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I went to St.George's one Sunday for the youth fellowship, but there was none. I was disgrunted and below is what I wrote

My week was tiring, I never had enough time to eat or sleep, I was going all cylinders full blast during the week. And I needed to unwind, I need to feel my heart lift up over my brain, I wanted to feel my state buds come back to life. I wanted to go to a restranut with my close friend and have a hearty meal and a lively chat. I was looking forward to it all week. I picked up my friend and was riding crazy to reach the restraunt have dinner and to feel life in all its fullness.

My week was hopeless, I never had enough time to enjoy the presence of God, I was slogging like hell at work, I was a zombie. I needed to feel my heart, I needed the fellowship of those who loved Him. I was craving for it with all my heart. I wanted to feel the love, I wanted my heart to really start beating again, I wanted to feel it alive again, to revel in the joy of collective worship of the likeminded. I was looking forward to it all week. I woke up late on Sunday and hurried to chruch hoping to attend the youth meeting after chruch and to feel life in all it fullness.

When my friend and I reached the restaurant, we found it closed. There was a moment of disappointment, a moment of irritation that our plans had to be changed. Nevertheless restraunt was not important, fellowship was. So we drove off to another restranut with equally good ambience which would serve us. And I could slowly feel my heart come back to life.

After church I was running around outside hoping to find a few to fellowship with. No there was none, I was distraught, the unsatisfied craving for fellowship was gnawing at my soul, my heart was beating not with life but with disappointment. As I was driving back in melancholy, I was wondering why I this had to be different from what happened with the restraunt, if I my most essential needs are not satisfied here, wouldn't it be foolish not to try to get it satisfied elsewhere?

Blood Diamond - Who is responsible

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I saw the movie 'Blood Diamond' on Monday in 6 Degrees at Satyam, the seats were so damn comfortable thanks to the new COO at Satyam and the bunch of frivolous Chennaites who are willing pay unrealistically high prices for a tad bit more of comfort and titillation. A recurrence of a French revolution in India will leave all of this class of people guillotined, but then our capitalist ‘driven’ society would come to their own rescue either by wooing the revolutionists to join their ranks or by undermining their power using money.

My cousin and I were sitting in the plush seats munching our hot-dogs watching the atrocities of drugged brainwashed kids handling AK47 gunning down whole villages, a sliver screen depiction of what is actually taking place a few thousand miles form us.

I was reminded of Hegel's statement that history is a 'slaughter bench'. We have developed a selective amnesia by allowing ourselves to be seduced by the comforts we live in so that we can easily forget the dark side of life where the innocent and the marginalized are treated like scum - beaten, butchered, raped and tortured.

As I was riding my bike home along the empty roads of Chennai, as I'd been to the 10 o'clock show, the question that kept recurring to me again and again was 'who is responsible for all this?' Or in other words how am I responsible for these unfortunate people who are victimized for no mistake of theirs. I could say ‘No I could do nothing about it, I cannot be responsible for it. I am not my brother’s keeper’. After all that happens almost half the globe across, there is no obligation that I ought to be responsible for the oppressed ones there.

But I am responsible for what happens in Houston (my client head office is in Houston, Texas) which is the twice as much distant. If I can be responsible for what happens in America by what rationale can I justify that I am not responsible for what happens in Africa, we say we live in a global village but we really don’t act like we live in one except when it provides an opportunity for us to go to US or to Europe.

Had the British missionaries not considered themselves responsible for what Indians were then, I wouldn't be as blessed in Christ as I am now. Someone somewhere unrelated considered himself responsible. Had Ida Scudder not taken it upon herself to build a hospital in Vellore, South India would still be 25 years behind the world in medicine.

Our Lord Himself took responsibility for our sins and He took it upon Himself to pay its penalty. He took responsibility to see to it that we wouldn't have to pay our due debt. Aren't we supposed to imitate Him? But here I live in a cozy comfortable world praying, reading Bible, going to church, being a part of youth, reading philosophic books, pumping iron, playing with my dogs, riding my bike like a crazy maniac (at times) and enjoying my life. I don’t even act like I am responsible for my own self, let alone the brothers in the Dark Continent.

Why travel half the world across? There are so many homeless people in Chennai. There are so many people who are oppressed by financial backwardness and by class differences. Our pastor was speaking about last week in youth. They are people who are sidelined and neglected, I walk by them every day. I think I am actually walking over them choosing to look other side or thinking of some philosophic problem to be solved. The last time I thought of them was I think about two months back, I just ’thought’ about them. I did NOT do anything about it.
We need to remember that on the day of reckoning, it is not the number of hours you spent in worship sessions or youth meetings that count, even the miracles you have done in His name don’t count, much less all the lie we tell in His name in church, much less whether or not you speak in tongues or prophesy.

