Lookin for me....

Days of Heaven - A Story of a Family that Wasn't

2012-01-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

I saw the movie 'Days of Heaven' last weekend. 'Days of Heaven' is made by the legendary of Terrence Malick, the director of the recent 'Tree of Life'. Like much of his other movies, it is a narration/thoughts of one person witnessing life.

The movie is about a few parent-less kids, a nomadic group of three and a lone guy who is a rich young farmer. The group of 3 nomads is a boy, Bill, and two girls the younger of which Linda, is the narrator. The elder girl Abby and Bill are sort of in love, but they behave as brother/sister to the outside world. During the narration little Linda says they are sort of family, but not quite.

During their nomadic journey, they work at the farm of the rich young farmer in Texas. The rich young farmer finds Abby attractive. Bill learns that rich young farmer is terminally ill and may die soon. The rich farmer wants to marry Abby. The shrewd Bill concocts a plan. If Abby would marry the rich young lonely farmer and then he dies soon, the money would all be theirs.

He cajoles Abby into marrying the rich farmer. Of course, there is a whole lot of confusion. The movie ends with gun fights and painful tears. Bill and the farmer are dead. Abby and Linda are separated. The last scene is that of Little Linda, along with another nomadic friend, walking along the railway track not quite sure where they are going. It is a sad ending.

As I sat back and wondered what was missing in the movie, I realized that the movie had no real family. There wasn't a man and woman who were fused into one body, there weren't kids taken care of by a family, everyone was restless and yearning for something real in life.

There is a poignant scene in the movie. On the night of the phony marriage, Abby is on the bed, her Groom walks in looks at her and says, "you look like an Angel". She looks troubled and says, "but I am not one". Then Abby tries to be the Angel and really falls in love with her husband. For a short while, they have a real family resulting in a brief interlude of peace and rest, which I believe is what Linda considers the few 'Days of Heaven'. But one day, the Abby's Angel goes to sleep and the devil shows up. All hell breaks loose. Little Linda observes later on, 'we are all half Angel, half Devil'.

God created the family for it to be a place of rest, peace and contentment. In as much as we do not value family life, we miss the God-given gift to rest, nest and enjoy our little 'days of heaven' on earth. The problem is, the Devil half of us will ruin even the best of gifts that God gives us. So to be an Angel and enjoy the 'Days of Heaven' one needs supernatural strength and thus, 'a family that prays together, stays together'.

December Facebook Status updates...

2012-01-11T21:50:00.001-08:00

Isn't it incredible that the turn of time should be joy to so many people... Isn't there something deeply human about being able to enjoy the turn of time around the New Year? Who would you thank for this ability to enjoy the 'turn of time'??? Who would that be, if not the Creator of Time? Thanks be to God for creating Time!!! :)

‎'The Artist' is a new award winning 'silent' movie. Watching it made me wonder if we shouldn't go back to making silent movie again. In silent movies, you see more than you do with the talking version. The few important dialogues are displayed, because they are few, they carry more weight and you appreciate 'words' better.

To live, really LIVE... one has to see, really SEE which is why I think everyone should be an artist. :)

Be metaphor minded.

Well, the fact of the matter is that sometimes during chit-chat socializing I just feel bored to death. I guess most people feels this way too... I am just saying. :)

The reason why I like older movies is because they had better script. The reason why I like those scripts is because they belied a deep sense of Truth and meaning in life.

We live in a story, but the story is not about us neither are we the Author. In as much as we think the story is about us and we are the Author we are trying to usurp God's prerogatives.

A symptom of Whether one is a 'New Creation' in Christ is in how one SEEs and perceives life. This change in perception happens by 'having the eyes of your hearts enlightened' (Eph 1:18) by the Word of God. So one Fruit of the New Creation is a thirst for the Word of God. You shall know them by their Fruits.

‎
'My Week With Marilyn' shows the decrepit side of love with an ironic sense of lightness.

Well, actually I don't need Christmas lights or Christmas tree to get into the 'Christmas Spirit'. Christmas songs and hanging-out with the Christmas-minded would suffice. To each his own, I guess. :)

When the fear of God dies, man tries to be god. When there is nothing else worthy of worship, man worships himself. When there is nothing else worthy of love, man loves himself. Such is the state of the man 'without the chest'.

I wish my mind had been fertile on Saturday night as it is now. It is twirling with too many ideas that I can't sleep now. Well, I guess sleep will have to give way... somethings are more precious than others. :)

The answer to the question of where our identity lays in the source of our happiness. What do you do when you really want to be happy? What is it about that which you do that makes you happy? If you lose that one thing which makes you happy, what would the loss mean to you?

Sitting on wooden benches at 'Little Burgers' with the sun on my back and cool breeze about. Little burgers to bite into, slush smoothie to sip and a good book to read. Life is good! God has put 'enough' in the quotidian to make us happy and grateful. :)

Love is an end in itself, but knowledge is the basis of love. You can't love something/someone you don't know. Knowledge is important, but it can't be an end in itself. A pursuit of knowledge untethered from love can lead to tyranny, which was what happened with Karl Marx.

When the sense of entitlement is assumed at such a basic level that it becomes a lens through which life is perceived, it jacks-life-up. This is especially true when it comes to matters of pursuit of happYness. "Do 'whatever' makes you happy" is a dictum of modern age. The truth is, without 'norms' the pursuit of happiness becomes destructive...

I was feeling really sleepy and wanted to go to bed... but then I started writing the journal... :)

All discontentment is grumbling against God.

Journey is more important than the destination only as long as you do not believe in ultimate Truth. If you believe in ultimate Truth, then destination matters.

Oh, the sound of good rain! That will be the lullaby to which I'll fall asleep! :)

Anything worthy of admiration ought to be written about.

People talking to me on facebook makes me feel good, but the realization that I am depend on it makes me feel bad. Well, may be I need to take another sabbatical? Hmmmm...

Hey... it is December, how come there isn't any good movies yet???

‎'O, Holy Night' on full volume on the Sennheiser earphones.... over and over again... goosebumps..

My Week With Marilyn - Black Magic Love

2012-01-04T16:31:00.001-08:00

The movies that I love the most are the ones in which the last few lines of the script or the scenes highlight something that has been ubiquitous throughout. 'My Week With Marilyn' is one such movie. The movie ends with Marilyn singing 'Love is black magic'. Black Magic is something people USE to control people and circumstances to GET what they want, which is precisely what Marilyn does with love. Love is seen as means a means to get something else that one wants. One may want control, fame, fortune, escape from insecure emotions... or just a sweet 'romantic experience'. I don't think many USE love to get control, fame or fortune. But I suspect hordes USE love to get a 'romantic experience' and so the sole end of love becomes the 'experience'. I contend that the latter kind of love is less reviled but more destructive than the former.

Marilyn has been abandoned by her new husband who feels 'driven to nuts' by Marilyn's need to use him to resolve her insecurity problems. Marilyn then channels her love towards a 21 year old, Colin, having whom on her side is the key to getting inside knowledge of the power brokers in the British movie industry. She sweetly asks him, "Are you on my side or his (Colin's boss's)". The mesmerised boy can't help but reply, "yours". She allows him to fall in love with her, knowing well that she'll have to dispose of him when her use of him is no more. She has done this many times. She'll do it again. She is beautiful enough to afford it. She USES Love to get into a position of power in an unfamiliar world. This use of love to get something else is Black Magic Love. Such love is manipulative, readily noticed and quickly condemned. Then there is another form of Black Magic love depicted in the movie that is less noticed for what it is. But it is more destructive. It is a Black Magic love where people USE love to get a 'romantic experience'. Colin's love is representative of this subtle form of Black Magic Love.

At first sight, it might appear that the innocent Colin is victimized by Marilyn's use of love to get something else. But on closer analysis, Colin too is in it for something. Colin's love is not so much about really loving Marilyn as person as much as it is about having the 'romantic experience' of spending a week with the most alluring woman on earth. Marilyn uses love as black magic to gain fame, fortune and control. Colin on the other hand, uses love as the black magic get his 'romantic experience'. When Marilyn finally says goodbye to him, he isn't sad or heart broken. He is actually happy and reminiscences that it was all a great dream - 'my week with Marilyn'.

At first look it might appear that Colin's form of Black Magic Love that seeks to USE love to get a 'romantic experience' is benign and even innocent. Many Gen X, Y and Zers see Marilyn's manipulative love as a bad thing because it is manipulative and seeks material ends. On the other hand, they tend to see Colin's love as an innocent, spiritual and may be even a rightful pursuit of a romantic dream. But to conclude that the 21 year old's love is less destructive than Marilyn's manipulative love would be very naive and a total misunderstanding of human nature.

The problem with Colin's Black Magic Love is that while feigning to be true love (and harmless), it makes the 'experience' of the romantic dream more important than the person. This attitude towards love is extremely harmful. This emphasis of carving for the 'experience' over caring for the person that has wrecked many a modern marriage.

The New York Time featured a marriage involving two people divorcing their existing spouses to get married. The two couples involved had been family friends prior to this imbroglio. When the ones getting married were asked to justify their reason for divorcing their original spouses they said, "we feel so much for each other, this is just the right thing to do... we are so IN love... It is a dream we want to make come true". What really mattered to them was the 'romantic experience'. It didn't matter that they were hurting 5 kids and betraying the vows the made to their perfectly lovable ex-spouses. They cared more for the 'experience' than the person.

When the ex-Pay Pal executive, later the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk divorced his wife after an year's marriage, he said, “I still love her, but I’m not IN love with her... far too difficult to stay married. Every day was just too difficult.” Again what you see here is an exhalation of 'experience' over the person loved. When the experience of love wasn't romantic any more, it involved hard work and Elon decided to quit. The dysfunctional type of love you see in these examples is not the much reviled manipulative love of Marilyn's kind. It is the much sought-after black magic love of Colin's kind. Such black magic love that exalts the 'experience' over the person, is terribly harmful and destructive.

In the movie too, Colin's Black Magic Love shows its destructive side, if only for a short while. Prior to meeting Marilyn, Colin is courting a sweet girl Lucy. But when Colin meets Marilyn, he shifts his attention towards Marilyn, leaving the sweet Lucy high and dry. Colin knows that the affair with Marilyn will not last. But he is in it just for the 'romantic experience'. He uses love as 'black magic' to get what he wants - a headier 'romantic experience' with Marilyn. Black Magic lovers USE the lover as a means to get an exciting experience of love. Shakespeare describes such 'black magic' love by the words, "love loves love". The person at the other end is valued in as much as that person is able to give a romantic experience of love.

A marriage or any relationship that is built upon the craving for a heady experience of love will eventually be found wanting and breakdown. When the experiences wanes off, the dream is over. People wake up and would no longer be in love. They start looking for their dream with someone else. Black Magic Love idolizes the experience and dehumanizes the person. Any one who thinks this sort of love isn't destructive and dehumanizing has little idea what it is to be human.

In contrast to this, the Biblical model for love restores human dignity. The Christian husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the Church. The Christian man's love for a woman shouldn't be based solely on the 'romantic experience' (though there is a legitimate place for loving romance). Christlike, he is to love her to GIVE himself to her, even when 'every day gets too difficult'. Christ's love for the Church wasn't easy either. It was so difficult that His sweat turned to blood. Christ is the model for the Christian husband. The society knows nothing about the Christian model for love. Being blind to Christ's unconditional love, it has lost its point of reference to what true love should look like. Intelligent and hard working men like Elon just don't see that love as modelled by Christ involves hard work. In valuing the experience more than the person, they give up too soon, thus dehumanizing the one they purported to love above all.

In 'My Week With Marilyn', Colin dehumanizes Lucy in order to have his 'romantic experience' with Marilyn. Consequently, he ends up dehumanized himself. When Colin's dream is over and he comes back to Lucy, she rightly shows him the cold shoulder. A man who does not endeavour to reflect the love of the One in whose Image he is made will lose his 'manishness'. He'll remain a boy chasing after headier 'experiences' one after another. Marilyn's Black Magic Love that in its egregious manifestation USES love to get power, fame and fortune, is despicable. Colin's Black Magic Love that in its subtle manifestation USES love to get a heady 'romantic experience', is destructive. In loving the experience over the one that is beloved, Black Magic Love blackens the soul. 'My Week With Marilyn' glamorizes this un-Christlike Black Magic Love. In as much as our society will be blind to the love of Christ, Black Magic Love will be the norm.

In Joseph's shoes errrr sandals?

2011-12-30T08:26:00.000-08:00

I wrote this as part of my other post 'Joseph, the Unsung Hero' http://emmanuelreagan.blogspot.com/2011/12/joseph-unsung-hero.html, but then realized that this was incongruous. To just delete it off would go against my principle that words are precious, the creativity almost of first order. I decided to make a post out of it. Besides, by making this as a separate post, this would be the 50th post of this year... a good rounded number to end 2011. :) In other words, this is a post for the sake of a post. If you, for some reason have been reading till now, this might be a good place to stop. :P

If you didn't, you have only yourself to blame... Well, as I was writing my post on 'Joseph, the Unsung Hero', I tried an thought experiment of putting myself into Joseph's shoes. Just to see what it would mean to be the man that Joseph was. There are three points which I'll have trouble putting myself in Joseph's shoes, or should I say sandals...

Matt 1:18 Mary had been betrothed [that is, legally pledged to be married] to Joseph.

This sounds pretty much like an arranged marriage. Even though I come from a culture where arranged marriages do happen, it is on the decline. I would find it tough to willingly accept an 'arranged marriage'. Living in the world of radical individualism, having someone else make decisions especially when it comes to matters so close to my person, would be a bridge too far to say the least.

Matt 1: 20 An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit..."

Honestly, I would rather find it difficult to obey an Angel in my 'dream' suggesting that I marry a pregnant lady. Living in a post-Freudian world, I would find such a 'dream' rather confusing if not spooky. I would wonder if my 'subconscious' was venting out some repressed feelings in my dream. I might even have been tempted to argue with the Angel that he was asking me to something that did not seem very consistent with some parts of the revealed (Old Testament) word of God.

Matt 1:25 But 'knew' her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Not be able to have sexual intimacy with my wife for at least a year would be a tough sell to say the least. Having had to be abstinent until marriage and when one thinks one has finally arrived, to realize that one has to wait for one more year would not be an easy pill to swallow.

The Man Joseph had no hesitation. He, with amazing speed agrees to marry Mary as per the Angel's command. (Matt 1:24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife...).

I think there are three problems why it is difficult for someone born in the modern age to put oneself into Joseph's shoes/sandals...

I think in the modern age, our culture place a lot more premium on the 'attraction-factor' than any other time in history, which is one of the reasons why we find 'arranged marriages' impossible. We can't imagine getting married to someone we don't feel attracted to. If we look at human nature, for centuries attraction developed after marriage. In making 'attraction' a prerequisite to marriage, I wonder if we are putting the cart before the horse.

The second problem with modern age is that we don't believe that God intervenes in history to communicate to his children about His plan for their lives. When it comes to matters of marriage we listen more to our hearts promptings than to God's guidance. This reductionistic decision making process is akin to cutting off ones limb to fit the small cot.

The third problem is that we have made sexual intimacy a big part of marital life. I have read psychologists say that most problems in marriages can be traced by to sexual problems between the husband and wife. I don't know how this works... but I think if someone is truly in love, they'll be attracted to each other even if they don't have sex with each other. I think sexual intimacy is just the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. I think here too people in urbanized cultures, by giving too much importance to sex, are putting the cart before the horse.

I don't know that we can set the clock back... but we'll have to be true to human nature, else we cease to be human any more, and I think we are getting close.

Joseph, the Unsung Hero

2011-12-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

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

Over the past few weeks and months I have been pondering what it is to truly be a strong man. I have been looking at most things in life through this lens. Christmas is no exception. I think the unsung hero of Christmas is Joseph, Jesus's foster father.

As per Old Testament law, if a woman were to get pregnant out of wedlock, she'll have to be stoned to death. Back in those times, if a woman were to be pledged a man and she is already pregnant, he'll probably be the guy to hurl the first stone at her. But Joseph being a good man (Matt 1:19) decides to quietly divorce her instead of brining shame upon her. It is noble for a man of that stiff-necked patriarchal culture to be so benevolent.

But then Joseph has a dream and the Angel wants him to go one step further and marry Mary. The Man Joseph had no hesitation. He, with amazing speed agrees to be given the shorter-end of the stick (Matt 1:24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife...). By agreeing to marry Mary, Joseph also forgoes the pleasure of sexual intimacy with his wife (Matt 1:25 But 'knew' her not until she had given birth to a son). By sacrificially accepting the shorter-end of the stick, Joseph shows true masculine strength.

Joseph gives Mary and the child the support and legitimacy that they need to live and thrive in a society. In fact, when people are sarcastic of Jesus later on in his life, they still call him the Carpenter's son! But for the strong man Joseph...

There are two kinds of strong people...
First, the high-achievers - the ones who change reality to get what they want.
Second, the high-sacrificers - those who shoulder the weight of reality to give to others the strength and the support they need, whilst sacrificing their personal prerogatives.

From Steve Jobs to Justin Beiber, the popular culture admires the high-achieving men, who make themselves look good by having great achievements under their belt. I submit that it is the second kind of high-sacrificing men that are seldom looked-up-to. From Bruce Oslon to William Carey, these people expend themselves sacrificing their personal well-being for the sake of others. These are are the ones that are truly strong.

Ironically, 'popular Christianity' is no different from popular culture in that it celebrates strong men of high-achieving kind over the stronger men of the high-sacrificing kind. David is the considered a hero in 'popular Christianity' because he slew Goliath. He is the strong man who'll won many battles. But 'popular Christianity' often fails to reckon that when it comes to taking responsibility for his kids and family, David was a TOTAL failure. Then there is the whole affair of his impregnating another man's wife and then trying to get the innocent man to take responsibility for it, failing which, getting him killed. Where David fails to take responsibility for what was his, Joseph does the opposite. He take responsibility for what wasn't his. That is where true high-sacrificing manliness is. Carpenter Joseph is a stronger man than Kind David.

