Christ Centered Spirituality

It is customary for me to write a post about Christmas before Christmas, but I got too busy this Christmas to write anything on my blog… so here is my post-Christmas, Christmas post. After all this is the 4th of the 12 day Christmas, so I am not late any ways.

(Disclaimer: What is stated below is my impression of what Sojourn Church Community stands for. My impressions may or may not reflect the Church’s official stand on things)

‘Covenant’ is a very heavy word that has in recent times has lost the depth of its meaning. Before the modern idea of ‘contract’, became the norm for any transaction whether marriage or business, it was ‘covenant’ that bound people together. Covenant has a deep relationship aspect which the ‘matter-of-fact’ contract lacks. Where contract tries to define the boundaries of the liabilities, the covenant went ALL in. Where contract is signed in ink, covenant was signed in Blood.

When I realized that Sojourn had a ‘Covenant Membership Class’ to induct new members, my understanding of the weight of the word caused pause. I needed to really consider the stakes involved. Generally speaking, a Covenant answers three questions, what do I need to give? what do I get in return? who is the covenant enforcer? To me, the key question to which I wanted to find the answer to was the first one, ‘what do I need to give?’. I wanted to know what was at stake before I could commit to be a member of this Church.

Because I was apprehensive, I made sure that I could decide not to become a member if I didn’t want to, after attending the class. I was assured that I could. So I attended the class last week. The covenant class was taken by the passionate Pastor Joseph and facilitated by the able administrator, Drew.

Three points stood out to me from the class.
1. The need to create a Christian presence in urban enclaves.
2. The need to allow the Gospel to permeate everyday aspects/rythmns of ones life.
3. The need to commune, submit and be strengthened by each other.

In every culture, there is a part of the society that is fragmented and is in dire need of the gospel. The Christian has two options to deal with this. Either jump headlong into the decadent culture, open it up to the Good News by building a Shining City in the midst. Or retire to the Christian ghetto, assured that one has the ‘ticket’ to heaven and that one will ‘make it’ even if all hell breaks loose around them. It seemed to me that the Sojourn Christians are encouraged to be of the first kind of Christians. To be the Christian of the first kind, one has to venture outside of one’s comfort zone. For example, Joe said that if you decide to live in urban enclaves (as against the suburbs), you may not be able to own a house until you are in your mid-thirties or early forties. Besides, you have to open your homes for neighbours to come and fellowship at. That is a sacrifice one has to consider making to be a high stakes Christian of the first kind. 
This a not a low bar. But how could I not covenant with that?  Check!

A big problem with the urban progressives is a sense of entitlement. The urbanite believes he/she has a RIGHT to happiness, no matter what is at stake. In fact, I think, one could draw an almost straight line from the belief in right to happiness to the breakdown of marriages in the Western civilization. The only thing that can effectively work against this obsessive ‘pursuit of happiness’ is the Gospel permeating every aspect of our life. Gospel kills the discontentment that arises out of the sense of entitlement, by helping us SEE the crucified Lord. This Gospel-focus SHOULD fill us with the GREATEST sense of GRATITUDE that nothing else would matter so much so as to rob us of our ‘joy’ in the Lord.

Joe recounted how one of the Elders in the Church had to recite the Gospel to him when he was feeling discontentment over something. It is a great example to see pastors use a self-deprecating examples to glorify the Gospel. To make much of Christ and less of self is the fruit of the workings of the Gospel. It seemed to me that the Sojourn Christians are encouraged to be Gospel-focused to make much of Christ and less of self in their everyday aspects/rythmns of life. 
This a not a low bar. But how could I not covenant with that? Check!

If  the urban progressives had real, healthy and cherished communities, the Starbucks business model would have bombed right at the start. After all, a good number of people that go to Starbucks for the pseudo-community experience than for the ‘real’ coffee. In contrast to the pseudo-communities around us, Christians are supposed to be the ‘real’ community builders. We are to find our identity in the community of those who love the Lord. While most pagan communities that look real are built upon principle of ‘networking’ driven by self-interest of some form, the Christian community is built upon virtues of mutual love, mutual submission and mutual exhortation. Unlike Communism (Marxism), the Christian community is not classless, there is a definite hierarchy. But the Christian community is a lot more radical than Communism in that Communism mandates that everyone be treated equally, whereas in the Christian community, one is expected to treat the other better than one self. This is where rubber meets the road. This a high bar. I’ll need to covenant with that! Check!

