Inseparable

Under the blue Mesopotamian sky
There is a land where barefooted raindrops
Dance on the bloodstained leaves of grass.
Some call it homeland.
For others,
It is a battlefield,
Where ravens of war devour
The expanse of the sky,
Where, in the morning,
The stray dogs greet the dwellers
With insomnia of sharp yelps,
And in the harsh noon,
Vultures feast on their lifeless bodies.

How did we, after having traveled so far,
Arrive at a nightmare such as this?
How did we, after having learned so much,
Join in this carnival of rotten flesh and gunpowder?
In the midst of so much shredded sky
And bloodied landscape
Can one ever find that neglected hope?
Where can one find that refuge?
Will God ever remember to raise,
From the exploded remains of conscience,
Our children without malice?

It is true that we have fought bitterly as foes.
But we have also lived together, long,
Longer than many lifetimes,
In this parenthesized geography.
Isn't it time to close
This book of divided theology
And realize, instead,
How inseparable we are
Under the beautiful Mesopotamian sky?

Acceptable Sacrifice

The sacrifice acceptable to God
is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not
despise.
(Psalm 51: 17)

Is it wrong to put the Lord to the test?

Although it is commanded that one should not put the Lord to the test, He Himself, from time to time, challenges His people to test Him. I find at least two such instances in the Bible:
In Isaiah 7: 11-14
Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be as deep as the Sheol or as high as heaven.
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask and I will not put the Lord to the test.
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear then O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Look the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name Him Immanuel.
And again in Malachi 3: 10
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

A Prayer of Simon

The universe is
In the palm of your hand.
You arrange and rearrange
The galaxies and the constellations.
You set the laws of the seasons
And the monsoon rain.
Before Abraham, You were.
And, here you are,
Yoked under the unwanted cross
Of our collected iniquities.
The bruised dusts of the street rise
To settle on your bloodied brows.
And your blood turns into petals
Of rose scattered on the street.

In this physical form
Of Cyrenean countenance,
You placed this bird of my migratory spirit;
And made me a man.
Even before I was born,
You set me on this flight,
To be with you, at this hour appointed
In time and the space of history.
Out of this multitude,
You chose Simon, a man without a face.
If I could speak to the time,
It would tell me
I am blessed among men.
If time could name itself,
What name would it choose for itself?
A moment without history, perhaps.

You made me a man
And put me in this world.
So, I suppose, I am of this world,
And if indeed, had You desired
That I be an angel,
You would have surely made me one.
But You didn’t.
Grant me this, O Lord!
Let me live as man among men,
To love and serve You in their midst.
But remember me with mercy
When I come to your kingdom,
Not for the moment I was harnessed
Together with you,
But for those I was not.

Remembering Psalm 23

(A Psalm of David)
The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down
In a green pastures;
He leads me beside the still
Waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the path
Of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk
Through the valley of the
Shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For you are with me;
Your rod and your staff,
They comfort me.
You prepare a table
Before me in the presence
Of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy
Shall follow me
All the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house
Of the Lord
Forever.

Two Lines and anti Parallel

Genesis
Chapter 22

2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
10 Then Abraham reached out his hand took the knife to kill his son.
11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from.”

Matthew
Chapter 27

22 Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” All of them said, “Let him be crucified!”
23 Then he asked, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”
25 Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
31……then they led him away to crucify him.

God was truly pleased with Abraham’s obedience and faithfulness. And He reciprocated this gesture of faithfulness to Abraham and his children by sacrificing His Own Son Jesus. The irony, however, is that while God was only testing Abraham and spared Isaac’s life, children of Abraham, on the other hand, truly wanted the blood of God’s only Son.

Against the Practice of Abortion

In the depth of your womb,
Half-dazed and half-frightened,
I cried out with my voice.
In that moment filled with panic, my voice failed,
And in vain, I cried for help.

I am your child;
Child of your love.
Mama, I present to you
My little hands of fetal innocence,
In the hope that they would turn into flowers
In your palm.

