Lordly Hand of Love!

I read Dr Luke’s story of “Ten Men with Leprosy” (Luke 17:11-19), subtitle of the Contemporary English Version, as a straightforward “parable”, a word that the translators of this version consistently avoided to appear less “religious elites”. I love parables. And have always enjoyed the “parables” from Middle Eastern terrains including the many fascinating parables of Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese American.

Parables, like poetry, have an inbuilt logic that without straining my brain can gently penetrate into my heart lifting layers of that “inbuilt counter logic” to convince me of the greater truth. Parables, like great poems, are enablers to feel the applied wisdom, a part and parcel of any “aha, aha” moment.

The parable in question is a straightforward healing of a “multi-cultural” group of men, whom the New Revised Standard Version of the Christian Bible calls “lepers”, a politically incorrect word, which also suggests the safe distance!

I have always been fascinated by the fact of men and women who usually cling together in their own racial, linguistic or ethnic groups, nevertheless come and stay together, like children playing, when there is a need that is deeper than race and ethnicity. That deeper need is the only time these men and women feel very comfortable with one another. At which, these men and women long for a shortening of that safe distance, which usually only the stronger men and women desire after.

I have seen that in men and women in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in the early eighties and nineties, dodging the liberation the younger Tamil men and women were introducing with their AK 47’s! The older folks, at that moment, could only see things in caste colour, except when they had to run into bunkers to take cover from the Sinhalese bombs! There was, I was informed in Jaffna by a younger woman of low caste, another instant when caste was transcended. And that was when it was dark, and the focus was what concerned below ones waist!

The moment that “need” is rectified they seem to be going back to their racial, ethnic, or caste groups. This is what I see in Luke’s story of the ten men, Jews and Samaritans, with leprosy.

Kahlil Gibran, the people’s philosopher, whose parables and poems provide insights to life, in his poem titled “Love”, distinguishes the stronger and the weaker self that co-exist in every personality. Coming together of persons in his poem happens in a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-racial nation, only when there is deeper human need such as physical thirst and hunger or it can happen only when the self is strengthened by directions from, and dictated by, unselfish love. The distancing takes place when the basic need is removed, or when the self of persons in a nation deteriorates. Beyond the basic needs of air, water, food, security, and sexuality it is only love that can close up the distance between the souls of a community and the larger country.

Gibran’s poem in its entirety is as follows:

"They say the jackal and the mole

Drink from the selfsame stream

Where the lion comes to drink.

And they say the eagle and the vulture

Dig their beaks into the same carcass,

And are at peace, one with the other,

In the presence of the dead thing.

O love, whose lordly hand

Has bridled my desires,

And raised my hunger and my thirst

To dignity and pride,

Let not the strong in me and the constant

Eat the bread or drink the wine

That tempt my weaker self.

Let me rather starve,

And let my heart parch with thirst,

And let me die and perish,

Ere I stretch my hand

To a cup you did not fill,

Or a bowl you did not bless."

From Kahlil Gibran, Forerunner: His Parables and Poems, 1920. P. 8

Increase My God Consciousness

God to be God, God has to be more than just aware of our presence. Hence those immersed in God tell us that God knows us very intimately.

This is the basic message of the Bible too, from which we learn that God knows the exact number of hair on our head: “And even the hairs of your head are all counted” (Matthew 10:30). Elsewhere in the Bible we learn God has counted every bone that has been used to knit us together (Psalm 139:13-15). In that same place we learn that God also has all our days with all the happenings in his book (Psalm 139:16). In short, according to Isaiah the prophet, God has inscribed us on his palms (Isaiah 49:16).

All this is said to make me less anxious and worrisome about my present and the future. Hence I am encouraged not to be afraid. And I am reminded that I am of “more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31).

The Bible is clear about God’s knowledge of all happenings, including that which happens to an insignificant sparrow. The Contemporary English Version of the Bible poetically proclaims, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But your Father knows when any one of them falls to the ground (Matthew 10:29).

These are said that I may put aside all anxiety by trusting in the providence of God. As my worry decrease my trust in God will grow. I trust in God not only for receiving my physical nourishment but also for the receiving of my spiritual guidance that I may have the right perspectives to see within and around me!

Even in adverse circumstances, the Bible encourages me to trust in the providence of God. Bible does not say there will be no adverse circumstances to live through. My faith in God, I know for sure, does not remove such “thorns” and put me on the “bed of roses”. But even when I “walk through the valley of death”, now I am learning, that I need not fear, or drown in anxiety.

