Ezekiel arrived 39 weeks and 2 days, on 30 July.

From the beginning, before going through the tough second trimester, I hoped to have an unmedicated birth. I was inspired greatly by Audrey and various ladies I followed on Youtube who shared their birth vlogs. With that in mind, I excitedly engaged a doula to walk me through this journey.

However, the pregnancy was a difficult one as it seemed I had a shortened cervix, and underwent surgery to have a cerclage put in to increase the chances of keeping baby safe till full term. I even had to do bedrest for a period of time. With my doula, we were preparing for scenarios like going to labour before full-term, delivering at KKH instead, or even delivering at home. I’m so thankful that the pregnancy progressed beyond our expectations (to full term!), and we could also work on our birth plan, preparing for an unmedicated, natural birth with various comfort measures and techniques.

A week before I gave birth, I had excruciating pelvic pain that made it extremely difficult for me to walk, move my legs and lay down in certain positions. That’s a story for another time when I share more about the pregnancy journey itself. With that development, I wasn’t sure if I could have the birth that I was prepping for since labouring without medication involves changing positions and moving around. It was another disappointing hurdle and I really had to leave all my desires and plans to God.

Thankfully, I managed to get the help of a women’s health physiotherapist through my doula’s recommendation. Preet, of Embrace Physiotherapy, is so passionate about her work, and she was so empowering and helpful in my pain management journey.

The Monday before the week I gave birth (38 weeks + 2 days), I was in a wheelchair because of how much the pain impaired my mobility. I experienced some Braxton Hicks while Jon and I made the most of that day by adventuring to Gardens by the Bay that afternoon. Apart from that, there were no other signs of labour. Baby had been “low” for most of the pregnancy (from 22 weeks-ish onwards). But by then the cerclage was out (my doctor took it out at 37 weeks + 2 days) and I really expected that I would experience way more signs of early labour.

The pelvic pain took that whole week to resolve. I needed to remind myself not to allow the pain to defeat me, as my physiotherapist told me to, and to believe that I’ll get better. With that mindset, I endured the pain while walking around at home even though it was much easier to be wheeled around. Thankfully it did resolve, and by the Monday before the birth I could walk, just with slight discomfort.

My doula was encouraging me to do various things to move baby along, and downwards a bit more. Apart from increasing my mobility the whole week, I worked on rocking on my birthing ball the whole week.

When I went to bed on Sunday night (28 July), I was woken up by cramps that came and went with regularity from 11pm to 4am. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it also wasn’t painless. My plan was to labour as long as I could at home since I was expecting labour to take a while since it was my first birth. I lay in bed trying to sleep and when Jon stirred in the middle of the night I told him maybe baby would come this week.

The cramps kept me up, so I slept in a little more that Monday morning (29 July). When I woke, I didn’t experience any more cramping so I didn’t think too much about it. In the afternoon, I had my appointment with my doctor, and he said that baby’s head is further in the pelvic inlet, and he looks forward to seeing me in the labour ward soon! After that we headed to my physiotherapy appointment. We had a quick drink at Common Man Coffee Roasters and thought it’d be okay if I walked down to the physiotherapist’s. It was down a straight road at Joo Chiat, but I took about 20 minutes because that had been the longest I walked in 1.5 weeks, and baby’s position in the womb made it much harder to walk - it all felt heavy at my hip and pelvis!

After my physiotherapy appointment, Jon wanted to take the opportunity to have a nice dinner with me, so we had Mexican food. That would be our last date night as a party of two!

I spent the evening trying to encourage baby to move to the left through baby positioning, and again rocked on my birthing ball to encourage him to move downwards. I did some deep breathing and went to bed not thinking too much about anything in particular.

At 3am, I woke with cramps again. This time, they were more painful, but again not unbearable. I guess it helps I had period cramps for all of my menstruating life because it really felt similar, just that it had an obvious rhythm. Just like the night before, I lay in bed trying to rest and conserve my energy. Under my doula’s instructions, I intentionally did not time the contractions either - so I couldn’t tell you how far apart they were.

At 6am, I suddenly felt a little gush similar to having my period, and rushed to the bathroom. That was it - the bloody show - where blood and mucus presented itself. I woke Jon up and told him “things are happening!”

He proceeded to get in contact with my doula and she was on the line, encouraging me to try and relax as much as possible. I was sitting on the toilet, and suddenly felt a lot of pressure that was different from the previous cramping. My doula encouraged me to have a hot shower and use heat packs to relieve the pain and pressure.

The shower helped quite a bit, but by then the pressure was building and not letting up. I gingerly tried to get dressed and get back into bed while Jon prepped the heat packs. I lay on my side and tried to relax. But again, the pressure kept building and the surges were getting more and more intense as they came and went. I told Jon to get me my combs and I pressed my palms into them hard as I rode the waves of each surge. I wanted to give up really soon after because it felt so intense. I told him I wanted to go to the hospital now, and even half-heartedly said that I wanted an epidural, because if this was just early labour I didn’t think I could persevere much longer. He held my hand and calmly reminded me that I wanted to labour at home, and my desire for a natural birth. With each surge, I got frustrated and kept telling him I needed to push. I asked him to phone my doula again, and while she was on the line I experienced a surge and felt the need to yell “I need to push!!!” She immediately told us she’ll meet us straight at the hospital. That was close to 7am.

I was so thankful! The wait for Jon to get our bags ready, and for our ride to come was challenging to say the least. It took everything in me to ride the intense surges while I held onto my combs, and it was a relief when I could take a break in between. I was tired from not having slept well. I tried really hard to cope by making guttural noises and closing my eyes.

