It has been quite some time since I last blogged. I guess the convenience of facebook just took over. Also, with the formating of my com, I lost all the links to my friends' blogs and just stopped blog surfing, although I really did used to do that ardently. It was and is, so much easier just putting in regular updates or putting in biblical quotes which summarised how I felt in a status line, rather than blogging my heart out.
You know how it happens when you are caught up with a million and one activities as you try to organise that one activity and then suddenly in a twinkling of an eye it's over? Just like that, the CSS 60AC came, swept us off our feet, then disappeared in a span of a couple of hours. It still seems very much like a dream to me - the hours spent planning the event over tau hwey, the heated arguments that ensued in our meetings, simply because we were all so passonate about what we truly believed in, the blood, toil, sweat put in trying to raise the needed (and very expensive) funds for the event, the countless edits and changes in the publications, grappling with the many obstacles that came our way, both spiritual and physical... I guess with every event, there are a million and one things that could have been done better like how the welcome and thank you speech should have been, but as with all the CSS events that I have been priviledged to have partaken in, the 60AC was truly another testimony of God's infinite grace, mercy and love for the CSS and its endeavours. God was truly present and He reminded us of His presence throughout the journey - with quiet promptings like the reading of taking the five loaves and two fishes and feeding 5000, with verses like "I am the vine and you are the branches, abide in me and you will bear fruit to abundance..." We started off with empty baskets, but God took the little we had and made that overflow with abundance.
It amazes me how everything seems almost planned - that there was always an angel looking out for us. We started literally from Groundzero - no money, no support... nothing. Yet God constantly provided - from the sponsors, the ministries who responded to our call, to the contributors who contributed not only of their stories and photographs, but also of their time and of themselves, the outpouring of love from the churches that supported our outreach efforts, the people who stepped up to be in this ad-hoc committee, the people who were moved to purchase tickets. I have met so many people in the course of sitting quietly in church with a make-shift sign selling ko-yok... the various people from the different generations who moved and humbled me in turn with their sharings of their time in the CSS.
It was simultaneously an experience of great joy and sadness as I looked around the hall and saw the people who bothered to attend the event. Joy, because this was precisely the reason for celebrating the event in the first place -a community of faith in a secular institution who can come together without pretense. It was heartwarming to see how people re-connected, kindled and re-kindled their friendships. Sadness, on the other hand, for if the CSS truly meant something, it wouldn't have been so difficult to sell tickets for the event and let's not even talk about cost, for at $60 a ticket, $50 for undergraduates, it was already a heavily subsidised rate from the $74.50 that comes from the venue, dinner and publications costs not counting other costs like publicity, costs of making the collar pins, programme and administrative costs... on hand.
Perhaps the problem lies with the perceived notion of the transitory nature of the CSS. The CSS doesn't mean much to quite a number, because it is that, a time-filler, a passing phase. Maybe in the past, it was valid that the CSS be a transitory zone because the churches needed harvesters in their ministries, but now, it is a different case, because the majority of the people who serve in the CSS are also simultaneously active servers in their own parishes. There is so much more that could be achieve in maintaining ties and continuity. For example, in trying to sell tickets, we were practically digging for needles in haystacks as we set up booths at the few parishes that actually supported us and just waited in faith that memebrs of the CSS past would see our signs, stop by and purchase a ticket. It would have been easier if there was a database to access, but it seems apparant that the thoughts of it have been around since the 1980s, but nothing has really been done about it.
What needs to be done, if we are really serious about setting up a proper alumni, is to do a church-wide census - and we are barley touching base with those CSS members in Malaysia and those who have left Singapore. Yet this is quite difficult is there are only a few parish priests generous enough to support our endeavours. Being a student body, it is also extremely difficult if we are not given enough financial support to carry out our activities. Who is out there that cares enough for the CSS to maintain a CSS office where records and archives and databases can be kept or even to fund then? The churches who are truly supportive are really quite few and because we keep going to the same churches they too experience fundraising fatigue. Come on, 7 churches out of the 32 in Singapore?!? I think it's time to step out of the parochial line of vision that perceives anything not from the parish to be a threat and as competition.
So, the question that comes naturally after is, Quo Vadis? Where are we going to?
I have been enriched greatly with my time in the CSS and I hope the adventures don't end here but continue. I thank God each time I think of how the people and the events in the CSS have moved me and touched me and how God has promised to be with us, every step of the way. Anyone remembers the rainbows at FOC for three years in a row? Yet, we too have to do our part by abiding in Him, by Faith and by leading a prayer-centric life.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
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