Counting down

It is Thursday today and in a few more days, we will be going to Malaysia for our church's small group retreat. I am so looking forward to it as I am very tired from my recent travels and work. Over the three days of the retreat, I plan to sleep and not do much! Meanwhile, as I count down to my chill-time, I have to prepare to teach a session on Postmodernism on Sunday to a group of 50 young adults at a church in Singapore.

Last weekend, as I've mentioned, we had guests from Malaysia and the US. My sister and a friend came down for the annual Great Singapore Sale (trust me, the sales are GOOD!) It was literally a shopping trip for them as they did nothing but shopped. Our other friend is a classmate from BIOLA. She was enroute to visit her friends in Korea. Since she's a savvy shopper as well, she ended up shopping during most of her three days here. It was nice to see her after more than two years (we graduated from Graduate school at the same time). But at the end of each day, my legs were sore from all the walking. Brian had it easy as he would disappear to Starbucks and read and would only join us for meals.

As we combed through the stores in search of "good deals", I was reminded of GK Chesterton's remark: “There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” How aptly said! However, the consumeristic culture is driving us in the exact opposite direction promising us more than it can deliver.

Anyhoo... it was wonderful to have guests and friends visit but when they finally left, it was also very nice for Brian and I to have our time and space back. Unfortunately, since I've been catching up on work, we've not savored our space as much as we'd love to, like, having cheese and crackers, pita and hummus, chips and dips to a good movie in the evening...