Aspiration and Transformation

(I have submitted this essay for a competition in our company)

Transformation happens when old conventions are broken and a new standard for conventions are set. When Americans were making the best Motorcycles, it was taken for granted that there will be frequent oil leaks, but when the Japanese bikes came into the market, it was taken for granted that oil leaks were unacceptable. Transformation happens when there is an aspiration to make something better that it is. The journey from aspiration to transformation is often a counter cultural process needing a catalyst.

In Jim Collin’s seminal work, ‘From Good to Great’, he questions conventions, “We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the 'right' people on the bus… then figured out where to drive it”. Peter Drucker supposedly said, “At the end of the day we do not bet on ideas, we bet on people”. Transformation requires a right start. Transformation starts not with ideas, but with people. In fact, transformation starts with the person whom we look at every day in the mirror. Transformation starts with the aspiration to make oneself better than one is.

Back in the days of the great Socrates, the father of philosophy, the famous inscription at the temple for the Oracle of Delphi supposedly said, "Know Thyself". In fact Socrates said that he was deemed wise by the Oracle of Delphi because he was only one in Athens who was ‘aware of his own ignorance’. He knew who he was, ‘an ignorant man who ardently pursued wisdom’ and he transformed the world of ideas for generation to come.

The first step in the journey from aspiration to transformation is to aspire to ‘know oneself’. The irony of our society is that we presume to know other people and things far from us but we do not know who we are. A literate person would know why Steve Jobs is named the best CEO by Forbes, he may even know the surface temperature of a star that is a billion light years away, but he would likely be lost if he were asked to write an essay about his passion, strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the corporate culture often seems to work against pursuit of the truth about self. If a person is attending an interview, he is expected to sell himself as someone having Narayan Moorthy-like qualities. He is expected to not expose his real passions. He is expected to showcase his passions reconfigured to suit the job description. He needs to talk himself up and sugar-coating weaknesses. We are too eager to emulate someone else without knowing who we are. Genuine transformation cannot start where one does not aspire to 'know oneself' for who she is. The aspiration to know one’s passions, strengths and weakness is the first stage in the journey from ‘aspiration to transformation’. The second stage of the journey is where having already known who we are, we aspire to make ourselves better than who we are.

In the book 'Type Talk at Work' the authors say that leaders are people who clearly understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. The authors go on to say that a person develops into a successful leader if she, while naturally being strong in her strengths, is able to go the extra mile by aspiring to work on her own weaknesses to make them her strengths.  In a culture where one is constantly expected to mask ones weakness, to acknowledge the weakness and pro-actively work on ourselves is often counter intuitive to our 'corporate conditioning'. This is why we need a catalyst.

In the book 'What is wrong with the World', G.K. Chesterton says that for a doctor to set the broken hand right, he needs to know how a good hand looks like. For us to transform into people better than ourselves, we need role models whom we can observe and emulate. Transformation cannot be a self-centered individualistic effort. C.S.Lewis says, “We are but pygmies, who stand on shoulders of giants”. We need help to become better than we are. We need real-life role models who are willing to be vulnerable and encouraging coaches acting as catalysts in our process of transformation. I would learn more from observing my mangers at who are such catalyzing role models than by reading biographies about distant Charismatic business leaders.

An organization that does not aspire to bring about transformation through top-down catalyzing role models, will turn destructive. This was apparent in the recent collapse of the financial industry in the west. There was too much self-centered aspiration, but no role models who exemplified the true meaning of 'collective' transformation for the betterment of the world. The wall street instead of being the transformational industry doing the 'work of God', as Lloyd Blankfein CEO of much reviled Goldman Sachs claimed, had become a 'den of robbers' facing criminal charges, for having made millions off  a bubble created by misleading the public, in-turn causing pain for millions of common folk.

A great example of true transformation in the financial industry is the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’ Micro Finance enterprise the ‘Grameen Bank’. Yunus knew his passion was economics. His heart was with the poor. His strength was in setting up corporate enterprises. His weakness was being a man of ideas too ahead of his age in a society entrenched with old conventions. He supplemented his situational weakness with a 30 year iron-like resilience. He pursued to bring about collective transformation by doing what can truly be deemed the 'work of God'.

The impetus for transformation is an aspiration to make things better than they are. Transformation starts with aspiring to 'know oneself' and progresses through aspiration to make oneself better than one is and then consummating transformation by helping each other achieve collective betterment that results in organizational transformation which in-turn makes the world a better place to live in.

Lost in the Translation

When I was flying from Doha to Houston in a 16hr flight, ‘Lost in the Translation’ was in the flight movie menu so I watched the movie. The movie was unique. It seemed like a movie that girls would like. To my masculine mind, it seemed something was off about the movie. The underlying premise of the relationship was ambiguous.

There are three characters in the movie. A young couple and an older man are westerners staying for a shortwhile in a hotel in Japan. The hubby leaves his wife in a hotel room everyday to work on his business assignment. The older guys works like little and is free the most of the time and so an uncanny friendship develops between him and the young wife of the couple.

Throughout the movie, their relationship status is ambiguous. There are some scenes where there appears to be a latent urge for sensuality, but there isn’t an explicit outward manifestation.Then at some other scenes it appears that the young wife and the older man have developed a father-daughter relationship where sensuality has not role at all, for example in the scene where the both sleep over a his place and they sleep in the same bed but there isn’t much of any physical contact except for, if I remember right, a bit of affectionate caressing of the back of the palms.

The movie rolls on with them becoming more comfortable with each other. One wonders where this ambiguity is leading to and hopes that they don’t do something stupid to undo the beautiful father-daughter part of their relationship. Just then, the work assignments complete and it is time for them to leave the hotel and go back to their separate lives.

Naturally, there is a yearning deep within them for each other, more so for the guy. After all, to give up the beautiful father-daughter relationship can be really painful. So they part with an mild hug. And all is well? You would think... but 'No'. The old man gets into his cab and feels restless. You would naturally think that he regrets missing the beautiful little girl and time they shared together. I wouldn’t blame you.

The cab goes down the busy streets, the guys gets more restless and stops the cab and walks out ‘searching’. He finds her and runs to her. May be you are expecting him to give her an affectionate hug and get her phone number or something. Or may be even go down on his knees and propose his love for her. After all what is wrong in falling in love with a girl half ones age, that she is married posses different problem.

But this dude does something much worse. He takes her face in his hands gives her a French kiss, full on her mouth. They remain lip-locked for quite a bit. Just as I was about to think that this movie was not bad after all, I felt a revulsion, because all along, beneath the father-daughter gimmicks, there was a potent sensuality which for some reason hadn't manifested at all. If the whole experience had to have the satisfaction of being truthful, the long repressed emotions had to manifest itself in some form. The father-daughter embellishment was a sugar coated lie that had to be exposed so that one can redeem oneself by truthfully seeking the sensual satisfaction, that had been latent all along in the relationship.

I remember C.S.Lewis' words in "Four Loves" where he says that a man and a woman cannot really be 'just friends' unless they were madly in love with someone else or had a physical revulsion for each other. All that appeared to be good about the movie's depiction of the relationship was undone in the last few seconds. It was in those seconds that the reason why I thought something was off about the movie.

Village, Shutter Island and St. Augustine’s Confessions (& Lost)

I was talking to a few of my friends who had seen the movie ‘The Shutter Island’. They agreed that they were pissed off at the end of the movie. One of them said that he felt the same way that he felt when he saw the movie ‘The Village’. He said that he wanted to shout, “Give me my money back”.

The one common strand in both the movies is that the thrill and the suspense is built upon an absolute lie. When a movie goer eagerly stays riveted to the movie, expecting to see the panoramic view of a truth behind the build-up of the mystery, and then realizes to ones utter shock that there is no mystery to be unraveled but only a lie that had to be discovered, it can be very enervating. As the much-hyped TV series ‘Lost’ is nearing the end the bloggers are venting out anger as the prospect of not getting comprehensive answers for the mysteries that made the show interesting. We watch the movie/show with an anticipation that we will be ‘satisfied’ by the unraveling of the mystery at the end of the movie – a mystery that would be true and worthy of the wait and which would give meaning to the wait. When this need is not satisfied, there is an angst.

When we realize that we have been falsely led in a movie, as irritating it can be, all we would have lost would have been a couple of hours of our precious time and a few bucks. But the anguish would be incomparable when we have been falsely led in ‘real life’ and we live our life enjoying the thrills and the tide and keep on moving hoping to find ultimate satisfaction, only to realize at the anticlimactic end that all the thrill and the passion was based on a lie which was discovered to be a lie too late in the game.

