We can achieve vs Count on me, Singapore.

 

We can achieve. Count on me, Singapore. Joseph Mendoza. Hugh Harrison. What do they have in common? 

Well, for starters, they are both musicians, composers in fact. They appear to have composed a song that practically shared identical lyrics and melody. And the difference in the time of the composition is, as claimed, three years apart.

Mendoza said he composed We Can Achieve in 1983. Harrison composed Count On Me, Singapore in 1986. And trust me, I heard it. They are two songs in the same melody pod. 

As the papers put it, except for swooping “Singapore” for “India” or “Mother India”, they are almost conjoined twins in umbilical harmony. 

Are we then dealing with Borel’s law here? That is, “events with a sufficiently small probability never occur.” Could this coincidence between We Can Achieve and Count On Me, Singapore be the events with sufficiently small probability?

Borel went on to say: “Such is the sort of event which, though its impossibility may not be rationally demonstrated, is, however, so unlikely that no sensible person will hesitate to declare it actually impossible. If someone affirmed having observed such an event we would be sure that he is deceiving us or has himself been the victim of fraud.”

So, that said, the discomfiture here is, who is the rightful composer of this song? Hugh Harrison or Joseph Mendoza? 

As a Singaporean, I was 16 when I first heard the song and it has been playing in my mind ever since, especially on 9th August, with unconscious refrain a few days after. 

And if you haul this little red dot to copyright court, you can rest assured that we will all sing the same song, with enthused chorus to boot. We may even turn the solemn judicial hall into a patriotic sing-along, like a flash-mob kind of spontaneity. 

But Mendoza will have none of it. He claims he is the rightful composer. He said he had 250 orphans performed the song (We can Achieve) in 1983, “after he had written it while teaching music at the Bal Bhavan orphanage in Mumbai, where he is based.”

Unfortunately, Mendoza said that “the original tapes of his composition were all swept away in the 2005 Mumbai floods.” 

“The only living proof that I can offer you are the 250 orphans who first learnt it in 1983 and all orphans at Bal Bhavan in the successive years too.” So claims the 58-year-old composer. 

The strange twist is that Mendoza said he sold the rights to a Christian Book and record store known as Pauline India in 1999. And Pauline India had publicly acknowledged that We Can Achieve “appears to have been substantially copied from Count On Me Singapore. They have since apologised and removed the song from their platform.” And the MCCY has accepted their apology.

I guess this too-good-to-be-true coincidence would have been passed off (pun unintended) with mutual cordiality if the rightful composer of the song is duly acknowledged, apology notwithstanding. 

Like MCCY said, “Whilst Count On Me Singapore is one of our most beloved national songs, we are also happy it seems to have been well appreciated in India, with the video showing teachers and students in a school performing the song, and expressing their love for their own country.” 

Yet, most unfortunately, it does not end there, because, it is really a case of the Eminem song: “Will the real slim shady please stand up?” For who is telling the truth then, and who is hiding a lie? Or, as Borel reminded us, is this a case of someone being a “victim of a fraud”? 

As far as Hugh Harrison is concerned, he is thinking along the same line too. “The fact that he is claiming now in 2021 that he is the original creator of the song, implying I copied the song from him, is a direct attack on my integrity and professionalism and for that, he could be sued for slander and/or libel.”

“As it stands now, I have written (to) him and given him the opportunity to rescind his claim and am awaiting his response.” MCCY has also written to Mendoza to “invite him to substantiate his claims.” They too are waiting for his response. 

Lesson? Just one.

Well, I would say that for both songs, it’s all for a good cause, rallying hearts among the people in a nation and among orphans in schools to support national unity and pride. It is also largely a non-profit endeavour done out of part obligation, part patriotism and part inspiration. 

Yes, maybe some fees changed hands but the meaning of the song and its impact have surpassed the material gain one is rewarded for when coming up with the song. 

However, credit due has to be credit given, or at least acknowledged. And unless it is a happy coincidence, in a highly capricious universe we live in, thereby knocking off Borel’s law off its metronome beat, Harrison has a point about a “direct attack on (his) integrity and professionalism.”

 

MCCY says as much: “Given that the two songs, and the lyrics, are practically identical, and that we hold the copyright to Count On Me, Singapore, we are puzzled by (Mendoza’s) claim.”

