How a 17-year-old teaches a 69-year-old - Egg Faced Frazer.

This is how a 17-year-old can teach a 69-year-old about life.

First, you stand for what is right. 

So, the Australian teenager, 17 then, took a stand by smashing an egg on the head of an Australian (far-right) senator, 69 years old.

What did the senator do? 

Well, Fraser Anning drew “international condemnation when he blamed last month’s attacks - which left 50 people dead at two New Zealand mosques - on immigration.” 

This is his full statement: “I am utterly opposed to any form of violence within our community, and I totally condemn the actions of the gunman.” 

He could have stopped right there, but alas, he didn’t.

”However, whilst this kind of violent vigilantism can never be justified, what it highlights is the growing fear within our community, both in Australia and New Zealand of the increasing Muslim presence.”

Growing fear? Wasn’t the 28-year-old gunman an Australian presumably on a tourist pass to New Zealand, while the 50 victims were citizens of NZ? 

Who is the so-called outsider here? Who has come from a foreign land to create the horrific act of provocation? 

Second, a 17-year-old can teach a 69-year-old about life by bringing the public together to stand for what is right. 

After William Connolly cracked an egg on Fraser’s head on 16 March, Fraser hit him several times on the face. 

But, after some investigation, the police gave William a warning. The police will not press charges against William and Fraser. 

However, it was not the ”egged-head” Fraser who got the public’s sympathy. It was in fact William who got all the right media attention. 

Now known as “Egg Boy”, spawning online memes in support, William’s egg antics “drew support from around the world, with Go-FundMe Page raising more than A$80,000 (S$77,000) to help with legal fees and...waitforit... the procurement of “more eggs””.

And thirdly, this is what William did with the funds online. He said that he would donate the money to the victims of the attack. 

You can contrast this with what the 69-year-old Fraser did or didn’t do. 

For what he had said, he had refused to apologise even after he was censured by Parliament for his ”ugly and divisive” comments. He stood by his comments. 

FYI, Fraser was elected into Parliament by a fluke when the chosen candidate was made ineligible because of dual citizenship. So you can say that he got in by an inadvertent default. 

Anyway, fluke or otherwise, the lesson I draw from this comparison is that age and experience are no reliable indicator (in some cases, not even by a long shot) of one’s character and maturity.

You can be properly schooled and advance in age but you can also be so self-conceited about what you think you know that you are no wiser than a school bully stealing another schoolboy’s lunch during recess. 

While a teen can be impulsive, he or she can also teach a grown man or old man a thing or two about human decency, human sensitivity and human kindness. 

Look at fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg who describes herself as a "climate radical". If you google her, you will read that she “is protesting outside Sweden's parliament every day until the September election, refusing to attend school and calling on politicians to take climate issues seriously.” 

And she has created quite an international storm, putting many parliamentarians to shame.

This is what I mean by taking a stand, rallying the people on the side of humanity, and egging the world on to fight for what is right, what is rightly ours and our children’s, and what is in danger of being lost - be it some virtue, some part of humanity, or in Greta’s case, the entire earth we make our home in. 

I guess that is why Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

And this is what the world needs now, not more well-credentialed experts being paid to tell us what is right and what is wrong, but more young men and women following their pure and innocent hearts fighting for a better world which they will soon inherit from us. 

If the people who have gone before them have only taught us how to hate, to horde, to extract, to exploit, to compete, to possess, and to be first at all costs, then maybe, it is time for those who are genuinely concerned about the state of the world today to pay more attention to the lost or suppressed voices of our young generation who care to take a stand, even if it means committing impulsive (innocuous) acts, just so that those who think they know better would come to admit that they in fact know no better. 

And considering that we were young once, and along the way, we may have lost our way, maybe we can find back the narrow and straight path if we just take the time to look into the eyes, hopes and dreams of our children. Cheerz.

Does school prepare you for life and work?

I never thought that school alone was enough to teach about life, meaning and purpose. I’m sure nobody thought so too. 