The ride to the hospital was extremely intense because I was in a confined space and I knew we would be heading into peak hour traffic. I tried with all my might to focus on pressing the combs into my palms, closing my eyes, and relaxing into the breaks. I let go of feeling self-conscious about labouring in a Grab because I needed to do all I could to ride the waves and resist pushing. At one point I almost panicked because I opened my eyes and we were in a tunnel in a jam! I quickly closed my eyes again and reminded myself to focus, and if it came to it, it’s totally okay if I had to give birth in the Grab car. Kudos to the driver who kept his cool and tried his best to drive smoothly and quickly to the hospital. When we exited the tunnel, I teared up from relief because I knew we were about 5 minutes away from the hospital. I muttered to myself, “we’re almost there!”

We arrived and I was put in a wheelchair, and my doula met us and followed us up. I was quickly wheeled to the labour ward while I had my eyes closed most of the time and held onto my combs. Being at the hospital gave me the extra relief and boost I needed to get through the next and final part.

I managed to get on the bed and they quickly placed the monitor on me to check baby’s heartbeat and they also checked my cervix. Baby was doing fine with a strong heartbeat. What really shocked me was that the midwives said I was fully dilated and there were no more membranes - which meant my water broke while I was home! I could start pushing already, they said. We reached the hospital at about 7.30am!

Learning how to push is a skill in itself. My physiotherapist gave me the option of going back to see her again so that I could learn this. Having gone into labour so soon, I had to listen to my doula and midwives on what muscles to engage/what not to engage/how to do it. One big reason why I didn’t want an epidural (which I had to get for my cerclage surgery) was because I really disliked being out of touch with my body. I was thankful to be able to feel each build up of the surge in order to work on pushing baby out of me.

I was very encouraged during the process even though I was tired from not having slept well. No one scolded me when I didn’t get the pushes right, and everyone cheered me on when it was marginally even the right push. Doctor came in to check on my progress but left and would return when I made more progress in pushing baby’s head down.

This was the most exhausting part of labour and the most physically demanding, and I really felt the lack of physical strength from the time I was on bedrest. What kept me going was that I really wanted to complete this portion well so I could have baby out and be able to rest.

Finally, his head crowned and they told me to touch his little head! They called my doctor back in, and again, I was so thankful because he coached me and encouraged me on, just like the rest of my support team.

With so much encouragement, I felt the “ring of fire” where baby’s head was moving through and out, and that gave me all I needed to press on in the last lap. I cannot describe the sweet relief of finally pushing baby out. It brought tears to my eyes and I kept saying to myself “finally you’re out!” After about 1.5 hours of pushing, our son was born at 8.58am.

Ezekiel’s first cries were so strong, just like he’s been the entire pregnancy, strengthened by God. I was so fascinated by this little one who lived in me for 9 months and journeyed with me through the uncertainty, holding his wrinkly hands and studying his toes.

Jon really wanted to catch baby when he came out, but everything happened so quickly! He managed to cut the umbilical cord after it pulsated and turned white.

I birthed the placenta and my doctor stitched me up as I had a first degree tear. My doula also helped me establish breastfeeding while all of that was done and we had our skin to skin!

I was so thankful that the pelvic pain resolved right before I went into labour and birth, and it didn’t hamper me or add to the stress of giving birth. I was also thankful I could have the natural birth I hoped for. My recovery was quick, and when I was wheeled into the maternity ward, I could move about freely apart from the mild postpartum cramps.

All in all, I was surprised by the process and felt empowered that I persevered through labour and birth. I usually allow fear to overtake me, but through God’s grace and empowering, and with the help of those around me, I discovered a new strength and resolve I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to uncover.

A note on pain:

A lot of people asked me if it was painful. I think it really depends on the type of pain you dislike. Just because I did this doesn’t mean I’m a particularly strong person or that my pain tolerance is high.

The most painful part of the labour process was the cramps, which was still bearable to me because I experience period cramps on a regular basis (I guess you could say it’s practice for the real thing). The actual experience of the surges (the need to push and the pressure) was intense but the least painful. It was similar to having an uncontrollable urge to take a dump. And the relief of having pushed baby out, like after you’ve taken a good dump, is similar, but extremely more satisfying!

What does turning 30 feel like, look like, think like?

From a living, breathing, 2-week-young 30 year old.

Growing up obsessively devouring young adult novels whose protagonists were often at the prime age of 17, I thought that would be the best time of my life.

It’s been 13 years since I turned 17 and every year that I’ve inched more firmly into adulthood has been strange to witness. Sometimes it feels like an out-of-body experience, where I observe myself from afar and find it tough to believe that I’ve grown up, gotten married, work and have a house of my own. Perhaps this disbelief has been tinged with little bleakness and mortality, because I was plagued with depression for a while that I couldn’t envision myself living past a certain age.

30 is a milestone! I was chatting with a couple of good friends I’ve known since our childhood days on our trip to Taiwan recently, and we recounted some of the horrors of our growing up years and mused about whether we’d go back to that time. Being 16 or 17 was definitely not the best time of my life, so it was a resounding ‘h*ll no’ from me and all of us. I do not wish I was younger because that would mean having to struggle through immaturity, crippling insecurity, mistakes and living through the pain of those consequences that only hindsight and wise counsel could have helped.

30 looks like a solidifying confidence, one that accepts my own personhood more and more and my place in this world.

The lead-up to turning 30 was weeks filled with deadlines. I was busy with work and life, in a good way, with two exciting illustration/design projects, housework and packing for my trip to Taiwan. In years past, I’d be anxious about the turning of the clock. Birthdays were only significant to me to the extent that they’d confirm whether I am loved and valued by those around me. I’d be hypervigilant for signs of celebration or neglect. Not having the time this year to worry about the attention I was receiving gave me the freedom to humbly receive the love given by others. Turning 30 meant an equal measure of nonchalance and openness towards my birthday, a point of true growth when compared to the bitterness and tears of the past. The biggest gift was being able to be present to the people who made the effort.

