Category: Musings on Culture & Life

Bottle – The Game

I think, just like women love to watch the Royal Wedding, men love playing Brute Sports. I think, just like watching the Royal Wedding gives the ladies a vicarious ‘Fairy Talish marrying a Prince’ sort of satisfaction, playing brute sports gives men a sort of Herculean satisfaction. Actually, at the GBC Men’s Retreat, I thought it was interesting coincidence when the men folk were at Stoney Creek Ranch, the ladies had  Royal Wedding Hat party. This is a sport admiring write-up of a new brute sport I played at the GBC Men’s Retreat last week. (Disclaimer: none of the hubbies of the ladies in the Royal Wedding Hat party were ‘j’s enough to mess with the ‘Bottle’).

For whole of the past week, I have been meaning to write about the most interesting of all games I have recently played, the ‘Bottle’. But I couldn’t get to it because I had to wait for my (slightly) mangled wrist (thanks to GBC Men’s Retreat Volley Ball and the ‘Bottle’ games) to get better. Today, when West mentioned in the Sermon that he got the ‘J’ word for being aggressive at ‘Bottle’ from one of the affectionate and assertive ladies in the Church staff, my resolve to write this increased. After Church as I was sitting outside reading Michael Horton’s “Gospel Driven Life”, Wes (I didn’t forget the ‘t’ there, this is not West, a different guy) walked up to me and said, “I loved the goal you scored at Bottle. That totally changed the strategy of the game”. Then I decided that I had to write about the ‘Bottle’, tonight.

The ‘Bottle’ is a game that was played at the GBC Men’s Retreat last weekend. Basically, it is a game of Ruby played in a pool with a bottle filled with water instead of an oddly shaped ball. The game mostly has to do with testosterone-driven brute Strength and Determination to not let go of the bottle no-matter-what, even if you are getting strangled beneath a pile of men over you. What makes the game interesting is that underwater, the bottle is almost invisible. There are two teams, two goal posts and only one rule – if a guy stops fighting and goes limp underwater, do the Christian thing and pull him up. I exaggerated it a bit there. Actually, it is not as violent as it sounds.

This being the first time I played ‘Bottle’, my first reaction was a mile shock (in the last Men’s Retreat, I went Skeet shooting instead of playing ‘Bottle’). When a guy gets the bottle immediately there appears a pile of male bodies over him trying to take the bottle away. I got into one of those piles and my immediate thought was, “Hmmm, looks like this is an easy way to get a fractured fore arm”. At that moment I resolved that my first goal in ‘Bottle’ was to make sure that I wouldn’t have broken bones. My second goal was to come up with a saner ‘strategery’ for playing the game.

I decided that I was NOT going to get into the pile of brutes. Instead, whenever there was a pile of bodies, I would analyze the pile to see who in the opponent team was the biggest threat to us losing control of the bottle and then go behind him and pull him out of the pile. Sometimes, it had the effect of breaking the pile. I SOOOOO enjoyed that. Pulling a guy who is holding on to the bottle or the guy with the bottle with all strength he can muster gives sort of a testosterone-kick. Basically I grab his wrists and start unwrenching his clasp and then have a mini wrestling match until I have pulled him out completely. Besides the testosterone-kick, the good thing about this is that the chances of a fractured limb is slim. Anyways, I was doing this over and over again and having a great time.

Every now and then the bottle gets lost under the pile of bodies and it is quite some time before folks realize that the bottle is no longer at the center. Then folks have to search for the invisible bottle underwater. It is in one of those moments that I realized that there was an interesting strategy for the game… I was near our team’s goal post. Everyone was searching for the lost bottle. I felt something hit my leg I knew it was the bottle. I knew if I disclosed knowledge of my possession I’ll be below a pile of male bodies, not a desirable place to be in. I didn’t make a noise. I feigned to be searching for the bottle and slowly started zig zagging towards the other goal post.

Everyone was frantically searching. Hiding the smirk, I was gleefully making my way to the goal post. Suddenly, I heard West singing Amy Grant’s “Emmanuel…. God with us” over and over again. West has a great instinct for the Bottle. West somehow figured out I had the bottle, body language I suspect. The opponent team sent out a guy to check me out… So this guy comes up behind me and gives me an ‘TSA patdown’. He didn’t quite check my hand, may be he thought it was too obvious a hiding place. He pronounced me ‘clean’.