But I am frightened by the look in your eyes.
You are tying me up with the umbilical cord of my misfortune.
Why are you laying me down on this cold surface?
You are raising your hand high in the sky.
Why are you raising your hand against me?
Mama, I would like to be born in the spring
Under a deep blue Mediterranean sky,
And the air saturated with fragrance of jasmine.
Where is God of father Abraham?
Should I look for the lamb of the faithful?
It must be somewhere nearby,
Caught in the thickets by its horns.
Mama, what is happening?
Your manicured fingers of feminine elegance
Have turned into a hired killer’s knives.

Be pleased, O Lord, to have mercy on me.

You strike me once, you strike me twice and
You have destroyed, you have
Destroyed my fragile unborn geometry.
Now I can feel my blood rushing out
Out to be in the orange garden.

And it is finished!

I am love demolished.
I am love butchered.
O Woman,
Wounded,
Wounded by my brief existence.
I was your child once,
Child of your negligent love.

You butchered me,
On the altar of feminine freedom.
You butchered me to feed the serpent,
The serpent that lives on
The mangled bodies of discarded babies.

His Master's Voice

3 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10: 3, 4 and 16).

Mary

When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a child by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary was already betrothed to Joseph. When Joseph found out that Mary was with a child, he was not pleased. He could have uttered the “a…..” word but chose not to. He was considering putting her away secretly. Here, some scholars suggest that Mary’s pregnancy was by none other than Joseph himself during the betrothal period. In Jewish custom of the time, upon betrothal, the man and the woman are given conjugal rights by society. Even though they had not started living together, they were considered lawful husband and wife. If he was the father of Mary’s unborn child then Joseph did not have to worry about a scandal. It was not a scandal at all. But he did, thereby strongly supporting the belief that Jesus was not the son of Joseph. Why did he then decide to marry her in the end? Was it because he was so deeply in love with Mary that he decided to forgive and accept her? Could he trust her in the future? I do not know if anybody could answer these questions for Joseph. All sorts of thoughts and emotions run in a man’s body when faced with such crisis. At moments like this it would take a great deal of fortitude to be able to make a wise decision. My guess is that ultimately it happened just the way the Bible tells us. That is, an angel of God told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.
When Mary said “……Let it be done to me according to your word,” she very well knew the danger she was placing herself in. It could be considered an act of adultery. And the price of adultery in the Jewish society of the time was death. Mary, though virgin and full of grace, could have died the death of an adulteress. But God intervened.
Thirty or so years into the future, we find Jesus standing between a murderous crowd and a real adulteress. “Anyone without sin must cast the first stone” was all He said! And a new day was born! Hallelujah!

Wedding at Cana

Recently, I was in our local public library and was casually looking at some of the books with interesting titles, and chanced upon a book titled Custodians of Truth (not the complete title of the book). I wondered what truth it was talking about. As I began reading, I found out that this book talks about our Lord’s marital status and his bloodline. It draws its conclusion on His marriage from John chapter 2 verses 5 and 7. I thought the book was trying to provide some semblance of evidence. So naturally, I was interested and did some reading. In verse 5, I find Mary asking the servants to do what Jesus told them to do. And in verse 7, Jesus was asking the servants to fill the waterpots. The book (Custodian) claims that they would not do this unless they were also members of the groom’s household. Because, in Jewish society, in events such as wedding, only members of the groom’s family could call the servants to duty. And from there, the book takes a big leap to the conclusion that wedding at Cana was our Lord’s own wedding. I was hoping to find citation of some hard evidence, something like an ancient marriage certificate or things of that sort. But none was mentioned. I was disappointed, to say the least. After further reading John chapter 2, I came to my own conclusion that verses 5 and 7 do not get Jesus married off to anyone. I think Jesus could not have been the groom in the wedding at Cana for the following reasons:
Verse 1 says “….mother of Jesus was there.” This does not make her a member of the groom’s household. Perhaps she was there as a relative, cousin, neighbor or an invited guest.
Verse 2 says “...Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.” How can the groom be invited to his own wedding? Never heard of such a tradition!
In verse 3, mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” If she was the mother of the groom then I would expect Mary saying “We have no wine” as opposed to “They have no wine.”
In Verse 4 Jesus told His mother having no wine was none of His concerns. Would He have said that if He was the groom? Not likely.

Here is John 2 (NKJV). Take a look.
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.
3 And when they ran out of wine, mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”
4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.”
6 Now there set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.