I traversed challenging terrains and emerged on the other side of a couple of mental blocks between my 29th to 30th year mark. Below are notes from the shifts in my philosophy and life practices that have pretty much stuck around as my 29th year draws to a close.

01/ The prospect of motherhood

It might be a broad-stroke to say this, but I think it captures the sentiment I’ve noticed: we’ve become quite anti-children, and pro-dog-children.

While I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek about that pawrent statement (I love dogs to death), I don’t think I’m alone in observing the general attitude of children being seen as burdens in every sense of the word—financial, mental, physical and emotional.

I’ve wanted children and a good family life ever since I was a child. I acknowledge this desire is coloured by my negative childhood and family life, marred by my parents’ divorce. It’s important to me not to see that dynamic repeated.

After marriage, though, the question of when we’d embrace parenthood began to take on a different form I never thought about until I had to face my mental health issues squarely in the face. My struggle wasn’t just whether I’d be a good parent, or whether I’m ready to be a parent (good questions, but answers to those two questions are simple—no, I’d never be the perfect parent; no, I’d never be ready), but about whether I’ll ever be fit to be a parent, as much as I desire to nurture and love a child. The fear about whether I’d perpetuate brokenness (and ruin my child’s life) because I was still waiting for my mental health breakthrough was a daily, fear-filled reality I grappled with.

I wasn’t anticipating the change. One day, Audrey sent me this Youtube video about keeping a commonplace notebook simply because she thought I’d enjoy it. It was there that I entered the rabbit hole of the world of Charlotte Mason, Classical Education (+ homeschooling) and everything associated with a convivial Christian family life. While I was introduced to educational philosophy and pedagogy of a different kind than I grew up with, what captured my heart was this: a more delightful, deeply beautiful way of not just mothering, but also living in the home. One that reflects the Christ-light-likeness within and without. And there were many ordinary women who courageously pursued the way of what’s true, good, and beautiful in spite of the path’s challenges.

Examples like these gave me the hope my heart needed, in spite of my fears. As I fell in love with inspiring ideas, my life began to change (you become what you behold). Jon could see it and he would point it out in our dinner conversations; I could feel it in my very heart.

Resources I loved:

• For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer McCaulay

• The Commonplace by Autumn Kern

• Parenting by Paul David Tripp

02/ The materials for a good family

In the same vein, the above discoveries pushed me to begin thinking deeply about my role as a wife and the position I held in my little family. As with most Christian couples, I went through almost a year of marriage prep with a mentor-couple. But was that sufficient to cover all the bases? Nope.

The idea that Jon and I, in our role as husband and wife, form the bedrock of what family is and what future family with children looks like clicked for me this year. Since day 1 of married life, I intellectually assented to having formed a new family unit through the vows and covenant I entered into. But how did that look like in the dailyness of life? After going through 3 years of married life, a good marriage, and by extension family life that’s rich in love, communication, forgiveness, laughter, and rooted in the same values don’t come accidentally or casually. They’re hard-fought. That work begins… gulp… with me.

It dawned on me that I not only have a responsibility as a wife or future mother, I have the power and privilege to change the atmosphere of the marriage/family/home through simple yet profound things like my daily habits. Vice versa with Jon (although I love and admire him so much because I think he came into the marriage already thinking about these things). So it’s been a year of thinking hard about my life—why do I wake early? Why do I exercise? Are these habits for my own gain, or would it bless my family? What habits of giving do we build into our monthly budget so our values of generosity are lived out? Should we pray together, why? How do we observe the Sabbath?

Resources I loved:

• Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmeal Earley

• Now That We’re a Family Youtube channel

• Now That We’re a Family Podcast

03/ Living more like a human

Before you raise an eyebrow, I would like to present to you, very briefly, the idea that we, in the modern age, may not be living as humanly possible, but are becoming less and less human by the lives we default to.

Precipitated by, once again, my venture into The Commonplace and Autumn’s experiment with a dumb phone, I was introduced to the idea that despite being human, much of our lives in the modern age train us to live like machines and think like machines. It’s not just the language that has entered our colloquialisms, but our habits as well. How are our daily habits forming our hearts, minds and lived realities?

I spent some time experimenting with my daily habits, but three big areas I’ve put effort in are: 1) cutting significant time off non-essential technology, 2) keeping the Sabbath, and 3) observing the Christian calendar to participate in Christ’s life and story.

It’s probably not news to you if I talk about how being on the phone or social media all the time is not good for anyone. Apart from the icky feeling of scrolling social media for too long, and a palpable shortness of breath (this happens to me and I’m not exaggerating) when I scroll or grab my phone just to check for notifications, I began to see that it would prevent me from living like how God would like a human to live.

Being glued to screens for 95-99% of the day, having shorter attention spans and an inability to focus, finding it hard to be bored when queuing up for something, “checking out” and relying on entertainment for rest, finding it difficult to give the person I’m with my full attention because I check my phone for notifications, having conversations around content seen online instead of getting to know the other person deeply, getting easily impatient if things are slow and challenging, not being outside and enjoying God’s creation because there’s entertainment indoors, giving in to the impulse to document every minute of my life, impatience towards prayer and going deep into God’s word… the list goes on!

If constant entertainment, convenience, easy dopamine hits, spectatorship, and virtual audiovisual stimulation fill my every moment because I find I cannot be separated from technology, these will be, by default, the things that form me. I become someone who looks less and less like Christ—who lived a holistic, relational, embodied, difficult, self-sacrificial, loving, holy, and slow life.

It began simply enough, when Jon and I decided to unsubscribe from Netflix. Then I utilised the downtime function on my phone, which doesn’t allow you to access most of your apps except calls, SMS and utilities. I’d set it from 7pm to 8am Monday to Saturday, and from Saturday evening to the whole of Sunday, most of my phone apps can’t be accessed so that I keep my Sabbath as tech-free as possible.