Better one guy’s ‘TSA patdown’ than a pile of male bodies. Relieved, I continued zig zagging my way to the goal post. I think West was still singing “Emmanuel… “. West was unconvinced. Apparently he can sense the ‘Bottle’ just like the evil Sauraun can sense the presence of the ‘Ring’ in the Lord Of The Rings. When I got to the goal post there was none there. I took the bottle from under the water the kept it between the goal post. I could hear the stands erupt with laughter and cheers behind me. WOW!!!

‘Bottle’ became not just a game of BRUTE strength but of cunning and stealth as well! After all, it is wit that makes the man. Having a water-life of only 15 to 20 minutes, I start getting cramps. At the end of our match, when I got out of the pool with sorely cramped legs, George said you are MVP. I asked what does MVP mean. He said with his usual smirk and cute head-nod, “Most Valuable Player”. A compliment from a wounded-warrior to a fellow comrade couldn’t be more welcome. When West walked out of the service at Church, I ‘got his word’ that that he getting the ‘J’ word wouldn’t stop ‘Bottle’ from being played in the next GBC Men’s Retreat. 

Vain men go about doing vain stuff

Vain men go about doing vain stuff
On the day of reckoning we’ll see our vain stories
From our story of the Fruit of wisdom  
To the Tower that bears our exalted names
Our vanity making of us, narcissistic zombies
But for the Grace of God who is ultimately Glorified!
The One whose glorious Story, everyone one writes
Even the vain ones doing vain stuff.

Placarding the Crucified!

In the Finals of the very recent Cricket World Cup, when the Legendary Indian Batsman the ‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar got-out at a crucial moment, the British writer Andy Zalthman described the response of the crowd in the Stadium as follows.

A stunned hush clamped the Wankhede (stadium), as if the crowd at one of Jesus’ miracles had just seen their hero turn a sickly child into a mahogany bookcase, and mumble “Oops”, before scuttling off saying, “Same time next week?”

Seen as a piece of literary analogy, I think Andy Zalthman shows his class. But, as to the the spin he has given in portraying Jesus as a sort of Street Magician/Showman, I think his idea of who Jesus is, couldn’t be more grossly misconstrued from the Biblical portrayal of Jesus as a ‘reluctant’ miracle worker (Matt 12:39). 

Back in my college in India, I was known as a Christian. As is often the case, there was a hand full who did not like my Faith. One evening, as I was walking into the Hostel, one of the guy in the antagonistic group said aloud to a few of his friends standing by…

“I often wonder about Christians… They have a Cross because Jesus was crucified on the Cross. What if He had been hung to death, would they worship a ‘hanging rope’ instead?”

As insinuating as the statement was, not to mention the giggles I could hear behind my back, I couldn’t help but be happy about the comment. After all, isn’t is awesome that the focus of the latter insinuation was on the Crucified Lord which is central to the Gospel, instead of being on Christ’s misconstrued miracle working show business.

As Paul says in 1 Cor 2:2, proclaiming the Crucified Lord is more important to the cause of the Kingdom than any wise words or strategic planning or even an army of the committed. The evangelizing commission of the Christian is to PLACARD the Crucified Lord. But unfortunately, ‘Popular’ Christianity of the Materialistic 20th and 21st centuries has done a VERY bad job of PLACARDING the Crucified Lord. 

As supernatural as the Birth of Christ is, it is the Death of Christ that simply has no equal. Many religions have some idea of God incarnating in human form. But the idea of God dying  as a criminal in the place of His own Creation is an alien and unpalatable idea. I was speaking with a Muslim friend of mine. He told me that it was blasphemous even to suggest that the Creator can die in the hands of His own Creation, let alone being punished for the sin of the creation. Yet, this sacrilegious death is the fulcrum upon which the Christian Faith rests.

Church needs to PLACARD the Crucified Lord to a society that needs the Gospel. Unfortunately, Christian Tradition of this commercialized century gives more importance to Christmas than to ‘Good Friday’. In doing so the image of Christ we PLACARD to the society around us, is more a Santa Claus or a Benny Hinn styled Miracle Performer than the Crucified Lord. A Christian culture that fails to PLACARD the Crucified Lord will eventually find itself conforming to the patterns of the world around it. 