The way schools are set up, you know that it is largely about testing you on your acquired textbook knowledge and streaming you from one class to another to get the best out of the system. The best are generally those who excel academically. 

Here is why I thought this way. And it is in the papers this morning. It is entitled “Youth feel school doesn’t equip them for work.”

The bottomline on this online poll carried out in 2018 by National Youth Council is that ”seven out of 10 young people are unsure or do not think the tertiary education they receive in Singapore prepares them sufficiently to join the workforce.”

The online poll included two dialogue sessions on lifelong learning and nearly 3,000 young people (between ages 15 and 35) attended in 30 discussion groups with over 15,000 young people polled online.

The conclusion is that lifelong learning (and if I may add, lifelong humility and service) is the cornerstone of a meaningful life. 

Alas, I have gone through the system too and that was in the 1980s. Not a bright student, I struggled with the text. Most of the time, I was drifting quite aimlessly. 

That said, I had many fond memories of my secondary and tertiary education days with good friends for whom I still keep in contact.

But, when I came out to work in my mid-twenties, I realised that school can only do so much. 

Bless the system and the dedicated teachers, but being academically equipped does not mean that I am ready for life, family, parenthood and all that jazz (or mess) in the middle of it. 

Now, at 49, I am transitioning into a phrase that reminds me of this quote: “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” 

Well, less morbid than that, the point is that in the process of raising a family, you realise that you are not young anymore. Your body is telling you a different tale from the tireless adventures of the days of your youth. 

It is largely a slower-paced tale of intermittent memory loss, falling or shaky teeth and aching bones from places you thought you had it covered. 

You see, life’s picnic can be planned to the very square inch of your picnic mat with neatly placed dishes in sterilised tupperware and bottle of Evian high mountain water at easily accessible corners of the mat. 

But, how do you control or plan the weather (cloud seeding)? How do you tell life’s thunder and storms to back off? How do you control your life, immune it from trials, protect your kids from broken hearts, and prepare yourself for mortality, or worse, before that, the long road of morbidity? 

While you can ace your exams by doing 10-year series questions to cover what had been previously tested and will turn up in predictable form, how do you prepare for an emotional betrayal, a dead end career, a debilitating congenital condition in your child, a lie you cannot forgive or an addiction that stubbornly resist all efforts of reform? 

That’s a life’s shoe too big for the academic years spent in school to fit, however good the intentions were. And I would be naive and silly to expect it to come to a snug fit. 

One Assoc Professor offered this advice: “It is important for students to develop critical soft skills such as resilience, the ability to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty and failure as such human skills cannot be replicated by technology.” (Mary Anne Heng of NIE).

Needless to say, those skills will not and cannot be taught in school, that is, in a controlled environment with carefully thought out scenarios for you to pick your brain on. 

You excel in that tested form by ticking the right boxes, or by offering the best, most defensible and intellectually persuasive, answer(s). 

But in the life that you are living now and have to go through, personally encountering a business ruin that may destroy your identity, worth and reputation, or a grief of a loss of a loved one that will overwhelms you for years, there is just no template scenario to be tested on or the perfect answer to be put on pulp paper for submission. 

The marking of life takes time, most times, a lifetime (while the marking in school is time-restricted). The grades of life is developing resilience, maturity and an indomitable hope of all good things in the many storms of life (while the grades in school is alphabetical yet alarmingly predestined of one’s pathway in life). 

And you don’t graduate from life until you are lying on your deathbed scanning the faces that stand by your bedside, tearing for you, for the selfless acts and service you have offered in your lifetime, for the lives you have inspired.

But in school, you graduate within prescribed timeframe so as to make way for other students to occupy your seat or place.

So, let me end with a picnic. Never forget to have one with your family and friends. Plan well for it. Be in the moment when you are with them in a picnic. Never forget the memories of it, the fun, the joy and the sharing. 

At the same time, the rain and storm will come. The distant thunder rolls are real. And you prepare for them, by having a good time with loved ones in a picnic. You prepare for them by building resilient relationships. You prepare for them by always giving of yourself to the lives that matter. 

