All miracles are hearsays. Or all the witnesses of miracles are history. There are no witnesses alive today, and all the miracles would no longer be around to speak for themselves.
The Tree of Life is a miracle that you can hold in your hand, to examine, to touch, to feel, to see and to appreciate. You will be the witness to attest to its authenticity. No need to hear from anyone. Put it under the magnifying glass if still in doubt. I did not add a stroke or remove a dot from the painting.
The process involved for this painting to come to life is so complex and with so many variables that its appearance is not so easy like an accident. It was captured in a moment when light passed through the medium of moving water, ie it would never be the same again even if one is going to repeat the process. I shot in a burst, and only this frame gave me this painting. The rest of the shots within fractions of a second were totally different and barely any reasonable looking human forms.
The pic would simply be ignored and deleted by any photographer as it was bare of any forms or features of any meaning, just water and reflection of light. Even when processing, it took a very tedious effort to bring out the colours and details of the paintings with human forms that were easily recognisable without any need for imaginations. It would be very demanding for a good artist to paint these life like human forms on canvas, but here they are, appearing together so naturally. And it was all conceptualised and created by Mother Nature in a divine way that is beyond human imagination.
When the tree first appeared, I asked what kind of tree was it, a durian tree, a rambutan tree or what? I looked out for fruits but there were none. Then I recalled the phrase, 'judge a tree by the fruits it bears'. On closer scrutiny I saw human forms, many human forms. What else could it be but the Tree of Life?
All of you are living witnesses to this little miracle of life. And a few could be privileged to have a piece of this miracle to hold in your hand, to admire and appreciate for a life time, to share with your friends and loved ones. This is not simply a piece of art or painting to possess. There are more profound meanings in this piece of painting that are waiting to be discovered. This would make a good conversational piece for the faithful and believers.
I am glad to share this Tree of Life painting with so many people from so many countries visiting this blog. All the AngloSaxon and many English speaking countries are here, even non English speakers are here, eg Russia, Japan, South Korea, east and western European countries, some from Africa, also Turkey and Saudi Arabia etc and of course Malaysia and Indonesia.
PS. I am not a believer but have read the Bible and familiar with the concept of the Tree of Life.
29 comments:
Excuse me for the commercial. But there is really nothing happening in this island. The most important talking point now is about honesty and lying. Such a wonderful place to live in until it seems so boring. Singaporeans are constantly being impressed on being honest. What war in Ukraine?
Foreigners can lie, cheat, fake all they want. Never mind. Foreigners can do whatever they want, but not Singaporeans. The integrity of Singaporeans is incomparable and must be maintained at all cost or Singapore would be doomed.
Covid-19 vaccines helped prevent 8,000 deaths in Singapore during Delta wave: MOF report
The nationwide vaccine roll-out prevented around 8,000 Covid-19 deaths during the peak of the Delta wave last year.
Vaccines also helped the country avoid 33,000 severe cases and 112,000 hospitalisations, according to a report on the impact of various measures in the past two Budgets to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
These figures, based on new estimates from the Ministry of Health (MOH), were published on Thursday (Feb 17) in the 58-page report issued by the Ministry of Finance. It comes ahead of this year's Budget statement on Friday (Feb 18).
To arrive at its conclusions, MOH first looked at estimates of vaccine effectiveness in Singapore.
One local study found that unvaccinated people were more likely to get the virus from their infected household contacts, compared with vaccinated people. In such circumstances, vaccines were 56.4 per cent effective against infection.
The ministry also looked at age-specific differences in outcomes among Covid-19 cases reported between Aug 1 and Dec 31 last year, when Delta was dominant.
As a general rule, unvaccinated people were much more likely to be hospitalised, develop severe illness, or die - especially if they were also older.
For instance, vaccinated people aged 50 to 59 had a 4 per cent chance of hospitalisation, and a 1 per cent chance of falling severely ill.
But unvaccinated people in the same age group had a 34 per cent chance of being hospitalised and a 10 per cent chance of falling severely ill.
For older people aged 80 and above, the chance of hospitalisation for unvaccinated people was 88 per cent, compared with 51 per cent for the vaccinated.
Their chances of becoming severely ill were 41 per cent for the unvaccinated and 10 per cent for the vaccinated.
Using these figures, MOH simulated the number of hospitalisations, severe cases and deaths that would likely have taken place if vaccines were not available.