Lessening the emphasis of Christmas and Celebrating Good Friday with greater zeal and fervor would be a good place to start placarding the Crucified Lord to the society that needs Him badly. The Good Friday service which goes on from Noon to 3:00 PM is my MOST Cherished service of the Year. In India, it is also the one of the most attended services. In the far East communities, Good Friday is a huge event with community processions etc… Fortunately, the Episcopal Church I go to in Houston has the Good Friday mass. It has a decent attendance as well. 

But I am shocked to notice that most Churches in Houston don’t bother to have such a Good Friday service anymore. Some young committed Christians I spoke to seemed ignorant (or just indifferent) of the Noon to 3:00 PM format of the Good Friday service that is celebrated the world over. The popular culture enthralls itself with Easter Eggs and the Easter Bunny. At work, people wish each other ‘Have a great Holiday Weekend’. Christians wish each other ‘Happy Easter’. Every one skips ‘Good Friday’ as though it were something unpleasant to be swept under the carpet. I am little shocked to say the least. It seems to me that the Christian Traditions in the US is sort of upside-down. It seems to me that just as the Disciples deserted Christ when he had to hang for 3 hours on the Cross, most Churches are deserted during the commemoration of those 3 sacrilegious hours the Cosmos cringed witnessing. 


‘Good Friday’ getting less importance is perhaps just the ‘symptom’ of a flawed understanding of the centrality of the Crucified Lord to the Gospel. The ‘root cause’ of this problem of the Crucified Lord being sidelined is because our Church sermons seldom focus the Cross or the Crucified Lord. The Church sermons we hear often belie an ‘anxiety’ on the part of the Preacher to make the congregation REMAIN STUCK to the Church either by making them ‘feel good’ and entertained, or by making them ‘feel guilty’ by hitting them with the law, or by making them ‘feel loved’ in the propped-up Church community-life. Different people, depending on what their ‘psyche’ finds ‘attractive’ remain stuck to some variation of the sorts of ‘Crucified Lord-less’ Churches just described. If the Church continues to deal with the Crucified Lord as something to be swept under the carpet, it would no longer be the Corner Stone that causes the wise of the wider society to stumble (Rom 9:30-33).


If the Crucified Lord is the one whom we are supposed to PLACARD to the society around us, I can’t help but wonder why Good Friday has so much less emphasis than Christmas.   PLACARDING of the Crucified Lord would at the least force the likes of the recalcitrant Zalthmans to deal with the Rock the causes the wise to stumble, instead of giving them a straw man Showman-Christ-figure to use for a punching-back in their Cricket commentaries.  



1 Cor 1
22) Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23) but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles… 25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength


Wish you all a Solemn Good Friday and a Joyous Easter!!!

Adoring God!

It is natural for people to talk of God using ‘love’ for an adjective. ‘Love’ is the highest ideal that a man can possibly strive for. The famous French Existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre maintained that everything in life was absurd except ‘love’. Unfortunately, Love is also the most misused word. Every time I see the usual ‘dating sequence’ in the movies, Hollywood or Bollywood, where two people go out on a date and then get into the car and the apartment and into the bed all in the name of ‘making love’, it causes me to cringe within.

The problem with such depictions is not just the that the idea of love is being desecrated but that the popular perception of the what makes for ‘cherished companionship’ is twisted. This makes it all the more pertinent that when we talk of God, it does not help to just use the word ‘love’ without giving it the right ‘content’. This is very important because the first of the two great commandments is the commandment to LOVE the Lord with all the Heart, Soul and Mind.

Love is the ability to ‘value’ the person for who the person is. When the person we love is really a Good person, then the manifestation of our ‘valuation’ of that person turns to Adoration of that person. God is the most Good person ever. So any man who has the right value system can’t help but Adore God. The catch here is that no man can have he right value system unless he is indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God, having already been Redeemed by the Righteousness of Christ.

Once a person gets the right value system, he can’t help Adoring God for who He is. He can’t help Adoring the God who commanded King Saul that not even the animals of the Amalekites should be spared. He can’t help Adoring God who allowed the Creation to be cursed at the Fall. This Adoration of God’s Judgement on the Fallen world is not some form of sadism, rather it is an appreciation for the Beautiful unfallen world created by the Holy God. The Holiness of the Lord demands that there be judgement on the ones who attempted to desecrate His Holiness. The Admiration for the Holiness of the Lord is what makes His Judgement coming down upon as palpable. 

