In a timeless perfection
I am. I read. I write. I talk.
I fly. I dance. I laugh. I love. I am.
God smiles at me.
I read a book. Write two. Paint New life.
I debate; make a speech.
I love the theatre. I make a movie.
And Master Artist smiles at me.
Unperturbed by time, I cherish being
The essence of what I am;
The discovery of my real self.
My Architect smiles at me.
I am; my being Him worships
My New Life I love. My New Home I cherish
My King of Kings smiles at me
And I at Him. This is heaven.
Alone in the station
Wanting the train to stop
As the train leaves with the loved one
On a journey of no return
Forever ingrained in a haunting memory
The eyes in the window watching
The eyes that would kill
Till the beholder’s closes forever
Would the beholder’s eyes close as the train moves
In a prayer to stop the moving mass of steel
Or would it be riveted into the eye at the window
Not the loose the last of the loved one
The eyes all the more endearing
As the loved one disappears into oblivion.
Until all there is, is nothing.
Nothing but a searing pain in the fainting sense.
The train is gone.
The whole being fights in sobs deep and big.
The eyes that held itself clear and dry
To look for the last of any love
In the eyes at the window, flood now.
The frigid being comes to senses, afraid.
Lost forever, the loved one
Left forever with an inexorable longing
For the love and the time gone by.
The time that consciousness fears loosing for eternity
A time that has become its own curse
A curse that would continue till the casket closes
Of falling in love with the wrong pair of eyes.
Alone at the station of life
The train moves on.
(inspired by the ending scene of ‘Sunflower’ one of Sophia Loren’s classics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbU-a99giUg this is the scene where the husband of hers who loved her initially suddenly leaves her for another woman far off)
Once an editor sent a letter soliciting an essay from G.K. Chesterton on the topic ‘What’s Wrong With The World’. The editor was shocked when he opened the mail which contained the essay because all it said was…
I am.
Yours truly,
G.K. Chesterton.
The editor had to read it twice before he understood that what G.K. Chesterton meant as the answer was ‘There is nothing wrong with the world, it is just that I am wrong with the world’. I had a similar experience at St. John’s Divine Episcopal Church at Houston this Sunday morning, the experience wasn’t as profound as to be worthy of G.K. Chesterton’s quote. I just find the analogy a funny one.
I woke up at 7:00 am on Sunday and got ready to go to 8:45 AM service at St. John Divine Church. I started in my bike which at about 8:20, the roads were unusually vacant. I was at SJD sharp at 8:45 but I found very few cars. “What’s wrong here” I was thinking, “don’t people come to Church in time?” I entered the main Church there was not even a single usher. What is wrong with the ushers aren’t they supposed to be here. I went into the church to find the pews empty, not a soul in the Church. Now I was confused.
I went out there was a lady walking by, I asked her if there wasn’t’ supposed to be a service there at 8:45 AM. “Yes there is” she said. “But the Church is empty” I replied. “Oh, we shifted back an hour, there is a service which starts at 7:45 AM in the chapel, you may come there” she replied and walked off. I was thinking to myself, What on earth did she mean when she said ‘we shifted back an hour’. I can shift something that is humanly tangible, I can shift the venue of a meeting, I can shift my house. How can I shift time? Even God hasn’t performed that miracle for more than two and a half millennia. I though to myself, “What is wrong with her”
I looked at my watch it was almost 9:00 AM. So I was late to the 7:45 AM service by over an hour. I thought that I would be in time for communion at least. I entered the chapel and the lessons were being read. I thought again, “What is wrong with this service, isn’t the service supposed to have the lessons at the beginning much before the communion?”. I was baffled and thought that may be there was a problem in the main church and so they shifted the service to the chapel. But still the chapel was too small and there were very few people. Even if the venue had been shifted shouldn’t the folks that come regularly have come? What is wrong with these regular Church folks? Did they all decide to come to the 11:00 AM service? What is wrong with them? Or was there an important football game? The service was over and as I was coming out, a genial old man came up patted me on my shoulder and told me nice to see you young man. It then occurred to me there I was the youngest guy there. Why aren’t there any young people here? What is wrong with the young people, don’t they come to Church anymore? By then it was about 10:00 AM in my watch.
