Choosing A Method of Contraception

Our daughter, Sarah, was born 16 months after the birth of her brother. My husband and I call her conception “the will of God.” My midwife, however, calls it “carelessness for not using contraception method!”
Methods of contraception can be classified into “hormonal” and “non-hormonal.”
The hormonal methods include the use of pills and injection (monthly and/or tri-monthly). They are 99% effective, but not without side-effects. The usual side-effects cover rapid weight-gain and irregular menstrual period. They are not recommendable to tumor/cancer patients, and if you carelessly forget to take your pills or injection, it is likely you’ll conceive before the next menstrual period.
The non-hormonal methods include the use of condom, diaphragm, Dutch cap, Intrauterine Device (IUD), and sterilization (prohibited in Indonesia for couples with number of children less than three). The condom, diaphragm and Dutch cap shield the uterus from the flow of sperm, thus preventing conception. They can be disposed after intercourse. IUD is inserted into the uterus with the help of special device and left there to barricade the Fallopian tubes from the injection of sperm, thereby preventing conception for several years until the expiry date; then, with the help of a midwife or gynecologist, the former IUD is removed and replaced with a new one. In sterilization, a simple surgery is performed in order to cut or tie up the Fallopian tubes (in female) or vas deferens (in male), hence preventing conception for life. It is not permitted for couples with less than three children to undergo this operation in Indonesia, so far as I am informed.
I, on the other hand, failed to apply any of the methods explained above!
“I’ve told you so,” scowled my midwife, as I wailed and howled on the delivery stool, struggling to push the baby into open air. “I’ve told you to use contraception and you didn’t listen!”
“Now, relax. That’s it. Rest your butts on the bed,” she ordered – and pulled – and a couple seconds later Sarah’s cry filled the room. “It’s a girl! You’ve got a beautiful daughter this time! Alright, now I’m going to stitch you up, and you make sure you come back here in 40 days for contraception!”
This time, I didn’t dare to disobey her. Forty days later, I returned to her clinic, where she had an IUD prepared for me. It took five minutes of pain. Afterward, I no longer need to worry about anything for the next eight years.

Talking about Shoes

“Honey, you really should enrich your taste in footwear, you know,” Octavian once complained. “You’ve got half-a-dozen shoes that look pretty much the same!”
Oh, well… I can’t deny that my fondness of high-heeled, revealing shoes is a little over the line. There are little variations in my collection of shoes. If there are any shoes I’ve got that are not high-heeled and revealing, you can bet I didn’t buy them. They must be gifts, either from my husband or his sister.
I simply love wearing high-heels (despite the pain they cause me after hours of wearing them), primarily due to my lack of height. I’m considerably petite (only 5’3”), so wearing high-heels really helps to boost my self-confidence. Also, I don’t like to cramp my toes, so I prefer my shoes to be revealing.
Several months ago, however, I read a short-story by Takashi Atoda, entitled The Destiny of Shoes. It tells of an old shoemaker who fell into a conversation with a young woman on a train. The old man told the young woman that shoes actually had souls. Some shoes were destined to keep their wearers traveling on and on, some enticed women to flirt, and some energized the people wearing them. But there was also the kind of shoes that wanted to die. Later on, the young woman found out that the shoemaker had committed suicide. Only then had she realized how notably extraordinary the dead man’s shoes were… the shoes that wanted to die.
So, last month, when Octavian took me to a shoe counter in Sidoarjo, I picked for myself a pair of silvery slippers. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Slippers? Since when do you have an eye for slippers?”
“Well, Dear,” I smiled. “It’s about time I make a little change of taste in fashionable footwear.”
But still, I maintain the heels considerably high.

