Hidden Stream

For those who are having emotional conflicts in life, I would just like to let you know that all of us who are living in this 21st century, especially in the urban setting, will always have some troubles that will cause some sort of emotional disturbance in us. Those troubles can come from within us or from the society we interact with. The secret of living a happy and successful life lies in how you manage those conflicting emotions in you.


Aristotle said that to be happy, one must find some pleasurable activity to indulge in, even more so if you enjoy doing it very well and doing it for the good of society. Happiness does not mean you have to feel good all the time, drive yourself crazy by going to wild parties, indulge in expensive things etc. These are all transcient emotions and superficial forms of happiness. You can put up a cheerful disposition but you cannot be forever cheerful and laughing. Genuine happiness is actually a reflective form of emotion. Happiness as in joy is something we all hope to attain in our lives. However, we cannot always reach that emotional high. It is like wanting to scale up the mountain peak everyday.


Each one of us have this thing called temperament. It is a more profound and long lasting emotion which we inherit from our genes and from our upbringing and environment. This temperament or mood is what makes some people to be mild mannered, some to have a wonderful sense of humour and some to be gregarious and some to be depressed. But because I believe our emotions have intelligence and rationality, we can learn to perceive our emotions in the right way, to understand why we feel angry, hurt, embarrassed etc and to make correct decisions regarding how we can manage those negative emotions. We cannot always make the right decisions based on our emotions but we can try. We must also learn to perceive other people's emotions based on their way of life, their culture and language. For example, some Chinese dialects are spoken aloud as if there is a shouting competition and may put off a foreign tourist.

Lastly, human beings are capable of emotions that connect with the universe. Emotions are not just about everyday petty things like hate, jealousy, vengeance etc. Imagine yourself lying on the field and looking up at the stars. You will have that sense of humility in that you are not the most important person in the world. At the other end of the spectrum, you will also have an elevated feeling in that a great God can create an entire universe filled with galaxies and stars and you are part of that creation.

God will make a way

Oftentimes when I paint seascapes, I am reminded of the major tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean 2 years ago, mainly in Sumatra, Sri Lanka and India. Our country too is not spared. Although we cannot with our human mind comprehend why this happened especially when the majority who died were helpness women and children, we must know that there is an ocean of little 'tsunamis' happening in the lives of ordinary folks like you and me across the planet everyday. Lives of sorrow and darkness and confusion - these are quite prevalent in our society today. Interestingly, with each technological advance, our lives become more and more isolated.

But the good news is that God, is here for us all the time, like a father who will never forsake his children. His light will shine on you even through your darkness night, even as you walk through your valley of sorrow. Like a lighthouse. When God closes one door, He will always open another one. You may not understand His plans for you, but if you will only have faith (and faith can start small like a seed), what most people will notice initially is that they are trading their heavy hearts with hearts of joy. It is as simple as that. It starts with a humble bow before Him, and a promise. A promise that is so good - eternal life, and new mercies (or grace) that you will receive throughout your time on earth.

So, make no mistake. Take that leap of faith from the cliff. Reason has an end as it also has a beginning. God has been here for you 24/7. You have been looking out for God all your life. But events have taken a turning. The hunter becomes the hunted. You are stopped dead in your track. Suddenly you hear footsteps...... it is not you searching for God; it is God that is searching for you all this while. Searching for a long lost child.

So let all creation sing. Let the earth proclaim - this is the God of Love. Let us celebrate Love. Hear the oceans roar - God will make a way where there seems to be no way.

Everlasting Joy

What is your personal view about faith? Is it a difficult subject to talk about? To me, faith has many levels.

When you are a student, you may be living in a care-free environment. Life offers many pleasures to indulge in. You may also be the one of the 'wild' type who has 'been there, done that'. Many issues about life still look a bit hazy to you and you are not ready to live a life of devotion, at least not until you are committed to get married. After marriage, life is beautiful. There is a stable relationship and you feel satisfied with what you have. You go to church, you send your children to Sunday school and you live a moralistic kind of life. You may also indulge in other forms of pleasures but find that you are actually missing out on something. You may also turn to a socratic kind of wisdom about life. Questioning life. Questioning faith.

If you are stuck in any of these stages in life, you have to move on. Otherwise life will become stale, rusty and full of strife and agony.

If you say you belong to a certain faith, here's something I personally don't agree. Faith is not something that you register into and have it printed out. It is not about infants lining up to be baptised. It is not about compulsary attendance of Sunday service. It is not about listening to professors talk theology to you. These are too easy. You are living in your own comfort zone. To me, faith has to be a little more difficult to grasp - to be authentic.

