Propitiation and Praise

I am reading J.I.Packer's 'Knowing God'. Paul was most wise when he said he compared everything else as rubbish when compared with the joy 'knowing God'. True wisdom is in knowing what is truly valuable.

Packer has a chapter in the book, 'Heart of the Gospel'. Reading the heading, I thought that the chapter would be about God's love. But much of the focus of the chapter was in 'propitiation'. Propitiation is something that is given to reconcile. In religious terms, it means a costly sacrifice to appease a God. For example, pagan kings would sacrifice their son/daughter as a propitiation to gain a God's favor.

'Propitiation' is a word that rankles our modern sensibilities, because as moderners, we don't quite understand a 'Holy God'. They don't realize the extent of their rebellion against God. We feel entitled to 'free love', even from God. We don't feel the need to pay the cost for reconciliation with God. We don't even know that we don't have the capital to pay the cost of reconciliation with God.

Christ's propitiation, to modern man is a superfluous solution to a problem that he doesn't quite understand - the problem of his enmity with God. So his appreciation of Christ is totally misguided at best, or non-existent at worst. At best, he thinks Christ came to be a great moral teacher, a good shepard, a revolutionary etc... not much unlike a Bhuddha or a Ghandhi or a Teresa. That is hardly reason for 'worship'.

Christ is something the moral teachers, the good leaders, the selfless revolutionaries of history aren't - Christ is the Propitiation. True 'praise' is possible only when we understand Christ as the propitiation. After having read J.I.Packer's chapter on the Heart of the Gospel being Christ's propitiation, this Sunday, when I sang worship songs, the word 'Christ' sounded 'heavier' than it usually did.

Unless we connect praise with the idea of propitiation, we will need other motivations to praising God - lights and smoke and high decible vocals and music that work us up. Knowing God is priceless because Praising God is impossible without Knowing God. The truly wise spend time 'Knowing God'.

Please Talk to the Picketers!

Driving towards the parking lot of Reliant Staduim where the Day long Fasting Prayer event 'The Response' was held, I saw some people with Placards - mostly opposing the event. Some of them were acrimonious. One of the kinder ones read 'If God had a plan, WHY PRAY?' It was held by a very cheerful looking guy. I thought, 'Interesting...'. I drove past him. After I parked my car within the fenced parking lot, I realized that this 'Why-Pray' dude was pretty close, on the other side of the fence. I walked over to the fence and said, "Sir, can I talk to you for a moment."

He was an extraordinarily kind guy he came over to talk. The 'Why-Pray' dude is Mr. S. I told him that his sign was interesting and that I wanted to know more of his thoughts behind it. I asked him what his placard meant. He replied, that the meaning was obvious enough.

I realized that I had to post the questions... The statement, 'If God had a plan, WHY PRAY?' implied that prayer and God were mutually exclusive. I asked him why he thought they should be mutually exclusive. The lady that was picketting next to him shouted out to Mr. S, "Don't speak this guy (me). He is just wasting your picketing time". Being a kind guy, Mr.S, didn't listen to her. He replied, "If God is in Total control and He has decided what He wants to do, they why pray at all?"

"The answer to that would depend on what sort of relationship I have with God", I replied, "I pray to God. The reason why I pray to God is because God is my Father. Just like a loving Father would give His son the right to express his thoughts and petitions, God gives use the right and the DIGNITY of prayer to Him."

He said, "Wouldn't it be sort of misleading if God were to allow us to pray to Him, but then go and do what He wants to do?"

The answer to that really depends on how I view God. If I view God as a loving Father, then just as a loving Father would do the best for His son, God will do the best for us. Sometimes, He will grant our wishes, sometimes not - ALL for our good.

But isn't that 'blind faith' he responded.

I wouldn't call it 'blind faith'. I would call it 'reasonable faith'. Much of life operates by principles of reasonable faith. We NEVER have 'exhaustive' knowledge about anything in life. We always take things by faith. For example, I am talking with you because seeing your cheerful demeanor I thought you would be a reasonable guy to talk to. I didn't have 'absolute proof', but I had 'reasonable faith' that you would be a reasonable guy.

He replied, "you are talking to me because there is a fence between us and we can't hurt each other".

I replied, "well in that case your 'blind faith' is that I don't have a gun. WHAT proof do you have that I don't have a gun?"

He replied, "I TOTALLY believe that you have a gun". We laughed... After all this is TEXAS. Of course, I can't excersice the 2nd amendment right... I didn't tell him that though. I figured the idea of me having a gun would put the fear of God in him. :P

I continued to make the case for how human being always tend to operate by principles of 'reasonable faith'... Even in Mathematics, we have axioms which really have NO 'absolute proof'. The proof is assumed based on it being reasonable. It is reasonable to believe that NO man has an infinite mind to be 'absolutely' sure that there isn't any other Being with an infinite mind. If it is reasonable for me to believe that the Reliant Stadium was designed by a sentient being even though I have never seen anyone design it, why wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that the world was designed by another sentient Being, even though I wasn't there to witness creation first-hand?

Our conversations went on... and we got to talk about philosophy etc... and I asked him what made him an Atheist. He said that he was from a very Christian family and was active in the Church. But that none answered the questions he had about the Bible. Then he read Sam Harris one day and became an Atheist. I asked him if he read any of the Christian rebuttals against Sam Harris' books. He hadn't. I gave him some suggestions.

I suggested he he read both sides of the argument before coming to a conclusion. I was surprised to hear him get excited when he recounted his time with the Church during his teens. I was even more heartened when he actually wrote down the name of the books I suggested. We must have talked for about 30 minutes at least. Before I left, he extended his hand for a hand-shake. But only two fingers could make it through the fence... We shook with two fingers... and bid goodbye... I, whispering a prayer for him and he back to the picketing lines with the placard, "If God has a plan, Why Pray?"

I wish he realizes that every prayer is in itself a part of God's plan even when the prayer isn't in in tune with His Sovereign plan. God is powerful enough to bring meaning out of even the most mundane and foolish of prayers...  

Why New Comedies Suck?

I have been watching some 60s and 70s comedy on Netflix. I specially like the comedies with the duo - Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (Odd Couple, The Front Page..). When these are compared with some of the recent racy movies uttering nothing but profanity in the name of 'Comedy' (Horrible Bosses, 30 minutes or less, Brides Maids etc... I didn't see these movies because I didn't think them worth my time), it is incredulous how people's perception of joy has changed.

God created so many things in life that give us joy. When God created Adam and Eve, He also gave them standards for 'legitimate pleasure' - the joy of food and work and creativity and even a sense of satire that pervades most of life. He also created the joy of loving sex within marriage. But the fallen man, having lost his communion with God has also lost his ability to enjoy the pleasures given by God in a legitimate way within the right boundaries.

Fallen man with his 'jaded' senses, takes sex outside of the boundary where its legitimate pleasure lies. He  makes of it a public spectacle using foul language on the movie screens causing disgusting reflexes among the audience which is taken to be good comedy. 'Dirty talking' has somehow morphed into enjoyable discourse. Unless we find our roots in subtle humor and brilliant wit of the kind that we had in Hollywood back in the days, I think human society would lose its ability to enjoy both the joy of good comedy and legitimate sex.

7 Days in Utopia - The Workings of the Therapeutic Christian Fad

Disclaimer: This write-up is based on my impressions on seeing the movie '7 Days in Utopia'. I have not read the book. I would concur with anyone who of the opinion that the movie does not do justice to the book.

A good friend of mine got me a ticket to the premier of the movie '7 Days in Utopia'. After watching the trailer, I wrote to another friend, "7 Days in Utopia, looks to be a sort of secular romanticist hogwash. I want to see it because such movies often are a good gauge to where the society is headed. It would help understand the points of connection that can be used to present the Gospel to the secular culture".

At the movie, to my surprise, I discovered that the movie was ostensibly Christian. Walking out of the theatre, I thought to myself, "Well, I think the movie has given me a good gauge to where ‘popular Christianity’ is headed. Perhaps, this even gives me the points of connection to presenting the Gospel to the Christian(ly) culture" - an ironic reversal to my earlier ill-informed position.

