A Candlelight Vigil in Malaysia

A guest essay from Shesshsan Balakrishnan on a birthday vigil for a 37-year-old man on death row in Malaysia; a visit to Brilliant Time, a Southeast Asian bookstore & library; and a jazz podcast.

Happiest holidays, dear friends. We’re so grateful for this intimate community of ours.

It’s been a tough year. We’ve avoided talking about family health issues, largely because they’re not ours to discuss, but we hope to eventually share those struggles, which have been the hardest of our lives—in particular looking back and wondering what we could have done differently. (Sorry for being cryptic.) Still, in the words of our friend Cyrus, who’s studying to be a Jesuit priest, “That desire to blame yourself is the evil spirit, which seeks to turn us away from God and inward.” So our holiday wish is to turn outward a bit more. More presence, more love, more friendship, more faith.

We’re going on holiday break once we send this newsletter out; we’ll see you again in the new year. If you’re a reader in Taiwan, we hope to meet you! For readers everywhere else, do come visit us in this beautiful country, or just write us to say hello. Photos of pets, gardens, pets in gardens, wild animals, sk…