For when the storms come, you will be more than equip to brave through them because a life like that is never alone, is always empowering, and is always overcoming. 

Have a blessed weekend. Enjoy it with family and loved ones. Cheerz.

The Bezos divorce.

When you married in 1993 and have four children, and both of you are worth more than $150 billion combined, going your separate ways is going to be heartbreaking.

So, how did Jeff Bezos (55) and Mackenzie Bezos (48) take it? How did they take the divorce in a marriage of 25 years?

Regardless of who was at fault, this is what Mackenzie said in her parting shot: -

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness.”

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of Amazon shares plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”

“Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.”

And here’s what Jeff said: -

“She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our future unroll, I know, I’ll always be learning from her.”

“I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Well, if not for the divorce, those two seem like they are actually in love for the second time round. Those parting words could very well be love letters written to each other to reaffirm their passion and commitment. 

And the billionaire couple has turned marital bind into friendship ties, with their commitment to parenthood remaining just as robust as before. 

Honestly, I don’t think money plays such a large part (in the largely conciliative divorce) since I have read about ultra rich couples divorcing with much fanfare and acrimony, especially when the other has been unfaithful. 

I know money can placate souls, even splitting ones, but most times, money is the source of aggravation too. 

So, maybe there are three kinds of divorces to watch out for in this modern world. 

The first kind is one that cannot let go of the past. The betrayal consumes the betrayed party. He or she will always be the victim and that defines their whole identity, even their future recovery. 

The author, Esther Perel (“The State of Affairs”), calls this first group the Sufferers. 

She wrote: “Couples like these live in a permanent state of contraction. To the unfaithful, the betrayed spouse becomes the sum total of her vengeful fury. To the betrayed spouse, the unfaithful becomes the sum total of his transgressions, with few redeeming qualities.”

“Marriage like these may survive, but the protagonists are emotionally dead. In any case, when past infidelity becomes the hallmark of a couple’s life, whatever was broken can’t be pieced back together. The relationship wears a permanent cast.”

Then comes the second kind. The couples in this group are moving out of the past but are caught in the present. They want to rebuild their life separate from the divorce but somehow, they encounter some resistance. The pain still lingers. The disappointment takes hold. The regrets swell. 

Perel calls this group the Builders. 

She wrote: “These couples can move past the infidelity, but they don’t necessarily transcend it. Their marriages revert to a more or less peaceful version of the status quo antebellum - the way things were, without their relationship undergoing any significant change.”

She added: “An affair is revealed in a relationship, and an affair reveals a lot about a relationship. It sheds a stark light on its constructs - the cracks, the imbalances, the dry rot, the subsidence, but also the strong foundations, the solid walls, and the cozy corners. 

The builders focus on these structural strengths. They are not looking for massive renovations; they simply want to come back to the home they know and the pillow they can rest on...Ultimately, lying and deceiving are more agonising than thrilling, and the end of the affair is simply a relief. When they look back, the whole episode is an anomaly best forgotten.”

Lastly, the third kind. 

They are the wayfarers, planetarians, plotting their own future, mapping their own stars. They look forward to a future not so much by leaving a broken marriage behind, but transforming it into a friendship of immeasurable worth. They do not just live in a stasis-like present, struggling to forget the past, they instead live for the future, striving to make a better one. 

Perel calls this group the Explorers. 

She wrote: “The affair becomes a catalyst for transformation...In contrast with the sufferers, who conceive of their ordeal as moral absolutes, the viewpoint of the explorers is more fluid. They more readily distinguish wrong from hurtful, paving a smoother road for clemency.”

I guess the Bezos fall snugly into this group. That is why she can say, ““Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.” And he can say, “... am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Lesson? Treasure. That’s the lesson from this breakup. Treasure. 

Whether we admit or not, the statistics don’t lie. Divorces are real. 

In 2014, out of 28k marriages, about 7k ended in divorce. Divorce was highest in marriages between 5 and 10 years, about 26%. 