I remember reading an article in the magazine ‘The Week’. It was about the psychological effect of the modern idea of living a radically individualistic life. A successful editor of a magazine is interviewed and she says (something like this… it is not a verbatim quote), “(when I grew up in the age of liberated individualism), I was told that I was free to do whatever I wanted in my life my own way. I was told free sex was harmless. But all it left me with is a string of broken relationships. I was told that accomplishment would bring happiness. But I found out that on the heels of happiness of this kind comes an inexorable emptiness. Now, I look at pictures of my classmates who have made different life choices because they believed in different truths. As I look back at my life, I realize that I had been lied to. I had been lied to by ‘liberators’ who told that it was ‘my life’ and that I could live it ‘my way’. I was expecting to find an ultimate satisfaction somewhere long, but now, sometimes, I just want to cry”.

If one were to live all of one’s life in some sate of delusion, the enervation one experiences can be as painful as hell. May be hell is a place where there is much ‘gnashing of teeth’ not because of the fire and brimstone but because of the inexorable enervation one feels from deep within at having been ultimately lied to by intellectuals and teachers whom they had so blithely trusted, and consequently, having missed many opportunities to know the truth that stared them in the face.

In the context of this, I am reminded of St. Augustine’s Confessions. St. Augustine says that the one thing in life that brings most hurt is a lie. We really get hurt when someone whom we trust has outright lied to us. We hate to be in a position where we pay a dear cost because we were deluded by a lie. The one thing in life says the Saint, that can bring most joy is, ‘truth’. The one true embodiment of absolute Truth is God. So, says Augustine, “without God, there can be no joy in life”.

If God created life, then He is the one who defined what is true in life. So this implies that He cannot be anything but the embodiment of Truth, for if He IS, He cannot be anyone but the true Creator. And this implies that if there is someone from whom we can learn truth about life, it is God. As lady Editor said, if a lie causes her to cry and if as Augustine says, the truth causes joy. The only hope for joy in life is to be inside the realm of truth on the side of the true One who WAS, IS and will forever BE. 

Weekend With the Men Folks from GBC

To be locked-up in a camp from Friday night to Sunday morning, with a bunch of hairy legged, poker loving, bike riding, kayaking, pickle ball playing, skeet shooters who in their core are lovers of the Word of God is indeed a cool experience. The one thing that unites this disparate group is the unity we find in Discipleship that owes its allegiance to one Person. I went to the camp with my friends from the GBC ‘growth group’ I attend. We drove 80 miles from Houston to this Pine Clove Camp in Columbus. Left our luggage in the cabin, got to know the other guys in whom we’ll share the cabin with for the next couple of nights. We clarified that none in the room were loud snorers, of course mild snoring can’t really be helped.

We then went to the auditorium. The decks were drawn. The poker players got right into the groove. The rest of us were looking at I-phones trying to find some interesting card game with clear rules. Our group ended up playing a game called ‘Oh, hell’. It was indeed one hell of a game… The night was done. We started off Saturday morning with a message by Matt Larzen. The key point was that there are two kinds of people among Christians – Disciples and Pagans. There is no category called non-Disciple Christians, we are either a Disciple or a pagan. Matt Larzen gave a brilliant exposition on gospel of Mark about the cultural significance of unique way Jesus went about making Disciples of those rejected from the ‘high level’ Rabbinic Schools.

Then we had the entire day to play any sport we wanted. Here were the choices Wiffle ball, Basket Ball, Hill biking, Pickle Ball, Skeet Shooting, Ping pong, Foosball, Kayaking, Swimming, Rock climbing then there were a couple of other games I don’t remember the name of. We got to play many games from morning till evening. In the evening Matt Larzen continued with Gospel of Mark emphasizing the need for Disciples to trust in God, unlike the ‘first’ Disciples who after having seen Jesus feed the 5,000 and the 4,000, when instructed to beware of the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’, wondered if Jesus was being sarcastic because they had forgotten to bring enough bread with them for the journey.  Matt emphasized that we had to trust God so that that trust would impel us to take risks for the sake of the One whom we owe our allegiance to.

Saturday night was again ‘poker-time’. Some sat around the fire and shared interesting stories. Sunday morning, Matt talked about need for disciples to ‘correctly’ understand the Word of God so that we would give the ‘appropriate’ emphasis while teaching the different aspects of the Word of God. Unlike the folks in Israel who, in spite of Jesus telling them not to do so, spread news that Jesus was the ‘magical healer’; but completely failed to comprehend and fearlessly communicate Jesus as the ‘resurrected redeemer’ even though Jesus said that He would resurrect.

Matt explained a brilliant observation of some theologians as to why gospel of Mark has two endings and why the ending in earlier manuscripts is intentionally anticlimactic. In the anticlimactic ending, the women at the tomb of the resurrected Lord, do not to speak to anyone about the news of most dramatic miracle they witnessed, even though the Angel commanded them to spread the news. The reason why Mark ends with this anticlimactic response to the most astounding news of the entire cosmos is to convict the audience that they, in being eager to spread the news of 'Jesus as healer' and being not as eager to spread the news about the 'Jesus are the resurrected redeemer', were inclined to ‘Majorize’ the minor message and 'minorize' the Major message. Mark ended this way probably spurn his target audience to make them give more importance to spreading news about the ‘resurrected Lord’ instead of spreading news about ‘magical powers’ the spiritual world has to offer.

Matt suggested that we, as the early Church goers, ought to read the Books of the bible in one sitting to fully comprehend the meta-narrative of each book. Hopefully, I should be able to get to Starbucks on a Saturday and do as he suggested.

Looking back, we had been there for just a little over a day but it seemed like we had been there for a week. This I believe is because our day was packed with so many activities which we normally wouldn’t have done in a single day. I can’t recall a day in recent past when I have played cards and pickle ball and gone skeet shooting and then again played more pickle ball and was fed delicious breakfast, and lunch and dinner not to mention being enthralled by three brilliant expositions of the word of God, all in a little over a day. It was indeed a cool experience. We ended the weekend grateful to the One, to whom we owe our allegiance, for the cool weekend that was so filled with life-giving word and legitimate fun. 

21st Century Christian Monks

As we look back at history, we find that each era brings forth unique new social changes which redefine what humans value in life and how we live. I think that God uses such social changes unique to each age, to bring glory to His name. In the early Christian age, God used the Roman Empire for the sake of His own glory. As the famed Historian Will Durant says, "Christ and Ceaser met in the arena and Christ won".

One of the most important contributions of the middle ages to the development of human progress is I think, the universities. In the middle ages, universities were places which God used to glorify His name. Historians say that 'theology' was then the most important course taught. But for these universities we may still be living in the world of divine right of kings. Then there were monasteries and convents where monks and nuns lived, who apart from praying ceaselessly, helped the downtrodden by managing orphanages and helping the widows with fire wood. God's name was glorified through those celibants.

Back in those days, unmarried celibants had to live in monasteries and convents because if they tried to live with the society, they felt ostracised as everyone else was by default, married. But now, our society has changed. Thanks to the social devlopments of this age marked by individualism. The kind of individualism that we have gives an opportunity for singles to remain single live a very 'active public life' and not feel left-out by the society. So we all, by default, remain single and we get married if we choose to.

I am reminded of St. Augustine's quote. "If God is God, and He is good and powerful and omniscient, He has to be all powerful to bring something good even out of something that is bad".

On one side, radical individualism and unfettered freedom is wrecking havoc in the fabric of our social structure. But I think God is using the new freedoms, to set apart a group of singles who will live active, admirable and evniable public lives that gives glory to the name of God and possibly bring the nations closer to the heart of God.

I say this because I know some remarkable men and women in the 30s, 40s, who are single and are admired and may be even envied by many for the amazing work for God. A single businessman who in the freetime he has being a single guy, has built an amazing Christian ministry for singles. A single media director who makes the Church worship cherished by his extensive knowledge of the media he has acquired by spending time analyzing many movies and reading books. A single girl entrepreneur, who in her spare-time (thanks to her singlehood) travels across the nations building communities for God's glory. A single girl who was a CEO herself and is now a high profile corporate trainer, training CEOs across the globe and using every opporunity to communicate the good news.

I don't mean to say that families cannot serve God. There are great examples of folks with family lives serving God Billy Graham, John Piper etc... But what is interesting about the current generation is that unlike the immediately prior generations, in the 30s and 40s age category, it appears that an increasingly high number of singles live for the glory of God through their singlehood, even as temporary as the singlehood may be. They are, I believe, the Christian monks of the 21st century who live active community-oriented public lives for God's glory.