Let me however end with a lament. 

It is really unfortunate that a song with such strong good will and positive feel is now marred with such a legal tussle, not just between two composers, but also between two nations, and god forbid, two races and two cultures. I guess this has crossed over from private right to national pride. And though ownership has to be given credit, strict legal boundaries drawn can also divide, as an inevitable consequence.

As it stands, Harrison and MCCY are waiting for a response from Mendoza and their “legal sabre” is possibly rattling for some apology, due acknowledgment and/or rights accorded; unless of course, coincidences do happen.

Honestly, come 9th August, if Count on Me, Singapore, is ever sung, it may just be one sung with some mixed feelings. I suppose it is largely the same sentiment in the orphanages and schools, if this dispute has rippled over there. 

And alas, if this takes us down that legal road, since India and us are both signatories of some international intellectual property agreement, my only hope is this - that the legal assertion of intellectual property rights and ownership is pursued in a way that advance, protect and give Singaporeans and the orphans/children in the villages of India a voice, that is, a song to sing, a song to achieve, and a song they can always count on. 

For let the settlement, if any, be sealed so that the spirit of the song is kept alive, not just her authorship.

 

Marital Diminishing Returns.

When you do what I do, dealing with marital breakups, you will come to realise that marriages have her own diminishing returns too. 

Generally, marital rewards or satisfaction are the highest at the altar. When the couple profess their lifetime commitment to each other and before a crowd of witnesses, the return is the greatest. 

And when I say “return”, I am not referring to the way that term is used in investment or economics, but it is in terms of relationship maturity. The return is therefore in the mutuality of sacrifices and growth. It is about the return of a seed of love planted by the stream of a resilient union, that over time blooms and provides shades for all.

But, the raw reality is that, as the days or months go by, the natural tendency is that the return gradually diminishes. That is, the planted seed seems to stop growing, the union shaky and the commitment faltering. There are many causes for this. 

It could be about novelty (or the erosion of it). You see, sleeping and waking up with the same person year in and year out can wear down that sense of newness, freshness, surprise and excitement. 

I call that the cold porridge syndrome. The hot food at the other table is always warmer, or seems tastier, than the one that is placed on your table since the time you say “I do”. At that moment, the delirious shouts of yam seng grow expectedly dim as the celebration of a love united calls it a night. 

This also brings me to the other related factor, that is, distractions. For marriage, I always see the imagery of a little boat struggling valiantly to paddle forward and keep afloat amid the storms, tides and winds of seduction. Temptations abound, and we, especially men, have to confront it one sobered-up day. 

And of course, if beauty of appearance is what arouses you when you book that BTO, that will surely fade in time. Trust me, marriage is not made for appearances or shows. It is not an exhibitionistic exercise. It is made for the couple to learn how to love. The learning fortifies the bond, strand by strand. And every marital convocation celebrates an overcoming achieved together against the storms of life, even the most unexpected ones. 

Mind you, age does not only add wisdom, most times bitterly acquired, it also causes physical atrophy. Your lifetime partner at the altar will change, and the fruit of marriage is never about how good it looks, but how satisfying it tastes. The nourishment is thus in the soul, in the spirit, not in the flesh. 

And that takes time for the roots to deepen in the soil. That nurturance takes conscious commitment as your partner ages. For no one ever plants a seed and expects a harvest the next morning. Even the rising of dawn beyond the horizon to bring light to the union is a gradual process, not an instant blinding floodlight. 

So I have cited novelty, distractions, seduction and how age catches up with the couple as factors to bear in mind. If you need to condense it all, then it is this: Time is the common thread to account for that diminishing return. With time, novelty wears off, distractions grow, seduction hides the bait and age follows suit. 

And let me say that if you can compress marriage into a day or two, even a week, every husband can proudly say I have remained faithful to my wife. Imagine that, where the profession of love is the loudest before a crowd of witnesses, the commitment seems almost unbreakable. If marriage is thus about that wedding night, or that honeymoon, and thereafter the two lives come to a mortal end, no marriages will fail because it is not benchmarked against time, the revealer of all. 

At this juncture, I do admit that this mental exercise seems silly, if not blatantly obvious. But it is not without a point, and the point is about time and diminishing return. The tide of time brings with it many challenges to test the union. Without it, love is like a child, never growing up, never being able to stand on its own two feet. 

