To Shian Wen

Shian, u noe...u're the only Christian from those years in St Andrews School with whom i'm still completely on the same wavelength with then as now..u and i, well, we always had a mind of our own huh? in church with questioning..in life with our refusal to toe the line for the sake of toe-ing the line..and that dogged persistence when we watched our friends fall away and by God's grace we just kept on..funny how the rebels like us remained christian when the conformists fell away huh?

when i think if it was onli me who had bad experiences growing up with pentecostals and charismatics and felt so alone..i visit yer blog or talk to ya and am reminded that someone did agree and still agrees about those excesses which we want to see corrected..and how the pple in that movement (back home at least) often got it so wrong..i realise that i'm not a lone voice calling for change and repentance..others, equally part of that movement or tradition,stand as fellow travellers on that road..who can know the heart of people who've seen brothers, sisters and frens from the same churches stray and fall away? you noe what it feels like my brother and friend..

oh, that God may grant us courage and persistence to be different and to Truly live holy..rather than act religious..n that we might have the courage to say we're not perfect, but that in God's grace and by His Spirit we are making progress..you inspire me to be a different kind of pentecostal/charismatic Shian..and i resolutely set my face to be a whole different kettle of fish from the kinds of Christians we encountered growing up..the time has come to stop being lambs with regard to true holiness, repentance and preaching of God's Word Shian...By God's grace let us be lions..Its time to battle with what is wrong, sinful, corrupt and utterly abhorent to the God of the Bible within the pentecostal/charismatic movement back home..even to the extent of nailing 95 Theses (after Martin Luther's example) to the doors of our churches..

Hannibal Lecter

Probably the best Anthony Hopkins movie would be Silence of the Lambs where he plays the famous psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter who happens to be a serial killer..and not just any serial killer, but one who eats his victims..or rather, parts of his victims..

The film was based on a novel created by Thomas Harris and eventually came to involve 4 novels, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising and the prequel, Red Dragon..its hard to tell whether the subsequent novels were inspired by the film production of Silence of the Lambs, or were the inspiration for the subsequent film adaptations of the remaining 3 novels...one thing is clear though, save for Hannibal Rising, all 3 movies were fantastic onscreen adaptations..and Gaspard Ulliel played Hannibal amazingly well in Hannibal Rising even though the screenplay and plot were pretty flimsy..

watching Hannibal Rising on my laptop today triggered memories of dark late teenage years when i also wanted to get back at an unfriendly world and unfriendly pple around me..Hannibal was THE ultimate anti-hero..actually he was a villian but a really likeable one..the next closest anti-hero would be Spawn..a hero who destroys his foes and doesn't care a hoot about saving pple which was always really a pretext for super-heroes to boost their own egos anyway..along with Paul Atreides the Mahdi Prophet from Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah and in recent years, Gregory House from the award-winning and self-explanatory show House..cut up the bad guys and eat their brains? whoah...thats a bit much even for mi..but really interesting wouldnt ya say? i wonder if Jesus had a side to Him like that? muahahaha..u never know...actually, i think there is an element of truth in that..the word hell appears 13 times in the gospels..if i'm not wrong..11 of which are on the lips of Jesus..well thats enough to disabuse anyone of Sunday School images of Jesus i think..

oh, and, let me state categorically that i think Hannibal Rising has a really flimsy story line especially at the start with the parents being killed in an air raid and Hannibal and Mischa having to defend themselves against SS deserters (thats an impossibility Hollywood, you know that? especially if you knew anything about history) but the whole way the film tries to protray Hannibal as some tortured and haunted child who goes psycho after seeing his sister killed and eaten by those deserters sounds somehow contrived (esp if u watch the show)..sometimes pple like Hannibal just are what they are without a whole sad and tragic background..and i would have preferred it that way..

but as i said..Gaspard Ulliel portrayed Hannibal as good as Anthony Hopkins..not dark and brooding or tortured..but just cruel and sadistic..because he could and was like that..and there are times when i confess i struggle to not treat pple like that..i dun only cos of God's grace..but i still find it hard not to feel negatively about pple and their intentions and actions..i want to be in control and a person who does things rather than has things done to me..but i'm only human and flawed i realise..n my thought are often wrong..so yeah, while i admire Hannibal cladestinely, i can't be like him nor do i try (which is probably good cos i dun wanna end up eating human brains...)

Tasting God's Pain

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the Earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His name, tell of His salvation day by day...For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, He is to be feared above all gods. Psalm 96:1-2,4

Today i cry. i weep with they who weep and mourn with those who mourn. There was someone i know back home whom i developed a great liking for late last year and early this year. We had one of those conversations before i left for Australia this year where our positions were made clear. And we decided to remain friends. i still care for this friend deeply even though not romantically now. And just last night, i learnt of her getting together with a non-Christian guy.