With 2011 ending, one of the key obituaries people are reminiscing about is the demise of the legend Steve Jobs and how his life has affected billions around the world. What is seldom acknowledged is that Steve Jobs was a terrible father. He disowned the kid (Lisa Brennan Jobs) of the first lady he impregnated. On a court case on paternity, he went so far as to claim impotence. He tried to wriggle out of a second out-of-wed-lock impregnation too before finally agreeing to marry the lady. His daughter did not invite him for her graduation. All of this history of Steve being an irresponsible father is often glossed-over because in the eyes of 'popular opinion makers', his public achievements override his private failings.

Let alone popular opinion makers, the idea of celebrating strong high-sacrificing manhood is seldom appreciated even in the Church. The failure of the Church to preach this sort of manhood has had a detrimental impact on the society. I was reading an article by the sociologist/historian David Brooks in New York Times. He talks about the social plight of 40% of the children that are born today being out-of-wedlock kids. Single moms are having to step-up to give the kids a good chance at life. Most of the single moms are great in being momma grizzlies. They show great resilience. The society/government tries to do what it can to help such single moms. But what is missed in the dialogue is the root cause of this problem, which is the irresponsibility of the men that impregnate the women. David Brooks goes on to say that we have lost the social norms from a 100 years ago which warranted that a man who impregnated a woman was expected to marry her. If only we had more Josephs we'll have fewer out-of-wedlock kids.

We need to delve a little deeper into the psyche of modern men who refuse to take responsibility for impregnating a woman. I suspect that the impetus to be irresponsible is not so much about an aversion towards being a father, as much as it is about a craving for pleasure (of the illicit kind, to not be bound to one 'partner' in crime). This craving for pleasure is crudely epitomized by Christmas celebration in the Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania where the Dean approved a Christmas tree decorated with condoms (http://nation.foxnews.com/christmas-tree/2011/12/09/condom-christmas-tree-sparks-outrage). Here too Joseph sets a great high-sacrificing example. It would have been legitimate for Joseph to have wanted to share sexual intimacy with his wife, but he refrains. He sacrifices pleasure in order to help and love Mary. Joseph's loving-kindness towards Mary in refraining even from legitimate pleasure is a great example to both men and women in today's world whose lives often seem to be defined more by craving for illegitimate pleasures than by virtues of love, kindness and sacrifice.

In contrast to the high-achieving heroes of our age from Steve Jobs to Justin Beiber (who I believe is currently battling a paternity claim), Joseph stands tall and timeless - a high-sacrificing man with a spine and a chest, shouldering the responsibility of protecting and loving the vulnerable. In as much as the likes of the Josephs remain the unsung heroes, today's society as G.K.Chesterton says, will continue producing 'men without a chest'. Eventually, such a civilization will disintegrate, not for the lack of high-achieving heroes of the Jobs kind, but of the lack of high-sacrificing heroes of the unsung kind of Joseph.

Christmas with the Van Zants - An Experience of Unconditional Love

2011-12-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

I usually go to Church on Christmas Eve, and love singing Christmas songs, but sitting alone by myself, in the midst of loving families, I experience what is called the 'outsider archetype'. In an article 'Depression During Holidays', in Psychology Today the Dr. Elaine N. Aron explains the 'outsider archetype' this way...

"The shadow side of this period of light and hope is darkness and despair, and many people fall into darkness at this time of year. They feel left out. Deep depression, the kind that goes on day after day or leads to suicidal thoughts, is complex and needs to be treated carefully and from every angle. ... is the problem of becoming identified with the archetype of the 'Outsider'. There is nothing bleaker, or more dangerous to survival, than being alone in the cold, physically or emotionally hungry, left out, while others are gathered around the fire, sharing food and gifts and above all, love."

Wanting to commit suicide is an extreme case of the outsider archetype, not every outsider feels that way. But having spent the past 4 Christmases by myself sitting at my home alone on Christmas Day, I can see where Dr. Aron was coming from. In fact, as much as I love the Christmas season, owing to my self-identification with the 'outsider archetype', a part of me had also begun to dread it... of spending the 5th Christmas in a row alone by myself.

Thankfully, this Christmas wasn't to be that way because my buddy Matt Van Zant invited me to spend this Christmas as an 'insider' in his family. I couldn't thank him enough for having invited me and alleviated me the pain of having to spend another Christmas Day all alone. What I found very interesting was that having been the 'outsider' for so long, the transition from the 'outsider' archetype to the 'insider' archetype actually takes some effort. It takes a deep understanding and acceptance of unconditional love to be able to make the transition.

Here is how the story goes... Matt picked me up from my place on Christmas Eve, we went to service with his Mom, Dad and two pretty sisters. Then we went to Benihanna, I was treated to a great dinner. We went to Matt's home and sat there talking and watching the program 'Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacles Choir'. Of course, we cracked a few jokes about Mormons, no offense, but who doesn't... As much as they are fodder for good jokes, Mormons are good singers. It is also one of the fastest growing religions, thanks to their procreative proclivities. Matt's Mom googled some theological differences between Mormonism and Christianity, and read it aloud. We talked about that for a while. It was a fun time. Then we called it a day.

I had a long sleep in the cozy guest bedroom. I woke up very late next morning had a great brunch with eggs and sausage and english biscuits and fruits and desert, prepared by Matt's Mom. Then it was time to open gifts under the tree. Back in India, we didn't have the opening of gifts tradition. Christmas there was very different (http://emmanuelreagan.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-in-india.html). So this opening gifts tradition, was new to me. It was great to see the love and affection with which each of them had gotten gifts for others. I was given a gift too. I was the only one there who did not have any any gift to give.

We chatted, played with the dogs... I went back to my bed to have a quick nap, which ended up becoming a 3 hour sleep. I woke up from the sleep and there was in my head, a nagging thought... From having great food, fellowship and gifts, I took so much from the table, but I nothing to 'bring to the table'. Being a 'works righteousness' guy, this was a bitter pill for me. I had been showered with so much love and affection, but I didn't know why I deserved it when I had nothing to give in return. Deep within, it even made me feel a little bit guilty.

Being an 'outsider' has one sent of psychological bad problems. But being an 'insider' has another set of good psychological problems to be solved. I had to find a resolution to the feeling of not knowing what made me worthy of love and affection, when I have nothing to give in return. Being an introverted HSP (High Sensitive Person), I am a little too in touch with the nuances of my feelings to not be bothered by them.

The dinner prepared by Matt's Mom on Christmas day was one of the best meals I ever had. For dinner on Christmas Day, two friends of Matt's sister came to join us. They too were guys who were away from home experiencing lonely Christmases. As we sat at the table, Matt's Dad asked Matt to pray. I found the answer to my nagging question in Matt's prayer. Matt's prayer went something like this...

"Thank you Lord for bringing us together as one family in this table. Christmas is not about traditions, it is about celebrating the salvation that you have provided for us so that we can love each other as a family..."

I didn't hear the rest of the prayer, because in those few words, I found the answer to the question that was nagging me. My question was, 'What did I do that makes me deserving of such unconditional love? What do I have to bring to the table to make myself worthy of such love?' The answer is, I did not have to do anything, Christ did all that needed to be done on the Cross. I was unconditionally loved by the Van Zants not because I did (or could do) something to deserve it, but because they believed in the unconditional love of Jesus Christ which made them love me unconditionally and invite me to be an 'insider' their family.

The basis for love is not what one has done to be worthy of love, but what Christ has done on the Cross. Only a love that is inspired by the love of Christ can be truly unconditional. The love I experienced with the Van Zants was this Christ-inspired-unconditional-love. So I could REST in what Christ has 'brought to the table' instead of being hung-up over what I couldn't bring to the table to be worthy of being the 'insider'.

In a sense THIS is what Christmas is about, we are ALL born 'outsiders' to God's family. Left to ourselves, we'll die. Christ had to show us conditional love to make us 'insiders' into His family. Making the transition from the 'outsider' to the 'insider' requires of us an acceptance this unconditional love of Christ. For some of us because of our life experiences this transition from the outsider archetype to the insider archetype takes some time, the likes of the Van Zants make such a transition easier.

As I noted earlier, I couldn't thank my buddy Matt enough for making this Christmas special by inviting me to be an 'insider' in his family. Christians will spend an Eternity thanking and worshiping God for making us all insiders in His Family. Everyday in Heaven would be such a Christmas day. Our Christmases here are just a foretaste of the overflowing experience of unconditional love that is to come! After 4 years of lonely Christmases, my Christmas with the Van Zants has been one such experience of unconditional love!

November Facebook Status Updates

2011-12-20T18:18:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me what I did last weekend. I said, "Saw a good movie, read a good book has good conversations with people". We talked for sometime then he asked me again. "What did you do that was FUN???". I said, "Saw a good movie, read a good book has good conversations with people"... What more does one need to be FUN???

I was having lunch with a friend today, discussing the meaning of life. My friend said that discussing meaning of life might be futile... that we need to live in the present... I said I really want to know the Truth... Finally, we got the fortune cookie and mine said, "Enjoy life! It is better to be happy than to be wise". We had a good long laugh till we almost teared-up... :)

Since this morning, in conversations with the friends I have hung-out with I got at least 4 suggested readings... "How to read a Book", "The One and The Many", "Ego and Archetype" and "How Trinity Changes Everything"... I don't have the bandwidth to read all of these books now, but haven't I the MOST awesome friends???!!!

There couldn't be a more beautiful day than today to sit outside and read... cool, dark and melancholic. :)

Any system of life that is devoid theology which connects the idea of man with the idea of God, would end up dehumanizing man

I need to talk to someone who has read or seen 'Moneyball'. Some parts of it sort of went over my head...

The luckiest are the ones that were born in the early 80s... Like me. :P

Why does 'Adagio in G minor' make you feel the way it does?

J. Edgar is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but leaves you wanting more. DiCaprio and Eastwood have tried to deal with Hoover's life in ALL of its complexity that they barely scratch the surface - leave much shrouded, intentionally I believe.

Grief is good as long as it does not lead to self-pity. Life is good as long as there is hope and faith that God would work it ALL for the ultimate good - Rom 9:28.

Well... to go or not to go and watch 'J. Edgar' DiCaprio's latest movie with Clint Eastwood at 00:01 hours tomorrow (actually tonight)... THAT is the question.

I think one thing that Facebook does well is it gives people a chance to be a tad bit more creative than they normally are. :)

Houston was beautiful today! There were clouds, then some rain, little snow flakes dancing about for a very short while, then pouring rain, then a mist, then some sun and then cloudy again. Classic Houston!

Strength in the midst of weakness is true strength, for if there is no weakness in a person, then 'strength' has no point to prove. If one hasn't had a chance to win a battle from within, one may not be able to overcome the battles from without. So, Cheer up! If you think you are weak, you have an opportunity to be strong. :)

In life, we expend ourselves, anyone who doesn't feel expended, probably isn't alive yet.

If you have a strong arm and a sharp knife, when you make one cut, you'll have two pieces of meat. Well, what I am saying is if you have strong principles in your life, you can be decisive. :)

Sojourn - A High Stakes Christian Covenant Community

2011-12-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elf - Lost & Loved!

2011-12-13T00:14:00.000-08:00

I feel greatly encouraged by my buddies Kyle and Matt to continue writing posts about movies on my blog. Yesterday, when we were watching the cheesy Christmasy movie 'Elf' with friends from Church, Matt wondered if I would write a post on it. I took the challenge to write one. I don't think I have ever written a post on any cheesy movie. I enjoy watching funny movies, but a movie without depth does not inspire me to write. My challenge with this post is to find something deep about 'Elf' for a worthy write. But it is difficult task given that you have Will Ferrel staring in a movie... just saying. :) If this post is lame, don't blame me. :P

Anyways, for the sake of this post I have gleaned two profound ideas from the movie.
1. There is a connection between knowing who we are and finding a sense of belonging as someone's beloved son/daughter.
2. There is something divine about enjoying the 'spirit of Christmas' even when it is all about the Santa, and ubiquitously Christless.

In Elf, Will Ferrel is a man who gets 'lost' at birth and ends up growing among the Elves in the North Pole. As dumb as he is, when he is 30 years old, he realizes that he isn't an Elf but a Man. He realizes he does not 'belong' with the Elves and that the Elves don't quite love him. Will starts on a quest to 'find his true self'. Will finding his real Father in New York is what the movie is about.

This 'finding your true self' presupposes that one is 'lost'. None of us perfectly 'belong' in this world. We are all misfits in some ways. We don't love right, neither are we loved right. This causes a sense of alienation, insecurity and ultimately a sense of lostness.

Broadly speaking, modern human beings have two ways of dealing with the sense of lostness. One, try to escape the angst by becoming drunk or profligate or jump headlong into the rat-race for the 'American Dream' etc... Two, try to find a deeper purpose to override the gnawing sense of lostness by becoming Zen Buddhists or artists or activists etc... We forget that the ONLY thing that truly gives us a sense of 'belonging' is to be TRULY LOVED as Someone's most beloved Son/Daughter.

In the movie, Will wisely decides to find a sense of belonging by seeking his Father's love. When Will's Father gives up his 'dream job' to show Will how much he loves him, Will feels loved and finds a sense of belonging in life. From the Christian perspective, this is what Christ did on the cross. Christ gave His life up to show us how much He loved us.

Ephesians 1 4-6: In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace

Pay special attention to the first two words 'In love'. If God's adoption as His Son/Daughter does not give us a sense of being loved, NOTHING EVER will. If God's everlasting love doesn't make us feel loved, NONE ever can. We can try everything from being a drunk to becoming an activist. We'll just be a stone rolling about that gathers no mass, moving about from one place to another or one person to another.

Moving on to the second theme - the 'spirit of Christmas'... There is something really interesting about the way the idea of the 'spirit of Christmas' is presented in the movie. In the last scene of the movie the real Santa from the world of the Elves makes his appearance in NYC. It is witnessed by two groups of people - the true believers and the sophisticated skeptics. The true believers see the Santa, the sophisticated skeptics (the members of the media) just don't get it.

In the movie, the idea that the engine of Santa's sledge will work only by the 'Spirit of Christmas' in the hearts of the true believers is very ingenious. The first among the true believers is the 'tenderly beautiful' Zooey Deschanel. When Santa's sledge loses power, she feels it in her heart and starts singing the song 'Santa Claus is coming tonight'. Everyone joins in, even the ones watching on TV. Santas sledge gets the power it needs and zooms into the night skies.

It might appear that this is another show of commercialized Santa-celebrating Christmas. But we need to remember that even in this sort of Christless Christmas there still is something that can't help but glorify God. I almost teared-up when everyone sang 'Santa Claus is coming tonight'. There is something that makes a human being tear-up upon witnessing people share something profoundly simple. In this case, the 'spirit of Christmas' is shared by one and all. Why should this make one tear-up? It is because of the Image of God in man. Apes don't tear-up upon sining. Apes can't imagine myths about Santas or reindeers or gifts in stocking. Apes do not have the sense of wonder to enjoy the 'Spirit of Christmas'.

Only Human beings can connect to myths in a deep way. It is the Image of Christ in us that makes us true believers in myths. Myths are things that by themselves, do not have survival value. But they give value to survival. In and of itself, the 'Spirit of Christmas' has little survival value. But it gives value to survival. Without the image of God that makes man special, man cannot enjoy myths that give value to survival.

So, if one has to truly believe in the Santa's 'spirit of Christmas' (even when it is Christless), then one has to presuppose a Christian worldview - that man is made in the Image of God. Unless man feels loved as a son/daughter by the One in whose image he is made, he'll NEVER feel loved, no matter where he searches. He'll never belong anywhere. He'll feel totally lost. Thank God Christ came to save the lost! Merry Christmas!

The Lives Of Others

2011-12-05T18:08:00.001-08:00

'The Lives Of Others' is an award winning Foreign language film that actually made me cry because the end of the movie is so evocative of how life works, for those of the Christian faith. I am glad my friend from Church, Luke, lent me his copy.

The movie is about a Captain of the East German secret police the Stasi who is true to his principles even at great personal peril. Some power-hungry officers in the Stasi decide that they need to bring destroy a famous Playwright in the communist East Germany. They wire his house and put Captain Weiler in charge of monitoring the wire taps. Captain Weiler is a principled man, totally devoted to the totalitarian principles of the Communistic state.

Captain Weiler is promised rich rewards if Weiler can find incriminating evidence against the playwright. But during the surveillance, Captain Weiler realizes that the Playwright is a true artist and that his art needs to be protected against the regime. The Captain decides to not report some of the Playwright's work that is aimed at exposing the Communist regime. Weiler knows that if he is caught, he'll be dealt with the most severe form of punishment. Weiler bends over backwards to save the Playwright. The Stasi realize that Weiler had hidden some critical data. They don't have proof, so they demote him to a very menial position which Weiler does faithfully for many years. Eventually, the wall comes down and East Germany gets unified.

The Stasi men are wealthy in the unified Germany too. They work the system. But Weiler 'falls through the cracks' and is a dejected man delivering mail from door to door. Throughout the movie, Weiler is an unhappy man. He is not successful. He never has his 'American Dream'. He stands for a principle and pays the cost for being the righteous man.

One day, the poor, inconsequential, despondent Weiler is walking the streets. He sees a huge poster of the Playwright with his new novel 'Sonata for a Good Man'. Curious, Weiler goes into the shop, opens the book. He realizes that the Playwright dedicated the book to Weiler. After unification of Germany, the Playwright gained access to the wire taps and realized how Weiler had saved his life. Weiler takes the book to the cash register. The clerk asks if if this book needed to be gift-wrapped. Weiler looks up, and for the first time in the movie has a beaming smile and says, "This is for me!".

