Valentine Meditations: Valentine Culture and Western Civilization

So this is another Feb 14th, I am reading C.S.Lewis’ ‘Four Loves’, again, trying to get wrap my mind around the idea of love – an honorable thing to do (I guess) on the day which venerates love. I am also working on writing something about Valentines day – my valentine meditations…

Valentine’s day is predominantly a celebration of the affluent. Having lived both in the east and the west, in my experience, Valentine’s day is celebrated with fun and frolic in the affluent west and in pockets of the eastern hemisphere where affluence is pursued as the chief aim of life. In also think that in any society where the ‘social standard’ of affluence is high, the pursuit of affluence is often accompanied by an advent of a prolonged singlehood, delayed marriages and ultimately, fewer children. Affluence is not the enemy of marriages. The modern western society’s high standards for affluence and the mind-numbing pursuit of the high standards causes within the heart of man a dilemma in choosing between a high single lifestyle of freedom and luxury or a shared lower standard of family living characterized by commitment and sacrifice.

By the standards of the western society, unless one is relatively rich, to be married and to have children has become akin to being burdened by a much lesser standard of living, so most singles who are forced to pursue affluent standards by the society have no option other than to wait until they are (college) debt free and rich enough to enjoy an affluent married life. In most cases, this does not necessarily mean that singles are alone until they are married. Most end up with the compromise of living with make-shift mates and celebrating valentine’s day.  Valentine’s day in much of the affluent world appears to have morphed into a celebration for the singles, to celebrate it with their make-shift mates and still remain single.

This ‘valentine culture’ that pursues society’s standard for ‘individual affluence’ at the cost of marriage, children and family will undermine the very foundation of the western civilization. This may not be the straw that breaks the back of the western civilization, it is most likely the rottenness that is eating it from within. G.K. Chesterton said, ‘There are many ways a civilization can fall, there is only one way it can stand. The western civilization is now testing the angles’. I live in an apartment complex in mid-town Houston which has nearly 200 apartments and I hardly see any kids. Whereas in India in an apartment complex of the same size, occupied by similar demographic age group, I would be constantly and pleasantly disturbed by the sound of screaming kids.

A column in the Wall Street Journal said that to bring down the western civilization, the Islamic Jihadists need not really risk attempting another 9/11. They can just sit in their caves and continue to have as many children as they can and then wait for the western world to fall under its own weight. The western civilization as we see it, will eventually fall because this generation of westerners aren’t getting married neither are they having enough children. Without children, no civilization can exist. The theory is that when the western world falls because there aren’t enough children to prop it up, the children of Middle eastern world will, by default, inherit the world of tomorrow.

A huge part of the ‘unsophisticated’ east though hasn’t fallen prey to this Valentine culture. I read an article which said that the ‘Commission for promotion of virtues and prevention of vice’ in Saudi Arabia, (no, this is not a joke there is indeed a commission by that name in the Saudi) has banned any form of celebration of the valentine’s day. This may sound retarded, but I think, the middle eastern Clerics have the prescience that allowing any form of valentine culture of the affluent west to become the norm in their culture would rob defeat from the jaws of victory they are eagerly and patiently waiting for. In fact, Islam is the fastest growing religion, not through propagation of its ideals, but through procreation by its followers.

The Church is not silent either, it too is fighting against this decadence. I went to a Church for a Valentine’s day special event. A special speaker was flown in from 1000 miles afar and interestingly, the theme of the message was “How to stay single and find wholeness (in God)”. But there wasn’t even a cursory mention of getting married or raising families. Perhaps I am ignorant, but I really do not know why one’s pursuit of one’s sense of wholeness in God has anything to do with ones marital status. The message of Evangelical Christianity to singles appears to be that singles should behave, be patient, be blessed and wait for the marriage ‘calling’. The gist of the Christian message, I think, isn’t that different from what I get from TV series ‘Friends’. ‘Friends’ tells singles to be single, confused and cool until something happens and you find yourself getting married. The Church tells singles be single, blessed and cool until you have the ‘calling’. The Church is right fighting against the idea of having make-shift mates, but it appear to not be fighting against the root cause, neither is it giving a solution to the problem.

God commanded man to be fruitful and multiply. The modern society that dictates man to pursues personal affluence does not understand what this command from God means. Modern man is caught in a dilemma. One part of the modern man wants to be free and affluent. Another part of man wants to be married and have kids and a family. Modern man, without the Bible, does not have the framework to reconcile this dilemma that is gnawing from deep within him. This generation that addicted to affluence, tarries on in anguished confusion about marriage and raising families seeks its solace in the valentine culture of make-shift mates.

The pre-modern society had a sense of community and traditions which helped man get married and then helped him stay married. The place held by community and traditions in the previous generation is empty now. The Church, in most cases, instead of stepping into this lacuna and helping the modern man have a Biblical and culturally relevant understanding of being fruitful and multiplying, is, I think, overreacting (against the make-shit mate culture) and asking singles to find wholeness in singlehood first and then think about marriage as a special ‘calling’.

If the historical St. Valentine did what history says he did, he did not invent boxed chocolates wrapped with ribbons or red roses, neither did he ask them to wait for some special ‘calling’ or for the right opportunity or compromise with make-shift mates. He appears to have done exactly what the Christians needed to do. He stepped into a lacuna created by the ‘social standards’ of that day and helped singles get married. He supposedly paid a very heavy cost for it. No wonder he made himself the most venerated Saint of all time across all nations irrespective of religion or race or creed that the Muslim Clerics need not have a decree that no Muslim should celebrate St. Paul’s day but has a decree that none should celebrate St. Valentine’s day.

The Church (of today) I think has a great opportunity to speak into this anguished culture unable to reconcile the dilemma between society’s standard for ‘personal affluence’ and the yearning in the human heart for ‘family life’. Christianity has to reverse the damage done by this valentine culture by speaking INTO the valentine culture, in a language they understand as Paul did at Athens. If Christians cannot make themselves relevant to the plight of this culture, historians of tomorrow may observe that Christianity, which by subjugating the authority of kings to the ‘law from above’, gave mankind the basis to the creating the democratic golden era of western civilization, couldn’t save it from the decadence that had set in.

