What’s wrong with the World? I am.

Once an editor sent a letter soliciting an essay from G.K. Chesterton on the topic ‘What’s Wrong With The World’. The editor was shocked when he opened the mail which contained the essay because all it said was…

I am.

Yours truly,
G.K. Chesterton.

The editor had to read it twice before he understood that what G.K. Chesterton meant as the answer was ‘There is nothing wrong with the world, it is just that I am wrong with the world’. I had a similar experience at St. John’s Divine Episcopal Church at Houston this Sunday morning, the experience wasn’t as profound as to be worthy of G.K. Chesterton’s quote. I just find the analogy a funny one.

I woke up at 7:00 am on Sunday and got ready to go to 8:45 AM service at St. John Divine Church. I started in my bike which at about 8:20, the roads were unusually vacant. I was at SJD sharp at 8:45 but I found very few cars. “What’s wrong here” I was thinking, “don’t people come to Church in time?” I entered the main Church there was not even a single usher. What is wrong with the ushers aren’t they supposed to be here. I went into the church to find the pews empty, not a soul in the Church. Now I was confused.

I went out there was a lady walking by, I asked her if there wasn’t’ supposed to be a service there at 8:45 AM. “Yes there is” she said. “But the Church is empty” I replied. “Oh, we shifted back an hour, there is a service which starts at 7:45 AM in the chapel, you may come there” she replied and walked off. I was thinking to myself, What on earth did she mean when she said ‘we shifted back an hour’. I can shift something that is humanly tangible, I can shift the venue of a meeting, I can shift my house. How can I shift time? Even God hasn’t performed that miracle for more than two and a half millennia. I though to myself, “What is wrong with her”

I looked at my watch it was almost 9:00 AM. So I was late to the 7:45 AM service by over an hour. I thought that I would be in time for communion at least. I entered the chapel and the lessons were being read. I thought again, “What is wrong with this service, isn’t the service supposed to have the lessons at the beginning much before the communion?”. I was baffled and thought that may be there was a problem in the main church and so they shifted the service to the chapel. But still the chapel was too small and there were very few people. Even if the venue had been shifted shouldn’t the folks that come regularly have come? What is wrong with these regular Church folks? Did they all decide to come to the 11:00 AM service? What is wrong with them? Or was there an important football game? The service was over and as I was coming out, a genial old man came up patted me on my shoulder and told me nice to see you young man. It then occurred to me there I was the youngest guy there. Why aren’t there any young people here? What is wrong with the young people, don’t they come to Church anymore? By then it was about 10:00 AM in my watch.

I went to the main Church building, where as per the Church bulletin, a Bible Study was to begin at 10:00 AM, but to my utter confusion there were ushers giving pew sheets for the 8:45 service. “What is wrong with this Church today?” I was thinking.
So I went to one of the ushers and asked him, “Isn’t there supposed to be a Bible study here?”
He said, “Yes, it is at 10:00”.
I replied “Yes, but then why is there a service now?”.
“This is the 8:45 service” he said.
I replied “But shouldn’t there by be the Bible study here now?”

He as visibly confused as what I was trying to ask. And I was thinking so “What is wrong with this guy?” I really did not know what to ask him next, he really did not know what to tell me. I was wondering. “I just don’t get it, What is wrong with the world today?”

Then I heard a familiar voice calling me “Emmanuel” from behind I turned and there was Dana and Don who always have the knack of finding me when I am lost in Church and making me feel at home. I asked Don “I was thinking there supposed to be a Bible study now at 10:00 here, but why is there the service now instead of the Bible study?” Don thought for a moment and had a hearty laugh and said “Dude you didn’t set your watch back by an hour”. Then it occurred to me that it was Day light savings time shift when all clocks all over the US would be shifted back by an hour I forgot to set my watch back by an hour.

I had been at Church at 7:45 but my watch was wrongly pointing at 8:45 am. So I was attending the 7:45 service thinking it was the 8:45 service. There was nothing wrong with the woman who said ‘we shifted back an hour’. There was nothing wrong with the reading of lessons in the 7:45 service. There was nothing wrong with me being the youngest guy at the 7:45 service, the young guys come to the 8:45 service. There was nothing wrong with the usher whom I had confused by my questions. There was nothing wrong with the world. It was just that I was wrong with the world.

Nevertheless to do my best to rectify my mistake, I attended the 8:45 service which I had originally intended to attend. And then I attended the Bible study at 10:00 it went on till 11:00 and till 11:30 I was at the contemporary service, by then I had had 3:30 hours of nonstop church activity. I decided to take a break. I sat with my laptop at the SJD lobby and was deep into my writing. At 12:30 I went to lunch with my friends at Lake wood. I was back at the SJD lobby at 4:00 pm to work on my writing. On my way back, Rev Doug waved at me as he drove past. I was thinking to myself as to what a queer sight in the road I was, because I guess I was doing a very un-American thing of ‘commuting’ in my bike wearing formal.

SJD lobby is a quite place to concentrate to do some writing. I stayed at SJD and I attended the 6:00 PM service as well. On the whole today I attended al most all services on a Sunday. So the day that started with everything being seemingly wrong ended as a perfect Sunday.

Indian Christians Come Free of Cost

If someone in India wants to cater to his/her urge for crazed violence, then all one has to do is to find a church or prayer hall which can be vandalized at will and then the blame can be put on the ‘idea’ that Christians indulge in forced conversion, never mind the ‘fact’ there in the law courts there isn’t even a single conviction in the numerous arrests that have been made on the false charges of forced conversion.

If someone in India wants to have on heck of a time beating families peacefully sleeping in their homes, then all one has to do is find a Christian home in the neighborhood and break into it at night and beat them black and blue. The ‘propaganda’ that Christians are the ones who run the many destitute homes so that inmates can be forcibly converted to Christianity somehow warrants such treatment in the middle of the night.