Let me also state that God's creation-mandate for us is to be married and have God-loving children. God's redemption mandat is for us to go ALL-out and be His disciple. God's redemption-mandate sometimes conflicts with creation-mandate. In the early Christian age, just having Godly children wasn't going to help the cause of the gospel. So Paul said that Christiendom needed monks who'll remain sigle for the sake of glorifying God. I believe the age we live in now, is another age where the redemption-mandate would override the creation-mandate.

I think the Christianity of the next century may be shaped heavily by the 21st Century Christian monks who are giving in to fulfilling the redemption-mandate at the cost of fulfilling their creation-mandate, perhaps just as early Christianity was heavily shaped by the life and the opinions of celibate early Church Fathers.

Good Times and Half-Good-Times

There are some experiences in life which when we look back a year or two later, we would, retrospectively, call them ‘Good times’. There are even fewer instances where we are relatively care-free and experience something good and on the way home or just after we enter our homes, we know that they were ‘good times’. Tonight, my first Rodeo experience, to me, was the ‘good times’ of the second kind. I was fortunate to have been able to go to the Rodeo with my good Christian friends at the GBC. Thanks to the Rodeo Badges they got. So here at 2:00 am, back at my home, I sit crystallizing the quintessential part of that experience in ‘words’. ‘Words’ are important to me.

I wish to expound on the words ‘good times’. First the word ‘good’… I am reading St. Augustine’s 'Confessions'. So I am led to look at the word ‘good’ using the Augustinian lens. As per St. Augustine’s world-view, there are two types of good(s) – the lower good(s) and the higher good(s). The lower good(s) are the good(s) that are in the earthly realms, contained within the physical realities of life – the sights and the sounds and the movements. The higher good(s) are in the heavenly realms, that transcend the physical realities. St. Augustine’s seminal idea, I believe is that an ‘ordinate’ experience of the lower goods would point us towards the higher goods and help us experience the highest of the higher goods, which is, having a relationship with God.

This idea I think, was beautifully encapsulated in the song ‘Hello World’ that was sung by Lady Antebellum at the concert in the Rodeo. Before singing this song, there was a special introduction, that this song was very special to the singers in the band. To put it bluntly, that song exuded with theism. Oh, I loved it. My mind was racing as I was enthralled by the lyrics. It is about a guy/girl with a ‘broken heart of steel’ despairing over the pointlessness of life. Then he/she finds ‘meaning’ in the smile of a little girl with chocolate on her face. He/she then finds deeper ‘meaning’ in his home and his family – wife/husband and kids. This ‘unfurls’ his/her faith. And the song ends with his/her falling on his/her knees in a ‘believing surrender’ to the One above.

The essence of this song, the way I see it through the Augustinian lens is that, the little things in life, like the blissful smile of a little girl and the heavier things of life like the assurance of life that comes with home and hearth are the ‘lower good(s)’of life which give meaning in the midst of our despair. And then through the assurance of this ‘meaning in spite of darkness’, the lower good(s) help us to exercise our faith and look up above and reach up and surrender to the ‘greatest good’ - God.

Now, the phrase ‘good times’ needs some exposition, because standing alone, the phrase makes only an illusionary sense of goodness. There is a popular saying, “When the real God arrives, the half-gods flee”. But C.S. Lewis, in his book ‘Four Loves’, says that the opposite is the truth. He says, “When the real God arrives, only then, the half-gods can stay”. The ‘good times’ we experience are like the half-gods. They can only make sense only if we have the assurance of a real God who promises eternal good. In other words, if we do not have the assurance of being with God, in this life and the next, then all the ‘good times’ we experience in this life is as non-sensical as setting the board to have some good-times by playing one last game of poker on the deck of the sinking Titanic. It is only when we have the assurance of enjoying the ‘real’ good times, eternally with God, will we truly be able to enjoy these half-good-times in this world. Good-times aren’t good-times without God-time in our life.

I had some ‘good times’ this evening, I thank God for them. They are just half-good. The real good is in the relationship with God. These half-good-times are just a fore-taste of the real good-times we will eternally celebrate with the Eternally Good One. May God be eternally praised. 

Valentine Meditations: Valentine Culture and Western Civilization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Name is Khan - A Message to Christian Charities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notebook - First Love to Second Love

'Notebook' is a fairly good movie. I found only one aspect of the movie grating, unfortunately it is central to the movie. I have been trying to understand why the well-loved movie, 'Notebook', just did not feel right to me. I know many friends who love the 'Notebook' and having seen in multiple times, wouldn't miss an opportunity to see it again. Most of them I suppose are people who have had some cherished 'first love' experiences. I think the teen 'first love' is a great experience for some people.

In as much as the movie depicted 'first love' for the sake of 'first love', I seemed to like the storyline, but then there comes a point at which the story line is unnaturally twisted to the exchange the reality of 'mature love' for the dream of 'first love'. A rich aristocratic girl exchanging the lover of her twenties with an accomplished affectionate guy for the love of her teens with a popper working in a lumber yard, just seemed too incongruous to how human nature works. Of course, there is ample empirical evidence of teenage daughters of multi-millionaires falling in 'first love' with puerile paupers. But I have not heard of any instance, even in the novels that celebrate idealistic romance, where lady in her twenties exchanges her love with a classy, rich, accomplished and affectionate guy for the love-of-her-teens with an obscure popper. I think there have been novels where, true to the basic human nature, the opposite happens, where a lady's teen 'first-love' for the boyish teenager quickly disappears when she gets enamored by the real manly aura that surrounds the mature and accomplished man in his twenties.

I would call this love of twenties as 'second love'. This is definitely much stronger than the 'first love' of the teens. I think, qualitatively, there is little difference, between the first love of the teens and the second love of the twenties in that they are both profoundly visceral experiences. Moving on to the differences,  I think the first love of the teens is but a fore-taste of the second love of twenties which is bound to be much more realistic and longer lasting than the first love of the teens, for the simple reason that the guy and the girl are more a man and woman in their twenties than in the teens.

The 'first love' of the teens is a dream. It is a dream that will come true in the love of the twenties. To have the love dream comes true in the twenties, as in the movie 'Notebook', and then to revert back to the teen dream just does not seem sane. Reverting back to the dream of 'teen love' is not akin re-living the dream, it is a chasing after a mirage. This is precisely why 'Notebook' seems grating to me. 'Notebook' is a celebration of the reverting back to the dream which was just meant to be a foretaste of the real thing. This 'Notebook' reverting back, is almost like becoming an adult and getting a McLaren and then saying, "No, I'll exchange my McLaren for the NFS video game I played when I was a kid". It is almost like going to heaven and then on the gates of paradise, saying, "No, I'll exchange heaven for life on earth."

UP In The Air - Escape from the Eternal to the Ephemeral

'Up in the Air' has an interesting script, though much of it were clichés. It also has an interesting storyline with at least one unexpected twist. It is said to be a kind of a romantic comedy, but I did not find anything romantic enough or funny about it. It does not have a ‘lived happily ever after ending’. It does not leave one teary eyed either. There is nothing in the movie that causes your heart to melt in tender love. All it does is, it leaves you with a mild gnawing of the heart that is staring into a void looking for some glimmer of real love. What I find atrocious about the movie is that there isn't even the slightest regret or pity for the lack of real love in the movie. But then movies are a reflection of real life.

George Clooney plays Ryan, whose worldview is driven by the idea that to be free of burden of family ties and close relationships is the best way to enjoy life. He is motivation speaker who is known for his lectures on liberating people from the’ burdensome’ ties of relationships. Having relinquished the ties with his family, he lives much of his life in hotels, airport lobbies and aero planes. His cherished goal in life is to reach 10 Million miles of flying and is always willing to bed any woman who is available. Vera Farmiga plays Alex, who is a frequent flying corporate consultant who claims that she does not mind having sex even in toilets of regional flights during day time. The two meet in an airport lounge and click instantly. They don’t miss an opportunity to get in bed whenever their flying schedules criss-cross.

Then there is George Clooney's assistant Natalie played by Anna Kendrick, who is dumped by her boyfriend through a text message and is dejected in having lost her dream of building a family with her boyfriend. She gets 'liberated' by Ryan's and Alex's ’post-family post-feminist’ inspirational world-view and promptly enjoys a fling with a stranger. Then there is Ryan's sister whose fiancé, Joe, who gets 'cold feet' just before marriage. Ryan, his derision for family ties not withstanding performs his brotherly duty to his orphaned sister by convincing Joe to take up family 'responsibilities'.

But yes, there is love, though only for a short while. Ryan and Alex have a few flings and eventually, Ryan inexorably falls in love with Alex only to realize in the most disappointing manner that Alex had kept it a secret from him that she had an unsuspecting husband and sweet kids and a suburban three story family home to call her own.  

