There is none like You

There is none like You
No one else can touch my heart like You do
I could search for all eternity long
And find, there is none like You

Your mercy flows from a river wide
Healing comes from Your hands
Suffering children are safe in Your arms
There is none like You

As part of a church congregation, I always enjoy singing the above worship song. It has never failed to lift up my mood, which has been sinking like a 'titanic' for the past week or so.

A one and a half year old child named Merilynn Lim (not her real name) was admitted to the ICU after contracting high fever due to viral infection. It has led to a cascade of system failure. The virus is so virulent that it tipped her into total heart failure (global cardiomyopathy). Since birth, Merilynn has this muscular weakness known as hypotonia, which was detected when she was unable to sit without support by age 8 months. Since then, the parents have brought her to HUKM for weekly physiotherapy as part of early intervention program. Merilynn had been making slow but good progress. However, it was also detected that she had a borderline enlarged heart but nothing much was made out of it. She easily succumbed to episodes of fever which may sometimes take a few weeks to clear. She has also been in and out of hospital, whether it is for her high persistent fever or for investigations into her problem. A metabolic screening was finally done and mitochondrial disease was suspected. As her condition deteriorated, her parents refused to let her undergo a muscle biopsy which would be the definative test. I could emphatise with them. You wouldn't want to let your child undergo further trauma and be put under general anaesthesia in case her body could not take it.

For the past eighteen months, Merilynn's life was a long suffering one. The cardiac monitor in the paediatric ICU room was displaying ventricular irregularities. I was holding her hand, which had turned clammy and her pulse was barely palpable. I noticed too that her urine output was very low. The poor child has been intubated and sedated......

In the meantime, another event is taking place, which has sparked off a debate as to the history and the very foundation of Christianity. Somewhere in the outskirts of old Jerusalem, below an apartment in a place called Talpiot, the Discovery Channel crew has rediscovered the significance of a first century family tomb, excavated in 1980, which they believed, belongs to Jesus' family. In this tomb, there are inscriptions on the ossuaries which, the team revealed, after consulting an interdisciplinary team of experts, seemingly resemble a cluster of names belonging to the family, as noted in the Bible. Those names, if the epigraphers have got it right as as follows,

Jesus, son of Joseph

Maria (in simple form, Mary)

Yose

Mariamme e Mara

Judah, son of Jesus

Matthew

Six out of ten of the ossuary boxes have the inscriptions, which is higher than usual because most ossuaries discovered in the first century tombs have only 20% of identifying inscriptions. The names themselves have sparked controversy. Mariamme has been identified as Mary Magdelene, a follower of Jesus, and her name was the only one inscribed in Greek, as she was known to have preached in that language (others were in Hebrew or Aramaic). Yose is the nickname found in the Gospels, who was Jesus' brother, named Joseph. Though the name Joseph is common in that population, Yose is an extremely rare name to discover. There has only been one other ossuary discovered with the words 'Jesus, son of Joseph', and that too was not well documented. Therefore, even though, the names Joseph and Jesus were common among early Jews, 'Jesus, son of Joseph' is another rare finding. Jesus never had a son. He is divine and there is absolutely no historical record. This discovery of 'Judah, son of Jesus' is the most amazing of them all!

The team has gone one step ahead of the academia by publishing their findings to the general viewers, estimated to be over a billion. Since the release of the documentary which has yet to be shown here, more than a million websites have been generated on this lively topic. Of course, the scholars and experts have long known about the cluster of names (since 1980) but no one has made anything out of it. This is an account of just one of the experts.

In the beginning, the public and most of the experts have accused the filmmaking 'fat cats' of making money out of this expedition. The team of decoders, headed by James Cameron, director of Titanic and True Lies and Simcha Jacobovici (producer of the award winning documentary The Exodus Decoded) have consulted the relevant experts in epigraphy, statistics, DNA forensics etc. They are aided by a Dr James Tabor, a biblical scholar and author of The Jesus Dynasty.

The big question of this Indiana Jones style expedition, is - Is this turning out to be a perfect storm, a storm in a teacup or a piece of news that will soon be ignored and forgotten? What most of the people around the world have been reading, including myself, are stories or evidence as produced directly from the team.

I wonder if the church leaders have been following the latest developments. What is their reaction and have they revealed their thoughts to the congregation? These are testing times for the people of the faith.

(To be continued)

Rainbow Home

I'm dedicating this digital work to the children of Rainbow Home, who frequent my clinic several years ago before they were relocated. This special home is founded by a devoted pastor from a city church. Starting from a small group, they are now residing in 2 houses since they have grown to more than thirty.

This painting has a solitary house with Ayers Rock in the background. Ayers Rock, is a majestic rocky pyramid-like structure located in central Australia. Deep within, there are caves with many paintings which were created thousands of years ago. They represent the aboriginal world view and culture, which they call Dreamtime. Dreamtime is essentially one long story about the creation of the universe and human beings. Perhaps the Aborigines were the earliest group of people on Earth engaging in cosmology. Based on their mythologies, it's possible that one fine day, archeologists may be able to unearth long lost tombs containing prominent historical figures. I'm sure Discovery Channel crew will be the first to make known any current excavation findings, although the truth is now under heated debate.

The rainbow is meant to show the abounding grace that God has poured into the home. Charity starts at home. Acts of kindness, sharing and loving will ensure that even if the strong wind should blow, the home will remain steadfast.

Remember that God is the greatest of all physicians. He is the Healer of broken hearts. He shall never abandone you. To all the children of Rainbow Home, this one's for you.