I went to the main Church building, where as per the Church bulletin, a Bible Study was to begin at 10:00 AM, but to my utter confusion there were ushers giving pew sheets for the 8:45 service. “What is wrong with this Church today?” I was thinking.
So I went to one of the ushers and asked him, “Isn’t there supposed to be a Bible study here?”
He said, “Yes, it is at 10:00”.
I replied “Yes, but then why is there a service now?”.
“This is the 8:45 service” he said.
I replied “But shouldn’t there by be the Bible study here now?”
He as visibly confused as what I was trying to ask. And I was thinking so “What is wrong with this guy?” I really did not know what to ask him next, he really did not know what to tell me. I was wondering. “I just don’t get it, What is wrong with the world today?”
Then I heard a familiar voice calling me “Emmanuel” from behind I turned and there was Dana and Don who always have the knack of finding me when I am lost in Church and making me feel at home. I asked Don “I was thinking there supposed to be a Bible study now at 10:00 here, but why is there the service now instead of the Bible study?” Don thought for a moment and had a hearty laugh and said “Dude you didn’t set your watch back by an hour”. Then it occurred to me that it was Day light savings time shift when all clocks all over the US would be shifted back by an hour I forgot to set my watch back by an hour.
I had been at Church at 7:45 but my watch was wrongly pointing at 8:45 am. So I was attending the 7:45 service thinking it was the 8:45 service. There was nothing wrong with the woman who said ‘we shifted back an hour’. There was nothing wrong with the reading of lessons in the 7:45 service. There was nothing wrong with me being the youngest guy at the 7:45 service, the young guys come to the 8:45 service. There was nothing wrong with the usher whom I had confused by my questions. There was nothing wrong with the world. It was just that I was wrong with the world.
Nevertheless to do my best to rectify my mistake, I attended the 8:45 service which I had originally intended to attend. And then I attended the Bible study at 10:00 it went on till 11:00 and till 11:30 I was at the contemporary service, by then I had had 3:30 hours of nonstop church activity. I decided to take a break. I sat with my laptop at the SJD lobby and was deep into my writing. At 12:30 I went to lunch with my friends at Lake wood. I was back at the SJD lobby at 4:00 pm to work on my writing. On my way back, Rev Doug waved at me as he drove past. I was thinking to myself as to what a queer sight in the road I was, because I guess I was doing a very un-American thing of ‘commuting’ in my bike wearing formal.
SJD lobby is a quite place to concentrate to do some writing. I stayed at SJD and I attended the 6:00 PM service as well. On the whole today I attended al most all services on a Sunday. So the day that started with everything being seemingly wrong ended as a perfect Sunday.
If someone in India wants to cater to his/her urge for crazed violence, then all one has to do is to find a church or prayer hall which can be vandalized at will and then the blame can be put on the ‘idea’ that Christians indulge in forced conversion, never mind the ‘fact’ there in the law courts there isn’t even a single conviction in the numerous arrests that have been made on the false charges of forced conversion.
If someone in India wants to have on heck of a time beating families peacefully sleeping in their homes, then all one has to do is find a Christian home in the neighborhood and break into it at night and beat them black and blue. The ‘propaganda’ that Christians are the ones who run the many destitute homes so that inmates can be forcibly converted to Christianity somehow warrants such treatment in the middle of the night.
If someone in India wants to play a real life game of hunting down humans in jungles all one has to do is get a bunch of like minded folks and storm a Christian village chase the villagers into jungles and then hunt them down until the thirst for blood is quenched. The ‘prejudice’ that Christians are the first to aid riot victims or victims of natural disaster only to indulge in more forced conversion of the victims somehow deserves such cleansing of villages.
All of this beating, looting, raping, lynching and burning alive of Indian Christians can be done free of cost. None will be questioned, none will be made to face the law. It is all free of cost. But this shall not continue on forever, one day justice shall come knocking on the doors of these despicable sons of the Indian soil and demand its pound of flesh, then they shall pay the likes of Praveen Togadia, Bal Thcakrey and Raj Thackrey . Until then Indian Christians come free of cost.
