Unforgivable

I just received an email forwarded to me which contained an attachment of a video showing a maid's abuse of a young child in the presence of a much younger sibling.

What makes a human being so depraved as to do physically abuse a toddler, one who is totally helpless and remains at the mercy of her caregiver? The maid is a caregiver entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the two young children in the absence of their parents. I'm sure the parents pay her well to look after their children and they depend on her to feed them and to take care of their needs while they are away at work.

If not for the surveillance camera installed in their home, the parents would never have known how their children are abused in their absence, by someone whom they had entrusted to look after them.

Watching the video made me not only angry and sick but it also aroused murderous feelings in me. I wanted to treat the maid just the way she had abused the child. Worse, I wanted to put her behind bars with a whipping sentence and to throw away the key to the jail!

I then realised that such feelings in me put me in her category as well!! But then, how can one not be affected by the sight of a helpless, innocent toddler being abused so violently by someone who is supposed to take care of her? Even if the child had dirtied the floor or wet herself or got into a tantrum ( these are just suppostions as the video doesnt show what the poor child had done ), she doesnt deserve to be abused the way she was.

This must be the reason why my cousin in the UK, when his children were born, arranged for his parents and his parents-in-law to take turns to be there to look after the children while he and his wife were at work. He was very lucky to have both sets of parents agreable to such an arrangement. Each couple stayed there for six months.

Another college mate also did the same for her son when he had his family. She and her husband and the other set of parents also took turns to go to Singapore to look after the baby, even though their son had a maid. After seeing this video, my friend's son was wise in asking his parents and his wife's parents to make the trip and stay there to supervise the maid so that there would not be an opportunity for abuse. Likewise, my daughter stays with me and my husband and I have been looking after her children ever since they returned to the Land below the Wind. This was to prevent any kind of abuse, physical or emotional.

Abuse in any form will deform the child and retard his/her development. It will leave a scar on the child's soul and mind. Fear and insecurity will be constant companions in his/her existence. Yet many parents have no choice but to depend on maids to look after their child when they go to work. Not many have parents who are available to help them out. Perhaps sending their young to creches is an alternative. There will be other staff and this will be a deterrent to abuse. Other children in the creche will also provide companionship in play and this would stimulate the children and the interaction among them will make the creche a more amenable environment than the home where the maid, in the absence of the parents, is lord of the house and the children are at her mercy.

Here is the link.
video[1]_WMV V9.mpg4894K

I'm not sure if you can download it to watch.

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How goes it?

These are days of excitement depending on how you view things.

Politics is a favourite subject in coffee shops, school carpark waiting areas and emails. Umno, the main partner in the coalition of Barisan National has completed its party elections which had been postponed from last year to this year in view of the impending transition of power to the next Umno president. The newsmedia had been reporting pre and post election news. Now that all these are behind us, let us hope that things will change for the better as the outgoing PM has reiterated that there must be change for a better tomorrow. I hope this will take root and that things will really change.

Sabah is pretty laid back compared to the bustling Peninsular states. However the absence of the "rush, rush everywhere" syndrome makes life more tolerable although there has been tremendous traffic jams of late, especially during peak hours, though not to the degree which KLites experience day after day. Nonetheless, what has been affecting the world, the term I believe, is 'global meltdown', has not really hit us squarely between the eyes yet. There have been reports of thousands who have been left jobless due to factory shutdowns and downsizing of organisations. For these people, life is a big question mark. How are they going to survive and put food on the table for their families?

The government is trying to find jobs for them through various means but it will not be able to cater to everyone's needs. Other countries are much worse off. How bad is it going to get? This is anyone's guess.

For those who have retired, life will be more of the same. There is no rush, no need to fight the traffic to get to the office. I get up early to go to the golf course for my morning exercise round of nine holes, then back home for a spot of gardening before starting the preparations for dinner that evening. The weather has been so terribly hot these days that I'm seriously considering cooking lunch so that there's no need to go out. The sun's heat is blistering and there is a tinge of blackness on your cheeks, should your skin be exposed even for just a short while.