Nothing in life escapes the principle of growth amid adversity, and this includes failures and stumbles along the journey, and then picking oneself up, learning from it, changing for the better, asking for forgiveness, and paddling forward together even stronger.

Time tests marriage; but it need not doom it. Yes, the journey of this union is a journey with time and all that time has to offer, both the challenges and the opportunity to overcome them. It is the opportunity for mutual growth, and not necessarily one of diminishing return. 

Sure, as one ages, he or she loses something. All the makeup and decor at the altar are not meant to last pass the night. Even the honeymoon has an expiry date. The flight always wait for the lovey-dovey couple to bring them home. In any event, they are not the defining features of a union made for a lifetime. Not by a long shot. What defines marriage is the time the two lives become one. It’s not just biblical. It’s practical. And that takes time. It takes a lifetime.

And the beauty of such union is that with time, it breaks the law of diminishing return to reap a bountiful harvest from a seed with deep roots and through the conscious efforts of the sowers who never gave up on each other, no matter how flawed.

 

Mental Illness a social disease.

 

I always wonder, is mental illness a social disease? That is, the lot of our society? 

Today’s paper is a sobering read - “Spike in calls to SOS last year as more in distress amid pandemic.” 

Suicide calls are up. From 33,387 in 2019 to 39,492 in 2020. Calls enquiring about mental health are up too - from 2,143 in 2019 to 2,719 in 2020. The average number of calls peaked from July 2020 to February 2021 at 243.2 as compared to 79.9 in August 2019 to January 2020. 

The trend is clear - “more needed help during pandemic.”

The papers also wrote about the mental dilemma of a working mother of two, Jenny (not her real name). With a toddler and an infant to care for, Jenny was struggling to cope. “Each time Jenny, who is in her 30s, coaxed one child to sleep, the other would cry again. While she was at her wits’ end, her husband, a healthcare worker, was at work completing an overnight shift.”

At one point, Jenny called her husband and said: “You better quit your job now or I’m going to divorce you.” She even thought to herself this: “If I jump, maybe my kids would be happier. Maybe I could finally rest.”

The good news is that Jenny had sought help with a psychiatrist and was diagnosed as suffering from post-partum depression. With medication, she is currently on the mend, recovering with help from a loving community, caring and watching over her.

 

This is what Jenny said: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s okay to prioritise yourself, because when you do that, it trickles down.”

I find it curious that she describes it as “it’s okay to prioritise yourself, because...it trickles down.” I wonder, what image are we expected to project in society when it comes to marriage, motherhood/fatherhood, the workplace, or when we age and grow old, becoming more dependent on others? 

Does self-prioritising take a backseat against the grain of these expectations clamouring for our time and attention?

The reality is. some people will never need much help from others because of a padded life, good genes and fortune, or a community that is always there. But, they are few and far between. 

As the pandemic has shown, the society like ours is set up in a way that some expectations can gradually isolate and strangle a soul of hope, meaning and purpose. Here is a list of them for identification. 

The expectation that we must prove ourselves at all costs. The expectation that we are only loved if we produce bankable results, whether in schools, at work, in a marriage and/or parenthood. The expectation that if they can do it, so can we, regardless of whether we are gifted different. The expectation that to be strong is to dismiss (or conceal) weaknesses, or ignore our body’s and mind’s cry for help. And the expectation that past failures will never be forgotten, and never to be repeated. 

Alas, the attention we give to them and the false bravado we put up with them often corner a soul into a life of pretentiousness and self-devaluation. Or, as Jenny so admonished, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s okay to prioritise yourself.”

The observation of the chief executive of SOS, Gasper Tan, is rather apt here: “The feelings of loss and confusion, coupled with the prolonged stresses from navigating the uncertain employment market, can overwhelm individuals with intense feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.”

The paper also recounted another story of an undergrad, Andrew (not his real name). One morning, he woke up and was overwhelmed with this urge to kill himself. His parents drove to his dormitory immediately and “took him to see a therapist.” 

Andrew said: “Every second of life was tortuous. I could not eat or sleep, and there were days I was so weak I could not walk.” 