The important Christian perspective that should not be forgotten by the cheap Indian Christians, is not to somehow find a way to make it costlier to persecute Indian Christians but to somehow get the attention of the persecutors onto the single most important even in ‘space-time’ which made Indian Christian free of cost – the blasphemous possibility where the God of the heavens was made free of cost to be beaten and killed by a frivolous throng.
The only payment that Christians can receive from such persecution is the harvest of souls that generally follows every widespread persecution in history. But that payment would never be received if focus of the cross is lost. By not focusing on the cross and by focusing on making Indians costlier, a stop can be put to such inhuman blood-boiling persecutions, but Indian Christian would only have made themselves cheap for they would have relegated off the possibility of earning a big payment of persecution harvested souls.
I love observing kids, I love talking to them. To me, they are the ones that talk least nonsense.
Sometime back , when I went for fresher interviews to college campuses one thing I would often wonder about is how to judge the attitude of a person sitting across the desk, who often try to feign polished attitudes.
A couple of weeks back during the annual harvest festival INGAT at the St. George’s Cathedral at Chennai the perfomance of some little children helped me get some insights into how the attitude of the interviewee could be judged. I was incharge of the youth group’s stalls and when I realized that some little kids were dancing I went to see them. That was when I noticed something pertaining to their attitude.
A few kids were really happy about what they were doing, they did not have all the necessary co-ordination but still the element of ‘happiness’ was high. They needed no external reason for doing what they were doing, the happiness they felt in dancing was sufficient reason enough. On the other hand a few other kids were just performing for the sake of performing perhaps their parents wanted them to dance or their sunday class teacher forced them to enroll. Internally, by themselves, they had no reason as to why they had to do what they were doing. What they did simply brought them no happiness.
Even in work I often find people who are not really happy about the work they do. When there is a problem with the written program and work needs to be done to ‘fix’ it their face becomes as oblong as it could. They work not for the joy of work but for the sake of something else.
Applying this to conducting interviews, the interviewer need to ascertain the extent of ‘happiness’ the person has in just ‘doing’ the work he says he has been doing, withtou regard to any external factors. The interviewer has to ascertain if the interviewee worked in his college for the joy of work or if he worked to get a job or to get better grades. The best attitude to have is the attitude where work is a joy in itself.
The recent and continuing spate of Christian persecution has been a painful thing to observe and even more so to internalize. Internalization means asking myself the question “If I were to face the choice between the bullet and the Bible, with what ‘attitude’ would I choose the Bible?”, “Would I ‘cheerfully’ take the Bible and accept the bullet?” To be honest, I was thinking it may be difficult, in the moment of reckoning, to take the bullet and give up all the dreams and passions of life. So, I was not sure about how ‘cheerful’ I would really be at the prospect of martyrdom.
As this thought was going over my mind and in a way eating through my mind, I was at the Cathedral for a communion service on 27th Septmeber 2008, which was also my birthday. It was also the aniversary commomeration service of the union of Church of South India (CSI). It was a Eucharist service. When I was preparing for the communion, suddenly a thought struck. I was here ‘celeberating’ Christ’s martyrdom for my sake but I was being gloomy about my martyrdom for Christ’s sake.
It was in this mood of humble introspection as I was walking up to the altar to symbolically partake of the divine Body and Blood that communion had an entirely new meaning to me. It was after thinking through the existential prospect of martyrdom for Christ that Christ’s sacrifice for me seemed so much more real and closer to my heart.
The literate elitist Indians were shocked when they heard that a CEO, Lalit Kishore Chaudhury of Graziano Trasmissioni was beaten to death by the workers of his company at Noida, an important industrial centre of India. Perhaps they were even more appalled when the Union Labour minister Oscar Fernandes said ‘… this should serve as a warning to managements in other companies to respect the workers’ (an off-hand remark for which he later apologized).
To me, though that was indeed shocking, that wasn’t very surprising. The basic issue here is not about who is getting killed but about the basic impetus to do the killing – the principle which makes the killing an act of justice. The principle being that killing is justified not because the one killed did something wrong but because the one killed represented a force before which the killer feels powerless against. We have been used to this principle of resorting to killing people when one really does not know how to counter a force which seems unstoppable. The Hindu fanatics of Siva Sena and Bajrang Dal have been killing Christians to counter the seemingly unstoppable force of Christian conversions. When killings go on without any repercussions, acts of violence become the ultimate panacea to problems against which one feels powerless.