A housewife's job is never done. I find myself on my feet most of the day and it is more often than not, that I can go online only after dinner. Having a maid is a luxury, and good ones are hard to come by. From past experience, it is the maid who interviews you and not vice versa. A room, a tv, a fan, telephone facilities, a washing machine, these are pre-requisites. The size of the house and the number of people living in it, whether you work ( better that the boss works so that there is no one to monitor the work ) also matter. Refusal to do things the way you want them to be done, the rude repartees, the banging of pots and pans, these are sufficient to put you off them permanently. I'm not complaining 'cos I'm back to being my own boss in my house. I no longer hear my pots and pans being banged about and I can talk to my plants and flowers without being looked at as if I'm cuckoo. I'm happy as I am, with friends to email to, with smses coming in, and the songs on the radio to keep me company until we go to fetch our grandkids from school. So life for me is good and I'm thankful for God's blessings.

For those who are still looking for jobs, maybe it is time to try out self-employment. Work for oneself even though it is hard work and altogether a different experience from what one has been accustomed to. This is where creativity comes in. It is always prudent to start small and work from there. If you find that what you do is successful, then you can think further of expansion.

Otherwise there are other sectors which still need workers although these may not be what you want. However having a job is still better than none. A smaller wage is better than no wage at all. Money means food on the table. Plantation, construction, services such as waitressing, etc are an honest day's work. Once you have a job, things can only get better, and that's what one needs in these trying times. Or if you are good at cooking, you can start a catering business from home. You cook and you deliver. You can stick to catering for lunch at first. Or you can make local foodstuff such as nasi lemak, kuih-muih ( cakes & pastries ) and sell to friends and friends of friends, office people, neighbours. Such businesses usually take off by word of mouth and recommendations. I've also seen enterprising women and men going round to the hospitals to sell their foodstuff to those waiting to see the doctors. Waiting at hospitals can take a few hours and snacks are very welcome.

Whatever one's situation is, I believe that it is up to us to take action if we want to change it. Nothing comes with nothing done. Lending a hand to those in need is a good starting point. Cheers!

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The Cycle of Life

I would like to share some of what I've read from three books about the Other Side, i.e. where we go to after death.

From baby to child, to adolescent to adult, adult to middle-age to old age and on to the next plane when we shed our physical body.......... these stages involve learning, a continuous growh of learning.

We are entities or energy and as such we do not die. Energy does not die and learning does not end with death. Our spirits or souls continue to learn on a higher plane. There we go through a renewal stage and then we decide when we want to return to the physical world , where and for what reason.

According to Sylvia Browne, a renowned psychic, in her book "The Other Side and Back", we prepare a blueprint for our lives and we choose our circumstances to enable us to learn and overcome issues that were not resolved in our previous lives and to achieve spiritual progress.

Sometimes a soul chooses a particularly challenging lifetime in order to accelerate the spiritual progress. A hard life is an opportunity for progress.

We all have debts that must be paid. If we haven't paid those debts we must take them into another life in order that they may be worked through. Karma is an opportunity for atonement, to make up to those we have wronged or hurt in the past. It is about learning, and not about punishment. Once we have learned our lesson, there is no further need to suffer, even if the karmic debt is not fully paid as divine intervention or grace can supercede karma and ease our burden of suffering. We come to earth to learn, not to suffer.

Dr. Brian Weiss in his book "Messages from the Masters", relates Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' experience. Elisabeth's mother was a very caring person who gave everything to help others but never accepted anything for herself. She suffered a stroke that left her dependent on others for her needs and she died four years later. Elisabeth was furious with God for letting her mother suffer and one day, while she was meditating, a voice asked her why she was so angry and Elisabeth replied that He had made her mother who never asked anything of anyone but gave of herself, suffer for four years.

