Open up the sky

It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night
Psalm 92:1-2

I've played the drums for the longest time. When I offered my talent to the worship ministry, I did it with the intention of offering my best to the Lord knowing that this was one thing I knew I could do well without screwing up too badly. I love music and I have experienced first hand what the power of worship can do. While I take my drumming very seriously, I also love to sing and it was my hope that one day I would be able to lead the congregation in worship. To lead them to that realm of worship in order experience the touch of the Holy Spirit.

I take my drumming very seriously. Really!

Since I had some kucing kurap guitar skills, Daniel thought it'd be a good idea for me to try playing some songs. I'd led a few praise songs over the past few weeks, my signature tune being Tim Hughes' Beautiful One (I chose it for the simple chord structure and crowd 'ra-ra' factor - I'd heard him playing it live at the Planetshaker's concert last year).

Just last Sunday, Daniel decides that I should try leading the whole praise and worship. Praise wasn't going to be a problem, but worship was a totally different matter altogether. I decided to try Deluge's rendition of Open Up The Sky although I wasn't entirely sure if we could pull it off since the original was so heavy.

My benchmark for a good worship song is that it has to make your hair stand the first you hear it and cry the second. I cried the first time I heard this song and I had it on repeat in the car's CD player until the A-E-D-A riff was etched ever so clearly into my head. I have since played it umpteen times in my own worship with the Lord. Somehow the words of the pre chorus and chorus kept resounding in my head.

We won't be satisfied with anything ordinary
We won't be satisfied at all

Open up the sky
Fall down like rain
We don't want blessings we want You
Open up the sky
Fall down like fire
We don't want anything but You

It had been my prayer that our congregation be overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit during worship and the chorus seemed to echo that thought. For the Lord to fall down like rain and fire to completely engulf and surround us.

I just let the Spirit lead me when it was time to play. At one point, everyone just stopped the instruments and we just sang our hearts out. It wasn't even my intention at all but it all flowed so perfectly. Amazing what God can do when you surrender completely to His perfect will.

Can't wait to do it again.

Claying around

After having to do so much from Mondays to Fridays, Saturdays always seem to be a good day to slow down and chill out and basically do silly things. On this particular one, somehow we ended up at Bras Brasah complex after strolling around a flea market that was taking place outside SMU's Arts Faculty.

We wandered into the insanely huge Popular bookshop and ended up in the crafts section on the upper level. Before I could even utter a single word of protest, Penny and Velouria ended up with a pack of white clay, some poster colours and brushes and insisted that we went home to make something out of it.

It was off to work immediately when we stepped into the house. We cleared a table that would serve as our workstation and set our materials on it. Taking out a morsel of clay from the packet (these were air dried so we had to be extra careful), I proceeded to make the simplest thing that came to my mind first - a worm.

With furrowed brows, I began to scuplt my masterpiece despite Penny's incessant reminders to strengthen the sculpture with toothpicks. I ignored her, my argument being that I wasn't making a complicated sculpture and there was no need for internal skeletons of any kind. She proceeded to do hers with a toothpick within regardless. And ended up with a sausage. With grill marks, no less.

The worm looked kinda freaky when I was done. It looked more like some creature out of Dune than Sesame Street. What I intended to be the mouth added to the seemingly malevolent guise of the poor catepillar.

I went on to apply the colours anyway, choosing a green for the body and filling in the lines with brown later. It was a lot tougher than I thought! It was an intricate matter trying to paint something so tiny. My hands were so tired after having to make such precise, controlled movements.

Not bad for a first try! My next sculpture - a tortoise. Stay tuned.

Silly Singaporeans

Despite the seemingly high levels of education and affluence of the people in Singapore, I am repeatedly appalled by how many of us still have not seemed to grasp the necessary aptitude to fill up entry forms in its entirety. In my course of work, I am required to compile customer information into our company databse and this somewhat mundane task is made increasingly frustrating with incomplete fields, illegible handwriting or even nonsensical answers. Honestly, is it too much to ask to draw a dash or pen the alphabets NA on fields that are not applicable to you?

Other idiosyncarcies of nonchalant Singaporeans:
- 28 Dover Court: no postal code, either this person does not care or is totally oblivious.
- 28 Dover Court #02-02: do I assume this is an apartment block? Or is the person trying to make his address pass off as one in a condominium?
- #02-02 28 Dover Court Dover Road S'123456: don't they know there is a specific order in which addresses are written in?

There is no end to the sheer level of inanity which continues to baffle and annoy me. Graaaaah!!