It takes a lot of gospel-focus, prayer and mission mindedness to be able to fulfil my part of covenant deal. Truth be said, it will not be easy. But I have the ‘Helper’ (John 14:16), the Lord the Holy Spirit to help me through. Even if I fail, the covenant Enforcer is gracious (Romans 3:23 – 26: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood). The covenant is cut from His blood, not mine, which is why I can confidently go ALL-in into this high stakes Christian covenant community.

Owing to multiple reasons, I schedule my annual vacation round Feb/March. Consequently, this is the 5th Christmas, in a row, that I am going to be away from family. Actually, I have lost all memory of what made Christmas special when I was young. It is sort of sad.

The only thing that is Christmasy about my life these days is listening to Christmas songs. There are some songs that always bring a tear to my eye. One is ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=Adg_JIQzdhs. The other is ‘What Child is This’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz44GJlSPeo.

Little Drummer Boy is about this little boy standing by the manger Jesus is born at. He loves Jesus so much, but he has nothing to give Him. BIG people come and give Jesus BIG gifts. He is sad that he has noting to give the King. He thinks and thinks what he can give Jesus. Then he realizes that he can play the drum for Jesus. He sweetly asks Jesus, ‘Shall I play for you?’. He plays the drum for Jesus. He plays his BEST for Jesus. His ULTIMATE joy is in seeing… ‘Then Jesus smiles at me… Me and my drum…’. Even writing this makes me tear up, that the Lord is pleased with whatever little I can glorify Him with. He considers it precious. I think I try to put myself in his shoes a little too much. The GOAL of Christmas is not just to have a good time. But to make our Lord ‘smile’ at us and what we do thing Christmas.

‘What Child is this’ makes me tear-up not just because the tune evokes a depth of transcendence and awe and mystery, but because there is a philosophical depth to it too. The song deals with the whole Person of Jesus. His Kingship ‘King of Kings’, His mean estate ‘among ox and lamb’, His Love ‘pleading for sinners’, His crucifixion ‘nail, spear shall pierce through him’. It also talks about ordinate human response ‘Good Christian fear’, ‘Hail, hail the Word made flesh’, ‘Let loving hearts enthrone Him’, ‘Raise, raise a song on high’. The going back and forth between Christ’s Greatness and Human Response brings tears of joy and admiration.

Christmas is BEST when Christ is made the Celebrity that is most admired over and over again… When people tear-up in Michael Jackson concerts, how much more should we tear-up when Christ is the Celebrity??? Well, this applies only to the sensitive mushy ones I guess… 😛

I think lonely Christmases are blessed because being alone around Christmas has given me a greater appreciation for life. It has given me the ability to appreciate life in spite of life being reduced to the bare essentials. It is at such times that I gets to really enjoy God. Loneliness is a very small cost to pay for the opportunity to enjoy and be satisfied in Christ.

It was St. Francis of Assisi who said, “A man who has everything and Christ has everything. A man who has everything but Christ has nothing. A man who has nothing but Christ hasn’t anything less than the man who has everything and Christ’. Understanding this quote of the great Saint at a philosophical level is one thing. Living it at an existential level is a whole another experience. Blessed lonely Christmases give me this priceless experience.

At the end of the day, Christmas is about glorifying God and share my Joy in Christ with people around me. I can always do this whichever part of the world I am at, for the WHOLE world is the Lord’s and the WHOLE world CELEBRATES the King of Kings!

Will Beethoven’s incomparable ‘Symphony No 9 in D minor’ outlast Lady Gaga’s say ‘Paparazzi’? Or will people 2 centuries into future, make a Beethoven of Lady Gaga?


For knowledge to be received, you got to make two assumptions 1) You exist 2) The Creator of Knowledge exists. Without these assumptions, there can be no study of knowledge.


Oh, Cold Houston! I don’t like you! You make it difficult for me to ride my motorcycle. I don’t like driving my car. 😦


I am sure Heaven will have have ‘golden sunsets’… the rays of the orange sun painting a golden lining round the glowing mass of floating moisture.


Well, actually the point of all questions that arise in the course of human existence is whether we want to be grateful or we want to grumble.


Isn’t it an irony that the I-pod, I-phone, I-pad the hallmarks of modern materialism should be envisioned by a Zen Buddhist.


Well, time is precious. Time is where the essence of being is reckoned. In that sense ‘time’ limits our experience of the essence of our being. Heaven being truly ‘timeless’ is where we’ll truly get to experience the essence of our being.