If someone in India wants to play a real life game of hunting down humans in jungles all one has to do is get a bunch of like minded folks and storm a Christian village chase the villagers into jungles and then hunt them down until the thirst for blood is quenched. The ‘prejudice’ that Christians are the first to aid riot victims or victims of natural disaster only to indulge in more forced conversion of the victims somehow deserves such cleansing of villages.

All of this beating, looting, raping, lynching and burning alive of Indian Christians can be done free of cost. None will be questioned, none will be made to face the law. It is all free of cost. But this shall not continue on forever, one day justice shall come knocking on the doors of these despicable sons of the Indian soil and demand its pound of flesh, then they shall pay the likes of Praveen Togadia, Bal Thcakrey and Raj Thackrey . Until then Indian Christians come free of cost.

The important Christian perspective that should not be forgotten by the cheap Indian Christians, is not to somehow find a way to make it costlier to persecute Indian Christians but to somehow get the attention of the persecutors onto the single most important even in ‘space-time’ which made Indian Christian free of cost – the blasphemous possibility where the God of the heavens was made free of cost to be beaten and killed by a frivolous throng.

The only payment that Christians can receive from such persecution is the harvest of souls that generally follows every widespread persecution in history. But that payment would never be received if focus of the cross is lost. By not focusing on the cross and by focusing on making Indians costlier, a stop can be put to such inhuman blood-boiling persecutions, but Indian Christian would only have made themselves cheap for they would have relegated off the possibility of earning a big payment of persecution harvested souls.

Lesson From the Little Children

I love observing kids, I love talking to them. To me, they are the ones that talk least nonsense.

Sometime back , when I went for fresher interviews to college campuses one thing I would often wonder about is how to judge the attitude of a person sitting across the desk, who often try to feign polished attitudes.

A couple of weeks back during the annual harvest festival INGAT at the St. George's Cathedral at Chennai the perfomance of some little children helped me get some insights into how the attitude of the interviewee could be judged. I was incharge of the youth group's stalls and when I realized that some little kids were dancing I went to see them. That was when I noticed something pertaining to their attitude.

A few kids were really happy about what they were doing, they did not have all the necessary co-ordination but still the element of 'happiness' was high. They needed no external reason for doing what they were doing, the happiness they felt in dancing was sufficient reason enough. On the other hand a few other kids were just performing for the sake of performing perhaps their parents wanted them to dance or their sunday class teacher forced them to enroll. Internally, by themselves, they had no reason as to why they had to do what they were doing. What they did simply brought them no happiness.

Even in work I often find people who are not really happy about the work they do. When there is a problem with the written program and work needs to be done to 'fix' it their face becomes as oblong as it could. They work not for the joy of work but for the sake of something else.

Applying this to conducting interviews, the interviewer need to ascertain the extent of 'happiness' the person has in just 'doing' the work he says he has been doing, withtou regard to any external factors. The interviewer has to ascertain if the interviewee worked in his college for the joy of work or if he worked to get a job or to get better grades. The best attitude to have is the attitude where work is a joy in itself.

Martyrdom and Communion

The recent and continuing spate of Christian persecution has been a painful thing to observe and even more so to internalize. Internalization means asking myself the question "If I were to face the choice between the bullet and the Bible, with what 'attitude' would I choose the Bible?", "Would I 'cheerfully' take the Bible and accept the bullet?" To be honest, I was thinking it may be difficult, in the moment of reckoning, to take the bullet and give up all the dreams and passions of life. So, I was not sure about how 'cheerful' I would really be at the prospect of martyrdom.

As this thought was going over my mind and in a way eating through my mind, I was at the Cathedral for a communion service on 27th Septmeber 2008, which was also my birthday. It was also the aniversary commomeration service of the union of Church of South India (CSI). It was a Eucharist service. When I was preparing for the communion, suddenly a thought struck. I was here 'celeberating' Christ's martyrdom for my sake but I was being gloomy about my martyrdom for Christ's sake.

It was in this mood of humble introspection as I was walking up to the altar to symbolically partake of the divine Body and Blood that communion had an entirely new meaning to me. It was after thinking through the existential prospect of martyrdom for Christ that Christ's sacrifice for me seemed so much more real and closer to my heart.

Probing the Mind of Indians killing Indians

The literate elitist Indians were shocked when they heard that a CEO, Lalit Kishore Chaudhury of Graziano Trasmissioni was beaten to death by the workers of his company at Noida, an important industrial centre of India. Perhaps they were even more appalled when the Union Labour minister Oscar Fernandes said ‘… this should serve as a warning to managements in other companies to respect the workers’ (an off-hand remark for which he later apologized).

To me, though that was indeed shocking, that wasn’t very surprising. The basic issue here is not about who is getting killed but about the basic impetus to do the killing – the principle which makes the killing an act of justice. The principle being that killing is justified not because the one killed did something wrong but because the one killed represented a force before which the killer feels powerless against. We have been used to this principle of resorting to killing people when one really does not know how to counter a force which seems unstoppable. The Hindu fanatics of Siva Sena and Bajrang Dal have been killing Christians to counter the seemingly unstoppable force of Christian conversions. When killings go on without any repercussions, acts of violence become the ultimate panacea to problems against which one feels powerless.

The Hindu fanatics do not know how to counter the force of Christian conversions. Let us face the fact, there have been cases where conversions were not genuine, there have been cases where conversions happened to gain material ends. But this is a small fraction of the conversions happening across India. The Hindu fanatics have no idea how to counter these mysterious conversions of the second kind which are much higher in number and more threatening than the first kind. They resort to violence and then justify killing Christians on flimsy ground that conversions are inhumane acts which deserves capital punishment.

The reason for killing the CEO was not so much about the wrongness of his decision to fire workers but the powerlessness the worker feel against him. The impetus to killing Christians is not the wrongness of the act of conversions, but the powerlessness one feels against the force of conversions.