My Name is Khan – A Message to Christian Charities

I haven’t seen the new much hyped Bollywood movie ‘My Name is Khan’ which has famous Indian movie stars acting and directing in it. I just read reviews. The goal of movie’s Protagonist, Mr. Khan a gullible Muslim living in the US, is to somehow meet Prez Bush face to face and tell him, ‘My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist’. It appears that the film will have internatinal appeal as it attempts to show that one rotten apple in basket does not mean every other apple is rotten as well. Films of this kind tend to have a good and timely message.

But sometimes, flims of this kind are prone to over-stating their case by using misconstrued examples. They inadvertently tend to take a dig at a good cause by misconstruing or even misrepresenting it for a bad one. I think ‘My Name is Khan’ isn’t an exception. In this, I think it wrongly takes the US Christian Charities to task, especially in how it funds other Charities around the world.

Apparently, in the movie, there is a scene, where a ‘Christian-only’ Charity contribution is taken in the US for Somalian Christians and Mr. Khan gallantly volunteers to donate to the non-Christians in Somalia. I know quite a few US Christian charities that work with folks in Africa and India, but I have never heard of a ‘Christian-only’ Charity. It is true that Christian charities work with Churches in Africa. This is because the Chruch has the widest network and strong sense of community orientation and commitment that helps reach out to the common man in Africa. Even villages that do not have electricity will still have a Church. Places where the ‘Uncle Sams’ cannot reach, are reached-out to by the Church. To call this Church-modelled Charity giving as ‘Christian-only’ Charity, which excludes non-Christian beneficiaries is to competely misconstrue the logistics of how charities work in villages that has been neglected by every other institution of the world save the Church of Christ.

Before I delve further into what I really want to say, I think, I need to state something that the movie makers have conveniently chosen to not give credence to at all. Over the last few decades, it is the non-Christian Indian Social Service Organizations that have raised more charity money from the west than the Christian organizations. Funding to Indian Christian charity has reduced phenomenally over the past few decades. Only a few Christian institutions get funding from abroad. This fact not withstanding, during relief work after natural disasters, it is the Christian Charities that out-do the non-Christian ones. In fact, I was told sometime back that during natural disasters, the villagers hope that the relief work in their village is taken over by a Christian Charity rather than a non-Christian one because Christian Charities have least corruption and money really reaches the people in need.

My chief intent to write this is not to say what ‘My Name is Khan’ is wrong about in its depiction of Christian charity, but to state what, in spirit, it is partly right about and more importantly, what lesson Christians, especially Indian Christians, have to learn from this. I think the movie makers were, partly right in this portrayal in that it points out a glaring mistake of Indian Christian Charities. I think the impetus for the movie makers to take a dig at Christian charities is because Indian Christian Charities over the course of the ‘past few decades’ have become self-centered in as far they have become wealthy institutions in catering to Christians.

Let us rewind, go back to the times when our Christian institutions had humble origins and were more concerned about the society around then about the resources within. If we looked at the political arena of yesteryears, most Hindu leaders where people who were educated in Christian institutions and they had a positive opinion on Christian Charity institutions. Our Christian charities then, were existing for non-Christians, our Church Fathers and Mothers expended themselves in helping others as the Word of God calls for us to do. But that has changed over the last few decades. The problem with Indian Christian charity organisations and institutions of this day is that we have become wealthy and have become unable to handle our resources in that we are holding on to our resources too tightly. We have become a closed system.

We have drawn a circle around ourselves as ‘minorities’ and are ‘pooling’ our own resources to enjoy them ourselves. We think our institutions belong to us. We forget that the last person a Christian Charity organization belongs to is us. Our institutions belong to the Kingdom of God. We are just humble custodians who need to give an account for our institutions to the King.

Our institutions in many places, have forgotten the Christian principles of going the extra mile to embracing the marginalized and the oppressed and are instead fighting over which Christian institution has control over which mile of land. We have forgotten to live for others in a way that our Church Fathers did, such that others would see our work and glorify the God we worship.

The Christian organizations abroad that contribute to Indian charities often fail to realize that quite a number of Indian Christian charities do not wish to be a city on the top of a hill that is a beacon to the rest of the society, but want to be a cloistered castle in a lush green valley. Christian donors would need to do due deligence  that the money sent abroad is used to build the Kingdom of God and not the Empire of Christians.

No wonder Mr. Khan wants to donate money to the non-Christians in the third world.

Singing the Weight of God’s Glory

Music is a part of worship of God not because it sounds good in our ears or makes worship livelier, but because words alone are insufficient to describe the weight of the glory of God.

I enjoy Handle’s ‘Messiah’. But when I was listening to it at the 10:00 PM Christmas Eve service at SJD Houston, it occurred to me that a few sentences that would take a contemporary song writer to finish singing in, may be, 60 seconds took Handle’s genius 15 minutes to complete. The same sentences are repeated over and over again. Repetitions generally distract my mind. My critical mind was asking, “Why so many repetitions????”.  Then a switch in my mind flipped, and I think, my appreciative mind started working and I again asked, “Why so many repetitions!!!!”.

It is the exploration of these questions that caused me to I state in one of my earlier blogs entries that I wanted to enumerate and (try to) capture in words the experience of worship of Jesus Christ at at SJD. So here is my attempt at capturing in words what I so vividly remember to be my experience of the weight of Glory of God as exemplified in the singing of the SJD choir. What makes my attempt monstrously difficult for me is that I am musically illiterate in my mind, ear and vocabulary. So my attempt to write this is I believe, like a blind man trying to describe a painting to folks that can see.