The movie is about an aspiring young golfer (Lucas Black) who on the back of repeated failures, buckles under the pressure and almost gives upon golf. Totally distraught, the despondent man crashes his car into the farmland of an old man (Robert Duvall) in the village of ‘Utopia’. Robert takes Lucas through a 7 day ‘therapy’ at Utopia that involves a host of clichéd moral teaching and activities ranging from painting to flying to fly-fishing. In the end, Lucas gets back his BEST game ever. He also has a conversion into Christianity.

Robert's rationale leading to Lucas' conversion went something like this....

1. You are having problems with golf because you have made golf as the ultimate purpose of your life. The game has taken you over.

2. You have to realize how you have allowed golf to define who you are. It is killing you.

3. You have to realize that God created you for a better purpose.

4. Once you do that, you'll be free of the burden of having to prove yourself through golf.

5. Then you'll be a free man and BTW, you'll play better golf too.

The therapy’s goal was to help him overcome his problem of idolizing golf. The 'idea' of God is used in the therapy to help the golfer understand that golf is not the end-all. God has no other use in the narrative. Christ is never talked about anywhere. I was left confused about what was really Christian about this Christian(ly) movie.

I was reminded of Pastor Tim Keller’s presentation on his brilliant book 'Counterfeit Gods' at Cambridge. The book deals with the destructiveness of pursuing 'idols', particularly the materialistic kind. A sharp student  posted an interesting question - "If you say that I need to pursue God so that I don’t get overwhelmed by the 'idols' of materialism that can potentially destroy me, why can I not just posit an imaginary God in my mind?" After all, making an idol of materialistic goals is a problem of the mind - mind creates the idols. Why can't the solution, just be in the mind too?

The proponents of the New Age religion (yoga, TM etc...) have the answer to this question. They posit a ‘mystical’ God meditating upon whom/it will therapeutically heal the pain and the pressures of materialistic pursuits. New Ageism exalts the human being while making God as a 'puppet therapist' who can be invoked from within the mind of the Human Being. This 'therapist God' will bring peace and freedom to human mind troubled by relentless pursuit of materialistic idols. No wonder New Ageism originating from the East is now popular in materialistic cultures of the West.

Sadly, the New Ageistic ‘therapeutic’ methodology is followed some ‘Christian’ retreats I have been to. Quite a number of urban Evangelical Churches in their Worship Services, Sermons and Bible Studies follow this principle too. Man's needs are made the center of the proceedings. God is supposedly invoked through therapeutic worship and some prayer techniques, thereby helping everyone feel healed to live in a state of peaceful complacency.

If Christ were someone with whom one can spend 7 days and get the mojo back whether it be golf or catching fish, Christianity can be easily marketed to the secular culture. If Christ had only been a 'therapeutic' healer of sorts, He would never have been crucified. Christ was no therapist, neither is Christianity therapeutic. Any therapeutic benefits in Christianity are incidental, at best secondary. Christ’s quintessential claim was to be the King whom everyone owed allegiance to. 

Christ did not come to give us the ‘Best Life Now’ or create a ‘Champion in You’. Christ came to invite us into a story where we'll make less and less of ourselves and more and more of Him. The Gospel is NOT about us. The Gospel is about Christ and what He DID to draw us into His Story. The reason why the road to perdition is BROAD and the road to eternal life is NARROW is because this message of this 'change of allegiance' goes against what most people fundamentally want to do - make more and more of themselves.

Preachers, evangelists and Christian motivation speakers are not confident of making the ‘tough sell’ into the NARROW road. Wanting to be relevant, affirm and validate the pew-warmers, some of them dilute their message to a point where it is rather difficult to see how the ‘popular Christianity’ presented is different from the New Age religions which advocate similar ideas of superiority of Spiritual realities over the material ones, the need for community consciousness, sacrificial living... etc - resulting in therapeutic healing.

In trying to reach out to the secular culture and find the points of connection, 'popular Christianity' has gone too far; losing it own points of connections with the Gospel. The Gospel message - the supremacy of what Christ DID for us and how that changes our allegiance away from self towards Christ, is something that needs to be presented to Christians all over again. Else, Christianity would be reduced to another one of the interesting fads that 'works for some' and not for most others.

Why People Love Horses, But Not Christians?

I love horses. Seldom does a beast embody such a co-mingling of danger and beauty. In fact, the reason why I love motorcycles is because the motorcycle is the closest modern man can get to the horse.  

I have never been trained in riding horses, but every time I get a chance to ride one, I never let is pass. The last time I rode a horse, I fell off him as we were racing down a gravel-laden mountain trail. I nudged the horse to speed-up, but he got nudged a little too much. I did a mistake and the right stirrup came off. I fell and slid about 15 feet on the gravel ground . I had to be carried off to the hospital. It was the pure grace of God that none of my bones were broken.

Last weekend, when I was at Rocky Mountains Colorado, I got another chance to ride a horse. I couldn't resist the tug. But deep within, I was pretty scared. I didn't want to risk another accident. On the other hand, it was a challenge I couldn't resist.  My yearning for the dangerous power and beauty of the horse got the better of me. My horse was called 'Big Block', for a good reason. Eager to befriend him, I tried to talk to 'Big Block'. I patted him. I used cuddly language. But Big Block didn't give a damn about me. He didn't even look at me. ‘Memories’ of the old accident where wrenching me.

We started on our trails. Big Block was disobedient. He was the most unruly of all the other horses on the trail. I was very cautious and made certain that I was safe on the saddle till the end. When I safely got to the end, I asked a cowboy guide who came with us, "Why is Big Block sort of unruly?" He replied, "Oh, he is just trying to test your will. He is seeing how much he can push you. You have to be FIRM with him, then he'll obey." Basically, I had to exercise my 'dominion' over him, which I didn't because I was afraid of spooking him into dumping me.

Looking back, the problem with my less fulfilling horse-back riding was not Big Block. It was I - I had too small a goal. My goal in riding Big Block was to make sure that I was safe. I never intended to exercise 'dominion' over him as I should have. I was making sure I wouldn't fail. I was caught in my own prison of ‘small goals’. I had allowed ‘memories’ of my old mistakes and hurt to prevent me from risking bigger goals and enjoying Big Block to the fullest.

God created man to exercise 'dominion' over creation. But man messed it up in the Garden. Christ 'invaded' the messed up world and gave us 
1) A new script of freedom 
2) A new authority to exercise dominion 
3) A new a partnership with Him. 


Unfortunately, we still live in the 'memories' of the old man who messed things up. Being fearful, we shoot for the lowest common denominator – avoid sin. The highest goal of most good Christians is the lowest common denominator – live a life without sin.

Christians need to move out of their ‘small goal’ prison and exercise ‘dominion’ over the world. We need to start ethical corporations, build compassionate hospitals, revive the crumbling education systems, write good novels, paint sublime pictures, compose great music, show Hollywood how good movies are to be made – build the Kingdom of Heaven. Matt 11:12 - the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.


Being sophisticated, we the modern Christians, do not wish to be violent. We want to be 'nice' people. We cautiously shoot for a ‘small goal’ - of avoiding all sin by withdrawing into a Christian Ghetto. Our guiding principles are 
1) Safely saddle the Christian bandwagon that is on it way to heaven 
2) Don’t do ANYTHIG that will risk falling off 
3) Don't do ANYTHING that is dangerous 
4) Just stay safe until you get to heaven 


This is precisely why bland modern Christians, in comparison with the pre-modern kingdom-conquering counterparts, aren't dangerous or beautiful. Of course, the horses are better loved!

RIP

I was speaking with a friend over coffee on Saturday. We were talking about books and movies and politics as I do with most of my friends. But then the conversation shifted to music and musicals and operas. I was out of depth. I felt excited and challenged in a good way though, because suddenly I had something new I wanted to learn and in the following few days, I did learn some fascinating facts about music... :) 

Going back, On Saturday, I came home and as I was journaling, I was wondering why I hadn't really learned to pummel the depths of music. I just ‘passively' listen to everyone from 'Black Eye Peas' to BoneyM to Beethoven to Bach. I remember when I was a kid my mother did everything she could do to get me to have piano lessons. She even arranged for a tutor to come home and teach me. My naive rationale to not wanting to learn the music lessons was, "I have a mind that is keener than my ear. So it makes sense for me to invest in things that have to do with my thinking. I think learning music would take time away from my being able to accomplish something great with this mind of mine.” 