The Christian's life is akin to Weiler's. The Christian cannot conform to the ways of the world. Conforming to God's standard for righteousness, the Christian has to set himself apart. Others have a jolly good time 'working the system', whereas the Christian true to the principles of Truth gets the shorter end of the stick. From Elijah to David to Paul to Luther, people that follow God have struggled immensely with life. They are often disappointed and depressed. Yet unmindful of the present-day struggles, they run towards the ultimate reward of Heavenly life. The smile on poor Weiler's face when he says, "This is for me" is representative of the smile that would be the Christian's when he is rewarded in Heaven for all his hardships on earth.

Revelation 17

13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

14 And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne

will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’

‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

Sometimes the hardship we undergo as principled Christians can be overwhelming. We find ourselves as misfits in the world. But we shouldn't give up. We need to remember that we have a beautiful inheritance awaiting us in the Other shore in the form of a great relationship with God. He'll satisfy us for all the hardship we undergo for the sake of His Name. In this life, we should not conform to the standards of the pleasure and power mongering world. We should stand apart. We need to do our best to Serve God even when it comes at great personal peril, disappointment and despondency. We who end up as losers for the sake of righteousness, are actually in the good company of the ones in White Robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Our mourning shall be brief! Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (by the King)!

Another Blessed Lonely Christmas!

2011-12-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ides of March - The Story of Uncaring Sexy Men

2011-11-28T16:17:00.001-08:00

'Ides of March' is a classy movie. It is a story about political campaign machine trying to win the public over. The story that has multiple plots. The bigger story is that of one candidate's political machine trying to thwart another's. This battle in the public eye is being fought on the realm of big ideas and noble personalities that have perfected the public persona. Within this big story, there are smaller stories of human dynamics involving rivalry, loyalty and sex too. What 'Ides of March' does best is in showing how it is the smaller stories of human dynamics that really determines the big story.

There are many strands to the smaller stories. In this post, I would like to deal just with the story of sex, because this movie clearly depicts why sex is not a casual thing the present day 'hook-up' culture has made it to be. Sex has big implications in life. There are two reasons. One, sex has procreative powers. Two, God created sex as serious stuff in a way that creates a deep bonding between people that truly care for each other. God did not create sex to be casual stuff.

Ryan Goslin is the campaign manager for George Clooney's Presidential bid. The beautiful Evan Rachel Wood is an intern with the campaign team. Evan finds Ryan sexy and seductive. She tells him that they should have 'casual sex' as and when they find time. They do that. Thankfully, the movie doesn't have any explicit or yukky scenes that make you too uncomfortable.

Though a campaign manager getting caught having sex with an intern could be extremely damaging, Ryan is confident no trouble would befall them. He is right and wrong. One day Evan finds herself pregnant. The father is the Presidential candidate George Cloony himself. Geroge has an unsuspecting wife and kids, not to mention the carefully crafted public image of a good Father and Husband.

Evan tells Ryan about her pregnancy. Ryan VERY UNCARINGLY tells her that in order to avoid a political scandal she'll have to abort the kid and then quit the campaign team. Evan does not like that option. She says she does not want to quit the team. That would be the end of her life's dreams. Ryan maintains that he wouldn't allow her to work in the campaign. If someone found out about the abortion, that would be the end of George's campaign. He gives Evan cash and drops her off at the hospital to have the procedure done. Evan is terribly sad. She doesn't speak much. You could see an inexplicable sadness in her eyes.

After the procedure, Ryan discretely picks Evan up and leaves her in her room and tells her she'll have to leave as soon as she could. In the mean time, Ryan gets fired from his campaign on questions of loyalty to the campaign. Ryan comes back to see Evan. Finds her dead. Evan had committed suicide. The last text in Evan's cell phone is to George. NOW the Man in Ryan wakes up. He decides to take revenge on George and bring his campaign down, which is what the rest of the movie is about.

There are two questions here...
1. Initially, Ryan thinks the campaign is worth killing a child in the womb. But when a person outside the womb dies, he decides to bring the campaign down. Why this double standard?
2. Why does Evan commit suicide?

I think the answer to both points to the same - a strong sexy man's uncaring nature.

Ryan is a strong, slick and sexy. He competent enough to build or destroy a campaign, but he doesn't 'care' for a vulnerable life that needs help. Ryan prefers to lose a life (Evan's child in the womb) in order to save the campaign. But when Evan's life was lost, he decides that someone needs to pay for Evan's death. At the heart of this flip-flop is the idea that he doesn't have to 'care' for the baby in the womb. From a Christian perspective, this sort of not caring is TOTALLY wrong.

Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed you in the womb I knew (chose) you, before you were born I set you apart.

God created men to be strong and support the vulnerable. But Ryan doesn't 'care' enough to support the vulnerable. In this, he had lost his 'manishness'.

Now to the question of why the beautiful Evan ends her life at its prime best. Evans has been a happy-go-lucky girl for so long, having 'casual sex' in the hook-up culture. When she gets pregnant, she is forced to make serious choices. She realizes that there is more to life than meets the eye. She is vulnerable. She needs support, but there was none to stand by her. Her 'casual' sex partners don't quite 'care' for her. Both the men involved in her life George and Ryan are very powerful men. But they couldn't have loved her less. She feels totally abandoned by men with whom she shared something special - her sexual and romantic self. She had foolishly bargained something very special for something cheap - momentary titillation. To be at a place where one realizes that there is none that cares, is the worst place to be in. Perhaps, it is not terribly surprising that she snapped.

Ryan should have stepped-up to support her and her child when she was alive. He failed to do that. Then after her death he steps-up to have his vengeance. But what is the point? He is just sexy, seductive, strong uncaring man.

I was reading an article that talks about the American college experience. It says that for a college to make a lot of money and be successful, it has to have three things parking for faculty, football for alumni and sex for students. Kate Bolick in her incisive article on the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/) talks about how in the 1990s, the 'hook-up' culture became pervasive in College campuses and students began having 'casual' sex with multiple sex partners. She goes on to point that sometimes women do it not because they find it erotically or emotionally satisfying, but because it is just a part of 'social conformity'. Being sexually active is often taken as proof that one has it in oneself. She recounts an experience where she talks to some very sexually active college girls and they frankly acknowledge that they can't keep doing this for long.

What we do changes us. It defines us. When sex becomes casual and cheap, men tend to become uncaring. When people have casual 'safe' sex by suppressing the 'bonding' part of it, it alters the psyche of people involved. Which is why psychologists says that sex in uncaring relationships can be very harmful to the human psyche. Unfortunately, liberal college campuses have become the breeding ground 'hook-up' culture where casual sex is the norm of the day. God never meant sex to be shared casually. Sex is a serious thing which has serious implications in terms of procreation and in its ability to bond people. Sex was never supposed to be 'safe' either. Sex is dangerous, needs careful handling.

When we take something that God meant for one thing and use it for something else, it will twist our nature. Human nature will lose its humaneness. Which is what happens in 'Ides of March'. Ryan got free sex. He didn't want to say no. If it is free, why should he care about the person who is the gift-giver? He is a strong man that becomes uncaring. He is a creation of this 'hook-up' culture. Abortion is just a by-product of this problem. When men become uncaring, they lose their 'manishness'. They no longer are caring enough to stand by the vulnerable. A society with such men would eventually self-destruct. In fact, one of the causes of the decline of Roman empire was its 'casual' attitude towards sex. The men of that civilization accustomed to getting everything free from sex to food weren't disciplined or responsible or powerful enough to defend it when the Visgoths came down upon Rome.

The story of a civilization would be defined more by the story of uncaring men than by BIG political ideas of democracy or autocracy or capitalism or communism. Stepping outside of God's prerogatives for life will create foolish women and uncaring men. Consequently, a decadent civilization. Just like in 'Ides of March', the success and the failure of a Civilization depends not so much upon the BIG propagandized ideas, but on whether the little stories of the human dynamics is in obedience to God's written laws. It was in light of this that G.K.Chesterton said, "Civilization can stand in one angle. We are now testing angles."

The Christian hope and prayer should be that people realize the vacuousness of the hook-up culture and repent to honor God's cultural prerogatives, starting with matters of sex. Sex is special 1) it begets life, 2) it creates bonds. God created sex to be serious powerful stuff needing careful handling. 'Casual' sex would twist human nature, make people irresponsible and uncaring which would eventually lead to the toppling a civilization. With more than a third of today's children born in single-mom homes, the story of this civilization is likely to be defined by the story of uncaring 'sexy' men than by anything else.

7 Brides for 7 Brother to Kim Kardashian to Twilight

2011-11-26T23:14:00.001-08:00

(Disclaimer: In the write up below, I have tried to do something men generally do badly - analyze a woman thoughts/motives using her spoken words as a guide. The questions I raise in the post is not gender specific though, they are more about general culture. I don't claim to have the answers to the question I raise up on the post... I am just as confused as most millenials I think are. My long write-up below is my attempt to wrap my mind around something that is confounding - love between a man and his woman.)

Over the past few weeks, a few of my friends who love musicals told me that I should watch the 1954 musical "7 Brides for 7 Brothers". I did. It is a very funny romantic comedy. I have the habit of taking something that is funny, and making something 'dead' serious out of it. When I do this, I risk destroying the best part of silliness. Well, I guess you got to break some eggs to make some omelets, hopefully the omelets are worth it. :)

"7 Brides for 7 Brothers" is a movie about how 7 brothers living in a farm out in the remote farm in Orgeon end up finding 7 brides for themselves from the city. Now, what does "7 Brides for 7 Brothers" have to do with, of all people, Kim Kardashian? We'll get there... soon. Hopefully, I can make the connection...

In the movie, the eldest of the 7 brothers, Adam, has a bright idea. He decides to marry a wife so that the house would be kept clean and his brothers will have better food and standard of living. He goes into town and looks for the most 'industrious' woman. He finds her, the beautiful Milley - a woman working in a tavern who does everything from cutting firewood to cooking to serving food to milking cows. Adam stalks her. He proposes that he wants to marry her, right away. He hasn't time like most people do, to call and court and and cuddle around - he has a farm to take care of.

Upon seeing Adam, Milley falls into a 'love at first-sight'. Milley's friends are very circumspect of the strange Adam. They advise Milley against marrying Adam. It is now upon Milley to justify her reason for wanting to marry him. Here are her words, "I have been proposed to by many men many times. Every time I said 'yes', I got an awful sinking ‘feeling’. But when I said 'yes' to Adam, I felt fine. I was waiting for the sinking feeling, I never got it. I feel so fine, I could cry." None of her friends say another word. Hey, who dares argue against a 'feeling', especially when one is just 'following one's heart'??? None objects and the preacher pronounces them man and wife.

It is Milley's 'following one's heart' into love part brings me to the Princess of Reality TV, Kim Kardisian. Kim married Kris, and then has decided to divorce him after 72 days. The speculation was that she married just to increase her show's ratings. In her interview to justify her marriage and then her decision to divorce she said, "First and foremost, I have to follow my heart". In our life, all of us have a Chief 'value' which we live by. To mother Teresa, her chief value was to see Christ in the other person and serve that person as she would Christ. To Hitler, his chief value was to work towards the ultimate supremacy of the Aryan race. Kim's chief value apparently is to 'follow her heart, no matter what'. She followed her heart into a marriage with Kris, and then followed her heart right out. Steve Jobs said in his famous Stanford Address, "As in all matters of the heart, you'll know it when you find it". From Steve Jobs to Kim Kardisian, from career advice to relationship advice the chief value that people espouse is 'following one's heart'. The Bible on the other hand says...

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

But then, we live in a Post-Christian culture where people think they know better than the Bible. When Milley saw Adam she thought her heart was right. But after marriage, Milley realizes how her heart had misled her. Adam doesn't quite love her. She works hard to please him, makes a home of his shack. She gives all she has and gets no affection in return. One evening, she overhears Adam advising his younger brother on finding a wife, "if you don't get this, another will come along. One woman is pretty much like the next". Milley realizes that she isn't any special to him than any woman that is a good caretaker. Hot tears stream down her cheeks. In spite of a loveless marriage, Milley tarries on because she feels bound by 'traditions'. Good for Adam, the jerk.

Milley is no Kim. Milley does not divorce Adam. Milley is a woman of the 50s. Kim is a woman of the 2010s. Yet, there is a similarity. They both 'assess' their love for a man based on 'feelings'. They decide to follow their hearts. The difference between Kim and Milley is that Kim decides to divorce, whereas Milley stays married. I submit that this difference is a difference that is only circumstantial, meaning if both of them had lived in the same society, given their 'feeling' based decision making rationale, they would probably have acted similarly... I'll try to substantiate my claim.

Marriage has two parts.

1. Start loving a person.

2. Continue loving the same person forever.

Kim and Milley use 'feelings' as a basis to start loving a person. Kim goes one step further and uses 'feelings' as a basis to continue (or discontinue) to love the person. Milley on the other hand, shifts her decision making rationale after marriage. After marriage, she uses 'traditions' as the basis to continue loving Adam, even though he acts like a jerk. 'Traditions' die hard, at least in the 50s, back when individualism didn't matter as much as it does today. Both Milley and Kim use 'feelings' as a basis to start to love. But because they were living in societies that differently value individual freedom, their post-marriage decision making has different manifestations. Milley, living in the age entrenched with traditions, 'sucks it up' and continues in the marital relationship, whereas Kim, living in an age of radical individualism and experimentation, decides she deserves to have a better life with someone else and decides to break-up.

Most of us, the millennials, can't imagine getting married to anyone we didn't have the 'right' feelings for. Kim is just taking it a step further and saying she can't continue in marriage with a person if she hasn't the 'right' feelings. The point here is that we the Millennials don't need to be so hard on Kim, we ALL live in an era where we assess love through the 'lens of feelings'. Whether it is the 1950s or the 2000s, we are all on the same slide of being driven by 'feeling' based decisions. It is just that as we get closer to the bottom, we feel the increasing acceleration. We sense something is dead wrong. Celebrities living out the 'feeling' based philosophy to its logical end in a rather public way confirm our belief that something is wrong. The problem is we don't know what to do about it. Feelings are important. Feeling good matters. But what to do marriages that fail left, right and center?

C.S.Lewis says in 'Four Loves' that in the middle ages people feared 'instinctive feelings' they were afraid that giving into to instincts would ruin the individual and the society. In fact this distrust of the human heart was the reason why the Founders of America wanted a very limited government with adequate check and balances. If we would move back a few centuries, marriages were mostly 'arranged'. 'Feelings' were not unimportant, but they did not get to be the decision making factor. Decisions were made based on morality, then feelings followed. As civilization 'evolved' from this 'overtly Christian' middle ages, we moved into the age of Enlightenment rationalism. When this rationalism broke down, unable to substantiate its claim that reason was powerful enough to transform human race, we moved through the age of Romanticism. Romanticism idealized 'feelings' as ultimate in life. People said, "Hey, if ‘thinking’ doesn't get us anywhere, let us at least enjoy the how life makes us 'feel'”. I was speaking with a friend about life, I asked him what he thought about life, He replied, “I don’t think about life anymore, thinking doesn’t get me anywhere. My philosophy of life is to enjoy life as we living the present”. This trend of making feelings as the ultimate value in life isn't new, in Ancient Greece, on the heels of breakdown of Platonic rationalism, the Epicurean philosophy of living for feelings of pleasure flourished.

Around the 19th century Romanticism and the exhalation of feelings, I think writers like Jane Austin played a pivotal role in the shift into 'feeling-based-love' marriage. The usual plot in Jane Austin novels goes like this… It is setup in a society where Social traditions acts as an innate match maker of predetermined marriages. But then, there is a woman and a man who have special 'feelings' for each other which goes against the grain of the society's match making tradition. The (high) society becomes the villian, the 'feelings' become the 'good force' that perseveres until the 'lovers' are united and then live 'happily ever after'! Emily Bronte's work too was deeply feelings based. Then there were Shelley, Lord Byron and their likes who made feelings as the basis for good poetry. What started with romanticism, had now reached its zenith with the Twilight series. In the Twilight world it takes more than a man to make the jaded sense of a girl in her teens to ‘feel’ loved and special. It takes someone strong, manly and exotically alluring as a vampire or a werewolf. Anything less wouldn't sweep her off her feet.

As the western civilization moved from Romanticism into present day Existentialism, 'feelings' have taken greater and greater roles in life decisions, which is most egregiously manifested in starting and ending marriages. 1950s used 'feelings' as the starting point of love but used traditions to hold love together. Men and women of 2000s have gone one step further to use 'feelings' not only as the starting point of love but for continuing to be in (or out of) love too.

The point of this post is not to make feelings as the villain and the root cause of all problems. Feelings are important. Feeling good matters. After all, God created feelings. God grants the desires of our heart Ps 37:4. People who see 'feelings' as being ultimate have good reasons to do so. In fact, Paul uses their rationale to make a bigger point in the scriptures, "If there were no afterlife, then eat drink and be merry!". The point being that if this life is ALL there is, then 'feeling good' IS the chief value of life.

Going by Paul's rationale, every man has two options…

1. 1. Feeling good in this life

2. 2. Feeling good in the next life.

A person who denies the possibility of the next life has only this life to be happy in. People who do not believe in afterlife, will want to make sure that they ‘feel good’ in this life. If they can’t feel good in this life, then they have lost their ONLY chance to feel good. So to them, ‘to follow their hearts’ and feel good about this life is the chief value of life. What makes one feel good changes from person to person. In one episode of 2 ½ men, after Al and Judith divorce, Judith explains her reason for divorce to her son Jake, “Jake, Mom has a right to be happy”. To one person, marrying makes them feel good, to another depending on who they married separation may make them feel good, to one social service may make them feel good, to another taking a swig of beer and watching NFL would make them feel good.