To St. Philomena

There was a kind
Of antique resplendence
And purity of crystals.
There was a straight line
Of bloody death,
Drawn from one page
To another and
Then to another;
In that book of
prodigal obscurity
And burial.
There was death everywhere.
There were remains
Of unleashed infernos
In that ancient air.
But you rose,
From a deep slumber,
Into a new dawn
Impenetrable by water, salt and arrows;
Dividing the time into many equal parts
With your tender fingers.

On the other side of Calvary

I heard Your Voice in my head.
Without being there I was there,
Creeping along the walls behind the throng of men
To avoid Your searching glance.
I knew You were looking for me.
But I hid under cover of my own shadow.
I did not wish to feel the pain in your sorrow.
There was too much sadness in your sorrow,
A sadness more than I can embrace.
I was afraid!
I was afraid to look at
Your bloodied face
And blinded eyes.
I knew You saw me.
But You pretended as if you didn’t;
You moved on.
I heard Your voice in my head;
I heard You murmur,
“Ma, not to worry, not to worry!
I shall make everything new again.”
Perhaps, You were murmuring to someone
Plundered by love.

Atop the Calvary, from the heights of the cross
One more time, before Your last breath
You looked through Your blinded eyes,
Far into the future and saw me cowering
Under the cloak of my own shadow.
When You closed Your mortal eyes
The night ended and
My thin shadow of pathetic guise
Fell at my feet.

And I was in another street!

I was in another street,
Running fast, as fast as I could avoid
The darkness in the street.
I was running, running away from You
To be with You on the other side of Calvary
Without my unbearable sorrows.

Defending Padre Pio

I came upon an article about St. Pio in the London Telegraph published sometime in 2007. The article reports on a book by Sergio Luzzatto written about the saint. The book alleges that St. Pio used carbolic acid to fake his stigmata. This allegation left me a little disturbed, to say the least. After all, he is my patron saint. And here, I want to say a few words in his defense. I have not had the chance to see the book; much less read it. Agreed, in order to make a good defense, one ought to examine its contents. Looks like, I am not going to bother taking a look at it. I just need to focus on one line in the article.The article cites one incident where Padre Pio requested a Maria De Vito to get him 4 grams of pure carbolic acid. The article also emphasizes that Padre Pio instructed her not tell anyone about it. This is taken to mean that Padre pio was using carbolic acid to inflict stigmata like wounds on his body.
I would like to mention a few words about the chemical and pharmacological properties of Carbolic acid. Carbolic acid is an old name for phenol. It has been used in curing certain cases of ailments. But phenol is a highly toxic compound. The lowest reported lethal dose for human is 140mg per kg of body weight. It is used for execution by injection at least in the Nazi concentration camps. It is a neurotoxic compound with offensive smell. Phenolic fume causes irritation of eye and the respiratory tract.
Padre Pio’s biography tells us that he received stigmata sometime in 1911. If Padre had discovered that by applying carbolic acid on the skin he could produce wound resembling Christ’s wound on his body, then its seems logical to assume that external application of an agent would produce a visible external lesion, and yet biographical accounts of padre Pio clearly state that stigmata were of internal in nature at the beginning.
According to the news article, it was July of 1919, when Padre Pio made the request for Phenol. Clearly, this would suggest that one-time application of phenol is not sufficient to create a permanent wound. Therefore, one would have to apply phenol from time to time to give a look of permanency to the wounds. Padre carried stigmata on the palms, back of his palms, feet and side of his chest for 50 years. Four grams of phenol that he procured in 1919 surely would not have been enough to keep it going. He must have needed new supplies of phenol. Was Maria De Vito his only source? Or there were others? If there were others, have they come forward to testify?
Phenol is a systemic poison. It is also a strong denaturing agent. It destroys protein component of the cells. So, chronic exposure to it for 50 long years, even at sub-lethal dose, would produce, besides skin lesion, other harmful effects on the body. I would expect he would exhibit symptoms of semi-paralyzed fingers due to the damaged nerves at least in and around the regions where phenol was applied. But he did not seem to have such problems as evidenced by his continued ability to offer Eucharistic Sacrifice which required tactile fingers for the operation till his very old age. Besides, phenol is very readily absorbed by the skin. If the allegation of Sergio Luzzatto is true, Padre Pio would have sub-lethal amounts of phenol circulating in his body for 50 years. I can neither reconstruct his health profile nor tell how he would look like after poisoning himself continually with phenol for 50 years. But even a quick google search would reveal the range of debilitating effects phenol would have on human health. By contrast, and from all accounts, Padre Pio, in his later years, enjoyed good health.
Phenol has a very strong disagreeable smell. The smell is irritating and produces burning sensation. Even a trace amount of phenol produces readily detectable and unmistakable smell. A person applying phenol on his body on a regular basis ought to be carrying phenolic smell around him. It is said that Padre Pio exuded odor resembling rose fragrance. Smell of pure phenol is not rose fragrance. So he must have perfumed himself with fragrance of rose. A Franciscan who wears perfume! Now that’s news! A boy of nine, who fasted regularly, slept on hard surface, used rock as pillow, spent long time on his knees praying, was now beginning to wear perfume to hide a secret. Seems like an overextended thread of storyline. But let’s go along with the story. So if he needed perfume, then he must have had a perfume supplier also. Has anyone come forward identifying him/herself as the perfume supplier?
Finally, Man who spends hours praying to God is also man with conscience. A man who sits in the confessional hearing confessions of others is also a man trying to ease the conscience of the penitents. Would or could such a man with his own unconfessed sin sit before God all those hours all those years with a clear conscience? He couldn’t have. Because, Lord may be readily forgiving but not the conscience of man! Padre Pio was a man in perpetual prayer. Lord gave him ample grace and mystical gifts. He didn’t need carbolic acid!

