O Holy Night

O Holy Night Lyrics 
Christmas Carol Lyrics

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

 

from http://www.carols.org.uk/ba32-o-holy-night.htm

Lifehouse - Blind

2 of my friends are going through some rough patch now, over matters of the heart. Somehow this song just reminded me of their situation...

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Lifehouse - Blind Lyrics

I was young but I wasn't naive

I watched helpless as you turned around to leave

And still I have the pain I have to carry

A past so deep that even you could not bury if you tried



After all this time

I never thought we'd be here

Never thought we'd be here

When my love for you was blind

But I couldn't make you see it

Couldn't make you see it

That I loved you more than you'll ever know

A part of me died when I let you go



I would fall asleep

Only in hopes of dreaming

That everything would be like is was before

But nights like this it seems are slowly fleeting

They disappear as reality is crashing to the floor



After all this time

I never thought we'd be here

Never thought we'd be here

When my love for you was blind

But I couldn't make you see it

Couldn't make you see it

That I loved you more than you'll ever know

A part of me died when I let you go



After all this time

Would you ever wanna leave it

Maybe you could not believe it

That my love for you was blind

But I couldn't make you see it

Couldn't make you see it

That I loved you more than you will ever know

A part of me died when I let you go

And I loved you more than you'll ever know

A part of me dies when I let you go

                    

on receiving an unusual compliment....

I just received an unusal compliment this morning. There I was, trying hard no to fall asleep at my workstation, listening to my 3^rd sermon in the office. Along came my colleague, who’s an Afro-American, bigger than me, in both size and stature. Whereupon standing at my cubicle, he issued forth, in a booming sonorous voice*, “Jack, you freaked my wife out… (I was thinking in my heart at that point, “Oh shit, shit, shit, how did I offend the missus???”)  She thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

 

Seeing my mystified expression**, he proceeds to explain that he was paying me a compliment, just saying I was “neat”. After hearing that, I looked down at the sheaves of paper that was strewn over one half of my workstation. Again I was stumped. Finally, my colleague had to say, “She think’s you’re okay.” And then the light hit, and enlightenment came***. I tried to recover with a weak “Oh. Yea. Right. I was still thinking whether did I sliced anything this week or not... mumble mumble…”

 

 

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*His voice is one of the nicest I’ve ever heard, as he has experience in radio broadcasting before.

 

** I was wondering how come he never proceeded to plummet the breath out of me, after saying I “freaked out his wife.”

 

*** plus I was giving thanks that ok, he’s not gonna pummel me… :p

on Timeliness is not necessarily next to Godliness...

ha, as mentioned in my last blog, I'm a stickler for schedules and timing. I get super upset when things don't happen on time. If you don't give me a good reason for being late, I'll be very put off and put out by you. So it's kinda amazing when my friends stood me up at an appointment about 2 weeks back. Amazing because I didn't blow my top off at them. I know these bunch of friends are habitual latecomers. So I sms-ed them in advance, telling them to be on time and the works...

Despite all my sms-es, my friends were still late for the appointment. The best part was that they weren't really apologetic about the whole thing. Feeling really pissed, but not really wanted to make a scene, I decided to do it the Dilbert way*, by being sarcastic. I just said it's a wonder that how they can survive in the corporate world with their sense of timing. Alas, I still lost out, as they employed the Dogbert** way of nonchalance and utter disregard to what I said. One even replied "Sorry lor, if you are my boss, I'll be here 15 mins before the stated time lor. But you are not. Anyway, not the first time you came out with us what. You know women are always late one what..."^

Instead of pushing me over the edge and losing my cool, my friend's response just made me pause in my tracks. I knew then, if I had reacted in the way that I had planned to i.e. make a big scene and fuss, I'll probably would ruin that session. Heck, with the "wrath" and "righteous anger" I was feeling, I probably would consider not be friends with them anymore. Yet I was also perturbed: why was I being so upset over their nonchalance? I knew even before that session, my friends are not punctual. Come to weekends, they usually dun leave their homes before noon, in order to sleep in and avoid the sun^^. So they will always "screw up the timing". So why was I so bothered about this?