In my wonderment of why there should have been so  many repetition in Handle’ Messiah, I observed the song intently. I noticed that in the song, the word ‘glory’ was repeated many times, perhaps too many times than usual. And every time, the word ‘glory’ was sung, it wasn’t just sung normally, it was often accompanied with, what I would call, ‘musical flourishes/inflexion???’ (sorry limited musical vocabulary). It seemed as though Handle seemed to give special emphasis to the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’, and especially to the word ‘glory’, by having it repeated many times.
A good Christian friend of mine by name Jim said in one of his Bible study classes that when we say the word ‘glory’ we don’t fully grasp the ‘heaviness’ of the word implied in describing the incredible weight of the glory of God. I believe that when Handle used the word ‘glory,’ he realized its deficiency in depicting the immense weight of the glory of God. Yes, language is deficient when it tries to describe God. God substantially and sufficiently communicates His Truths to human beings through propositional language. But when human beings try to describe the weight of the glory of God just through propositional statements, it simply does not suffice. If language had been all sufficient, Paul wouldn’t have had to resort to unutterable groan in his prayers.
I think it is precisely because of this limitations of language that God wants human beings to worship Him not just with words, but with ‘harps and chambals’. So that the music would add more weight to the words and there by human expression of worship would get closer in trying to justifiably describe the ‘weight of God’s glory’. On a side note, it is unfortunate that some contemporary Christians (and Christian song writers) think that we worship God with (good) music because it sounds good in our ears and makes worship a ‘lively’ thing to do. No, I don’t believe that, I think,  we worship God with (great) music because the heaviness of God’s glory cannot be worthily  described in words alone, something more of human musical/art expression is needed to (try to) describe the weight of God’s glory. I think Handle Messiah precisely understood this Truth.
In the Messiah, when the word ‘glory’ was sung, Handle often seemed to give the word ‘glory’ a simple musical tune, he gives it a longer musical inflexion (sorry, limited musical vocabulary) so that the word is not just uttered in ½ a second it would normally take it to be uttered, but is sung for 7 or 8 seconds. Then he feels that this isn’t enough to depict the weight of God’s glory, so he adds some inflexion to the underlying tune which makes it difficult for the singer to sing, after all ‘glory’ is a ‘heavy’ word that ought not be lightly sung. Even then, he is not satisfied, so he makes the singer sing g-l-o-r-y and then he again makes the singer repeat again G—L—O—R—Y, adding more weight.
Then, there are places where the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ occurs. Here he makes the tune and the song to double back on itself (limited musical vocabulary) so that the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung over and over again. I think there is a point where the phrase is repeated nearly ten times. Because singing it just once, does not sufficiently express the weight that the word deserves. But even after the repetitions, Handle Messiah, rightly, isn’t content, the weight of glory is too heavy, he tunes the repetitions such that the musical ‘four parts’ crescendo occurs exactly when the words ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung.
It appears to me that Handle Messiah appears to have orchestrated the whole of the song to make all the singer and the musicians to GIVE THEIR BEST when the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung. It only seems right that the word ‘glory of the Lord’ needs to be sung with the BEST of human abilities to (try to) worthily describe the weight of the God’s glory. And perhaps even then the description would be like that of a blind man describing a painting to a man with sight, but at least it wouldn’t be like a man with sight describing a painting to a man who is blind. For when it comes to matters of God, it is prudent to act blind and speak with ‘fear and trembling’ (as led by the Holy Spirit) rather than assume clear sight and speak folly.
Then I also noticed that similar repetitions happened with a few other phrases as well ‘Behold the Lord’ for one, which is repeated with reverence and awe. In another song ‘Oh, Come let us adore Him’ which is repeated thrice with increasing volume that builds up to a crescendo. Once I understood the reason for the repetitions, I couldn’t help getting overwhelmed with repetitious expressions of the weight of the glory of God. I can understand now why Handel’s Messiah, as time consuming as it is, is truly a timeless piece. It cares not for time, it cares only for the ‘ordinate’ expression of God’s glory, and in the process transcends time. How infinitesimal the quantity of ‘time’ is when compared with the quantity of the ‘weight’ of God’s glory.
My renewed understanding of the need for repetitions and long flourishes and four-part musical crescendos helped me appreciate, immensely enjoy and really be awed at the experience of singing the weight of the glory of the Lord, that by the time we were done with all of the singing and the service was complete, I wanted to do it all over again. I wanted to hear all of the songs sung by the SJD Choir once more so that I would get lost in the gorgeous expression of the overwhelming weight of God’s glory. I couldn’t accept the fact that I had to wait for another whole year before I could get to experience this ‘weighty worship’ again. I told myself that I was not going to wait until the next year, I wanted to re-live the experience of the ‘singing the weight of glory’ by writing about it and (trying to) capture it in words, as mediocre and insufficient as my attempt may be.

Psalm 115:1  Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, But to Your name give glory

A Blessed Christmas With God

I have just returned from attending almost 2 1/2 Christmas services this evening since 5 pm to 12:00 pm in two different Churches, my Episcopal Church and the Ecclesia Church. I have never had such an awesome worship of the Lord before. I just can’t enumerate how wonderful the services were. I need to enumerate and capture my joy at experience of God, which I shall do later in another blog entry. Even as I was worshiping I had at least two insights about worship in Christmas. The insights that one gets during worship are awesome because I believe they are inspired by the Spirit of God.

I was at Ecclesia for the 5:00 pm service and as the worship started, I was wondering to myself what this was all about. I was dead tired. I had had just 3:30 hrs of sleep the prior night and I was also a little disappointed with myself that I had to spend Christmas alone, without any family or festivities or Christian friends to spend Christmas with. I had a mild headache as well.  I was completely drained and I thought that this was my worst Christmas ever. So, at the start of worship, this question,  “What it was all really about?” seemed quite pertinent to me. Then like a flash, I realized that this was ALL about Jesus Christ. It was not about me or about how I felt about my sorry lonely drained predicament.  This re-orientation of focus on God who is True, Beautiful and Good gave to me the right Spirit, one which is self-forgetful and God adoring, to really worship God.
The second insight I got happened a little later during worship, I really am not able to remember the context of how a chain of thoughts came about which made me think about Christmas worship. But out of nowhere a thought occurred to me that as I was worshiping God and adoring Jesus Christ, because God was in a timeless world, to Him it would appear that I was along-side the Wise men and the Shepherds worshiping the new born Christ at Bethlehem. That I am 2000 years separated from the event is only a limitation of the reality as I see it. In God’s eyes, my worship is not bound by time and so my worship is happens real-time as Jesus Christ is born. There is not limits to how this thought thrilled me. To realize that my worship of God during Christmas was not just a commemoration of Birth of God, but actually seen by God a real-time worship of Jesus Christ along side the Shepherds and Wise Men, added an entire new dimension to worship. My worship changed from worship commemorative of a past event to real-time worship.
Then I went to my Episcopal Church for the 10:00 pm service. Oh, my gosh!!! It was the best worship ever. The choir’s worship was astounding. I’ll write more on that later. I was sitting there listening to the worship and participating in the worship of God in my Spirit by attributing all the worship by the Choir to God by imagining this Choir to be singing real-time beside the Shepherds and Wise men and I also imagined me standing there real-time alongside the shepherds and wise men, in awe of the most High God being worshiped by the best of human abilities.
As is obvious in my prior blog entries, I have been questioning myself as to why I have been alone during Christmas and why I wasn’t spending Christmas with any of my Christian friends in Houston. But looking back, I realize that I was really able to involve myself in an awesome worship only because my mind was free and was not tied up in thinking about other festivities. I remember other Christmases where there have been some festivities which ‘tied’ my mind to the earthly and I wouldn’t be able to really have the ‘abandonment towards God’ during worship.
This Christmas I have been lonely, but the loneliness helped me get closer to God. Though alone, I was with God like I was never before. Yes, as I said in my prior blog entry, I think it is disappointing that I don’t have friends in Houston, to invite me for Christmas, but God turned that into something good. That I had none to spend Christmas with has become a blessing in disguise, in that I was truly able to spend Christmas with God.  I am planning to order some Pizzas and have Christmas lunch with my Hindu and Muslim colleagues who live in my apartments. May God be praised.