Ascending the Calvary within

I have always desired to climb the heights of this mountain. Every path, I have taken in my lifetime, brings me to the foot of this mountain. “What mountain is this?” I asked a passerby. He smiled and offered to crucify me instead. Not to have known the mountain, He said I must be a stranger to myself.
This is Golgotha;
Calvary of the mind,
The mountain within.
He said, “You do not have to, if you do not want to. But it is good for you, if you did.”
“Did what,” I asked?
“Ascend to the top.
That is where you get the cross off your back. You have been carrying it for a long time.”
“How do you know?”
“I have my sources.”
Now, I will have to scale this mountain. There is no turning back. Not to have at least attempted the ascent would be a betrayal.
“On my own I may not make it to the top.”
He said not to worry,
“There is someone willing to help.”
I said, “Who, Simon of Cyrene?”
He said, “You truly are stranger to yourself.
You are Simon of Cyrene.”
I asked, “How do you know?”
“I have my sources.”
That was the reply.
“O Simon, Simon
My old friend!
Without you
I would have failed
In My mission.
Without your help
The Roman soldiers
Would have killed Me
Before the appointed hour.”
Just as Simon of Cyrene helped Him carry His cross, now, there is the risen Christ willing to help each one carry their cross up the mountain.
Atop the Calvary of the world,
They crucified Him.
Atop the Calvary within,
We shall crucify sin,
So that man shall be man again.

Jesus of the miracles

We do not worship God merely because He said something nice and beautiful. If that were so, today we would be worshipping a great number of men and women as gods and goddesses, just because they said and wrote beautiful things and performed great deeds. We admire and honor our great men and women, heroes and heroines but we do not worship any one of them. Our worship is only to God. We worship God for many reasons. For me, the reason, at the most basic level, is my fear of hell. I do not like the tropical heat. Therefore, it is very less likely that I would like the overheated living conditions in hell. Also, we worship God for many marvelous and wonderful things He did. And those things that He did, He did them in scales and magnitude far beyond the circle of human ability. We simply called these wonderful deeds of God miracles. Miracles, spectacular or otherwise, are His way of touching people’s lives. God without miracle is a God who does not have any ties with man. Would we have worshipped a God, though supernatural and all powerful, but has nothing to do with our lives? I doubt it. Why worship a God who turns His back on us? Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov (Brothers Karamazov) says, “Man is expected to live by faith only and not by miracles.” But miracles are the fruits of the faith. Miracles follow faith. God wants to make miracles happen. In fact, from time to time, God puts man in situation where He would show him His wondrous miracles. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, he led them through the Red Sea. There was a way around the sea. Moses knew the way. He crossed the desert twice without having to walk on the waters of the Red sea. Then why did he not lead them by the same route he traveled before? By leading them straight to the sea, Lord was setting up His people for a miracle that they would remember for a very long time. Again, it was His way of telling the Israelites that He was with them and to put their trust in Him to pull them out of their difficulties. Our God is a God of many miracles. But as Christians, we have a much better reason to worship God than any of these miracles. That God loves us so much that He gave His only Son is a reason better than any other. I believe in the miracles of Jesus and also Jesus of the many miracles. Jesus without miracle is simply unthinkable!