Aghast, Ryan needs an explanation from Alex. Alex does her best to explain to him that she never had any special feelings for him and that he was just her 'escape'. He was her escape from the mundane family life. Ryan's sister's fiancé gets cold feet before the wedding precisely because he is afraid of the ordinariness of family life. Once Natalie is liberated from the idea of having to start a family, she has no issues with having a one-night-stand with a stranger. Joe wants to 'escape' before the possibility of a family. Alex wants to 'escape' in spite of the family. Natalie makes good her escape once her dreams of family life were broken. Ryan lives 'Up in the Air' perpetually in the world of escape away from even considering a possibility of a family.

Family is eternal. Flings are ephemeral. Modern man appears to be willing to exchange one for the other because the heaviness of the eternal is unbearable for him.

When life lacks an overarching sense of purpose, as in the case of the characters in the film, the eternal aspects of life which involve costly commitment, begins to be seen as a burdensome ordinariness that needs to be abrogated and escaped from to be able to enjoy the ephemeral in life. What is lost on folks with this world-view is that within what they see as a problem - the 'family commitment', is present the essence of liberation from within the ordinariness of life. The costly commitment in reality, though is burdensome, serves as the means and the medium for fulfilling the 'relational purpose' of life.

Building a family is like being tree. The tree is eternal, but it appears unexciting. If an eternal tree, that lives for centuries, does not know what its purpose is as a tree is, it does not understand why it is ordinarily rooted in the ground, when other ephemeral birds can freely fly about ‘up in the air’. Such a tree will look at its rootedness to the ground as a burden and will want to be liberated it and be ‘up in the air’, unaware of the decadence it is embracing.

The escape of the tree rooted on the ground to become a bird up in the air is an act of being liberated,  but it is also an act of embracing an empty oblivion which gnaws at very essence of man’s being. Deep within, man yearns for the eternal, not for the ephemeral. Man cannot live with his feet planted up in the air, he had a deep need for his feel to be grounded somewhere deep and strong.

Singing the Weight of God’s Glory

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

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

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

In my wonderment of why there should have been so  many repetition in Handle' Messiah, I observed the song intently. I noticed that in the song, the word 'glory' was repeated many times, perhaps too many times than usual. And every time, the word ‘glory’ was sung, it wasn’t just sung normally, it was often accompanied with, what I would call, ‘musical flourishes/inflexion???’ (sorry limited musical vocabulary). It seemed as though Handle seemed to give special emphasis to the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’, and especially to the word ‘glory’, by having it repeated many times.

A good Christian friend of mine by name Jim said in one of his Bible study classes that when we say the word ‘glory’ we don’t fully grasp the ‘heaviness’ of the word implied in describing the incredible weight of the glory of God. I believe that when Handle used the word 'glory,' he realized its deficiency in depicting the immense weight of the glory of God. Yes, language is deficient when it tries to describe God. God substantially and sufficiently communicates His Truths to human beings through propositional language. But when human beings try to describe the weight of the glory of God just through propositional statements, it simply does not suffice. If language had been all sufficient, Paul wouldn’t have had to resort to unutterable groan in his prayers.

I think it is precisely because of this limitations of language that God wants human beings to worship Him not just with words, but with ‘harps and chambals’. So that the music would add more weight to the words and there by human expression of worship would get closer in trying to justifiably describe the ‘weight of God’s glory’. On a side note, it is unfortunate that some contemporary Christians (and Christian song writers) think that we worship God with (good) music because it sounds good in our ears and makes worship a ‘lively’ thing to do. No, I don't believe that, I think,  we worship God with (great) music because the heaviness of God’s glory cannot be worthily  described in words alone, something more of human musical/art expression is needed to (try to) describe the weight of God’s glory. I think Handle Messiah precisely understood this Truth.

In the Messiah, when the word ‘glory’ was sung, Handle often seemed to give the word 'glory' a simple musical tune, he gives it a longer musical inflexion (sorry, limited musical vocabulary) so that the word is not just uttered in ½ a second it would normally take it to be uttered, but is sung for 7 or 8 seconds. Then he feels that this isn’t enough to depict the weight of God’s glory, so he adds some inflexion to the underlying tune which makes it difficult for the singer to sing, after all 'glory' is a 'heavy' word that ought not be lightly sung. Even then, he is not satisfied, so he makes the singer sing g-l-o-r-y and then he again makes the singer repeat again G—L—O—R—Y, adding more weight.

Then, there are places where the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ occurs. Here he makes the tune and the song to double back on itself (limited musical vocabulary) so that the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung over and over again. I think there is a point where the phrase is repeated nearly ten times. Because singing it just once, does not sufficiently express the weight that the word deserves. But even after the repetitions, Handle Messiah, rightly, isn’t content, the weight of glory is too heavy, he tunes the repetitions such that the musical ‘four parts’ crescendo occurs exactly when the words ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung.

It appears to me that Handle Messiah appears to have orchestrated the whole of the song to make all the singer and the musicians to GIVE THEIR BEST when the phrase ‘glory of the Lord’ is sung. It only seems right that the word ‘glory of the Lord’ needs to be sung with the BEST of human abilities to (try to) worthily describe the weight of the God’s glory. And perhaps even then the description would be like that of a blind man describing a painting to a man with sight, but at least it wouldn’t be like a man with sight describing a painting to a man who is blind. For when it comes to matters of God, it is prudent to act blind and speak with 'fear and trembling' (as led by the Holy Spirit) rather than assume clear sight and speak folly.

Then I also noticed that similar repetitions happened with a few other phrases as well ‘Behold the Lord’ for one, which is repeated with reverence and awe. In another song ‘Oh, Come let us adore Him’ which is repeated thrice with increasing volume that builds up to a crescendo. Once I understood the reason for the repetitions, I couldn’t help getting overwhelmed with repetitious expressions of the weight of the glory of God. I can understand now why Handel's Messiah, as time consuming as it is, is truly a timeless piece. It cares not for time, it cares only for the 'ordinate' expression of God's glory, and in the process transcends time. How infinitesimal the quantity of 'time' is when compared with the quantity of the 'weight' of God's glory.

My renewed understanding of the need for repetitions and long flourishes and four-part musical crescendos helped me appreciate, immensely enjoy and really be awed at the experience of singing the weight of the glory of the Lord, that by the time we were done with all of the singing and the service was complete, I wanted to do it all over again. I wanted to hear all of the songs sung by the SJD Choir once more so that I would get lost in the gorgeous expression of the overwhelming weight of God's glory. I couldn’t accept the fact that I had to wait for another whole year before I could get to experience this ‘weighty worship’ again. I told myself that I was not going to wait until the next year, I wanted to re-live the experience of the ‘singing the weight of glory’ by writing about it and (trying to) capture it in words, as mediocre and insufficient as my attempt may be.

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

A Blessed Christmas With God

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

I was at Ecclesia for the 5:00 pm service and as the worship started, I was wondering to myself what this was all about. I was dead tired. I had had just 3:30 hrs of sleep the prior night and I was also a little disappointed with myself that I had to spend Christmas alone, without any family or festivities or Christian friends to spend Christmas with. I had a mild headache as well.  I was completely drained and I thought that this was my worst Christmas ever. So, at the start of worship, this question,  “What it was all really about?” seemed quite pertinent to me. Then like a flash, I realized that this was ALL about Jesus Christ. It was not about me or about how I felt about my sorry lonely drained predicament.  This re-orientation of focus on God who is True, Beautiful and Good gave to me the right Spirit, one which is self-forgetful and God adoring, to really worship God.

The second insight I got happened a little later during worship, I really am not able to remember the context of how a chain of thoughts came about which made me think about Christmas worship. But out of nowhere a thought occurred to me that as I was worshiping God and adoring Jesus Christ, because God was in a timeless world, to Him it would appear that I was along-side the Wise men and the Shepherds worshiping the new born Christ at Bethlehem. That I am 2000 years separated from the event is only a limitation of the reality as I see it. In God’s eyes, my worship is not bound by time and so my worship is happens real-time as Jesus Christ is born. There is not limits to how this thought thrilled me. To realize that my worship of God during Christmas was not just a commemoration of Birth of God, but actually seen by God a real-time worship of Jesus Christ along side the Shepherds and Wise Men, added an entire new dimension to worship. My worship changed from worship commemorative of a past event to real-time worship.

Then I went to my Episcopal Church for the 10:00 pm service. Oh, my gosh!!! It was the best worship ever. The choir’s worship was astounding. I’ll write more on that later. I was sitting there listening to the worship and participating in the worship of God in my Spirit by attributing all the worship by the Choir to God by imagining this Choir to be singing real-time beside the Shepherds and Wise men and I also imagined me standing there real-time alongside the shepherds and wise men, in awe of the most High God being worshiped by the best of human abilities.