On the other hand it is an irony that a person believing in the Truth of Next Life, may still be too preoccupied wanting to feel good in this life. How often have we heard people say, “I know I am going to hell, let me as well enjoy what I am doing now”. Illicit sex/romance may make some people feel good, at least for a little while. But it reduces the possibility of one ‘feeling good’ in next life. The Bible is clear that people who are sexually immoral have no place in Heaven. To say no to illicit sex/romance may not make one ‘feel good’ in this life. But it will make us feel good in the next life. Resisting temptation may not always be an easy pill to swallow, but one who sows with tears in this life will reap with joy in the next one. Proverbs 11:18 One who sows righteousness reaps rich rewards. There is nothing wrong in trying to be righteous with an expectation of future reward.

Hebrews 12:

1. 1. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2. fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Even Christ endured the cross for the ‘joy’ that was set before Him in Heaven. Feeling Good matters. Feeling Good is important. But the key question is whether we want to feel good in this life or the next. The wise choose to do things that make them ‘feel good’ in next life. The foolish choose to do stuff that make them ‘feel good’ about this life.

So, the point of this post is not to condemn our wanting to feeling good, but to question which life one should want to feel good in. In other words, the real question is about the ultimacy of this world. As Christians, meditating on the Word of God day and night is the only way to escape the allure of everything from novels to TV shows to Opinion makers, that imbibe a deep sense of ultimacy of this world and incite us to pursue the desire to feel good in this life. What we see and think about WILL define us. The only way to live this world with other worldly values is to have a regular quite time in which we commune with the Triune God.

Psalm 1

2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither—

whatever they do prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff

that the wind blows away.

Those who meditate on the Word of God will be rooted in timeless Truth. They will feel good in the Timeless world of Heaven. On the other hand, those who life by the Spirit of this age, whether it be Romanticism or Existentialism, they will be like chaff blown away into oblivion.

Just to summarize…

1. 1. A love that starts as feelings-based-love will continue as feelings based marriage that can break anytime unless those involved are willing to work hard to not allow feelings the driver’s seat.

2. 2. From Steve Jobs, to Kim Kardashian to the Twilight series, we live in a world entrenched with feeling based assessment and decision making.

3. 3. The best attitude to escape this cultural-conditioning is to look forward to the joys of the Heavenly life and wisely use that as an inspiration to forgo the petty ‘feel good now’ distractions of this life.

4. 4. The only way we can live this life with heavenly values is by having a regular quite time and meditating on God’s Word day and night.

From ‘7 Brides for 7 Brothers’ to Jane Austen to Twilight, I have broken a few eggs, perhaps even misrepresented some of them by over analyzing some specific parts. I will incur the wrath of the ardent fans. But in the process, we have life-giving omelets – the importance of the Word of God. The importance of being immersed in the Word of God cannot be stressed enough, even at the cost of breaking a few eggs.

October Facebook Status Updates

2011-11-22T21:59:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would rather appear foolish than be a fool.

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

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

Oh, I don't like cold weather :( I miss the warm sunny hot Houston already!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Story of a Strong Father - Brings a Tear to My Eyes

2011-11-18T17:51:00.001-08:00

I was reading an article on Vanity Fair about one of the most defining personalities of Great Britain, its only woman Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/12/margaret-thatcher-201112 I admire women that exhibit very strong masculine attributes. Below is an excerpt from that write-up.

Margaret Thatcher’s father was the single biggest influence on her life. Alfred Roberts was a grocer who ran two fairly successful shops in Grantham. He was also a Methodist lay preacher, well known for the quality of his sermons, and an alderman, a type of local politician now obsolete. Alderman Roberts had no sons and appears to have harbored for Margaret, the second of his two daughters, many of the ambitions which, had he been born to a higher level of society, he might have been able to fulfill for himself.

Roberts impressed upon young Margaret the importance of knowledge, duty, and hard work, the power of both the spoken and the written word, and the value of public service. The Roberts girls had to borrow and read two books from the library every week, at least one of them nonfiction. They attended church twice on Sundays (where Margaret sang notably well), and Margaret often accompanied her father to political meetings. Because the family lived above one of the shops, Alderman Roberts usually came home for meals with the girls. He and Margaret discussed public events, including the coming war with Germany. Of her mother, Beatrice, Margaret Thatcher said, “Oh, Mother. Mother was marvelous—she helped Father.”

When I read the excerpt above, my eyes were getting filled with tears, quite inexplicably. I think there is something wrong with a man who cries for himself. But here, I wasn't crying for myself. Being human beings, when we see something that signifies something that is exquisitely beautiful or deeply profound we feel 'moved' deep within and some of us that have sensitive souls easily get mushy. Something about the excerpt above 'moved' me very deeply. So I stopped to think through...

There are a few noteworthy points in the excerpt.
1. The father is an industrious man who is also deeply religious, obviously intelligent, capable of giving 'high quality' sermons.
2. He is a father who really understands his kids, tries to bring out the best in them and has BIG dreams for them.
3. Even though he is intelligent, industrious and gregarious, his not being from 'high society' put a glass ceiling above him. But that doesn't make him cynical. He INVESTS in making his Kid's life more fulfilling than his is.
4. The father INVESTS in nurturing his kids with good values, education and real life experiences.

I couldn't help but wonder how Alderman Roberts seems such an anti-thesis to much celebrated men of the likes of Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison. Steve Jobs made it BIG in life, but he was not in good terms with any of his daughters. In fact, one of the reasons he attributed to wanting to have an authorized biography was in his own words, 'to help his kids know who he really was'. Alderman Roberts on the other hand was someone who remained small in life, but he 'poured himself' out into the life of his kids.

There were two reasons I got mushy...
1. The article started off stating Thatcher's political accomplishments and suddenly took a dive in an moving account of a personal nature, it sort of took me by surprise, my emotional guard was down.
2. Alderman Roberts' life depicted a profound masculine strength which is not valued much in the society we live in. Robert's Strength is in not living his life for himself (to chase his 'American Dream', ought I say 'British Dream'??? :P), but in 'pouring himself' into the lives of his kids. The beauty of the relationship between him and his daughter and how it impacted the course of History of Western Europe, brought a tear to my eye. All because one man decided to really understand his kids and pour into their lives.

Contrary to what we are led by our cultural-conditioning to believe, a man's Strength is NOT in what he has achieved in his life, NOR is it in the legacy he leaves behind. A man's true Strength is in how he has been able to pour into other's life, especially those close to him. This sort of Strong man often pours himself out at the cost of losing his chance to prove to the world that he is somebody to be reckoned with. He is the true revolutionary.

Margret rightfully calls her father the greatest influence in her life. Her father poured into Her by being her TEACHER. As per the Biblical model, it is the duty of the Father (also) to be his kids' Teacher. God command Moses and other Prophets that they are to teach the commands and statues to their children and children's children....

Exodus 10:2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.

Exodus 12:26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.

Any parent would know that teaching kids is not a easy job. It is a 24/7 'work'. Frank Schaeffer said, "the man who said that parents need to spend 'quality time' with kids is a fool. Parents need to spend LOTS of time with kids". Alderman Roberts did precisely this. In a world where the fathers are busy with work, else are occupied with their own recreation whether in the form of music or gym workouts or garage projects or watching NFL or hanging-out with buddies at the bar, Alderman Roberts depicts one important facet of true masculinity - that of being his kid's Teacher instead of outsourcing teaching to someone that wouldn't care less for his kid.

Being your kid's Teacher is a reflection of an aspect of God's relationship to man too. Christ was primarily called a TEACHER. He poured out his life in teaching and leading people to life transforming Truth. His work is continued by the Lord the Holy Spirit in our hearts as He counsels us and reminds us of the Truth. If a man is not inspired in his Spirit to be Christlike and be a good Teacher to his kids, his negligence will affect his generation and the next one and the next one.

Exodus 34:7 Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.

What Roberts did to his kids was the right thing for the father to do. In a world where more than a third of the kids are born to single-moms and irresponsible fathers, in a world that is so bereft of good models for true masculinity, reading Roberts story feels like coming across an oasis in a desert. It is a story of how one man, a Strong Father who lives not for himself but for his kids; and in reflecting Christ-likeness pours into them and nurtures a personality who impacts lives of millions. It is something that is beautiful and profound that it brings a tear to my eyes.

Anonymous - Words: Voices and Pictures!

2011-11-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Frazier, the Papa Gorilla!

2011-11-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who are the Real X-Men?

2011-11-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

Though I am not a fan of the X-men movies, I enjoyed the last one - 'X-men First Class'. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/ It is a captivating prequel that delves into the origins of how the X-men club came into being. I would surmise that the X-Men movies as being about a bunch that says, "Hey, we are cool 'good' folk, there are some 'bad' people out there. Lets go destroy evil and make the world a better place". What makes 'X-men First Class' interesting is that, it goes one step further and shows the complexities of the battle between good vs evil.

Most movies depicting battle between good and evil are fantastic, in the sense that finally the good guys eliminate the bad guys. 'X-men First Class' is a real movie in that, in the end, after the good guys destroy the bad guys, the good guys actually become a new brand of bad guys. This accurately reflects some of the spectacular good vs evil battles in real life. When the 'good guys' who perpetuated the French Revolution destroyed the 'bad guys', the 'good guys' took power and became the new group of bad guys paving way for Napoleon's monarchy resulting in untold number of deaths. Same with the Russian Revolution, the 'good guys' overthrew the Tsars and created a regime of brutal communists who ended up killing millions. History repeats.

X-Men First Class is no different, Eric and Mystique start off being a part of the 'good guys' team. But after the bad guys are eliminated, they become the new villains. Eric, turns into the evil Magneto. A deep hurt from his childhood turns him into a vengeful megalomaniac unable to love anyone. Eric is a Jewish boy with X-men powers. His Nazi captors kill his Mom to experiment on Eric's savant capabilities. Eric woes revenge on the Nazis responsible for his family's death. Once he is done with them, he then directs his anger at anything that smacks of authority. He trusts none. Loves none. He inexorably becomes the evil Magneto.

Mystique realizes that people find her blue body unattractive. She craves for love, but none accepts her with her blue body. She has the ability to change appearance so she passes her off as a beautiful brunet. She becomes a 'poser' and the insecurity that she develops, defines her. When the evil Magneto finds her attractive in her blue body, she gives him her heart. Both Eric and Mystique are victims in the first place, but they end up becoming victimizers themselves.

This is the problem of the 'fallen' world. We get treated badly by other people, and in order to protect us or show ourselves strong or become more acceptable, we end up becoming a part of the same system which abused us. Every man is fallen and in the vast network of fallen beings. We end up hurting each other as broken people and it becomes a viscous cycle. The movie 'Black Snake Moan' too depicts the same pattern of victims becoming victimizers - the girl is abused by her step-dad and she in turn can't help but abuse her boyfriend. The problem of this viscous cycle of victims becoming victimizers has to do with the 'fallenness' of the world.

The redemption out of this vicious cycle has to come from Someone from outside this 'fallen system' who has enough 'capital' to pay for the hurt put an end to this viscous cycle of being victimized and then becoming victimizers. This Someone needs to be victimized by this 'fallen' world, but shouldn't become a victimizer, thus break this vicious cycle. Then He has to pave way for others to reflect His likeness. That is what Christ accomplished on the Cross. He entered the 'fallen' world from the outside, became the victim, but did not turn out to be a victimizer. He battled evil not by destroying it but by subjecting himself to it.

By setting the PERFECT example, He 'draws' to Himself those who will follow Him and emulate Him to break the vicous cycle of the fallen world. He will give these Followers of His a NEW heart and the help of the Holy Spirit to 'comfort' them when they are hurt by others and 'counsel' them in times of crisis. These new born persons will have the assurance of having been TOTALLY forgiven and will be able to forgive others too, thus making this fallen world into a better place than it currently is. The name of this group of followers is, Christians!!!

Graham Staines was an Australian missionary who was working with his family among lepers in Orissa in India. Graham and his sons were burnt to death by some religious fundamentals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Staines The Nation stood flabbergasted when Graham's wife Glady Staines made a public statement she had forgiven the killers. Below are her words to the commission setup to investiage the brutal killings.

"The Lord God is always with me to guide me and help me to try to accomplish the work of Graham, but I sometimes wonder why Graham was killed and also what made his assassins to behave in such a brutal manner on the night of 22nd/23rd January 1999. It is far from my mind to punish the persons who were responsible for the death of my husband Graham and my two children. But it is my desire and hope that they would repent and would be reformed."

It takes more than 'good' person to say this. It is impossible for a mother and a wife to say this without the 'comfort' and the 'counsel' of the Holy Spirit. A friend of mine who visited the place where the missionaries were burnt said that the villages around this place were transformed. The villagers were shocked at how forgiving Glady Staines was. They realized they had killed a man much better than themselves. The blood of martyrs brings change in the 'fallen world'. It brings and end to the vicious cycle of hurt and cruelty.

X-men is a movie about otherwise normal people having some extraordinary capabilities, which when put to good use would make the world a better place to be. In a sense, the Christians are the real X-men. We are the otherwise normal people with an Extraordinary Gift - the Holy Ghost living in us, who'll change the world through us. The question is whether we are intentional about our X-men Gift, or if like 'Mystique' we feel insecure and try to hide and pose, or if like Eric we make it all about ourselves and end up colluding and conforming to the patterns of the fallen world system.

Tree of life - The Reversed Meta-Narrative

2011-11-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

The legendary Terrence Malcik's, latest movie 'The Tree of Life' (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_tree_of_life_2011/) is one of the most unique movies I have ever seen. Within 10 minutes of the start, there is a 20 minute visual depiction of creation of life through big bang and subsequent evolution, without a single spoken word. The visuals are so astoundingly beautiful that in spite of the lack of verbal content, I is absolutely engrossed. The 140 minute movie has very few words. Malick communicates a feeling rather than content.

The movie is about the strained relationship between the father (Brad Pitt) and a son. The movie is sort of a 'dreamy narration' of the grown-up son (Sean Penn), which is probably why I think words are so few and the visuals so vivid. In the movie theatre... Some people loved it. Some hated it. Some slept through it. None laughed. Watching this movie... some may cry and sniffle, some may sigh, some may snore, but none will smile.

The meta-narrative (big story that serves as a backdrop for the main story) of the movie is 'Darwinism'. The resolution for all the pain and suffering in Sean's heart is found in Darwinism. 'God-ism' is made into a minor narrative within the Darwinian framework.

Sean Penn, struggles in reminiscence of his childhood trying to make sense of his cruel nature. He painfully remembers his 'Freudian-urge' to want to kill his father. As a kid, he even went down on his knees in prayer for God's help to kill his father. The other part of Sean Penn's guilt is the jealousy and, at times, even hatred the he harbored against his talented brother who dies young. Towards the end of the movie, Sean finally seems to resolve his guilt in that his cruel nature can only be explained through the Darwinian 'struggle for survival', where man finds himself 'red in tooth and claw' - and that is the way of Mother Nature. The movie begins with the 20 minute wordless visual sequence elaborating Darwinian evolution. The movie ends with a sort of mystical union with Mother Nature on the 'sea' shore. After all, as per Darwinism the sea (of premodial slime) is the Mother of all life.

Given the Darwinian meta-narrative, it is ironic that of the few spoken words in the movie, the word 'God' is generously bandied about. The movie starts with the profound verse Job 38:4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand." The movie ends with Sean's mother raising her hands and committing the fate of her dead son to 'god'. All along the dreamy narration, Sean questions God, why bad things happen. A dear Christian friend of mine said it seemed like a 'Godly' movie. I would beg to differ, not because Darwinism and God are incompatible, but because Terrence Malick does a brilliant reversal of the Christian idea of God. Malick makes Darwinism is the meta-narrative within which he subtly introduces 'god' as the smaller (imaginary) story giving comfort to people dealing with pain and suffering.

On the surface, though the movie seems so profusely to depict the idea of God, it really talks about a 'mystical god' who is a 'figment of imagination' in the Darwinian human mind. It deals with human understanding of a silent god. The god that is depicted is not a God with a Personality whom one can talk to and get answers from. In the movie, Sean keeps questioning a god within his mind, but only hears silence. Finally, Sean sees meaning in Darwinism. Job 38:4 is brilliantly twisted into the Darwinian context. God of the 'Tree of Life', is no God, but a god-ism - a 'mystical god' who is a creation of the human mind that is going through pain and suffering. That is why even though the movie is so full of god, it is Godless.

This sort of subtle reversal of the meta-narrative is not a new phenomenon, not among Christians at least. Our Pharisaical lives are so full of 'god-isms' like praying before dinner, seeking blessings, giving tithe, participating in ministries, attending Church, attending Bible Studies, going to marriages, baptisms and funerals... God is a figment in our imagination, we can't live without. But when it comes to dealing with real life issues, Christians, like Sean, hear a silent god. The problem is, sometimes Christians do not see God from within the Biblical meta-narrative. Rather, they see god from within the framework of their 'radical individualism', 'rampant materialism' and 'personal affluence'. Sometimes, Christians are led to believe God saved us to make use feel good. Such Christians worship and 'imaginary' God who supremely exists to bestow the 'Best Life Now' after 'Discovering the Champion in You' (plz. Google if the phrases in quotes don't ring a bell).

We forget that the Patriarchs in our religion were a bunch of vagabonds who were 'called' to live ridiculously tough lives just to glorify the Name of God. Often it is lost upon Christians that God saves us for the glorification of His own Name. We have to SEE God in the meta-narrative of His glorification. If we don't SEE God in the story of His glorification, we'll end up living our lives in the wrong story - the story of our own personal glorification. In as much as we don't SEE God from within the Biblical framework, we won't know who we are.