Growing Old in Two Days

I saw my friend and Bible Teacher MF at Church on Sunday and it seemed that it had been a long time since I had seen him. Then I remembered, to my utter surprise, that I had spoken to him just three day before on Thursday evening. In fact, I had also listened to  his lecture on the Priestly office of Christ. I think the reason for this anomaly is because between Thursday and Sunday, my mind had aged quite causing it losing track of passage of time.

Interestingly, the cause for my mind losing track of time is a by lecture of Michael Horton at the SJD conference. He introduced a new Truth into my mind. This new Truth disturbed some of the old Truths. Then there were some paradigm shifts, causing much change in my mind and its way of perceiving life. This is what I call ‘ageing’ of the mind. Such ageing happens when one suddenly begins looking a life though a different lens. This quick change in perceptions of life that came over on Saturday, caused an illusion of time moving quickly between Thursday and Sunday.

The Truth that Michael Horton’s lecture, which caused some havoc to some well rooted ideas, is the Truth of  the ALL Sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ to win over the Kingdom of God for the Glory of God. This new Truth usurped an old truth in my mind that believed that the Christian HAD to WORK to build the Kingdom of God for the Glory of God. The new disturbing Truth says that the GOSPEL WILL conquer the world for the Glory of God. In other words, it is Christ’s Gospel that builds the Kingdom of God, not the Christian. Of course, Christ does His work through Christians. But the key point to be noted is that Faith on this  (disturbing) Truth of the ALL sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ makes the Christian look up at the Gospel to accomplish the Kingdom building, instead of looking up to ones own works.

A Christian is not supposed to build the Kingdom of God through his works, because a Christian doing so  ends up building his own little kingdom instead of building the kingdom of God. The problem with the Church of this time is that it focuses so much on ‘programs’ to build the Kingdom of God. Someone may object, what is wrong with the Church focusing on programs? After all, we need programs to care for the poor and oppressed, right? Hmmmm… Yes, but not quite. The Church should focus on the Gospel and the work of Christ through the Gospel in the life of a Christian ‘freeing’ him to fulfill the Law – to love God and love Neighbor. This free Redeemed Christian will go and love his Neighbor and become a reflection of Christ to his neighbor and thus the Neighbor will have a chance to see Christ and be drawn by His Glory. Thus the Kingdom of God is built through the ‘Gospel-created Neighbour-loving Christian’. The Church instead of getting this Gospel right, is focusing on techniques and programs consequently the Christian is Christless and loveless. No wonder popular culture views Evangelical Christians as a bunch detached bigots.

Through all of this my personal take-away was that my focus needed to move away from what I can do for the Kingdom of God towards what Christ can do in me to make me Christ-like and help me fulfill the ‘law of love’. When I saw my friend M on Sunday, my mind did not as it originally did, perceive him through the lens – ‘Oh-if-only-I-was-as-knowledgeable-as-M,-I-could-really-be-a-builder-of-the-Kingdom-of-God’. Instead, my mind just wondered at God, for all that the Gospel of the Crucified Lord is doing through M. And was grateful to God for what the Gospel of Christ was doing in me. Michael Horton’s message helped me see the world through the ‘Gospel-winning-the-Kingdom-through-me’ lens instead of the ‘me-winning-the-kingdom-through-the-Gospel’ lens. Boy, did I grow old in two days!

The Home

A Two-story town house

A Lawn in front, two cars and two dogs
The aspired home?
Happy college, ample party
Simple work, cool salary
Uncomplex life, brimming affluence?
A peaceful retirement
Friends and Friendlessness
A vapid life, lived to the hilt?
O vain soul, remember in Thy youth
Thou art a King’s Son
Caring for Thy Father’s Kingdom
Look Thou beyond Thy mud-pie aspirations
Unto the storied Home above
Of the King Thou owest Thy allegiance to.