In my daily routine, I’d cut off my computer time by the time dinner begins, and I don’t use most, if not all, my devices during the Sabbath, which begins with a date with Jon on Saturday evening and extends to Sunday. Of course, there are the occasional exceptions to this rule. My purpose in doing this is not to cut myself off from the world and live like a hermit, but to use technology purposefully, not in a way where it’s mastering my life. The benefits? It has freed up my headspace, I am not as anxious or easily frustrated, I don’t feel as shackled down by needing technology to function, I’m reading more books filled with the best of ideas, I have more capacity to think, I am more present with the people I meet, I notice all the beauty and grace around me, I’m more present…

Secondly, keeping the Sabbath is one of the few powerful ways to live into our humanness because in our ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting on the day, we acknowledge God is God and we are not. This has been a long work in progress for me, and sometimes I still fall back into striving for the perfect Sabbath. But what has helped me is to think about how Sabbath would look like, feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like? What are some practices that would help our family enter into Sabbath rest? What would help me enter into that rest? How is my heart weak and what is needed to keep it rested and centered on God and his good gifts?

This will morph as I go through life. But for now: it’s looked like playing some worship music while we get ready for church on Sunday. Stopping for a Teh C (milk tea) and Kopi C (coffee) right before service. Planning ahead and getting the crucial (not all) housework done on Saturday so that my mind will not fret throughout Sunday. Putting away all technology and filling my time with journaling, reflecting, reading the Bible. I endeavour not to check my business Instagram or emails. It has, at times, included reading poetry out loud, reading a good novel, doodling, sewing, and lately, tinkering on the piano. I don’t make my bed on the Sabbath, and at times, I try to be in creation by taking a walk with Jon at the mangroves or the beach. Sabbath ends with a lit candle and a feast. Sometimes, it involves spending time with people. Other times, it’s quiet and slow.

My effort to observe the Christian calendar shares similar roots to the above in that it was an effort to be more mindful of the expansive richness of being a Christian, imitating Christ’s life, and therefore being more human (to be more like Christ is to be more human). It was my first time doing this, and it was a delight to think a bit deeper about how to fast and celebrate during Lent and Easter, how to thank God and be awake to the Spirit’s presence during Pentecost, how to live out a Spirit-filled life in Ordinary time. Soon, it’ll be Advent and Christmastide.

Resources I loved:

• Subversive Sabbath by A.J. Swoboda

• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

I hope that these thoughts and practices I’ve lived through in my 29th to 30th year pointed you to a helpful direction that God may be leading you to.

Further up and further in!

I love compiling this list every year as it gives me a glimpse into my thought processes, interests of the moment, and vignettes of specific seasons in the year that each book brought me through as a silent companion.

Ever since I was a teenager, I’d set idealistic reading goals (always writing ‘100 books’ in my new years resolutions) only to find myself never hitting that lofty number. In 2022, I came back down to earth a bit more and decided, against my impulses, to go for a realistic goal of 20 books. For once, I’m very satisfied that I managed to get close by completing 15 books.

I still have that irrational dream to live up to the label of ‘voracious reader’. As I type this in 2023, I’m happy that I’m in a place where I’m actually prioritising reading in my daily rhythms so much more (of course, at the expense of other things, like watching Netflix; but I’m not complaining).

On to the reads!

Best of the best:

Great for:

• The reader who doesn’t want to be tied down to one story

• The reader who wants to be introduced to fresh literary voices in a short and sweet manner

• The reader who is craving variety

• The reader who wants to go for an easy to easy-medium read

Get it here or borrow it through NLB.

Best of Sci-fi/Series:

Great for:

• The reader who loves to be sucked into a well-constructed universe, written with great detail

• The adrenaline junkie. This person should be all ready for an intense ride; this series is thrilling!

• The reader who wants to go for an easy-medium read

Take note:

• I thought I would struggle with Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem series because I didn’t understand much of the science concepts in the books. But that didn’t deter my comprehension at all. Pick it up if you were hesitant because of that!

• Very plot-driven, not so much character-driven

Get it here, here, and here, or borrow it from the library here, here, and here.

Asian Literature:

Great for:

• The person who desires to explore more Asian authors

• The person who enjoys historical fiction

• The reader who wants to go for an easy read

Take note:

• These books differ in their genres though they share many similarities (historical fiction and asian literature).

• The Night Tiger dips its toes into magical realism a lot more since Malayan/Singaporean myth and superstition are themes that feature heavily in the novel

• The Last Days of Cafe Leila fits squarely into realism

• When paired and read closely one after the other, though, the contrast helps the reader see how each novel establishes the theme of home

  • The Last Days of Cafe Leila does this by featuring the loss and political upheaval that affects the nation, and by extension, a family’s life

  • The Night Tiger sets the scene in colonial Malaya, with a cast of locals and British folk crossing paths. But it does not so much portray the changes in society that occur through the passage of time, as it does its cultural motifs that form the local consciousness.

Get these two books here and here. Or borrow them through NLB here and here.

Re-reads that age well like wine:

Great for:

• The reader who wants to challenge himself. This is a medium to medium-advanced read

Take note:

• The Great Gatsby is not an easy read for many because its portrayal of social life, reality, and romance, with an emphasis on disillusionment and tragedy. But I would argue that it’s precisely because of this that this is a worthy read.

Get this here. Or borrow it through NLB here.

Didn’t live up to the hype:

If you’re curious, get this here. Or borrow it through NLB here.

I didn’t have regular exposure to church traditions growing up, with sporadic attendance throughout my childhood and abandoning church-going altogether when I hit my early teens.