As is obvious in my prior blog entries, I have been questioning myself as to why I have been alone during Christmas and why I wasn't spending Christmas with any of my Christian friends in Houston. But looking back, I realize that I was really able to involve myself in an awesome worship only because my mind was free and was not tied up in thinking about other festivities. I remember other Christmases where there have been some festivities which ‘tied’ my mind to the earthly and I wouldn’t be able to really have the ‘abandonment towards God’ during worship.

This Christmas I have been lonely, but the loneliness helped me get closer to God. Though alone, I was with God like I was never before. Yes, as I said in my prior blog entry, I think it is disappointing that I don’t have friends in Houston, to invite me for Christmas, but God turned that into something good. That I had none to spend Christmas with has become a blessing in disguise, in that I was truly able to spend Christmas with God.  I am planning to order some Pizzas and have Christmas lunch with my Hindu and Muslim colleagues who live in my apartments. May God be praised.

A Lonely Christmas - A Sobering Solitude

So here is the third Christmas I am away from family and feeling lonely. My vacation was in the month of February, so I don't get to be with family during Christmas. Yesterday, one of my friends asked me if someone in my Christian friends circle had invited me to spend Christmas with their family. I said no, and that I wasn't bothered that I wasn’t. Today, my father asked me why none, from the many Churches that I went to, had invited me. It was tough to give an answer, the way the question was phrased. I finally said, "Well, folks are busy". My Dad found it incredible that I was not invited at all. That bothered me and got me thinking...

I don't lack Christian friends in Houston. On an average I spend about 10 - 12 hours a week with Churches and Church related fellowships, that is excluding the social events I get invited to by folks in the Christian fellowships. I go to three Churches an Episcopal (which is my mother Church), an Emergent and a non-deonominational, (rarely I also go to an AG church and an Orthodox Church). I enjoy my Church life in Houston. I attend multiple services and multiple small group fellowships in the three Churches. I folks lots of in the small group fellowships who can be called ‘friends’. So I too really find it incredible that I am having to spend Christmas alone devoid of any Christmas festivities.

I can perfectly accept the fact that I haven't been invited by anyone here, because everyone is crazily busy during Christmas. If I were to have a family of my own here and if there was to be a new guy here who did not have a family, and was lonely during Christmas, I too may have been too crazily busy with my own family affairs during Christmas that the thought of inviting him may never have crossed my mind.

Besides, getting invited for Christmas is often a matter of time, chance and matter. When I meet families at Church fellowships, if time, chance and matter were if any help, it would have 'occurred' to them that I would be alone during Christmas, they would have felt like wanting to invite me. But I think, the confluence of time, chance and matter this time wasn't in my favor during this Christmas season. When I met people at Church, it did not ‘occur’ to anyone to even ask what I was up to during Christmas. This just is the way it IS. This isn't anything to regret over.

The reason why I write what I write is not to rant about situations, but to reason with myself as to why I find myself in this predicament. After all, most writing that is done in journals and blogs is an act of reasoning to ones own self to make sense of life.

Apart from the two reasons stated above, I believe there is a third reason which I believe, is essentially the root cause as to why I am having to spend this Christmas alone. I am going to take the longer route to get to this reason. I believe it has to do with how people build relationships in their lives.

There are I believe, at least three types of relationships

1. Acquaintances

2. Friends

3. Caring Relationships

Family and close friends fall under the category of 'caring relationships'. The reason why I believe I haven't been invited by anyone for Christmas , in spite of all the long hours I have clocked in Church fellowships and related social event, may be because I have never really fostered 'caring relationships'. In other words, I don’t have close friends here. I have got lots of friends, singles and families, in Christian circles and lot more acquaintances. There are quite a good number of friends I meet with often, almost weekly. There are two or three who would qualify for fairly close friends whom I meet over lunch or dinner and chat for a couple of hours about life and stuff. But I now begin to doubt if I really have any deeply close friends who really care.

I wonder why this is so, that I don't really have close friends in the US. I wonder if there is something wrong with my personality or with my lifestyle that has prevented me from having deeply close friends in the US. I do not know the answer. By the time I figure out the answer, if at all I figure it out, I believe I would have gone past the sobering phase of my solitary Christmas season.

I believe something good has come out of this hitherto lonely experience, at least in that I now know a little bit more about me and my life and the kind of relationships that I have in he US.

Is he alone he who writes.

Is he alone he who reads.

Reader communes with the Author.

Writer communes with himsef.

But one cannot read all the time,

Neither can one write all the time.

All activities have an end. Good solitude begins.

But when unhealthy, morphs into loneliness.

Why is the sensitive soul lonely?

Why does the lonely soul need

Someone to care about

And to be cared for by someone?

Caring relationship, unlike reading and writing

Has a life of its own which pervades

The realm of activities. And even when all activities stop

The relationship still exists.

When all activities, reading or writing, cease

And the mind cannot be distracted anymore,

The very sense of caring and being cared for

Stands its ground in the calm of the storm of pointless activity.

Christmas in India - A Reminiscent Account

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

First, about the festivities in the broader culture outside of the Christian-circle. Unlike the Christmas in the States, Back in India, we do not have radio stations playing Christmas songs all of December. Neither do we have ‘Happy Holiday’ bill boards or TV ads. Shops don’t have Christmas lights unless the shop is owned by a Christian. Some non-Christian owner will also have lights if he wants his shop to appear cool and trendy to his customers. The Human Resources managers in some Multi-National companies in cosmopolitan cities use the Christmas opportunity to have X’mas parties and spread some cheer among the employees to make them ‘feel good’ about the companies they work for. Of course, who wouldn’t like the Santa and chocolates and gifts. Shops and malls in bigger cities which have huge Multi-National corporations try to catch in on the wave of 'spreading cheer' to - why miss an opportunity to make people feel good and buy more (no rocket science there!).

Now, about the festivities within the Christian circles... When we were kids we lived in a densely populated residential area. During Christmas season, the Church choir will come singing Christmas carols to each of the Christian homes after 10:00 pm. The choir would go on from house to house till 3:00 am in the morning. It is done this way because Jesus was supposedly born at night, secondly because this way they can make sure that there is someone at the house to answer the door. It doesn’t matter if someone looses a little sleep one day a year during Christmas season, after all it is CHRISTMAS. They go knocking on each of the Christian houses and sing a carol song, then receive an 'offering' (contributions of money) and then move on to the next house. They have a Santa and chocolates and huge portable halogen lights… This group does what they do not to spread the Gospel, but to uphold a tradition. No matter what their motives, the kids in the houses really enjoy it. I remember when I and my sister used to be kids, we would hear the carols being sung at some house at the other end of the street and will eagerly wait by the window. And when the carol comes to the house adjacent to ours, our hearts would be thumping. They would come to our house, we would open the door and stand there. Everyone will be looking at us, we will be looking around shyly, the Santa would shake our hands and dance. When the song is over, the Santa would give us chocolates and someone would extend an offering box and my sister or I would place the offering. One year, my sister and I heard Christmas carol choir and we waited by the window, wide awake, but alas just a few houses ahead of ours the choir decided to call it a night. Needless to say, we did 'lose some sleep over it'. :)

On one Christmas season, the Hindu lady adjacent to our house told us that she too would like for the Santa and the Carol Choir to come to her house, but that it never happened. My mother being the creative enterprising lady she was, had an idea. She asked me to get all the kids in the homes on the street our house was on, Christian and non-Christian. There were like 15 of us. We got one of the taller non-Christian kids to wear my mother’s red night robe and we had a Santa mask that came handy. We tied a pillow around the belly under the robe so that the Santa looked fat enough. My mother gave us chocolates and told us to go to all the non-Christian homes in our street to sing carols. We were to give chocolates, but not collect offering. I can’t forget how the Hindus living on in the houses on our street were overjoyed. I can’t forget that night. Of course, we were sensible enough, we started at 7:00 pm and were done by 9:00 pm.