I preferred to be the master of one trade instead of being the jack of a bunch. I wanted to master all knowledge. My goal was to know everything about everything in life. Now, looking back, it just makes me smile at my own folly. I can't quite see that I accomplished anything of what I wanted to with my supposedly 'keen mind'. I had over-analyzed and misunderstood the benefits of learning music. Or maybe I was too lazy to invest in something that did not come naturally to me. Or maybe I was just too obsessed with a goal of wanting to know everything about everything. I missed an opportunity.

Looking back, I see my life is filled with 'hits' and 'misses'. More misses than hits. :P There are things I should have done which I have left undone. There are things which I oughtn't have done which I have done. But at the end of the day, one thing I know is this. The marking on my tombstone will read 'Rests in Peace'. For, no matter what I did or did not do, or will do or won't do, I know that I'll ultimately be 'content' in the Lord. 

After all, this life is NOT about ME. All of life's a stage that belongs to the Lord. Men and Women play their parts to the heavenly audience that applaud the grandeur of the Master Director. It is not so much about what I accomplish in life (or my 'hits' and 'misses'). Life is really about me playing my part in the 'Story of the Lord', which at the worldly level is the story of His ‘covenant community’. Whatever my part, whether it be to be the CEO or the Cobbler, it shall all be done for the glory of the Lord the Master Director.

In life, we struggle in the ‘tension’ between ambition and moderation, taking initiative and doing what is right. We need to remember what our last line on the Stage would be – ‘Rests In Peace’. We’ll be supremely satisfied to see the Lord ultimately glorified on the Stage, the Cosmos. The Master Director will have brilliantly turned our ‘hits’ and ‘misses’ into a Cosmic Story-line that ultimate glorifies of His Name. We are PROMISED in the Scriptures that the Lord Himself shall be our REWARD. His glory would be so beautiful that we’ll be lost in adoration. We would be totally satisfied. We would ‘Rest in Peace’ with no regrets for having missed what we thought we didn't want to miss. 

When we pray and read the Bible, we have he foretaste of this PROMISED REWARD. We need to press hard towards the goal, looking forward at the PROMISED Reward as we have our little foretastes of it in the minor theophanies we experience in this life. My problem of not knowing everything about everything couldn't have had a better solution. 

Looking Up at the Lord is the Easiest Thing, Says Who?

I was at Church and someone was rendering Charles Spurgeon’s conversion this way… Charles Spurgeon as a young man, cared little for the Lord. Then one day caught in a snow blizzard Charles got into a church where a humble preacher spoke about Christians needing to look up that the Lord. Then the preacher looked straight at Charles and said, “young man you need to look at the Lord”. Apparently Charles had a moment of theophany that led him to commit his life to the Lord. The person continued… All Christ expects us to do is to just look up at Him. “It is such an easy thing to do, isn’t it?”

I sat there thinking…. Technically, looking up at the Lord is the easiest thing to do, I don’t even have to move a finger. But in reality it is the toughest thing to do. For, to look up at the Lord, we have to first take our eyes off the idols that draw our attention. And if anyone thinks that it is easy, I’ll probably want to meet that person and garner some wisdom. I constantly find my attention going to my books, my blogs, my facebook page, my Netflix movies, my time spent getting up to date on current affairs from the Debt Limit debate in the US to the '2G Scam' in India to the plight of Christians in the Middle East. Of course, none of these are wrong in themselves. But when they become distractions from looking up at the Lord they become captivating idols. That apart, I find a BIG part of my attention directed at my own self. I am my own idol. Taking my eyes off all of these idols and looking up at the Lord is not an easy thing to do. That is precisely why St. Augustine pleads in his Confessions, “Lord, keep thy countenance in front of mine eyes, always”.

To blithely assume that we can look up at the Lord because it is such an easy thing to do might be the most naïve self-assessment. We, ‘being human’, of the lineage of Adam and Eve, need to understand that our most basic proclivity is to hide from the Lord. Being modern we no longer have to ‘actually’ hide. This being an 'instant-gratifying' world, have so many idols to be en-capsuled within. Consequently, we can easily live in state of denial that the Lord exists at all. It is in cognizance of this sorry state of ‘being human’ that we need to make St. Augustine’s prayer our own, “Lord, keep thy countenance in front of mine eyes, always.” Looking Up at the Lord isn’t the easiest thing to do.

Transformers and the Cocky Christians

Watching Transformers – The Dark Side of Moon (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_dark_of_the_moon/) on IMAX 3D was a very descent visual treat. There wasn’t much of a story, if I had made that movie I would have fired those in-charge of the script. The Transformers movies are primarily about the Supernatural ‘Autobots’. But the script writer made the movie into something about the natural humans. In this case, it the human happens to be one Mr. Sam. Sam is cocky about making sure that everyone knows he is special because of his special relationship with the ‘Autobots’. He does not seem to realize that he  looks foolish doing that. Most jerks don’t. In truth, was the Transformers that actually saved planet Earth, Sam happened to be the ‘chosen one’ with whom they had a relationship.

In one of the scenes, at the Military base getting ready to ‘save the world’, Sam is not allowed to 'call his shots' because of lack of military credentials. His long legged girl friend steps in chiding the rank and file, “Sam is the real super hero, not you guys. You (lesser mortals) should be listening to him” I sat there thinking, “Really? So those beautiful virtuous Supernatural Autobots who ‘really’ did all the work to save planet earth aren’t the real Super heroes? This sissy of a guy who is insecure even around your stud of a boss, is a super-hero???” It is incredible how the script writers have tried to make the story that is about the ‘Autobots’ into a story that is about someone who just happens to be the ‘chosen’ messenger. Not to mention and have done a very bad job at it.

Looking back, this shouldn’t be that surprising. After all, this is human nature. People sharing witnesses at Church sometimes seem do the same thing. Christians, take God’s story and make themselves look good in it. Even when the testimony involves sharing something that is self effacing, at a deeper level the Christian if often working the story, twisting it to get more ‘self-branding’ mileage. Most of the time, the self-effacing brand builder covertly tries to show off how he/she is more intimate with the Lord or knows more about the Lord than the rest of the ‘lesser mortals’. We are prone to yield to such self-promoting attitudes because we often forget that we are Christians only because we have been ‘chosen’ to be a part of the Lord’s covenant community. We forget that Christ did ALL the work on the cross. We forget that there is no reason for us to boast. Every attempt we make to twist the Lord’s story to make it into one where we are super-heroes, we like Sam end up being the cocky Christian fools. If we are sharp, we’ll hear the Angels laughing from the stands. He who has ears…

A Part in the Story of the Kingdom of God

One of the most fulfilling experiences in life is in observing a life that is being transformed. It is precisely for this reason that watching children grow and transform into adults is an enriching experience. It is worth all the sacrifices involved in parenthood. The Scriptures say that the Lord gave His life on the Cross to transform our lives to better reflect His glory. This is so spectacular that even the Angels are eagerly looking to see how the Lord brings about this transformation and cheer, from the stands in the Heavens, every addition to the Flock.

Often, it is through the experiences of pain, suffering and confusion that the Lord draws people to Himself to start this transformation. Paraphrasing C.S.Lewis, "Pain is the megaphone the Lord used to get our attention". When a gentleman walks into the Teen Pregnancy Centre with the damsel he has got in distress, he finds himself at this point of inflexion. He feels the tug of the Transcended law of love written into his conscience by God. On the other hand, he feels the drag of the ‘fallen’ world overwhelming him into making a choice that is selfish. Some men are visibly shaken, others put up an aura of masculine strength. But deep within they all are anxious and confused wanting a sense of certainty and direction. The male counsellor finds himself looking into the troubled eyes of such a man. Feeling inept, the counsellor prays and allows the Holy Spirit to guide the conversation. At some point the Holy Spirit causes a 'click' in the troubled mind and the clear-sighted light of dawn emerges.

To be able to witness this transforming work of this Holy Spirit first hand, is most fulfilling for the counselor. My most recent experience of such a fulfillment was a couple of weeks ago. I woke up on a Saturday morning, ready with my weekend plans. I wanted to go sit at a Starbucks and read Michael Horton's "Gospel Driven Life". But deep within, I felt a tug to go to the Teen Pregnancy Center instead. I did so. There I had the privilege of counseling and presenting the gospel to two gentlemen. Seeing the Light of the Gospel dispel the anxiety and confusion in them made the Saturday one of the happiest days of my life.

