Above all else

In 1942, General MacArthur was compelled to make a daring escape from the Philippines to Australia, through a Japanese blockade, to escape the invading Japanese forces.  When he reached Australia, he gave a famous speech, in which he said, "I came through, and I shall return".  General MacArthur repeated those very words several times over the next 2 years in various public engagements, and in 1944, he did return to evict the Japanese occupiers. Words have power.  Repeated, public commitment reinforces that power.  It would have been relatively easy for General MacArthur to say those words "I shall return" the first time, in an act of momentary bravado.  But he kept committing himself to those words over the next 2 years.  I will return.  I will return.  I WILL return.  And he said them publicly, compelling himself to be held accountable to those words.  I think he kept saying it so he wouldn't find a way to conveniently forget a...

One of my family's favourite games is the Super Mario franchise from Nintendo.  We've played everything from classic Mario to 3-D, the-entire-universe-is-spinning-around-you Super Mario Galaxy.  But one of my personal favourites is the brilliantly sideways thinking Paper Mario. Have you ever wanted to yell at Mario, when watching that heroically mustachioed plumber mistiming his jump and crashing to his demise against an advancing mushroom - JUST STEP TO THE SIDE!  Like, I mean, you never see a matador attempt to actually *leap* over a charging bull do you?  He just casually sidesteps.  Much easier. Paper Mario gives life to this very idea.  I've pasted a picture here to explain it better.  It starts off with Mario in 2-D, but whenever you want to, you can *switch* perspectives, and Mario can just shuffle around his enemies or realise that from the other perspective, there is a bridge or a staircase you can easily walk across, instead of leapin...

In the 80s, we lionised corporate titans - the people who made the machines that symbolised the rise of the comfortable middle class - cars, washing machines, aeroplanes.  Everyone read Lee Iacocca's eponymous biography "Iacocca", and how he rescued Chrysler.  Everyone followed Jack Welch, the man who grew General Electric's revenue from 12b USD to 410b USD. In the 90s, we fell in love with personal computing and later, the internet.  Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Jobs, in his first tempestuous incarnation with Apple, and Jerry Yang, who helped us organise the internet and gave us email on Yahoo, before Google emerged. Then in the 2000s, we celebrated financiers.  These days, most people only remember the financial crisis of 98-99, but before that, everyone thought Alan Greenspan, the Fed Chairman, was wiser than Yoda in keeping interest rates low, and the CEOs of the big banks, like Sandy Weill of Citi and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, could do no wron...

Succession is a big deal, whether it's in the context of a government's leaders, a corporation's senior management, or a church's pastors.  Many people think that leaders should be, and are chosen by popular vote.  But most times, that's not really the case.  The appointment of Prime Minister isn't by popular vote.  Only a select group of party members choose who the leader of a political party is, and if the party wins at elections, then that person pretty much automatically becomes Prime Minister.  The same goes for the CEOs of most companies.  The directors of the board, especially the nominating committee, sit around a table and decide who should be the CEO, and also appoint the other senior members of the management team.  It's not supposed to be a popularity contest. And so it is with church leadership as well.  One might ask, hey, don't I get a vote?  No, I'm afraid you don't.  You pay your taxes, but you don't get to cho...

This year's mission trip was catalysed, a little ironically, by my family's hunt for a nice house for ourselves earlier in the year.  We had come across a beautiful place, and I really liked it.  But when I was seeking God's counsel in prayer, I suddenly noticed that the house was set up like the Biblical tabernacle.  There was the living area, which led to a dining area, within which there was a slightly raised and spotlit dais, encased in glass, for the dining table, making it the centerpiece of the entire living area.  So - the equivalent of the courtyard, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament tabernacle, where God's presence was enthroned. God asked me a very direct question - when you are sitting in this beautiful home, eating at this table, who is God of this home?  Who is enthroned?  You?  Or me?  And I remembered that in Haggai 1:3, when the people tell themselves, oh, we know it's good to rebuild God's house...

I got a steak lunch treat from a friend earlier this week, and I must have failed to express the necessary effusiveness about the quality of the meal (for the avoidance of doubt, because I know he reads this blog - it was good :D), because he asked me, actually, what do you like to eat XD Anyway - my honest answer was, Thai green curry, as well as rice noodles, like Vietnamese pho or Ipoh hor fun.  To which his reaction was, you like simple food!  Yes I do :) I have to say, over the last few years, for various reasons, I have had some pretty fancy multi-course meals.  I had never heard of "palate cleansers".  Let's face it.  Eating something to forget what you just paid a bomb to eat is just mad.  I had never heard of "omakase" - the idea of forking out enormous sums in order *not* to be able to choose what you want to eat sounds... ridiculous?  But what do I know! Which brings me to another dinner conversation I had earlier this year....