When I went back to church in early adulthood, I attended a Methodist church that had liturgies and followed a liturgical calendar on most Sundays. It was in my time there that I was first introduced to Lent by attending an Ash Wednesday service with my cell group. Year after year, I would occasionally attend these services, or observe Lent with a devotional. But I don’t remember much, apart from my efforts to adhere to a ‘good girl’ image or to check it perfectly off my list of to-dos. Of course it’s good to observe Lent, I’d say to others, having only a vague idea that it’ll contribute to my ‘growth’. I knew all the right things to say and all the right things to do.

There were some sincere attempts at observing Lent. One year I chose to fast from social media. Another year, most notably, Jon and I chose to spend Lent fasting (abstaining) from each other when we were getting to know each other. I grew much, much closer to God in the forced absence of that budding romance.

But as I grew more comfortable in my adulthood, with graduation, career changes, marriage, moving to another church, and managing home life, I lost touch with this rhythm. It was a ‘good to have,’ but not necessary.

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In the past couple of months, a lot of the things I have read and pursued pointed me to how a richer, more meaningful, and beautiful life lived on this side of eternity is within my grasp. The life I now live in Christ isn’t lacklustre and a set of rules and restrictions. It’s a deeper well that never runs dry. Its hues and tones brighter, more saturated than any man-made thing.

Because that’s true, because the life that I now have in Christ extends to all parts of my life, it matters how I live my days and my moments. The way I do my housework, my design work, or the way I set the table for dinner... A voracious hunger grew, and I questioned how I could begin to set my life up to help myself to be formed towards God in the every-day-ness of life?

That’s where I circled back to liturgy.

“A liturgy is a practice that teaches us how to love. Or to put it another way: a liturgy is something we do, and what we do does something to us.”

—Autumn Kern, Liturgia guide

The next thing I did was ask my father-in-law for the book titled Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God. I knew he introduced this book as a structure for my church to plan worship services around, and is teaching classes on it in his current church. Thankfully, he had a brand new copy, and I worked my way through it right before Lent started.

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To inhabit the Lenten season, I chose to fast from most foods (except for fruits and water) for Friday lunch, as well as social media for the day. In its place, I’d spend the hour praying, reading the Bible or an accompanying Christian book, and meditate on the theme for the week.

“Each year the season of Lent asks us to embrace a spiritual gravity, a downward movement of the soul, a turning from our self-sufficiency and sinfulness. In such quiet turning, we are humbled and thus made ready to receive from God a fresh and joyous grace.

Lent [is the] six-week season that leads up to Pascha (Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday). Dust and ashes… symbolize two themes at the heart of Lent: our creaturely mortality and our moral culpability.”

—Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year

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On the first Friday of my fast, I sat up in bed in the morning, thumbing my phone and scrolling a food delivery app, undecided if I should spend the money and get something hearty and convenient so I could get through the fasted lunch without issue. I agonised over a seemingly simple thing like breakfast. But flowing hidden beneath was fear and worry, because I wanted to amply prepare for the fast by eating a large breakfast. I really didn’t want to experience too much hunger.

I chose not to order in the big breakfast (literally, because I was considering McDonald’s) in the end. Here’s a confession, though: I just wanted to avoid spending the money.

As I approached lunch time I felt the hunger pangs and sat down on the couch to begin the hour proper. In pausing and in feeling the emptiness of my stomach, my impulse to plan ahead and control every circumstance’s iteration grew large in my mind as I reflected on my morning’s reaction to the day. I began to see my pride in wanting to get a meal through the Grabfood delivery platform—an expensive and delicious meal, full of fatty, rich foods, compared to just eating whatever’s at home and being contented with that. That unveiled a deeper realisation: when it came to meals, in general, a sense of entitlement dominated when I had a craving. I’d want it now. It is usually an annoyance to eat whatever I have in the home. I’d be dissatisfied with that — I just wanted a quick, fast and delicious meal from a restaurant, but instead, ate a sandwich.

Fasting humbled me even more.

To do so deliberately and face up to my hunger forced me to confront all the ways I automatically scramble to try to mitigate the cry of my human body through an app or through the most convenient way possible. That exposed my crutches. Shouldn’t I be living by every word that comes from the mouth of God?

“[The LORD] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna… in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD”

—Deuteronomy 8:3

Another confession: I used to scoff, all the time, at the Israelites’ whining in the wilderness during their journey between Egypt and the Promised Land. Especially at this part of their journey:

“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!’”

—Numbers 11:4-6

My scoffing stopped when I realised I’m the whiny Israelite during most of my days, unwilling to bring myself to be humbled to eat plain manna (maybe that’s just a sandwich, on most days, which is definitely more tasty than the manna the Israelites ate), unwilling to see the value of God’s word as my sustenance.

Hunger, according to God, is a good thing. It helps me realise my creatureliness: I am at the mercy of God. I am not self-sufficient, and I need to be reminded of that constantly.

Living in a modern time and place forms a dangerous amnesia to that fact because of the existence of convenience and abundance. My fear of hunger from not acting on my plans, and the impulse of constantly ensuring to provide for myself lends more evidence to that. If I keep living in autopilot in this manner, the reality of God being God—my provider, creator, king, will be an intellectual exercise more so than a lived reality.

I’m young in this, but already so enriched.

I hope to weave together theological liturgies in my life, for as long as I have breath.

I turned 29 in November.

It was my first time jotting down my reflections and milestones from turning a year older.

Every year after 26 has been hard. Not just because facing my age after 25 seemed daunting, but personally too: both in navigating COVID-19 and “ghosts from my past” creeping up on me. 28, in particular, was ground-breaking in its challenges and its leaps forward.

If I were speaking and affirming my younger self, this is what I’d say to her:

1. “Love your neighbour as yourself”: With God’s help, you can be kind in the midst of painful accusations and hardship caused by others.

