humane” is used to refer to a positive manner of treatment for an animal or person, when it was man that caused most of the negativity in the first place.

I have joined a small group of people who believe in a world that does not just include humans, but animals and the environment as well. I do not wish to impose my ideas on people, but I aim to raise awareness about this wider worldview so that they may make their own decisions.

Right now, my work focuses on giving animals a better life. I aim to contribute to a world where animals are not exploited, but treated with respect and hopefully one day, they will not be victims of our human arrogance.

We destroy what we do not understand, or simply what we do not appreciate. I urge everyone to at least start small. Try observing the next animal you meet a little longer than intended. Think about how or why animals behave the way they are in the wild, in a zoo, or on the screen. You may just be pleasantly surprised at what you might discover.

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"The Action Collective" features six guests involved in humanitarian and environmental work. Next Wednesday, we'll have Peace Chiu.

enjoying God's presence

Letting go of the need to perform for God sets our hearts on things above and turns our backs on self-importance. Instead of trying to have an accomplishment-driven relationship with God, enjoying God's presence points us toward:

• resting instead of productivity,
• being silent instead of talking,
• listening instead of giving advice,
• empowering others instead of preaching to them,
• asking questions instead of knowing answers,
• giving instead of consuming,
• striving for brokenness instead of upward mobility, and
• gearing down to simplicity instead of gearing up to empire building.

"a broken and contrite heart You do not despise"

STRENGTH FROM WEAKNESS

In these distressing moments, we lay our brokenness before God. This advances us toward the goal of knowing Him because a broken spirit dissolves the wall of self-sufficiency that separates us from God. If we're to develop a familiar friendship with God, we cannot separate ourselves from Him during pain and temptation. The lifetime process of transformation involves God purging us of our tendency to push Him away and His wooing us into union with Him and His loving will for the world.

In the New Testament, it was the broken who came to know Jesus. Think of the woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years, desperate, having spent all her money but finding no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she quietly felt the edge of His cloak (Mark 5:25-34). Like her, we can use our brokenness to finally accept that our bag of tricks for living life is not nifty enough. No amount of self-help books will rescue us. No more "looking good kid" facades - we freely admit our pain and temptation to God. Our failures strip us of self-protection, making us vulnerable to God, just as the cured woman fell at Jesus' feet, trembled with fear, and told Him the "whole truth" before the crowd of people (Mark 5:33).

Perhaps you can accept that we can find closeness with God in times of irritation and anguish, but you wonder what they hav to do with enjoying God's presence. Enjoyment comes from receiving pleasure, but it also comes from appreciating the benefits of deepening our intimacy. When we confess our shortcomings to God, we can enjoy His presence because we know that God's love envelops us in spite of our flaws. No one else so completely understands, loves, and challenges us. This familiar friendship doesn't take away the pain or temptation, but it gives us the strength to stand firm.

finding God in everyday and irritating moments

Praying for whatever is in front of you includes praying while reading the newspaper or watching the news. Wars around the world aren't just news, they're calls to pray for God's will to be done, for justice to prevail. When reading political cartoonists and outstanding editorial writers, we can pray that they'll become instruments of truth and peace - whether or not they're aware of it.

Practicing God's presence this way, then, is not an escape from the world but an engagement of the world. We process the tragedy and viciousness through our awareness that God is active in every situation. In so doing, we find one more way of fulfilling the commission Christ gave us to interact with a world that cries out for redemption in the midst of chaos.

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Some of us are afraid to tell God about the anger and frustration that He already knows we feel. Or we deny feeling anger because we assume that God and anger cannot coexist. Instead, we put on a "looking good, kid" image with God - we look good, we feel good, we are good. Anger and frustration are regarded as obstacles to be overcome and replaced with worthy feelings - before we talk to God.