Text and Interpretation

“The death of the writer.”
Have you ever heard of the phrase? Post-modern theory of literature claims that a writer is dead, even when he/she is still alive. When? As soon as his/her work is published!
The point is: once a literary work goes out into the open, it is no longer regarded as sole property of the writer. From the moment it comes into publication, it becomes the reader’s and society’s full right to give interpretations of the context. Hence: publication is the death of the writer.
Shakespeare (bless his soul!) would have no right to refute in case someone came up with conclusions that Hamlet was a double-minded man and Macbeth a total psycho. Ayu Utami cannot object when others judge her novels, Saman and Larung as obscene, and Dan Brown must remain silent as public denounce Da Vinci Code as heresy.
Regardless of the author’s idea and intention, public interpretation of a literary work can grow broad and unlimited. Sometimes, interpretations vary and take on a new course in keeping up with the trend of time. Here are some examples:
· Luc Besson’s The Messenger gives us a brand new angle at viewing the legend of Jeanne D’Arc. Instead of a saint, we are presented with an ordinary peasant girl who’s mentally disturbed from childhood at the heart of the story. So, we wonder: are the voices she hears truly a message from God or mere delusions?
· Peter Jackson made a wonderful interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings when he transferred the role of Arwen Undomiel from the appendix to the core of the story. I doubt if Tolkien would consent to it, but it certainly made the whole story more understandable and enjoyable to fans and movie-goers worldwide.
· And these days, we’ve got Daniel Craig playing Agent 007. Contradictory to the classical version of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, this British secret agent actually falls in love with a single woman, no longer beds hot chicks and cares nothing if his martini’s shaken or stirred.
This is the 21st century. Interpretation is in the hand of the readers. Let’s see who’ll come up next and set the world onto a brand new course in defining the classic.

Help for Children with Cleft Lips and Palate

Octavian and I visited a friend in a nearby village yesterday. He lives with his elderly mother, a sister, and a three-year-old niece – who happens to be born with cleft lips. The family is poor, and they were faced with the urge to perform surgery on the child. So all their relatives helped by donating as much money as they could in order to get the girl through surgery.
Does the above story sound familiar to you?
Do you happen to have a close relative, a neighbor or a friend whose child is suffering from similar birth defect yet hasn’t got the money to get the child through surgery?
If you do, I’ve got favorable news for you.
Tulip Indonesia Foundation, a Netherland-funded organization, helps Indonesian children who are born with cleft lips and palate by providing fund for their operation. It is strongly recommended that children born with such birth defect to be medically handled as early as possible. Now that there is a foundation which provides the funding of the medication, you really needn’t think twice.
Simply dial +6281.330.010.011 or fax to +6231.848.0308 or send an e-mail to info@tulipindonesia.org for immediate information.
You may pass this information on to anyone you know to be looking for help. I wish you good luck!

Talking About Toxoplasmosis

My son, Dharma, was born with a little abnormality. I personally don’t consider it a “defect,” since the word tends to impress the lack of something. Dharma has no lack of anything. He simply has an extra right thumb. It is termed “polydactyl” in medical science.
What causes it, you ask?
Well, in my opinion, it might be because I took care of too many pets when I was having him.
I had two long-haired dogs, two jackal-pups, and two queen-cats together with their five kittens when Dharma was inside of me. I personally bathed them, fed them, cleaned up the mess they made, and even handled their stools.
“Honey,” Octavian sighed. “You’re going to catch toxoplasmosis if you keep on doing that. You do realize it, I suppose?”
“In theory, I do,” I sighed back. “But I pray the Lord every morning when I wake up to protect me and the baby from that fetus-killing disease.”
Fetus-killing disease?
Oh, yes! For those of you who have never heard of toxoplasmosis before, here’s a hint:
“Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection. The infection agent is the form of toxoplasma parasite know as the oocyst which is transmitted in the feces of cats who become contaminated by eating mice, birds, and other previously infected creatures. Of the several thousand cases of congenital toxoplasmosis that occur in the United States each year, about 25% of the infants are born with irreversible defects: brain damage, blindness, and enlarged liver and spleen. In some cases, the babies are stillborn.” (Fishbein’s Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopedia: Home Library Edition, 1983)
Our family doctor once explained three years ago, “Toxoplasmosis is deadly to fetus. If you acquire it within the first trimester, it is likely the baby won’t survive. And if you’re contaminated by the disease after the first trimester, the baby will probably survive, though not without high risks of birth defect, such as heart dysfunction, mental retardation, or lack of limbs. Nearly all women who suffer from toxoplasmosis are not able to bear children. And even if they do conceive, they are bound to miscarry.”
I am EXTREMELY and ASTOUNDINGLY LUCKY to give birth to a boy with two right thumbs and no internal or external birth defect of whatsoever! It seems that God really heard my prayer for a physically and mentally healthy child – praise the Lord!
Nevertheless, I should advise you, would-be-mothers: don’t be a daredevil like I was!
If you’re pregnant or planning to get pregnant, PLEASE: avoid contact with animals (especially cats), maintain a good home and personal hygiene, refrain from eating raw or rare meats (satay or kebab, for example), and don’t eat or drink in places you’re not sure of its cleanliness. These are the precautions every expectant mothers MUST follow in order to protect herself and her baby from the threat of toxoplasmosis.