The problem is this, once the idea of killing people becomes justified when one does not know how else to counter a force that is formidable and threatening, it naturally follows through that this principle will get applied to all spheres of life, including the communal, social and economic. Eventually, this principle of killing would also be applied to sphere of the economic disparities and what we have in our hands would be a revolution where the root cause wouldn’t be wrongness which deserves punishment but just a feeling of powerlessness which demands blood of those representing the indomidable force, to feel powerful against the force.

There are two ways to respond to a formidable force. One, is to give a cerebral response the other is to give a carnal response. When Emilie Zola in his campaign against the attrocities in the French army relied on the principle "Truth is on its march and nothing can stop her", it was a cerebral response. When the Maximilien Robespierre started the French Revolution by appealing to the carnal inclinations of the masses, he set in motion a phenomena which had become a 800 pound 'irrational' gorilla and it turned back on him, it was the carnal response at its work. When reason is thrown out of the window and the basal instincts take over there is no saying who is next on line. The Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal are creating a 800 pound 'irratonal' gorilla which when let loose will be unstoppable.

It is saddening that the Intellectual Elite of Indian seems to be very slow in awakening to the realization of the creation of this irrational self-destructive phenomenon which will shake the very foundation of freedom and democracy in India.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

- Martin Niemoeller (A decorated U-boat captain of WWI who later became a respected Protestant leader who openly spoke against the Nazi ideology and was sent to a concentration camp for his anti Nazi propoganda)

Dead Poets Society

I saw the movie 'Dead Poets Society' a couple of days back. It started at 00:30 am and I couldn't stop until it was over and I had written this...

It was one of the interesting movies I had seen of late. The movie is about an English professor, Mr. Keating, who is inducted into Welton school which is run by a bunch of realists whose sole purpose is to make the students get into the ivy league universities. The English professor is a Romanticist whose principles run against the realists. The realists on pragmatism, proven tradition, discipline... and the romanticist harping on beauty, free thinking and indulgence. Heavy words like 'free thinking', 'tradition', 'wisdom', 'beauty' used freely all over.

Keating inspires a few students to follow their soul rather than the set expectations of the world outside, they do so and when one of the students experiences conflict between the two, he resorts to commit suicide. He decided to loose his soul rather than loose the soul.

The question of the romanticist VS realist struggle boils down to this. How does one have 20/20 hindsight to know what is right and what is wrong? Who is really responsible for the student Neil's sucide? Was it Neil's father's inability to 'freely think' about how Neil's of life should be or was it Neil's inability to look at life the way his father did or was it Keating inability to look at life from Neil's family's unromantic perspective?

In 'real' life we find that, on one side are the romantics of the sixties leading to the ‘woodstock’ hippie phenomena which essentially ended up being the LDS paradise in a romantic world of ‘free thinking’ and extreme sensitivity to beauty, as espoused by Aldous Huxley, leading to serial killings or suicides. On the other side, are the ivy league realists who bring the wall street crashing down taking the whole global economy in a cataclysmic tail spin.

The question again goes back to lack of 20/20 hindsight. Neither the romanticists nor the realists win. Neither 'free thinking' nor 'traditions' win can win on its own. The right balance of traditions and free thinking within the bounds set by the ultimate 'Revelation' alone can win because revelation mitigates the damages caused because of lack of 20/20 hindsight.

Revival without a Ransom???

Ever since the widespread persecutions got underway, I have been wondering about what the right Christian response to this ought to be. This is a painful and uncomfortable question to both reader and more so the writer because the writer ought to be aware that he would be judged by the King as per what he writes. In this writeup, I do not endevour to critic the Christian reaction or give my opinion on an good action plan to realign the Christian activity in India. I am going to try to delve into the underlying thought patterns and Christian convictions which are the impetus behind the Christian reaction.

The moment the persecutions started Christians have invariably jumped on the bandwagon of cranking the diplomatic mechanism to prevent a conflagration. The Christian egroups were flooded with what letters to be sent to ddresses of government authorities, rallies were organized, much was done to get the attention of the government and the media. Using the diplomatic avenues wisely is important, after all Paul used his Roman citizenship when it was wise and expedient to do so.

But the fundamental question one has to ask oneself is “why are the Indian metropolitan Christians so eager to get help by resorting to diplomatic channels?” is it because they want the plight of the poor tribes being hunted down in the jungles in Orissa to end soon or do react so because of the vested interests closer to their homes so that they wouldn’t themselves, because of unmitigated persecutions, have to face the thrust of the Trident in their big cities?

Empirically, Christianity has only spread when the blood of martyrs made the soil fertile for a huge harvest. Christian blood is the ransom for the gospel to have a substantial effect in any society. Even God had to give a ransom to usher a new age of freedom in human history. Even God was nor exempt from having to pay a ransom. Without ransom there can be no revival. But as I keep watching the reaction of the Indian metropolitan Christians, I seem to feel that they somehow want to be exempt from the necessity of the ultimate ransom - the Christian martyrdom.

The covert duplicity in the Christian reaction was clearly brought recently, when a Church was attacked in Mangalore, one of the most literate cities in India. The pastor of the church said to the Hindu fanatics who attacked them, “you guys got the wrong Church, in our church we don’t go about preaching the gospel to the non-believers, other churches preach the gospel to non-Christian, but we don't. We don't deserve to be punished so…”. The idea of having to pay a ransom for the Christian cause was too painful and unnecessary to these city churches.

This is a stark contrast to the attitude of the western missionaries during the early part of this centuary. In China the Boxer revolution of 1900 made martyrs of close to 200 western missionaries. The very next year, in ships from the west, close to 200 western missionaries landed on the Chinese shore to take the place of the martyred missionaries. Why? because they were inspired by the example set by their precedors. How? because that is Christianity at work where the followers of the King try to imitate His example of sacrifice. It was this attitude of great Christians that made Christianity to be global force to be reckoned with.

