Sugar and Spice

Been a little busy, what with organizing get togethers and assignments being due. But still found the time to trawl around the net, looking for cute sites and reading up various blogs. Here are various titbits from around the 'net. Enjoy!

Somewhere is a lovely, if sad poem commemorating the death of the poet's wife. I don't really want to reproduce something quite so personal on my own blog so please take a few moments to read it and savour the gentle ache it can bring.

And this is a sweet(literally!) poem written by floots on love and desserts. I found the word play and use of puns so amusing.

Joy is a cool site run by an Asian American girl who has great taste in fashion, furnishing and whatnot. I love the designs and photo collages(of fashion and other bits) that she posts up regularly. A sunny, cheery blog that should light up your day a little.

"Bridging the gap between species" is a post by the American blogger Dooce, on the odd and funny way her dog protected her toddler daughter from falling down the stairs.

And for those who haven't been there before, Postsecret is like our collective conscience, a virtual reminder of our common humanity. Go and look. Be prepared to laugh and maybe tear a little.

Best moment of the Golden Globes was when...

Ang Lee gave his thank you speech while accepting the award for Best Director. Not only did he give the speech in flawless English but he also wished all the world a happy new year in Chinese.

By doing that, he acknowledged the chinese audience and foregrounded to a worldwide audience the biggest Chinese cultural celebration of all.

I'm now living in a country which does not and probably will not acknowledge this holiday despite the enormous chinese immigrant population in its midst. Australia's public holidays remain stubbornly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant in nature and for the first time, because I will be here during Chinese New Year, I really feel the sting of being in a minority racial group.

I miss garishly red Chinese New Year crap being sold in every other shop and hung up everywhere.

I miss the pineapple tarts and pussy willows and my grandad.

And I even miss helping my mum out with the spring cleaning.

It feels all wrong to be here during Chinese New year; the one moment in the year when I truly acknowledge my cultural roots and draw a little closer to my family.

The God of Prosperity

This article in The Economist is an interesting addition to the on-going debate over the prosperity gospel as preached by several charismatic churches. Instead of taking a theological perspective, Jonathan Gruber, an economist from MIT has instead conducted a study which empirically measures the economic well being of church goers as opposed to non church goers. For the full text or summary of his paper, take a look here.

Apparently the results seem to support the view that religious participation can and does boost your income/economic well-being by a certain percentage. But I’d caution the prosperity gospel fans from using this article as evidence to back up their stand that God does bless them with material wealth. The article itself suggested several practical reasons behind the apparent percentage difference in the economic well being of church goers as opposed to non church goers of a similar background. As I recall, the Weberian discussion of the Protestant work ethic was brought up as a possible forerunner of this study and other suggestions that church itself fostered an ethic that led to a higher likelihood of completing higher education and therefore better financial well being bears a great deal of merit.

And the study itself only looked at a very narrow segment of American society; in that only white Americans were included within the study, a decision I find problematic. It is entirely possible that the survey results could have turned out differently if applied to African Americans or Chinese in Asia.

For a good theological discussion of this view, take a look at this blog post and for an example of a church that practices this doctrine, go to this site.

Personally I find the prosperity gospel itself a little difficult to swallow. The suggestion that God intends to bless everyone with material wealth seems to smack more of the Chinese Money God than the Jesus who commented on the difficulty the rich would have in attaining heaven.

So I'll end off here with a terribly snide but appropriate quote from The Economist: "But given that Jesus warned his followers against storing up treasures on earth, you might think that this wasn't the motivation for going to church that he had in mind."

Here's to all of you

Found this poem on another poetry blog and decided to reproduce it on my own.

For everyone who reads or stops by.

Especially for P.S. because his own blog reeks with so much sadness and resignation sometimes.


May happiness
pursue you,

catch you
often, and,

should it
lose you,

be waiting
ahead, making

a clearing
for you

A. R. Ammons

Sorrow's Hymn

Earlier last year(how strange it feels to write that), some of my friends and I had a discussion on music in which we agreed the best songs were the sad songs of heartbreak and despair.

Triple Period just posted up James Blunt's Goodbye My Lover which has to be one of the champion heartbreak songs of its time and it reminded me the list we(my friends and I) came up with that night.

Sometimes when life is all screwed up, all you really want to do is listen to some achingly beautiful song to help yourself out of it. And sometimes, even when life isn't screwed up, the poetry of loss helps you remember the things that are precious to you. It's probably the same reason people watch sad films; we need the catharsis. And maybe we need the reminder that we're not alone in our grief, that others too have gone this way and survived it.

Here was one that made it to my personal heartbreak song list and as I recall it, at least one of the other guys had songs by the same singer songwriter on his list too. The line " I'm so tired but I can't sleep/ I'm standing at the edge of something much too deep" always resonated deeply as rhyming couplets often do.


I Will Remember You

By Sarah Mclachlan

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

Remember the good times that we had?
I let them slip away from us when things got bad
How clearly I first saw you smilin' in the sun
Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard

But I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to loose
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light


And I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories
Weep not for the memories