Sportsmanship!

We have heard many cases of bad behaviour or lousy sportsmanship. However, it does take a few instances of good sporting behaviour to bring pride to the human spirit in fair play. Here are two examples that warms the heart.

(1) Leicester City vs Nottingham Forest (Carling Cup Tie)
Leicester City (18 Sep 2007) sportingly allowed Nottingham Forest a free goal in appreciation for their willingness to abandon the previous game (Forest were leading 1-0) so that they can attend to a Leicester player who suffered a heart failure. Technically, Forest do not need to abandon the previous game. Moreover, in a replay, the score will be reset to 0-0. Hence in appreciation to Forest's willingness, Leicester granted them a free goal, informing them only 20 minutes before the game! Read more about it here and here.


(2) West Ham vs Everton (Premier League)
Paolo Di Canio (Dec 2000), upon seeing the opponent's goalkeeper down and injured, decided to catch the ball with his hands despite a golden scoring opportunity to level his team. He received a fair-play award for his sporting gesture.

Cheers to good sportsmanship.

ks

Life Lessons (Randy Pausch)

The lessons are familiar but it takes a dying person to drive it home. This Carnegie Mellon University lecture by Dr Randy Pausch, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, is about encouraging people to pursue their childhood dreams. It is not clear whether he believes in God but his lecture is peppered with good thoughts and advice. I suppose the current craze and interest generated due to this lecture speaks a lot about our own dreams and purposes in life. Here are the links:

1. Full CMU lecture here (1 hr 25 mins)
   
2. On the Oprah show (abt 10 mins)
   
3. Transcript of lecture (english) / (chinese) [for those of you who prefers to read]
   
4. Randy Pausch's website

ks

Free online Christian books

Here is a good link for free Christian books online. There are many excellent books from contemporary authors like AW Tozer, EM Bounds, Watchman Nee, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, John Piper etc. There are also classics written by John Bunyan, Madame Guyon, Brother Lawrence....

ks

Rungs of Spirituality - John Cassian

The fear of the Lord: leads to
compunction of heart: leads to
renunciation of all that is the soul's own: leads to
humility: leads to
mortification of the will: leads to
driving out the vices: leads to
flowering of virtue: leads to
purity of heart: leads to
perfect charity.

(end of Book IV, Institutes)
(Owen Chadwick, John Cassian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968, p93)

I managed to capture this visually here.

Entering the Silence

The monastic church is the Church of the wilderness, the woman who has fled into the desert from the dragon that seeks to devour the infant Word. She is the Church who, by her silence, nourishes and protects the seed of the Gospel that is sown by the Apostles in the hearts of the faithful. She is the Church who, by her prayer, gains strength for the Apostles themselves, so often harassed by the monster. The Monastic Church is the one who flees to a special place prepared for her by God in the wilderness, and hides her face in the Mystery of the divine silence, and prays while the great battle is being fought between earth and heaven.

Her flight is not an evasion. If the monk were able to understand what goes on inside him, he would be able to say how well he knows that the battle is being fought in his own heart."
(Thomas Merton, The Silent Life, London: Burns & Oates, 1956, p11-12)

When I read this today, I was blown away by the spiritual awareness of Merton in terms of spiritual warfare. If we are constantly too busy with other things, making ends meet, rushing from place to place to get things done, skipping meals to get more things done, avoiding meeting with people in order to stay 'ahead' in life, life gets reduced to a series of hitting and missing temporal targets. It is ironical that the human being despite knowing that the earthly life is temporal, yet he often lives as if they are his permanent concerns! Do we need to become blind like Fanny Crosby before we can start writing hymns of faith? Do we need to become a quadriplegic like Joni Eareckson Tada before we can share words of hope? Do we have to see someone crucified for us before we can start to love that person? Whatever we have, whatever abilities we possess, there is a reason for them. We should not just talk about our gift. We ought to use them by sharing them. How can we discern what to do with our gifts if we have not entered into the silence of hearing God? Are we attracted only by the earthquakes of the world? Storms of everyday struggles or winds of change that affects our material lifestyles? If we are, then we will miss the gentle whisper of God. Elijah was able to hear God in the silence. Let's take a leaf from his example.