Now, Andrew has taken effective control of his life and he has this advice to all: “The important thing to know is you’re not alone. It’s just whether you have the courage to seek help, and to continue seeking help.”

I guess mental illness is a real struggle from within. It is an invisible struggle. From the outside, you are fine. But from the inside, you are fast losing the fight. 

Imagine a fight ongoing and you are helpless to put an end to it. Everyday, you experienced internal shouting and screaming, voices that are meant to torment you, and no one else. 

And unless you share with your loved ones, they will never know, or are deprived of the opportunity to care and cry with you. Those are voiceless screams from within that you can’t seem to escape from, unless you take that plunge to end it all. What only you can viscerally sense as a devouring reality is somehow designed to relentlessly drive you off the edge. 

As novelist Stevie Smith puts it: “I was much too far out all my life, and not waving but drowning.” 

Let me just say that I believe a major part of the problem is that mental illness is a social disease, that is, it is the price we pay for the material successes we pursue quite relentlessly, and that subtly changes society.

 

The psychology of money turns us inward, driving us away from one another, because while envy may rot the soul, success alienates us as a whole. The income gap is a status gap is a social gap is an emotional gap is a deafening gap.

When we valorise qualities the world endorses freely like the pursuit of self-interest as the way to wholeness, the religion of self-enrichment as a virtue and the thrill of hyper-competitiveness to get what we want, we turn society into an endless race, where we are too distracted to stop and share, to wait and bear, and to touch and care. 

This social disease isolates us all, causes us to chase unrealistic expectations and makes us put our self-worth on things superficial, impermanent. This dog-eat-dog world rev up our animalistic (tribalistic) instincts; thus the baser part of us prevails over the better angels of ourselves. 

Honestly, this social struggle for sanity is inherent in our system. As the proof is in the pudding, so is one of the cure in society. The incremental goal for the vulnerable is to prevent them from moving too far out in their own life. And even if they do, to consciously create a life-affirming community that is always looking out for them, looking out for that wave from a distance, in the active hope of saving a soul from drowning.

The Royal Flush - Prince Harry & Princess Markle

Truth be told, I never believed Cinderella was going to live happily ever after, well, after she marries the prince and starts a family with him with in-law issues to deal with and the cumbersome institution called the monarchy. 

That’s the fairy tale of Harry and Markle, the Prince and the Duchess of Sussex. Last month they officially and permanently quit royalty to be like one of us, the common folks. 

But, when you have royalty in your veins, you are royalty for life. You are therefore always fresh meat for the paparazzi. And your privacy is the only fifth estate that the fourth estate cannot wait to aim their photographic crosshair at.

So, with the spilling of beans before billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey, it is an understatement to say that it is not going to be a happily-ever-after for Markle who had married into a hailstorm of unimaginable wealth and ancient British history. 

And when you marry into the monarchy, you can expect that it is not going to be just the two of you and your kids. Your family will become the goldfish tank for the world to marvel and take cheap shots at. 

I guess Markle miscalculated the price of love and devotion when she (and Harry) secretly went before archbishop Justin Welby, three days before the televised wedding to be held in Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, to exchange their vows. 

That’s where the reality cognitive dissonance really started - the gap between a commoner’s union and a royal wedding. 

Markle said: “No one knows that. But we called the archbishop and we just said, “Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us...It was like having an out-of-body experience...I think we were both really aware, even in advance of that, this wasn’t our day, this was the day that was planned for the world.””

Ironically, when they decided to offer Oprah the happily-never-after interview before 17 million viewers and even millions more on a global scale, they have unwittingly made their less-than-blissful union a union with the world at large. No doubt the two became one, and the one is joined with millions. If three is too crowded for Diana, try a few million. 

Alas, their craving for privacy before a lone bishop is now made public before the anonymous masses to be praised, judged, ridiculed, snubbed, harassed, admonished, and...you fill your own blanks with this one. 

That’s the reality cognitive dissonance for them, that is, a mismatch or struggle between private goals and public ones, between getting solemnised in private and choosing to reveal the innermost secrets of their royal marital life in public. 

No, I am not doubting that she went through a lot in that short two years since the walk down the aisle in the interior of a very grand castle. Their union is truly one of a kind, and the publicity for it is a dream for millions (but a nightmare for Markle, and well, Diana). 