It estimated that the country would have seen more than double the 198,361 Covid-19 cases actually reported during the five-month period from August to December 2021.
The country would also have seen eight times the hospitalisation rate, nearly 12 times the number of severe cases and 11 times the number of total deaths.
"These estimates likely underestimate the benefits of vaccination, as they do not factor in the effect of vaccinations in reducing the chain of transmission and the likelihood of worse mortality outcomes if healthcare facilities had to manage a significantly higher caseload," the report noted.
It added that Singapore's vaccination programme helped the country keep death rates low throughout the pandemic.
As at Feb 15, the country had seen 16.7 Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 population.
This is on par with similarly highly-vaccinated countries such as South Korea and Japan, which saw 14 and 16.5 deaths per 100,000 population respectively.
In contrast, countries such as the United States have a relatively high death rate of around 277 deaths per 100,000 population, and lower vaccination rates.
@RB,
Advertising here is like playing Mozart to the cows. Nobody here can afford or willing to throw $4,000 or $10,000 for an online pic.
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S'pore 16.7 deaths per 100,000.
S. Korea 14
Japan 16.5
That means Sinkies are fatter & unhealthier than S. Koreans or Japs, considering that their population is older and yet lesser proportional deaths from Covid.
Maybe money & CPF no enough that's why die earlier.
Pure guess-work followed by speculation for propaganda purposes, in support of the vaccine producers due to profit-benefit motives, in order to dull the daft Sinkies.
Nothing else.
What's wrong with this article:
1. Ownself thanked Ownself.
2. Ownself praised Ownself.
3. Basically and clearly, the motive is to get more parents to get their young children vaccinated with the Pfizer and Moderna pseudo vaccines.
4. Posting this writeup at this place inappropriately shows no cow sense of decorum, ethical propriety, respect and online etiquette.
5. And absolute carelessness and arrogance!
Anon 1:38pm, you are right, the commercial is not so much for Singaporeans.
I am counting on the foreign visitors visiting here to spread the words. These are the weekly numbers.
France
3.72K
United States
2.17K
Indonesia
1.6K
United Kingdom
1.28K
Australia
642
Malaysia
588
Sweden
265
Saudi Arabia
147
Germany
121
Bulgaria
63
South Korea
44
Netherlands
39
Czechia
22
Canada
21
Honduras
14
Japan
10
China
9
United Arab Emirates
8
Other
814
Just hope they're real foreigners and not overseas sinkies, or local sinkies using spoof VPNs. Overseas sinkies are also kiam kanas.
Mdm Chin Ho:
It has now been revealed vaccinated Indonesians are allowed to visit Singapore quarantine-free but vaccinated Singaporeans are not allowed to enter Indonesia without quarantine!
Obviously, Indonesia must be treating Singapore as a pariah country infested with a highly contagious disease.
So humiliating!
Even NTUC . . . .
Vipul Chawla, a former Pizza Hut International president, will be the new chief executive of FairPrice Group, taking over from current group CEO Seah Kian Peng.
"Following a global search, we identified Vipul as the best person for the job. His strengths will augment the leadership team. I am confident that he will build on our legacy and propel our ambitions for the group," said Bobby Chin, chairman of the board at FairPrice Group.
Mr Vipul, 54, a Singaporean, will continue the efforts made by Mr Seah to accelerate the growth of FairPrice's physical stores and online retail, supported by a robust supply chain strategy.
He holds a postgraduate degree in management studies from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research at Bombay University.
I hope Mr Vipul will be able to do to NTUC what the DBS guy did. My DBS shares sky high now, bro. Heng!
The love affair with CECA is growing from strength to strength. Apparently pizza selling experience is very relevant to running supermarkets.
Alamak! So complicated, meh? Any uncle and auntie can run a grocery store. Don't need to hire a PMT for this.
Running a transport company, a postal service, a supermarket chain, is not rocket science. And more elementary if it is a local service, not competing will Wallmart or Taobao or Shopee.
A Bombay degree is just about right. A world class degree from NUS or NTU would be too much.
I hope Kopitiam would not go around the world to search for a foreign talent and pay world class pay to run kopitiams.
Singaporeans got no talent even to run a local super market.
Give a foreigner a pink IC and eureka, he is a Singaporean.
Please do not complain that a foreigner has taken over a high paying job that no Singaporeans want. Singaporeans only want to be Grab drivers.
