Your Money Or His Life

There's a game that I used to play with my playmates when I was about primary school age.  It was "Robbers and Cops'.


The group of us was divided into three categories, namely the victims, the robbers and the cops.


The game would start off with someone getting robbed.  The usual dialogue that they had to engage together with some acting out of the scene was as follows:




Robber/s  :  Stop!  Don't move!  I have got a gun.


Victim/s(usually girls)  :  (Screaming and struggling as the non pistol wielding one tries to take away any priced possession)


Victim/s  :  No, I don't have any money!   or  Please don't take my money!


Robber/s  : Your money or your life?!


Victim/s  : DON'T KILL ME!  Take all you want.....


At this point, let us put ourselves in the shoes of the robbers who are making away with our money or any priced possession after they had inflicted some form of injury on their victims.


How would they have felt if their victims opted for the following actions? (It is regrettable that these robbers never think like this)


The victims chase after them and take vengeance? Putting up a good fight , kicking and clubbing them real hard.


 Yes, this is the most natural thing to do but only if you have the muscle to do it. Or when you are properly armed.


Are you going to give an 'eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' kind of vengeance?


Or just let the law take over the matters?  Report the matter and hope they get caught and put in jail soon.


Or are you going to give double or triple or many more times worse than what they had done to you?  Like causing fatality, just like what a woman in Ampang Jaya did.  Ramming her car into the robber's bike and ripping his private parts apart. Oooh...that was horrible !


Perhaps, the next time when you are being robbed, you can even challenge the robber by asking "Do you want MY money or YOUR life?"  Of course, only when you have the upper hand!


It would be better than causing grievous injury or death.


The other day, as reported by the Star papers, a lady rammed her car into the robbers as they were trying to escape on their motorbike after taking away her handbag from her car. Consequently, one of them was killed instantly and the other badly injured.


I have great sympathy for both parties, the robbers and the victim.
Needless to say, it was the most horrendous mistake by both.  God knows what they are going to go through in the next half of their pitiful lives!  

No Good In Mankind

Many people still cling to the notion that man is naturally good.  We did not get this from the Greeks.  Aristotle said, There is no good in mankind."  We did not get this in Judaism.  Jeremiah said,  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"(Jeremiah17:9)


We did not get it from Christian teachings.  The Apostle Paul said, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory
of God" (Romans3:23)


We got this illusion, I believe,  from the philosophers and psychologists of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries who taught the false doctrine that man is a helpless victim of his environment.  The Bible says that man is not naturally good.  All human experiences confirm it.  Man is rebellious by nature.The first rebellion in history happened in the Garden of Eden, where the environment was perfect and there was no heredity on which to blame it on.




Billy Graham




Each time I become obsessed by the idea that my deeds are so noble, let me remember the magnanimity of your perfect life.  

Good Salt is Worthless if it Loses its Saltiness

Columbus was called mad because he decided to sail the uncharted ocean....Martin Luther was called mad because he presumed to defy the entrenched religious hierarchy of his time.  Patrick Henry was considered mad when he cried, "Give me liberty or give me death!"  George Washington was thought to be mad when he decided to continue the war after the winter at Valley Forge, when thousands of his men died and other thousands had deserted, leaving him only a handful of men.  


We have become too sophisticated and respectable to be called mad in our generation.


In the midst of materialism and secularism, thank God there are those who sacrifice time, talents, social positions , and lucrative posts, and who fling aside every advantage in order to serve God.


"Salt that loses its saltiness can't season anything.  So don't lose your flavour!............"

A Time of Peace

Increasing numbers of people, of all ages and types, get away from it all by 'going into retreat' in monasteries, convents and other religious houses.


This is not a religious revival; not all are of the religion of the place to which they go, and a number have no religious belief at all,.  But all discover the therapeutic value of complete isolation from the tensions of ordinary life, the welcome silence from chatter, reasonable comfort, good food and the freedom to join in(or not, as they like) an ordered, peaceful, pattern of life, with access to a good library and, usually a pleasant garden.


Many people emerge from these retreats refreshed, sorted out and relaxed, and appreciate the silence that is kept, especially during organised retreats.  For those who are entirely new to the experience, there may be apprehension as to what they will find on arrival.  But the feeling of strangeness is soon dispelled.

Whatever Happened to my Youthful Zing?

'What you need,' says my ex-Naval husband, 'is a course of leg-chest-supple-bend-twist-arm.  Never fails. 


 Might even try it myself', he adds, looking at himself sideways in the mirror, and secretly holding himself  in.


 'Leg-chest-supple-bend-twist-arm', for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a series of exercises designed to keep sailors fit while serving in confined ships' quarters. 


 'Just the thing for our bedroom,' I pant, as we stand eyeball to eyeball between the bed and the chest of drawers, flinging our arms backwards as far as they will go.  'But are you absolutely sure they are suitable for girls, too? 


 This one is giving me shoulders like an ox.  Come to think of it, I can't help wondering what our neighbours are making of all this running on the spot!'

Whatever Happened to my Youthful Zing?

Unperturbed, I start reading keeping fit articles in magazines. 


 "While you are reading this, " I read, 'rotate both feet from the ankles.'  So I sit there waggling and ignoring the funny looks I am getting from the family. 


 However, I'm not so happy about the instructions that follow;  'When sitting on the bus or train, roll your eyes from side to side, clench and unclench the buttocks, stretch and purse the lips.' 


 I just know this wouldn't go down well around our way, however, furtively one did it.