But before wondering if much of the Indian Christian reaction was Christian enough, one has to wonder how comfortable each of us is with the idea of martyrdom. “Would I be willing to be a martyr for Christ?”, “Would I lay down my life for God’s glory?”, “Would I be willing to be a martyr just to prove that I am ALL, God’s alone?”, “Would I be willing to forego all the dreams and passions of my life for the sake of Christian martyrdom?”, “Would I or would I not, that is the question.” Every Indian Christian ought to ask oneself these costly questions. Afterall, Christianity was never cheap.

The answer would be “Yes, I would”, if the greatest dream and passion of my life is to be considered worthy of partaking in the ultimate ransom by following the example of the greatest Martyr ever to have walked this earth. St. Peter did not even consider himself worthy of equal (similar) partaking with Christ and hence he made a plea to be crucified upside-down. No wonder Christ choose Peter to be the rock upon which the Church would be built. In the early Church, when martyrdom as considered an unequalled privilege not many would be worthy of, Christianity spread like wildfire.

In our cosmopolitan Churches, the idea of martyrdom is relegated as unnecessary and may be even archaic. The Indian cosmopolitan Churches need more Peters. The more Indian Christians are willing to be martyrs claiming their place closest to God, as flames in the ‘crystal lake’ before God’s throne, the more the Church would grow as a wildfire, after all there cannot be a revival without a ransom.

The most captivating Lovesong

Today is the 'Women's Day' in Diosces of Madras. I was a the evening eucharist service at the Cathedral and a special solo was sung after the lessons. It was a beautiful love song and I was initially thinking it was about God as the Groom and we as His bride but somehow that did not fit the context of the song, then I remembered that it was the special song for the 'Women's Day' and I read it over and over again because it was such a captivating love song.

In Native Worth and Honour Clad - Haydn's "Creation"

In native worth and honour clad,
With beauty, courage, strength, adorn'd
Erect, with front serene, he stands,
A man, the lord and king of nature all.

His large and arched brow sublime
Of wisdom deep declares the seat!
And in his eyes with brightness shines
The soul, the breath and image of God.

With fondness leans upon his breast,
The partner for him form'd,
A woman, fair and graceful spouse
Her softly smiling virgin looks,
Of flow'ry spring the mirror,
Be speak, him love, love and joy and bliss.

*****************************

It describes Adam and Eve. And may be it is a wee bit partriachal. And the soloist that sang this was male. No matter how manytimes I read this, the words just leap out to touch my heart.

Walking in the Rain

It has been quite sometime since I had played in the rain, last time was back in June at the Sishya camp (/emmanuelreagan/2008/06/wandering-in-rain.html). Then again I got a chance to walk in the rain when I was at my home for Independence holidays and suddenly it began to rain. It wasn't anywhere close to the Sishya rain, but it the droplets were fast and chilling and they pricked my skin.

I went to the terrace of my house and looked into around... and wondered how a rain could change the face of the land. No matter how beautifully man may make his Babel, with one rain its entire appearance is superceded with the beauty of the rain.

I wonder when my wonder for the rain would cease to be. I wonder if a day would come when I would see the rain and wouldn't go out to be drenched in its beauty. I think if I were to see a day that is so I would rather not 'be' at all. It is better not to be at all than to be and see no beauty in life. In heaven life shall forever be beautiful and we shall forever be.

The Paintings of Great Martyrs - St. Thomas Mount Church

I took snaps of the wonderfuly conceptualized paintings of the Disciples of Christ in the St. Thomas Mount Chruch. There are two things I like about the paintings.

1. In the corner of each painting it is depicted how the disciple died.

2. In some paintings the disciples hold in one hand what they are traditionally known to be special for. For example St. Peter hold the key, traditionally he is believed to have the key to eternal life. What I specially like 'liberty' the artist used to 'conceptuatlize' some of them to be holding in that other hand - the instrument of their own martrydom. This is why I think this art is classic.

This is a beautiful idea. I am not sure why some disciples do not hold their instruments of death, I wonder if there is a tradition behind why only some disciples are depicted so. The artist seems to depict each disciple's acceptance and may be even pride in his means of martyrdom. This I think is real artist at work. Such artists create simple beauty and conceptualize astounding profoundity, what they creates is timeless.

St. Simon - sawed apart

St. Mathias - holding the axe

St. Paul - with the soward

St. Bartholomew - holding a soward that would kill him

St. Thomas - speared to death (no wonder by a guy wearing a turband and dothi)

St. Mathew - holding a sickle.

St. James - holding a club he'll be clubed with

St. Thaddaeus - holding a stump

St. Peter - holding the key to eternal life. Inverted crucifixion.

St. Andrew - The diagnol shape of his Cross made it to the Scotish Flag, St. Andrew being the patron Saint of Scotland.

St. James - beaten to death

St. John - boiled to death

St. Philip - holding a Cross in one hand and a Book in the other.

Our Lord carrying the cross to calvary and being nailed to the cross. The world is in His hands, won over by the cross. Setting the first example by taking pride and being victorious through martyrdom for us to follow through. Would we?!?!?!

The eyes of the Beautiful Lady

I was watching Bill and Gloria Gaiter’s Home coming series which is my most favorite Christian song collection. In one of those the famous song written by Annie Johnston Flint ‘He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater' was sung by the whole group.

A couple was invited to sing the second stanza. What struck me so much by the way the couple sang was the eye of the lady. The guy seemed so professional in his style, his body gently swaying, his face was pleasant, his expression polished, he was looking at the audience and even smiling a bit. In contrast the lady seemed frigid, her face was even a wee bit contorted.

But there was something so endearing and heavenly about her demeanor in spite of the unsmiling contorted expression she wore. It was her eye, it was focused not on the audience, it had a transcended look it was looking very far into something that other’s hadn’t the sight to percieve.

