It's the lunar new year, and like every other year, it comes with the obligatory temple visits with relatives. Today, that ritual is reenacted at a temple at Boon Lay.

Sitting on a wooden bench waiting, I wonder why people pray or burn joss sticks, papers etc. In that religious space, these objects embody prayers, thanks and hopes, setting themselves between the worldly and the divine.

Pardon my imprudence. But I bet most devotees are requesting the deities for something when they stick their incense into the ash. The whole scenario seems to me, at its very core, to be an exchange relationship. Even if it is one imagined in the minds of people.

Isn't god all-loving? In that case, he doesn't need reminders to do good. Who knows, he probably find all the smoke because of the burning a little too uneco-friendly for his taste. Isn't god giving? Then he doesn't need anything in return. Isn't god all-knowing? Surely, he should know what we need without us asking.

I don't know. Only questions and no satisfactory answer. Religion comes accompanied with sets of morality and meanings that I'm uncertain about. But faith - whether in god or in religion (yes, I think they are different) - is itself blind.

You simply believe. Or not.