Hagar, Abraham’s maidservant, the Egyptian slave, or the Egyptian princess according to the Islamic sources, did walk through, the “valley of death”. In that story Hagar after walking in the desert and she had run out of water was afraid that her little son Ishmael would die of thirst. She was utterly powerless to provide for her helpless son. Hence “Hagar put her son under a bush. Then she sat down a long way off, because she could not bear to watch him die. And she cried bitterly (Genesis 21:15f)”.

That story, however, has a happy ending! God heard her cries, or heard Ishmael’s cries and provided her with a “well” from where she drew water for her son and continued the journey. Muslims believe that the well in Mecca near the sacred Mosque of Kaba is that well from which Hagar drew water for her son Ishmael and it is still known as Zam Zam well. That well, we are informed, never dries!

As the intensity of my suffering increases, I learn from the story above, God’s nearness and providence too will increase. And this happens almost always in subtle ways that I often fail to recognize the nearness and providence that saves me.

I, like many others today, look for substantial and tangible evidence for God’s nearness and providence before I could establish trust in God. There are two very tangible boxes in my home that provide for me very quickly and mould me by dictating details! Here I refer to the television and the refrigerator that largely decrease my sense of dependence on God! These two provide me with tangible and substantial providence!

But God does not do that way! God’s ways are almost always subtle. God let Hagar see the well (Genesis 21:19). To see God enabling me to see I must increase my God consciousness. Deepak Chopra, one of the best selling authors on matters regarding spirituality and wellness, makes the same point when argues that this knowledge comes only by a “serious, diligent seeking – by opening a path to God-consciousness” (The Third Jesus, 2008, p. 76). For it is only through that God consciousness I see that nearness and providence of God.

I need to take time to reflect on my journey and the events on that path to be able to capture the nearness and providence of God in my life! Without that time and inclination to think I will miss the presence of God and his angels! So I pray to God daily: Help me to increase my God-consciousness, enabling me to multiply in my self that diligent seeking of your ways in my life.

Living in the Presence of the Unseen is Life!

There are many stories, both ancient and modern, reminding me that I am created, liberated, and guided continuously towards one single end of “living in the presence of the unseen”, enjoying the splendour of the unseen light and life. These lessons are an affirmation that all around me, and deep within me is a living and an exuberant presence that some conveniently call, God. In these poems I run into a strange “absence of death” in a world of decay.

Many men and women have told me that in Jesus of Nazareth they have found “the life” that cannot be bound by the chains of “death and darkness”. And that life, Jesus, cannot be found among the “dead”, or in “empty spaces”, but rather ought to be discovered among the “living people”.

Angels too announce, repeatedly, that Jesus should not be sought in empty tombs. But Jesus goes, continuously, ahead of me “to Galilee” (Matthew 28:7). Galilee in that ancient text is a symbol of “busy human life”. Matthew, that old tax collector, is very explicit in recording this. Matthew’s point is, if the women and men want to see the “life that cannot be bound by the chains of death and darkness” then they must go to Galilee, the cosmopolitan city, and a place of bubbling human activity (Matthew 28:7).

From Matthew I learn, to encounter the “Living Christ, the Ultimate, the Beyond”, I must go to villages, towns, and cities where men, women, and children are struggling in pain. It is there I will find that life and that life in abundance. Then, my business now, is to remind myself to go out there without seeking an ivory tower!

In Matthew’s story of a new and an authentic abundant life he reveals, brilliantly, both what I possess and what I lack! In that, miles and miles away from that scene Matthew depicts, in a province of black gold, an affluent North American county, I share a similar mental state with those two Palestinian women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (Matthew 28:1) of different colour, class, and creed!

So, what did these two women have, and failed to have? They had plenty of anxiety. “Who will roll away the stone for us”. These two women were also fretting and sweating the small stuff. They “bought spices, so that they might anoint him” (Mark 16:1) – the dead Jesus. They had plenty of fear. And what did these two women lack? They lacked hope!

They lacked hope because they were ignorant! They were ignorant because they failed to hear “when the word was spoken”! They failed to hear because they did not listen! These two women did not listen, on the first instance, when they were told “the life that gives life, or the light that enlightens every heart” must “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31) before it gives “life that cannot be bound by the chains of death and darkness”! The same was repeated several times. Mark records this in 9:31 and 10:33 also.