Looking back at the experience, my reward did not come from a sense of satisfaction of having done something good. After all I did nothing, except to show up at the Teen Pregnancy Center with empty hands. The Holy Spirit did all the heavy-lifting. The Holy Spirit creates something Good out of Nothing. He builds the Kingdom of God. My reward was of a different sort. My reward was in being draw me closer to the Lord as a witness of the transforming experience. Witnessing the Kingdom building work of the Lord the Holy Spirit renewed my trust in the power of the Gospel of the crucified Lord. The Kingdom of God is like the most treasured pearl. The Bible says that a wise merchant would sell all of his possessions to acquire the pearl. All I did was to spend a few hours on a Saturday morning volunteering at the Teen Pregnancy Centre. Yet, by the Lord’s grace I was given a part in the Grand Story of the Kingdom of God that the Holy Spirit is working on.

Lord Of The Rings - Off My Bucket-List!!!

Back when 'Lord of the Rings' movies released in 2001 - 2003, I was in India. I very vaguely recall the movie releasing in theaters. Unfortunately, I wasn't that into the world of books to have had an appreciation for anything Fantasy related. In fact, I started Harry Potter in 2002, I read the first page, thought it ridiculous. Closed the book. Never went back. I was THAT naive about fantasy literature. Thanks to my friend Sean Sonki who told me that I would appreciate LOTR movies. I LOVED them. I would watch them once every year. I usually try to watch all three the same day back-to-back so that I have the experience of transcending into the world of Middle Earth.

Everytime I watched them I regretted that I never got to watch them in the movie theatre. So I had it on my bucket-list that someday I'll get to watch the Trilogy in some movie theatre somewhere. I had no idea that that someday would be yesterday and that that some place would be Houston.

For the past month, I have been counting down to June 14th. Almost all my friends in Houston knew that I was going to watch the LOTR. Even if I were to get married, I doubt if I would have publicised it as much. Oh well, perhaps not the marriage, the engagement wouldn't have been as publicized. (I'll let the world know when I get married) :) So finally, on June 14th, my heart was beating a tad bit faster through out the day. It sort of feels AWESOME when you know that you are taking something off your bucket-list, something that is tangible but also transcends into the intangible.

I walked into the Edwards Marquee Cinemas at 6:30 and there was a queue at the counter, which was unusual for a weekday. I had booked my tickets a month in advance the perpetual procrastinator with everything in life not withstanding. After all, one may  not get two chances to check an item off the bucket-list. God knows how on earth I landed in Houston around this time. Nevertheless, I was gonig to make sure I didn't miss LOTR this time around.

There were two guy dressed as the 'Black Riders'. I smiled. I walked into the movie hall with about 15 minutes to spare, but even as I was walking through the narrow corridor, I could hear the murmrous crecendo building up... The auditorium was almost full. The energy was palpable. By the time the movie started I couldn't see a single vacant seat.

The show started with the legendary LOTR director Peter Jackson saying that we were the first people in the world to watch the re-mastered version of LOTR movies, not to mention that they were extended versions too (with some cool extra scenes I had never seen before). Following Peter Jackson's revelation, there was a spontaneous applause. The avid movie goer that I am, the only other time I remember people clappping in the movie theatres in Houston is at the end of 'Inception' where to 'top does not topple' making the end pretty darn ironic and open-ended.

When the applause and hoots had died down, the movie started with Lady Galadriel's melancholic voice, "The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air". I thought, "Well, this is IT". I know not, how time flew for the next 3 hours and 30 minutes. In spite of having seen LOTR so many times, the scenes were fresh and MOST spectacular. The images got ingrained in my mind all over. I was IN Middle Earth for 3 hours 30 minutes. When the movie was over at 10:30 PM, people applauded again. What a way to get something off the bucket-list.

The truth is, I had never read LOTR. Graduating from college, I decided not to read fiction anymore, unless there was good reason to. About a month ago, I realized that I could take LOTR off my bucket-list. It seemed like a good enough reason to read the Trilogy. A couple of weeks ago, I was at Church reading LOTR on my Kindle and West walked up to me and asked what I was reading. I said LOTR. He replied, "Knowing you, I am surprised, I thought you would have read it long ago". Oh well, I am sort of a late bloomer... Of course I didn't tell him that. After all, I am grateful that I get to read LOTR with quite a few years left in my tweens. :) 

I am not done with LOTR yet. I am just at the point where Sam and Frodo meet Gollum. I kind of slow as I am juggling Horton, Packer and Tolkien. And my favorite character until now is Tree Beard. I fell in love with Tree Beard when he said something like, "Oh well, I don't think anything is worth saying anything unless it is worthy listening to for a long time". Tree Beard is heavenly is that he lives in a 'timeless' world and speaks for a long time. He says his name is long because he has a long history. How SO AWESOME!!! I also love Gimli, he is a man's man and a child's child. He is brave and he blushes. He bows when he greets! And he's got an AAAAxe with strong arms to wield them. You would be hard pressed to find such strength and sweetness mingled in one person.

A week ago, when I told one group of my friends (who knew LOTR forwards and backwards not to mention silmarillion), about LOTR coming back to the theatres, one of the guys said sarcastically, "Who'll want to go and see it?". Another ones rejoinder was, "Oh, Emmanuel for one...". Looking at the packed theatre, I felt vindicated. I was glad that I wasn't the only one who was crazy about the movie form of the timeless Trilogy. 

At the movie theater, even though I didn't know anyone there, except for my friend Allan, there was a sense of kinship with all - a sense of being with Friends who, as C.S.Lewis says in 'Four Loves', are shoulder-to-shoulder seeing the same thing (actually, quite literally in a movie theater). Friends don't look at each other, says Lewis, they sit beside each other shoulder-to-shoulder and look at the same world, eye-to-eye. To be in the midst of such a 'transcended space' and then subtend to the view that human beings endowed with such incredible abilities to create and admire and cherish beauty, came out of chance + time + slime is such an incredible leap of faith.

If the Lord had not made the flower beautiful, where would we have gotten our ability to cherish beauty? If there weren't a Real Other world we could Transcend into someone day, how could we ever TRULY cherish our fore-transcendence into the world of Fantasy? Thank God for putting into the world fallen as it is, the abiltity to fore-transcend to experience the Beauty that awaits us the Timeless Realm of the Lord. After all, Frodo lives in the Realm of the Lord and we shall too!  

Lonesome Dove & (relationally) Spineless Men

Painters depict reality through paint and canvas. Writers depict reality through words. Movie makers are privileged to straddle both realms. Hence in one sense, movies get to reflect reality in a unique way. Even as we enjoy the comedies, it is the tragedies that often truly reflect life. The saddest movies are the ones which are relationally unresolved, whether it be the 'Titanic' or 'Gone With the Wind'. Depiction of unresolved relationship is painful to watch and feel.

The TV seriese of the novel 'Lonesome Dove' which won the Pulitzer prize in 1986, took the angst to a whole new level. The story ends relationally unresolved at multiple levels which reflects the problem with the society we live in.

When I started seeing the movie, it seemed a sort of 'happy' movie. Then I got to part 4, I was bawling for the most part and my nose was clogged almost through the entire episode. Every time my nose cleared up, it clogged right back again. I have seen many movies, quite a few that made me cry. When I saw "Forest Gump" I must have cried for about 10 minutes at the least. I was upset for having cried. Then I told my friend, "I saw 'Forest Gump' yesterday". He replied, "I have seen it too." After a pause, looking away I said, "I actually cried". He replied, "I did too". I looked at him and smiled. I was glad, I wasn't abnormal.

In spite being used to movie-crying, what "Lonesome Dove" did to me is abnormal. The morning after I watched 'Lonesome Dove', I lay in the bed for (may be) 30 minutes thinking how so sad "Lonesome Dove" was. What makes the movie really, really sad, for me, is that though the materialistic goals of the protagonists are fully realized and the 'hard virtues' of justice, bravery and honor were most beatifully epitomized, deep hunger for relational fulfillment was not satisfied.