Mind you, the monarchy is an institution on its own just like a marriage. But the point is that you have to balance both interests (which can be overbearing at times) so that they complement each other over the long run, and that takes the sterling caliber of people like the presumptive heir, the Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, who herself was of royal birth (she was the first born child of the Duke and Duchess of York). 

In the interview, Markle said she suffered prejudicial treatment as a biracial former actress who is also divorced. She said members of the royal family told them that “they expressed concerns about how dark the colour of (their) baby’s skin would be.” At that time, Markle was pregnant with their son, Archie. 

Markle even entertained suicide thoughts. She said: “I was ashamed to have to admit it to Harry. I knew that if I didn’t say it, I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Wait, there’s more...

Markle also said: “It was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but also that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family.”

"There's the family and then there's the people that are running the institution. Those are two separate things and it's important to be able to compartmentalise that because the Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me."

She admits she was naive before the wedding, not counting the cost of the union. “I will say I went into it naively because I didn't grow up knowing much about the royal family.”

In that two years living in padded comfort, she said that she felt like a prisoner in Kensington Palace. “I couldn’t just call an Uber to the palace.” And her “efforts to seek medical help were rebuffed by palace officials, who worried about the effect on the monarchy.”

Honestly, there is a lot of issues here at stake. You can look at it from the racism angle. Ms Bernice King, youngest child of MLK, said: “Royalty is not a shield from the devastation and despair of racism.” One American activist calls it “misogynoir at play” and “if they can do that to a Duchess, it’s happening to black women every day.”

There is also the motive angle. For a no-holds-barred POV, here’s the perpetually acerbic Piers Morgan. “This interview is an absolutely disgraceful betrayal of the Queen and the royal family. I expect all this vile, destructive, self-serving nonsense from Meghan Markle - but for Harry to let her take down his family and the monarchy like this is shameful.”

For me, it is another angle, the irony angle. I have hinted to it above. In fact, I have two ironies. Let’s go for the first one. 

Yes, Harry and Meghan want they privacy more than anything else. They want to protect their kids - one may notice a baby bump during the interview. And they have moved out of the castle to migrate to Canada to live a commoner’s life, probably aiming to work from 9-to-5. 

So, metaphorically speaking, they have come out of the goldfish tank, packed their things with baby in tow, to join the non-descript pond of the general population. In fact, I supported that move because if the kitchen gets too hot, then move out. Those feet were indeed made for walking, royalty or otherwise, right? 

Yet, the lure of publicity never left them. In about one year of such humble, quiet living for the couple and child, the media bait dangled before them. At the end of the hook was an offer too good to resist. The fisherman or woman was none other than Oprah herself. And before even the royal gold-dust settled, we see them fessing up to Oprah, in a blitz-and-tell-all, 2-hour interview. 

Have they then self-invited themselves back into the goldfish tank, a life Markle said was a sort of a prison for her? So, is it true that you can get a person out of prison, but not the prison out of that person? 

That’s the irony angle. They want not what they know is what they really want. Make sense? Go figure. 

And the second irony is that they are celebrities, whether they like it or not. If you want to climb down from that pedestal and live amongst us, it comes with the territory. 

Yes, you are being discriminated for your skin color, for your background. I empathise with that. But, many are discriminated too. Many confront darker family feuds, for longer period of time. Many also entertained suicide thoughts at times. But many of them, in their own ways, fought back and built their own resilience, faced the issues and resolved them in a way that heals wounds, bridges gaps and deepens mutual respect (is this an Asian thingy?) 

Yet, before I get misunderstood, and have to dodge fiery stones in the comments column, I am not saying you shouldn’t go seek help. Or make a report if a crime is involved. Or stand up for what is right. 

But, what I am saying is, marrying into royalty comes with the territory. Choosing to be a commoner also comes with the territory. Every household has its own problem - 家家有本难念的经 (jiā jiā yǒu běn nán niàn de jīng). 

The issue is, what is the right thing to do at such time? What bridges gap rather than split it wide open? How does one strive to be a peacemaker instead of a noisemaker? How to put family first and busybody outsiders last? Is airing your dirty linens in the media the best way forward? Are they only playing to and eating off the hands of the media, the one thing they are desperately escaping from? 