Men and women, then, didn’t listen! People – both the writer and the readers today too – don’t listen! Or, to be very precise, people listen very selectively. Luke, Mark’s colleague, actually reveals the selective listening of these women when he says: “Remember how he told you he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:6f).

People, including my self, do not see, and do not hear. Or, if they hear, or see, they see and hear selectively, and certainly not “the events and activities” of the Unseen; seeing the unseen! That is the fundamental cause for my “anxiety and fear”!

However, I am not in a hopeless situation! Neither were those women. There is always an angel, sometimes a spiritual director, to bring, once again, that reminder. This was in the case of those two women, very early at the tomb looking for the living among the dead! It is not different to me. I too have another, and another, and yet another opportunity while I keep looking for the “living” among the dead “rituals of religions and deteriorating structures of the ecclesia”! But, if I keep rejecting the reminders it will be only to my own peril.

Seeing the unseen is a skill that I must, then, cultivate. Culturing that in my mind is what I call spirituality that is spontaneous like a great rain that rains to wash all muck away. But the unseen always manifests in what I, in pain, see in pain and struggling of the very ordinary men and women. And when my heart puts great effort to be in solidarity with those in pain then, I am spiritual, and I see the unseen, the purpose of my being here and now.

Stop Racism!

Have you ever heard yourself saying, “these dogs …”, or “this bitch”, to those whom you do not like, or tolerate? I have heard my self, saying that several times! It looks like Jesus too was trapped in such emotional display that a Canaanite woman once challenged.

Christian scriptures have recorded one of Jesus’ encounters with a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28). Here is a woman who does not belong to the caste, class, or creed of Jesus, or his disciples. Jesus was a Jew. This woman was a Canaanite. Jews of Jesus’ time, I learn from my readings, frequently looked down on the Canaanites and considered them as dogs! So, naturally when the Canaanite woman approached Jesus for some favor – here she wants Jesus to heal her daughter (Matthew 15:22) - Jesus spontaneously tells her that it is wrong “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26). It is too obvious that Jesus considered his people, the Jews as children and the Canaanites as dogs!

Jesus went further to justify his “gut level feelings” with sophisticated theological arguments. He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). Jesus covers his own prejudices by implicating God, and God’s “sent-ness”. Neat argument! Isn’t it? Now, who comes to back Jesus? His own followers! They say: “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Matthew 15:23). Here, I notice, that their support to Jesus comes even before he makes a request from them.

Jews of Jesus’ time was a very exclusive, insulated community. They built strong walls of separation from other communities. Jesus and his disciples belonged to this exclusive community.

I am quite aware of those who would argue that Jesus was not an exclusivist but evolved a program to break this exclusivist attitude among his contemporaries. Yes, there is supportive materiel in the Gospel for this particular stance.

My point however is, this specific incident reveals the spirit of exclusivist attitude that this woman challenged and Jesus gives in by adopting a more inclusive spirit towards this foreign, alien, strange woman. At the end Jesus commends her “spirit of inclusivism”. Hence, Jesus said: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (Matthew 15:28)

I wonder if Jesus were to look at the present attitudes of bulk of the Canadian Christians towards people who are not their “caste, color, class, or creed”, will he discern and identify this inclusive spirit and say: “Great is your Christianity”, or “Great is your spirituality”, or “Great is your religion”? Do contemporary Canadian Christians through their thoughts, words and deeds promote passionately an inclusive, global, one world community that transcends color, caste, class, and creed? These are, I know, very difficult and sometimes very embarrassing questions. But they are exceedingly essential to establish faith and incredibly crucial to all faith communities.

The table that most practicing Christians walk to on a Sunday morning – I refer here to the Eucharistic table – is an inclusive table. And it demands similar attitude in the participants of that banquet the Lord of the Church has prepared.

I believe if we increase the spirit of inclusivism in the church community and the wider community and become more accepting towards people who are not our color, caste, class, or creed, the world we live in will have less conflicts and wars. Do you think I am very naïve in advocating a more inclusive world in order to stop conflicts and wars?

The Psalm 133, one of the shortest psalms, a poem, points to a beautiful vision of an “inclusive community”. It does not tell us how to establish this. But gives a taste; it inspires. A piece of poem like Psalm 133 tries to move, or persuade human emotions towards the vision that it carries within. But with those emotions, I believe, we must pull our will together to realize that vision here and now in our lives!

In the Bible I discover that our love for God and our love for humans are one and the same. In rejecting one you reject the other! When I look down on a black or a brown man or a native woman I am looking down on God. When I name him with that “derogatory” name “Negro” I am rejecting God who created him in his image.