What counts is when a person was hungry, did I feed him? When he was naked, did I clothe him? When he was in prison, did I visit him? When none talked to him, did I talk to him? When everyone looked the other way, did I look into his ‘dry’ eyes and talk to him? When none was willing to touch him, did I let him know the ‘warmth’ of the human touch?

The irony of the whole thing is that in spite of knowing all this I am still doing nothing.

Ps: The good thing about this movie is that there isn’t even a single obscene scene in the movie which is quite commendable for any commercial movie these days which are liberal with nudity in the name of art and freedom of expression. In nudity whether done in the name of art or not the sacred is desecrated. A film which stands apart from the rest ought to be commended. The media is causing us to loose our inhibitions little by little if we aren’t conscious of it there we come a day when there isn’t a category called sin any more. Even now we see it in a lot of postmodern Christians.

I lied in Chruch yesterday.

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Yesterday (actually day before yesterday as its 00:30 hrs now) in Church during Ash Wednesday service I lied like anything when I was saying the ‘Litany of Humility’ which is there below.

The words in italics are response of the congregation. There were a few places where I was telling the truth, but there were points which I had qualms respondinging but I responded nevertheless.

Things like not being loved, approved, consulted, I lied. I have always wanted to be love, approved and consulted. Things like being suspected, wronged. I have always wanted to be on the right, never be betrayed. And the last para was almost all lies.

I wish I could meet Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val the guy who wrote this, but I guess this guy has been dead for more than a centaury now.

Gosh!!! Hope someday I wouldn’t have to lie like this. Humility is a virtue that is almost non-existent now-a-days. If anyone thinks he is humble, it just that he is proud enough to consider himself humble. As Christians, we ought to make a consious effort to nurture it.


Litany of Humility:

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved,
deliver me, Jesus.


From the fear of being humiliated,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected,
deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That in the opinion of the world,
others may increase, and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I,
provided that I may become as holy as I should.
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.


- Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val

Loving my first Love, my Lord

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I wrote this in one of the communities 'Agape love' in Orkut where people were posting about how they loved God.


I told my Lord...

You loved me by giving me my tasty timely daily bread
I gorged it up without a thought of thanking you

You gave me a sound nights sleep inspite of all problems I was facing during the day
I woke up next morning and with a quick word of prayer which I can't remember was back to tackling my problems

I asked your help to solve my problems You helped me out
I thought my problem solving skills were getting better by the day and I got more proud

You listened to me anytime I wanted to talk to you
But I was busy with work, reading a book, watching a movie when you wanted to chat with me

For me you gave up your last breath on the Cross
I used the liberty of your grace and streched it to its limits by my sins

Lord, do I love you? I am not sure, I think I am doing a very bad job loving you
I am not even put up a pretension of loving you

But Lord, I am doing my bad best
I'm sorry I've been too selfish to love you

My Lord, my first and best love replied...

Don't feel sorry my son, Love means not ever having to say sorry
I dont demand you love, I did not love you expecting you'll reciprocate

I just love you. Period.

Determinism and Design

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The problem of determinsm can be sorted out of one understands the difference between determinism and design. God did not determine man to be in the way he is, He designed man. Of course, design limits man. For example, God has designed man is such a way that man learns from nature, fellow man and circumstances. God has designed man to learn from these, but the decision that man takes based on what he has learnt by virtue of the desing, is completely under the control of his freewill. God does not intervene there.

Contented Christianity

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In Screwtype letters Lewis says contented worldliness is the devils greatest weapon against Christianity. I think contented Christianity is what the devil has learned to use so adebtly now.

Mass worship service has come in handy to him as it has become the 'soma' of Huxley's Brave New World ('soma' is a differnt word for opium), to the contemporary Christian world where they use worship services to 'pep-up' their 'dead' spirits. The solution to giving life to dead spirits is by dieing to self and picking up the cross and following his footsteps, not in saying 'Halleluia' and rising up ones hands or jumping up and down as in a drill or a yoga class.

Worship services are the means to a greater end in Christianity but the devil has sold people the delusion that worship service is an end in itslef, they are deluded into finding selfish contentment in worship services whereas worship service ought to strengthen and encourage people to greater self-denial and much love for God.

Just as Einstien said 'we have perfected the means but are in total loss about the goals'.

A God with personality

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If God is, He cannot be anyone other than the One who created the universe and life. God ought to have been creative, to assume creativity witout personality is unreasonable.

Yes, God can live in each of us, but not as a force as in pantheism but as a person. A personal God is not meant for synergy as in pantheism but for fellowship. Fellowship is conditional. The condition is not self awarness as in pantheism but love.

Idealism and realism

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Idealism is more akin to Platonic thinking where a person talks of what nature thought to be and realism is more akin to Aristotelian thinking where a person talks of what nature is felt and seen to be.

Reality is about what truth is. Idealism and realism both could have a claim to reality. Of course, here I see idealism analogous to rationality and realism analogous to empiricity.