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

Then there are some committed Christians who’ll have a Christmas party at their house or at a party hall and invite their non-Christian friends. They would invite a Christian speaker to share the gospel so that the Hindus will have a chance to listen to the gospel at the excuse of the party. In fact, the Christians in my company at India had one such party, you can see the photos here http://picasaweb.google.com.hk/wilsonjust/EkkattuthangalPrayerFellowshipChristmasCelebration?feat=email. It was conducted in a Church near our company. The ones sitting in the pews are Hindus, you’ll notice that some women wear the 'kunkum' on their foreheads (If fact, it is based on this Hindu tradition of wearing the 'kunkum on the foreheads that the phrase 'dotted India' came about, as against the 'feathered India... if this makes no sense, never mind). :)

Then there are the Church festivities in the Church.  Most Christmas services aren’t Christmas eve services (as in the States), the Indian Christmas service starts at 4:30 am on the Christmas morning. The tradition being that Christ was born early in the morning, so we too have to be in Church early in the morning (if you are keeping count by now two nights of sleep is gone in the Christmas season :P). Anyways all those inconvenient traditions that bring meaning to life! :D

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

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

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

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

Remember, before we went on this detour about the details of cooking, my sister and I were playing with fireworks starting 7:00 am. Of course, there would be friendly rivalries and jealousies among kids about who had the best collection of fireworks. Kids!!! Well, at about 11:00 am, my mother would call us and give us parcels of food to go and give to the non-Christian homes. My sister and I run to each of the houses nearby, to give food, the sooner this was done, the sooner we would get to have our Christmas lunch.  In fact, the non-Christians would be eagerly awaiting for my mother’s special Christmas Biriyani. I loved this part of my contribution to Christmas festivities, because it was the simplest, and more importantly because it was more rewarding, I got to see the happy faces of people. So by the time we are done with this it would almost by 2:00 pm. Then we would have the most tasty meal of the year. I would patiently eat for about an hour. Then have a peaceful sleep until evening. Christmas would be done. :D

I miss those good ole days… so much that I cannot help but make a cheesy attempt at writing poetry.

Oh, the irony of life that when Good times pass-by

We know them to be 'Good' only after they have past us by.

But the gift of life are the sweet memories
Of the reminiscences of the Good.

Ironies of 'This Life' point to the Truths of the Next.

Past-taste of Good times gone by is the irony.
Past-tastes of the Good times, in Truth,

Are Fore-tastes of the Next Life!

For all things Good are subject under Christ,

After He ushered in a new Kingdom, at the first Christmas.

And every Christmas since endeavors to be a celebration of all things Good
In the Culture at large, in the Church and at the Homes of Christians!

Avatar (pseudo)Spirituality - A Need for True Spirituality

I see Avatar as a spiritual fiction as against some who might see it as science fiction. The essence of the movie is the battle between a race that resorts to technological solutions and one that resorts to spiritual solutions for their problems. It is not surprising that in Avatar, the spiritual ones come over the top at the end, after all 'avatar' is a religious word.

In Sanskrit the religious text of the Hindu religion, 'avatar' means incarnation. I am not surprised that Christians who see the movie see similarites between Jake in Avatar and the incarnation of Christ. Jake, the protogonist, enters the Navi world with a human mind and a Navi body and eventually redeems the Navi from being wiped off by the human race.

If we look at the movie in its entierity, the 'Avatar' is more reflective of the Hindu mythology than Christian theology. Hinduism has many Gods, good ones and bad ones. Then there is the God of Gods who is the impersonal reality called the Brahman who keeps the balance and sustains life. The 'Avatar' God Mother, Eywa, is a feminine characterization of Brahman in Hinduism. When Jake goes to the trees and prays to the Navi God Mother to help him in the battle, Neytri tells him that the God Mother does not take sides and that she is not concerned about individuals, she is responsible to maintaining the balance of life.

There are three ideas here
1. God does not take sides.
2. God is not concerned about individuals.
3. God cares only for the balance of life.

The first idea implies that there is no distinction betwee the good and bad for a God to take sides. This is true in Hindu mythology. Brahman the God of Gods is the source of all of life, both the good and the bad. This is a complete contradition to the God of the Bible.

The second idea implies that the Navi God is as impersonal as is Brahman. The very fact that Godhead is co-equal trinity belies the extent to which God can't help being personal. Of the 100 sheep, even if He looses one, He goes in search of it because He cares for individuals.

The third idea flowing out of the second and implies that the Naiv God is at best a force, at worst just an idea about reality. Brahman, as per Hindu mythology is the impersonal reality out of which all thing flow and that which also holds things together. The Bible does say that all things in life are held together by the Word of God, but this just a very small part of who the God of the Bible is is, whereas with Brahman, to hold the world is balance is ALL of what/who it/he is.

As Neyetri tells Jake in Avatar, there is no use praying to God. If God is an impersonal reality, then prayer becomes ponitless, one can only meditate. It is in this vein that when someone supposedly asked Paul Tillich, "Would you pray when you die?", he replied, "No, I do not pray. I meditate".

That a science fiction thriller is actually a spiritual fiction, belies the need for the modern techno-crazed generation for spirituality. But the spirituality of 'Avatar' is a psuedo-spirituality that makes one aware of God, but does not lead one to God. As much as I feel encouraged when I see movies acknowledge the spiritual, I feel saddened when the spirituality acknowledged is a pseudo-spirituality.

In Avatar, spirituality is just portrayed as the acknowledgement of an alternate reality. Period. Noting more. This caricatured view of spirituality is not even like seeing one half of the coin, it is perhaps like seeing the coin in a parallel line of sight, that it appears as a slender metal stick. What saddens me is that a person who sees the bankruptcy in technology and tries a pseudo-spirituality of this kind will find this too to be as bankrupt. Because in the spirituality where the god does not care for the individual, there is no individuality that affirms the existence of the individual. In that world view, even if a person commits suicide, noting is gained or lost. After all, this god who is just the representation of an alternate reality that we dont normally see is silent, it has not answers. It just IS.

On the other hand, true spirituality is not about alternative realities, but about a personal supernatural reality. This spirituality points to a God who is a person and so He needs to talk. He needs to give us answers. He needs for us to enjoy having a relationship with Him through which restores us back to our individuality, that our deeper needs of life are catered to in this regenerative process is just another add on.

This generation does not need movies that falsely exalt pseudo-spirituality. We need movies that truly exemplify true spirituality. We need Christians who can use their God given ability for imagination and art to depict true spirituality through great arts.

Avatar - Spirit Fiction

Watching James Cameroon’s ‘Avatar’ in an I-max theatre was an astounding visual treat. The landscape and the jungles of the new planet, Pandora, were so exotically beautiful that I heard myself saying, “Oh my God, this is heaven”. If heaven were to be as overwhelming as this, then I would gladly exchange my earthly life for the heavenly one. In fact, at the end of the movie that is exactly what happens to the protagonist of the movie, Jake.

That being said, I should state that ‘Avatar’ is closer to ‘Jurassic Park’ than to ‘Matrix’ or ‘Lord of the Rings’ in that it is more of a visual treat but hasn’t much of a storyline or an engaging script. So, past the 45 minute mark, by which time my eyes and optic neural network had gotten used to the novelty, it became more of a visual chore to endure the rest of the 2 and a half hours of cartoonish flamboyance. In fact, my colleague who sitting next to me leaned across and asked me if I my eyes were getting strained, his were and he was getting a headache.

There was something about the movie beyond the 45 minutes which kept me engaged. It was the realization that at some level, the movie was about a struggle between technology and spirituality. The whole plot revolved around an interesting kind of biological-spiritual mystery in Pandora which the non-spiritual but technologically superior human beings struggle to contend with. As I think back about the movie, there are a couple of lines I can recall which, I think, give us little glimpses the Navi world view. One, “I see (into) you”. Two, “I realized that I had it backwards, I wasn’t sure what was the dream and what was real”. Before these lines are explored, a brief background is due.

Humans want a rare mineral that the planet Pandora has. Navis, Pandora’s humanoid natives are extremely strong, blue bodied, arrow shooting, technologically primitive, spiritually mature nature lovers who whisper a prayer even if it is to kill an animal that they want to eat. They have no wish to trade their Mother nature’s mineral wealth with anyone. If there were to be military confrontation over the minerals, the primitive inhabitants of this exotic planet would get wiped out by human technological superiority. But the Navis have something special, their biological ability to ‘bond’ with the spiritual realm around them. Humans wanting to be politically correct, don’t want to destroy the inhabitants, but still want the mineral. To find a way to get the minerals, human kind has to understand the Navis. So they send in an ‘Avatar’ – a dream walker, Jake, who is actually a live human being’s brain activity harmonized into a cloned Navi body who can go, live with Navis as one of them, study them and give enough information back to the humans to help them decide on the course of action to get the mineral. Jake enters this community with his human brain and Navi body and in an attempt to win their trust, plugs into the spiritual realm and gets to experience the Navi spiritual harmony.

Now, let us explore “I see (into) you”. When Jake is being trained by scientist to understand the Navi world view, he tells him, “if someone tells you ‘I see you’, they actually mean, ‘I see (into) you’”. They don’t see just the person. They see ‘into’ the person’s connectedness with the spiritual realm. In other words, the spiritual realm is a part of what they can sense. The biology of the Navis and other organisms in the Pandora is capable of connecting with the spiritual. In fact, Jake survives only because of a spiritual intervention early on. Just as a Navi arrow is about to be shot at him, the shooter senses that the Spirit Mother does not want him dead.