From the way she talked about their relationship, i knew what will come in the days ahead. Its not pretty. We all know deep down through the work of the Holy Spirit what is right and wrong in certain matters. We know yet we do not often follow what God's Spirit prompts and we do the opposite. "I do not understand my own actions. For i do not do what i want, but i do the very thing i hate." Romans 7:15 And having come through the pain of a relationship with someone who's not a christian once, i know what its like. The pain, agony, tears, anguish, the guilt. I cry and pray for this friend and sister because i know now what the pain of seeing a close friend make a foolish decision is like. And i know how often this can lead to backsliding and falling away. Yes, i believe in God's sovereignty and election, yes i believe in the perserverance of the saints of God, but this does not remove or lessen the pain of seeing a Christian do something foolish like this that you know destroys faith and one's walk with God.

at this point i am sorely tempted to drop what i'm doing and go into full time ministry because thats where i know the real problems can be solved. you see, its not a problem with man's dwellings or environment, its not a problem with man's bodies or health, its not a problem of man's finances, its the problem of sin in his soul. And sometimes i despair for Christian manhood. when the ladies bypass godly men to go for non-christians, a chill wind cuts right through my bones.what hope is there that godly, christian men can ever get married and have families? what hope is there that christian men can raise children to be godly? we are finished. The end of christian manhood is upon us, even in our generation i fear. i remember the barrowright's song from Lord of the Rings,

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone,
Never more to wake on stony bed,
Never, till sun dies and moon be dead
Till the Dark Lord lifts his bony hand,
over dead sea and withered land.

Then i recall Ps. 96. God is not like that. He is above and beyond petty evil, yet is acquainted with it in the person of Jesus, His Son. In Jesus, the God who is so far above and beyond us has come down to us and suffered, like us, under the effects of this evil world. "O wretched man that i am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!.." Romans 7:24-25...yes, Jesus is the anwer to the problem of sin..and only God can help my friend now..i pray for her, i cry for and with her, but i know its only God who can work in her by His Holy Spirit and help her have the strength and courage to make decisions that please Him..

still for me today, it is the sound of great weeping and despair that resounds in my ears..and i can only cling to straws..like this one: "Though the fig tree should not blossom, not fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet i will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation." Habbakuk 3:17-18..Will heaven's glories be greater than the sum of all of Earth's painful miseries? One can only hope..

Growth

weeks of work on my project seem to have borne some fruit and my submission for Schematic Design took place around 330-40 pm on Thursday, about a day late..but i will say that i've made progress tackling huge assignments of this scale since last semester..when i was almost completely swamped by Schematic Design submission for just a single residence..now its 14 residences in an area 22 metres wide by about 45 meteres long which really stretched my mind in Design and planning..and i must say that i'm much more satisfied with the result compared to my solution last sem..but more could still be done really..if i had the time..thats always the great enemy of an architect..time or rather, the lack of it..the other is cost but that can be worked around to produce magnificent solutions..time on the other hand, moves forward remorselessly..

and reading and studying Romans in Focus has been challenging and rewarding..many of my earlier ideas were clarified and issues which we'd not explored in first year reading Romans with Senno were raised for the first time..like the idea of Christians being adopted children who dun yet look any different from the rest of the world but yet who have a fundamental change of status in Jesus ..and helping to prepare studies in Mark every week with Dene have helped sharpen sharing the gospel and the basics of reading the gospel with students and friends who have either no knowledge of the gospel or poor English skills, or both..and have also fundamentally challenged my view of the Gospel of Mark (its like a condensed cordial drink that needs to be explained and exegeted a great deal because many issues are covered in a pithy, condensed manner) and given me a fresh view of Jesus that is completely removed from the Sunday School image of Jesus as meek and mild, kind and gentle, able to be bullied by anyone, a limp wristed namby-pamby...well, the Jesus revealed in the gospels is as full of mercy and grace as He is full of wrath, anger and fearsome fire that condemns sin and sinners (few of us ever knew that, let alone expected that huh)..and He is the King who demands complete obedience and submission, worship and allegiance..Jesus we've learning, is no constitutional monarch who has no real power over anything..rather, He is an Absolute Monarch who destroys opposition and who has Full and Active control over Everything

And Qunfeng has, by God's grace and mercy, found a job in Sydney! i am trully happy for him and thankful that i had the opportunity to care for him and go along with him to Life to the Full for a while before he left..And i pray sincerely that God will continue to work in his life and care for him and give him good friends who might be a godly influence on him..and so, another friend has left Newcastle..as i take stock of the friends who have left Newie (Jeremy, Aazac, James, Lake, Josh, Jesslyn, Branda, now Qunfeng) or who will be leaving Newie shortly (Zhaowei, Serene? Brendan? Paul? Junshi? Emmerie?) i do feel a bit sad..i still have good frens here of course, (Thank God!) but really, if i were to take stock after 5 years in Newcastle of how many frens had come and gone from my life..i really wonder if it would be an almost unbearable agony..thats the cost of studying overseas..ur frens who are also international students move on..i guess i can only be thankful and appreciate the fact that i once had the opportunity to make an impact on their lives and that we all did have some great times and fond memories together..u all remain in my heart n mind forever, Newcastle frens..Cheers!

