Bless My Food Always

Before my late grandmother starts eating her meals, she will take a very small portion of the food in her right hand, bring the hand nearer to the chest, close her eyes, mumble something, look up to the ceiling, smile and then put that bit of food at the edge of the plate and then carry on eating the rest of the food. She would finish every bit of food on her plate except that bit of food at the edge of her plate. I asked her why she does this everyday and I was told that, she had asked God to taste the food and blessed it and therefore had left it at the corner for God to come anytime to eat the food……….well, your sincerely, had sat down next to my grandma just so that one day I may get a glimpse of God eating the food and I never witnessed it.

But her habit did not die with her…..I follow it but very discreetly so that I don’t have to answer everyone I sit down to eat with. Yes, I grew up affirming that if we want to stay healthy and maintain a happy face, great even emotion, clearer complexion we will have to pray over our food and drink before consuming it. I am glad I grew spiritually instead of just gorging myself with food. I believe I have to pray over my food and drink more so if it is prepared by someone else………even my Amma as she too may have her bad days. Just like food is energy, our body, mind and soul are energy too and energy is transmitted by touch you know? We can pass some very minute atom of energy – good and bad when we prepare food and another person eats it.

As I grew spiritually and increase my sensitivity, I realized that my body grew in sensitivity too. As soon as a ‘bad’ food enters me, I react by feeling nauseated so that I will have to throw up, or drink lots of water to flush or dilute it. I believe that food prepared and served by people who have ‘bad’ energy brings your energy level down. That is why I offer my food and drink to God, the highest energy to bless. Yes, but then I am not just asking my food to be blessed, I also thank God that I am blessed with lots of food now, food as my career and food to nourish and strength my body. I thank God for giving me the brains to think of what I should and should not eat. I do sometimes have guilt feeling when I have to throw away food that I cannot finish into the garbage bin, for which I thanked God for.

Teaching our children to consistently ask a blessing at meals sets an example they will remember when they become parents, but then how many parents set an example. The children grew up thinking food comes through exchanges of dollars and cents. In these very fast paced lives, we have a chance to stop for a breather, to thank God and to be grateful for the food we eat and when we pause to think and thank God, we become relaxed and so we help our digestive system to work better!

When I was working in a Catholic school, I remember typing verses for prayers "Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves" and "…He took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat". It funny and weird and I have goose pimples now as I am typing this…..I can’t imagine me remembering these lines after more than 30 years!! I guess it is FOOD, very much chiseled in my brain! The Hindus have Prasatham - food that has first been offered to God and thus this food is considered sacred and is given to those who pray at the temple.

One need not be religious or pious to ask God to bless his or her food. The prayer for the modern person is:

“Dear God, I thank you very much for providing me this meal. Please bless my food and make it energize and nourish my body. Please protect my every multiplying cells from any harmful bacteria, virus and germs that entered the food through the processing or the environment. Please let my body feel and be alert if a particular food cannot synergize with my body. I thank you God.”

Letting go of my Jaguar dreams..........

When I was 18 years old, I told my father that I wanted to learn driving. He laughed at me and said “Don’t waste money. We will never be rich enough to buy a car.” At that age, I thought what he said made sense. I started teaching cooking when I was about 26 years old. Students will come to the cooking classes either by car, by taxi or chauffeur driven and of course there were many who came by bus. I was fascinated by the students who got dropped off and then picked up again by their drivers. “They must be filthy rich”, this is what went in my mind each time I see these tai-tais being dropped. And one day, I saw it………the regal JAGUAR at close range and I sat in it. My student Maria had a shiny, elegant, graceful and classy liquid silver Jaguar with a leaping Jaguar in front of the car. She gave me a lift till Thomson Plaza….. By the way her Malay chauffer, Suleiman drove the car. Travelling in that car was like floating, like just gliding without noise. The interior was cool, comfortable and spacious and the seats leather. I could feel people turning their heads in the street to look at the Jaguar with me sitting upright proudly, passing them…..this car really made people stop and pay attention and it invoked a desire in me – to want to own it one day.