A Lonely Christmas – A Sobering Solitude

So here is the third Christmas I am away from family and feeling lonely. My vacation was in the month of February, so I don’t get to be with family during Christmas. Yesterday, one of my friends asked me if someone in my Christian friends circle had invited me to spend Christmas with their family. I said no, and that I wasn’t bothered that I wasn’t. Today, my father asked me why none, from the many Churches that I went to, had invited me. It was tough to give an answer, the way the question was phrased. I finally said, “Well, folks are busy”. My Dad found it incredible that I was not invited at all. That bothered me and got me thinking…
I don’t lack Christian friends in Houston. On an average I spend about 10 – 12 hours a week with Churches and Church related fellowships, that is excluding the social events I get invited to by folks in the Christian fellowships. I go to three Churches an Episcopal (which is my mother Church), an Emergent and a non-deonominational, (rarely I also go to an AG church and an Orthodox Church). I enjoy my Church life in Houston. I attend multiple services and multiple small group fellowships in the three Churches. I folks lots of in the small group fellowships who can be called ‘friends’. So I too really find it incredible that I am having to spend Christmas alone devoid of any Christmas festivities.
I can perfectly accept the fact that I haven’t been invited by anyone here, because everyone is crazily busy during Christmas. If I were to have a family of my own here and if there was to be a new guy here who did not have a family, and was lonely during Christmas, I too may have been too crazily busy with my own family affairs during Christmas that the thought of inviting him may never have crossed my mind.
Besides, getting invited for Christmas is often a matter of time, chance and matter. When I meet families at Church fellowships, if time, chance and matter were if any help, it would have ‘occurred’ to them that I would be alone during Christmas, they would have felt like wanting to invite me. But I think, the confluence of time, chance and matter this time wasn’t in my favor during this Christmas season. When I met people at Church, it did not ‘occur’ to anyone to even ask what I was up to during Christmas. This just is the way it IS. This isn’t anything to regret over.
The reason why I write what I write is not to rant about situations, but to reason with myself as to why I find myself in this predicament. After all, most writing that is done in journals and blogs is an act of reasoning to ones own self to make sense of life.
Apart from the two reasons stated above, I believe there is a third reason which I believe, is essentially the root cause as to why I am having to spend this Christmas alone. I am going to take the longer route to get to this reason. I believe it has to do with how people build relationships in their lives.
There are I believe, at least three types of relationships
1. Acquaintances
2. Friends
3. Caring Relationships
Family and close friends fall under the category of ‘caring relationships’. The reason why I believe I haven’t been invited by anyone for Christmas , in spite of all the long hours I have clocked in Church fellowships and related social event, may be because I have never really fostered ‘caring relationships’. In other words, I don’t have close friends here. I have got lots of friends, singles and families, in Christian circles and lot more acquaintances. There are quite a good number of friends I meet with often, almost weekly. There are two or three who would qualify for fairly close friends whom I meet over lunch or dinner and chat for a couple of hours about life and stuff. But I now begin to doubt if I really have any deeply close friends who really care.
I wonder why this is so, that I don’t really have close friends in the US. I wonder if there is something wrong with my personality or with my lifestyle that has prevented me from having deeply close friends in the US. I do not know the answer. By the time I figure out the answer, if at all I figure it out, I believe I would have gone past the sobering phase of my solitary Christmas season.
I believe something good has come out of this hitherto lonely experience, at least in that I now know a little bit more about me and my life and the kind of relationships that I have in he US.
Is he alone he who writes.
Is he alone he who reads.
Reader communes with the Author.
Writer communes with himsef.
But one cannot read all the time,
Neither can one write all the time.
All activities have an end. Good solitude begins.
But when unhealthy, morphs into loneliness.
Why is the sensitive soul lonely?
Why does the lonely soul need
Someone to care about
And to be cared for by someone?
Caring relationship, unlike reading and writing
Has a life of its own which pervades
The realm of activities. And even when all activities stop
The relationship still exists.
When all activities, reading or writing, cease
And the mind cannot be distracted anymore,
The very sense of caring and being cared for
Stands its ground in the calm of the storm of pointless activity.

Christmas in India – A Reminiscent Account

As of this year 2009, I have had to spend the past two Christmases at Houston away from my family. Being nostalgic, I have been reminiscing quite a bit about my childhood Christmases in India. Below is an account of how Christmas in my part of India used to be. I will write a succinct account of festivities within the broader culture, then within the Christian circles, then within the Church and finally within the Christian homes.