The movie is about a couple of Texas Rangers Gus and Call, revered for their brave campaigns destroying the Apache Indian tribes. The movie is about their retirement plan to drive some cows North into Montana and build a ranch there with a bunch of cowboys. As I was watching the movie, I realized that to me, the movie wasn't so much about whether the cowboys will get to build the ranch in Montana as much as it was about whether Gus would allow himself to truly love a woman and Call would acknowledge Newt to be his son (this bias of mine explains why I am harsh on the character of Gus and Call in this post). Neither of the wishes get fulfilled making the end truly 'lonesome' for all involved, including the viewers.

The movie is overflowing with the great virtues of Justice, Courage, Honor and Fortitude discussing which would be a topic for a different blog. But it is bankrupt when it comes to matters of love, especially familial love. The closest you get to love in the movie is expression of tender feelings for beautiful ladies who happen either to be sex workers or wives of other men. Sometimes, it is honor masqueraded as love. I find this bankruptcy of true love quite baffling. In one sense the cowboys pay the highest honor to womanhood by making her the priced trophy and the end of all. In another sense, the women are more a figment in their imagination and a burden to be exchanged for freedom.

Without Clara and Lorine, Gus' love interests, "Lonesome Dove" wouldn't be what it is. They bring so much to the table but really take nothing in return. Except to live their lives in a state of perpetual angst at the non-committal boys they can't help falling in love with.

Gus and Call are opposite personalities. Gus is happy-go-lucky. Call is the most serious guy ever. But they both have one thing in common, their disdain for anything that smacks of family ties. In fact Gus repeatedly tells Newt that Call wouldn't acknowledge that he is Call's son because to do that would imply that he is just as any other human being. Gus concludes that Call wanted to make a god of himself. Almost like the Great warrior Achilles who wasn't interested in being a Father or a Husband, but rather was keen on showing himself more then human, a god.

Interestingly, Gus too has the same problem, though in a different sense. Clara and Lorrine are DEEPLY in love with Gus, especially Clara. Gus knows it, but choses not to love in return. Lorrine who has known Gus longer tells Clara something that amounts to, "Gus loves being himself more than he loves you or me".

Finally, Gus is injured. Both his legs need to be amputated or he'll die. He has to chose between dying with a warrior's legacy or choosing to live crippled being taken care of by Clara who DEEPLY loves him. He says he can't imagine himself being crippled. He chooses to die instead of devoting the rest of his life to the love of a woman. I saw an uncanny parallel to Alexander the Great, who couldn't imagine himself being same as ordinary men and wanting everyone to believe him to be a god, tried to drown himself into a river.

Both Call and Gus, in spite of their personality differences, had the same problem. They wanted women for sex and good company. They wanted to build a bigger than life image. They saw the family as a burden. They wanted to leave behind a godlike legacy. Every man has in him the urge to prove he is himself and that the himself is someone Great. Sometimes men do it at the cost of family life. Such men are spineless for to be a Great man and have a family takes a lot more courage than to be a Single and Strong.

I say 'spineless' because it takes more courage to start a family than to start a war. Yul Brynner of the classic, "The Magnificient Seven" would agree. A kid tells him that his father is a coward and not as brave as Yul. Yul quickly gets angry and forbids the kid to every think his father to be a coward for not standing up to bad guys. Yul explains, "it take more courage to handle the plow and serve a family than to handle a gun to fight bad guys."

When a society has too many Strong single men who are so preoccupied about being who they want to be and don't want to burden themselves with family ties, such a society would self-destruct. The modern society, in expanding the base of freedom and individuality has cursed a good chunk of its men into being lonesome Rangers who live godlike but, ironically, relationally-spinelessly, only for themselves. 

Bottle - The Game

I think, just like women love to watch the Royal Wedding, men love playing Brute Sports. I think, just like watching the Royal Wedding gives the ladies a vicarious 'Fairy Talish marrying a Prince' sort of satisfaction, playing brute sports gives men a sort of Herculean satisfaction. Actually, at the GBC Men's Retreat, I thought it was interesting coincidence when the men folk were at Stoney Creek Ranch, the ladies had  Royal Wedding Hat party. This is a sport admiring write-up of a new brute sport I played at the GBC Men's Retreat last week. (Disclaimer: none of the hubbies of the ladies in the Royal Wedding Hat party were 'j's enough to mess with the 'Bottle').

For whole of the past week, I have been meaning to write about the most interesting of all games I have recently played, the 'Bottle'. But I couldn't get to it because I had to wait for my (slightly) mangled wrist (thanks to GBC Men's Retreat Volley Ball and the 'Bottle' games) to get better. Today, when West mentioned in the Sermon that he got the 'J' word for being aggressive at 'Bottle' from one of the affectionate and assertive ladies in the Church staff, my resolve to write this increased. After Church as I was sitting outside reading Michael Horton's "Gospel Driven Life", Wes (I didn't forget the 't' there, this is not West, a different guy) walked up to me and said, "I loved the goal you scored at Bottle. That totally changed the strategy of the game". Then I decided that I had to write about the 'Bottle', tonight.

The 'Bottle' is a game that was played at the GBC Men's Retreat last weekend. Basically, it is a game of Ruby played in a pool with a bottle filled with water instead of an oddly shaped ball. The game mostly has to do with testosterone-driven brute Strength and Determination to not let go of the bottle no-matter-what, even if you are getting strangled beneath a pile of men over you. What makes the game interesting is that underwater, the bottle is almost invisible. There are two teams, two goal posts and only one rule - if a guy stops fighting and goes limp underwater, do the Christian thing and pull him up. I exaggerated it a bit there. Actually, it is not as violent as it sounds.

This being the first time I played 'Bottle', my first reaction was a mile shock (in the last Men's Retreat, I went Skeet shooting instead of playing 'Bottle'). When a guy gets the bottle immediately there appears a pile of male bodies over him trying to take the bottle away. I got into one of those piles and my immediate thought was, "Hmmm, looks like this is an easy way to get a fractured fore arm". At that moment I resolved that my first goal in 'Bottle' was to make sure that I wouldn't have broken bones. My second goal was to come up with a saner 'strategery' for playing the game.

I decided that I was NOT going to get into the pile of brutes. Instead, whenever there was a pile of bodies, I would analyze the pile to see who in the opponent team was the biggest threat to us losing control of the bottle and then go behind him and pull him out of the pile. Sometimes, it had the effect of breaking the pile. I SOOOOO enjoyed that. Pulling a guy who is holding on to the bottle or the guy with the bottle with all strength he can muster gives sort of a testosterone-kick. Basically I grab his wrists and start unwrenching his clasp and then have a mini wrestling match until I have pulled him out completely. Besides the testosterone-kick, the good thing about this is that the chances of a fractured limb is slim. Anyways, I was doing this over and over again and having a great time.

Every now and then the bottle gets lost under the pile of bodies and it is quite some time before folks realize that the bottle is no longer at the center. Then folks have to search for the invisible bottle underwater. It is in one of those moments that I realized that there was an interesting strategy for the game... I was near our team's goal post. Everyone was searching for the lost bottle. I felt something hit my leg I knew it was the bottle. I knew if I disclosed knowledge of my possession I'll be below a pile of male bodies, not a desirable place to be in. I didn't make a noise. I feigned to be searching for the bottle and slowly started zig zagging towards the other goal post.

Everyone was frantically searching. Hiding the smirk, I was gleefully making my way to the goal post. Suddenly, I heard West singing Amy Grant's "Emmanuel.... God with us" over and over again. West has a great instinct for the Bottle. West somehow figured out I had the bottle, body language I suspect. The opponent team sent out a guy to check me out... So this guy comes up behind me and gives me an 'TSA patdown'. He didn't quite check my hand, may be he thought it was too obvious a hiding place. He pronounced me 'clean'.

Better one guy's 'TSA patdown' than a pile of male bodies. Relieved, I continued zig zagging my way to the goal post. I think West was still singing "Emmanuel... ". West was unconvinced. Apparently he can sense the 'Bottle' just like the evil Sauraun can sense the presence of the 'Ring' in the Lord Of The Rings. When I got to the goal post there was none there. I took the bottle from under the water the kept it between the goal post. I could hear the stands erupt with laughter and cheers behind me. WOW!!!