As Jake, in his 'Avatar' role, goes back and forth between the two worlds, one where he is the earthling and the other as where he is the 'dream walker', he recounts, “I realized that I had it backwards, I wasn’t sure anymore what was the dream and what was real”. As Jake gets more and more plugged into the spiritual realm, he begins to wonder which of the two worlds is the real one. The one which is entirely non-spiritual? Or the one in which there is a harmony between the material and the spiritual? As the movies goes on, human kind decides to resort to the military solution and Jake has to decide which side he would be on. He knows that the Navi tribes cannot stand the military might of the humans, but having already ‘tasted’ the new spiritual realities and having found his sweet heart, Neytiri, he sides with the Navis and spiritually metamorphosises to becomes to the Navis what Neo is to Zion in Matrix, the One. It is at this point that Avatar's Trinity, Neytiri says, "I SEE you".

I SEE Avatar as being closer to spiritual fiction than science fiction. I believe that James Cameroon is hinting at a clash of worldviews - technological superiority VS spiritual harmony. I see this movie as a reaction against the modern trend among human kind of considering technology to be having superior redemptive powers. The modern man yearns for the ability of technology to titillate him through the TV and he pursues the ability of technology to give him powers that he is physically incapable of. The more he uses technology to have his way, the more his biology gets conditioned to being estranged from the spiritual realm that beckons him.

This techno-crazed generation, no matter how they would intellectually discredit the spiritual realm, they cannot help viscerally yearning for the spiritual. The yearning that isn't satisfied in the pseudo techno-solutions in real life, gets catered to in the realm of arts and movies through such spiritual fictions. James Cameroon true to his genius, the mundane storyline and insipid script notwithstanding, has captured in ‘Avatar’, the techno-spiritual dilemma of this modern materialistic age. I would suspect that this could probably start a new genre of spiritual fictions which may even usurp pure science fiction all together.

Strange Mercies of the Giver of Givers

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

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

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

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

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

Contemporary Christianity, especially during the Christmas season, has to make a ‘U-turn’ away from the ‘free’ feel-good-Christianity and ‘commercial’ spread-the-cheer-Christmas and return back to its roots of sacrificial, discerned and compassionate giving that pleases the Lord and makes Him smile. The ‘strange mercy’ of God is that even though everything that we have is already His, He makes it possible for us to give Him what is ours, by giving to the little ones around us.

The wise men expended their brilliance in seeking the King

The shepherds gifted the choicest sheep to the Prince of Peace

The little boy drummed his best for little Jesus

Even the reindeer rendered to St. Nicolas the services of his red nose

What about me? What have I to give?

To commemorate Godhead’s affirmation of human dignity

By the GIVING of the One for a broken and a lost,
Fully restoring true humanity back to humanity.

What about me? What can I give? How can I make the Mediator smile?

Oh, the strange mercy of God, that restores me to fullness and light

That I may give to the broken and the lost, and make the Heavens smile,

Reflecting in me, the true humanity - the Image of the Giver of Givers.

To My Greyhound Aquaintances :)

Last week, when I was riding the Grey Hound from Dallas to Houston, adjacent to me there were a couple of Muslim ladies who were arguing with Christian guy about religion. I felt an urge to even out the numbers and couldn’t help stepping in to join the debate.

There was a point during the debate when I said that the Quran gave a very unique place to Jesus by claiming that He was sinless and that his birth was of a virgin womb. The ladies did not know which verse I was talking about so I told them that I would post the verse I was talking about in this blog for them to read. My initial, impulsive thought was to get their email ids and send the ids to them, but then I realized that sharing emails was a very imprudent idea. So here, I am writing this blog to let them know the verse from Quran I was quoting. I gave them this blog address. I hope they would check this sometime.

Below is the verse.

And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. She said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God-fearing. He said: I am only a messenger from thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a FAULTLESS son. She said: How can I have a son when NO MORTAL HATH TOUCHED ME, NEITHER HAVE I BEEN UNCHASTE? He said: So it will be. Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And it will be that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. Surah 19:16-22.

My point was this. Quran states that God alone is faultless. Quran says that Jesus is Faultless. So Jesus has to be God. I don’t think even the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) has claimed to be faultless.

I enjoyed the debate. One of the ladies was a Christian who converted to Islam 3 years ago. Her problem with Christianity she said was the it was too vague and did not give her answers. The trigger to her abandoning Christianity was the lack of love in the life of a committed Christian who was close to her. It is understandable, after all, it is human nature that the ‘followers’ of a religion abuse it. On the other hand, it is human nature that ‘spectators’ of a religion should be disgruntled with religion because weakness exhibited by those that are religious.

As in any game, it is easy to be a ‘spectator’, it is difficult to actually be playing the game. I am reminded of what G.K. Chesterton said, “Christianity wasn’t tried and found wanting, but it has been found difficult and left untried”.  It is not an easy thing to be a Christian. There aren’t a set of rules that one can follow to claim to be a good Christian.

In fact one of the primary objection of the other lady who was a born Muslim was that Christianity seemed to make salvation too simple. All one had to do she believed was to just believe that Jesus died for everyone sin and then that gives Christians a ‘ticket’ to Heaven. If only Christianity has been that simple, then even the Devil would become a Christian. Christians of this centaury in trying to make Christianity appealing to people of other religions mistakenly portray it as a simple and cheap ‘belief system’.

The essence of the Christian message isn’t just about a ‘belief’ in some Truth, but in a REGENERATION of the heart which turns from the old ways of life to become holy reflecting God’s holiness. Goodness may be attained by doing good works, but holiness cannot be attained by doing good works. Holiness is not about works, but it is about the fundamental nature of the person. Holiness is not a state of not doing something wrong, it is a state of not ever having an inclination to do anything wrong. Holiness of this kind is state of being which is required us to have communion with God. The Christian idea of this regeneration of the heart is about attaining holiness, the purpose of holiness is to make it possible for us to be able to have a relationship with God whose nature is to be holy. The purpose of having a relationship with God is to glorify God. Because of these reasons, Christianity is not about a set of rules or procedures. It is a lot more, it is about maintaining a relationship, something that man finds very difficult to do. To follow a rule is very easy, to be in a relationship is a lot more difficult. Hence Christianity is a lot more difficult than it appears. It is precisely because of this reason why it is a lot more fulfilling a well, because a relationship is more fulfilling than a ‘rule’. On the other hand, it is also because of the relationship aspect of Christianity that some people leave it untried.

The lady also thought that Christians imagining up the idea of the ‘Trinity’ was non-sensical. Yes, it is true that Christians imagined-up the word ‘Trinity’, but to relegate it as non-sense is to completely misunderstand what trinity means. Trinity is the word the Christians use to describe the multiple facets of Godhead. There are better Christians that I who have written about what trinity means, any true inquirer of Truth can understand the idea of a Trinitarian God for what it means, after all the word ‘Trinitarian’ is an adjective that helps understand the ‘paradox’ that is evident in the Godhead.

She also said that the Bible was inconsistent with itself. For example, she said, “ if God was God that He wouldn’t have had to ask Adam where he was hiding?”. I think the answer is this, if a father were to talk to a his kid with the intellectual prowess, then the whole point of talking to the kid is lost. If God were to use all of his omniscience in his conversations with His prophets, then the point of conversation would be lost completely, it would be like God talking only to Himself. When God talks with man, He has to come down to the level of man to talk to him.

Looking back at the debate I had, I am having a renewed understanding of the scriptures and human nature. I realize how easy it is to comment about what appears wrong and inconsistent about the other person’s scriptures by taking a few verses, out of the context, and then posing questions which simply belie a complete misunderstanding of the history, the culture and the intent with which the Scriptures were written.

Christian experts and Islamic experts have been debating with each other about inconsistencies in each other’s scriptures. So what does a person do? What does a person believe in? Does one believe in the Christian experts who say that the Bible is true? Or the Islamic experts that the Quran is true? I don’t think both can be true, only one has to be the truth. How can one get to Truth?

I believe that Truth can only be revealed by God, no man can reveal Truth to anyone else (though men can talk about truth to each other). There is no Truth apart from God. So to reveal Truth God has to reveal Himself to man. I believe that He reveals Himself to any man or woman who is ‘truly’ seeking the Truth. That person will get closer to God.

Meditations on the Salute of the Snob

A few days ago, I was at the 'Wings over Houston' air show where diverse range of aero planes from the ones used in WWII to F16s performed breathtaking acrobatics ranging from spectacular reenactments of some classic WWII battles to a lady doing some really scary wing walking.