First, about the festivities in the broader culture outside of the Christian-circle. Unlike the Christmas in the States, Back in India, we do not have radio stations playing Christmas songs all of December. Neither do we have ‘Happy Holiday’ bill boards or TV ads. Shops don’t have Christmas lights unless the shop is owned by a Christian. Some non-Christian owner will also have lights if he wants his shop to appear cool and trendy to his customers. The Human Resources managers in some Multi-National companies in cosmopolitan cities use the Christmas opportunity to have X’mas parties and spread some cheer among the employees to make them ‘feel good’ about the companies they work for. Of course, who wouldn’t like the Santa and chocolates and gifts. Shops and malls in bigger cities which have huge Multi-National corporations try to catch in on the wave of ‘spreading cheer’ to – why miss an opportunity to make people feel good and buy more (no rocket science there!).
Now, about the festivities within the Christian circles… When we were kids we lived in a densely populated residential area. During Christmas season, the Church choir will come singing Christmas carols to each of the Christian homes after 10:00 pm. The choir would go on from house to house till 3:00 am in the morning.
It is done this way because Jesus was supposedly born at night, secondly
because this way they can make sure that there is someone at the house
to answer the door. It doesn’t matter if someone looses a little sleep
one day a year during Christmas season, after all it is CHRISTMAS. They go knocking on each of the Christian houses and sing a carol song, then receive an ‘offering’ (contributions of money) and then move on to the next house. They have a Santa and chocolates and huge portable halogen lights… This group does what they do not to spread the Gospel, but to uphold a tradition. No matter what their motives, the kids in the houses really enjoy it. I remember when I and my sister used to be kids, we would hear the carols being sung at some house at the other end of the street and will eagerly wait by the window. And when the carol comes to the house adjacent to ours, our hearts would be thumping. They would come to our house, we would open the door and stand there. Everyone will be looking at us, we will be looking around shyly, the Santa would shake our hands and dance. When the song is over, the Santa would give us chocolates and someone would extend an offering box and my sister or I would place the offering. One year, my sister and I heard Christmas carol choir and we waited by the window, wide awake, but alas just a few houses ahead of ours the choir decided to call it a night. Needless to say, we did ‘lose some sleep over it’. 🙂
On one Christmas season, the Hindu lady adjacent to our house told us that she too would like for the Santa and the Carol Choir to come to her house, but that it never happened. My mother being the creative enterprising lady she was, had an idea. She asked me to get all the kids in the homes on the street our house was on, Christian and non-Christian. There were like 15 of us. We got one of the taller non-Christian kids to wear my mother’s red night robe and we had a Santa mask that came handy. We tied a pillow around the belly under the robe so that the Santa looked fat enough. My mother gave us chocolates and told us to go to all the non-Christian homes in our street to sing carols. We were to give chocolates, but not collect offering. I can’t forget how the Hindus living on in the houses on our street were overjoyed. I can’t forget that night. Of course, we were sensible enough, we started at 7:00 pm and were done by 9:00 pm.

The ‘tradition upholding’ Christian carol group apart there are some truly ‘compassionate’ Christian carol groups that, instead of going to Christian homes to collect ‘offering’, go to poor villages in the ‘suburbs’ and sing Carols in each of the non-Christian homes. They don’t take offering. They in true spirit of Christmas give gifts to the poor people. As a child, going for Christmas carols around the poor villages were awesome experiences.

Then there are some committed Christians who’ll have a Christmas party at their house or at a party hall and invite their non-Christian friends. They would invite a Christian speaker to share the gospel so that the Hindus will have a chance to listen to the gospel at the excuse of the party. In fact, the Christians in my company at India had one such party, you can see the photos here http://picasaweb.google.com.hk/wilsonjust/EkkattuthangalPrayerFellowshipChristmasCelebration?feat=email. It was conducted in a Church near our company. The ones sitting in the pews are Hindus, you’ll notice that some women wear the ‘kunkum’ on their foreheads (If fact, it is based on this Hindu tradition of wearing the ‘kunkum on the foreheads that the phrase ‘dotted India’ came about, as against the ‘feathered India… if this makes no sense, never mind). 🙂
Then there are the Church festivities in the Church.  Most Christmas services aren’t Christmas eve services (as in the States), the Indian Christmas service starts at 4:30 am on the Christmas morning. The tradition being that Christ was born early in the morning, so we too have to be in Church early in the morning (if you are keeping count by now two nights of sleep is gone in the Christmas season :P). Anyways all those inconvenient traditions that bring meaning to life! 😀

Churches have massive decorations, lights all around, along the edges of every wall,  along the ridges of every section of the roof, all the way up to the Church spire. Some Churches have huge lighted stars hanging all along the way from the residential areas to the Church. As people go to the Church, it is symbolic of the Magi following the star. Every Christian house would have a huge lighted star hanging in front. In fact, you can walk into any street and count the stars and you’ll know the number of Christian homes in the street. The starts are generally huge colored paper stars with light bulbs within that make the star glow brightly at nights. Of course, there were were rivalries and jealousy among kids as to whose star looked the best!

All Indian Christians wear a new dress for Church on Christmas day. During Christmas service, the amount of gold the Indian ladies wear to Church would be more than any Bank would have in its lockers. Of course, in some sensitive areas there is police protection as well. Church service would get over by 6:00 am.

Then there are the festivities within the Christian homes. Of everything else, it is these festivities at my home are the ones that I miss the most. 😦 On Christmas day, as soon as we come home from Church, 6am-ish, we would have a brief family prayer. As soon as this was over, at about 7:00 pm, my sister and I, when we were kids, would run to the street to burst fireworks (crackers). In India, we did not have to get city permission for fireworks. Like folks in the US have ‘gun rights’, Indians have ‘firework rights’.

A HUGE part of the festivities of Christmas rested on my mother’s shoulders because the most important part of Christmas festivities would be sharing delicacies with non-Christians. My mom would have started planning for Christmas meal, the ‘Biriyani’, more than a week prior to Christmas. ‘Biriyani’ is a South Indian delicacy that is very rich in spices and tastes great to the South Indian pallet and it takes lots of preparation and a lot more patience. On Christmas day we would give Biriyani and Christmas cake to the non-Christian homes in our neighborhood and those not in our neighbourhood. My mother would prepare Biriyani in a 10 gallon cooking basin. We would hire a handmaid in addition to the full-time house-help to assist my mom with the cooking for this occasion.

Remember, before we went on this detour about the details of cooking, my sister and I were playing with fireworks starting 7:00 am. Of course, there would be friendly rivalries and jealousies among kids about who had the best collection of fireworks. Kids!!! Well, at about 11:00 am, my mother would call us and give us parcels of food to go and give to the non-Christian homes. My sister and I run to each of the houses nearby, to give food, the sooner this was done, the sooner we would get to have our Christmas lunch.  In fact, the non-Christians would be eagerly awaiting for my mother’s special Christmas Biriyani. I loved this part of my contribution to Christmas festivities, because it was the simplest, and more importantly because it was more rewarding, I got to see the happy faces of people. So by the time we are done with this it would almost by 2:00 pm. Then we would have the most tasty meal of the year. I would patiently eat for about an hour. Then have a peaceful sleep until evening. Christmas would be done. 😀
I miss those good ole days… so much that I cannot help but make a cheesy attempt at writing poetry.

