2003-10-09
7:27 p.m.

Of airheads, Church Going, and Dinners

Today was a rather blah day, if anyone knows what I mean.

Early in the morning one of my colleagues had words with another. Some people are just so ladida about their job. How long can one use the excuse of being 'new'? After 6 months, can anyone still be considered 'new'?

QUOTE

Philip Larkin - Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on

I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

Another church: matting, seats, and stone,

And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut

For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff

Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;

And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,

Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.

From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -

Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.

Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few

Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce

'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.

The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door

I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,

Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,

And always end much at a loss like this,

Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,

When churches will fall completely out of use

What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep

A few cathedrals chronically on show,

Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,

And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come

To make their children touch a particular stone;

Pick simples for a cancer; or on some

Advised night see walking a dead one?

Power of some sort will go on

In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;

But superstition, like belief, must die,

And what remains when disbelief has gone?

Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,

A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

Will be the last, the very last, to seek

This place for what it was; one of the crew

That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?

Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,

Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff

Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt

Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground

Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt

So long and equably what since is found

Only in separation - marriage, and birth,

And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built

This special shell? For, though I've no idea

What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,

It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognized, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.

END QUOTE

Had a very sacred 5 minutes before lunch today. Just sat and soaked in the serenity of Church of the Sacred Heart at Tank Road. Prayed a little, and suddenly all those worldly issues didn't seem to matter anymore. Felt so peaceful after listening to the silence of the Church.

After that had a quick lunch then went driving.

Met Xizhen for dinner. Was good to see a friend I haven't seen in ages. Thanks for the company, Xizzy, and for listening to me grouse. :D

Downloaded my emails awhile ago. Got an email from Dr Seet Khiam Keong, my NUS TS Lecturer. This is what he said: 'I think you have hit the nail on the head. It's so easy, as you say, to get sucked into this black hole of the Singapore Rat Race that you forget that over and above systems, infrastructure, deadlines and benchmarks of efficiency, there are PEOPLE, and people matter first and foremost, over and above all else.'

Sigh. I can feel it too.. like a vortex, I am being sucked in... and there is no escape, none at all. Shit. Depression headed my way again.

Rather tired again today. Must rest soon.

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