She was looking at God, she was performing for Him not the audience so she did not even know that she looked a little frigid and unpolished next to her suave husband. Her frigidity was not because her body was tensed but because in the awesome reverence it exuded, it dared not to make the wrong move. All she care about was being focused on the Hero of the love song they were singing and consequently a bit of His transcendence passed into her and gave her demeanor a heavenly aura which most other singers of the day lacked.

She was singing to her King and that is all that mattered to her, it was so apparent in that eyes of the Beautiful Lady that were lost in Him.

St. Thomas Tour – the unexpected ways of God

Our youth group had planned for a St. Thomas tour on 15th August – a kind of a picnic to St. Thomas Mount and St. Thomas memorial at Little Mount. I said I wouldn’t go because I would be at Tirunelveli for Independence day holiday. I missed booking the train ticket so I booked ticket in bus for 14th evening 6:00 PM.

I was in the bus stand by 5:20 PM and started searching for the bus which I was to board. Out station busses would be in platform 1 or platform 2. For 40 minutes I was searching for the bus which I was meant to board and couldn’t find it. I missed the bus. I cannot believe that a bloke as I wouldn’t be able to find a bus to board in 40 minutes. It is just too incredible. I think I was completely blinded. I believe God did not want me to go home, he wanted me to stay at Chennai on August 15th and go for the picnic with the youth folks. I booked my ticket for the next evening, August 15th and called up Reeba and told her I would come for the picnic.

Slept at about 3:00 am early 15th morning as I was writing some stuff and woke up very late and couldn’t go to Church from where folks started by van. I called Reeba and told her I would go straight to St. Thomas Mount and wait there. I also took with me my journal as I knew that awesome sight from up there would be inspiring and I could write a poem there. I wrote an essay of a poem over a couple of pages sitting at the edge of the hill-top platform and looking into the vast expanse before me.

Just after I completed the long poem, folks joined me there and we had a good time. Below are a few snaps.

First thing you see as you enter is the sight of Christ Blessing with extended arms.

I guess the figure in steel rails is St. Thomas seen above him is Christ blessing folks that come in.

It is I guess a kind of imitation of one of the 7 new wonders of the World - Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

Here is St. Thomas welcoming you…

A view of the sprawling civilization down below – more of concrete less of green (inspiration for my poem)

More of green and less of concrete (inspiration for my poem)

A flight going across with the landing gear down for landing at the airport

The Fourth-person view

This tree must have witnessed quite a lot here…

There is something special about this tree, it has been cut so many times but still it has 'stood' the test of time though slightly skewed…

Bennett in his new get up…

Me at the tip…

Its Vijay there….

Other folks from youth…

Going down the hill, the steepest descent… in fact Vijay and I went down the hill and then came up and then went down again just for the sake of 'adrenalin rush', it was a roller-coaster ride. In one of the bends, I was too fast and had to bank my bike to an acute angle to keep the balance that the foot rest of my bullet gazed the road, it used to happen when I was in college so this was a de javu experience – the footrest of my motor cycle touching the road in the bends.

Lunch chat…. So what’s for lunch???

In life does one walk down the steps or walk up the steps… Plato used the cave analogy to depict enlightenment may be a well analogy would do just as good, except that perhaps the gaint shadows there would reflections here and reflections are more realistic than shadows.

This was a tree in Little Mount that had too much symbolic beauty. It is actually two trees that have merged into one. Symbolic of the metaphysical fact of Christ and the individual living in each other, symbolic of the metaphysical oneness between husband and wife in marriage. I just had to shoot pictures of this metaphysically beautiful tree.

My four good pals in youth. Rufus, Vijay, I and Ashwin (from bottom to top)

The cave where St. Thomas supposedly lived.

Me emerging out of the cave, actually the idea for this shot was Vijay’s.

The great St. Thomas with his timeless classic quote that even 2000 years after he uttered it is so full of life that it fill us with awe and elevates our spirits to worship God with trembling transcended reverence in our hearts.

I cannot fanthom why God wanted me to miss this bus and not miss the St. Thomas Tour but indeed I had a great time writing poems, cracking jokes, taking snaps and thinking deeply... ‘My Lord, My God’… how great Thou art. Amen

The Portrait of Jennie

The Portrait of Jennie is a black and white movie made in 1948 that I saw recently. It is about an artist finding his inspiration for his work through an imaginary love in his life. The voice-over goes "the winter of the artist is not the cold in the wind but the cold in the indifference of the people towards the beauty around them". Then there is a tag-line by an art dealer "... an artist must find something he really cares about...". The movie is about the soul of an artist and the struggles he has to go through to create the divine spark in him.

The movie has some interesting characters Mrs. Spinney an old lady who trades with portraits and sees in Eben her onetime beau, the painter Eben Adams who struggles to find his spark, follow his soul and make a living at the same time, the mechanic Guz who admires Eben and tries to give some pragmatic help. And of course there is Jennie herself played by the great Jennifer Jones who is an actress I like the most. She is awesome when she plays the role of a poignant naive girl who has in her demeanor something deeply mysterious about her. She plays a very similar role in the movie the Song of Bernadette.

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In this movie she appears as the ghost of a dead girl whom Eben Adams falls in love with, completely enamored in her naivety and the timeless mystery that shrouds her. The first time he meets her she is a little girl out alone in the dark and she sings in the most captivating poignant voice "Where I come from nobody knows and where I am going everything goes... The wind blows, the sea flows nobody knows... and where I am going nobody knows" no matter how many times I see this, I feel like I am seeing it for the first time. It is just so full of simplicity, sadness and mystery.

The little girl asks him if he would wait for her to grow up so that she can marry him and then she runs off leaving him wondering how funny the little girl was. He goes home and draws her portrait as a little girl. He captures the melancholy and mystery about the little girl. Mrs. Spinney is impressed.