'Bottle' became not just a game of BRUTE strength but of cunning and stealth as well! After all, it is wit that makes the man. Having a water-life of only 15 to 20 minutes, I start getting cramps. At the end of our match, when I got out of the pool with sorely cramped legs, George said you are MVP. I asked what does MVP mean. He said with his usual smirk and cute head-nod, "Most Valuable Player". A compliment from a wounded-warrior to a fellow comrade couldn't be more welcome. When West walked out of the service at Church, I 'got his word' that that he getting the 'J' word wouldn't stop 'Bottle' from being played in the next GBC Men's Retreat. 

Vain men go about doing vain stuff

Vain men go about doing vain stuff

On the day of reckoning we'll see our vain stories

From our story of the Fruit of wisdom  

To the Tower that bears our exalted names

Our vanity making of us, narcissistic zombies

But for the Grace of God who is ultimately Glorified!

The One whose glorious Story, everyone one writes

Even the vain ones doing vain stuff.

Placarding the Crucified!

In the Finals of the very recent Cricket World Cup, when the Legendary Indian Batsman the 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar got-out at a crucial moment, the British writer Andy Zalthman described the response of the crowd in the Stadium as follows.

A stunned hush clamped the Wankhede (stadium), as if the crowd at one of Jesus’ miracles had just seen their hero turn a sickly child into a mahogany bookcase, and mumble “Oops”, before scuttling off saying, “Same time next week?”

Seen as a piece of literary analogy, I think Andy Zalthman shows his class. But, as to the the spin he has given in portraying Jesus as a sort of Street Magician/Showman, I think his idea of who Jesus is, couldn't be more grossly misconstrued from the Biblical portrayal of Jesus as a 'reluctant' miracle worker (Matt 12:39). 

Back in my college in India, I was known as a Christian. As is often the case, there was a hand full who did not like my Faith. One evening, as I was walking into the Hostel, one of the guy in the antagonistic group said aloud to a few of his friends standing by...

"I often wonder about Christians... They have a Cross because Jesus was crucified on the Cross. What if He had been hung to death, would they worship a 'hanging rope' instead?"

As insinuating as the statement was, not to mention the giggles I could hear behind my back, I couldn't help but be happy about the comment. After all, isn't is awesome that the focus of the latter insinuation was on the Crucified Lord which is central to the Gospel, instead of being on Christ's misconstrued miracle working show business.

As Paul says in 1 Cor 2:2, proclaiming the Crucified Lord is more important to the cause of the Kingdom than any wise words or strategic planning or even an army of the committed. The evangelizing commission of the Christian is to PLACARD the Crucified Lord. But unfortunately, 'Popular' Christianity of the Materialistic 20th and 21st centuries has done a VERY bad job of PLACARDING the Crucified Lord. 

As supernatural as the Birth of Christ is, it is the Death of Christ that simply has no equal. Many religions have some idea of God incarnating in human form. But the idea of God dying  as a criminal in the place of His own Creation is an alien and unpalatable idea. I was speaking with a Muslim friend of mine. He told me that it was blasphemous even to suggest that the Creator can die in the hands of His own Creation, let alone being punished for the sin of the creation. Yet, this sacrilegious death is the fulcrum upon which the Christian Faith rests.

Church needs to PLACARD the Crucified Lord to a society that needs the Gospel. Unfortunately, Christian Tradition of this commercialized century gives more importance to Christmas than to 'Good Friday'. In doing so the image of Christ we PLACARD to the society around us, is more a Santa Claus or a Benny Hinn styled Miracle Performer than the Crucified Lord. A Christian culture that fails to PLACARD the Crucified Lord will eventually find itself conforming to the patterns of the world around it. 

Lessening the emphasis of Christmas and Celebrating Good Friday with greater zeal and fervor would be a good place to start placarding the Crucified Lord to the society that needs Him badly. The Good Friday service which goes on from Noon to 3:00 PM is my MOST Cherished service of the Year. In India, it is also the one of the most attended services. In the far East communities, Good Friday is a huge event with community processions etc... Fortunately, the Episcopal Church I go to in Houston has the Good Friday mass. It has a decent attendance as well. 

But I am shocked to notice that most Churches in Houston don't bother to have such a Good Friday service anymore. Some young committed Christians I spoke to seemed ignorant (or just indifferent) of the Noon to 3:00 PM format of the Good Friday service that is celebrated the world over. The popular culture enthralls itself with Easter Eggs and the Easter Bunny. At work, people wish each other 'Have a great Holiday Weekend'. Christians wish each other 'Happy Easter'. Every one skips 'Good Friday' as though it were something unpleasant to be swept under the carpet. I am little shocked to say the least. It seems to me that the Christian Traditions in the US is sort of upside-down. It seems to me that just as the Disciples deserted Christ when he had to hang for 3 hours on the Cross, most Churches are deserted during the commemoration of those 3 sacrilegious hours the Cosmos cringed witnessing. 


'Good Friday' getting less importance is perhaps just the 'symptom' of a flawed understanding of the centrality of the Crucified Lord to the Gospel. The 'root cause' of this problem of the Crucified Lord being sidelined is because our Church sermons seldom focus the Cross or the Crucified Lord. The Church sermons we hear often belie an 'anxiety' on the part of the Preacher to make the congregation REMAIN STUCK to the Church either by making them 'feel good' and entertained, or by making them 'feel guilty' by hitting them with the law, or by making them 'feel loved' in the propped-up Church community-life. Different people, depending on what their 'psyche' finds 'attractive' remain stuck to some variation of the sorts of 'Crucified Lord-less' Churches just described. If the Church continues to deal with the Crucified Lord as something to be swept under the carpet, it would no longer be the Corner Stone that causes the wise of the wider society to stumble (Rom 9:30-33).

If the Crucified Lord is the one whom we are supposed to PLACARD to the society around us, I can't help but wonder why Good Friday has so much less emphasis than Christmas.   PLACARDING of the Crucified Lord would at the least force the likes of the recalcitrant Zalthmans to deal with the Rock the causes the wise to stumble, instead of giving them a straw man Showman-Christ-figure to use for a punching-back in their Cricket commentaries.  

1 Cor 1
22) Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23) but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles... 25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength


Wish you all a Solemn Good Friday and a Joyous Easter!!!

Adoring God!

It is natural for people to talk of God using 'love' for an adjective. 'Love' is the highest ideal that a man can possibly strive for. The famous French Existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre maintained that everything in life was absurd except 'love'. Unfortunately, Love is also the most misused word. Every time I see the usual 'dating sequence' in the movies, Hollywood or Bollywood, where two people go out on a date and then get into the car and the apartment and into the bed all in the name of 'making love', it causes me to cringe within.

The problem with such depictions is not just the that the idea of love is being desecrated but that the popular perception of the what makes for 'cherished companionship' is twisted. This makes it all the more pertinent that when we talk of God, it does not help to just use the word 'love' without giving it the right 'content'. This is very important because the first of the two great commandments is the commandment to LOVE the Lord with all the Heart, Soul and Mind.

Love is the ability to 'value' the person for who the person is. When the person we love is really a Good person, then the manifestation of our 'valuation' of that person turns to Adoration of that person. God is the most Good person ever. So any man who has the right value system can't help but Adore God. The catch here is that no man can have he right value system unless he is indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God, having already been Redeemed by the Righteousness of Christ.

Once a person gets the right value system, he can't help Adoring God for who He is. He can't help Adoring the God who commanded King Saul that not even the animals of the Amalekites should be spared. He can't help Adoring God who allowed the Creation to be cursed at the Fall. This Adoration of God's Judgement on the Fallen world is not some form of sadism, rather it is an appreciation for the Beautiful unfallen world created by the Holy God. The Holiness of the Lord demands that there be judgement on the ones who attempted to desecrate His Holiness. The Admiration for the Holiness of the Lord is what makes His Judgement coming down upon as palpable. 

Of Gods and Men

Finally, I got to see the much looked-forward-to movie, "Of Gods and Men", today. It is a very slow moving and a very deep movie. There were parts of movie where I was almost screaming, "Can't you folks walk a little faster, please... you are wasting my time". Then there were scenes especially the reciting of the creeds, reading of homilies etc... where I was, "Oh... slow down guys, this is too much, too deep and too fast. I need a little more time to allow my mind to dwell upon this meaty matter". This movie is the real-deal. It is about a group of French Monks living in Algeria facing the possibility of obliteration by the Islamic radicals. In 1997, these monks got kidnapped and then killed by the militants.

