Observing Grace

So, the government wants to reclaim the Coliseum Cinema. The story was first reported yesterday here. Today's follow-up can be read here and here.

Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Dr Rais Yatim, says the government wants to turn KL into an arts hub, and that this action is in the nation's interest.

I have only two questions, addressing both his statements:

1. Is it in the nation's interest, or merely the government's? Isn't the nation keen on retaining these relics of the past, rather than tear them down to pave the way for various questionable government projects?

2. How can KL (or any other city for that matter) become a hub for the arts, when so little emphasis is given to this area in education? Arts subjects like music, drama and literature hardly exist in secondary schools; in most places, they are not taught or even offered, and only the most determined of students dare take these subjects.


On a more reflective note, I read this near the end of the Grace chapter in Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz:

The ability to accept God's unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey Him in return. Accepting God's kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love.

How true that God pursues relentlessly. And how true that accepting grace is so difficult; we would like to imagine we are saved for something inherent in us. But God's sacrifice was for nobodies, yet it was not for nothing. After dying for nobodies, He seems intent on capturing the hearts of these nobodies, the way a man tries to capture the heart of the woman he loves.

Grace is free, but it is not cheap. We give up too easily on our friends, yet you have never given up on your enemies; Father, forgive us.


I got my Grade 8 Practical results today:



Just in case it can't be seen on the picture, I achieved a Merit of 125 marks. Another five and I would've gotten a distinction. But I'm so grateful for this; I'm not much of a pianist, and certainly do not possess the flair of such brilliant musicians like Ming-Shien. To achieve this at Grade 8 is, to me, a wonderful way to end my graded studies.

But this means so much to me, because I only managed a Pass of 114 marks at Grade 7, six short of a Merit. Apparently my playing was 'promising' then, but I'd bungled my Sight-Reading and Aural. This time around, Sight-Reading and Aural were pretty strong.

Many thanks to Mrs Chang for all these 14 years! Truly, I've learnt that music is a lifelong adventure. The difference between a prodigious nine-year-old and a fairly skilled 19-year-old taking Grade 8 is this: the 19-year-old has seen more of life and hence will approach music with greater maturity. As Mrs Chang would say, what do nine-year-old child prodigies know of heartbreak and pathos?

The journey officialy ends here... or does it? I think not. I'll still develop my passion for music, whether formally or not. For I've come to enjoy it so much, both as a form of expression and an expression of form, thought and feeling; and life without music would be somewhat empty and quiet.


The apostle John writes in Revelation 5:13;

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"

The passage describes every creature as singing, and it occurs to me that there will certainly be the tone-deaf among these. How then will every creature sing in unison? I believe God will provide the music; in a sense, I think God Himself is the song. Music is a gift from God; from Him comes music, and to Him shall music be offered up as a sacrifice of praise.

C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, warns that any love pursued apart from God, i.e. without recognising God as the author of love, will never see the light of heaven. Only the incorruptible can endure the fires of heaven, and if a mortal love has not been transformed by God's grace, it can never enter into the presence of the holy. I believe it's the same with music. And so, some great music, and some great musicians, may not know music in the world to come.

Donald Miller ends the chapter on Grace with this statement: A beggars' kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion.

Let us not be so absorbed in our gifts, in our talents and our passions, that we forget the Source of them all. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:10, "For by His grace I am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain." It is easy to become so proud of what we have, that we begin to depend less and less on God, not realising that, at any moment, God may take what we have away.

I suppose that's the difference between God and the Government of Malaysia: God actually owns everything we have, for this is His world on the basis that He made everything in it. And God is also all-knowing; He knows what is best and truly in our interests. I cannot imagine another reason for becoming human and dying as He did, scorned by His own creation.

Somehow, I tend to enjoy what I don't understand: God, friends, music, nature, literature... love.


The dandelions are in bloom again, and will probably dot the grass quite extensively come Monday. Li-Shia wanted to blow two rather large dandelions on Wednesday, but I said to wait, for I wanted to take some photos with my SLR first. It rained that afternoon, and the flowers were gone by Thursday morning. Yet within that morning, a few small ones emerged, and a large one sprung out near where the first two disappeared.



Dear Miss Guitarist, sorry about the calculator!