Well, the nights that are truly timeless… when I am trying to find an answer to a question I can’t quite put in words. I wish this was a weekend night when I could and go have a 2:00 AM Starbucks coffee and think through the question, but alas! this isn’t. Well, life is good! It is good to ‘have time’ to think. Not many have this luxury. Thanks be to God!


The man that has found the one thing that truly fills him with perpetual joy, eternally, has found himself. Until he finds it he is still ‘looking for himself’


I would rather appear foolish than be a fool.


With the I-phone 4G having the AI enabled Personal Assistant ‘Siri’, you’ll probably be talking more to the phone than using phone to talk to someone else. After all, we are evolving away from the long-talking Ents of the Lord of the Rings… Of course, it is all about efficiency!!!


Well, OWS would do better if they could articulate their policy positions without using the word ‘greed’, after all you can’t expect to jail the entire human race, can you?


Oh, I don’t like cold weather 😦 I miss the warm sunny hot Houston already!


True freedom is not just freedom from external tyranny, it is freedom from self. To be caught up in the cob web of the self is a subtle form of tyranny that is too ubiquitous to even be noticed, much less diagnosed let alone being mitigated.


Just finished filing my 2010 tax returns. Thanks to TaxAct Online! It is indeed exciting to pull things off close to the deadlines! It makes you feel free and strong. 🙂


What would life be without words… after all, didn’t someone say words are the vehicle for meaning… If none said, I just did. I think it probably was C.S.Lewis.


Is this how people feel when they come down from a mountain top experience… overflowing with words that probably makes sense to none… Oh, well!


Actually, life is just as good even without facebook. Facebook isn’t even icing on the cake. Facebook is just a lens through which you get to see the icing on the cake… There are many lenses, BTW. 🙂


I think I have decided to come out of my facebook hibernation. 🙂


Oh, if only emotions can be remembered like words… life would be a lot more enriching… Especially the emotions associated with pain and failure for they are the ones that bring a DEPTH to life besides making the emotions of joy and success, meaningful.


‎A man who isn’t a tad bit ‘mad’ enough to risk some can’t be a man, period.


‘Fight Club’ is a movie that is about so many things that I am at loss for words to describe it. It is the anti-thesis to the ultra-modern platitudes that are so ubiquitous and are seldom noticed anymore, the key platitude being, “Hey, you are special!”


Why am I not infatuated with facebook anymore? I never thought this day would come.


Anything with just a 7 inch screen cannot compete with I-pad, ‘Kindle Fire’ included.


Anything with just a 7 inch screen cannot compete with I-pad, ‘Kindle Fire’ included.

‘Anonymous’ is a movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521197/ about the theory that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays which are attributed to his authorship. ‘Anonymous’ claims that the plays were written by the 17th Earl, Edward Oxford and because he wanted to avoid political repercussions of being a playwright he needed to use someone else, the someone else being Shakespeare. The movie doesn’t do a great job of selling this theory, it is probably not worth anyone’s money unless one ardently loves historical dramas with a conspiracy angle.

I saw something in the movie that I admired. The 17th Earl is a guy who loves words so much that he was willing to relinquish authorship just to see the words come to live. He is the true artist who had not vested interest, except to see the effect of his words on the ‘mob’. He often mentions in the movie that words are powerful weapons. He even tries to use the power of his words to control succession plans of English monarchy.

He depicted a strength – strength to relinquish control for the sake of beauty – a strength to become lesser for a greater cause the cause of ‘words coming to life’. He depicted a strength in being himself – an artist instead of being the Earl attending to his investments. In fact, he loses his great wealth and is close to bankruptcy. His exasperated wife, justifiably gets mad at him and asks him why he keeps writing.

The Earl replies, almost helplessly, but with a calm conviction that he hears ‘voices in his head’ – the cry of the soldier in the battle field, the thoughts of a prisoner in dungeons, the words of a lover to his maiden… and if he had to be sane, he had to write them down. I felt I got my money’s worth and some more with that line. After all, don’t we all hear ‘voices in the head’.

Writing is sort of like painting, but the picture is not on canvas. The writer if he is good will be able to get the reader to paint the picture of the story in his/her mind, many many pictures… Words, are voices in the head of the writer, and pictures in the mind of the reader.  