'Tree of life' asks deep questions about pain and suffering, but it does so from within the wrong meta-narrative. Consequently, Malick makes Darwinism the 'Tree of Life', and God as the creation of the human mind. The Christian Truth is the opposite. God is the creator of 'Tree of Life' and Darwinism is the creation of the human mind. The ultimate question we need to ask ourselves, is whether we SEE ourselves in the meta-narrative that glorifies God, or if we reverse the meta-narrative, and SEE God from within the framework of our own self-aggrandized stories of 'radical individualism', 'rampant materialism' and 'personal affluence'.

When a Noun Becomes a Verb

2011-10-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courage Crazy VS True

2011-10-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

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

Most Christians don't usually see themselves as being particularly courageous. Courageous Christianity is often relegated to the ones that get the 'special calling' to go to the frontier and work in some remote tribal village or somewhere in Iran or Egypt or Somalia. Other times, courage is associated with witnessing or going on short mission trips. What the movie 'Courageous' does best is to bring courage back into the everyday aspects of running a family and living a 'normal' Christian life.

When Howard Schultz thought he could sell a cup of Coffee for $4, when a gallon of gas was less than $2, people said he was crazy. Yes, Howard Schultz was crazy indeed. But, he was not JUST crazy. He had a crazy COURAGE to pursue his idea. Lo, and behold! Starbucks was born! This 'crazy courage' that the Howard Schultz-like high-stakes achievers have, is premised on the fact that they SEE something others don't. Schultz's 'crazy idea' has been successful because Schultz correctly diagnosed that urban progressives living lonely lives in a ‘fragmented society’ would gladly pay a premium for the 'third space’ - the (pseudo-)community experience. Schultz courage was based on the fact that he could SEE something others couldn't.

Likewise, the Christians in the movie 'Courageous' are courageous because that they SEE God in ways people in the Godless society don't. What is this special way of seeing God that makes them stand out?

The one attribute that all the men in ‘Courageous’ share is that, they SEE God as the 'Sovereign Judge' of all of life. In the movie, this idea keeps recurring often taking multiple forms in the life choices of the Christian men in 'Courageous'.

1. Nathan admonishes David that he better be ready to face a Just God who'll see to it that the hurt David caused the girl he impregnated and then dumped, is paid for. (This becomes the segway to present the Gospel - that David did not have the capital to pay for his crime and so Christ lovingly paid it on the cross). Sadly, none told Steve Jobs this truth when he did the same to the mother of his first biological child, the now Ms. Lisa Brennan Jobs.

2. Adam makes the tough call to incarcerate his pal, Shane, who has lost his integrity. Adam then reconciles with Shane explaining that it is not about them but about the Holy God who will judge them all.

3. Seeing God as the Sovereign Judge gives the financially broke Javier the 'spine' to not fall in line with the Boss' crooked plans, even when it meant he would lose his long sought after dream job, and eventually his home too.

4. Seeing God as the Sovereign Judge, who is full of mercy and knows what He is doing, gives Adam the courage to raise his weak hands and thank the Lord for having given him 9 years with his sweet daughter who was hit by a drunk driver (if this scene in the movie does not make you shed a tear, there is probably very few things in life that will make you cry).

Often, SEEING God as the Sovereign Judge causes the modernized to bristle because the word 'judge' is often associated with the word 'judgmental' which rankles in the ears of the egalitarian society we live in. Ironically, even Christians don't like to see God as the ultimate judge. Many find it disturbing. During a discussion about God being the judge in a Bible Study group someone said something that amounted to, "I think of God as love. I don't find it useful to see God as the judge."

Unfortunately, Christians often forget how God being the ultimate judge makes us truly courageous. Courage, is one’s willingness to relinquish something near and dear. God being the Sovereign Judge, means that God is the ultimate ‘valuer' of life – God judges the ‘true value’ of people. In the movie 'Fight Club', Brad Pitt says, "What you have, will own you". Even people who agree with this dictum, still have an obsession to possess things. Reason? Possessing things gives them a ‘sense of value’. A Christian who SEES God as the one who ultimately ‘judges’ his personal value, can courageously relinquish his yearning for processions, prestige and power, which non-Christians crave after. This relinquishing is 'true courage'.

When a Christian realizes that God judges his ultimate value, he will, like Javier in ‘Courageous’, be willing to lose his home and remain poor, instead of colluding with the crooked and get rich. SEEING God as the ultimate judge of his ‘personal value’, gives Javier the courage resist the temptation of illicit riches. The materialistic moto of life, "Get Rich or Die Trying" is a total farce. In the Bible, Joseph saw God as his ultimate valuer which is why he was gladly willing to forgo the chance for illicit sex. Joseph depicted courage in ‘everyday living’ that landed him in prison. He lost something 'near and dear' - his freedom. But isn't this courage to not succumb to the flesh, the greatest sort of freedom? A Christian needs to live everyday lives, by this sort of true courage. This sort of courage shouldn't be relegated to just mission trips and witnessing to non-Christians.

A Christian who SEES the Lord and the Lord only as the judge of his ‘personal value’, will be freed to be truly courageous everyday of his life. Consequently, this Christian will not care for success in this temporal world. This Christian's philosophy is the exact opposite of crazily courageous Steve Jobs when he said in a 1984 interview, "I don't care about what is right or what is wrong. All I care about is success”. The 'truly' courageous don’t shoot for success in the eyes of men, they yearn for success in the eyes of God - they see God as the judge of their success. The 'crazily' courageous change the temporal, the 'truly' courageous affect eternity. Christians belong in the class of the 'truly courageous'. The movie ‘courageous’ shows how. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630036/

A Man! A Son of the King!

2011-10-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

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

Life moves
Through a heaviness
Sharp edges
All around

Can't help
But move
Always forward
Always onward

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

Get cut
Bleeding
Get broken
Smashed

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

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

Oh, the meaning

Oh, the delight

Of being a man

With a spine

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

Oh, What do We do With Burdensome Kids? Simple, Don't Have Any!!!

2011-10-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

I met a guy who had just become a father for the second time. I was inquiring on the health of his infant son. I was a surprised when suddenly he said, "you know what, babies are costly". Of course, babies are 'priceless'. But he actually meant, "kids are 'high maintenance'". I replied, "Oh, well... of course, kids cost money. But kids are what we live for... at the end of the day". He replied, "Yes, that is a good way to look at it."

Sometime back, I was talking with a guy from Church. He was well employed and married. He said that his wife wanted kids, but he wanted to postpone it. He said he might be able to hold out for another two years before acquiescing to his wife's wishes. Once upon a time, I think kids were seen as a 'bessing from God'. But now, by default, kids are seen as a 'liability' to be avoided as much as possible or accepted as the last resort.

Why do we live in a world where kids instead of being seeing as 'blessings' are seen as 'liabilities' monetarily and more. Broadly speaking, pre-modern values dictated the man lived for the sake of his progeny. In the book 'How Then Shall We Live', Francis Schaeffer says that, in contrast to the pre-modern values, the ultra-modern man see two primary values worthy of pursuit, 'affluence' and 'personal peace'. Kids are a threat to both. Today, if you would go and tell an urban 'progressives', "you live for you kids". He/she will probably wonder, "Wow!!! So my life is not about who I want to be? It is about the kids?"

I was chatting with a childhood friend of mine. She had been married for about 4 years. She said that her husband did not want to have kids yet. I asked why. "Oh well, he thinks he is still in his teens and wants to enjoy life more before having kids". Pre-modern man saw marriage as a means to have children. Ultra-modern man sees marriage as a means for 'personal fulfilment'. He'll have kids only as long as he see that as a means to 'personal fulfilment' of some sort.

The young Steve Jobs is a case in point. He impregnated a girl (I believe in his early 20s) and refused to own up to it for 2 years. His court documents state, "that he couldn't be a father because he was 'sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have the physical capacity to procreate a child.'" Later on in his life, he adored his kids he procreated with a different woman. This goes to the point that in the early part of his life, the kid was too burdensome to be fulfilling that he was willing to do anything to disown it, even call himself infertile. Most modern men wouldn't go to the extent of disowning their kids, but they'll do quite a bit to not have them in the first place.

I recently read through Genesis in my daily 'quite time' routine. One thing that really stuck me was how much of Genesis hangs around the idea of offspring. It is almost all of life's meaning is drawn from the life of kids. Right at the beginning God starts talking about 'multiplying' and filling the earth. Then the story is about Adam and Eve and their children. Then Noah and his children. Then Abraham waits so long for a kid. Without Isaac's birth, Abraham would have been a blip in the radar. During the time of Isaac, Isaac does not have kids. He prays and gets Jacob and Eusa. Then the story is more about Jacob and Eusa. During Jacob's time it about how he gets to have 12 kids and then it is about Joseph. This focus of Genesis on the offspring makes a lot of sense, because, at the end of the day, the baton has to be passed so that the Name of the Lord is ultimately glorified and His blessings is carried forward through all the Nations. Christians of this generation don't appear to be doing enough to pass on this baton.

Sociologists say that for any culture to thrive, each family on an average has to have about 2.5 kids. If it goes below this, then the culture would begin to die slowly. In fact the reason why Islam is spreading much faster than Christianity is because Christians have a lot fewer kids than Muslims.

I, being the disinterested observer, it is easy for me to say people should have more kids. It is easy for me to raise thorny questions. God has given us mandate for procreation and for preservation, and there is a balance between the two. I realize there are no easy answers. Life is hard work. Life is complex. Life is confusing. Nevertheless, I think unless we STOP seeing marriage primarily as a means to 'personal fulfilment' and start seeing it primarily through God's intended purpose of procreation, there is nothing in this world to encourage self-absorbed urban 'progressives' to have kids. Most urban progressive men are so silly that they want everything cheap, Kids being priceless is something that is out of their league. Sadly so!

My September Posts in Facebook

2011-10-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, Steve Jobs is ok. He is still the Chairman of the Board. Techie journalists - please STOP eulogizing...

A lady and a gentle man with a heavy British ascent stopped me to ask for directions to their destination. The man kept repeating, that he recalled that 'there was a BIG parking space' next to the destination. I wanted to say, "Buddy, that does not help. I don't know about Britain, but in Texas all parking lots are BIG."

I would rather be remembered as a failure than not be remembered at all, for in the scope of Eternity even failure has a purpose.

A warrior that has nothing to worship outside of himself will end up warring against his own self. A man who isn't drawn outside of himself in worship and war will end up self-obsessed and consequently self-destruct.

Life is filled with choices. With choices come multi-pronged 'tensions'. Man, puny as he is has to trust in luck or in God's Sovereignty to 'work it ALL for the ultimate good'. Trust in God's Sovereignty gives a better framework to make brave choices, after all a man trusting in luck will be hard pressed to embrace Martyrdom.

Isn't it a blessed day when you get back from work after 00:00 hours but you still feel so full of energy because work was so exciting!!!

Hedgehog or the Fox - I am Happy to be the Hedgehog

2011-10-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine commented that it was impressive that I found different ways to say the same thing in my blogs. She meant it as a compliment. It was a compliment that sort of made me self-conscious about all that I write about.

When I look back at my writing, I do realize that I start from different places, juggle disparate ideas but always end at one 'all unifying' theme - - the supremacy of the Lord, His Word and His Work. In fact, I think this started very early in my life. I clearly remember the comments of some of my friends during my college days, that I took everything and turned it into something about God. Later on, I came to know from some a friend that my tying everything back to matters that have to do with God was pissing off some folks in our class. I toned down my expositions, but now with the blogs I feel free.

As I thought about this further, I realized the reason why I always tied everything back to God is because I can't help it. It is the one thing that makes me passionate. There was a time when I was sharing my thought about God in emails to people and one of my good friends suggested that I start a blog in stead of bothering people with emails. So I start blogging in addition to bothering people with emails about my thoughts on God.

On the other hand, this realization that all my posts almost have monolithic themes made me feel like I was dumb. There was a point at which I started wondering if I should rather just stop writing and do something more worth my while. That was when I came across a part of Isaiah Berlin's essay 'The Hedgehog and the Fox'. The ancient Greek Poet Archilocus said, "a fox knows many things, a hedgehog knows one big thing". Thinkers have historically fallen under two categories - Universalists and the Paticularists. Universalists come from the Platonic school of thinking in which they are always trying to synthesis ideas to bring it up to one BIG universal idea. Paticularists follow the Aristotelian way of thinking in that they allow the paticulars to remain as they are, categorize them separately, instead of trying to find the Universal idea that ties them together.

Berlin goes on to say that by this classification, Shakespeare was a fox and Dostoevsky is a hedgehog. Shakespeare let things be as they are, was content explaining them as they are without any need to find a metaphysical unity. On the other hand Dostoevsky was always trying to point to something high up above, trying to say there was more to it than met the eye. Shakespeare's work is like a masterful painting. Dostoevsky's is like a towering peak that one had to climb to have the panoramic view of the world from this higher vantage point.

So this meant that I don't have to be apologetic that almost all my posts have one central theme. Foxes have their place. Hedgehogs have theirs. If I am to be a Hedgehog, I'll be happy to be the Hedgehog. I'll continue writing about the central theme of supremacy of the Lord, His Word and His Work!

Not Tired of Steve Jobs... Yet! Ok, But What NEXT?

2011-10-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last week today, I went home, logged onto facebook, read my friend's status update 'Black Day - Job died' and got warped into a timelessness capsule. I had to add that surreal moment to the will-remember-where-I-was-when-I-heard-it list. The last one on the list was Michael Jackson. (http://emmanuelreagan.blogspot.com/2009/06/michel-jackson-timeless-or-timeless.html).

Since then, I have spent quite a bit of my time, reading about Mr. Steven Paul Jobs. Even today, a week after his passing, I still can't resist a news article that analyses and praises his deep passion for technology, his prescience in uncovering the deep needs of human nature, his sense of aesthetics etc... It was today that I wondered, why I do not get tired of Steve Jobs? Is it just curiosity? Of course, I am a 'curious cat'. But even when I read things about him which do not add to my knowledge-base and consequently cannot satisfy my curiosity, I still happily read on. Why?, probably because I admire him.

The Christian reads the Bible for similar reasons. We don't just read the Bible because it satisfies our curiosity (which it does by the way, at multiple levels), but because it is about someone who is to be admired - the One Sovereign God who is the most beautiful person ever. There are times when I have said in some Bible Study groups, "God is the most beautiful person ever", and have gotten the Dude-you-are-weird looks from others. I don't care that I look weird, not just because I know I am weird (everyone is weird to some extent, some more than others. God creates diversity. :P), but because I know when it comes to matters of admiring the Lord's beauty, I am in good company .

Psalm 27:4 This only have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

It behoves me to note that this sort of seeking to gaze on the Lord's beauty is not easy for fallen men, which is why in the first part of the verse, David pleads with the Lord to make it possible for him to only seek after the Lord... 'This only have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after'

David's reference to 'House of the Lord' and 'His Temple' refers to life in Heaven as well. Imagine living forever and ever doing nothing but gazing on the Lord and inquiring to know more about Him. Would it be boring after a few days? Heavens, NO! Why? Because the Lord is the most beautiful person ever. He is worthy of all admiration. If a finite man by the name Steve Jobs can inspire me to spend so much time reading about him, how much more can an Infinite God inspire me to spend an Eternity trying to know him more and more and more and more and more... and a thousand, thousand time more!!!

When a Christian reads the Bible and get on his knees to pray, he is just having a foretaste of that Eternal pleasure of getting to know Him, which is what makes the 'Quite Time' the most exciting time of the day. To call the time spent reading the Bible and Praying as 'Quite Time' is I think, a terrible misnomer. I would rather call it 'Pleasure Time' or 'Delight Time' or 'Exciting Time' or 'Gazing on the Lord Time' for that is what it is.

When we read the Bible and Pray we don't get get into some laconic, dull, comatose state. Rather, 'kindled' by the Holy Spirit, we get to do the thing we most enjoy to do - admire the Lord. We get excited - like a jock watching his favourite star play Football - like a nerd reading the Lord of the Rings - like a non-philistine listening to Beethoven's 5th.

Christians are excited to gaze upon the Lord and this is one thing they'll do it in this life and continue doing to a greater extent of pleasure and contentment in the NEXT one too. Steve Jobs did so much towards making this life meaningful and exciting. He famously said, "life is short, don't live someone else's". But honestly, I wonder how much thought he put into the flip side of that exhortation - finding excitement and meaning in the NEXT life after this short one! If Jobs doesn't find his NEXT life exciting and meaningful, this may be the first time his much admired prescience to anticipate future needs and improvise upon it from the present, has let him down. But then death stumps even the Strong!!!

Ps: 'NExT', by the way, is the name of the company Jobs founded after he was originally dumped by Apple. NExT was spectacularly idealistic. It was true to ALL of Jobs' perfectionist visionary ideals of creating the NEXT revolution in computers. It made great products, but wasn't that successful. NExT was bought by Apple and its OS became the core to Apple's successful OS X. But the biggest asset that Apple got with the NExT acquisition was the legend Steve Jobs... Reverting back to the point of this post, having an unbiblical perspective of life makes even the longsighted, short-sighted, the strong, weak and the brilliant, foolish. Steve Jobs famously said in a 1985 interview, "I don't care much about what is right or wrong. I care for success". At the end of the day, when all is said and done, I guess success doesn't matter as much as wisdom from the Lord!

'Courageous' - An Antithetic Story of the Sexy, the Strong and the Sell-able!