When in deep crisis

13 But as for me, my prayer is to You
O Lord, in the acceptable time;
O God, in the multitude of Your mercy,
Hear me in the truth of Your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the out of the mire,
And let me not sink;
Let me be delivered from those who hate
me,
And out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the floodwater overflow me,
Nor let the deep swallow me up;
And let not the pit shut its mouth on me.
16 Hear me, O Lord, for your lovingkindness
Is good;
Turn to me according to the multitude of
Your tender mercies
17 And do not hide Your face from Your
Servant,
For I am in trouble;
Hear me speedily.
18 Draw near to my soul and redeem it;
Deliver me because of my enemies.

Understanding the Will of God

From time to time in the history, when God wants something done, He reveals His will to whomever He picks for the job at hand in no uncertain terms. The Bible records many such stories. Moses was a happy man in the desert, happily married to a beautiful daughter of a Midian high priest, tending sheep in and around the foot of the mountains in the desert. Then one day it happened. Out of the burning bush, a voice called him and told him to go back to Egypt and free His people. What happened after that is a common knowledge to both the Jews and Christians. Peter and Andrew were fishermen. They were working all night with little luck. They were giving up and cleaning their nets when Jesus showed up and told them to launch the boat out into the deeper part of the lake and cast their net. To their shock, they caught more fish than they ever dreamt of catching in their wildest dreams. At that point, Peter realized that the man was no ordinary man. So he told Him, “Go away Lord, I am a sinful man.”Jesus told him not to worry about it and He told them to follow Him instead. Saul of Tarsus was on the way to Damascus on a mission with not so good intention. And then out of the blue, Lord just appeared as a light brighter than the sun and knocked him down from his high horse, turned him round and round a few times spiritually, and then told him to go to the Gentiles and preach His gospel among them. Similarly, St. Francis of Assisi, while praying before a Crucifix, heard a voice telling him to repair His house. In such cases, these individuals did not have any trouble in discerning the will of God; because He did it for them in no subtle terms. What about the rest of us who have not been told clearly as to what He wills us to do or be in our lives? I often find myself wondering if I am walking in the general direction in which God wants me to walk or I am way off by a 180° margin of error. How does one discern His will with absolute certainty? Must one always take a leap of faith and say to oneself without a shade of doubt, “This is it. This is what God wants me to be?” Or is it that His will is already preprogrammed in our mind, so we instinctively act and do things according to His will and design? It is hard to say. It is impossible to read God’s mind. Advice like ‘Ask Him in prayer to reveal His will’ is good. But one still has to listen to one’s own ‘inner voice’ during the prayer. What if ‘the inner’ voice is always in the habit of saying ‘No’ to all the questions one puts in prayer? Is there any hope left then?
Recently, I have been reading some writings about St. Francis of Assisi and St. John of the Cross. These two great saints had very different approaches to understanding God’s Will.
First, the St. Francis way: here, he is talking to his companions, “After discarding every desire of your heart, whatever that is left in your heart would be those you hate the most. Doing what you hate the most with perfect charity is the perfect will of God.” That is tough, even for Francis himself. But he did it!
Second, the St. John way: Desires of your heart are by the will of God. He puts these desires in your heart and He desires to fulfill them for His glory. These views will, perhaps, make it easier for many in their quest for the Will of God.
As for me, I neither know how to read God’s mind nor discern His Will. So I place my trust in Him and do whatever I need to do. Perhaps I am wrong; but it is my belief that as long as one puts oneself within the general vicinity of God’s grace, He always finds a way to bring you where He wants you to be; even if you were way off by 180° margin of error.