Love is what we make it

More on chess, this time on the local front. MBSSKL will be holding a grand open chess tournament this Saturday at the Exhibiton Hall, Midvalley Megamall. It will attempt to make it to the Malaysian Book of Records as the largest chess tournament. With over 1,400 student and adult participants so far, and barring any large scale absentees, I think this can be easily accomplished. I will be participating in the open section while my son will be in one of the age-groups.

Recently, at the PIKOM PC Fair at KLCC convention centre, there is an open section where about 50 students were quietly battling it out amid the noise and bargaining at the crowded computer fair. The event is organised by IntChess, a regional branch of the successful Singapore-based Asean Chess Academy, which is the only chess training centre recognised by the World Chess Federation. During the event, there was also an exhibition match by a Singaporean boy called Derek Lim who is the current world under-7 champion. This is certainly a fine effort by IntChess to popularise the game. My son has been undergoing training under a program endorsed by the Academy. He is currently guided by a Vietnamese international master.

Not everything that comes from Singapore is about kiasuism. Chess helps children to focus and visualise a position a few moves ahead. Besides helping them to think ahead, it also makes them responsible for their actions. There is no takeback move in a real game. Lastly, anyone can afford to play chess. Unlike computer games, they don't burn a hole in their parents' pockets. You don't need to buy the latest Nvidia GeForce video card that may cost more than a thousand ringgit. You also don't need to add excitement to the sound by getting Sonicgear. You can do away with your Logitech gaming keyboard. Just a simple 64 square checker board will do. I can assure you that once you are in the game, you will be fully immersed in a sea of possibilities.

I am now teaching my son to solve chess puzzles and playing online games. They say that chess is 95% hard work and 5% talent. I also think a little bit of luck will help along the way.

Can a chess grandmaster become the next russian president?

Gary Kasparov, the former world chess champion for close to 20 years, has hit the headlines again. This time, he had been arrested (and then released) for organising a banned anti-Kremlin rally in central Moscow a few days ago. Mr Kasparov, who formerly retired from active chess competitions in 2005 at the height of his career to join politics, has been mobilising rallies across Russia in protest against President Vladimir Putin's 'dictatorship' regime. He has been openly and regularly criticising President Putin for corruption and the country's slide to dictatorship. President Putin has to constitutionally step down in 2008 and pave way to a free election. Kasparov has claimed that there is no proper election in the past.

In a country where there are few opposition leaders, Kasparov is the only one with celebrity status that stands out. There is no real democracy with most of the population still attracted to authoritarian figures. Though more and more people are joining the movement headed by Kasparov, the number is still very small. His coalition called, The Other Russia, has a mixture of strange bedfellows including hardliner communists, liberals and nationalists, among others. In other words, sort of a left-to-right wing movement. Many people are afraid of joining the uprisings. They wanted freedom of speech and media but is worried about political instabilty. Thousands are being daily questioned by the FSB (formerly KGB) for political extremism and some are put behind bars. See my earlier posting regarding the past condition in Siberia for political dissidents as told by Nobel Prize winner, Solzhenitsyn.

His arrest has drawn worldwide condemnation, especially from the Western countries. Due to security reasons, he had sent his young family (he has a six month old daughter) to settle abroad, in New York. He has also written a new book called "How Life Imitates Chess" although he himself admitted that sometimes life is much more complicated than chess! He said that "if you want to be at the top, at the cutting edge, then you have to be very objective".

He certainly has been very objective and resilient, in organising, coordinating and centralising his rallies, very much like a game of chess! So the question often put forth is, how many more moves will it take to checkmate President Putin? Unfortunately, checkmate is not so easy to achieve. On the contrary, Kasparov said that it is more a game of survival - its like always being in danger of a one move checkmate and how to survive from it.

In this new era, where people are getting more and more intolerant of corruption by governments all over the world, here is a saying by Mahatma Gandhi, that is becoming very popular in the blogosphere. It was written during one of his non-violence movements, 77 years ago:

At first they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win!

Though the stream is small, one day there may be many streams joining to become a big river!

Introducing the Cast

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's just halfway through the show. I would like to briefly introduce you to all my brilliant stage actors and actresses, without whom this production would not be possible. Starting from left to right, they are Mr Hardware brush, Miss Blender, Miss 'Petal' Filbert, Mr Flat Shaderbrush, Sir Scriptliner, Mr and Mrs Fanbrush, and last but not least, our leading stage actress and the star of the show, Lady Oval Mopbrush. I consider myself fortunate to be able to convince Sir Scriptliner to postpone his retirement. Being a veteran, he has been instrumental in bringing out the finer details to the play, such as sticks, twigs and grass blades. Lady Oval has proven her worth in enabling me to paint the evergreens with such ease and joy. Oh yes, I must not leave out Mr and Mrs PaletteKnife Smith, both of whom are unable to make their appearance because they are busy rehearsing their next action plot backstage. These then are my trusted and loyal friends. And now, just before we continue with the show, we would like to present this to our readers:

Lady Daisy, our narrator, says, "May you be merry and cherry and happy all through the years!"

A Glimpse into the Future

Chinese lanscape art has the sort of depth and distance that stretches your imagination. Unlike the hyper-realistic art of some of the Western-style paintings, these are no longer representative of the visible world. In fact, it is an expression of the inner thoughts, an extension of the garden of the soul. This is my first attempt in Chinese art, after many years. I would love to do more of these when I have the time. Below, is a quotation from Lin Yutang, whose words have greatly inspired me:

Art is both creation and recreation.......I would rather have all school-children taught to model clay and all bank presidents and economic experts able to make their own Christmas cards, however ridiculous the attempt may be, than to have only a few artists who work at art as a profession. That is to say, I am for amateurism in all fields. .........every parent enjoys the amateur dramatics of his own children much more heartily than he enjoys a Shakespearean play......It is only when the spirit of play is kept that art can escape being commercialized.