Can you be just as effective (if not more) without the media’s involvement, especially one so public? What do you hope to achieve going to Oprah, the oracle of public therapy? 

More relevantly, is the timing right? Is this about opportunity rather than family and blood-ties community? And if your goal is anonymity (the best you can) for your children, that is, a peaceful life outside the castle of oppression, isn’t shouting at the mountaintop your list of annus horribilis the last thing you want to do? 

And most of all, does this help in any way in the healing process for the deep concerns of the Queen, whom they have admitted they love dearly, and for their desire for privacy? Did they at least try to talk first to the Queen and Prince Philip before rushing into it? 

These are questions everyone of us faced with similar situations would have to answer. And I will not be surprised if some of us amongst the commoners come to a different conclusion.

 

Once saved always saved (revised)

John is an etherist. What’s that? It is a new-age movement with about 100,000 registered members. They do not have a place of worship like a church, temple or an ashram. Instead, they congregate in cyberspace like Facebook, Instagram with the occasional Skype to carry out initiation ceremonies and message dissemination.

 

Their god is a primordial energy and this original force exists everywhere. It is actually the source of all technology that runs the earth – so the etherists believe. And when they die, the etherists are promised that they will enjoy eternity in a celestial grid that stretches beyond the horizon. There will be no more tears and fears in this heavenly technological bliss that the etherists affectionately call glitteris.


 

The founder of etherism was a man called Jack Sparrow. He grew up in a Methodist home and was a technology genius at 9 years of age. Like Gates and Zuckerberg, Sparrow was also a college dropout. High Priest Sparrow, as he was known to his votaries, earned his first billion when he sold his neural mind-map program to a technology company from China.

 

Sparrow retired at 19 and started etherism. Its members believe that he was to be the chosen one, the elected saviour of the world. He was destined to solve the climate problem, defeat the robotic usurpation and redeem the earth from her own destruction.  However, Sparrow died of a heart attack at age 33. Many believe he is now in glitteris, the technology heaven for all etherists. After his death, the mantle was passed over to his wife, High Priestess Sarah Lee. Now, Sarah Lee claims that she is the new saviour of the earth. So much for cognitive dissonance, right?

 

Anyway, our story really begins with John and not Sparrow or Sarah Lee. But the background of Sparrow and the sect he has founded (etherism) would come in handy later. 

 

John is a die-hard member of etherism. He sold
everything he had to give to this movement. When Sparrow died, he was inconsolable. He fasted for weeks and even went to live for months in the woods. But, following his master’s footsteps, John also met his fate and died too. He passed on at age 33, same age as High Priest Sparrow. So, here comes the point of the story about “once saved always saved.” 

 

 

John: Where am I?

 

Angel: You died...you were electrocuted when you spilled green tea over your lap-top. Your heart stopped.

 

John: What? Just like that? I died? Where is this place?
 Who are you?

 

Angel: Welcome to the place of eternal rest. I am your angel guide.

 

John: Place of eternal rest? You mean glitteris?

 

Angel: This is heaven son.

 

John: Heaven…you mean the Christian’s heaven?

 

Angel: Yah…the one foretold in the Bible. Recall “in my father’s house there are many mansions”?

 

John: OMG, you mean this is not
glitteris, the techno-heaven of eternal bliss reserved just for etherists?

 

Angel: Erm…unless glitteris means heaven son, then yes welcome to glitteris then. Same place different name.

 

John: But…but, I renounced Christianity a long time ago. When I was 23 or 24. So, how is it that I still landed up here? Shouldn’t I be in that place of fire? You know, hell.

Angel: Well, here’s the thing…there’s a policy here called “once saved always saved,” and since you accepted Him in your youth, it’s forever…sorry. You so-called sealed the deal at 17 son.

 

John: That’s strange...I am an etherist. I died an etherist and not a Christian. I should be in glitteris. You mean to tell me that glitteris don’t exist?

 

Angel: Look here, I have a queue here. I don’t know about this place you call glitteris, but you are here now. You need to get on the program…once saved always saved program.

 

John: (thinking) Wait, you people believe in free-will right? Choices? Autonomy? Enlighten me on that. I chose etherism, I should be in glitteris. I strangely…erm, still believe in it.

 

Angel: Oh…here we go again…that free-will shenanigans.