To abide in God's presence means that we don't have to dress up our feelings. If we believe God is grand enough to love our flawed self, we can speak the truth to him about what we feel - anger at others, disappointment with ourselves, resentment towards Him, the Creator. God's presence can be a safe place to reveal our laziness, our grouchiness, and our self-congratulatory ways. God invites transparent confessions about how we pretend to be better than we are, how we avoid serving when it's inconvenient, how we care for our friends best when they make us feel good, and how we focus our energy and efforts on acquiring things - just the right belt, the right stereo, the right computer chip. Confession is important not because God needs this information but because we need to be willing to give it. In this way, our conversation with God becomes open, honest, and personal.

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To ask questions is not the same as to disobey. Refusing to obey means walking away from God's will, as Jonah did (Jonah 1:3). Sometimes we, like Jonah, don't ask a question or say a word, but quietly refuse to do what God asks. It's wiser to offer God our passionate questions so He can help us obey. Then we're engaging and seeking God even though we're confused, scared, or angry. Our searching nurtures the passion that keeps us looking at God, talking with God, and listening to God.

But won't God get angry? God's anger did burn against Moses when he finally pleaded, "Please send someone else" (Exodus 4:13), but even then God did not act in anger. He acted in great love, designating Aaron as a companion to Moses. To what does God respond in anger? The most consistent example is His punishment of Israel. God punished them when they rebelled against Him by idolizing their life in Egypt (Numbers 16) and by worshiping idols. God's wrath is against disobedience and unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Offering God our irritations is not unrighteousness, but a way to keep ourselves from unrighteousness. It helps us avoid outward rage and prolonged bitterness as we attempt, day by day, to turn over unruly feelings and inappropriate desires to God.

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In order to abide in Christ and enjoy God's presence, we must learn not to pretend to be okay. Withholding our true feelings blocks the development of an intimate relationship with God. Notice how Mary and Martha did not shrink from speaking their minds to Jesus: "If you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21,32). Only Martha, not Mary, added the hopeful statement, "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask" (John 11:22). Mary and Martha were rigorously honest about their feelings. Did their honesty irritate Jesus? The text doesn't say, so we don't know. But He didn't reject them or try to "whip them into shape" with a sermon. After comforting them with words of truth about the resurrection, Jesus went to the tomb and wept publicly, revealing His feelings of grief.

In the shelter of such a friendship, we can tell God what we really think. We don't have to hide from Him when we're angry. 

A Different Kind of Discomfort: My Best and Last Community Service Trip

Stephanie is a part-time performance poet and full-time law student living in London. She volunteers at the Advisory Service for Squatters where she helps advise squatters and homeless people in the UK and sometimes gets invited to their parties in return. She also plays in a samba band. She hopes to spend less time on social media and more time creating lasting things in 2013.

The most enlightening community service trip I ever went on was also the last service trip I ever went on, all thanks to what someone said on the first night.

It was the Christmas break of my second year studying in the US. I was on a service trip with a group of around 12 students from my university in small-town Ohio. We were going volunteer in a neighbourhood in inner-city Chicago, known for having one of the highest rates of gun crime and murder in the US. We were going there for a week to help out at an after-school centre and get involved in outreach work with an organization which worked with former gang members educate communities about gun violence. The trip was organized by two students from my university, a girl from a suburb of Ohio and a guy (I’ll call him C) who had grown up in the neighbourhood himself. We would later find out he had lost his father and friend to gang violence when he was younger.  

It was our first night staying in the small after-school community centre.  We were having a reflection session sitting in a circle in the classroom to talk about our experiences and how we felt. We had dutifully shut the curtains on all the windows for security reasons. We were still overwhelmed. We had arrived at the school in the afternoon, after a 9h drive from our university. The  supervisors and the 40 kids in the after-school program had arrived a few hours later, and we ran around all evening trying to make ourselves useful and make friends with them. At least, that’s what I saw.

It came to C’s turn to speak. Everyone before him had said more or less the same things (how they had been excited, nervous, tired, etc.). He said simply “To be honest, you people disgust me. I saw it this evening. The way you looked at the kids I grew up with, my community, and how we live. I saw it in your eyes…the pity, the way you judged us…I felt sick.”  