An Evening with Kids – A Need for Human Investment

I went with my Church friends to the Star of Hope school in Houston to spend sometime with little kids studying there. We played with the kids, fed them and just interacted with them. My first impression of the place was surprising. I was filled with a sense of theological inadequacy. There were four kids on my table coloring a picture of Jesus talking with the kid giving 4 loaves and 2 fish. A 6 year old was asking questions about Jesus and even before I could think of what to say, another 6 year old and 7 year old started  to answer. They recited an entire thesis of who Jesus Christ is starting from Him being God to Him forgiving sins to Him taking us to Heaven. I realized that I, with my slow thinking mind, couldn’t have packed in so few words with, so much Truth, in such a short time. I had to pause, take a deep breath and tell myself, “Ok, Dude… Step Up!!! you are with a bunch of very smart people”. I can’t remember the last time I felt so theologically inadequate.

Looking back, this evening’s experience was marked by two noteworthy poignant observations. The first was with a 7 year old kid at my table. As I said, my table had really smart kids who were so conversant about many things that I had to step up to keep up. One of the smart ones 7 year olds, I’ll call Tom (fake name) asked me how his crayon coloring looked. I said it looked cute. Then he looked at me and said, “People will grown only when God wants them to grow”. I couldn’t understand why he said so. I was a little bit confused. My philosophical mind started wondering if Tom was trying to say something about the doctrine of Predestination. I looked at him. He said with sad eyes, “My Doctor told me that I will not grow big like everybody else”. I still remember how sad his eyes looked when he said that to me. Wanting to encourage him, I said that he will grow big. He replied, “No my Doctor says I will not”. When Tom got down from the chair, I could see that he was short for his age. When Tom’s mother came to pick him up, she seemed like a short lady too. Somehow, it was ingrained in Tom’s mind that, “God did not want him to grow”. I wanted to  dispel the ingrained idea. But I did not know how. Tom’s sad eyes remained in front of my eyes. The kid was very smart. I also think he has artistic talents. His coloring of the picture showed a lot of maturity for his age, from his choice of colors to his strokes. I wish SOMEONE would INVEST time with Tom to help him understand that life is complex and that being short isn’t something to be sad about, lest the sadness in his eyes should result in an indelible scar in his heart sapping him off his ability to live life to all its fullness as promised by the Saviour.

The second poignant moment was when when we were returning from playing some outdoor games with kids. The kids ENJOYED holding hands with some of us as we walked. Two girls who were 8ish were holding each of the hands of one of the ladies in our group. Just then one of the girls Tiffany (fake name) said, something like, “my socks is hurting me”. What the little girl said did not make sense to the lady whose hand she was holding or to me. The other girl immediately said, “Oh, she just wants someone to carry her in their arms”. What happened there was a classic case of ‘Transaction Exchange’ which the Psychologist Dr. Eric Berne talks about in his book, “Games People Play”. He says, the human beings seldom expose their deeper needs, they say one thing to get something else. People who know them personally, quickly assess their real need and respond to that. The other 8 year old knew the Tiffany enough to know her deeper need. Dr. Eric Berne says in the same book that people play such games so that they get ‘stroked’ emotionally and/or physically by other people. He goes on to say that the NEED for ‘stroking’ and the FULFILLMENT of that need is what keeps a human being full of life. He says that if a new born kid were to be left alone without the ‘stroking’ of another human being, it would actually die. I wish SOMEONE would INVEST time with the likes of the 8 year old to fulfill the deep need to be ‘stroked’ emotionally and physically, lest she should search for it ways that would end up with her getting exploited in the cruelest way possible.

When I came back home as I was reminiscing upon my experience, I was reminded of something Franky Schaeffer, the son of (my favorite Author) the great Francis Schaeffer said in his book, “Sham Pearls For Real Swine”. He says that the person who said that parents need to spend ‘quality time’ with kids should never be allowed to become a psychologist (I improvised the last part of that sentence, I don’t think Franky would disagree though). Franky goes on to emphasis that Parents need to INVEST not just a ‘quality time’ but A LOT of time with kids. He says, “You have to beg, borrow and steal family time from the world bent upon distracting you from the most important things in life”.

When Parents do not INVEST A LOT of time with kids – to attend to their deepest needs, dispel their deep insecurities, help them see the world from a Scriptural perspective, SOMEONE else needs to step-in and do that. If none does that, this generation is sowing seeds for the destruction of the culture that has given us so much freedom, security and privileges. The problem with the education system for our kids does not just have to do with the lack of funds or the selfish attitudes of unions or the lack of committed teachers. The problem is that our society does not value children as much as it ought to. We don’t look at children as souls that need to be nurtured to shoulder the weight of this Civilization. Instead we look at them as ‘material’ beings that need non-human attention of the Wii and/or TV and/or Toys.