Life in abundance for Jacob’s children who were divided depended very much on their coming together. The graphic reminder of this truth we are able to read and reflect in the story recorded in Genesis 45.

We will, I strongly believe, either live together, or die together! The future choice of the world is not between those living an abundant life and those living a life of scarcity! No! Either we all live a life of abundance and peace, or all live a life of scarcity and war with all its consequences!

Paul, a Jew, after his conversion to God, on his part, have always argued that in God’s vision both the Jews and the Gentiles are included, no matter even if they have done very badly. (For examples I read Romans 11:1-2, Galatians 3:28 and other passages!) All people in the world are “people of God”, with no distinction of color, caste, class, or creed.

God’s world is inclusive. Heaven and hell are all inclusive. The Lord’s Table is inclusive. And I am invited to build within me an inclusive mind, heart and will that eventually will pave way to an inclusive community, community where racism is only a past history and a Canada that sternly stops both overt and covert racisms.

Walking to the Beat of a Distant Drum

Paul wrote: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds …” (Romans 12:3). Paul’s dual concern expressed in this quote – “not be conformed” and “be transformed”, continue to fascinate me. “Transformed Non-conformist” is the title Martin Luther King, the slain American Black Leader, gave for the sermon he preached on Romans 12:2 in the 1960’s!

Martin Luther King, in that sermon, said: “We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul saving music of eternity?” (Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love, Fortress Press, 1981, p. 29.)

The two midwives mentioned in the beginning of the Book of Exodus (Chapter 1), Shiphrah and Puah provide, for me, examples of non-conformity. They refused to march to the music of the King of Egypt. The two women by choosing “non-conformity” as their life style perhaps missed much awards and accolades and actually risked imprisonment and possibly death from the powerful Pharaoh. Many today may think this as imprudence and utter foolishness, a kind of psychological and social maladjustment!

Elsewhere in the Christian scriptures, I read, Jesus patting Peter for his “not conforming” to the views of the people of his time! There was this question: “how do you see this Jesus, the Son of the carpenter Joseph and his wife Mary?” From the text I learn some of the popular views suggested that people considered Jesus was “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and one of the prophets”! But Peter did not walk to that beat when he confessed Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. (Cf. Matthew 16:14-16)

I believe there is definitely a need today for “holy disobedience”, as during the time of Shiphrah, Puah, Peter, and Paul. I need to stop being “a parrot” that repeats the easy popular slogans and conforms to dominant creedal and cultural mould in imitating its values in preference to those values of God’s Rule! During the time of Shiprah and Puah they had the Pharaoh to disobey; for Peter and Paul they had the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman secular authorities to disobey! Don’t I have in my own times the need to disobey the “Multinational Corporations”, the “Mass Media”, and all other paraphernalia that supports these structures. These, I see, as the present day Emperors and the High Priests, promising personal progress and prosperity, distorting our humanity and dictating our living style.

I cannot be a non-conformist if I am not willing to let go the faith and religion of “profit” and “progress” that ignores the humanity of the masses! This would mean I should make the right choice. Shiprah and Puah had to choose between “obeying the King’s command” on one hand and “God’s command” on the other! These women chose in favour of God’s rule! I can’t please both God and the Mammon! I cannot compromise!

For me as a Minister under God’s rule, to become a non-conformist in the Pauline sense, I must choose between “actively serving and dining with those in the center” and be rewarded by the powers on one hand and on the other, “committed to those in the margin” and being marginalized even by the institutional Church! For me as a preacher of the Gospel my non-conformist stance provokes me to challenge the traditional wisdom that I may become a partner with God in making all things new.

Likewise, each one of us will have to find our little corner and the manner in which we are going to be a “non-conformist”. It is then you and I will “shine” for Jesus but you in your small corner and I in mine! For Jesus is the non-conformist par excellence. Without that “maladjustment” to the world “opposed to godly values” you and I can’t be Jesus people, “authentic Christians”.

I am aware that Buddha before Jesus and Muhammad after Jesus also presented this, very same, call of “non-conformity” and “maladjustment” to the ever present “rat race” to their respective followers!