That’s probably the last thing anyone wants to hear on a voluntary service trip, least of all from the leader of the trip. But it did spark a heavy discussion. Again, the context: he was an African-American who grew up in a rough neighbourhood who had taken two car loads of largely-privileged, mostly white, upper-middle class students (his friends) from his private university in a pretty town to a part of Chicago they would otherwise never set foot in, to meet (and ‘help’) the people he had grown up with. He was in a strange position: both belonging to the group of volunteers and the group of people being ‘helped’. There were bound to be some discomforting moments for everyone.

We understood that what he said wasn’t personal: it was just how he felt that day. And what he noticed. A few people tried to explain that it a lot of it also had to do with trying to make a good impression in a new environment, it did not necessarily mean we were looking down on them. Someone suggested that maybe we all should think about why we were on a service trip in the first place. The thing was, even if none of the volunteers felt like they were actively judging anyone that day, the fact that he felt the need to bring it up did raise issues about who we thought we were and what we thought we were doing. Did we see ourselves as saviours? As superior? Was the very act of going on a service trip, as one guy pointed out, a way of saying ‘I am better, richer and smarter than you, that’s why I have the time to go to your home to help you’?

         The rest of the trip went all right, there were no hard feelings but a new, humbled kind of awareness. The people we made friends with in Chicago on the pretext of ‘helping’ didn’t really need us, but were glad that a group of people from a world far removed from theirs could be bothered to visit them and lend a hand. And who doesn’t benefit from making connections with people?

         That was the last short service trip I went on. I guess it made me think too much about my privilege and place in the world, and the best way to change it What I took from it was the idea that we as volunteers were not that special nor vital, and would never change the world with a weeklong holiday. In my view, if you really want to make some sort of impact on injustice, long-term volunteering in the place where you live is a better use of time, even if it does sound less exciting.

Having said this, I don’t regret going on any of the service trips I have been on. And I would encourage you to go on one if you’ve never been on one before. Learn, be humbled, make friends, return with stories. Just don’t kid yourself that that is all you owe the world, that the world is somehow a much better place, or that you are a better person because you decided to have a different kind of holiday. Read the history of the place, keep informed about the place long after you have left. Stay in touch with whoever you met. Be mindful of how you were able to go on the trip in the first place, how you presented yourself, why you were doing it. Stay uncomfortable. Don’t just be grateful for what you have, think about why you have it and ‘they’ don’t. Don’t stop thinking.

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"The Action Collective" features six guests involved in humanitarian and environmental work. Next Wednesday, we'll have Farhan M.

Change of Focus

Jolie, aged 17, is currently studying for the Cambridge 'A' levels. She has a passion for athletics. 

In 2012, after hearing numerous accounts of how my friends coped with family members diagnosed with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I went up to my room, turned on the computer and Googled ‘cancer organisations’. I found out that I could volunteer to be a charity athlete and raise funds for the Singapore Cancer Society. 

That was when it started – my desire to contribute to society started growing in my heart. I started promoting my website on different social networks and told my friends and teachers about it. I had friends who supported me throughout this entire journey. Their support has kept my desire to help others alive and made it possible for me to persevere. I placed all of my focus on this project, I trained hard for it to ensure that I completed the 15km cancer race in one and a half hours. For a person who has never run such a long distance, this was a tough challenge. 

I found out that running a charity race made me think of others, and is a good way to appreciate everything around me. When you take the focus off of yourself and place it upon others, it makes others’ lives better, and mine extraordinary. The difficulties that I have had in my own life made me knew what it was like to go through something hard, and I wanted to help.

Though it happened back in April 2010, I can still remember my father’s heart attack vividly. How my mother and I rushed our way to the hospital. At that moment, everything faded away into insignificance. A thousand thoughts flooded my head. I tried to comfort myself but my attempts were futile. The nurses and doctors hurrying outside the operating theatre seemed a blur; their brisk footsteps seemed to echo the aching heartbeat of my family as we waited in anticipation. I paced down the aisle, worried, anxious and filled with fear. My father’s heart attack made me realise that life is uncertain, and that we don’t know how much time we have on this earth. I want to treasure every single opportunity that I have in life and live it my own way. 