One of my very theologically sound friends whom I respect a lot looked at the flat-screen TV at his home and said to me, “This is my son’s baby sitter”. To give him the benefit of doubt, I think it was part joke and part truth. My heart couldn’t be more pained, hearing that. I couldn’t blame my friend either. We live a complex life with so much fighting for our attention. But THIS is not a battle we can afford to lose. Jesus Christ made time for kids when the Disciples thought He had better things to attend to. Jesus knew that kids needed HUGE Human Investment, this generation does not. This civilization will pay the price unless SOMEONE ‘Steps UP’!

My Valentine Meditations – On the Missing Valentine

Saint Valentine married people off and got killed for that. In a poll among young urban Americans one the questions was, ‘Do you think marriage is obsolete?’. Majority said ‘Yes’. Another question of the same poll said, ‘Do you want to get married?’ Majority said ‘Yes’. Most want to marry, but aren’t getting married. We live in a world of delayed marriages, if at all people marry. Modern times is missing its St.  Valentine.

The idea of obseletness of marriage is not a problem among just among urban elites. I was reading an article where a school teacher writes about the struggles he has in understanding the mindset and the maturity of the a few of his students who are pregnant in their teens. He discusses a bunch of questions two of which caught my attention. He asks the pregnant teen, “Do you think the father of your kid would marry you?”. The pregnant girl answers, “I don’t think so”. “Do you think your having this child will affect your future marriage?”. The girl answers, “I don’t know”. The girl sitting near by asnwers, “Nobody marries anymore, Mister”. The whole class bursts out laughing. 

Where is the St. Valentine of this age who helps those who want to get married, but don’t know why it isn’t that simple as it once used to be? Is he in hiding? Have we lost him? Has he matyred again?

I was reading another article about some controversial debates about the implementation of the new Healthcare ACT in the US. The question on the table was about whether birth-control pill had to be made freely available in College campuses as part of the Healthcare mandate. The article also had some snippets about what students in college thought about the plan. One of the girls supporting the free distribution of pills said, “I am an adult. None can stop me from having sex. The only question is whether or not I am going about it in a healthy way.”

Today, I read an article about how women in military are sexually abused by men. Last year alone there were 3200 reported cases of sexual abuse in the US Army. Most go unreported. One of the ladies said that when she complained about abuse to superiors, she was told to “things like this happen, suck it up”.

The fundemental premise in the above statements is the idea that ‘sex is a fundemental right’. The belief is that, “None can deny me my right to sex”. It is almost has the primacy of the First Amendment right. What is missing there is the idea that ‘sex is right, only when the season is right’. 

God created life to have different seasons. In one season, we are kids and then we become adults, then we become parents, then we become grandparents. Then we die. All of these seasons are held together by the ‘bonds of love’. Love has different manifestations in different seasons. If we try to mess with the appropriate manifestation of love for a season, we end up marring that season itself.

Marriage is an important season in a person’s life. When God instituted marriage he clearly defined the need for a new manifestation of love. He said, “for this reason man shall seperate from his father and mother and ‘cleave’ with his wife, and they shall be one body”. Marriage ushers in a new season which is manifested by new expressions of love in the romantic and erotic forms. As long as the romantic and erotic forms of love are expressed towards the purpose of becoming one with the spouse, the God ordained manifestation of love brings joy to the season of marriage. 

Our modern society is trying to reengineer the manifestations of love and decouple it from its appropriate season so that people will have the individualistic RIGHT to gratify themselves with any form of love they want anytime with anyone.  The lines between the seasons of adulthoood and marriage gets blurred because people try to enjoy the marital manifestation of love before marriage. When the lines get blurred so much, eventually the season itslef finds no reason for existence. We are left with, “Nobody marries anymore, Mister”. 

Premature experience of profound love forms can be very detrimental to love itself. In the movie ‘Blue Valentine’, the wife says that she has been sexually active since 13 had more than 25 partners. Still carrying the baggage from her old relationships, she is not able to enjoy sex with her husband. She is unable to make the transcition from ‘lusting sex’ to ‘loving sex’. In the movie, this inability of hers becomes the breaking point of an already strained marriage. 