Faith is about direct communication with God, no mediator needed. It is presenting yourself as a person before Him, all your imperfections, sins, suffering, everything. Faith is something subjective (there is no absolute certainty in life) but it involves a pro-active effort on your part to seek the Truth. It is giving everything back to God. It is losing your life, so that you can find it back. It is like immersing yourself as if you are part of the Great Story. That is the power of faith.

Before I end, here is a wager for the modern skeptics. Nobody can scientifically prove the existence of God. As I have said in my earlier posting, God is perceived only through the mind, not the senses. My wager is, if there is no God, then you don't gain anything at all. On the other hand, if there is a God, well, here, you lose nothing but you gain everything in life and have everlasting joy. Think about it, my friend.

Work in progress

I'm taking a short break. The above is a work in progress of a seascape. Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be able to show some peaceful waves lapping towards the beach against a bright sky (in fact, the sky is too bright until I had to wear sunglasses, just kidding!). I love to do seascapes - it gives me great peace but at the same time, reminds me that life can be rocky. I was also reminded about the time during my university years when I was passionately searching for answers to life. I was lost until I found God. Without faith, a person will be like struggling in the ocean looking for a distant land to swim to. We all need a spiritual compass in life.

Another thing is, faith has to be dynamic. We don't stop at the point when we have found God. There must always be this passion of the pursuit of God. Faith must also be strong enough so that we are willing to give everything we have back to God. Imagine throwing everything you own back to God for eternal truth. All finite things washed away by the waves. You will be surprised. God will honour your effort and give it all back to you. For example, a person vowed to celibacy may find himself happily married and blessed with children.

In the next posting, I will contemplate on what exactly is faith. What is faith to you?



While we are on the subject of giving things up, you can try giving up your favourite food. This is the season to celebrate Chinese mooncake festival. It is also a time to hang lanterns around the house. What joy to see the lantern lights glowing on the faces of happy children. Unlike today's battery powered, Power Rangers lanterns, I remember the time of my childhood when I would happily carry lanterns which I made by myself. However, a word of caution from the doctor - each piece of mooncake is a lump of sugar and fat. Even the low sugar variety still contains sufficient amount of it. My mother even has to reject mooncakes given by relatives and friends - we can't finish what we already have. So, please eat with moderation.

The Problem of Pain (and Suffering)

I would never qualify myself to be able to discuss the great problem of human suffering. In his book The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis, a prominent Christian writer, said 'God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pains'. However, I know many people, including many who profess to belong to a certain faith, who cannot reconcile the existence of a good, all powerful and kind God with innocent human suffering.

There are many solutions to this dilemma given by major religions of this world. The commonest would be that suffering is for our own good - this is to show that we are not as self-sufficient as we think we are - so we all need God.

Another would be suffering in this life is only temporal. We shall attain a better life in the hereafter / nirvana as a reward. Anyway, life is short here on earth compared to eternity.

Still another solution is that we all deserve it as a form of punishment since from the beginning, all humans are fallen - this is the concept of the original sin.

There's also another solution formulated since the ancient of times - that there is always a cosmological battle between good and evil. This is called dualism - a struggle in which humans are the pawns.

Another solution would be to leave God out of the picture and blame the major catastrophes to nature itself and the great wars of the world to human greed. It looks like a rational solution at first, only this position called atheism is untenable in the long run.

Here is another solution which I will call the painterly answer - light stands out best in darkness. In any painting, there is always an interplay between light against dark, and dark against light. In order to let the highlights of my trees and bushes stand out, I need to block in a dark base - the darker, the more outstanding will be my trees. Also, for contrast, I must remember not to kill all my dark areas so that I can bring out individual trees and bushes. So you see, if you are in a difficult situation, don't forget to light a candle in the dark period of your life - it will be a life giving source to you!

Now, having said all this, you may ask why do the innocent suffer the most - you will not find a better example than the recent Indian Ocean tsunami that happened to our neighbour - where mostly children and women perish in a twinkling of an eye. To this, a friend of mine gave me a remarkable answer - God also suffers along with us. Sometimes, in the face of great suffering, human empathy is worth much more than all the knowledge we acquire about the problem of evil and divine justice.....

Some stress relieving technique:

Sometimes, I find my patients are trying too hard to get better. Do not think that you must or you should get well soon, because if you put a demand on yourselves like saying you must fall asleep by 12 am, you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourself and your insomnia will get worse. Similarly, if you are someone who likes to work on a job to impress other people, or fear others will look down on you if you didn't do well, your performance will deteriorate. Instead, do something for your own personal improvement and stop thinking the perfectionist attitude. This is a matter of self-esteem.