The gospel is not easily spread just by simply talking down to people. In fact, talking should be second. The first is described in the following quote attributed to St Francis of Assisi.

"Go and preach the gospel to the world, and if absolutely necessary, use words,"

A great spiritual discipline is to follow the desert fathers' advice: "When praying, if absolutely necessary, use words." Now, about the word 'monastic.' If is common for people to simply brush it aside and say that it is a word reserved only for people who are in monasteries or those who have said goodbye to the outside world. If we read carefully Jesus's directive to his disciples to give up all and follow him, we will understand that all believers of the gospel, are called to be monks, in the sense that we do all we can to love God and neighbour.

ks

Plane Crash in Richmond

Yesterday at a church potluck gathering, someone frantically reported that a small Cessna plane had crashed into an apartment building close to the popular Richmond Public Market. The entire plane went inside the building and cannot be seen from the outside. I understand everyone was evacuated and the pilot was dead. A friend from Regent lives just next to the building. If not for the building in front of hers, the plane would have hit her place. We do not live in Richmond, but we do go to Richmond, so this crash hits close. It is a reminder that life is so fragile. Hopefully, this is another incident that will rattle people's spiritual awareness that life is not simply seeking after materialism or making ends meet. There must be something greater.

ks

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Other Links
- Globe and Mail
- Canadian Press
- More pictures can be found at this flickr site.

Kids' Prayers

Children, aren't they cute?

ks

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Dear GOD,
In school they told us what You do. Who does it when You are on vacation? -Jane

Dear GOD,
Are you really invisible or is that just a trick? Lucy

Dear GOD,
Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? - Norma

Dear GOD,
Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now? -Jane

Dear GOD,
Who draws the lines around the countries? -Nan

Dear GOD,
I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that okay? -Neil

Dear GOD,
What does it mean You are a Jealous God? I thought You had everything. -Jane

Dear GOD,
Did you really mean "do unto others as they do unto you"? Because if you did, then I'm going to fix my brother. -Darla

Dear GOD,
Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. -Joyce

Dear GOD,
It rained for our whole vacation and is my father mad! He said some things about You that people are not supposed to say, but I hope You will not hurt him anyway. Your friend (But I am not going to tell you who I am)

Dear GOD,
Why is Sunday school on Sunday? I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest. -Tom L.

Dear GOD,
Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before, You can look it up. -Bruce

Dear GOD,
If we come back as something - please don't let me be Jennifer Horton because I hate her. -Denise

Dear GOD,
If You give me a genie lamp like Aladin, I will give you anything you want, except my money or my chess set. -Raphael

Dear GOD,
My brother is a rat. You should give him a tail. Ha ha. - Danny

Dear GOD,
Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother. -Larry

Dear GOD,
I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big but not with so much hair all over. -Sam

Dear GOD,
You don't have to worry about me. I always look both ways. -Dean

Dear GOD,
I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions. -RuthM.

Dear GOD,
I think about You sometimes even when I'm not praying. -Elliott

Dear GOD,
I bet it is very hard for You to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. -Nan

Dear GOD,
Of all the people who work for You I like Noah and David the best. -Rob

Dear GOD,
My brother told me about being born but it doesn't sound right.They're just kidding, aren't they? -Marsha

Dear GOD,
If You watch me in church Sunday, I'll show You my new shoes. Mickey D.

Dear GOD,
I would like to live 900 years like the guy in the Bible.Love, Chris

Dear GOD,
We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said You did it. So I bet he stoled your idea. Sincerely, Donna

Dear GOD:
The bad people laughed at Noah - "You made an ark on dry land you fool." But he was smart, he stuck with You. That's what I would do. -Eddie

Dear GOD,
I do not think anybody could be a better GOD. Well, I just want You to know but I am not just saying that because You are GOD already. -Charles

Dear GOD,
I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday. That was cool! -DJ