That day, I decided that if I ever buy a car, it has to be a Jaguar - even if it had to be a second hand car. That became my goal – to one day, buy a Jaguar and have a driver drive me around. Over the years, I could have learnt driving and got a car for myself but I was afraid of learning – I feared that I might end up driving some other type of car and not enjoy the luxury of having a driver. I am 54 now, have not made enough money to buy a Jaguar or employ a driver……….I think I will be realistic and let go of my goal to want to possess a Jaguar car. I don’t want to have super expectations – I could not achieve my goal in the last 30 years.

Sometimes, I wonder if this goal of mine was realistic. I have taken the steps to write down the pros and cons of owning a Jaguar car plus a driver. I have had millions of night dreams of myself in Jaguar cars in all the colors – emerald fire, botanical green, winter gold, radiance, ebony and salsa. In my dreams sometimes the Jaguars were driven by Richard Gere, John Abraham, Anthony Bourdain, Luciano Pavarotti and even Robert Pattinson not long ago!

I am going to allow myself to mourn defeat and failure for a couple of days. I know the husband, the friends and acquaintances are going to laugh at me for changing my mind after many years but do I care for them? Since they all knew my dream and goal, did anyone ever thought of hiring a Jaguar just for any of my birthdays and drive me around? No. They did not. Did anyone at least steal me a leaping Jaguar from someone else’s car? No they did not….therefore they are not entitled to laugh at me for changing my goal. Sometimes I am in two minds – whether to repeatedly write my affirmations – or repeatedly re-energize my visualizations………after all the leaping Jaguar means speed and power………Perhaps, I should still hang on………and Hope. Perhaps, someone will remember to rent a Jaguar hearse for my funeral so that I will have my last ride – in a Jaguar car and chauffeur driven.

Blood is thicker than water

Last week, I met all my siblings and their families at my mum’s place. We meet often. It is interesting to note that although we siblings are not so close enough to talk to each other every day, except for a couple of them, we are all still emotionally attached.

I have begun to realize that sibling relationships are emotionally powerful and critically important not only in childhood but over the course of a lifetime for everyone. My siblings form my first peer group when I was a child! It is through our siblings that we learn social skills, particularly in managing conflict, from negotiating with brothers and sisters hehehhe…….I did. Sibling relationships can provide a significant source of continuity throughout a child's lifetime and are likely to be the longest relationships that most people experience……..our husbands, best friends and boyfriends only come later in our lives. There is no one that can replace the close relationship that can be found between siblings who share a family as well as a friendship!

I guess the importance and the nature of our relationship with siblings vary for each individual – it all depends on the circumstances and also the development stage and what is our ranking in the birth order of siblings – whether you are the oldest child, the middle person or the last child in the family; the gender of the sibling and the age gap.

Our contact with our siblings increases as we age. As people move from middle age to older adulthood, they often feel emotionally closer to their siblings and have less conflict. Even those over 80 years old have an average of one living sibling and a majority of older adults consider one of their siblings to be a close friend. We share biological and cultural heritage with our siblings, as well as memories based on shared history......hahah.

In some families, the siblings hardly talk together and I feel sorry for the parents who will be the most affected when siblings don’t get along well. The parents will suffer in between the siblings who argue and backbite with each other. There are many reasons why siblings have problem between them when they are older – one sibling can be jealous of the other because of wealth, looks, better spouse, good home or an attitude problem etc. If you competed over grades, sports, or music ability when you were younger, as adults you're likely to compete over careers, children, the size of your house, and whose spouse is more attractive.

Marriage usually brings a certain amount of distance between siblings. If siblings don't approve of your choice in a spouse, the tension can be great. Siblings have to come to terms with the reality that you will no longer be as immediately available and that your loyalties and priorities will be first to your spouse instead of to them

We have to come to terms that as siblings get older and more established in their own lives, it's easy to drift apart. Even if you do everything you can to stay close, a certain amount of distancing is definitely there. The demands of a spouse, children, education, career, a home, money problems, troubled teenagers and many other realities of life can put sibling relationships to a distance for a while and then the space will narrow as the siblings grow older.