Walking out of the theater, I realized that, though there were many interesting aspects to the movie worth pondering about, I had to zero in on one and do justice to it. As I was at Starbucks pondering what the theme of the write-up should be I realized that the one Monk I liked the most in the group was Brother Luc an old, fragile, very kind-hearted, yet clear-minded Physician. When the Monks ponder leaving the Monastery in fear of being killed by the militants there is multiplicity of opinions. Brothe Luc though, is consistent throughout. At one point he says, "I will not leave, to leave is to die". At at a later juncture he says, "I am a free man, I don't fear death". The old Brother 'Luc' (pronounced 'look' but as though with a single 'o'), is my hero. I want to write about how the hunch-backed Brother Luc ends up being the towering beacon amidst the tension in the group as the Monks struggle to find their identity and figure out if they should hold their ground and face death or make good their escape.

There is a scene where the Monks are discussing their options with the poor villagers they support. There is a beautiful metaphor and play of words, I need to make a note of at the risk of digressing, for there is much beauty in it.  The monks tell the villagers that they are like a 'bird on a branch' trying to decide whether or not they need to leave. A sharp lady replies, "We are the birds, you are our branch, if you leave, we lose our footing".

If the theme of the entire movie has to be encapsulated in one word, it would be the word 'sacrifice'. Monks are people who are the most sacrificial. They take up a celibate life and help the poor. One might think that it would be natural for such sacrificial folk to face the prospect of the ultimate sacrifice with sober courage. But one couldn't be more wrong. Monks chicken-out too. I was wondering why some Monks didn't flinch and others balked as the prospect of Martyrdom even though both live seemingly equally sacrificial lives. I realized that the key difference between the two groups of Monks lay in what comprises the 'basis' for their commitment to be sacrificial living.

The recurring theme among the Monks who say that they need to leave is that to die holding on to the Monastery would be pointless. It would make better sense to go else where and serve the people there. A young Monk laments that he sees not a 'Purpose' in this martyrdom. He says that ever since he was a kid he wanted to become a missionary, but given the prospect of such an oblivious martyrdom, the question to him is, "Why should I do this?." When probed further he says that when he prays he hears nothing.

This is a sharp contrast to the emphatic statements of Brother Luc. Thankfully, the movie gives at least one clue into Brother Luc's heart that would be sufficient evidence to prevent anyone from concluding that Brother Luc said what he said because he was a brave and noble soul that was bound to go beyond the call of duty. Brother Luc was not impelled by a call for duty. His was a different call. The scene giving a glimpse into Brother Luc's heart comes right at the beginning of the movie. In all of the movie, there is only one scene that appears incongruous to the monastic themes and alludes, a wee bit, to the idea of romantic love. It is a conversation between the grand fatherly Brother Luc and a charming young girl from the village.

The girl and Brother Luc are sitting on a bench leaning on the sun-baked walls of the Monastery. It looks like it is dusk. Both of them are facing the Sun. The girls face beaming in the golden rays of the Sun as she is lost in the idealism of romantic meditations. Brother Luc with a kind face, affectionately hunched next to her, slightly bending towards her, attentively listening to her reveries.

The girl asks, "What does it feel to be in love?". Brother Luc replies, "When you are near the person if your heart beats itself out of your body and the knees buckle... etc you are in love" (this is a paraphrase, I don't recall the exact words). The girl still beaming thinks, cocks her head and asks, "Have you been in love?" Brother Luc chuckles, and replies, "Ooooh... many times... again and again. Until I found the greatest love of all and I RESPONDED to that 60 years ago".

Bingo!!! There you have it - the BASIS for Brother Luc's willingness to gladly make the ultimate Sacrifice. The basis for Brother Luc's sacrifice is a response to the greatest love of his life - the Lord for whose glory he had become a Monk 60 years ago.

The difference between Brother Luc and other monks is that the others sacrificed hoping to find their identity through their own sacrifice. They would sacrifice everything except their identity. They did not have an ulterior basis for their sacrifice, outside of themselves. When they realized that their sacrifice would result in the very loss of the self-identity the sacrifice became pointless. In fact, the very basis for their sacrifice began to work against the zeal for sacrifice. In contrast, Brother Luc's sacrifice was a RESPONSE to a love from outside of him. It was something he couldn't help but RESPOND to. When he knelt down, unlike the young Monk who heard none, Brother Luc felt his heart beat itself into an ecstasy and his knees buckle itself into a posture of penitence. Such was the love that captivated him and set him apart.

I couldn't help but ponder how modern Urban Christendom is so different. What is lost among modern Urban Christians is this sense of sacrificial RESPONSE to the greatest love of all. We are so filled with knowledge of Scriptures and self-seeking-spiritual zeal, that there is little space for Christ and the response of love toward him, consequently no space for sacrifice either. No wonder popular culture thinks of modern Evangelical Christians, irrelevant. 

Growing Old in Two Days

I saw my friend and Bible Teacher MF at Church on Sunday and it seemed that it had been a long time since I had seen him. Then I remembered, to my utter surprise, that I had spoken to him just three day before on Thursday evening. In fact, I had also listened to  his lecture on the Priestly office of Christ. I think the reason for this anomaly is because between Thursday and Sunday, my mind had aged quite causing it losing track of passage of time.

Interestingly, the cause for my mind losing track of time is a by lecture of Michael Horton at the SJD conference. He introduced a new Truth into my mind. This new Truth disturbed some of the old Truths. Then there were some paradigm shifts, causing much change in my mind and its way of perceiving life. This is what I call 'ageing' of the mind. Such ageing happens when one suddenly begins looking a life though a different lens. This quick change in perceptions of life that came over on Saturday, caused an illusion of time moving quickly between Thursday and Sunday.

The Truth that Michael Horton's lecture, which caused some havoc to some well rooted ideas, is the Truth of  the ALL Sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ to win over the Kingdom of God for the Glory of God. This new Truth usurped an old truth in my mind that believed that the Christian HAD to WORK to build the Kingdom of God for the Glory of God. The new disturbing Truth says that the GOSPEL WILL conquer the world for the Glory of God. In other words, it is Christ's Gospel that builds the Kingdom of God, not the Christian. Of course, Christ does His work through Christians. But the key point to be noted is that Faith on this  (disturbing) Truth of the ALL sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ makes the Christian look up at the Gospel to accomplish the Kingdom building, instead of looking up to ones own works.

A Christian is not supposed to build the Kingdom of God through his works, because a Christian doing so  ends up building his own little kingdom instead of building the kingdom of God. The problem with the Church of this time is that it focuses so much on 'programs' to build the Kingdom of God. Someone may object, what is wrong with the Church focusing on programs? After all, we need programs to care for the poor and oppressed, right? Hmmmm... Yes, but not quite. The Church should focus on the Gospel and the work of Christ through the Gospel in the life of a Christian 'freeing' him to fulfill the Law - to love God and love Neighbor. This free Redeemed Christian will go and love his Neighbor and become a reflection of Christ to his neighbor and thus the Neighbor will have a chance to see Christ and be drawn by His Glory. Thus the Kingdom of God is built through the 'Gospel-created Neighbour-loving Christian'. The Church instead of getting this Gospel right, is focusing on techniques and programs consequently the Christian is Christless and loveless. No wonder popular culture views Evangelical Christians as a bunch detached bigots.

Through all of this my personal take-away was that my focus needed to move away from what I can do for the Kingdom of God towards what Christ can do in me to make me Christ-like and help me fulfill the 'law of love'. When I saw my friend M on Sunday, my mind did not as it originally did, perceive him through the lens - 'Oh-if-only-I-was-as-knowledgeable-as-M,-I-could-really-be-a-builder-of-the-Kingdom-of-God'. Instead, my mind just wondered at God, for all that the Gospel of the Crucified Lord is doing through M. And was grateful to God for what the Gospel of Christ was doing in me. Michael Horton's message helped me see the world through the 'Gospel-winning-the-Kingdom-through-me' lens instead of the 'me-winning-the-kingdom-through-the-Gospel' lens. Boy, did I grow old in two days!