The Hindu fanatics do not know how to counter the force of Christian conversions. Let us face the fact, there have been cases where conversions were not genuine, there have been cases where conversions happened to gain material ends. But this is a small fraction of the conversions happening across India. The Hindu fanatics have no idea how to counter these mysterious conversions of the second kind which are much higher in number and more threatening than the first kind. They resort to violence and then justify killing Christians on flimsy ground that conversions are inhumane acts which deserves capital punishment.
The reason for killing the CEO was not so much about the wrongness of his decision to fire workers but the powerlessness the worker feel against him. The impetus to killing Christians is not the wrongness of the act of conversions, but the powerlessness one feels against the force of conversions.
The problem is this, once the idea of killing people becomes justified when one does not know how else to counter a force that is formidable and threatening, it naturally follows through that this principle will get applied to all spheres of life, including the communal, social and economic. Eventually, this principle of killing would also be applied to sphere of the economic disparities and what we have in our hands would be a revolution where the root cause wouldn’t be wrongness which deserves punishment but just a feeling of powerlessness which demands blood of those representing the indomidable force, to feel powerful against the force.
There are two ways to respond to a formidable force. One, is to give a cerebral response the other is to give a carnal response. When Emilie Zola in his campaign against the attrocities in the French army relied on the principle “Truth is on its march and nothing can stop her”, it was a cerebral response. When the Maximilien Robespierre started the French Revolution by appealing to the carnal inclinations of the masses, he set in motion a phenomena which had become a 800 pound ‘irrational’ gorilla and it turned back on him, it was the carnal response at its work. When reason is thrown out of the window and the basal instincts take over there is no saying who is next on line. The Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal are creating a 800 pound ‘irratonal’ gorilla which when let loose will be unstoppable.
It is saddening that the Intellectual Elite of Indian seems to be very slow in awakening to the realization of the creation of this irrational self-destructive phenomenon which will shake the very foundation of freedom and democracy in India.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Martin Niemoeller (A decorated U-boat captain of WWI who later became a respected Protestant leader who openly spoke against the Nazi ideology and was sent to a concentration camp for his anti Nazi propoganda)
Ever since the widespread persecutions got underway, I have been wondering about what the right Christian response to this ought to be. This is a painful and uncomfortable question to both reader and more so the writer because the writer ought to be aware that he would be judged by the King as per what he writes. In this writeup, I do not endevour to critic the Christian reaction or give my opinion on an good action plan to realign the Christian activity in India. I am going to try to delve into the underlying thought patterns and Christian convictions which are the impetus behind the Christian reaction.
The moment the persecutions started Christians have invariably jumped on the bandwagon of cranking the diplomatic mechanism to prevent a conflagration. The Christian egroups were flooded with what letters to be sent to ddresses of government authorities, rallies were organized, much was done to get the attention of the government and the media. Using the diplomatic avenues wisely is important, after all Paul used his Roman citizenship when it was wise and expedient to do so.
But the fundamental question one has to ask oneself is “why are the Indian metropolitan Christians so eager to get help by resorting to diplomatic channels?” is it because they want the plight of the poor tribes being hunted down in the jungles in Orissa to end soon or do react so because of the vested interests closer to their homes so that they wouldn’t themselves, because of unmitigated persecutions, have to face the thrust of the Trident in their big cities?
Empirically, Christianity has only spread when the blood of martyrs made the soil fertile for a huge harvest. Christian blood is the ransom for the gospel to have a substantial effect in any society. Even God had to give a ransom to usher a new age of freedom in human history. Even God was nor exempt from having to pay a ransom. Without ransom there can be no revival. But as I keep watching the reaction of the Indian metropolitan Christians, I seem to feel that they somehow want to be exempt from the necessity of the ultimate ransom – the Christian martyrdom.