   Jon and I walked through some personal difficulties with another party, in a conflict that kept spiralling out of control. It was extremely difficult to maintain a balanced view, I grieved for many weeks on end. Amidst everything, empathy and extending understanding towards our “adversary” was paramount. I had to constantly remind us that both parties were hurt, distressed, overwhelmed and trying to cope the best way we could. These ways may not always be honouring, respectful, kind, or the best, which results in more hurt. But the cycle ends when we don’t seek revenge for ourselves, asking God for forgiveness to begin in our hearts first.

2. With hard work in prioritising your mental health, you can overcome trauma and harassment. But you also can’t do it alone.

   I thank God for therapy and counselling. Going through many sessions of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy helped desensitise the anxiety and panic I so often felt.

3. Maybe you’ve always thought you’re impulsive and impatient. But in your 28th year, you learned and exercised patience in a long-drawn season where Jon had to navigate job uncertainty in the midst of an unstable economy and the global pandemic.

   I had to learn to give Jon space to walk this path, and to learn that God holds and directs his life, not me. Through that, I learned much, watching him put in such an excellent effort in whatever the role he took on.

4. You can live with much, much less. 65% of your belongings were moved into storage because you and Jon had to move to your mom’s home on short notice, and because your actual home was delayed by the pandemic.

   It was uncomfortable and unglamorous. But it was through this that I discovered that I don’t need luxury or an abundance of possessions.

5. Relationships are a life-time’s work. You had to navigate living back with your family of origin, after getting married and starting your family unit.

   It was good that it made me reflect on my role as a daughter and a sister, and what it means to add value to my family.

6. You realised you still had much to learn from your mom, after watching her be generous in giving you and Jon her spacious master bedroom and offering to cook dinners for the whole family on a regular basis.

7. You were made to do good work. You took on a leap of faith and accepted a book design job from David after resting from work for a while.

   I came out of a shaky period of my life after intense burnout, unsure of my skills and lacking the confidence that I could do good work. But thankfully there were people like David who believed in and supported me, giving me unmerited grace to grow again.

8. There is a time for everything, a set period of purposeful activity.

   I was given a lot of time to take care of Oreo. Thankfully so, because the next couple of months after moving back to my mom’s would see Oreo spending her last days here on earth. I learned compassion, care, and responsibility. I’m proud of myself for accepting her death maturely.

9. You overcame analysis-paralysis and perfectionism by biting the bullet and launching your business.

   Prior to the launch, there were many months of self-doubt and fear. Perfectionism, my old friend, struck again and stayed my hand in putting things out into the world. But I’m glad I took the plunge and tried, because I learned from it.

10. You learned patience by having to wait for your “forever home”.

Other milestones included:

• Renovating our “forever home” and working through the ups and downs of a shared project together with Jon

• Started a new part time job at TheCharlotteMei with a great and dynamic team

• Grew more confident in working again, and working hard

• Managing commutes better, with close to no panic attacks anymore

• Finished my Apparel Design and Product Development Diploma with TaF.tc

• Settled most of my father’s estate matters after 4 years of setbacks due to the pandemic

• Got COVID-19 after 2 years of being COVID-free, which made me love being healthy so much more

• Found more ease and delight in discovering and enjoying the company of people by spending time with friends after church service on most Sundays

• Developed a closer bond with my cell group

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The phrase I’d use to describe my 28th year is “growing in strength,” which is surprising to me because I’ve had a self-perception of weakness, fear and frailty for the longest time, and an even greater deep-seated belief that I will never overcome these tendencies.

God had other plans, completely overturning my own self-doubt through trials and refining circumstances.

“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Back in this post, I wrote on the concept of slowing down and why our world and humanity needs it. Since then, I’ve struggled hard to live this out, despite making intentions to set Sundays aside to slow-down.

It’s as though my life proved the point of the opening quote of that post, that “in a world of doing, going, and producing, we have no use for a gift that invites us to stop.” I’ve even gone through a tough season of burn out to further illustrate that I’ve subscribed to the idea that rest is of no use to me.

As I recover and rediscover this gift once again, my life illustrates not just the ease of subscribing to the norm that rest is a myth and seemingly useless, but also that the push against the grain is worth theresistance, too.

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To set myself up for greater Slow-down Sunday success, I made sure to delete the Instagram app off my phone on Saturday night.

Sometimes it’s easy to live too much into the online world that I forget I have a whole life and real people I can be present with.

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MmmmMm

the sound of satisfaction from this sunday

bracelets and bead work

rooting sweet italian basil

and inhaling the warmth of this favourite aromatic

Learning to live simply and sustainably includes being resourceful about what I already have.

I thought of making use of this opportunity to sew up this large hole in the crotch-area of one of my older pairs of shorts. The material is still fine apart from the threads coming loose from wear and tear.

visible

m e n d i n g

Meditating consistently

I’ve incorporated meditation into my routine for the past 2 months.

I use Balance, and they are offering the app free for your first year. The interface is simple, and each day you meditate builds upon the skills you learn the day before.

It’s been helping me manage distressing thoughts and in helping my nervous system stay regulated.

The day ended off with a fresh dig into a book: Forty Rooms by Olga Grushin. I eased into the read in the living room bathed by the warm lamp, with Oreo accompanying me as she slept.

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Inertia can be great even when you have good intentions for what you set out to do. What helped me was making a rough plan for the activities that were purely ‘play’ for me (e.g. the beading), and also making allowances in my expectations of the day’s schedule; that things can change and to accept myself moving into each part fluidly.

It may be extremely counterintuitive to engage in activities that are rewarding, yet lead to no concrete profitable outcomes, but I think that’s how you truly learn to slow down and embrace your humanity and the gifts laid before you in your life.