Get On or Get Back?

Octavian and I know a good mechanic who worked in a repair station ten minutes drive from home. We used to take our motorcycle there for regular service and tune-up. But three days ago we went there and found out he had quit his job and opened a fashion outlet with his wife nearby the market. Although we are rather disappointed at losing one of the best mechanics we know, both of us are more concerned with whether or not he had made the right decision.
Everybody wants to get on with life, so they calculate the risks and benefits in scheming for a future plan before coming up with a decision. The aim is clear: to move forward, rather than to walk around in circles or even fall backward.
Nevertheless, the question remains: how can we tell for sure that what we’re doing is pushing us forward? What if the steps that we think as “forward” is actually taking us “backward” without our being aware of it? I might be sounding skeptical or even pessimistic, but things often don’t seem like what they really are.
The point is: let’s make sure we really know what we’re doing before opting for a change and jumping out of our safety zone.

Two Men Disagreed

There was this true story concerning two men who quarrelled over a certain matter. So sharp was their argument that eventually they decided to go their separate ways.
One of them complained to his pastor’s wife, and after a long, bitter explanation, he concluded, “I don’t think we’ll ever get along. I’d better be anywhere else than share the same table with that man!”
The pastor’s wife fell silent for a while, then said, “I see. But suppose at the end of time he happens to sit at the Lord’s table, where will you be?”
It’s no laughingstock. Disputes, arguments and disagreements happen everywhere around the globe – and it is normal. It’s a part of our nature to have free mind and freedom of thoughts. The point is, whatever the case may be, don’t take it to the extreme. There will be time when we realize that being overly-determined over a certain matter isn’t really worth it.

Talking About Intermarriage

Have you ever thought of the term “hybrid”? A hybrid is the output of interbreed between two different species or varieties of animals or plants.
For example: you mate a donkey and a horse, and you’ll get a mule as a hybrid. The method of cross-breeding different varieties of plants has also been practiced for years by agriculturists in the effort of producing higher-quality crops.The aim is to minimize the downside and maximize the upside of each parent variety’s characteristics. The hybrid process has resulted in more abundant, larger and sweeter fruit than the parent varieties.
It is also quite true in case of people. It’s just that we don’t call it “cross-breeding;” it’s labeled “intermarriage”: the marital union between two people of different tribes or races. You might be familiar with the term “mulatto” (descendant from parents of black and white races). Mariah Carey and Melanie “Scary Spice” Brown are mulattos. Have you ever noticed how gorgeous and talented they are?
In my country, we’ve got dozens of tribes scattered all over the archipelago; some permit intertribe marriage, some don’t. Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice that children with parents of different tribes tend to possess higher intelligence and better physical features and stamina than those who are not.
Curious, isn’t it? Is it all about DNA or intercultural family life?
Beat me… All I’m suggesting is that we really should be open to options, and when it comes to getting eternally bound to someone outside our tribe or race, I’d say: right on!

Music and Pregnancy

Several years ago, as some of us might have heard, there was a discovery in popular science called the “Mozart Effect.” Some experts claimed that listening to classical music (Mozart’s works, in particular) beginning as early as the second trimester of pregnancy might enhance the development of cerebral cells of the fetus, thus producing children with IQ superior to the average. After the publication of the discovery, listening to classical music started to become a booming trend among expectant and nursing mothers. Who wouldn’t want to have children with superior IQ?
However, not so long ago, another theory emerged that refuted and exposed the faulty of Mozart Effect. Now, which theory is true, one may wonder?
No one can be sure.
But in my opinion, music talks to and has more influence on our mood, feelings and character instead of physical aspects. Every kind of music has its own sould, which communicates primarily with our soul instead of brain.
Whenever I listen to Bach or Mozart, I feel calm, peaceful and mentally nourished. Jazz tends to expand my creative thoughts, while Flamenco and Salsa energize me so much that my body wants to dance, dance, dance! It’s amazingly true throughout both pregnancies I’ve undergone.
When I was having Dharma, Octavian kept on playing a mixture of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Debussy on the WinAmp for hours and hours on end. I had no problems during prenatal period because the baby was so calm inside me. Even after he was born and has grown into a toddler, we never find any difficulty caring for him, since he’s so calm, thoughtful and orderly-minded.
It isn’t so with my second pregnancy. When I was having Sarah, my husband was so into Jazz that most of the day I listened to Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Martin Taylor and Chick Corea – not to mention Weather Report and Java Jazz. The baby has learned to kick my ribs real hard even before reaching the third trimester. She has now grown into a vigorous, agile baby with a strong free-will and very good sense of humor.
Those months of listening to different kinds of music during two pregnancies really speak a lot!
So, does Mozart Effect really work?
I can’t assure you that. All I can say is that if you are expecting or nursing a baby, it’s best to listen to as much good music as you can. There’s nothing you can lose by doing that!