India Summons Singapore's Envoy Over PM Lee 's Truthful Remarks in Parliament About India's MPs
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has summoned Singapore's envoy to India - Simon Wong - over remarks made by the country's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament on Wednesday.
Addressing Singapore's Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had invoked Jawaharlal Nehru to argue how a democracy should function. He made the statement during a debate over a committee report on complaints against a former Workers' Party lawmaker.
He went further to add, "While Nehru's India has become one where, according to media reports, almost half the MPs in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) have criminal charges pending against them, including charges of rape and murder. Though it is also said that many of these allegations are politically motivated."
WE VERY AGREE WITH OUR PM LEE ON INDIA'S MPs !!
( Cont_d)
Here's the supporting evidence of India's MPs' shame:
According to an analysis done by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) after the last Indian general election in 2019, nearly half the Lok Sabha members had criminal charges against them, an increase of 26% when compared to the members of the House in 2014.
Of the 539 winning candidates analysed by ADR, a total of 233 MPs or 43% faced criminal charges. Nearly 29% of these cases involved serious charges such as rape, murder, attempted murder or crimes against women, ADR had said.
A world class degree from NUS or NTU would be too much.
Exactly. If a Bombay degree can run Microsoft and Google, we should be running Alibaba and Tesla.
Here's the link to India's MPs' shame:
https://adrindia.org/content/lok-sabha-elections-2019-analysis-criminal-background-financial-education-gender-and-other
New Delhi: India has slammed the Singapore Prime Minister's comments on "Nehru's India" and the criminal record of MPs and has said it will take it up with the country. "The remarks by the Prime Minister of Singapore were uncalled for. We are taking up the matter with the Singaporean side," government sources said.
The ungrateful Indians have forgotten quickly that Singapore had sent to them a lot of oxygen to save their lives during last year's tragic Indian COVID wave, and provide the Indians alot of good-paying jobs in Singapore at the expense of Singaporean PMETs. They now slam the city state for speaking the unpleasant truth about them.
Singapore must tell the Indian BJP government in no uncertain terms that whatever is said by Singapore government officials in Singapore's Parliament has to be the truth, is the truth, the absolute truth and nothing but the truth.
So Singapore stands by what it says that almost half the Indian MPs in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) have criminal charges pending against them, including charges of rape and murder.
India should not bully to suppress Singapore's right to speak the ugly truth of India's MPs.
India should not think it can push Singapore around like what it did to the Maldives, where there's an ongoing “India out” campaign by fed-up Maldives people.
Sheng Siong would now have to go round the world to hunt for a foreign talent to take over its HDB supermarket business or else would lose out to NTUC FairPrice now run by a foreign talent turned Singaporean.
When did this fella become a Singaporean, after being offer the job?
Think NTUC FairPrice is going international, first market in India, then USA and UK.
Huat ah!
The economic genocide of local born Singaporeans is progressing beautifully. First they go for the lower income workers followed by the PMETs. Now they are going for the senior management. If the PAP continues to be in charge, in a generation or two local born Singaporeans will have to work as maids and construction workers either here or abroad. A new class of elites mainly from South Asia will have been created to enjoy the fruits of our Pioneers' hard work and sacrifices.
A job like running a number of Supermarkets can easily go to a Singaporeans. What kind of people would give such a job to foreigners?
They can sell your father and mother away if you are still sleeping.
So ungrateful.
Wake up!!!
One more reason to support any other but Fairprice.
With so many stupid people in positions of power, sinkies will sink further.
More foreigners would be brought in to pluck low hanging fruits the pioneer and merdeka generations planted. The children of these generation will not benefit from their fathers and mothers' contribution.
@Clear eye or Cock Eye - what other reason do you have? Isn't it enough that he is Indian.
All jobs that Singaporeans can do must be given to Singaporeans like running a group of provision shops. There is no need for a foreign talent for this kind of jobs.
The government owes it to Singaporeans to create good jobs, not to India.
Have the people open their eyes and know who they should vote to take care of their well beings? They have been repeatedly betrayed and still sleeping as if nothing has happened.
It is very sad to see Singaporeans driving Grabs or young and healthy Singaporeans sitting outside shopping centres and buildings checking trace together tokens. Singaporeans deserve better.
This is our country, not some country's colony. Very shameful to see foreigners given top jobs that Singaporeans can easily do.
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