2011-10-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer: In some parts of the write-up, I have used a broad brush. Please help yourself to a generous pinch of salt. :P)

Most popular Hollywood movies that I can remember, portray men epitomizing the 'trivial' attributes of manhood. They are either funny and stupid (think Will Farrell) or brash and bulldozing (think Arnold, oh how do I spell his last name - google help! yes, Schwarzenegger) or cocky and surefooted (think Russell Crowe) or in a few instances, mostly from the yesteryears, laconic and mysterious (think Humphrey Bogart). 'Real men' are seldom seen in Hollywood movies. Why? Because in this culture, it is the trivialized man that considered sexy, strong and sell-able.

Hollywood movies don’t celebrate 'real men' - the ones that walk around with a little paunch, try hard to do the right thing for their family, sometimes fail and pick themselves up and try again; they lose, they hurt, huddle to help each other, charge into a battle against evil getting bloodied up, they forgive, forget, reconcile; they are tender, they are tough, they are insecure and confused, yet 'real men' have a spine - they SEE God, they love their family. They are Courageous.

'Courageous' is Christian movie about 5 men that fall into the latter category of 'real men'. Of course, the wives and kids find these men funny, stupid, brash, bulldozing, surefooted, cocky too, but that is totally BESIDE the point of who they really are - men with a spine that take care of a family. 'Courageous' depicts the struggles that 'real men' face - from losing jobs when rent is due, to losing a loved one in an already stressed family, to having to own up for not having owned up to ones biological child, to incarcerating a dear pal that lost his integrity in a position of responsibility. In contrast to the swashbucklers of Hollywood's commercial successes, 'Courageous' epitomizes real men.

"The Magnificent Seven" is one of the 'more of the same' Hollywood classics that venerates magnificent heroes who live on horses, fight with guns and are sought-after by women. But, even that movie has its moment of antithetical truth… Yul Brynner is a celebrity mercenary that walks with a swagger, speaks in a baritone and shoots from the hip. He decides to help some hapless Mexican farmers exploited by the bandits. After witnessing Yul's brave stunts, a kid in the villager tells Yul that he is ashamed that his farmer-father is a coward and not as brave as Yul. Yul forbids the kid to ever think his father as being a coward for not fighting with guns. Yul says something that in-spirit means, "it take more courage to handle the plow and serve a family than to handle a gun to fight bad guys". Hollywood, when it speaks in terms of the normative, is seldom right, this is one of the few instances in which it is. As much as flamboyant cowboys are idolized, a life of handling guns and horses isn't really a difficult life. It is an Either/Or! Either you put a bullet into another man's heart or another man does it for you. Pretty simple! You are a man who has got nothing to lose except your life. So in a very ironic way, you are in control of your destiny, if you are good you live or you die.

On the other hand, to handle a baby in your arms is a whole another equation. It is to subject your destiny to something bigger - something you don't have control over. Such risk taking endeavor takes a 'real man' - one that has a spine. It takes courage to start a family, which on the surface, appears to be lacking an increasing number of emasculated urban progressive men that are born into the 'Hollywood-trivialized-superstars admiring' culture. They would rather be free, look slick and perpetually carry on the persona of the most-eligible-bachelor, than carry a baby and be befuddled by the vagaries of life.

Recently, I was reading an article written by a school teacher lamenting the problem of teenage pregnancies and the girls who end-up becoming unwed mothers. When one of his own students ended up a teen mom, he observed that she had become the superstar of his class. Apparently, being a 'teen mom' was the new cool thing! Bemused by this phenomenon, he organized a group discussion in his class on being a teenage mom. One of the questions he asked them was, "How do you think being a teenage mom would affect your prospects of marriage in future?" They all acted like this was a dumb question. None knew how to answer. He posted it to the teen mom. The girl sitting next to her blurted out, "Nobody marries anymore, Mister!". The whole class broke out in laughter, cheering the 'good' answer!

I read another article putting forth the idea that even if the embattled Euro survives and becomes strong, that Europe would still be headed for a decline. Reason? – very few people in Europe get married anymore. From 2000 to 2010, 37% of children in Europe were out of wedlock kids who will be raised in single-mom homes. In Sweden, 54% of kids our out of wedlock kids who will be raised in single-mom homes. The US isn't far behind either. In the 1960, close to 75% of households with kids had a complete set of parents. In 2010, it is just about 51%. This trend sociologist worry, is not likely create a stable society where children are the pillars of the future civilization. Among other things, one important cause for this trend is I believe the flakiness of modernized men, who don't have good role models for real manhood. It takes courage to start a Family, because it takes a sacrificial heart to really serve 24/7.

The fulcrum of the movie ‘Courageous’ is Joshua words, "as for me and my house, we will Serve the Lord". Joshua takes the idea of manhood to a whole new level. Joshua elevates running a family - the mundane routines of changing diaper to paying for school to caring for the sick kid, into something that serves a BIGGER purpose - that of SERVING God. This HIGHER purpose inspires him to do a better job at serving his family.

Malachi takes man's role in family one step higher. He is specifically addressing the man to not break faith. He is not asking the man to love his wife because she makes him feel good about himself, rather he says... Mal 2:15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring(!!!) So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

Joshua and Malachi SEE God as an intrinsic part of the equation of 'running the family' in a way most modernized men don't. The 'real man' is one who tries to align himself to be true to the Image of God. Even if he fails, he is 'courageous' enough to try again, for he knows his purpose is to conform to the likeness of Christ. Only Christianity has a solid basis to restore 'manishness' back to man. It helps him put context into why he carries with him a weight - a weight that gives him a spine to be the Christ to the family and expend himself in its service.

One of the effects of living in a Godless, radically individualistic, inexorably insecure, Post-Christian society is that man's essence is trivialized to the point of making him a funny and/or rugged and/or cocky guy whose existence is ultimately pointless, spineless and useless. 'Courageous' is the anti-thesis to this trivialization of manhood. As contrived and longish the storyline is, 'Courageous' is a must watch! Interestingly, it is also a commercial success. 'Courageous' takes the dumbed-down version of the 'real man' who cares for his family and expends himself in doing the 'right thing' as a service to God, and makes him look sexy, strong and sell-able.

Not Ultimate, But Important

2011-10-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

I made a case in my blog on 'Lion King' that this world is NOT ultimate and that as Christians, for us the next world is the ultimate one. This is true, but this does not mean that this world isn't important. This world is important because Jesus Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of God in this world and we are a part of the Kingdom of God. In this 'Kingdom of God', each of us human beings have an important part to play and we need to fulfill that role.

As I noted in an earlier blog about Horses and Christians, Christians need to go out into the world and start building hospitals and corporations and orphanages and make good movies, paint beautiful paintings etc... But all of this apart, the most important goal for Christian living is to be conformed to the Image of Christ. Whether you are building a hospital or a corporation or orphanages or good movies, or great paintings, the Holy Spirit is working in you to conform you to the image of Christ and that is what truly determines success in life, this is why this life though isn't ultimate, is important nevertheless.

Almost 29, yet fascinated with Lion King 3D

2011-09-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

I remember crying in the movie theatre as a kid when I watched the timeless Disney animation movie the 'Lion King'. When Lion King came back to the theatres in 3D version the weekend before the last, I most eagerly watched it again. This time, I didn't cry. I just had a clogged nose. During some parts of the movie, I had to breathe though my mouth, least the kids and families be disturbed by sniffling of a 210 pound almost (then) 29 year old bloke.

Even though my emotions hadn't quite changed since I was a kid, my perception of the overall narrative had changed quite a bit. This time I could appreciate the Christian analogy in the movie. A young kid in a 'happy garden' is tempted by the evil one with access to 'special knowledge'. How could that not ring a bell?

Following the advice of the evil one, the kid messes up and then runs away in fear. Wanting to forget the guilt of the 'death causing' disobedience, Simba decides to FORGE his original identity and indulge in the petty distractions of life of comfortable complacency - quite like the 'fallen man' who'll indulge in everything from work to sports to movies to sex to anti-depressants to quell the feeling deep within, that he has messed up his life.

Simba grows up making his new world of petty indulgences as his ULTIMATE world. One day, Simba meets his childhood sweetheart who asks him to return to his 'real home'. Simba shows her his ULTIMATE life of affluence and sees no reason give it up to go back and risk facing his evil Uncle Scar.

Through an unexpected series of events, Simba makes U turn and returns back to his 'real home'. The point of inflexion is a vision he has of his dead Father's spirit.

Father: "Simba, you have forgotten me."

Simba: "No. I have not."

Father: "Yes. You have."

Simba: "NO."

Father: "You have forgotten who you are. So you have forgotten me. Simba! REMEMBER who you are!!!"

As a kid, I kind of took this vision for granted. But now, having gone through my 'quarter life crisis', I see something interesting about this U turn.

When Simba REMEMBERS his Father, he REMEMBERS who he really IS. Then he realizes that the pleasure mongering, affluent world he lives in is NOT ultimate anymore. His ULTIMATE world is his 'real home' and he'll fight to get it back from his evil Uncle, even if he'll have to risk getting killed. He turns from timid philistinism with an other-worldly courage. This reminded me of Christian martyrs.

Being a kid who grew hearing stories about Christian missionaries, the phenomenon of Christian martyrdom has always fascinated me. Why would someone with sane mind willingly give up the pleasures of life to die an ignoble death. Martyrdom is a topic that makes people, especially affluent Christians, uncomfortable. Improvising D.L.Moody into this context would render his famous quote as... "A Christian martyr, who loses his life, loses something he cannot keep to gain something he cannot lose". Christian martyrs are people who like Simba have had the U-turn and realize that this world they live in is NOT the ULTIMATE world and that they are meant to fight for something bigger.

Christianity spread like wildfire during the first century Roman Empire because Christians then REALLY believed that this world is NOT the ULTIMATE one. Perhaps the idea of this world not being ULTIMATE sounds too revolutionary to the Modern Christians living in the world pervaded by ideals of materialism - with the iconic Steven Jobs saying in his Harvard address, "this is too short a life for you to be living someone else’s life", and at the other end, an infamous online adultery site running ads in mainstream media saying, "life is short, just have an affair". The few times I attempted discussing martyrdom in Bible Study groups, it mostly seemed to make people uncomfortable. In one instance, I was asked to stop. May be I was pressing too hard…

On the other hand, I recently read that the 20th century has had more Christian Martyrs than any other century. Perhaps that is because population increase has been exponential in the 20th century. But still it begs the question, why is there an appearance of two groups of Christians? One group is philistine and material, the other is brave and other-worldly. Could that be the difference between ‘the wheat and the tares’ (Matt 13:24-30)? Maybe not... Perhaps to use one’s idea of martyrdom as a dividing line between wheat and tares is too simplistic... Or maybe I am over analyzing this...

Anyways, here is the bottom-line... What really makes a Christian is that, a Christian, like Simba, REMEMBERS who his Father is. The philosopher King says in the Proverbs... 'REMEMBER your Creator in the days of your youth' (Eccl 12:1). Such a Christian knows which world is ULTIMATE - this one or the next one? The answer to this question becomes the basis for his 'world view' that determines EVERY other part of his life. A Christian of this sort would then be unafraid to 'run against a troop or leap over wall' (Ps 18:29).

Looking back, I think it is ok to be squeamish about meditating martyrdom in our Bible studies. But we cannot afford to or not REMEMBER our Creator EVERY moment of our lives. If we don't REMEMBER who our Creator is, we forget who we are! It MATTERS whether we look at the world through the 'lens' of us being Sons of a Heavenly Father who has built our true homes in the Heavenly realms (John 14:3), or whether we, like the modern materialistic pagans, live as though this world is ALL there is.

Propitiation and Praise

2011-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-09-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-09-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-08-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-07-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2011-06-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

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 & Spineless Men

2011-06-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

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 many different 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 and my nose was clogged almost through the entire episode. Everytime my nose cleared up, it clogged right back again. Watery eyes to blame. 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 is that though the materialistic goals of the protagonists are fully realized and the 'hard virtues' of justice, bravery and honor are most beatifully epitomized, deep hunger for relational fulfillment is 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. 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. 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 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 love 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. And the modern society, in expanding the base of freedom and individuality has cursed its men into being lonesome Rangers who live godlike but spineless, only for themselves.

Bottle - The Game

2011-05-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-04T23:40:00.001-07:00

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!

2011-04-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-04-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-06T00:26:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-04-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

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'!

Captain Nemo, Nataulius And the Search for the Good and the Transcended

2011-03-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Google doodle of a few weeks ago reminded me of Jules Verne's birthday. I began reminiscing about my experience reading him. I read Jules Verne's "20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" and "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" during my teens. I liked the former better. The appeal to "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" is Captain Nemo and the indestructible "Nautalius". Captain Nemo is the Robin Hood of the seas. Nautalius is his submarine that becomes his instrument of mercy and justice.

When I was reading "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", during my more impressionable years, I couldn't help but believe that Captain Nemo and Nautalius were actually real. I thought and earnestly hoped that they existed somewhere deep in the world of the unknown.

I think there are two reasons for my incredulity. One, I saw the story as a validation of a strong urge to believe that there was more to the world than meets the eye. Two, a brave man using his brilliance and industry to outwit tyrants and help the poor was too good a story to not want it to be true.

At one level, the story is about escapism from reality above the surface of earth. At a deeper level, it is a story of transcendence beyond the mundane reductionism of life above the surface. When much of modernism is reductionistic in its outlook, believing only that which can be touched and seen to be real, Nataulius gives hope for man to enlarge his vision to give credence to 'fantasy' - the unseen as part of his reality of life. In essence, my teen fascination with Captain Nemo belied a deep need for that which is good and that which has an element of transcendence beyond the qutodian.

But then, the naive admiration for Captain Nemo turned to horror when I came to the part of the story where Captain Nemo cold-heartedly tropedos a cruise ship belonging to the tyrant Nation he hates. Jules Verne describes in revitting language different states of animated drowning of the innocent passengers of that ship. Then I realized that Captain Nemo was really a tyrant in his own right and my fascination turned to disappointment and sorrow. Captain Nemo was too good to be true that he couldn't be true.

The very reason why we have the phrase 'too good to be true' is because there is none who is truly good. Even good people have, deep in them, evil urges which surfaces at some point. At that point the dreams get shattered. After all, we live in a FALLEN world. History is replete with such shattered dreams, from the Enlightenment driven French Revolution becoming a blood bath to Van Gogh committing suicide because he was too sensitive to tolerate the materialistic world around him.

Disappointments not withstanding, man still has the deep urge to pursue that which is good and that which gives him a taste of transcendence. C.S.Lewis says, "that I am hungry probably means that there is some real thing called food." That we deeply hunger and thirst for goodness and transcendence in life probably means that there is some real Thing that is Good and Transcended.

My fascination and hope that Captain Nemo and the Natualius were real, was really my yearning for the Real Good and the Truly Transcended - God. Ultimately it is in the fascination, adoration and worship of God that man's need for the really Good and truly Transcended satisfied.

My Valentine Meditations - On the Missing Valentine

2011-02-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

Saint Valentine married people off and got killed for that. In a poll among young urban Americans one the questions was, 'Do you think marriage is obsolete?'. Majority said 'Yes'. Another question of the same poll said, 'Do you want to get married?' Majority said 'Yes'. Most want to marry, but aren't getting married. We live in a world of delayed marriages, if at all people marry. Modern times is missing its St. Valentine.

The idea of obseletness of marriage is not a problem among just among urban elites. I was reading an article where a school teacher writes about the struggles he has in understanding the mindset and the maturity of the a few of his students who are pregnant in their teens. He discusses a bunch of questions two of which caught my attention. He asks the pregnant teen, "Do you think the father of your kid would marry you?". The pregnant girl answers, "I don't think so". "Do you think your having this child will affect your future marriage?". The girl answers, "I don't know". The girl sitting near by asnwers, "Nobody marries anymore, Mister". The whole class bursts out laughing.

Where is the St. Valentine of this age who helps those who want to get married, but don't know why it isn't that simple as it once used to be? Is he in hiding? Have we lost him? Has he matyred again?

I was reading another article about some controversial debates about the implementation of the new Healthcare ACT in the US. The question on the table was about whether birth-control pill had to be made freely available in College campuses as part of the Healthcare mandate. The article also had some snippets about what students in college thought about the plan. One of the girls supporting the free distribution of pills said, "I am an adult. None can stop me from having sex. The only question is whether or not I am going about it in a healthy way."

Today, I read an article about how women in military are sexually abused by men. Last year alone there were 3200 reported cases of sexual abuse in the US Army. Most go unreported. One of the ladies said that when she complained about abuse to superiors, she was told to "things like this happen, suck it up".

The fundemental premise in the above statements is the idea that 'sex is a fundemental right'. The belief is that, "None can deny me my right to sex". It is almost has the primacy of the First Amendment right. What is missing there is the idea that 'sex is right, only when the season is right'.

God created life to have different seasons. In one season, we are kids and then we become adults, then we become parents, then we become grandparents. Then we die. All of these seasons are held together by the 'bonds of love'. Love has different manifestations in different seasons. If we try to mess with the appropriate manifestation of love for a season, we end up marring that season itself.

Marriage is an important season in a person's life. When God instituted marriage he clearly defined the need for a new manifestation of love. He said, "for this reason man shall seperate from his father and mother and 'cleave' with his wife, and they shall be one body". Marriage ushers in a new season which is manifested by new expressions of love in the romantic and erotic forms. As long as the romantic and erotic forms of love are expressed towards the purpose of becoming one with the spouse, the God ordained manifestation of love brings joy to the season of marriage.

Our modern society is trying to reengineer the manifestations of love and decouple it from its appropriate season so that people will have the individualistic RIGHT to gratify themselves with any form of love they want anytime with anyone. The lines between the seasons of adulthoood and marriage gets blurred because people try to enjoy the marital manifestation of love before marriage. When the lines get blurred so much, eventually the season itslef finds no reason for existence. We are left with, "Nobody marries anymore, Mister".