Valentine 2009

When St. Valentine was lurking in his cell in Rome, counting the days, hours and seconds awaiting his execution centuries ago, I’m pretty sure he never had the slightest idea that his death would be commemorated by people all over the globe up to this day.
But destiny is strangely peculiar.
A deceased became a real hero through his death.

May the spirit of St. Valentine echo throughout the ages on Earth!
Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Joy in Nature

I can’t help but notice the behavior of the birds perching on the wall across our bedroom window as I write this down. Decades ago, I wouldn’t realize how great the beauty I missed as I rushed to school by car every morning.
But afterward, after our car was sold and I got to walk a quarter mile every day to catch public transport, little by little the beauty of nature began to unravel before me. I had never noticed before the way birds groomed each other while perching on a fence, the way alley cats nursed their young, the way a mother hen gathered her chicks under her wings, or the way pigeons wooed their mates. I started to enjoy watching children played traditional games with wood and stones, and even found it exciting to walk home drenched in the rain because I forgot bringing an umbrella when I left for campus in the morning.
There’s so much joy and beauty in nature for listening ears and watching eyes – provided that we take time to listen and watch.
Can you hear them chirp, sing, and shout to the glory of the Creator?

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Our Village

If you ever come to visit us, you’d probably get the impression that we’re living in a fairy-tale’s setting. Our house is located on the slope of a mountain where streams flow to water the nearby rice-farms. Not far away, there’s a waterfall and hundreds of acre of harvest field – green in sowing season, gold in harvest time.
Yet closer to the peak of the mountain stand a hundred mansions, some of marble, some of granite, some are large, some are very large, some look like castles, some like palaces and shrines. It greatly resembles the pictures in bedtime stories that depict a great palace overlooking towns and villages where the subjects of the nobles live.
But we prefer being the subjects, not the nobles.
Why, you might ask?
Because… The nobles live in the city, immersing themselves in projects of making money to pay for their mansions’s bills and housekeeping. They are only able to visit their lofty mansions four times a month (maximum), on weekends and public holidays.
They don’t live here. They have no idea how luxurious it is to live here.
We dwell in houses of bricks and stones. Most of us don’t even have fences to mark the boundary of our homes. Some of us are farmers, some are herdsmen, while others are teachers, merchants, and grocers.
Every morning, we rise before the sun luminates the horizon, say our prayers and light the firewood on the hearth. We breathe the fresh air tinted with pine scent and drink water straight from the spring. We work our fields and take our cattle out for grazing. We walk to the woods to collect firewood and none of us dies before reaching 70 years of age.
And none of us ever dreams of becoming a nobleman…!

Talking about Divorce

For the last few years, I can’t help but notice that alongside the rate of vehicle purchase, there is one subject ever increasing in percentage: the rate of divorce.
Yes, D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
It’s been occuring over and over again all around the globe, regardless of social status, nation, tribe, race and religion (even Catholics are now permitted to divorce!). So often has it happen that divorce is no longer considered as shame. It tends to become a trend instead!
Let me give you an example:
Some time around four years ago, Octavian and I visited a well-off old friend. She, her husband and children lived in luxury – and they seemed to be happy with their family life. Eventually, after recalling many past events of youth, she came down into discussing her successful private business and the house she bought under her own name.
“Why would you do that?” we asked.
“Just in case,” she replied conversationally. “Who knows if something unexpected takes place in the future and my husband and I will have to separate? I’m simply preparing for the turn of the tide if it ever comes my way.”
We were not at all surprised when last month we heard about her upcoming divorce. She had been thinking about it for years; and by anticipating, she had actually been half-expecting it, no matter what the triggering reason was.
This is the trend!
And it tends to pass on. Why?
Because when children of divorced couples observe the way their parents fight to break their marriage instead of struggling to renew and keep it intact, they will tend to apply the similar pattern in their future life and marriage. The victims of it will multiply from hundreds to thousands to millions!
Why should we cause more casualties in this hurting world?
Why do we choose the bad over the good?
Divorce is not the only option in solving marital problems.
In case a woman has been betrayed and thus divorces her husband, then get remarried to another man; if her latter husband does her wrong after some time, will she plea for another divorce? How many divorces and marriages will she have to go through to find the perfect man to spend her entire life with? (And remember: no living person on earth is perfect!)
Why not opt for reconciliation?
Let’s take time to reconsider remorse, introspection, and resolution.
Let’s break the chain of passing down the pain (and curse) of divorce to the next generation.
It has got to stop HERE, NOW!