Now, Eben meets the girl again suddenly she had grown too quickly. They talk and then she goes off only to come back a few days later much grown, grown enough to be married. He draws a portrait of hers and falls in love with her. She goes off again, now he decides to track her and realizes that she had been dead for many years. He goes searching for the place that she got drowned to seek and find himself there as he was lost without her, his inspiration was gone.

The portrait that he does of her is the "Portrait of Jennie". Mr. Mathews an art dealer comments that it was a stroke of a genius where the essence of a woman had been captured. The essence of a woman says Mr. Mathews is her mystery and timelessness. When Eben and Jennie part for the last time, Jennie tells Eben that his portrait of hers should hang in a Museum which many other girls would come to see her and so it was

In the beginning of the movie, when a disgruntled Ebens tries to sell his passionless paintings to Mrs. Spinney, she tells him "... Andrea Del Sarto drew a perfect hand and Rafael drew a formless claw, Andrea Del Sarto had everything and nothing but Rafael loved his work... poor Andrea Del Sarto (didn't) ..." then she continues "there isn't a drop of love in any of these (paintings of yours)... an artist must have something he 'deeply' cares about" and then buys from him a painting worth less than $2 for $13. When Mr. Mathews questions her as to why she did it, she says that it was not because of what the picture was worth but because of what Eben Adams was worth. In spite of his loveless creation she was able to see something in him that could be unlocked by love and so it was. She tires her best to help him.

Eben has another helper, a mechanic friend Guz who is a kind of a pragmatic philosopher, though that is more of an oxymoron, who empathizes with Eben saying things like, "if there is star-dust in your head, there is a jumble in your soul" and in a way understands and respects the kind of agony Ebens undergoes. Guz gets him a contract to paint and make money, Ebens completes it and gets more fame, a heavier pocket and an empty soul. Guz realizes that he cannot help Ebens much.

There is only one person who can uncork Ebens and that is Jennie or rather the timeless love of Jennie. The movie is a depiction of timeless love in which the pair defy time and space. Unsure of what is to happen of their love, Ebens says 'the greatest distance I fear now is the distance between today and tomorrow'. It is this ageless romance that kindles in him the flame which would capture that mystery and timelessness of the 'Portrait of Jennie'.

I LOST and realized it takes courage and confidence to loose

In the debate competition in our company, my team reached semi-finals but couldn't reach the finals. We lost today. I seldom loose debates, debates are my life-line. I felt the judges were not really fair. I almost laughed aloud when one of the judges said that I was speaking too emotionally and that that was a negative for debates. I couldn't understand how he thought that I was an emotional speaker, I did not cry neither did I make an attempt to narrate something so poignant so as to make anyone's eyes wet. I was not emotional, but I was passionate, the judge unfortunately couldn't differentiate between someone making an emotional speech and someone making a passionate speech. A few folks came and told me that the judgement ought to have been in our favour.

Nevertheless, my team lost. I lost. It was a shock to me, because I never thought I would loose this debate. There haven't been many things in my life where I really wanted to win but lost. In this debate competition I really wanted to win the finals. I was too passionate about it. I believed I could do that. And the loss in semi-finals, after what I thought was one of the best debates, having to defend the British idea of Monarchy, came in as a rude shock to me.

I was there thinking...

It was then I realized that it takes a lot more courage and confidence to loose in something that one yearnestly wants to win. The courage and confidence to accept oneself even after having failed. The courage and confidence to look at peole and say 'Yes I lost, but still I am looking you in the eye. Yes, I took a punch, but still I stand ready for the next.'

Just as I was thinking about this a note sent by our HR person in charge of sending out reports about debates made a special mention of our team with the note "Every loss makes the bone as flint, the gristle into muscle and man invincible" made me glader.

In spite of the fact that I am sad that I lost what I passionately wanted to win, I am somehow glad that I 'experienced' defeat. Somehow through this loss I as a person am more invincible than I was before in that I can loose something I most yearnestly want to win and still smile :) I thank God for this experience.

Man 'blinks' at his Happiness

At a time when all stocks are falling in the US because of the recession induced by the sub-prime fiasco that is getting the US economy by the balls there is one stock that has risen 40% year on year . That is the stock of Netflix, the postal movie rental service.

As people keep loosing jobs, seeing their retirement saving erode, experiencing foreclosure of their homes and their net-worth going down, they still want to keep doing more of one thing which is watching more movies. This again proves the cliché that Hollywood is recession proof.

Here is depicted a need for man to escape reality into a world of fantasy. Why does man want to make this irrational jump? After all he will only live in the real world, he knows fantasy is vanity. After a two hour fantasy ride, he has to come back to the real world and face it brutality.

Of course, generally speaking, movies have the artistic and the entertainment appeal to many folks depending on their (finer) tastes. But the reason for people wanting to escape into fantasy at such times as this belies something more fundamental about human nature and that is man's yearning for freedom to be happy.

As man finds himself more and more constrained and determined by the happenings around him, he seeks a world, fantasy as it may be which will cater to his sense of freedom to be happy - freedom from having to think and deal with the depressing reality around him, the freedom to plug into the fantasy world and feel as happy as one needs to feel.

There is nothing wrong in employing the creative abilities of human kind to pep up ones spirit. But when this becomes an obsession and an escape route from reality, it would result in a kind of imbalance which would have disastrous effects on human kind’s ability to live a real life. The distinction between the real and the unreal blurs. Even as we analyze our lives there is an eerie feeling that life is getting less and less real.

When Nietzsche said ‘modern man would invent happiness… and then he blinks’, in a sense he foresaw this state of man in which man invents happiness in his fantasy world and then he looses grip with his real life and then once life is does away with all that signifies the real, he ‘blinks’ not knowing what he has to do with happiness anymore now that he isn’t sure what is real and what is unreal.

The Untidy (kind) Man - Perceptions Deceive

Yesterday, after evening service at St. George’s cathedral we had our first youth fellowship after even song. From Church I went as is my usual custom to Thrivanmiyur beach to sit at the edge of the beach feel the fresh breeze, gaze into the dark vast nothingness ahead teaming with live out of which is created so much activity, hear the waves crashing against the sand, smell the dampness in the air and read a book from the light of the floodlights behind me.

