Says who #21

Sunday night... the universe is quiet again. Every working man and woman goes to bed mildly disturbed by the rumination on life's mystery.

Says who #20 《說我說的 第20章》

緣份是生命裡的旋轉門
錯愛是暫時性的夜盲症
感情是兩顆心的進化論
相處是了解後的不可能

My way or the tollway?

I went to CityLink yesterday to pay a toll. The man who served me happened to wear a condescending attitude and would rather give a lecture on tollway jurisdiction than assist customers with relevant information and send them on their way.

The plot thickens when he was to be embarrassed later when his colleague next to him delivered exactly the thing he said earlier couldn't be done.

Now here's where the real twist happens and makes the story well worth telling. As I later thought I was being gracious to downplay his embarrassment by not making a scene or not asking for his name so that I could later address him in the letter of complain he would remember the rest of his sorry life, another thought hit me like a lightning bolt: I shouldn't have at least let the opportunity slip by to commend the lady who assisted me with what I needed to get done.

When we are inconvenienced we feel justified to complain, don't we? But how often do we let people know when they've actually done a good job? Not often enough.

Says who #19

          DR. WILBUR LARCH
Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you
kings of New England.

(The Cider House Rules, 1999)

"Pequeño Soldado" (Little Soldier)

Pequeño soldado, my true north,
You orient my world and set it forth;
Whenever my hope is gone,
I think of you and march on!


Pequeño soldado, my guiding light,
You taught me love and how to fight;
To me you know just what to say,
You never have too little to give away.


Pequeño soldado, my inspiration,
You're spoken of from nation to nation;
Who would've thought that a little boy
Could wield power so lightly from joy?


Pequeño soldado, you will be known
For freeing hearts when you have grown;
For now your skills you will refine
By practising them on freeing mine!

I've since realized that in Spanish most adjectives come after the nouns, so I've actually come across as saying "Soldier Little"... though there was in fact a "Stuart Little"! Ay ay ay... the joys of learning a foreign language.

A birthday letter

Just when I thought Maycol's last letter was awesome, I received another one from him today written in October, the month of his tenth birthday.

"I write you this time to tell you that I was so utterly happy to receive the present you sent me..."

And guess what he got from me for his birthday? A tee shirt and underwear! "They look very nice and I loved them."

I want to commend Compassion and the local church partners at Maycol's project for helping to select his birthday presents every year and they always credit the sponsor for their wonderful gift ideas. They really know how to bridge the gaps of geographical distance between sponsor and child and postal restrictions by encouraging the children to write to their sponsors and tell them what gifts they receive.

This isn't said often enough but the little things that Compassion does mean the whole world to both sponsor and child. Compassion, insisting on doing what they do all these years in Jesus' name, is the glue that securely seals the friendship between Maycol and I.

This time Maycol sent me "mucho cariño y un gran abrazo"... a lot of affection and a huge hug. Every time this boy hugs and kisses me with his words it's just as though I'm being hugged and kissed for real. Thank you, Compassion!

"Nuestra Amistad", un poema por Maycol y TS

Finally worked out the Spanish translation of "Our Friendship". This goes out in the mail to Maycol tomorrow:

Nuestra amistad es como un cuento
Que lei solo escuchas pero
No lo vez asi es contigo;
Solo te veo en fotos y leo lo
Que me cuentas pero no te veo en verdad.


Nuestra amistad es como el sol sobre mí
Ilumina mi mundo y
Calienta mi corazón; Cuando veo
La puesta del sol es porque pido el sol
Para enviar mi amor a su salida del sol.

A thousand kisses from Colombia

Got mail today from Maicol dated September 09. There is an obvious delay lately in the supply chain of Compassion's mail centre, possibly due to rearrangement of manpower in the wake of the earthquakes in Haiti. But holding Maicol's latest letter in my hands beats any delay I had to endure.

This boy is really something else. I'd summarise his letter here but I thought you should read it in his own words, or rather as close to his Español as possible:

Querido Mr. ------, (Dear Mr. ------,)

I am so happy to write you again. I have a thousand things to tell you for you have asked me a lot of questions in your letters. I thank you for your beautiful letters. I had fun reading them and I loved the pictures of the zoo. What was your favourite animal? How old are your parents? They look young in the pictures and so do you.

I want you to know that in Colombia we celebrate el mes del amor y la amistad... the month of love and friendship in September. It is very lovely to see everything decorated with hearts and in schools they play secret friend. Have you ever played secret friend? What I like about my country is that it has diverse landscapes and weathers. My favourite drink is soda. I like it because of the gas and my favourite food is fried fish.