Marriage, kids and a stable family is the basis for any civilization to thrive. A civilization that does not have thriving marriages will die. The root cause of this predicament is the unwillingness to submit to Truth. The Truth as God instituted is for different life seasons to be coupled with appropriate manifestations of love. God joined sex with marriage. Let man not separate what God has joined, for if he does will end up destroying both of what he seperated. As the author of the book ‘Unhooked’ says, “we delay love to enjoy sex and end up losing both”. 

St. Valentine stood by God’s Truth to multiply and be fruitful. He supposedly stood against the edict of a selfish tyrant to the point of death. Our civilization needs, many who imbibing the spirit of St. Valentine will stand up for Truth of God and take a stand against their own selfish desire for gratification. God’s Truth sets us free to experience life in ‘all of its fullness’ that spans across life’s seasons, bonded in love. Sacrificing God’s Truth in the altar of self-indulgence is the problem of the missing Valentine. 

Next Three Days – Love of God

I just saw (actually 4 days ago) the newest Russell Crowe movie ‘Next Three Days’. It is a intense thriller. After watching the movie I drove around the 40 mile 610 loop, among other things, reflecting on the movie and how it depicts the love of God.
In the movie, Russell Crowe’s wife gets arrested for a murder. She gets incarcerated because all evidence is against her. Russell is the only one who believes in her innocence. Incriminating evidence seals her doom. He vows to bring her out of prison. The wife, already suffering from a bit of inferiority complex goes into a self-destructive cycle. The more her tries to help, the more she resists and is spiteful. But still Russell perseveres believing in her innocence and tries to free her. She attempts suicide. He does not give up, he is at her bedside. 
This is amazingly similar to the love of God. In the Bible, God relates with man in a Father-Son relationship. But there is another very important, but less talked about, facet which is the Groom-Bride relationship. God is the Husband, human being is His Bride. He loves His Bride with an everlasting love. Even when we are spiteful and angry and allow our feelings of insecurity and inferiority to destroy us, He never gives up on us. Even if we decide to give up on us and attempt suicide, He never gives up on us. No matter how much we resist His plans for our freedom, He’ll not give up on us.
The wife has accepted her doomed life in the prison. She then realizes that only way to get him off his pointless endeavor to free her is to lie to him that she committed the crime. She does that. He does not flinch. He trusts her so much that he reaffirms her worth. He says, “I will not allow this prison to become your home”. 
The prison which the wife thinks has become her home, points to another metaphor in life – people thinking that living in chains is normal. Roussea said, “Man is born free, but every where he is in chains”. Prison is bondage. Sin/hopelessness is bondage. Most people live in the prison of sin/faithlessness and think it is their home and that there is no hope for real freedom in life. They make a home of the prison of sin/hopelessness. But God does not want us to settle for a life of faithless  bondage. Jesus Christ says, “I have come to show the Truth. I am the Truth and Truth shall set you free.”
In the movie, to redeem her, Russell stoops down to the point of becoming a criminal himself. Till the end she does not see her worth and tries to jeopardize his carefully laid plans for her freedom. But he keeps on loving her and trusting her to redeem her to himself and start a new life in a new home far off in distant shores.
In real life, God allowed His own Son (Jesus Christ) to be killed in order that through Him, no matter how much we self-destructively jeopardize His plans for our everlasting freedom, we will not succeed. His Truth will set us free, because He will not give upon us. He loves us as a trusting Husband loves His self-doubting wife. No matter how much we resist, He’ll make us find our freedom and journey to the new Home He has prepared for us a on the distant Shores where we’ll live as free people fully redeemed and happy in Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.(Rom 8:28-39).