The voice told Elisabeth that those four years were a gift to her mother, a gift of grace. Love must be balanced. If no one were to receive love, who could give it

and her mother learned this lesson in four years instead of having to come back for one or several lifetimes, impaired physically or mentally where she would have to accept the love of others. Because she had learned, she could move on.

Elisabeth understood the message and let go of her anger and her pain at her mother's experience.

We choose what we need to learn and if we need to come back to work through a relationship, we come back. If we are finished with that, we go on. We continue our learning in the spiritual state.

In the book "Reincarnation" it describes how Dr. Edward Cayce helps his patients to regress into their past lives so that they can have a better understanding of their problems in their current lives and the advice he gives them on how to resolve the issues confronting them.

Come to think of it, this recycling that we go through so to speak, is logical. It would explain why we sometimes have a sense of "deja vu" when we are at a place although it is the first time we are there. We could have been there in a previous life! However, I'm not quite sold on the idea that we prepared our own blueprint right down to the last detail, even the manner of our death. Death comes in many ways and I find it hard to accept that one would plan for a horrific death.

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Flowers

Is there anyone who doesn't like or love flowers?

Or love the different shades of green foliage,

how they make a house look cool and inviting?

The sight of flowers whether in a garden or in a florist's is enough to lighten a heavy heart, so pretty are they to behold. Their colours are amazing. Only the Almighty could have fashioned them in such an amazing variety. There are flowers for all climes.

We in Malaysia have flowers that differ from those found in temperate countries.

No flower is ugly. There are only flowers with differing degrees of fragrance, except for the Rafflesia which is said to have a putrid odour. I've not seen one so I wouldn't know but I can believe those who have seen it and found it so.

Girls are often compared to flowers. Young girls are compared to buds that will come to full bloom in time. Love is also symbolised by the red rose. Other flowers also have meanings attached to them. Chrysanthemums, I believe, in some cultures, are associated with death. Carnations are given on Mother's Day, red roses on Valentine's Day. Jasmines are significant to the Indian community.

Roses and Jasmines have strong fragrance. The fragrance of roses differ according to their species. There are also roses that have hardly any fragrance. The pink rose in my garden has a very sweet fragrance, different from that of the red rose. I noticed that there are many more bees that buzz around the pink roses than the red ones.

I guess this is equally true of people. Some girls have more admirers than others. Whether it is the personality that is attractive or whether it is the overall physical beauty that draws people to them is only known to those that cluster around these girls. However there is the saying that "Beauty is but skin deep".

It is the inner beauty of a person that is more important and this becomes more apparent with age. As the outer beauty fades, the inner beauty surfaces. The eyes of a person are the windows of the soul. This is a general guide if one wants to assess the type of person standing before you. Shifty-eyed people will never look one in the face and this could mean that they have something to hide. However there are those who can tell a lie without batting an eyelid and there are also those who have eyes that reveal nothing. In such cases it would be extremely difficult to know what they are really like. Then again, it has been proven that "Familiarity breeds contempt" and this most regrettably is true when relationships, over a period of time, are taken for granted.

Just as a plant has to be nurtured into maturity and coaxed to flower, youngsters too require nurture and love in order for their personalities to develop and bloom. Their latent potential must be brought out. Just as every flower has its own beauty, a person, male or female, has his/her own beauty. We should never pre-judge anyone as it is said," Never judge a book by its cover" and "All that glitters is not gold".

Accept the person as he/she is and look for the good in them. Not all roses bloom beautifully. Some are deformed while still buds because of some pest attack but the fragrance is still there. Just as there are many types of plants and flowers, there are also different types of people and personalities. Enjoy the flowers, appreciate their beauty, take time to smell the roses and watch out for caterpillars that can destroy a beautiful green plant. My big pot of beautiful money plant was eaten bald completely within a short time. Thank goodness new leaves have sprouted again but it will be a while before it can grow to what it used to be.

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