And suddenly I knew the answer. I was bothered because they do not share my views as their own. In other words, my self worth was actually predicated on how they viewed and valued my beliefs. Or to put it in more simpler terms, I felt I was not "important" because my friends did not subscribe to my views and obey me. Once I got over that hurdle, suddenly everything doesn't seemed as bad anymore. I realized my insistence to punctuality for that session was actually hindering my reaching out to my pre-believing friends. If I got so much energy to be angry and feel insulted, I might as well channel that energy towards reaching out to my friends.

And that was when I conclude Timeliness is not necessarily next to Godliness. Timeliness and being punctual means you have respect for other people's time, and at least have a certain degree of social grace and courtesy. However, when others are not punctual, you don't have to let loose the dragon within you and be a pompous ass (as I was trying to be, by carrying off the attitude of "Ha! I'm more punctual than you~ you social scumbag! i'm better than you!!"). Rather, just exercise grace and love. I'm reminded by something my colleague said another day, when someone was thanking him for taking the time to just talk even while he's rushing some work. His simple reply of "Hey, my time is your time" just struck me. I'm still a long way off from this stage of cultivation of grace in my life, as compared to my colleague... 

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* If you don’t know who Dilbert is, you must be from Elbonia...

** well, i figured, in the world of "Dilbert", Dogbert trumps Dilbert, despite the fact that Dogbert is a dog (duh) and Dilbert is a human.

^ I'm utterly amazed by that last liner, because I know of some women who are pretty conscious about punctuality, and have the basic courtesy.

^^ They could be vampires or ghosts, from the fastidious way they try to avoid the sun. Living in Singapore that has not been an easy thing to do...

on bus rides and taxi rides...

yesterday went to the bus-stop, wanting to catch my normal bus at 7.15am. Unfortunately, it seemed like there either was a disruption to the normal timing, or a lot of people wanted to go to Marine Parade early in the morning. Whatever it was, I certainly could not get onto the jammed-as-sardines bus. As the bus pulled out of the bus stop, I just happened to glance at the rear end of that bus, and realised there actually was still standing room within that section. As usual, becomes victimised by the inconsiderate Singaporean syndrome again.Thank God I was still able to get to office on time.

Later in the evening, I got out of the office on the dot, as I have an appointment to rush for in the evening. The ideal plan was to catch the connecting bus on time, so that I could reach home by 7.15pm, have a quick, warm, home-cooked dinner before heading out to meet my friends at Clementi at 8.30pm. At least, that was the plan la. However, I didn't catch the connecting bus. And the traffic was super slow on the highways, because of the rain. In the home stretch, there was a severe accident along Mandai area on the highways. Think my journey was prolonged by 20 mins, because of the long queue of vehicles that snailed past the accident site. In the end, I reached home at 8pm. Had to send out some sms, and wolfed down my dinner, before rushing out to hail a cab in order not to be stupendously late.^  

Well, I was thinking a lot of unfriendly thoughts to humanity in general on that cab ride that night. Think the uncles sorta got my vibes. He drew me out of my cloud of moodiness with simple conversation. It didn't totally made me cheerful instantly, but it did alleviate my angst a bit. In the end, I was glad I took the cab ride instead of taking MRT and feeder bus.Talk about taxi-therapy.

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^ I'm a stickler for punctuality. in fact, it might be an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). My motto: "Timeliness is next to Godliness"

Servants of the Word

http://www.servantsoftheword.org/
Know of this organisation after reading an article in "VantagePoint". Do keep these brothers in prayers!

on not writing for the past 4 days and blurring vision...

ha, have not been writing in my blog in actuality for the past 2 weeks. So much things to blog about, yet just can't bring myself to spend time in front of the laptop writing at home. because it takes brain juices to write something interesting, not just some random stuff that pops into your head, like this line i'm writing... :p

                                                   

On another note, I have not been taking care of my eyes too well these few weeks. Think vision is getting more and more blurred, be it from staring too intently at the monitor screen (computer or TV) or reading my 10,000 books.* Hmm, maybe it's time to make an appointment with my opthamologist** at the end of the month. It's been 2 years since my last check-up...

* An exaggeration, actually. Don't think I have read 10,000 books as yet. ok, more of a lie then...  

** haha, my freind just reminded me, should be "optician". I not so much money to go to a othmalogist just to change my spectacles. :p