Oh, the irony of life that when Good times pass-by
We know them to be ‘Good’ only after they have past us by.
But the gift of life are the sweet memories
Of the reminiscences of the Good.
Ironies of ‘This Life’ point to the Truths of the Next.
Past-taste of Good times gone by is the irony.
Past-tastes of the Good times, in Truth,
Are Fore-tastes of the Next Life!
For all things Good are subject under Christ,
After He ushered in a new Kingdom, at the first Christmas.
And every Christmas since endeavors to be a celebration of all things Good
In the Culture at large, in the Church and at the Homes of Christians!

Strange Mercies of the Giver of Givers

The ‘little drummer boy’ song is one of my favorite songs of Christmas time for two reasons. One, when I was a little kid, my mother taught me the meaning of the song. Two, the meaning of the song has been so ingrained in me that every time I sing it, it evokes in me the tenderest sentiments. Yes, sentiments are good, even when they are directed at God, for He created in us the ability to be sentimental.

My mother explained the song to me as follows… “When Jesus was born, great kings came and brought great gifts to the new born King. Even the shepherds brought sheep and everyone had something to GIVE. A little boy like you was standing there watching Kings on camels and shepherds with sheep. He was so sad because he had NOTHING to gift the sweetest little infant he had ever seen. He did not know what he could do. Suddenly, he had an idea. He was a drummer. He told himself that he was going to play the drum for Mary’s little boy. He told himself that he was going to play his BEST for Him. He played the best for Him and the little boy Jesus smiled at him.” Christmas is about making God smile by giving Him the best we have. Fallen beings as we are, it is indeed a ‘strange mercy’ that God should smile at what we can give Him.

Back in those days when India was still under colonial occupation, British missionaries supposedly, were frequenting the Hindu holy places to understand the Hinduism in order to find the right context to preach the good news. In India, there is a story of a British missionary who met a Hindu lady at the banks of the holy river Ganges. The lady walked up to the river with two of her little sons, one was partially lame the other was healthy. After a while, she came back with only the partially lame son. The British missionary had asked her why the other son was missing. She replied that she had sacrificed him to the gods. Aghast, the British missionary supposedly asked, “If you had to sacrifice a son, why did you not sacrifice the partially lame one”. She apparently replied, “I do not know about your gods, but to our gods we always give our Best”. The British missionary was FLOORED.

A Christian friend posted in Face book, “Christmas is not about spending all our money on gifts to make others happy and then we are miserable and broke the day after Christmas. Christmas is about focusing on the One who requires us to PAY NOTHING to live a life of abundance all year long. CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT CHRIST”.

Yes, I agree that we don’t need to go financially broke during Christmas by giving gifts to people for whom gifts hardly add any value to life other than creating a momentary ‘feel good’ sensation. Christmas is NOT about how good it makes us feel, it is about Christ. It is about doing things that make Him smile. But, I disagree in that we need to PAY NOTHING to make God smile. Christ is costly, for one, He requires of us a broken heart and a contrite spirit. God never comes cheap, He does come easy, but never cheap. I think one of the problems with contemporary Church is that it has made Christianity cheap and God cheaper. Historically, religion has always been a costly affair, followers of all religions have had to pay a heavy prize. Early Christians and Church fathers paid a heavy price. But the advent of post 21th century evangelical Christianity changed that, Christianity was made priceless in that it was made completely free. Martin Luther’s idea of ‘free provident grace’ has somehow mistakenly morphed into an idea of ‘free’ feel-good-God. It is in this context that C.S. Lewis said, “Catholicism is accused of resembling the pagan religions, but the problem with Protestantism is that it resembles no religion at all”.

Contemporary Christianity, especially during the Christmas season, has to make a ‘U-turn’ away from the ‘free’ feel-good-Christianity and ‘commercial’ spread-the-cheer-Christmas and return back to its roots of sacrificial, discerned and compassionate giving that pleases the Lord and makes Him smile. The ‘strange mercy’ of God is that even though everything that we have is already His, He makes it possible for us to give Him what is ours, by giving to the little ones around us.
The wise men expended their brilliance in seeking the King
The shepherds gifted the choicest sheep to the Prince of Peace
The little boy drummed his best for little Jesus
Even the reindeer rendered to St. Nicolas the services of his red nose
What about me? What have I to give?
To commemorate Godhead’s affirmation of human dignity
By the GIVING of the One for a broken and a lost,
Fully restoring true humanity back to humanity.
What about me? What can I give? How can I make the Mediator smile?
Oh, the strange mercy of God, that restores me to fullness and light
That I may give to the broken and the lost, and make the Heavens smile,
Reflecting in me, the true humanity – the Image of the Giver of Givers.

To My Greyhound Aquaintances :)

