My late pastor used to warn us against becoming ‘so heavenly minded, we are of no earthly use’.
I think the church which I belong to may have become what my late pastor had warned against. Take last Sunday for instance, while we were sitting in church listening in rapt fascination to an invited speaker telling us there will be Spaniards, Mexicans and Indians in heaven through a very animated sermon using a power point laden with every animation options available, we were totally oblivious to the fact, beyond the cosy little church we were all cloistered in was a nation gripped by two major events:
1. Whether a Bible-burning event called by people who were hell-bent on creating religious chaos in the country was actually going to take place – precisely at the time when the sermon in my little cosy church began! Mercifully the event was a non-event, thanks to the intervention of the authorities and level-headed people, and no doubt, the prayers of hundreds or maybe thousands of concerned Christians in not-so-disconnected churches who must have prayed for divine intervention.
2. Whether a 6-year-old boy who was left in a car with two other siblings by his parents who went to look at electrical appliances in a shop, who subsequently left the car to look for his parents and was never seen again, would be found and how his parents must have grieved and wracked with guilt and anxiety. The boy’s highly decomposed body was eventually found at a jetty 64 km away from where he first went missing. The social media was a buzzed with concerned netizens doing their civic duty in drawing attention to the news of the missing boy, all hoping against dwindling hope that by some miracles, the boy would be found safe and sound.
It was not to be and how we, the still-connected people, must have grieved along with the parents, trying to make sense of the tragedy.
The two incidents affected me deeply. They tell me that all is not well with my country. They tell me that the country needs much grace and healing.
I hope I wasn’t the only one who felt this way on that Sunday morning in church. It was all the more ironic because the theme of my church for the next four years centered around reaching out to the community around us.
I think we need to pluck our heads out of heaven and be relevant earthly people again.
Peace with you all, Salem. Malaysian are peace loving pe0ple.we are born here, raise up here, raise with friends of all religions, why be bothered and misled by people with their own agenda.Dr Jimbo, I like your blog, like you say, level headed,still sensible
Hello Dr Jimbo,
Firstly, let me introduce myself since we have never seen each other. My name is Muhammad and I have been a secret reader of your blog for the past 2 years. I always wait for any updates in your blog from you and I have always been touched by your writings. I have never commented in any of your posts before, but this time I feel very tempted to share things that have been bothering my mind especially in the bible-burning issue.
I can assure you that there is absolutely no verses in the quran or the hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad) encouraging or asking the muslims to do such things. In fact, the burning of books, any books, was once considered in the muslim civilisation to be a step backward towards the progression of the community.
If you observe the history of Islam itself, its rise was supported by the increased awareness among the muslims on the importance of knowledge. Books from the past civilisations and other religions were translated into arabic for the sole purpose of knowledge enrichment. I strongly believe that Bible was also translated back at that time. This quest of knowledge led to the establishment of a library called Baitul Hikmah in Baghdad.
Hence, the suggestion from this so-called “Muslim Warrior” to burn the Bible does not only degrade your religion, it is also an insult to Islam as well. On behalf of other muslims who completely disagree with ‘him’, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience and controversies which have arisen subsequently after his provocative act. I hope that the tranquility and respect we enjoy despite the differences in our faith may be preserved and maintained forever. In fact, Islam itself means “Peace”.
May Allah bless you my dear brother
Muhammad
Dear Muhammad,
Salam! I want to say that I am immensely touched by your comment and the earnest sincerity I read in the lines that you wrote. Thanks be to God that most Muslims I encounter in Malaysia do not subscribe to the extreme views of the Bible-burning zealots amongst us and because of that, my country has not descended into chaos. I shudder to think what would happen if the majority of my fellow Malaysians supported the call to burn the religious books of other faiths.
I am also touched that you took time to read what I publish on my blog. I didn’t think any of it are worth reading because they are just the musings of a physician trying to make sense of the events around him.
Peace be unto you too.
Jimbo.
Agreed with your jimbo.
Well said, Doc. Maybe we are too pre-occupied with the idea of eternity to think much of the present…