Against poverty but not the poor

Our Lord says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.” Does this mean that the poor go to heaven automatically because of poverty? Seems like it. Because the Bible says, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20NKJV).” How can this be? For just as there are good and bad among the poor, there are also good and bad among the rich. Besides, Abraham, our spiritual ancestor, whom the Lord increased immensely and blessed richly, in spite of his wealth, went to heaven. Because, he trusted the Lord and it was accounted to him as righteous. From this, it is clear to me that neither poverty nor prosperity adds or subtracts one iota from one’s prospect of salvation. All the poor are not necessarily pure in spirit. In fact, poverty more often succeeds in crippling the body, mind and spirit. It is doubtful that such poverty provides any guarantee for a spot in heaven at all. But the ‘Lady Poverty’ of St. Francis of Assisi is a poverty that is higher than itself. It is a spirit of generous love and compassion in poverty. Those who practice this poverty are the happy poor! They are called the blessed. Therefore, Lord says again, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mathew 5:3 NKJV).” Poor in spirit is a state of mind. Both the rich and the poor can be poor in spirit. When one is poor in spirit one is pure indeed. It is this spirit that enables us to give and receive love without counting the cost. In the final analysis, our Lord, perhaps, does not care who had been poor or rich in the past life. Heaven is His kingdom. We enter heaven not by our merits but at His pleasure. And we are earnestly invited to trust Him.

Is it You, O Lord?

Someone beside me,
Someone in my mind,
A face, entangled
Among my uncollected thoughts.
I can not remember you;
Nor see you with clarity.
Who are you?
Memory is a river that returns
To gather what it left behind.
On the other side of memory
Is my immeasurable forgetfulness.
And in forgetfulness,
I long to gather,
Those unremebered faces and
Long forgotten names.
But of you,
I can not say I remember.
And also,
I can not say I do not.
Between remembering
And forgetting,
My thoughts are like
A multitude of sunflowers,
Suspended in an abandoned sky,
A sky abandoned by
The vagrant sun.
Although,
All I can say
Is very much limited by
My finite recollections,
You always seem to stand,
Here and there, and everywhere;
Amorphous and crystalline,
Opaque and transparent,
Infinite but also full of irony.
Who are you?
Are You I am that I am?
Is it really You, O Lord?

A Mystic in our Midst

A new book on Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Kolkata) is just out. Who would have thought that a person of faith like Mother Teresa would experience such spiritual vacuum or absence of God from her day-to-day life? She seemed to have gone through a long part of life feeling distanced by God. And yet the experience is not uncommon among people who seek union with God. St. John of the Cross described such feeling as “dark night of the soul.” St. Francis of Assisi went through periods of such spiritual turmoil. This feeling of being far from God usually comes later in the spiritual journey of an individual. I can not say why it is so.
I can offer a crude analogy to this experience. The earth is an integral part of our existence. And yet, none really feels its movement. From the passing time of the day and changing season, we know it is moving ceaselessly. May be that when one achieves a higher degree of union with God one feels less and less of Him. Possible? I am neither a mystic nor an expert in mysticism. These are only random thoughts of mine. However, for those who would like to read the articles written about this aspect of Mother Teresa’s faith based on the new book, links are provided.

Two Birds

Two birds flying side by side,
And love becomes the wind.

Two birds flying side by side,
The sky is the storm,
The time, the violent clouds.

Two birds flying side by side
In a sky vacated, at times, by
The silent absence of wind.
And, God becomes the wind
Beneath their wings.

