Steve Jobs announced iPad for Mac geeks. Not a lot in there in terms of features but it’ll still sell like hotcakes. Like any Apple products it has a convincing design and will do that 1 thing well. It’ll make you admit that reading a computer screen is like reading a TV. People will buy it because it makes us do old things in a new way.

This is the NAD C515BEE; A great piece of new engineering. It won awards and all but its not good enough to play Mahler Symphony Number 5 in my setup. So sad that it has to go.

I’m keeping the old Marantz CD7300 instead. That incidently (together with my turntable) is great and good enough.

Mei Si and Cheryl helping to model for a friend’s design assignment. I thought they look beautiful and its a great act of service they have rendered for people this year.

The maiden (painting of the month from expo-klimt.com)

Gustav Klimt is one of my favourite painters and it was a privilege to be able to see his work in L.A a few years back.

He has this to say about himself and his work

“I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do.”  - Gustav Klimt

Our study trip to DaVinci the Genius exhibition at the Science Centre, opened our eyes to the genius of a man that has been given great ability to think, write, draw and create.  Yes I got a day chop on my wrist to re-enter the exhibit, so I spent almost the whole day with Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, the Virtuvian Man and da Vinci’s many work of inventions.

It was a day of rest and reconnecting to truth of these Words.

Genesis 1:27 ” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Psalms 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Philippians 4:13 “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

John 14:12 ” I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these…”

Sigmund Freud described da Vinci like this “Leonardo da Vinci was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep”.
Leonardo da Vinci himself observed the following about the world ” There are 3 classes of people in the world, Those who see, those who see when shown and those who do not see ”

How can we do the type of work Leonardo da Vinci do did? I think it is by observation. Everything that da Vinci did was without first careful study and observation.  Yes, seeing the potential starts the realisation of it. O Sleepers awake to see the great things of God. What we cannot see.. should be why we cannot do great work when we abide to the Holy Spirit.

Dinner was a catch up with a brother whom I haven’t met for a while. He shared about how he is in his own way  fulfilling his potential in the body of Christ.  Reached home late, inspired to do some touch up on an incomplete painting I’ve been working on before I retired from a great day with art, artistes and great inspiration.

You can follow our church on Twitter now. Just click the bird

http://twitter.com/hopesingapore

Or if you are not quite a bird, but you are more a WORM, click here

God made us. He is an artiste.

He made us in His image. We are artistes too.

Be serious about your art and being an artiste.

Do you know your art in the first place. It’s important to find out because you cannot be serious about something you do not know.

If you do, you can develop yourself like an artiste with every work you do salted with your personality/giftings and lighted with the signature of Jesus.

Her mum wrote to us to thank us for our influence all these years. This former HopeKid who is now graduated to Y-Hope surprised her parents with an amazingly poem written from her heart of love to God. She just felt inspired to write it, she told her parents.

God is at work in this child’s heart. Enjoy

THE CROSS

The cross, oh the cross
It was the death of our Lord
But to many others it was a minor loss
“He was a great teacher,
No, wait a preacher,”
But all in all he is very much greater.

But as brothers and sisters
Followers of Christ
We know so well that day
He paid a heavy price

The death of Jesus was very major
All of us would learn much later
That Jesus died to set us free
So off with the chains which we were once bound
For God’s love for us was always around

Wait, let me take that back
For something in my sentence lack
The love of God was always around
Is always around and will always be around

A hefty price there was to pay
So the life of Jesus God chose to lay
God has planned a great life for me and you
Don’t you want to share it too?

By Deborah Lee
4 April 2009

” Volcanoes overwhelming scale and power remind me how insignificant I am and how astonishing the world is “ - John Stanmeyer, photgrapher living among Balinese volcanoes.

Volcanoes kill many people. To farmers and residents around these places, you’ll find the very same thing help them thrive and survive. Rice harvest around lavaic soil is 3 times more than normal soil.

Volcanoes are neither good or bad. So are many other things. Conflicts, technology, best friends, mother in laws.

There’s no gain without pain. Neither is pain ever without gain. It works both ways. Mountains will level and valleys will fill in. What goes up must come down. And down, up.  It’s important to see both sides and embrace both sides.