Homeage to all who took part in the Paris Commune

Freddie Mercury aka Queen aka Farokh Busarra, the performer extraodinaire and champion of the Live Aid series of concerts held in the 1980s, when i was just a few years old and a really really young Chiku, to borrow a phrase from a gd fren of mine, was The Rebel. And to all who grew up in St Andrews School during that period of the 90s thinkin that goody two shoe-in was just not quite adequate an attitude to have in life, our rediscovery of Queen and good ol Freddie was just wat seemed to be lackin in our minimal existence..yes, he was a homosexual who died of AIDS in 1990 and no, i'm no homosexual myself nor do i support that lifestyle..but that man sure rocked..and if i could have one desire in life, it would be to see Freddie in heaven leading choirs of angels in worship of God..i'm sure he'd be the perfect worship leader who'd completely remove all memories of Lucifer from God's mind..of course that would remain a futile wish..but i look up to Freddie the performer..and wish sometimes that i were like him in his charisma and charm and stage presence..especially his ability to rouse a crowd and grip their hearts, even though i think he was a pretty manipulative b*st*rd himself..

for those of us who never bought into the establishment of this world and all its trappings, but who recognized the need to bring our rebellion and anti-establishment attitude to a higher and more sophisticated level within the secular system and wreak havoc within ..well, Freddie is one inspiration..and one day, lets pray and hope that we would all be able to show to the people within that system how futile their ways are..and we grow like a cancer within everyday..

A Short Script on Architecture, or A.U.C

i'm going to speak a bit about architecture and in fact, i think that i shall be doing more of these posts on my two twin loves, architecture and theology...i guess i should really stop posting stuff that tries too hard to please or that really does not show the full breadth of this self-deprecating person we know as Jonathan Chua..

About Art n Architecture:

i emphasize continuity with history and all its myriad successes and failings..thus, i support a contemporary interpretation of the Five Orders, arcading and a return to traditional models of space and a sense of place that our generation has lost under the influence of the Modernists.

i support the integration of Art and Architecture in different ways, from collage to integration wherein part reflects whole as whole reflects part..n i believe sincerely that Architecture must be returned to its rightful place as "Mother of the Arts"

we need to have a social n environmental conscience as Architects and Artists that reflects the precarious nature of the world we live in, with its countless (and senseless) wars and environmental pollution..thus the Architect must be reinstated in his role as mediator between the city and the natural, the urban and the forest..

i believe that for too long we have strayed from the path of balance, harmony, moderation, synthesis and integration and strove for extremes that hurt our built heritage, society and people.However, there is indeed a need to recognize self-organisation within the city...as elements that are on the boundary between chaos and order develop self-organisation...these elements are found in our cities whether we like it or not..

finally, let us never forget our role of service to the people and society that commissions us...let us never get caught up in self-indulgent, self-aggrandising, egotistical schemes that glorify ourselves at the expense of our commissioners..however, let us also not adopt false humility as the Modernists did and strive for senseless automation and monotony that would destroy our profession and our art, if not our souls..

lets return to the ancient call of Ab Urbe Conditta..respecting the integrity of our cities and built environment rather than thrashing it..

Reversing the Orders

Lord, high and holy,
meek and lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths
but see You in the heights;
locked in by mountains of sin I see Your glory.
Let me learn by paradox that

the way down is the way up,
that
to be low is to be high,
that
the broken heart is the healed heart,
that
the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that
the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that
to have nothing is to possess all,
that
to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that
to give is to receive,
that
the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, while it is still day
stars may be seen through deep wells,
and the deeper the wells
the brighter Your stars shine;
let me find

Your
light in my darkness,
Your
life in my death,
Your
joy in my sorrow,
Your
grace in my sin,
Your
riches in my poverty,
Your
glory in my valley.

Amen.

Nutcracker Suite

wow i tot i would kena big time from my fren but it was more of an encouragement than a scolding..well, in appreciation, i've decided to dedicate something about dance to this fren and all my other dancer frens, inc Sera..i actually watched this movie during my 'arthouse' flick time at the end of NS...tot it would be cool to see something other than Advanced Close Combat Training and puji stick fighting for once..but of course, all the guys would say its gay etc...i dun think so lor..if anyone can jump like that without breaking their neck i'll salute them man...

and of course, getting up at 4 am to do work everyday is inspired by this show lor...its called dedication can...n when it comes to dedication..doctors, architects, lawyers, accountants and pastors are the 'tough nuts to crack' lor...well..back to residential medium density housing...time to crack some nuts..