I was reading Eric Berne when suddenly I noticed an untidily dressed guy walk unsteadily about. His long hair was ruffled, top few buttons in his shirt were undone, his long grubby beard covered the exposed part of his torso, his lungi was folded up to expose his knees, his feet were bare. I noticed all this and thought to myself that he needed some psychiatric help. I went back to my book.

Suddenly I startled when I saw he was standing diagonally behind me and was staring at me. My mind was racing to ascertain what he was up to. Did he want to snatch my bag and run away? Or was he up to some other mischief. I was bracing myself expecting something unexpected to happen. But he was still, I concluded that he definitely needed psychiatric help and I decided not to mind him and went back to my book.

Seeing my suspicious look on him, he attempted to explain why he was standing there staring at me. His explanation astounded me. I never expected that. What I did not expect was how a man who I thought needed some psychiatric help could have been so sensitive to others needs.

I was sitting at the edge of the beach, close to the waves and reading the book, the flood lights were to my back. If someone were to walk behind me, which people often did, their shadows on my book would be a nuisance.

Now back to the explanation of this guy… He told me that he was waiting to see how he could go past me without his shadow falling on the book I was reading. He had just needed a moment to think how he was going to do that. Saying this he went past my back, I did not see his shadow and continued reading but my mind racing again this time about how wonderfully sensitive he was about my need and how I had come to very wrong inferences about him based on his untidy appearance.

Over the weeks, many well-dressed, civilized, decent folks have gone past me, not even stopping to consider if they were disturbing my reading. Of course, beach is not a place were folks normally read books. But still they didn’t give a damn about others. This guy who I thought was perhaps going to rob me was in fact trying to do as much good as was in his capacity to do for me.

If only, just like this guy, the civilized folks of the world were as considerate in doing as much good as is in their capacity to do, the world would be a better place to live in. In a way he first appeared to be a man to be loathed but that perception was deceptive, he now seems like the ideal human who ought to be emulated, in heart.

Making Previlaged the Under-previlaged.

Last weekend I was at Tirunelveli, my hometown, back to my 'home sweet home'. I did quite a lot of different things from going on a picnic to sharing the Word in a village church to watching the musical 'My Fair Lady' for prolly the tenth time.

What was special about the weekend was that we hosted four Angel's friends from Ottanchathram Mission hospital, three British girls and an American one. We went to the Manimuthar falls on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Kanyakumari (hoping) to watch the Sunrise, then we went on to the cape and then to the falls Thiruparapur. All places were memorable, sceneic and beautifully overwhelming. But off all moments there was one that was most profound and it is about that I want to revel about.

On Sunday at a Village Church, we were the cheif guests the girls sang some songs and I had to preach. The village folks were enamoured 'watching' the girls sing. After the service was over. I saw the little girl sitting in the front and it seemed to me that one of the kids wanted to talk to the white-women that had accompanied us, I told Angel about it. In the meantime, Becky the British girl went forward to talk to the kids. At once, all little girls pooled around her and then Heather, Veriety and Helen followed suit getting the kids all the more ecstatic. I was busy taking snaps of this impromptu interaction that I did not know what exactly transpired between them. I was not even sure if the kids could converse with them in English.

Yet they were wide-eyed and shaking hands with them. In their urge to entertain and impress the visitors they started to sing action songs. They even wanted the visitors to visit them at their orphnage. Most of the little girls were partial or complete orphans from an orhpnage nearby.

Just seeing and being with the white-skined girls was so special to these kids. It was amusing to me as to how these girls did not have to do anything at all to make themselves special to the kids there. Just their 'being' close was special to the little girls.

I am getting a little philosophical and more objective here. The difference between these two group of girls (the little orphaned girls and the white-women) is that one is relatively more marginalized and the other is more previlaged. Now the question is about why one is previlaged and the other is marginalized and how the dynamics of their relationship work.

With previlage comes the Christian obligation to make the marginalized feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of the time of the already previlaged. It was not without reason that God sent His Son to live among the marginalized and make them previlaged by considering them worthy of His time and efforts.

When the pastor bid us goodbye, he said that often when folks come from abroad they go to bigger city churches rather than some village church and that he was happy that we had brought them to the village chruch of his.

It was my mother's brilliant idea to club a village church service with our picnic plans. My sister and I were not really excited by the idea but then on retrospect, there was a pretty profound lesson there.

The lesson being that the ones that are previlaged by race or by birth or by intellect or by riches have in them an obligation to make the underprevilaged feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of their time and efforts. And in that we imitate one important aspect of Christ.

Gates, Giving and God

As Gates steps down from active role in Microsoft, one wonders as to what makes him give much of his wealth off to the ones that are less privileged. As we try to hypothesize and speculate on the reasons, one has to remember that his act is not without precedent. In the early part of this centaury, the then richest man in the world, Rockefeller set about the task of remaking himself into a philanthropist.

There is an amazing parallel there, folks who have built their lives on the principles of capitalism which believes in meritocracy and virtue of individual greed, once they reach the pinnacle of their achievements seek to find meaning and contentment in the diametrically opposed idea of communism which seeks to reward not by merit but by mercy.

It is worth analyzing the impetus for the change in Gates which caused him to easily transition off into being a philanthropist. Religion was not the motivating factor going by what he said in an interview.

“Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” – Bill Gates

Unfortunately, it has never seemed to Gates that religion is not about what he can do on a Sunday morning, but rather the least of it is about what God can do on a Sunday morning.
I was reading about Gates in Fortune Magazine the expert of which is below. It is here that I got to understand where the most logical impetus, for Gates' decision had probably come from.