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What will you do next to slow down?

Overall rating: 8/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Difficult

Length: Short-Medium

Themes: xenophobia, discrimination, homelessness, family, relationships, humanity, identity, history, memory, empathy, pride, loss, trauma, grief, conflict, classism, love

Time period: present

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We think we know someone until we get to know their stories.

The synopsis was beautifully written, aptly describing that this novel is about "the people who have somehow become invisible, and how their stories make them visible once more."

Sharon Duggal invites us into five characters' lives, surveying their present day and their memories. These characters vary in age, from young to old, and therefore have varied life experiences. Most of them are immigrants to Britain. Except one, who is homeless. All these characters are outcasts – whether due to their ethnicity, or their social standing.

Although there is a mystery that drives the plot forward, Duggal's work here is more of a character study: of how people appear to be on the surface, when society’s eye casts its gaze upon them and assigns labels upon them, and who they really are beneath that assumption.

Each individual story contains depth, texture, a deeper psychology and a shared experience of love, loss and trauma that connect all of them despite how different they are. It is then easy to understand how this informs their choices and behaviour in the present.

Although most of these characters have had their fair share of love and loss, the novel is hopeful in that they're not obstinately glued to their mindsets and situations. They grow and make small, simple steps to change and reach out in love.

This was a work of empathy and compassion that truly brought me deeper into myself as I was drawn to examine my own biases and prejudices, and instead, consider the humanity of another person.

Duggal's writing is easy to read. It was such a pleasant surprise to lift this off the shelves of my local library and finding such a gem of a book.

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Drawing a scene from the book + quotes

“Surrounding him in the room were Ouriana’s clothes: dresses, blouses and cardigans, slacks and nightdresses spread out across the furniture with outstretched arms and flattened skirts. Getting rid of them was not an option. the week after she died she came to him in a dream in the blackest part of the night, wearing the yellow dress he liked best, dancing around the fig tree in the summer sun, beckoning him. Within the clothes were minute traces of her life, not just imperceptible flecks of skin or hair but moments they had shared together: their laughter, their sadness, tiny particles of grief and joy.”

“She thought about the clothes in the mud and the man returning to find them and wondered when she’d become so hard; when the scowl across her face had become so rigid. Deep down she knew it was a build-up of layer upon layer of her life’s hardships: disappointment lain across rejection lain across grief, stacked up, one on top of the other, stuck fast so even when she laughed the scowl was there.”

“He realised part of it was the way he looked directly into his eyes when he spoke. People stopped to throw coins sometimes. Others asked if he was alright but rarely stayed long enough to hear the words behind the answer. Some left shop-bought sandwiches or hot coffee, a woolly hat or an old coat. He was grateful for it all, it kept him alive, but no-one really looked him in the eye.”

Overall rating: 6/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Difficult

Length: Short-medium

Themes: feminism, dystopia, freedom, autonomy, totalitarianism, libertarian versus ultra-conservative, conspiracy, rebellion, religiosity

Time period: the future

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Firstly, I do have to explain the lower rating despite my overall enjoyment of the book.

In short, I think Margaret Atwood's literary 'voice' in this book isn't as strong as that in The Handmaid's Tale (henceforth 'THT'). While both are action-driven, THT's pace is staccato-like, which Atwood employs cleverly, methodically and precisely. The Testaments doesn't contain much of that. Sentences read easily, simply and flow well, but don't have as much aesthetic merit as the first novel.

The Testaments is plot-heavy and the characters that appear (we follow three ladies, whose stories converge towards the climax of the book) vary in depth and complexity.

The Aunt character is the most complex character depicted of the three, with a backstory weaving neatly into Gilead's founding history (perhaps it is because of this that she has a depth that the other two characters don't possess). I find the other two girls and their stories flat and lacklustre at times.

I read from a Goodreads review that this seems to be Atwood's attempt to bridge the first novel to the Netflix series, as if to package it up neatly for the big screen. To me, it reads as a young adult novel. It was a fast and easy read, and I wanted more of the world of Gilead.

I understand the disappointment surrounding this sequel as it doesn't quite blow you away stylistically, plot-wise and the character-wise. The key to enjoying The Testaments is to forego comparing it to The Handmaid's Tale.

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Book Design Appreciation:

I have to give a big shout-out to the designer who created the graphics and icons on the section headings and the book cover. He/she cleverly weaved hidden figures into almost every design. You’ll have to pick up the book to understand what I mean. But one teaser is in the cover—there’s a pony-tailed female figure on the main woman’s hooded bodice.

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A WIP video: drawing characters from the novel

Overall rating: 10/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Hard

Length: Medium

Genre: Historical fiction

Themes: War, nationalism, history, chaos, beginnings, loss, ethnic identity, national identity, fatalism, allegiances, the fall of empires, the rise of republics, individuals, personal autonomy, nation building

Time period: The end of the Ottoman Empire, World War I (early 1900s)

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When a novel is situated in an epochal transition, where historically significant events loom in the background against the characters, contrast is born: between capital 'H' History, and the ‘little histories’ of the ordinary villagers of Eskibahçe (a fictional village in Anatolia); between the ‘Big Story’, and their ‘little stories’.

Destiny/fate, then, is a central player here, although not obviously given a voice or personality traits. But it's often referenced, especially noticeable in the fatalism in the survivors' tone of voice and perspective on life. Leaders of nations or empires are on the side of destiny or fate, with ordinary folk as bit players in the historical force sweeping them up.

Birds Without Wings flits from the present-day formation of a new nation (Turkey) — born out of the conflicts that ended the Ottoman Empire as recounted to us by Iskander the Potter — to various survivors recounting their portion of memory, to the historical background of Eskibahçe, a 'sleepy' village under Ottoman rule, where Christians and Muslims live together in a kind of harmony, with little sub-character arcs, to transitioning into the threat of war, the Battle of Gallipolli and so on, until Mustafa Kemal Ataturk becomes the first president of Turkey.