 

John: Yes...free-will. You mean I can’t choose to renounce my belief and accept another? Doesn’t my choice count for anything? Can’t I unsave a save? 

 

Angel: Son, you’re obviously not getting it about the “once saved always saved” thingy. It’s just four simple words. How hard can it be? No theological baggage or philosophical debate here. Read my lips, “ONCE-SAVED-ALWAYS-SAVED”. Understood? Kapish.

(John shakes his head…)

 

Angel: Ok, son, I would just say this once. Free-will don't work the way you think it works on earth. There are some things that take precedence over free-will here. But there are others that don’t. Take for example, the choice of a movie, a school, an investment, a future wife or even going to war. These things...the man in charge here don't really bother. You people have absolute free-range on them. But when it comes to salvation and heaven, well…he has the final say. He crosses the “t” and dots the “i” so to speak. That’s what
"once saved always saved” means. In other words, his sovereignty reigns supreme. Suck it up. Can we move on?

 

John: Ok. I see. Once I am saved, I am saved. Nothing I do can change that, right? So, I am a Christian for life and even afterlife, even if I end up a Buddhist, Hindu or an atheist.

 

Angel: (smiles) Yes, we have a convert here! Next!

 

John: But...wait, in that case, I should expect High Priest Sparrow to be here too. He was a Christian, Methodist I think. He was baptized in a Methodist Church. I’m sure he said the sinner's prayer too. Where is he? Is he here?

 

Angel: Mm...

 

John: What? Jack Sparrow is here right?

 

Angel: Ok, it gets a little tricky here. He’s not here. He didn’t make it. That Sparrow nut…well, he is not our kind of nut, so to speak.

 

John: Aaah? I don't get it. Once saved always saved remember? You preached it earlier, right? He was saved, he is saved, he will be saved, kapish!

 

Angel: Son, don’t rub it in. I didn’t make the rules here. And it’s infinitely, erm…pun unintended, a little more complicated than that. We have to define “save” here.

 

John: Define save? Save is save. Save means save! The sinner’s prayer. The confession. The forgiveness. I am sure he did all that. Once saved always saved. 

 

Angel: You really ask a lot of questions, don’t you? Well, if you must know…save actually means more than that. Or more accurately, it means nothing like that actually.

 

John: You are not helping my heavenly guide…you are backtpaddling.

 

Angel: Well, in his book, save is a loaded word. It is all about population control I guess. Or keeping heaven heaven…or else we would have all kinds of weirdos here. You know I heard even Hitler once believed in Him.


 

John: Population control? You mean being saved is not just about saying the sinner’s prayer? Secured for life?

 

Angel: Erm…it’s about election son.

 

John: Election? You mean chosen? Chosen how? Chosen when? 

 

Angel:  …erm…before the creation of time.

 

John: So, he chose us even before there were anything? Isn't this
predestination?

 

Angel: Whoa, you make it sound like it’s a bad word. Just go with the flow son. I haven’t got all day…wait, I have eternity.

 

John: I see…I was, am chosen. Lucky me.

 

Angel: Yes, congrats! Move on…

 

John: And Sparrow didn’t make the cut…he was not chosen.

(Angel nods).

 

John: You know, if you come to think about it, it really doesn’t matter what we do on earth or in our lifetime then. We are either in or out, chosen or not, and the decision has already been settled long long time ago. This is really a lot to digest.

 

Angel: Well son, it is much deeper than that and you have an eternity to figure it all out.

 

Joh : Okay, I think I have a rough idea for now. In a nutshell, what you are telling me is that it is all done and dusted from the start. The book of life is the book pre-written.




Angel: Watch it son. You shouldn’t be complaining. You made it right? You're elected. Count your blessing. You want to spend one day in the complaints department here. The complaints are endless from the millions and millions who had dedicated their whole life for something that was never meant to be in the first place. You know how much explaining we have to do to tell people like Trump he is not elected…Trump my friend! I can expect him to rally up a storm when his time comes.

 

John: Mm…I guess you are right then. I should count my blessing. What a game changer! So, what now my guardian angel? Where do I check in?

 

Angel: Welcome to your eternal rest and bliss. Your mansion awaits. Let me take you there. Look out for the gold trimmings on the road. It is actually just next to…