In the Garden of Eden

I have often wondered at how God is presented as an angry God in the Book of Genesis. I can not fathom why he was so angry with Adam and Eve. He is, after all, an omniscient God; therefore, He must have foreseen Adam and Eve committing the first sin of the creation. So, when that which He already knew would happen finally happened, why was God so angry? He could have either prevented it or started all over again. In fact, He is known to have brought down death and destruction over the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sinful way of living. He is also known to have brought on a flood that covered the earth for days to cleanse the earth by wiping out its sinful inhabitants. He knew the sin of Adam and Eve would perpetuate and affect the whole humanity. So He could have simply shortened their days and create anew. No, He did not do that, and instead, He cursed them and expelled them from the Garden of Eden. This story baffles me. It contradicts our idea of Him as a good and compassionate God.
When I read of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, I simply try to imagine a softer story line. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is what I generally do whenever I read the story of creation in the Book of Genesis. We believe that God is omniscient, knowing the past, present and what is to come in the future. He always knew that no matter what He did, man would always commit sin. Therefore, He did not see any use in starting a new creation. Realizing that, He let them leave the Garden of Eden. And the young couple set forth to explore new frontiers. Also, I would like to imagine that God, being compassionate, told them He would always be with them, through thick and thin, till the end of time. When I think of God, I like to think of Him as the father in the story of the prodigal son.

A Poor Carpenter? Think Again

Christians of every stripe and color say that Jesus was a poor carpenter from Nazareth. And He Himself testified to that by saying, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” But available evidences do not really support the notion of a poor Jesus. Following is an excerpt from a long list of His deeds.

Mark 8
2 I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with Me three days and have nothing to eat.
3 And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.
4 Then His disciples asked Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?”
5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.”
6 And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.
7 And they had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them before them.
8 So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.
9 Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away.

Mathew 17
24 And when they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your Teacher not pay the tax?”
25 He said, “Yes.” And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their own sons or from strangers?”
26 Peter said to Him, “from strangers.” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.”
27 “Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.”

John 2
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.
3 And when they ran out of wine, mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”
4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.”
6 Now there set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.
9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom.
10 And he said to him, “Everyman at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guest have well drunk, then that which is inferior; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
In addition, the number of people He healed were just too many to write about. He was also known to bring dead people back to life occasionally.
Pretty impressive, eh?!
These are what He did on a day to day basis when he was here on earth. Certainly, a Man with that power can not be considered poor in any sense of the word.

Love and revenge

Love is the best form of revenge.

For those who disagree

Once I saw on PBS an interview of a very prominent and respected American evangelist by David Frost. It was a long time ago. But I still remember that part of the interview where the preacher was asked if he ever committed adultery. He said no. Now, the Bible defines adultery in a very broad sense. So, I assume, the preacher being a man of God would also instinctively define adultery in the same scope and range as the biblical definition. It is hard for a healthy natural man not to have entertained sexual thoughts even if it lasted a brief moment. Therefore, under the biblical definition, most of us mortals would definitely have committed at least one act of adultery (a conservative estimate) before the week ends. Therefore, modern man tries to console himself with such saying as “One can not prevent a bird from flying over one’s head, but one can certainly prevent it from making its nest on one’s head.” I heard this saying from someone wise and it made a lot of sense. Also, it gave me a tremendous sense of relief. However, to temper the biblical definition with practical logic is meant only for common man. But a man of God has to meet a much higher standard in his observance of the words of God. So, I began to wonder if God grants a certain grace of chastity to certain people so that they are free from the sin of adultery. And if he does, is it mentioned somewhere in the Bible? So, I did some research and this is what I found. Here, our Lord is discussing with His disciples.

Mathew 19 (NKJV)
9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not marry.”
11 But He said to them, “All can not accept this saying but only those to whom it has been given.”
12 For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it. Catholic saints and mystics were able to maintain chastity. It is true all of them faced temptation of the flesh at one time or another. Even St. Francis of Assisi himself was known to have fought against such temptations. But all of them triumphed over the flesh. On their own, they might have succeeded for first time, second time or third time, but eventually desires of the flesh will get the better of them. Here again, I quote our Lord Himself, “All can not accept this saying but only those to whom it has been given.” So, it is actually grace of God which encourages these men and women mystics and saints to reject such temptations and fight and triumph over them.

When I think of God’s grace and being filled with it, I think of St. Mary. After all, she was the one who carried Him for nine months in her womb, nursed Him, bathed Him, changed His diapers, sang lullaby to Him. She was there with Him at birth and she was there at the foot of the Cross at death. He lived with her all His life. Therefore, who on earth would be more filled with grace of God if not Mary? Honestly, I can not think of anyone. If Mother Teresa was preserved in her virginity by the grace of God, how much more wouldn’t our Lord do for His own mother? That is why I believe St. Mary was virgin all her life.