Last week, when I was riding the Grey Hound from Dallas to Houston, adjacent to me there were a couple of Muslim ladies who were arguing with Christian guy about religion. I felt an urge to even out the numbers and couldn’t help stepping in to join the debate.
There was a point during the debate when I said that the Quran gave a very unique place to Jesus by claiming that He was sinless and that his birth was of a virgin womb. The ladies did not know which verse I was talking about so I told them that I would post the verse I was talking about in this blog for them to read. My initial, impulsive thought was to get their email ids and send the ids to them, but then I realized that sharing emails was a very imprudent idea. So here, I am writing this blog to let them know the verse from Quran I was quoting. I gave them this blog address. I hope they would check this sometime.
Below is the verse.
And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. She said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God-fearing. He said: I am only a messenger from thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a FAULTLESS son. She said: How can I have a son when NO MORTAL HATH TOUCHED ME, NEITHER HAVE I BEEN UNCHASTE? He said: So it will be. Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And it will be that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. Surah 19:16-22.
My point was this. Quran states that God alone is faultless. Quran says that Jesus is Faultless. So Jesus has to be God. I don’t think even the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) has claimed to be faultless.
I enjoyed the debate. One of the ladies was a Christian who converted to Islam 3 years ago. Her problem with Christianity she said was the it was too vague and did not give her answers. The trigger to her abandoning Christianity was the lack of love in the life of a committed Christian who was close to her. It is understandable, after all, it is human nature that the ‘followers’ of a religion abuse it. On the other hand, it is human nature that ‘spectators’ of a religion should be disgruntled with religion because weakness exhibited by those that are religious.
As in any game, it is easy to be a ‘spectator’, it is difficult to actually be playing the game. I am reminded of what G.K. Chesterton said, “Christianity wasn’t tried and found wanting, but it has been found difficult and left untried”.  It is not an easy thing to be a Christian. There aren’t a set of rules that one can follow to claim to be a good Christian.
In fact one of the primary objection of the other lady who was a born Muslim was that Christianity seemed to make salvation too simple. All one had to do she believed was to just believe that Jesus died for everyone sin and then that gives Christians a ‘ticket’ to Heaven. If only Christianity has been that simple, then even the Devil would become a Christian. Christians of this centaury in trying to make Christianity appealing to people of other religions mistakenly portray it as a simple and cheap ‘belief system’.
The essence of the Christian message isn’t just about a ‘belief’ in some Truth, but in a REGENERATION of the heart which turns from the old ways of life to become holy reflecting God’s holiness. Goodness may be attained by doing good works, but holiness cannot be attained by doing good works. Holiness is not about works, but it is about the fundamental nature of the person. Holiness is not a state of not doing something wrong, it is a state of not ever having an inclination to do anything wrong. Holiness of this kind is state of being which is required us to have communion with God. The Christian idea of this regeneration of the heart is about attaining holiness, the purpose of holiness is to make it possible for us to be able to have a relationship with God whose nature is to be holy. The purpose of having a relationship with God is to glorify God. Because of these reasons, Christianity is not about a set of rules or procedures. It is a lot more, it is about maintaining a relationship, something that man finds very difficult to do. To follow a rule is very easy, to be in a relationship is a lot more difficult. Hence Christianity is a lot more difficult than it appears. It is precisely because of this reason why it is a lot more fulfilling a well, because a relationship is more fulfilling than a ‘rule’. On the other hand, it is also because of the relationship aspect of Christianity that some people leave it untried.
The lady also thought that Christians imagining up the idea of the ‘Trinity’ was non-sensical. Yes, it is true that Christians imagined-up the word ‘Trinity’, but to relegate it as non-sense is to completely misunderstand what trinity means. Trinity is the word the Christians use to describe the multiple facets of Godhead. There are better Christians that I who have written about what trinity means, any true inquirer of Truth can understand the idea of a Trinitarian God for what it means, after all the word ‘Trinitarian’ is an adjective that helps understand the ‘paradox’ that is evident in the Godhead.
She also said that the Bible was inconsistent with itself. For example, she said, “ if God was God that He wouldn’t have had to ask Adam where he was hiding?”. I think the answer is this, if a father were to talk to a his kid with the intellectual prowess, then the whole point of talking to the kid is lost. If God were to use all of his omniscience in his conversations with His prophets, then the point of conversation would be lost completely, it would be like God talking only to Himself. When God talks with man, He has to come down to the level of man to talk to him.
Looking back at the debate I had, I am having a renewed understanding of the scriptures and human nature. I realize how easy it is to comment about what appears wrong and inconsistent about the other person’s scriptures by taking a few verses, out of the context, and then posing questions which simply belie a complete misunderstanding of the history, the culture and the intent with which the Scriptures were written.
Christian experts and Islamic experts have been debating with each other about inconsistencies in each other’s scriptures. So what does a person do? What does a person believe in? Does one believe in the Christian experts who say that the Bible is true? Or the Islamic experts that the Quran is true? I don’t think both can be true, only one has to be the truth. How can one get to Truth?
I believe that Truth can only be revealed by God, no man can reveal Truth to anyone else (though men can talk about truth to each other). There is no Truth apart from God. So to reveal Truth God has to reveal Himself to man. I believe that He reveals Himself to any man or woman who is ‘truly’ seeking the Truth. That person will get closer to God.

Meditations on the Salute of the Snob



A few days ago, I was at the ‘Wings over Houston’ air show where diverse range of aero planes from the ones used in WWII to F16s performed breathtaking acrobatics ranging from spectacular reenactments of some classic WWII battles to a lady doing some really scary wing walking.
By far, the best performance of the day, to me, was that of a F15 which was piloted by two US air-force pilots. Its diamond shape, sharp nose, flame tail and the roar of the revving engines captivated the audience in a trance. The aesthetically shaped shining mass of grey metal roaring its way 3 miles into the atmosphere and then traversing the space over the airfields at reckless speeds and daunting maneuvers with class of its own, was a beauty to behold. As I was mesmerized by this spectacle, the word that kept non-volitionally popping into my mind was, ‘elegance’. I kept whispering to myself ‘elegance’… ‘elegance’… ‘pure elegance’…
The audience was caught up on a ‘state of transcendence’ during the 10 minutes of mind boggling air acrobatics and the sheer aesthetic beauty of the F15. Among the audience, I saw two guys a little farther with the tough-guy-demeanor… bushy moustache, a goatee that emphasized the constant smirk, arms crossed across the chest, denim and boots. They appeared to represent the kind, whose face is permanently set into a sneer, expressing a cynicism at everything around them. But as the F15, snooped down over the crowd to bid its final ‘adieu’, the tough guys did something unexpected, they looked at each other and seemed to say ‘let do it’ and then when the F15 passed over us, close above our heads, the couplet did a salute!!!
It was glorious to watch the massive machine doing some super natural feats fly so close to our heads. In fact, the salute was the ‘ordinate’ response to such an experience. They weren’t just saluting the F15, because the glory did not belong just to the piece of metal called the F15 or the pilots, the glory of the experience belonged to the invisible ‘spirit’ of human creativity which envisioned and built such a machine that would with elegance, defy ubiquitous laws of nature, which has bound mankind for many millennia. I couldn’t say which of the two spectacles intrigued me more, the elegant F15 and its spectacular feats or the tough guys’ salute at the experience of glory.
As I was thinking about this, my mind digressed into thinking about another class of intellectual ‘tough guys’ who are the true cynics. They call themselves skeptics and wear an expression of a perpetual sneer. I think that the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hutchins fall under this category. I suspect that they would give a free-pass to or even be appreciative of these tough guys who salute the ‘invisible’ human-spirit that created such a marvel, after all the salute is a sign of gratitude to the sublime human spirit. On the other hand, if these intellectual skeptics were to see a man that were to go down on his knees marveling at the ‘invisible’ Spirit of God whose creativity is seen in the starry hosts of the heavens and the universe within the atoms, these intellectuals ‘materialists’ would pounce on them calling them disillusioned mentally retarded religious bigots.
My point is that the materialists who claim that sane men cannot worship something they cannot ‘see’, constantly keep worshiping things that aren’t ‘materially’ seeable. They worship the ‘laws of logic and reason’, which they use in their arguments against God though none on earth can ‘see’ the laws of logic. The laws of logic is an ‘immaterial reality’ as is the ideal of the human spirit or for that matter, the Spirit of God.
Yesterday, in President Obama’s speech in the State Dinner in the honor of the Indian Prime Minister, he said, “there are two things that are most beautiful in life, the starry hosts above and the sense of duty within the human heart”. I have seen a part of the starry hosts. I have never ‘seen’ the sense of duty. I may have seen the manifestations of the ‘sense of duty’, but that is not ‘seeing’ the sense of duty itself, after all most people may do things because of the sense of fear rather than duty. Nevertheless, none can ‘see’ it precisely is because it is a ‘sense’. If it can been ‘materially seen’ in a test tube, it can no longer be called a ‘sense of duty’, neither would it likely be ‘called’ beautiful.
The cynics of the kind we are talking about do not discount the universal sense of duty in the heart of man, even though they cannot ‘see’ it, but they discount the sense of God within the heart of man. In suspect that, empirically speaking, the ‘sense of God’ in the hearts of men would be more prevalent among men than the ‘sense of duty’ in the heart of man.
I find it surprising that the cynics wouldn’t discount one ‘sense’ but would disparage the other. This is outright hypocrisy. We may wonder what motivates these intellectual heavy weights to be hypocritical, after all if there is a crime there has to be a motive. What would that motive be? I suspect that the reason why they do not discount the validity of the ‘sense of duty’ is because they don’t see the sense of duty as directly implying the presence of a superior personality outside or above them. But the sense of God, if it is acknowledged as genuine, would imply an acknowledgement of a superior personality above.
I am remained of the progenitor of these Anti-Christian cynics, Aldous Huxley, who perhaps was a better cynic than the contemporary ones, as he directed some of his cynicism at himself as well. He said, “I do not believe in a God, not because there isn’t enough evidence for a God, but because I do not want a God to be there… (because that would imply that there truly is a standard morality and I need to adhere to it)”.
The class of cynics who do not want a superior authority to be there, rile against those who believe in a superior authority, just because they want to live lives their own way, without any encumbrances from any superior being. Their tirade against God has nothing to do with God being invisible, even if God were visible, they would explain Him off with a new scientific theory, no matter how untenable it sounds. Their need to rile against God and all those who are on His side has everything to do with the spirit of rebellion in every man that does not like to be truly grateful and consequently humble towards anyone else other than self. What starts as gratitude would impel a person to be humble and would help the person to salute or go down on his knees at the experience of glory.
The lesson to Christians in this is that if the Christians were to be yield to the downward tug of the ‘fallen’ human nature to not be grateful to anyone else other than self, then they too would end up in the class of the cynics who sneer at everything good around them. So in this Thanks giving season, as we move towards Christmas, let us take time to be grateful to the invisible yet pervasive God who is ‘there’.