It's as though the myriad of accounts reflect the double-edged sword of shattering and scattering that wars and nation-building leave in their wake. At the same time, the intermingling of the ‘ordinary’ accounts of the villagers in Eskibahçe and Mustafa Kemal’s story and point of view in the bigger story bears a sameness — in that — they all are human.

It's remarkable that a significant part of the story involves four children and their relationship with the rest of the villagers. I think it's because youth represents possibility, hope and innocence.

Karatavuk (a Muslim) and Mehmetçik (a Christian), the two best friends nicknamed after a blackbird and a robin respectively, carry around bird-whistles made for them out of clay. A part of their daily activities when they were kids include calling out to the other by blowing through these whistles. Everyone in the village instantly recognise the identity of these bird noises, and everything is as natural as can be.

When they grow up in the midst of war’s impending arrival, their innocence and hope for an uncomplicated future are met with the mammoth issues of religious allegiances, national identity, displacement, the brutality of war, which result in broken ideals and dreams of a life and home beyond their grasp. The bigger players of the historical drama have deemed it necessary to change everything that existed before, setting their plans in motion, agendas hidden till the fullness of time reveals itself.

Historically, Greeks/Christians and Turks/Muslims lived together in this region for a long time. It’s repeated in the novel too. But history is “turning and turning in the widening gyre,” and the end makes way for a beginning, just like W. B. Yeats’ gyre imagery in The Second Coming. The end of one historical era (Ottoman) brings with it another (Turkey as a republic). But it also brings an erasure of a common national identity (in this case, being part of the Ottoman Empire and all of the mixed-bag beauty). The erasure ensures that the new Turkish national identity holds, but at the cost of the dear relationships between the Christians and the Muslims in this village. The sentimentality and way of life between Karatavuk and Mehmetçik are ruptured as a result.

Karatavuk writes this letter to Mehmetcik at the end of the novel, when they're both aged. All Christians are forcefully deported to Greek, where they "belong", in a population exchange to receive rightfully Turkish people. Karatavuk has no idea where his best friend is.

“You and I once fancied ourselves as birds, and we were very happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings. You were a robin and I was a blackbird, and there were some who were eagles, or vultures, or pretty goldfinches, but none of us had wings.

For birds without wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.

But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea.”

Ending on what I think is a ‘soft minor key’, this thought rounds off the novel, leaving us to question: Are there bigger, more important birds, and lesser, smaller birds in this world? Are we, the smaller birds, grounded, all at the whim of History and its big players?

The richness in Eskibahce and the voices from that little village seem to represent the reality that each person, quirky and rough around the edges as they seem, were all throbbing with life. And their histories, stories and "small" worlds are significant, credible and important.

“In a world of doing, going, and producing, we have no use for a gift that invites us to stop. But that is the original gift: a gift of rest.”

A. J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath

We all need rest.

Overstimulated, overworked and constantly drained. Frazzled. It’s hard to find pockets of rest, let alone a full day in our schedules.

(Even if you’re not religious, try to stay with me here)

In the Christian faith, God is known to rest on the seventh day, after he spent six days creating the world. That day is traditionally known as a Sabbath, or Shabbat (in Hebrew), and is to be kept “holy” or “set apart” from the other days as a day for rest and worship.

To keep the Sabbath, then, is to try to uphold to this idea of rest and worship. But as Jesus famously said, “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” This day of rest is to keep us. It even extends to all of Creation—the land, the animals, the marginalised, society and the economy… the list goes on.

Rest is meant to be a rhythm we and the world live by.

We all understand that when something is overworked, it doesn’t run well.

When we’re overworked, we burn out. It takes a toll on our mental health, overall well-being, our work, and our relationships.

When the land is overworked and unable to rest, it goes through its own version of burn-out too. It doesn’t yield crops or plants as well as it once did.

Rest is something that we know all living beings need, but find hard to fully engage in.

Then again, what is true rest or real rest?

Does it mean a day where I am free to binge on Netflix and Youtube in the comforts of my bed, under the covers, ordering all my food in and napping occasionally? I usually picture that to be my ideal day of rest, or, in Singlish, a ‘nua’ day.

When I actually do the above (which I have, many times over), I notice I don’t feel rested. My soul, instead of being filled up, remains empty and drained, yet again.

I’ve begun to rediscover the beauty of slowing down.

Intellectually I knew resting is something restorative to my body and soul, yet I hardly live out what I think is important. Towards the end of 2020, I started to take a little step towards being intentional in this area. The first thing I did: delete Instagram off my phone on Saturday night and reinstalling it on Monday morning.

With that came many tiny lessons in being human again.

Being present to what’s before me, learning how to embrace the company of friends and family, letting go of agendas and KPIs, being comfortable in not needing to prove myself or my worth, or seek the attention and affirmation of influence, learning how to play, laugh, enjoy, and luxuriate in time passing in quiet moments...

These moments are precious, which is why I’m making the choice to remember them. Not rushing to share immediately, but to take my time in pulling together these moments through visuals and words to ‘journal’ the gift of rest in a particular week.

Here’s my journey.

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14 March 2021, a slow-down Sunday documented

In the bus,

We were on the way for church service. I was listening to The Sustainable Minimalist podcast, while Jon read Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

after a much-needed afternoon nap

I was having a bad headache, probably from not sleeping well the previous night. I made some decaf coffee for myself and read some of my Bible Study Fellowship notes.

We had friends over

From the late afternoon, we spent time eating home-baked banana bread and blueberry muffins, bonding over board games, a McGriddles dinner, and pear + apple ciders and wine and ice cream.

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What do you do on to rest?