Adjustment Bureau Makes Predestination Palpable?

Adjustment Bureau is not-so-well-made movie about a very interesting idea. I love movies which are based on complex ideas. I couldn't help being drawn towards this movie because it depicts the tension between Free Will and Predestination. But I think the movie didn't capture the tension as well as it could have. Free Will' is about man having the free ability to make his choices. 'Predestination' is about God deciding what human beings would choose.

In 'Adjustment Bureau', the world has two groups of people the Human Beings and then the secretive Adjusters. Both look human. The Adjusters live much longer lives than human and have seemingly Super Human powers within the Natural realm of life to control human destiny. The Adjusters makes sure that Human Beings use their Free Will in a safe way. In other words, they make sure that Human Being don't end up abusing their 'free will' to, for example, destroy life to the point of extinction. When things go out of control, these Adjusters intervene with Human Choice to make things go 'as per plan'. Whenever there is a glitch in the plan, a new plan is created to counteract the imbalance.

Congress man David Norris (Matt Damon) is a man who according to 'Plan' is destined to become the President. A prior glitch in the plan caused a change of his sweet heart, a beautiful Ballerina. He was supposed to fall in love with the Ballerina, but because of the glitch in the plan the Chief Adjuster decides that David Norris and the Ballerina shouldn't fall in love. As per revised plan, he is not even supposed to meet her, except once. The Adjusters are supposed to make sure things go as per plan. But this revised plan has a glitch too, he meets her more than once and both fall irrevocably in love. The Adjusters try to intervene to keep them apart. And the battle continues... not as engagingly as you would think it ought to be.

Anyways, the movie is interesting because the counter-cultural idea that there are Super Powers exercising control over human lives is made palpable. In a Naturalistic age (one believes that only what one can see/touch is real), this idea of Super Natural control is not just considered as radical but stupid. People may quite legitimately comment that a movie such as Adjustment Bureau cannot prove or disprove the existence of the Super Natural. I would agree. But I think, to blithely brush the idea of the Supernatural gaining credence off, may be akin to missing the forest for the trees.

I think the reason why the modern progressive culture does not give credence to the supernatural is because modern presuppositions about life does not even allow the urban progressives to even consider the plausibility of the Super Natural. I think movies such as Adjustment Bureau tend to work on the sub-conscious presuppositions of the mind and creates a more favourable disposition in the mind towards the plausibility of the Super Natural. Brining about such a change of modern man's presupposition about the plausibility of the Super Natural may be the key to help him ask better questions about God and the Super Natural world. As against, insisting as Richard Dawkins and his ilk do, that any talk of God and the Super Natural is patently incredulous.

The Home

A Two-story town house

A Lawn in front, two cars and two dogs

The aspired home?

Happy college, ample party

Simple work, cool salary

Uncomplex life, brimming affluence?

A peaceful retirement

Friends and Friendlessness

A vapid life, lived to the hilt?

O vain soul, remember in Thy youth

Thou art a King’s Son

Caring for Thy Father’s Kingdom

Look Thou beyond Thy mud-pie aspirations

Unto the storied Home above

Of the King Thou owest Thy allegiance to.

An Evening with Kids - A Need for Human Investment

I went with my Church friends to the Star of Hope school in Houston to spend sometime with little kids studying there. We played with the kids, fed them and just interacted with them. My first impression of the place was surprising. I was filled with a sense of theological inadequacy. There were four kids on my table coloring a picture of Jesus talking with the kid giving 4 loaves and 2 fish. A 6 year old was asking questions about Jesus and even before I could think of what to say, another 6 year old and 7 year old started  to answer. They recited an entire thesis of who Jesus Christ is starting from Him being God to Him forgiving sins to Him taking us to Heaven. I realized that I, with my slow thinking mind, couldn't have packed in so few words with, so much Truth, in such a short time. I had to pause, take a deep breath and tell myself, "Ok, Dude... Step Up!!! you are with a bunch of very smart people". I can't remember the last time I felt so theologically inadequate.

Looking back, this evening's experience was marked by two noteworthy poignant observations. The first was with a 7 year old kid at my table. As I said, my table had really smart kids who were so conversant about many things that I had to step up to keep up. One of the smart ones 7 year olds, I'll call Tom (fake name) asked me how his crayon coloring looked. I said it looked cute. Then he looked at me and said, "People will grown only when God wants them to grow". I couldn't understand why he said so. I was a little bit confused. My philosophical mind started wondering if Tom was trying to say something about the doctrine of Predestination. I looked at him. He said with sad eyes, "My Doctor told me that I will not grow big like everybody else". I still remember how sad his eyes looked when he said that to me. Wanting to encourage him, I said that he will grow big. He replied, "No my Doctor says I will not". When Tom got down from the chair, I could see that he was short for his age. When Tom's mother came to pick him up, she seemed like a short lady too. Somehow, it was ingrained in Tom's mind that, "God did not want him to grow". I wanted to  dispel the ingrained idea. But I did not know how. Tom's sad eyes remained in front of my eyes. The kid was very smart. I also think he has artistic talents. His coloring of the picture showed a lot of maturity for his age, from his choice of colors to his strokes. I wish SOMEONE would INVEST time with Tom to help him understand that life is complex and that being short isn't something to be sad about, lest the sadness in his eyes should result in an indelible scar in his heart sapping him off his ability to live life to all its fullness as promised by the Saviour.

The second poignant moment was when when we were returning from playing some outdoor games with kids. The kids ENJOYED holding hands with some of us as we walked. Two girls who were 8ish were holding each of the hands of one of the ladies in our group. Just then one of the girls Tiffany (fake name) said, something like, "my socks is hurting me". What the little girl said did not make sense to the lady whose hand she was holding or to me. The other girl immediately said, "Oh, she just wants someone to carry her in their arms". What happened there was a classic case of 'Transaction Exchange' which the Psychologist Dr. Eric Berne talks about in his book, "Games People Play". He says, the human beings seldom expose their deeper needs, they say one thing to get something else. People who know them personally, quickly assess their real need and respond to that. The other 8 year old knew the Tiffany enough to know her deeper need. Dr. Eric Berne says in the same book that people play such games so that they get 'stroked' emotionally and/or physically by other people. He goes on to say that the NEED for 'stroking' and the FULFILLMENT of that need is what keeps a human being full of life. He says that if a new born kid were to be left alone without the 'stroking' of another human being, it would actually die. I wish SOMEONE would INVEST time with the likes of the 8 year old to fulfill the deep need to be 'stroked' emotionally and physically, lest she should search for it ways that would end up with her getting exploited in the cruelest way possible.

When I came back home as I was reminiscing upon my experience, I was reminded of something Franky Schaeffer, the son of (my favorite Author) the great Francis Schaeffer said in his book, "Sham Pearls For Real Swine". He says that the person who said that parents need to spend 'quality time' with kids should never be allowed to become a psychologist (I improvised the last part of that sentence, I don't think Franky would disagree though). Franky goes on to emphasis that Parents need to INVEST not just a 'quality time' but A LOT of time with kids. He says, "You have to beg, borrow and steal family time from the world bent upon distracting you from the most important things in life".

When Parents do not INVEST A LOT of time with kids - to attend to their deepest needs, dispel their deep insecurities, help them see the world from a Scriptural perspective, SOMEONE else needs to step-in and do that. If none does that, this generation is sowing seeds for the destruction of the culture that has given us so much freedom, security and privileges. The problem with the education system for our kids does not just have to do with the lack of funds or the selfish attitudes of unions or the lack of committed teachers. The problem is that our society does not value children as much as it ought to. We don't look at children as souls that need to be nurtured to shoulder the weight of this Civilization. Instead we look at them as 'material' beings that need non-human attention of the Wii and/or TV and/or Toys.

One of my very theologically sound friends whom I respect a lot looked at the flat-screen TV at his home and said to me, "This is my son's baby sitter". To give him the benefit of doubt, I think it was part joke and part truth. My heart couldn't be more pained, hearing that. I couldn't blame my friend either. We live a complex life with so much fighting for our attention. But THIS is not a battle we can afford to lose. Jesus Christ made time for kids when the Disciples thought He had better things to attend to. Jesus knew that kids needed HUGE Human Investment, this generation does not. This civilization will pay the price unless SOMEONE 'Steps UP'!