Premature experience of profound love forms can be very detrimental to love itself. In the movie 'Blue Valentine', the wife says that she has been sexually active since 13 had more than 25 partners. Still carrying the baggage from her old relationships, she is not able to enjoy sex with her husband. She is unable to make the transcition from 'lusting sex' to 'loving sex'. In the movie, this inability of hers becomes the breaking point of an already strained marriage.

Marriage, kids and a stable family is the basis for any civilization to thrive. A civilization that does not have thriving marriages will die. The root cause of this predicament is the unwillingness to submit to Truth. The Truth as God instituted is for different life seasons to be coupled with appropriate manifestations of love. God joined sex with marriage. Let man not separate what God has joined, for if he does will end up destroying both of what he seperated. As the author of the book 'Unhooked' says, "we delay love to enjoy sex and end up losing both".

St. Valentine stood by God's Truth to multiply and be fruitful. He supposedly stood against the edict of a selfish tyrant to the point of death. Our civilization needs, many who imbibing the spirit of St. Valentine will stand up for Truth of God and take a stand against their own selfish desire for gratification. God's Truth sets us free to experience life in 'all of its fullness' that spans across life's seasons, bonded in love. Sacrificing God's Truth in the altar of self-indulgence is the problem of the missing Valentine.

Rabbit Hole - Small 's' science and Small 'g' god

2011-02-13T01:01:00.000-08:00

Rabbit Hole is a moving account of how a young couple deal with the loss of their little son. The movie is real depiction of complicated emotions accompanying grief and guilt. The husband and wife have different ways of dealing with grief which cause them to drift apart from each other. The husband relives the memories of his son whereas the wife wants to erase anything that would remind her of her son. The husband religiously attends trauma management classes, whereas the wife avoids them and withdraws into herself.

There are multiple levels at which the movie is emotionally complex. As the husband and wife drift apart, the husband feels attracted to another dovorciee. The wife, Nicole Kidman, develops an affection for the teenager. Kidman's mother too lost her son. She found her comfort in the Church and tries to get Kidman to go and find solace in religion.

God-talk enervates Nicole Kidman. She thinks people who depend on God for comfort are weak and naive and delusional. In one of the trauma management classes, one of the other couples says, "God took our daughter because He needed a little Angel". Nicole Kidman spits out a reply, "If God wanted an Angel, why couldn't He make one for Himself". The couple look confused as though that thought had never occured to them.

Kidman resists every attempt made my her husband and mother to help her get over her reclusive self-destructive proclivities. After much emotional wrangling between the husband, mother and sister, Nicole Kidman realizes she needs some kind of novelty to relieve herself. She finds a sense of novelty in a complicated friendship with the teenager whose car had run-over her son, while he was chasing their dog across the street.

Friendship with this teenager gets her introduced to the idea of 'Parallel Universes'. 'Parallel Universe' is a scientific hypothesis that just like this universe that we live in, there are other parallel universes where events may occur in a different way. The teen explains that Nicole Kidman's son may still be alive in another parallel universe. This thought that her son may be alive on another universe gives her the comfort she was seeking.

She asks the teenager if parallel universes were true. He replies, "it is basic science, it is about whether you want to BELIEVE in it". There is no 'hard' proof for the existence of parallel universes. But if one wants to 'believe' in them one can. She believes in the theory of Parallel Universes and feels her burden lift. One may ask what difference does it make if one were to believe that the dead kid lives in a Parallel Universe or in Heaven. From a scientific perspective, not much, actually. Both in one sense are unfalsifiable theories.

The movie highlights a poignant irony. Some people find comfort in god others find comfort in science. But the kind of God and the kind of Science they believe in is small 'g' god and and small 's' science. It is something that exists 'only in the mind' of the 'believer'. They get themselves to believe in whatever they want, whether it be their small 'g' god wanting little kids for Angels or their small 's' science creating parallel universes where dead kids live. The only criterion is whether or not it gives them comfort in facing the painful questions of life. They are just 'personal truths' which aren't universally true.

In the movie, after finding her comfort in small 's' science of Parallel Universes and realizing that her novelty with the teenage was fleeting, she goes back to her husband and decides to start DOING SOMETHING to get involved again in normal life - hosting parties smiling at people and playing along.

This movie reflects the mantra of this age - Existentialism which says, "BELIEVE in anything that makes sense whether it is small 's' science or small 'g' god to quell the sense of loss. Then, DO SOMETHING that gives you a sense of novelty and self-worth and tarry through the pain of living this absurd life with as much sense of normalcy as possible".

The lead-up to the last scene of the movie is a party hosted by Nicole an her husband where there is much activity and everyone is smiles. As the party and festivities fade, the final shot of the movie is the emptiness and the unanswered angst in the face of the couple.

Existentialism can never give real answers, it can only give a temporary relief. Real answers can only be found in big 'G' God and big 'S' Science' which are not 'consoling figments of imagination' (personal truths) but are a part of the disturbing REALITY out THERE that has been revealed and discovered. Belief in 'G' God and 'S' Science implies that THERE is Truth out THERE which one has to submit to it. Most people find this submission disturbing and would rather live in the meaningless pain temporaly comforted by 'personal truths', rather than submit to the Truth out THERE and re-orient their life to the transcended Vision depicted by the Truth.

The Fighter – From Futility to Freedom

2011-01-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

The movie, 'The Fighter' is intense, cruel, depressing, uplifting and well made. It is based on a true story of human depravity, futility and redemption with a very subtle but pervasive dose of Irish Catholicism and piety. It is based on the autobiography of the boxer Micky Ward whose life as a boxer had a remarkable turnarounds.

Micky has the family which is a bunch of lazy step-sisters and a junkie step-brother Dicky (boxing trainer junkie) and a shrewd step-mom and dad none of whom really have much of a livelihood except to live off the money Micky makes fighting. Micky's step-brother , Dicky, was himself a boxer once and taught Micky boxing. Step-mom sets up matches for Micky whenever the family needs money, sometimes knowingly sending him to matches which are bad for his career and health. Dicky is Micky's trainer. Dicky seldom shows up for training because much of his time is spent in a crack-house with his junkie friends, almost always high with dope. Dicky a one time boxing champ, is now a dope addict and has a 5ish son who lives with step-mom and sisters. Micky has a daughter who lives with his ex-wife and her husband. You couldn't find a more broken family.

Micky's family is emotionally manipulative in living off Micky. Do their best to give an impression that they are a dotting family and are doing everything for Micky's best interests. Micky gets a new bartender girlfriend who fights (literally) against his family to extricate him from them and help him get on his own. Micky ponders detaching himself from the family much to the chagrin of his step brother Dicky, step-mom and step-sisters. Dicky's dope gets him in trouble. Micky in trying to help Dicky, gets his hand broken. Dicky lands in the prison. Micky’s career seems over.

With Dicky in prison, with his girlfriend’s support Micky gets a new start. There is a sense of normalcy and hope. But Micky realizes that as broken was Dicky was he was his best trainer. Dicky comes out of prison, and the destructive family dynamics return. Micky's step-Mom, Dicky, Micky's girlfriend take it on each other. Each of them tries to prove how so important they have been to Micky’s life and how they did what was best for Micky. Being unable to really prove their point, they get angry and indignant with each other and they all of them desert Micky.

Then comes a seminal moment when Micky's step-mom, Micky's brother, Micky's girlfriend get to see the utter depravity in their own selves. They realize how they in trying to appear to help Micky were really only trying to get to achieve their own selfish ends. Dicky only sought to re-establish his boxing career upon Micky’s accomplishments. Micky's step Mom supported Micky so that through him her dope addicted real son Dicky would have a second chance at life. They also wanted money from Micky’s fights. For Micky's broken 'treated-like-s***' bartender girlfriend, Micky was her best shot at life. If he failed, she too would lose her only chance for a better prospect in life.

This self-deprecating introspective realization starts with Dicky kneeling down in a dark passage in the prison and praying to God to give him a second chance. The introspective turn of events help each of them see their utter depravity, see how broken and in need of redemption they themselves are. Knowing who they REALLY are, they become more humble less overbearing. Thus they become 'free' to try to do only their ‘little’ part to help Micky. Micky gets freed to be the best he can be. The rest is history.

Just like the Orwellian 'double-speak' human beings do a 'double-think'. They can really get themselves to think that they are helping someone when in truth they are only trying to help themselves. Their conscious mind thinks one thought (which makes them think they are selfless), but the unconscious thinks another 'repressed' selfish thought that serves the opposite interest. This unconscious selfish thought is repressed by another thought - that they are basically good people who have good attractive qualities which they think they can use to help others. They cannot see the duplicity in their seemingly selfless motives, unless they are willing to acknowledge the truth that there is nothing about them that is really good or attractive.

This is a deeply Christian principle that man is so deeply marred by the Fall and that he is so broken that even his best intentions and motives are colored by his deeply selfish nature. Christian theology calls this 'total depravity'. Only when man realizes that he is 'totally depraved' and so really needs help from God to become righteous, he is freed from his depraved self-seeking self and his redemption starts.

'The Fighter' depicts this cycle from futility to freedom so beautifully. There is initially the phase of 'double-think' and accompanying clash of selfish interests and self-exalting attitudes ultimatelyresulting in futility. Then there is a phase of realization of the deep ‘total depravity’ and submission to God following which is redemption and truer love, better community and gratitude towards God and life.

Thoughts on NTY Marriage Story Feature

2010-12-30T23:44:00.000-08:00

New York Times has a weekly section on marriage which features the best marriage story among the ones submitted. Except when NYT wants to get some controversy raising attention, the marriages couples who have warm fluffy love stories are featured. Last week's feature unleashed a tirade of comments across the blogosphere about how despicable the feature was. It was the marriage of a former NBC anchor Carol Anne Riddell and the handsome president of media sales John Partilla, President of Global Media Sales.

It is a case of two divorcees gettting remarried. Divorcees getting remarried is a good thing. Sometimes, people get married to the wrong people and it would do much better for them and their kids to seperate rather than to be abused. But what was really noteworthy about this divorce and remarriage is that there was no history of abuse or ostentatious incompatibility in their original marriages, the reason why they divorced is because after having been married to a person for more than 10 years and having kids, these people suddenly realized that they were in love with someone else. But this is not the cause for the anger unleashed.

The story goes like this... Two families were friends who were going places from Restuarants to Vacations together for a few years until one of the spouses in each of the families get 'hitched' with each other and decide to dump the other spouse. The four people have 5 children between them. Basically Mr and Mrs. Ennis and Mr. and Mrs. Partilla are good friends until Mrs. Ennis and Mr. Partilla decide to get married and then dump their respective spouses. The dumped Mr. Ennis is himself a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp and is now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier. The Ex Mrs. Partilla is a high level media executive as well.

We live in a world were somewhere between 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 marriages end up in divorce. I am sure this sort foursome scandals has happens quite a bit. But two reasons make this news feature infamous. One, the gumption that this couple had in sending their story to be featured the New York Times unmindful of the hurt it may cause their their ex-spouses and kids. Two, the notorious decision taken by NY to post it without even fact-checking with the ex-spouses. I don't intend to analyse NYT's motives, afer all the media loves to grab attention, besides NYT has a liberal worldview.

What stuck me most was the justification given the couple for their childishly selfish behavior. I wonder what made them think their story was an exemplary case of courage and bravery as exemplified in the comments below. I wonder what gave them a sense of entitlement to admiration of the readers.

Partilla says, “I didn’t believe in the word soul mate before, but now I do". Caroll says, “He said, ‘Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,’ I would say the kids are going to be great, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives making it so.” She adds, “I came to realize it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift,” she said. “But I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?”

Having assumed that they have earned the readers admiration for being brave, they now indulge in quite a bit of self-pity feeling entitled to empathy.

NYT says, "As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it."

It is incredible that it was lost on them that they acted like kids who want to 'feel good' play and dont want to work hard at homework. They shun pain and want to do what makes them feel good with a mypoic view of only their own self-interest, causing pain to their ex-spouses who did not abuse them and their kids who were not abused in their original marriages either. They want the world to applaud them for yeilding their childish 'feel good' proclivities.

Caroll says, “My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”

Actually, in the photograph of cake cutting at the reception where the five children are pictured, the face of the eldest girl who is probably 12ish is void of any clear emotion except may be angst. The stark fact is that Caroll's sentiment of 'deeply in love' is directed at none except her own feelings of love. This is the kind of immaturity that Shakespeare describes as 'love loves love'.

Mr. Partilla feels that "...options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly".

It is intresting that the couple associate dishonesty with a feeling rather than their 'unprovoked' betrayal of their original spousal commitment. When there was no abuse in their original marriage, that they betrayed their committment to their spouse isn't seen as being dishonest by these 'blind lovers'. It is incredible that to excersice some 'self-control' over their 'frivolous' feelings is seen as being dishonest. Aren't self-control and honesty virtues which go hand in hand?

I wonder what they tell their kids when the kids 'feel' like they want to always play pingpong video games and eat french fries and avoid the pain of doing homework and eating healthy. Would they encourage their kids to just be 'true' to the feelings and avoid all hardwork so that they wouldn't be dishonest to the way the feel about things??? Or would they teach them the virtue of self-control???

Interestingly, they are not alone in their skewed idea of dishonesty which is contained only within the realms of their feelings and has nothing to do with their commitment to a person. One of the very few bloggers who supported them said, "...I feel encouraged to see that they are loyal to how they feel".

Until quite recently, Loyalty was something that can only be attributed to people. Would loyalty have the same meaning even if it attributed to non-personalities? Perhaps, it seems only right that after having desecrated the virtue of honesty, in the same vein, they should extend it to the other age-old virtue like loyalty. Of course, unsaid, the virtue of love has been desecrated the worst of all. When 'feelings' takes precedence to Truth there is no saying where it goes.

This is a malady of the age we live in - The Age of Sentimentality. It is an age where we give an inordinate importance to how we feel about things. Unlike our ancestors, our greatest goal in life isn't aligning our life to the Truth of life, rather we pursue a 'feel good' factor about life. Steve Jobs in one of his interviews said it best, "I don't care about what is right or wrong, I care about success". In fact, the reason (apart from rigid i-phone protocols) why i-phones aren't used it the corporate world is becuase they aren't robust equipments, they just 'feel good'.

Back in those days when families were still stable and psychatrists weren't in much demand, people had a sense of what the Truth was, they tried to align their life to the Truth. Self-control was a virtue because it helped them align their life to the right way to live. But now, we live in a post-modern (hyper-modern) world and so Truth is relative. When Truth becomes relative, feelings take precedence. The result is the 'abolition of manhood' and move back to 'childishness'.

C.S.Lewis said in his book, 'The Abolition of Man' says that our generation is creating men without chests. Humankind has a chest and a spine so that they can go against their basal instinct and put the interest of their kids and spouses above their own and be truly loving and develop character. Once we loose our handle on absolute Truth and relegate right and wrong to the realm of frivolous feelings, we are sowing seeds for decadence of our civilization because none of the virtues that make man a man means anything anymore except how they make you feel at different points in time. I believe it is in this vein that G.K.Chesterton said, "A civilization can stand in one angle, and fall in every other. We are now testing angles."

The entitlement that this couple have to be admired and empathized with after having acted so immaturely following their feelings, is symptom of a decadence that has set in our civiliation. When sentiments and feelings to take precedence over Virtues and Truth, man loses his manishness. When man loses his God given manish nature, the civilization he creates begins to die, albeit a slow death.

Secretariat - The Dilemma between Family and Legacy

2010-12-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

I admire horses. In fact the very reason why I ride the Motorcycle is because the Motorcycle is the closest modern man can get to riding a horse. It is common probably knowledge that 'Secretariat' is an excellent movie about the most legendary Horse that ever lived. Here, I do not want to write about the obvious. I want to write what the movie has to do the dilemma that most people face between caring for family and following life's passion.

The movie has a spin that makes the viewer realize that the real hero of the movie is not the horse but its owner, Debbie. The movies starts off showing her as a home maker with a successful attorney for a husband and four kids, two of them adolescent, one of them almost outright rebellious, all of them still in school. Debbie is at a stage in a woman's life where the demands of the family is more than the demands of any full time career.

Unexpectedly her mother dies, and she goes back to her parent's ranch . She remembers the tender memories of her childhood with the horses and how her father loved them and was so proud of the legacy of having bred the finest horses. Her brother suggests that they sell off the horses with the ranch, pay the taxes and continue on with their own lives. Being a Harvard economists, he sees liquidation of assets as economically most sensible. Debbie a plain a simple homemaker, with a heart for horses, is unwilling to let the legacy of her father fade into oblivion.

She remembers her father telling her about horse racing, "it is not about whether others think if you have won. It is not even about whether you think you have won." She wants to attempt to build upon the legacy of her father. This means that she has to spend time in the ranch away from her family. Her dilemma is between catering to the demands of her family and building upon her father's legacy.

She chooses to make her father's legacy her own. Consequently, she shuttles between the Ranch and her family for many years. The Ranch looses money, the horses do not have a good trainer and she misses not being with her teenage daughters who are becoming more beautiful by the week. She cries over the phone, she cries in her bed alone, for missing the most important moments in her kids life. But her passion to keep the legacy alive keeps her going.

Her husband tells her that she can't have her spending his money on something that seemed only to be a huge drain. She hangs up the phone. It is at this stage that her brother makes a second attempt to convince her to sell off the ranch and the horses and get back to her "long neglected 'duty' as a mother and a wife". She replies, "Next time you talk to me about my duties as Mother and a Wife, you'll be a stranger to me".

Her life is split between her home and the Ranch for about three years and she against all odds, breeds the most legendary Horse that ever raced in recorded history. Her 'Secretariat' becomes a National Phenomenon. I was talking to someone at Church and he told me that he remembered the horse 'Secretariat' when he was a kid.