Abortion...???

When my son was 8 months old, his father and I were surprised on finding out there was another baby inside my womb. The conception was pretty much unexpected and our reaction at that moment was a mixture of surprise and confusion. Having two toddlers at once didn’t seem to fit anywhere in our plan.
It was in such a befuddling time that a friend of ours offered the help to abort the baby.
“It’s alright,” she said. “You haven’t passed the first trimester. It hasn’t got a formed body, so it is not human yet. I know a gynecologist who’s willing to do it provided that you’ve got the money.”
I stared at her like someone who’d just got slapped – stunned, bewildered.
Misinterpreting the look on my face, she confidently added, “No worries. It’s risk-free, I assure you. I myself have done it twice!”
I had no idea how she got that view planted in her mind, but if abortion is truly risk-free and morally alright, both religious and government laws would have legalized it, wouldn’t they?
On regard to law in medical practice, I know that abortion is permissible only when there is highly serious threat on the life of the mother, the baby, or both.
And on regard to religion, let’s see…

For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body.All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.(Psalms 139:13-16, NIV)

How erronous it is to think that simply because a 10-week-old fetus hasn’t got a completely formed human shape it is not yet considered as human! The above verses clearly prove otherwise! The option shoved to my face at that moment was murder!
I finally told our acquaintace, “Why, thanks. But no, thanks.”
After that, Octavian and I spent the rest of the pregnancy in positive mood, in bright expectation.
And look what we’ve got nine months afterward:
A cute, cuddlesome, lovely daughter!

Shelley

If there is a poet I greatly admire for the finest, musical quality of his works, it’s Shelley. But rhymes only would speak too little to depict the man.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley and husband of Mary W. Godwin Shelley (author of FRANKENSTEIN), was one of England’s most celebrated poets – who was also recorded as one of the most revolutionary writers in British history.
Noteworthy for his outspoken views on politics, Shelley was forced to undergo exile in Italy, where he continued to write on behalf of the oppressed of his people. (It is worth noting that the majority of British citizens in those days – children included – were hard-laborers with little or no prospect of gaining a better standard of living.)
Shelley wrote in MEN OF ENGLAND: A SONG (1819):

Sow seed – but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth – let no impostor heap;
Weave robes – let not the idle wear;
Forge arms – in your defence to bear.

Shelley, the revolutionist, died a month before his 30th birthday. The ship he boarded drowned on the voyage from Leghorn to Lerici.
Like most defenders of human rights, he was silenced…

Fleeting Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;
it will neverPass into nothingness…

These opening lines of John Keats’s ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE seems to echo the ideal, everlasting nature of beauty.
It is, however, not always applicable in reality.
Suffice it to say that in the real (= not ideal) world, beauty don’t last.

All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. (I Peter 1:24, NIV)

A heartbreaking example is the story of Mariana Bridi da Costa, Brazilian highly-talented top model who drew her last breath before reaching 21.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterial infection took her life away in the prime of life. Even after surgeons amputated both her arms and legs – reducing her body to mere torso – and removed parts of her inner organs, the disease prevailed. Mariana died, leaving thousands of dreams and hope of becoming the world’s next beauty icon behind.
Most of us perhaps will not share the same fate that befell Mariana. But let us always keep in mind that “charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting” (Proverbs 31:30, NIV), and focus to enhance the inner, invisible qualities of our character rather than the outer, visible beauty.

Being Human

Shamantika = Shinta Dhammayanti Kaawoan

There’s so much to share and tell on this journey home.
Life, love, and everything in between…
Sometimes life’s so overwhelming,
Sometimes so precious the lessons we learn from each day.
All shapes us into the persons we should be.

Let’s stop and stoop awhile...
And meditate on what it means to be truly human.