I also want to tell you that thank God my brother Andres is doing well. Lately I have read an interesting book called Damas y Caballeros... "Ladies and Gentlemen", which talks about a theatre where they represent warrior princes. I like reading history books. As for the ranch you asked me about I guess it is the project's farm and it is doing well. We have many roosters and chickens that grow up quickly.

Finally I want you to know you are always in my prayers. Now I ask God to bless your parents and that we get to meet in Colombia soon. I also ask you to help me pray that I do well in school. I say goodbye with a thousand kisses. Dios te bendiga y gracias por tu cariño... God bless you and thank you for your affection.

Sincerely,

Maycol Barón

I don't know about you but everything about what he said gets under my skin in the good way. Maybe I'm just like a parent who never tires of speaking about his children while the listeners try very hard to hide their boredom out of sheer politeness.

I love the fact that he enjoys reading. And history books! Honestly just how many kids love history?

It breaks my heart that he's looking forward to the two of us meeting as much as I do. And nothing gives me more joy than him committing it to prayers. I can't think of anything else that draws me closer to him more than when we're both praying for the same thing.

The question plagues me everyday: Who am I to deserve this boy's love and thousand kisses?

Through the silver screen darkly

Though movies, or any narrative storytelling, seek to portray life, they differ from life thus: In movies, the bad guys are easily far more believable and intriguing in their badness than the good guys are in their goodness. Unlike the good guys who need to be in one way or another coerced into taking the side of good, bad guys are bad because they just are.*

Like the antagonists in our own experiences, we love to hate them and hate to love them. But in movies we're also glad that they are there standing between the good guy, supposedly an onscreen proxy of ourselves, and what he wants. This almost never happens in life. Good movies take care of that under two hours and open up a window to an instant insight we desire but rarely encounter in life. It is in this inversion of reality, by rationalizing the human experience through fiction, that stories are, and must be, told.

* You might take exception to the theory and refer to stories like Hannibal Rising, where a sort of origin story is told of the bad guy. But for all intents and purposed of the author(s) Hannibal Lecter is the "good guy" in that he is the sympathetic character through, more or less, whose point of view this particular story is told, therefore rendering the bad guy theory inapplicable to him in this instance.

Says who #18

          LT. COL. FRANK SLADE
Hoo-ah!

(Scent of a Woman, 1992)

Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family

Can you imagine a world without children? Soon you might not have to...

From the Demographic Winter website:

"Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family is a short film that seeks to reawaken society to the importance of the stable, intact family, and engender a discussion and greater focus in the media, in academia, in the halls of policy makers, in religious circles, in the committees of civil society and in households around the world. Our hope is that all of these circles will bring to bear on the problems facing the family the tremendous contributions each can uniquely make. In this way, we hope to avert the storm that is now most surely coming on."

“These things are vitally important; they need to be talked about.” -Dr. Gary Becker, Nobel Prize for Economics 1992 (In regards to topics discussed in Demographic Winter)


“It’s happening in rich and poor countries... throughout the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, North & South... under all forms of government, birthrates are plummeting throughout the world.” -Phillip Longman, New America Foundation; author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It


“The old policies have unwittingly destroyed the family and with it the social fabric. Rather than development, we have almost lost the only effective vehicle to development: the family.” -Christine de Vollmer, President of Latin-American Alliance for the Family


“Sadly, many Western elites are blind tothe social scientific evidence... showing that a strong and healthy marriage culture is vital to the social economic, and psychological welfare of our society’smost vulnerable members, children.” -W. Bradford Wilcox Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia; lead author of Why Marriage Matters

WARNING: This film will change the way you look at economics and children. Its underlining message is very politically incorrect but I share this with you because I'm convinced: The burden of the world will be on our children... unless we all do something about it.

Live long and procreate, people!

Says who #17

          DRAGLINE
Why you got to go and say fifty
eggs for? Why not thirty-five
or thirty-nine?

          LUKE
I thought it was a nice round
number.

(Cool Hand Luke, 1967)

"God Thence"

He flies at the Supreme Command,
Not stopping to think or doubt,
Into the direction where
God's sleeve stretches out
—God's merciful hand.


They descend with lightnings
Submerged under the stratus,
Whose flapping motion unravels
Unevenly dispensed justice
—God's silver wings.


She rises to the occasion
Trailing a blood-dirtied gown,
Telling a grand story of battle
For the everlasting crown
—God's inexorable passion!