Why don’t we have Doggish Horses?

Anyone who knows me will know that I seldom miss an oppertunity to ride a horse. I have had quite a number of dates with horses. The last one of them really went bad when the horse, when it was galloping down a hilly slope at about 50 miles an hour,  suddenly decided that it had had enough of me and unloaded me to crash down my right shoulders leaving me with a scary, and in a strange way, a cherished, remembrance of that affair.

Some of my friends at the Camp Allen retreat took to horse riding. For one of them, it was her first ride on a horse. She told me that she constantly was speaking to the horse and patting him. I understand why she had to talk to the horse, because I have done it myself. I talk to the horse and keep patting them when I ride them precisely because a horse is not a dog. This may seem confusing. But let me explain, unlike the dog, the horse seldom comes off as a lovable being. It takes more effort to befriend a horse than a dog.
Whenever I get on a horse, I am often apprehensive that the horse wouldn’t be friendly to me and would want to do something bad to me – like bite off my hand or throw me off when going down a hill. So I, in speaking to the horse and patting him, try to placate him and make him feel loved so that he would be predisposed to be friendly towards me. But with the dog, I don’t have to do all of this, the dog is such a lovable and friendly creature. The moment I get close to him, his eyes brighten, he walks towards me, smells me, touches me with is wet nose, licks me, wags his tail. With the horse, I get a disinterested glance, then a indifferent snort and a dismissive wag of the tail.
Oh, my dates with horses would be a lot better if only the horses had the spirit of the dogs. If only there was a doggish horse, I would devote all of my life to maintaining a stable of horses and be happy and content with my life. But no there is no doggish horse anywhere in the world… Sad.

This got me wondering… I wondered why God did not have this brilliant idea of making a doggish horse? Why didn’t he give the horse the heart of a dog? This got me thinking…

In life, one’s expectations are full of such ‘wish creations’. I have a friend who is a movie lover. I have another friend who is a book lover. I dream of having a friend who is a bookish movie lover. But no that friend isn’t to be. Why does God not give me such friends? After all, if I had such a friend, I wouldn’t need any other friends… oops! Perhaps, God knows this, that is why He did not give me a bookish movie lover for a friend, because I would be ‘dangerously’ too content with him and wouldn’t seek other friendships.
A man has a mother, he has a wife, but then he wishes he had a motherly wife – a wife who embodies the unconditional affirmation of a mother along with the passionate love she has as a wife. No, God hasn’t created that genre. Perhaps, this is because if a husband has such a person, he may be too ‘dangerously’ content in this worldly soul-mate and may not want to pursue and seek solace in his heavenly Soul-mate (God Himself). Likewise, a wife may dream of a fatherly husband but would never get such a man, because if she got hold of such a man, she may be too busy pleasing her earthly fatherly husband not have any energy to expend herself in pleasing her heavenly Father and eternal Husband.
God hasn’t created doggish horses for a good reason. But He has created dogs and horses so that we would be discontented with ‘just dogs’ and ‘just horses’ and would seek to find the non-existent doggish-horses and in the process of ‘seeking’ would ‘find’ our contentment in Him who is the embodiment of all that is real, perfect and beautiful in life. God wants to use life experience to keep from getting ‘dangerously’ contented with the million trivialities of life, so that we would be impelled to find our contentment in Him who is the Father and Husband and Friend and Master and Prophet and King and Priest and inexplicably, the Sinner to walked up the gallows on my stead.
The purpose of all of life from dogs to horses to books to movies is to glorify God – to glorify God by using all of this ‘means of discontentment’ and thereby to draw us to Himself. After all, one day we would indeed have doggish horses, that would be the day when the children play with snakes and lambs would lay beside lions, when we live in the new Heavens where God is at the centre and would be supremely glorified.