As I was watching the movie, I realized that the suspense wasn't really about the horse. I knew the horse would win, after all there cannot be a movie if it didn't. I was really curious to know how choosing the tougher option between family and her legacy affected Debbie's relationship with the family.

Her husband loving as he is, is getting impatient. I was brazing myself for a confrontation and a breakup in that family, similar to the one that happens in the movie, "Nothing But the Truth", where a female reporter takes a stand upholding a journalistic principle and pays a huge price. She gets pilloried for sticking too much to her passionate principles and being a unfit mother and wife. Eventually, her husband dumps her. But this never happens in 'Secretariat'.

What happened in 'Secretariat' is beautiful. The result of her choice and shuttling between priorities, initially appears to have the effect of being estranged from the family but as time passes, her passion and legacy gets 'inherited' into her family. Her husband and children 'share' into the legacy she is building. The kids are overjoyed about the 'Secretariat'. They are proud that their mother was bequeathing to them a great legacy. Her husband is at her back. Even her brother realizes that she made the right choice. She is known in the racing circles as the most attractive owner any horse ever had.

I think, herein lays the answer to the dilemma that many face when it comes to being with family and following ones passion. The essence of family is 'sharing'. All our successes, joys and sorrows are 'shared' and that sharing is what gives meaning to life. There are times when someone in the family feels a deep passion for something, at such times, a family that is true to its essence of 'shared experiences' can be a source of strength and meaning (not a liability) to helping that person to 'move out' achieve that which is passionately pursued and make that a part of their 'shared' legacy.

I believe family has this unique characteristic because the family was created by God to be a well-spring of joy and strength that results from shared experiences which becomes the 'bedrock' for men and women to 'move out' into the world and exercise their dominion over it making life more beautiful and more cherished for many, and most specially for the family itsef.

God Himself has His essence in the 'shared' experiences of His Triune nature (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Triune fellowship is His well-spring of joy. In fact, when God created the world, He did not just say, "I created the world". He rather said, "Let US create...", true to His Triune shared creative experience. He 'imputes' into the family, a part of the divine nature of being strengthened by 'shared experiences' and 'moving out' to create a legacy.

The family is thus a reflection of God's Triune nature of shared experiences and creative legacies. That is the reason why God wants family and procreation to be sacred rites. In as far as a family reflects the 'shared' experience within and 'moving out' - the creative legacy of the Triune nature, it shall be the most beautiful transcended experience of life. One does not have to chose between family and legacy. Rather, they mesh with each other and enrich each other as a true reflection of the Triune Creator's nature manifested through creative legacy strengthened by shared experiences.

Narnai - Voyage of the Dawn Trader

2010-12-10T01:12:00.001-08:00

Just watched Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn trader - midnight show at Marquee - the first show in Houston theaters. In the first few minutes, I was a little disturbed that the screen writers had excersiced their artistic liberty quite a bit and I was afraid which part of the movie they would end up butchering... Now that I have seen the entire movie, I can affirm that my fears were unfounded. Indeed, the screen play writers have done a really good job in striking the balance between making the movie exciting and still holding on to the spirit of the Narnia Seriese.

I do wish the screen writers had not meddled with Aslan's stealthy appearances depicted in the book, but not much of a reason to be disappointed. I think the part where Edmund and Caspian turn against each other and how Aslan makes his fearsome presence felt shouldn't have been taken out of the movie. On the other hand, Aslan appearing in the mirror in Lucy's dream was quite a bit of digress from the book, but was most welcome.

The movies portrayal of the 'green mist' exposing human vulnerability was a brilliant improvisation of the book's 'darkness', which really tied the narrative together in a way that I think book does not. The 'grey mist' representing evil brings back the traitorous ambition of old evil witch into Edmund's conscience and the wanting to be 'materially' valuable into Lucy's.

I was glad Aslan's parting words, "In the other world I am known by a different name. The very reason you were brought into Narnia was so that you'll know me a little here, and better there.", was unaltered. After all, at the end of the day those are the words that give the Narnia the meaning that makes it eternally beautiful and true, Right?

Next Three Days – Love of God

2010-12-10T01:11:00.001-08:00

I just saw (actually 4 days ago) the newest Russell Crowe movie ‘Next Three Days’. It is a intense thriller. After watching the movie I drove around the 40 mile 610 loop, among other things, reflecting on the movie and how it depicts the love of God.

In the movie, Russell Crowe’s wife gets arrested for a murder. She gets incarcerated because all evidence is against her. Russell is the only one who believes in her innocence. Incriminating evidence seals her doom. He vows to bring her out of prison. The wife, already suffering from a bit of inferiority complex goes into a self-destructive cycle. The more her tries to help, the more she resists and is spiteful. But still Russell perseveres believing in her innocence and tries to free her. She attempts suicide. He does not give up, he is at her bedside.

This is amazingly similar to the love of God. In the Bible, God relates with man in a Father-Son relationship. But there is another very important, but less talked about, facet which is the Groom-Bride relationship. God is the Husband, human being is His Bride. He loves His Bride with an everlasting love. Even when we are spiteful and angry and allow our feelings of insecurity and inferiority to destroy us, He never gives up on us. Even if we decide to give up on us and attempt suicide, He never gives up on us. No matter how much we resist His plans for our freedom, He’ll not give up on us.

The wife has accepted her doomed life in the prison. She then realizes that only way to get him off his pointless endeavor to free her is to lie to him that she committed the crime. She does that. He does not flinch. He trusts her so much that he reaffirms her worth. He says, “I will not allow this prison to become your home”.

The prison which the wife thinks has become her home, points to another metaphor in life - people thinking that living in chains is normal. Roussea said, "Man is born free, but every where he is in chains". Prison is bondage. Sin/hopelessness is bondage. Most people live in the prison of sin/faithlessness and think it is their home and that there is no hope for real freedom in life. They make a home of the prison of sin/hopelessness. But God does not want us to settle for a life of faithless bondage. Jesus Christ says, “I have come to show the Truth. I am the Truth and Truth shall set you free.”

In the movie, to redeem her, Russell stoops down to the point of becoming a criminal himself. Till the end she does not see her worth and tries to jeopardize his carefully laid plans for her freedom. But he keeps on loving her and trusting her to redeem her to himself and start a new life in a new home far off in distant shores.

In real life, God allowed His own Son (Jesus Christ) to be killed in order that through Him, no matter how much we self-destructively jeopardize His plans for our everlasting freedom, we will not succeed. His Truth will set us free, because He will not give upon us. He loves us as a trusting Husband loves His self-doubting wife. No matter how much we resist, He’ll make us find our freedom and journey to the new Home He has prepared for us a on the distant Shores where we’ll live as free people fully redeemed and happy in Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.(Rom 8:28-39).

A Joyful Thanks Giving with Adam's family

2010-11-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

In a world of increasing globalization and folks move far away from family into new places and they face some dreary dynamics during festivals. During festivals, when people usually huddle together with their families, some of the products of globalization staying in alien places, like myself, end up falling through the cracks. My experience this time with Thanks Giving was pretty close to falling through the cracks. The family that I usually fellowship with during Thanks Giving was vacationing elsewhere. My other plan was to visit my old pal from college living in San Antonio. That too did not work out.

So yesterday, with nowhere to celebrate Thanks Giving, I was looking back and wondering why I was finding myself falling through the cracks? I told myself that I was going to be cheerful and went to watch the newly released Disney's animation movie 'Tangled'. The movie is well-made. Coming out of the movie and riding back home, I still had the nagging feeling of falling through the cracks. I had to have the Thanks Giving meal somewhere. I figured that the only option I had was to celebrate Thanks Giving at some good restaurant in Houston and have a good Thanks Giving meal. So I made a mental note that I needed to get on Google to find a good Restaurant.

On the way home, I stopped at the chapel to pray. I think God’s answer to my wonderment was, “Well Dude, life has many ‘seasons’. You are in one. There are advantages and disadvantaged in each ‘season’. You are now experiencing one of the few disadvantage of single life, so don’t sulk. Be of good cheer”. I was happy again. After all, single life does have advantages - I wanted to see ‘Tangled’ and in 10 mins I was in the theatre getting movie tickets, how many family guys can do it just like that? :P Every advantage in life has an equal and opposite disadvantage (on a side note, when one is Redeemed, the disadvantages workout for the ultimate good Rom 8:28).

Back home, I flipped open my laptop and Facebook stared back at me. I stared back at it like at an old friend who can’t really help. Facebook helps me make friends and keep friendships alive. Facebook can be everything cool, but it can't help my feeling of falling through the cracks, can it? No. Just then I saw the chat bar 'blinking' and it was my friend from Church, Adam. I thought, "Well this is unusual, why would Adam try to chat on Fb when we just met each other a couple of days earlier?” Anyways, I replied ‘Hey, Adam” and he asked me if I had seen the email he had sent. I checked yahoo and found his email asking me if I had plans for Thanks Giving. I said, ‘No’. He invited me to go with him to his parents place to celebrate Thanks Giving. Wow! the crack just closed beneath my feet. I was going to have a real Thanks Giving! Thank God!, I thought. I didn’t have to google a restaurant after all. Hmmmm… Facebook is kind of helps doesn’t it, of course Yahoo too!

I am glad I have Adam for a thoughtful friend. Adam is a cool chap who brings with him a contagious cheeriness and spreads it around freely. Within 10 seconds of getting into a group, he’ll have someone laughing over his funny and timely quips. He is a uniquely gifted guy.

So today morning I was up and ready by 10:00 AM. Adam picked me up on the way to his parent’s place. When I met his Mom and Sister, I knew where he got his sense of humor from. His Mom and Sister had loads of it that even his Sister’s dog was infected with cheer. Even the sight of dogs on the television excited him. I have never seen a dog wag its tail at dogs in the television. That was the first time in my life, I witnessed something worthy of a youtube video. Soon we had the extended family come in, and folks from Adam’s Mom’s and Step-Dad’s Church as well. We were a total of 16 people. One thing Adam posts on facebook more than any other topic is about his runs around memorial. When I met his family, I understood why it was so. One topic that got everyone of them enthused was running. I wasn't conversant on topics of running, but it was fascinating to watch their enthusiasm. Another aspect that was special about Adam's family was how they all did work almost all the time and cracked jokes and had fun. It was great just to be in the midst of people of good cheer, especially on Thanks Giving day. Gosh! I can’t imagine what I would have done in a restaurant, sitting alone. Thank God I didn’t have to.

Oh, I love the Thanks Giving meal. Every year, black Friday onwards, I look forward to the next Thanks Giving meal. My plate had Turkey, mashed potato, sweet potato, casserole beans, creamy carrots, cranberry sauce, garlic biscuit and a side that is made with bread, vegetables and chicken broth. I start with Turkey and then have a little potato and then beans and then bread and biscuit and then carrots and cranberry and then I’ll come back to the Turkey and repeat loop until plate is empty. And then go back for seconds… My taste buds tickle even now…

Oh, do I have to wait for another year for my next Thanks Giving meal? Yeah, I guess… God made life to be lived in ‘seasons’. One has to wait if one needs anything ‘special’. If I wanted, I could go to some restaurant right now and have a Thanks Giving meal, but if I did that then when the real festivities of Thanks Giving comes, I think it wouldn’t be as special anymore. It is important to wait for God’s timing on seasons, and not preempt Him, so that when the new ‘season’ turns up, it would really be special.

Speaking about something being 'special'... There is something special about festive foods. Does the food give the festivities the special flavor or is it the festive spirits that give food a brilliant taste and a sense of fulfillment? I think my Thanks Giving meal was tasty because of the hard work done by the Reeds, Adam’s Mom and Step-Dad. The food was fulfilling and special because of the festive spirits of people sharing the meal.

God make human beings in such a way that human beings can cherish special occasions. These occasions do not have survival value of their own, but they give value for survival. For example, if I had had my Thanks Giving meal in a restaurant I wouldn’t have died or anything, I would still have survived through the weekend, but it wouldn’t have been as meaningful. On the other hand when I have my Thanks Giving meal with a family, it gets to have a special meaning because of the thoughtfulness and love and affection that is extended to one who falls through the cracks. Such meaning gives value to survival itself. The moment such special occasions cease to be, ‘bare’ survival may not be valuable anymore.

So, what really makes Thanks Giving special is not just the sensation the nerve endings have when the turkey touches the taste buds. Rather, what makes Thanks Giving special and even gives the Turkey its flavor is the relationships that are built around this special meal. If I had had the same meal in a Restaurant, it would have had the same taste, but not the same meaning. It wouldn’t have been special at all. At the end of the day, it is the relationships that matter. What made my Thanks Giving special was being with the cheerful family of my friend Adam - his sweet Mom, pretty Sister, affable Step-Dad, most lively Uncle & Aunt, jovially conversant Step-Dad’s Mom and Pop and the ebullient family from Church. I am thankful to God for having Adam for a friend. I am thankful to God for putting it into Adam’s heart to invite me over. I am Thankful to God that even half-way across the world, I have folks to celebrate Thanks Giving with.

Teen Pregnancy Center - A Opportunity to be Drawn

2010-11-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

God made life as a very beautiful experience so that He would be glorified through His creation. But because of the Fall, man possessing only a ‘dimmed’ image of His creator, lost his ability to appreciate the beauty of the created world as Originally intended. Fallen Man began to ‘twist’ the beautiful experiences God created into something that would serve his need to validate himself in his craving for selfish pleasure. One of the most beautiful experiences of life - procreation, has been immensely ‘twisted’ by fallen man. Consequently, the blessing of legitimate-sex, pregnancy and family has been twisted into a curse of lust, abortion and ‘radical’ individualism. Teen pregnancy is one of the effects of Fallen Man’s ‘twisting’ of the good that God created.

Thanks be to the Sovereign Lord who also created ‘Saving Grace’. Every time the Evil one tries to twist God’s good gift into something it was not meant to be, God who is Sovereign creates within that ‘twisted world’ an opportunity to ‘draw’ man to Himself and ‘untwist’ the effects of the Fall and turn the curse into a blessing. Even before Adam and Eve sinned, God created within the ‘twisted world’ the possibility of the Cross to ‘draw’ men to Himself. Every time man/woman finds himself/herself taking the brunt of the ‘twisted’ world, God creates within fallen context, a window of opportunity to ‘draw’ people to Himself. It is the mandate of the ‘born again’ Christian, to position himself/herself in that window of opportunity and be used as an instrument of God’s Sovereignty in untwisting the twisted and ‘drawing’ the fallen man to Himself. (This born again Christian should through the ‘Saving Grace of God’ endeavor to live life in its ‘untwisted’ Originally good form as seen through the ‘lens’ of the Scriptures.)

The Teen Pregnancy Help Centre creates that window of opportunity to those who feel Called by the Sovereign God to serve among those who are abortion minded. Last week, I completed a 12 hour training course at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’. Even though I have always felt passionately for ‘pro life’ causes, I never did anything about it except may be attending the Lou Engle ‘pro life’ Fasting prayer which actually had lasting impact on me. Then the issue moved to the back-burner, except whenever I came across something that has anything to do with pro-life message and I felt inspired to write about it.

The Sunday before last, when I was sitting at Church and someone announced that volunteers were needed at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’, I felt impelled to volunteer even though I was apprehensive about how a man could help with something that seemed like woman’s business. Then in my interaction with the folks involved with the Centre, I realized that there was a lacuna for men peer counselors to counsel the gentlemen that walked-in with the damsel in distress. Being the only guy in the training room, I really appreciated every opportunity the trainers took to highlight the situations where a man can really add value to the mission at hand.

Our mission is really to help the people in crisis to see within their fallen situation, the beauty that God wants them to see and be ‘drawn’ to Him. Or mission is to reclaim to the glory of God that which the Evil one has ‘twisted’ to keep men blinded to the Truth of the Beauty of life God created. The Teen Pregnancy Centre is a place where the evil caused by men with ‘twisted’ perspectives of selfish-pleasure, is untwisted, healed and reclaimed for the glory of God.

The most beautiful experience that brings the great joy in life is a kid. But when a kid is formed in the womb of a woman in a context that is outside of God’s original intended framework for conception, the kid is often seen as burden because the (lady and in some cases the man as well) victim’s perception is colored by the Fallen circumstances. In such cases, the impetus is to just do away with the child.

The only way the child can be saved is by helping the victim see the child with the ‘unfallen’ eyes that the Saving Grace of God makes possible, in spite of the ‘twisted’ circumstance. The ‘Saving Grace’ of God ‘draws’ the victim close to the heart of God and strengthens him/her to break the cycle of victimization and untwist the twisted perspective and heal the wounds and help the Soul see the beauty He originally created in a child for man to cherish and enjoy.

During the training, of the many examples shared, one that I vividly remember illustrates this healing within of the fallen situation. A girl to be married in a few months gets raped by an evil stranger. The girl and the father come to the Pregnancy Centre ‘abortion minded’. The counselors advice against abortion and pray much. Miraculously, the girl’s fiancé agrees accept the kid as his own. The family decides not to abort. The kid is now 4 years old and much loved. Looking back, the child was a blessing to the family in more ways than one. Prior to this ordeal, the girl’s Father and Mother had been planning to separate because of irreconcilable differences, but this unexpected kid forced them to huddle together to support their daughter and this reignited their love for each other. A decision to stop the cycle of victimization and not abort was the greatest Blessing to that family.

This is one of the many stories of curse of the twisted world being turned to Blessings at the Teen Pregnancy Centre by the ‘Saving Grace’ of Jesus Christ. Much prayers and work is needed for someone to ‘stand in the gap’ and guide everyone who walks in the door into the window of opportunity to be ‘drawn’ to the beautiful God and be redeemed into the untwisted world He wants to Bless Fallen Men with.