I admire men that are strong. That can put themselves in harm’s way just to measure the strength of their will. In some ways, Professional boxers are such men. Boxing is a brutal sport. I don’t usually watch it. But I like the idea that a man is willing to risk all he has got just to make a claim for raw brutal power. Strength in any sport is admirable.

Since the legendary Joe Frazier’s death yesterday, I have been reading bits about him and his famous rivalry with Ali. Joe Frazier has the distinction of being the first boxer to ever defeat Ali. Joe wasn’t charismatic as Ali. He was far from good looking. Joe hated Ali for the way Ali taunted him. Prior to the famous trilogy between Frazier and Ali, Ali had called Joe a ‘gorilla’ and then ‘uncle tom’ and then many other derogatory names. Apparently, Joe never got over it.

To Joe’s credit, Joe helped Ali at one important juncture in his boxing career. When Ali was stripped off his title and banished from the boxing league for refusing military service, Joe helped him get back into the boxing league. Joe even met with President Nixon to further Ali’s case. After going through all of this, it really hurt Joe to be taunted by Ali.

I understood where Joe was coming from… but still it seemed odd that a professional boxer should allow such taunts to bother him so much. After all, boxers do that to each other as a ‘sales pitch’ to get media attention and increase ticket sales. Joe should have been aware of this. Ali had a great sales acumen. It was common knowledge within boxing circles that Ali had a lot of respect for Joe as a boxer.

Given all of this, it was still lost on me why Joe hated Ali for the way he was taunted; until I read an article where a close friend who knew both Ali and Joe explains…

“I told Joe years later that Ali was just trying to sell the fight, but Joe said to me, ‘How do you think I feel when he calls me an Uncle Tom? My kids come home from school and tell me the other kids told them their Dad’s a gorilla.’ Joe just couldn’t get over it.”

Now, I understood Joe better… Joe didn’t mind taking a punches Ali, he got loads of it to the point that he couldn’t see with his left eye in the last match with Ali. But he DID mind his kids being affected by Ali’s ‘sales pitch’. He did not want to make his kids pawns in a sales pitch. He wanted to protect his kids from the taunts of other kids.

Joe Frazier was the ‘Papa Gorilla’… We often speak highly of ‘Mama Grizzlies’ but we seldom speak much less understand the ‘Papa Gorillas’ – the ones that go out into the world with the sole purpose of creating for his kids, a better life – a life where his kids would be proud to have been his kids. Not to take the thunder away from Joe Frazier… Even the most narcissistic guy Steve Jobs, towards the end of his life, when he was asked by Brian Williams of MSNBC as to what Jobs considered the most valuable contribution of his life, he thought a bit and then answered with conviction, “his life with his wife and kids”. Brian Williams was a bit surprised but he pressed on, “what about public contributions?”. “Well, that is for others to decide” was his terse reply.

As I stated, I admire strong men. But I have a great adulation for strong men that have a soft, sensitive soul. Joe Frazier in spite of being the strong man willing to get punched in the gut and plummel the other guy with powerful jabs, seemsat his heart to be a man with a soft, sensitive soul. It is said that he lost his fortune by his generosity and naivety. When asked, what he did with all the millions he earned as the heavy weight champion, why he wasn’t a millionaire as his peers Ali and Foreman, he replied, “In a sense I am rich… I have a family… I have a stack of a few 100 dollar bills”. Joe built a close knit family, he trained two of his children to be boxers. He played the guitar. He loved his family.

A man that is a ‘Papa Gorilla’ will die a rich man, it doesn’t matter how much money he has. Riches is in relationships, it takes hard work to build long lasting relationships. Strong relationships are by their very nature, an end in itself. The ‘Papa Gorilla’ needs nothing more than the satisfaction that he has done for his family what best he could do – he has fought a good fight, run a good race. In an era bereft of traditional values, at a time where most men tend to shun responsibility and commitment, ‘Papa Gorillas’, rock! They live forever!

I sent an email out to the ‘Parish Group’ saying that I might not be able to attend the parish and that I wished them a great time of ‘fellowshiping’ and debating. After hitting ‘send’, I realized that the properly-spoken English language didn’t have the word ‘fellowshiping’. I had just made up a very odd sounding verb of a noun. Not that I am a stickler for grammatical correctness, I couldn’t care less. Technically, ‘fellowship’ is itself a verb. But still, I sort of felt embarrassed and wanted to salvage my pride at least by trying to find some seemingly insightful rationale behind it. Or may be, it is a week since I have written anything on my blog and I needed an excuse to ramble on something.