People break up for many reasons, not all of them are bad reasons. Many stay together too, but not all of them are for good reasons. 

And I’ll leave you to sort out why some couples of twenty to thirty years stuck together for reasons that have nothing to do with the first vow they took at the altar, when the passion was the highest, and the dreams were the loftiest. 

This quote by Irish-philosopher John O’ Donohue should wake us up on the lurking reality of a straying heart. 

“It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention of commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smolder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the human heart Eros remains a light sleeper.” 

Mm...while Ero is a light sleeper, treasuring your marriage means that the Ero in the dark chambers of our hearts always finds itself on the same marital bed when it is aroused and awake. 

We do that by keeping that first altar promise close to our heart, by nurturing the relationship instead of seeing it as an obligation to the kids, by focusing on the little things and not trying to overcompensate with the big ones, by guarding our desires with renewing passion, and by stripping novelty of its lure because what is new is not always what is lasting, or better.

And treasure works the other way too when a marriage breaks up. That is the reality many cannot avoid. It happens and happens when Eros has the better of us. 

We fall, we stumble, that’s a fact. We stagnate or we move forward, that’s also a fact. 

Treasure here means to find a safe space with close, compassionate friends to get back on our feet again. 

Treasure also means letting the hurts in the past go so that we may heal eventually. 

Our soul however broken has to move on and we have to treasure the process, invest it in with rustic determination, that is, to treasure the present recovery and treasure the future possibility of growth and discovery. 

We owe it to ourselves to find restoration, peace of heart, forgiveness, and love again. 

So, whether we are married or go our separate ways, we treasure what we have, where we have it, and what we can do about it. 

Nothing is a dead end unless we make it so. Nothing has to fall into pieces if we are prepared to piece them back together again. And nothing is without a future unless we condemn it to live in the past forever. 

All this applies to marriage too, lest one thinks that planning a memorable, expensive wedding dinner in a big splash of passion is where one’s effort to love ends and autopilot takes over. Cheerz.

Mdm Khaw Seow Wah - the restorer of broken relationships.

I wonder, at 89, what will I be doing?

Well, for Madam Khaw Seow Wah, she is connecting people, rebuilding ties once lost and reuniting families. 

In the papers, the headlines read: “At 89, she helps recovering drug addicts reconnect with families” (journalist Calvin Yang).

Mdm Khaw has been doing this for the last 30 years. She is a long-time volunteer with Christian halfway house Breakthrough Missions. And she “has been knocking on the doors of the families of recovering drug addicts.”

She said: “Many of these families were let down by (the addicts) drug abusing ways and did not want to have anything to do with them. But I would share with the families how (the addict) had changed for the better. If they didn’t believe, they could visit them and see.”

Mdm Khaw recounted that at one point, “she stood outside a former drug abuser’s home for an hour because the family, disappointed with his actions, refused to let her in.”

This was how she did her work. Patiently waiting at a family’s door, waiting for them to respond, building trust along the way and allowing the hardened hearts to soften so as to invite their son back into the family.

Mind you, it’s no easy feat for the last 30 years for Mdm Khaw. “Such visits can stretch to three hours or more each. She has lost her way at times and tripped and fallen on a couple of occasions en route to seeing the families.”

Pastor Simon Neo, 66, a former drug addict and founder of Breakthrough Mission, said: “She doesn’t get tired and sometimes she would even visit them without telling us. She reassures the families, so that they are ready when their sons come home.”

Mdm Khaw has five children and six grandchildren. Most of her children are residing overseas. She lived in her Telok Blangah flat. But she has to cut down on visits because she fell last month. But that didn’t stop this kindness dynamo from giving even at 89. 

For goodness and kindness once sown doesn’t return empty. This is how the cycle of giving and love is reaped. 

Mdm Khaw is now staying at the halfway house, “which has set aside a room for her so that she can be looked after by the residents and staff.” 

She “spends her days helping out at Breakthrough Missions, such as teaching its residents how to write Chinese characters. She also keeps in contact with those who have left the halfway house, and helps find jobs for those who are unemployed.”