The images of pain and suffering that I saw in cancer patients have never left my mind, and are still vivid memories to this day. I am determined to try and do whatever I can to help people who are less fortunate than me because I believe that true happiness can only be achieved while helping others. 

I certainly do not know what change I have made, I do not know what would happen, but I am sure it would never be the same.

One doesn’t need fancy or extravagant ways to help others to make a difference. In fact, it is the small actions that will stay with them the most. 

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"The Action Collective" features six guests involved in humanitarian and environmental work. Next Wednesday, we'll have Stephanie Chan, a witty friend and a prolific spoken word artist.

working out the Golden Rule

As the full congregation rose to sing the last hymn, Taylor looked around. Pew upon pew of prosperous, bearded merchants, shopkeepers, visitors; demure wives in bonnets and crinolines, scrubbed children trained to hide their impatience; the atmosphere of smug piety sickened him. He seized his hat and left. 'Unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony.'

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'Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man's death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?" ... What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing "waft, waft ye winds, the story." The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us...'

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'If you all feel burdened, as the Chairman says, then that is one of the strongest reasons against a collection. I do not want your burden to be relieved by making a contribution here and now under present emotions. Go home burdened with the deep need of China. Ask God what He would have you do. If to give money, give it to any missionary society with agents in China, or you can post it to our London office! But in many cases God may want, not money, but yourself, or giving up a son or daughter to His service, or prayer. A collection often leaves the impression that the object of the meeting has been obtained. But no amount of money can convert a single soul.'

"it is not convenient"

He told them about a newly married young Chinese who had fallen overboard from a coastal junk into shallow water and deep mud. Taylor had rushed on deck at the splash and cry, found the crew looking helplessly at the spot where the man had disappeared. 'I leapt overboard and waded about in the hope of finding him. Unsuccessful, I looked around in agonizing suspense, and saw close to me a fishing boat with a peculiar drag-net furnished with hooks, which I knew would bring him up.

"Come and drag over this spot directly; a man is drowning just here!"

"It is not convenient."

"Don't talk of convenience! A man is drowning, I tell you!"

"We are busy fishing, and cannot come."

"Never mind your fishing," I said, "I will give you more money than many a day's fishing will bring; only come - come at once!"

"How much money will you give us?"

"We cannot stay to discuss that now! Come, or it will be too late. I will give you five dollars" (then worth about thirty shillings in English money).

"We won't do it for that," replied the men. "Give us twenty dollars, and we will drag."

"I do not possess so much; do come quickly, and I will give you all I have!"

"How much may that be?"

"I don't know exactly, about fourteen dollars."

'At last, but even then slowly enough, the boat was paddled over and the net let down. Less than a minute sufficed to bring up the body of the missing man. The fishermen were clamorous and indignant because their exorbitant demand was delayed while efforts at resuscitation were being made. But all was made in vain. Life was extinct.'

Taylor paused. He could sense hot indignation sweep the Scots at such callous indifference. Quietly he continued, 'Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man's death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?"

He dilated on the value of a soul, spoke of 'a million a month...' and swiftly arrayed the mass of facts at his finger tips, to murmurs of amazement at this stark unfolding. The beliefs of his audience on heaven and hell, on the uniqueness of Christ as Saviour, on the awfulness of separation from God in this world and in eternity, were his. They knew the terms, the Biblical allusions, accepted the speaker's premises; were genuine in piety but unaware that 'spiritual sanctification' springs from unselfish action.

Taylor passed to the story of an ex-Buddhist merchant, an educated man, who had been baptized after attending the little church in Ningpo. 'He asked me soon afterwards, "How long have you known this Good News in your own country?"

"Hundreds of years."

"Hundreds of years! And yet never came to tell us! My father sought the truth, sought it long, and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?"

Taylor began his conclusion. 'Shall we say that the way was not open? At any rate it is open now. Before the next Perth Conference twelve millions more, in China, will have passed forever beyond our reach. What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing "waft, waft ye winds, the story." The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us...'

Hudson Taylor & Maria: A Match Made in Heaven (1962)

John Pollock