“And there's the poignant letter his mother wrote in 1993 to his fiancée, Melinda French, cluing her in to the Gates family credo: "From those to whom much has been given, much is expected." (Mary Gates would die the next year.) That letter, in turn, led to the self-conscious irony in the slogan he and his wife hit upon for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: All lives have equal value.” - Fortune

It is this that I seek to analyze here.

The words of a mother always have a profound effect on her children. Of all things that a mother-in-law would have wanted to tell her soon to be daughter-in-law if this had taken so much precedence, it is reasonable to assume that this noble thought should have pervaded much of the conversations between mom and son.

Even though Gates may think of religion to be inefficient, he has to accept the necessary change the premise that would make his mom's platitude sensible ‘From those to whom much has been given (by God), much is expected (by God)’. Gates may blithely jettison religion out of his life. But he cannot jettison God out of the noble thought of his mother, without making it a not so sensible affirmation existing only for the sake of the affirmation.

Someone may argue that humanism could replace God in that sentence. But to do that one has to hypothesize that human logic and reason can agree to that idea that a non-person can give and expect something in return. Such a hypothesis is too wild a speculation to be considered as a reasonablse platitude to necessiciate fullfilment. For an ideal to be made to give and to expect there ought to be a personality behind it who has the ability to give and to get. And that person is God.

Even that ideal of justice, that one should do all one can to alleviate suffering in the form of malaria or other diseases which Gates is determined to eradicate, cannot make sense unless there is Someone who gives the ideal the value of Truth. Without the value of Truth any proposition stands as an affirmation made in void. And that Someone who has the ability to make an ideal True is God.

Thus the fundamental impetus for Gates to give off much of his wealth is God. After all, religion is not just about Sunday mornings.

The Girl I learnt a lot From

I love to talk to Children. Firstly, the kind of innocence they exude is lovely. Secondly they appear to be the only kind of people who seem to enjoy life in all its simple beauty. Thirdly it is from them that we can see life with fresh, unprejudiced and consequently truthful eyes.

Recently, I was visiting one of my friends and had an opportunity to talk to his 4 year old daughter. She was so cute. She took me to her playhouse and told me stories about her doll friends there. She gave me an opportunity to look at the simple setup of play house and to enjoy its beauteous different aspects in all its simplicity and sublimity.

Her 'stories' about her play house and her doll friends were all nascent ideas about 'relationships', 'good-evil', and the 'element of surprise'. Each doll there was a friend or was not a friend of another doll for whatever reason, but the point is that their existence as envisioned in the nascent mind was defined by Relationships. At first look it is something that appears pertty simple. But that a little girl should talk to me for a considerable time to about relationships between her doll friends goes a long way to emphasis the primacy of relationships even in the hearts of the ones who have hardly started understanding what life is all about. This is a classic example of the yearning for relationships even in very young hearts. It is wonderful to see how even the young hearts are 'programmed' to make relationships the way of life, imaginary or real.

The next thing she explained about her doll friends was to tell me about who all were good and who all were bad. Six of her doll girlfriends were good and two of her doll boyfriends were bad, she told me. Again though it seemed a naïve statement, it is profound in that even in the minds of there little ones there is a classification of what is good and bad which again goes a long way to substantiate that man has an innate an intutive ability in him, put in there by Someone, to differentiate good from evil. That is the way the young human heart is programed.

Her play house was so small. She was inside it with her doll friends tellling me stories about herd doll friends and I was just listening to her from the little door that could just fit my head into. She had a paper on which she had painted many little red hearts. She asked me to place the paper on top of the slanting roof. I did so. The she told me to close my eyes. I did so. Then she hit the roof from inside and the paper slid off the roof apparently swaying about in the air and landed on the floor behind me. She then told me to open my eyes. I did so. She asked me “Oh! Where is the painting?” I looked up. (Obviously, still I tried to look perplexed that it was not there) and then she said gleefully satisfied at my perplexity, “Hey… look behind you its there!!!”.

At the outset is looks pretty silly. But there is something sublime there. It is about the ‘element of surprise’ and wonder in life. As we grow older our jaded senses never seem to get surprised or never seem to wonder at the simple and sublime beauty of life’s elements. We never get surprised by the lightning, neither do we wonder at the rain. We never get surprised wildlife, neither do we wonder at the mountains. But for a little girl her sense of wonder is kindled even by something as simple as a picture swaying about in the air and a bloke (apparently) looking perplexed that the painting is missing.

As I was sitting there listening to the ideas flowing from her heart and mind wondering at her innocence, her ability to enjoy even the simple elemental aspects of life and her fresh look at life, I was analyzing the underpinning of each of her ideas and statements the conclusions and the beauty of which were itched onto my memory. I loved talking to the little girl. She was the girl I learnt a lot from.

Words Are Deeds

‘Words are deeds’ said G. K. Chesterton the Prince of Paradox. Some critic may forgive him for his expedient dogmatism for elsewhere as he says ‘word are my trade’.

But the word ‘words’ has taken to have great primacy as the charges have been framed against the now non-existent Bear and Stearns, formerly the fifth largest brokerage firm in the wall street, hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin.

The case primarily rests on two words they used in the investors conference call where they said that they were ‘cautiously optimistic’ about future prospects of the funds when in fact there was very little optimistic about the performance of the funds. The only apparent pre-'caution' Cioffi appears to have taken was to move $2 million of his own money from the fund a month prior to the conference call.

When we live in the pervasive environments of election fever and watch politicians twist and truncate meaning of words to suit their agendas such cases as these where words become all important snap us back to the reality of words in live.

The reality where words will invariably have to be translated to deeds and it is there that they transform from being hot air into being something more tangible. Here the words will have to pass the ‘Test of Truth’. An idea that the politicians, media and general public tend to blithely disregard in the frenzy of being excited about the happenings around the self-important politicians.

‘Words are deeds’, anyone who fails to understand this insight of Chesterton will eventually find the sceptre of Truth haunting him.