When siblings leave the parents’ home after marriage, it is not unusual for their relationship to lapse during the early and middle years of adulthood. Often, what brings siblings together in later life is the need to care for their parents. Brothers and sisters who have not had much contact for years may find themselves working together to coordinate care for one or both of their aging parents. I know of families where the stress of looking after a sick parent cause old patterns of rivalry between siblings due to conflict. How siblings stay united to look after their aged parents or another aged sibling, depends on the history of their relationship – if they have all been close, the tasks of looking after becomes divided equally and if not, one or two of the siblings will distance themselves to avoid their responsibility. It happens in many families and it is a shame that grown up siblings quarrel and bitch about each other when they should actually set an example to their own children! By nature early competition and rivalries between siblings must lessen, and a new comradeship and closeness should emerge as you grow older.

The person who is most instrumental to nurturing sibling bonding is naturally the parents! And I have my Amma to be thankful – for giving me many siblings and for ensuring that we all keep in touch and constantly reminding us that the siblings should keep in touch long after she is no more. We will stay united Amma, I assure you despite our differences in size and shapes, IQs and EQs, health and wealth. Cheers to all siblings!

Attitude can open Heaven or Hell

I have seen many of them in my life. The ones who smile at me as if the sun is living on their faces and the same ones who stare or frown at me on another day as if they are in deep pain or have lost something precious on that day. I call this Attitude Problem. If someone has an attitude problem, it clearly means trouble and loneliness in existence.

What is attitude problem then? It means a disposition that is unacceptable. I guess on the whole because our approach to life’s situations is different from others, we see the ‘attitude’ problem of others. Good attitudes to life’s situations can open doors and bad attitudes can build barriers!! Many people I know, including loved ones have lost number of friends, left number of jobs, lost loves and relationships because of malfunction in attitude. A person with attitude problem is also a social snob who pushes away friends and family and become isolated.

When I think of a person with attitude problem he or she can be rude, uncouth and cold at times when others least expects them to behave that way because there are many people out there who look so refine and elegant and who can throw you off balance with their peppery words and body language. Some people who have attitude problem actually suffer from self-pity. These sorts of persons need ‘fixing’ to help them take life’s situations easily as they always tend to think most other people are luckier than them. Then there are some who constantly find fault with other people’s behavior not knowing that they have more problems on their backs or who fail to realize that on many occasions they do have the same attitude or behavior as the person whom they are complaining about.

And there are workplace colleagues who can have attitude problems. The ones who cannot do their own job well but who criticize their colleagues; the ones who sigh when the phone rings; the ones who just stare at you and walk away when you wish them a good weekend. Then there are the kids and youths of today who just have the most horrible attitude problem. They have no respect for the elders and their teachers or their fellow classmates too.

You don’t just wake up with an attitude problem one morning. Attitudes are very deep personal beliefs and they probably take years to develop and therefore will take time to change. Some develop such attitudes because they never mixed around with different kinds of characters when they were younger; some become like that because they live alone and do not socialize much; some have attitude problem because they think they are smart or very nice looking but their attitude makes the onlooker see them as stupid and ugly. Some grow up with attitude problem because someone in their family has the same habit. Some simply have attitude problem because they are suffering in pain but never get to solve their physical suffering. Some behave in such manner because they miss a loved one.

The prettiest women can look ugly within a second because of an attitude problem and the most unattractive women can become beautiful within a second because of her attitude to life’s situations. Body language – the pitch of voice, tone of voice, movement and gestures can also show the attitude problem of some people. Many people with attitude problem are attention seekers although they will swear they are low profile people. They know very well that attitude makes people pay more attention to them and talk to them and they must be enjoying it to continuously have that attitude problem in them!! I hope God will phase out creating people with attitude problem…….maybe we can have people created with buttons on them so that if we see anyone with a bad attitude, we can switch off that button and switch on the good attitude button!!

Some may not agree with my opinion, but then you see, I have an attitude problem too – I make up my mind to agree to what I have concluded.