By far, the best performance of the day, to me, was that of a F15 which was piloted by two US air-force pilots. Its diamond shape, sharp nose, flame tail and the roar of the revving engines captivated the audience in a trance. The aesthetically shaped shining mass of grey metal roaring its way 3 miles into the atmosphere and then traversing the space over the airfields at reckless speeds and daunting maneuvers with class of its own, was a beauty to behold. As I was mesmerized by this spectacle, the word that kept non-volitionally popping into my mind was, 'elegance'. I kept whispering to myself 'elegance'... 'elegance'... ‘pure elegance’...

The audience was caught up on a 'state of transcendence' during the 10 minutes of mind boggling air acrobatics and the sheer aesthetic beauty of the F15. Among the audience, I saw two guys a little farther with the tough-guy-demeanor… bushy moustache, a goatee that emphasized the constant smirk, arms crossed across the chest, denim and boots. They appeared to represent the kind, whose face is permanently set into a sneer, expressing a cynicism at everything around them. But as the F15, snooped down over the crowd to bid its final 'adieu', the tough guys did something unexpected, they looked at each other and seemed to say 'let do it' and then when the F15 passed over us, close above our heads, the couplet did a salute!!!

It was glorious to watch the massive machine doing some super natural feats fly so close to our heads. In fact, the salute was the 'ordinate' response to such an experience. They weren't just saluting the F15, because the glory did not belong just to the piece of metal called the F15 or the pilots, the glory of the experience belonged to the invisible 'spirit' of human creativity which envisioned and built such a machine that would with elegance, defy ubiquitous laws of nature, which has bound mankind for many millennia. I couldn’t say which of the two spectacles intrigued me more, the elegant F15 and its spectacular feats or the tough guys’ salute at the experience of glory.

As I was thinking about this, my mind digressed into thinking about another class of intellectual ‘tough guys’ who are the true cynics. They call themselves skeptics and wear an expression of a perpetual sneer. I think that the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hutchins fall under this category. I suspect that they would give a free-pass to or even be appreciative of these tough guys who salute the 'invisible' human-spirit that created such a marvel, after all the salute is a sign of gratitude to the sublime human spirit. On the other hand, if these intellectual skeptics were to see a man that were to go down on his knees marveling at the 'invisible' Spirit of God whose creativity is seen in the starry hosts of the heavens and the universe within the atoms, these intellectuals 'materialists' would pounce on them calling them disillusioned mentally retarded religious bigots.

My point is that the materialists who claim that sane men cannot worship something they cannot ‘see’, constantly keep worshiping things that aren't 'materially' seeable. They worship the 'laws of logic and reason', which they use in their arguments against God though none on earth can 'see' the laws of logic. The laws of logic is an 'immaterial reality' as is the ideal of the human spirit or for that matter, the Spirit of God.

Yesterday, in President Obama's speech in the State Dinner in the honor of the Indian Prime Minister, he said, "there are two things that are most beautiful in life, the starry hosts above and the sense of duty within the human heart". I have seen a part of the starry hosts. I have never 'seen' the sense of duty. I may have seen the manifestations of the ‘sense of duty’, but that is not ‘seeing’ the sense of duty itself, after all most people may do things because of the sense of fear rather than duty. Nevertheless, none can ‘see’ it precisely is because it is a 'sense'. If it can been ‘materially seen’ in a test tube, it can no longer be called a ‘sense of duty’, neither would it likely be ‘called’ beautiful.

The cynics of the kind we are talking about do not discount the universal sense of duty in the heart of man, even though they cannot ‘see’ it, but they discount the sense of God within the heart of man. In suspect that, empirically speaking, the 'sense of God' in the hearts of men would be more prevalent among men than the 'sense of duty' in the heart of man.

I find it surprising that the cynics wouldn't discount one ‘sense’ but would disparage the other. This is outright hypocrisy. We may wonder what motivates these intellectual heavy weights to be hypocritical, after all if there is a crime there has to be a motive. What would that motive be? I suspect that the reason why they do not discount the validity of the ‘sense of duty’ is because they don't see the sense of duty as directly implying the presence of a superior personality outside or above them. But the sense of God, if it is acknowledged as genuine, would imply an acknowledgement of a superior personality above.

I am remained of the progenitor of these Anti-Christian cynics, Aldous Huxley, who perhaps was a better cynic than the contemporary ones, as he directed some of his cynicism at himself as well. He said, "I do not believe in a God, not because there isn't enough evidence for a God, but because I do not want a God to be there… (because that would imply that there truly is a standard morality and I need to adhere to it)".

The class of cynics who do not want a superior authority to be there, rile against those who believe in a superior authority, just because they want to live lives their own way, without any encumbrances from any superior being. Their tirade against God has nothing to do with God being invisible, even if God were visible, they would explain Him off with a new scientific theory, no matter how untenable it sounds. Their need to rile against God and all those who are on His side has everything to do with the spirit of rebellion in every man that does not like to be truly grateful and consequently humble towards anyone else other than self. What starts as gratitude would impel a person to be humble and would help the person to salute or go down on his knees at the experience of glory.

The lesson to Christians in this is that if the Christians were to be yield to the downward tug of the 'fallen' human nature to not be grateful to anyone else other than self, then they too would end up in the class of the cynics who sneer at everything good around them. So in this Thanks giving season, as we move towards Christmas, let us take time to be grateful to the invisible yet pervasive God who is 'there'.

Why don’t we have Doggish Horses?

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

Some of my friends at the Camp Allen retreat took to horse riding. For one of them, it was her first ride on a horse. She told me that she constantly was speaking to the horse and patting him. I understand why she had to talk to the horse, because I have done it myself. I talk to the horse and keep patting them when I ride them precisely because a horse is not a dog. This may seem confusing. But let me explain, unlike the dog, the horse seldom comes off as a lovable being. It takes more effort to befriend a horse than a dog.

Whenever I get on a horse, I am often apprehensive that the horse wouldn’t be friendly to me and would want to do something bad to me - like bite off my hand or throw me off when going down a hill. So I, in speaking to the horse and patting him, try to placate him and make him feel loved so that he would be predisposed to be friendly towards me. But with the dog, I don’t have to do all of this, the dog is such a lovable and friendly creature. The moment I get close to him, his eyes brighten, he walks towards me, smells me, touches me with is wet nose, licks me, wags his tail. With the horse, I get a disinterested glance, then a indifferent snort and a dismissive wag of the tail.

Oh, my dates with horses would be a lot better if only the horses had the spirit of the dogs. If only there was a doggish horse, I would devote all of my life to maintaining a stable of horses and be happy and content with my life. But no there is no doggish horse anywhere in the world… Sad.

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

In life, one's expectations are full of such ‘wish creations’. I have a friend who is a movie lover. I have another friend who is a book lover. I dream of having a friend who is a bookish movie lover. But no that friend isn’t to be. Why does God not give me such friends? After all, if I had such a friend, I wouldn't need any other friends… oops! Perhaps, God knows this, that is why He did not give me a bookish movie lover for a friend, because I would be 'dangerously' too content with him and wouldn't seek other friendships.

A man has a mother, he has a wife, but then he wishes he had a motherly wife – a wife who embodies the unconditional affirmation of a mother along with the passionate love she has as a wife. No, God hasn’t created that genre. Perhaps, this is because if a husband has such a person, he may be too 'dangerously' content in this worldly soul-mate and may not want to pursue and seek solace in his heavenly Soul-mate (God Himself). Likewise, a wife may dream of a fatherly husband but would never get such a man, because if she got hold of such a man, she may be too busy pleasing her earthly fatherly husband not have any energy to expend herself in pleasing her heavenly Father and eternal Husband.

God hasn’t created doggish horses for a good reason. But He has created dogs and horses so that we would be discontented with ‘just dogs’ and ‘just horses’ and would seek to find the non-existent doggish-horses and in the process of ‘seeking’ would ‘find’ our contentment in Him who is the embodiment of all that is real, perfect and beautiful in life. God wants to use life experience to keep from getting 'dangerously' contented with the million trivialities of life, so that we would be impelled to find our contentment in Him who is the Father and Husband and Friend and Master and Prophet and King and Priest and inexplicably, the Sinner to walked up the gallows on my stead.

The purpose of all of life from dogs to horses to books to movies is to glorify God - to glorify God by using all of this 'means of discontentment' and thereby to draw us to Himself. After all, one day we would indeed have doggish horses, that would be the day when the children play with snakes and lambs would lay beside lions, when we live in the new Heavens where God is at the centre and would be supremely glorified.