So I started thinking… When ‘google’ became ‘googling’, a noun had become a very odd sounding verb. Whenever a noun becomes a verb it signifies a very powerful paradigm shift in how people perceive life. When noun becomes an odd-sounding verb, it morphs into something much BIGGER – in google’s case worth billions of dollars too. 😛

In order to find a way to restore my fallen (vain) glory, I had to ask myself what paradigm shift the word ‘fellowshiping’ signified? Was it worth at least 2 cents? Two thought tumbled out… 1) Young urban progressives living in the midst of a very ‘fragmented society’ have a deep need for fellowship (as a replacement to real family-ties). 2) Friendship/fellowship was never meant to be an end in itself. Any good friendship is always a means to something MUCH bigger.

C.S.Lewis in his book, ‘Four Loves’ talks about friendship as a relationship in which two people stand side-by-side and look at the same thing admire it the same way. They are not preoccupied with each other (as in the case of romantic relationship), friends are preoccupied with the beauty of ‘something’ MUCH bigger than each other, ‘something’ that could potentially be earth-shattering. In fact, the famed circle of friends that C.S.Lewis was a part of , the ‘Inklings’, also had another prominent writer, the great J.R.R Tolkien. The Inklings shared many a conversation over many a night. C.S.Lewis even read the original manuscript of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and discussed it with J.R.R Tolkien.

What C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien shared was the friendship of the highest order. Tolkien was very influential in C.S.Lewis’ conversion. It is impossible to overestimate the impact of the Inklings on either writers and a thousand other writers that try copycat, the greatest among these being J.K.Rowling who makes no bones of the fact that she owes so much to the above mentioned writers. When noun becomes an odd sounding verb, when fellowship becomes fellowshiping, eventually, there is bound to be something spectacular.

Having thought through this I was sort of happy. I had managed to use the names of some legends using some circuitous logic and reasoning to salvage the damage that my vain ego felt at having coined so queer a word as ‘fellowshiping’. Nevertheless, my ambition knews no limits. I was still thinking about how I could further salvage my pride by finding other uses for this inadvertent mistake… Lo and behold! another context came to my rescue. It happened at the parish meeting which I eventually made it to…

The question on the table was about how to engage an ‘urban progressive’ culture with the Gospel. I made my customary (slightly) long-winded speech about using artistic inclinations of people as a contact point to engage the culture. Kyle, a sharp guy in the group said, “so what you are saying is we need to something like – invite people and screen the movie ‘Tree of Life'” (Kyle and I had just had a deep conversation about movie ‘Tree of life’ and how it related to the gospel). I replied, “precisely! and we need to talk about how the movie is so godless even though it appears to be FULL of the idea of God”.

After the meeting was over, I told Kyle, “You know what, we shouldn’t JUST screen ‘Tree of Life’, we should MAKE one like that”. Kyle replied, “Yes, something that is deeply metaphorical”. My rejoinder was, “Precisely, something that a few will understand, but when they do, their hearts and minds would be on fire!” This conversation made me feel even better about the impulsive coinage of ‘fellowshiping’. After all, fellowshiping can have BIGGER goals…

When a noun becomes a verb, it is powerful. The MOST powerful example of this is when the Lord of the Universe changed the meaning of the word ‘love’ on the Cross. He SHOWED in real-life ACTION how the noun becomes a verb in a very powerful way. When the world go about ‘petty ways’ of making loads of money off of changing nouns into verbs, there is a huge lacuna for Christ-like ones to step in and SHOW the world how POWERFUL verbalizing a noun can be really be, as in ‘fellowshiping’, or better still ‘truly loving’ as Christ loves us! 

It takes courage to live a good life, but it takes ‘crazy courage’ to change the world. For better or for worse, it is the crazily courageous ones from Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc. to Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy Inc., that can’t help but change the world around them.

(Disclaimer: Even though the verbiage is explicitly masculine, the spirit and the underlying theology is androgynous)

Life moves
Through a heaviness
Sharp edges
All around

Can’t help
But move
Always forward
Always onward

Where’s Meaning?
Where’s Delight?
Distant Mirages
Rock underneath

Get cut
Bleeding
Get broken
Smashed

Heavy life
Edges, razor sharp
Rock is hard
Cob webs confuse

Take a punch
In the gut
Bear a bullet
In the chest

Back up, Standing
With the King’s Spirit
Brave and Strong – A man!
A son of the King!