She said: “I care about them and I want to see that they are doing well.”

Aaron Xie, 35, who was once a drug addict and is now working in the halfway house, said: “Many people wouldn’t even bother to care about drug addicts. For a stranger like her to show such love is rare. She is like a mother to us. Even though she doesn’t get anything in return, she never gives up on us.”

Lesson? I teared a little when I read that - “she never gives up on us.” 

Being a devout Christian, Mdm Khaw said that God has given her this burden “to persuade families to accept the recovering drug addict.” She added that “deep down, these families want to know how their sons are coping, and if they will ever change.”

“I want to show God’s love for others, especially those who need a second chance. I see these brothers grow, I see them change. If we don’t give them a chance, we won’t know whether they will mend their ways.”

Alas, blessed indeed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, their hearts will be warmed, their souls lifted and their spirit renewed.

There are actually two places in this world you will find a certain form of happiness: first, a place where we celebrate worldly successes, toasting and feasting, and second, a place where we help to heal and mend broken hearts, encouraging and reconnecting. 

While the first form of happiness is important, giving credit where credit is due, I feel that enduring happiness is found in the second. 

For at the pinnacle of success, there is always a risk that you may fall. But at the valley of your hurts and regrets, your only way out is up. 

That is why when you climb to the top of the mountain, and look down, you will notice the trees stop short at certain level. They do not grow beyond that level. For only in the valley below can they grow. At some level, the air thins, and they do not grow beyond that point. 

It is the same with us, in our fight and struggle for acceptance, love and hope. In our own valley, we pull ourselves together and grow. We take nothing for granted and treasure every moment given to us. We come to our senses and return home with a contrite and determined heart to change.

Mdm Khaw’s devotion reminded me of the parable of the Prodigal Son. For there is no deeper joy or no transformation so deep as a family united (with loved ones) to start all over. 

We can’t do it alone, especially when we know how much grief and pain we have brought unto our family, our loved ones. We need someone to believe in us again, someone to trust and love us one more time. 

The world may give up on us, but what is almost irrecoverable for us is when even our loved ones give up on us. There is no wound so deep and painful as having loved ones telling us we will never change. 

Mdm Khaw’s own words that “I want to show God’s love for others, especially those who need a second chance. I see these brothers grow, I want to see them change” is the trusting ropes we need at the point of our valley to help us to see the light, to sense hope, and to feel love again - even from someone we don’t know.

When someone believes in us, the way Mdm Khaw believed in the drug addict, we are like trees in the valley whose roots dig in, spread out, forming a stable base of strength and support, so that our branches can push up to a place of restoration, grow and resilience. 

So when Aaron said “(Mdm Khaw) is like a mother to us. Even though she doesn’t get anything in return, she never gives up on us”, that kind of love, unceasing love, is rare because it does not look to one’s past, one’s mistakes and failures and disappointments, it however looks forward, not in the valley of things, but skyward, to the hope of all things. 

Mdm Khaw’s devotion may be simple, unsophisticated, but its empowerment is unprecedented, unfailing. 

I am forever touched by her 30 years of selfless devotion because she became a mother to the motherless (at least for a wounded season), and she restored them to their families (for all seasons).

The power in that is in the healing on both sides, that is, the sons and their mothers and fathers. The power in that is in the restoration and reconciliation of broken hearts and lost souls. And the power in that is in the walking of a new journey with loved ones into a transformed future and never stranded in a deformed past. 

Mdm Khaw will not live for long at her tender age of 89. But that motherly spirit, that love that never gives up, that vision of a future of hope for the lost, is what this broken world so desperately need. It is a love that Calvary offers, and she had taken it in all her imperfections to the end stage of her fragile life. 

Alas, we can’t lie to ourselves any longer. For whether we are at the top of the mountain or bottom, enduring change and happiness is often found at the overcoming valleys of our life. That is where we experience enduring, unconditional love to guide us home. Amen.