The covert duplicity in the Christian reaction was clearly brought recently, when a Church was attacked in Mangalore, one of the most literate cities in India. The pastor of the church said to the Hindu fanatics who attacked them, “you guys got the wrong Church, in our church we don’t go about preaching the gospel to the non-believers, other churches preach the gospel to non-Christian, but we don’t. We don’t deserve to be punished so…”. The idea of having to pay a ransom for the Christian cause was too painful and unnecessary to these city churches.
This is a stark contrast to the attitude of the western missionaries during the early part of this centuary. In China the Boxer revolution of 1900 made martyrs of close to 200 western missionaries. The very next year, in ships from the west, close to 200 western missionaries landed on the Chinese shore to take the place of the martyred missionaries. Why? because they were inspired by the example set by their precedors. How? because that is Christianity at work where the followers of the King try to imitate His example of sacrifice. It was this attitude of great Christians that made Christianity to be global force to be reckoned with.
But before wondering if much of the Indian Christian reaction was Christian enough, one has to wonder how comfortable each of us is with the idea of martyrdom. “Would I be willing to be a martyr for Christ?”, “Would I lay down my life for God’s glory?”, “Would I be willing to be a martyr just to prove that I am ALL, God’s alone?”, “Would I be willing to forego all the dreams and passions of my life for the sake of Christian martyrdom?”, “Would I or would I not, that is the question.” Every Indian Christian ought to ask oneself these costly questions. Afterall, Christianity was never cheap.
The answer would be “Yes, I would”, if the greatest dream and passion of my life is to be considered worthy of partaking in the ultimate ransom by following the example of the greatest Martyr ever to have walked this earth. St. Peter did not even consider himself worthy of equal (similar) partaking with Christ and hence he made a plea to be crucified upside-down. No wonder Christ choose Peter to be the rock upon which the Church would be built. In the early Church, when martyrdom as considered an unequalled privilege not many would be worthy of, Christianity spread like wildfire.
In our cosmopolitan Churches, the idea of martyrdom is relegated as unnecessary and may be even archaic. The Indian cosmopolitan Churches need more Peters. The more Indian Christians are willing to be martyrs claiming their place closest to God, as flames in the ‘crystal lake’ before God’s throne, the more the Church would grow as a wildfire, after all there cannot be a revival without a ransom.
Today is the ‘Women’s Day’ in Diosces of Madras. I was a the evening eucharist service at the Cathedral and a special solo was sung after the lessons. It was a beautiful love song and I was initially thinking it was about God as the Groom and we as His bride but somehow that did not fit the context of the song, then I remembered that it was the special song for the ‘Women’s Day’ and I read it over and over again because it was such a captivating love song.
In Native Worth and Honour Clad – Haydn’s “Creation”
In native worth and honour clad,
With beauty, courage, strength, adorn’d
Erect, with front serene, he stands,
A man, the lord and king of nature all.
His large and arched brow sublime
Of wisdom deep declares the seat!
And in his eyes with brightness shines
The soul, the breath and image of God.
With fondness leans upon his breast,
The partner for him form’d,
A woman, fair and graceful spouse
Her softly smiling virgin looks,
Of flow’ry spring the mirror,
Be speak, him love, love and joy and bliss.
*****************************
It describes Adam and Eve. And may be it is a wee bit partriachal. And the soloist that sang this was male. No matter how manytimes I read this, the words just leap out to touch my heart.
It has been quite sometime since I had played in the rain, last time was back in June at the Sishya camp (/emmanuelreagan/2008/06/wandering-in-rain.html). Then again I got a chance to walk in the rain when I was at my home for Independence holidays and suddenly it began to rain. It wasn’t anywhere close to the Sishya rain, but it the droplets were fast and chilling and they pricked my skin.
I went to the terrace of my house and looked into around… and wondered how a rain could change the face of the land. No matter how beautifully man may make his Babel, with one rain its entire appearance is superceded with the beauty of the rain.
I wonder when my wonder for the rain would cease to be. I wonder if a day would come when I would see the rain and wouldn’t go out to be drenched in its beauty. I think if I were to see a day that is so I would rather not ‘be’ at all. It is better not to be at all than to be and see no beauty in life. In heaven life shall forever be beautiful and we shall forever be.
Christ Centered Spirituality 