Teen Pregnancy Center – A Opportunity to be Drawn

God made life as a very beautiful experience so that He would be glorified through His creation. But because of the Fall, man possessing only a ‘dimmed’ image of His creator, lost his ability to appreciate the beauty of the created world as Originally intended. Fallen Man began to ‘twist’ the beautiful experiences God created into something that would serve his need to validate himself in his craving for selfish pleasure. One of the most beautiful experiences of life – procreation, has been immensely ‘twisted’ by fallen man. Consequently, the blessing of legitimate-sex, pregnancy and family has been twisted into a curse of lust, abortion and ‘radical’ individualism. Teen pregnancy is one of the effects of Fallen Man’s ‘twisting’ of the good that God created.
Thanks be to the Sovereign Lord who also created ‘Saving Grace’. Every time the Evil one tries to twist God’s good gift into something it was not meant to be, God who is Sovereign creates within that ‘twisted world’ an opportunity to ‘draw’ man to Himself and ‘untwist’ the effects of the Fall and turn the curse into a blessing. Even before Adam and Eve sinned, God created within the ‘twisted world’ the possibility of the Cross to ‘draw’ men to Himself. Every time man/woman finds himself/herself taking the brunt of the ‘twisted’ world, God creates within fallen context, a window of opportunity to ‘draw’ people to Himself. It is the mandate of the ‘born again’ Christian, to position himself/herself in that window of opportunity and be used as an instrument of God’s Sovereignty in untwisting the twisted and ‘drawing’ the fallen man to Himself. (This born again Christian should through the ‘Saving Grace of God’ endeavor to live life in its ‘untwisted’ Originally good form as seen through the ‘lens’ of the Scriptures.)
The Teen Pregnancy Help Centre creates that window of opportunity to those who feel Called by the Sovereign God to serve among those who are abortion minded. Last week, I completed a 12 hour training course at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’. Even though I have always felt passionately for ‘pro life’ causes, I never did anything about it except may be attending the Lou Engle ‘pro life’ Fasting prayer which actually had  lasting impact on me. Then the issue moved to the back-burner, except whenever I came across something that has anything to do with pro-life message and I felt inspired to write about it.
The Sunday before last, when I was sitting at Church and someone announced that volunteers were needed at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’, I felt impelled to volunteer even though I was apprehensive about how a man could help with something that seemed like woman’s business. Then in my interaction with the folks involved with the Centre, I realized that there was a lacuna for men peer counselors to counsel the gentlemen that walked-in with the damsel in distress. Being the only guy in the training room, I really appreciated every opportunity the trainers took to highlight the situations where a man can really add value to the mission at hand.
Our mission is really to help the people in crisis to see within their fallen situation, the beauty that God wants them to see and be ‘drawn’ to Him. Or mission is to reclaim to the glory of God that which the Evil one has ‘twisted’ to keep men blinded to the Truth of the Beauty of life God created. The Teen Pregnancy Centre is a place where the evil caused by men with ‘twisted’ perspectives of selfish-pleasure, is untwisted, healed and reclaimed for the glory of God.
The most beautiful experience that brings the great joy in life is a kid. But when a kid is formed in the womb of a woman in a context that is outside of God’s original intended framework for conception, the kid is often seen as burden because the (lady and in some cases the man as well) victim’s perception is colored by the Fallen circumstances. In such cases, the impetus is to just do away with the child.
The only way the child can be saved is by helping the victim see the child with the ‘unfallen’ eyes that the Saving Grace of God makes possible, in spite of the ‘twisted’ circumstance. The ‘Saving Grace’ of God ‘draws’ the victim close to the heart of God and strengthens him/her to break the cycle of victimization and untwist the twisted perspective and heal the wounds and help the Soul see the beauty He originally created in a child for man to cherish and enjoy.
During the training, of the many examples shared, one that I vividly remember illustrates this healing within of the fallen situation. A girl to be married in a few months gets raped by an evil stranger. The girl and the father come to the Pregnancy Centre ‘abortion minded’. The counselors advice against abortion and pray much. Miraculously, the girl’s fiancé agrees accept the kid as his own. The family decides not to abort. The kid is now 4 years old and much loved. Looking back, the child was a blessing to the family in more ways than one. Prior to this ordeal, the girl’s Father and Mother had been planning to separate because of irreconcilable differences, but this unexpected kid forced them to huddle together to support their daughter and this reignited their love for each other. A decision to stop the cycle of victimization and not abort was the greatest Blessing to that family.
This is one of the many stories of curse of the twisted world being turned to Blessings at the Teen Pregnancy Centre by the ‘Saving Grace’ of Jesus Christ. Much prayers and work is needed for someone to ‘stand in the gap’ and guide everyone who walks in the door into the window of opportunity to be ‘drawn’ to the beautiful God and be redeemed into the untwisted world He wants to Bless Fallen Men with.