That “maladjustment” to the world in Pauline sense is an important component to that “well adjustment” to the authentic life, the Kingdom of God! The poem titled “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” by that American non-conformist poetess Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) provides me further inspiration for the path of “no-conformity”. She said:
“Much madness is divinest
To a discerning eye,
Much sense, the starkest madness.
It is the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you’re straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain”

Non-conformity is a costly way, a way of the cross and crucifixion! And non-conformity is not possible unless I am transformed within. Or, I may put it this way: “non-conformity” without “transformation of the inner self” is irrelevant to the Gospel cause that comes to tame my “ego” and will have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God! I will not adjust to “non-conformity” in the authentic sense until I am transformed inside my soul! In a sense, transformation of the soul and not conforming to the world go together. They are like the two sides of the same coin. When I do one the other follows; and when I refuse one the other I consciously reject!

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” is a call that comes to all. But only a few will respond. For the path of Jesus is not the path the majority chooses, it is the way for remnants, the little flock – not for masses, not for religious experts, but simple minded disciples of Jesus! Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:14). For the majority in the Church always chose “conformity” so much so the Church with her leadership always appears fully conformed to the world! But I, member of this little “flock” can be different, and should be different!

Scattered Petals!

I stop. I turn around and look the path I have walked, the life I have lived. This passage had been for six years today. Do I want to rest awhile? Is it time for the Sabbath? I am not sure! What would be my trail in the future? I do not know yet! But what follows are thoughts, some of my tools, with which I carved my last six years! This rosary of thoughts that I call scattered petals are prayers I uttered, sometimes clearly, and at other times only muttered in the cave of my heart even as I drifted like a failed rain cloud. These petals I now offer in honor of my father Isaac and my brother John.

1

For what you put in many plateful
You take out only one or two handful
That resulting from an unchangeable rule!

16.08.2002

2

Did I, desert those truly peaceful rock pigeons
For watching gulls, pretentious prairie doves!

16.08.2002

3

You take from this world nothing
But what you are
This you also take
To your eternity

19.09.2002

4

Let me be both
Gentle as breeze and hard as rock
With my daughter
Lest she ends up
As a slave of someone

19.09.2002

5

I saw my father in the mirror
Eyes gone deep inside
And face wrinkled

20.09.2002

6

I am glad God isn’t a mother
Running towards me
To lift me and feel me
Every time I’m hurt

23.09.2002

7

To crave for the Crucified Christ
Goes together with being
Critical of the Civilized Christianity

14.10.2002

8

Respect is the greatest gift
That I may give to
Or receive from someone

14.12.2002

9

My thoughts are the tools
That makes me a person
Or a scum of no worth

14.12.2002

10

Not by giving in
But by giving up
I grow

14.12.2002

11

I went not only to bury Evelyn’s frame
But also to prevent
Her personality being buried together

24.01.2003

12

Three that are most beautiful
And only three you take to eternity
Humility, simplicity, and beauty

25.01.2003

13

Like the little dragonfly let me move swiftly
Like her let me also sit on deep waters
Still and with inner serenity

30.01.2003

14

Your tongue in your flowers
And your speech in my thoughts
Is, your speaking to me
Help me listen

30.01.2003

15

Underneath my minute consciousness
I hear the rolling and roaring of your ocean
Keep me ever in this awareness

30.01.2003

16

Many are your miracles
That you bring into being
Create one more in my eye
That I may see the many

30.01.2003

17

As aura of aspen in autumn
Let my being always broaden
Goodness and peace

30.01.2003

18

When mind is trapped in dreams of littleness
The soul deep within invites
To glimpse the vastness within
To release self from self-imposed prison

30.01.2003

19

Only those who give love and unselfishness
Receive love and unselfishness
By giving you receive
But to receive you cannot give

30.01.2003

20

Exhibitionism in spirituality
Is, indeed, a contradiction
But not a living witness to faith

30.01.2003

21

I went on speaking
The politically incorrect language and idiom
In that the wise deciphered poetry
Calling me a poet and a prophet

07.02.2003

22

This expansive enormous creation
Its purpose I perceive not
Its mystery I shall solve not
Its owner I will encounter not
Its beauty I will sing with exultation
Its violence I protest with great vehemence

03.03.2003

23

Parading piety is for Pharisees
Not crucified their ego
Perching on, and preaching from every pulpit

03.03.2003

24

Power of powerlessness is not for Pharisees
Not crucified their ego
But practicing pomp and prominence

Henry Victor 03.03.2003

25

Let me never be inactive
But let my active activity
Be marked with my soul’s inactivity

03.03.2003

26

Shrimp waved antennae
Saying thumps up for swift shark
Unperturbed by praise

19.04.2003

27

Shrimp protested
Swift shark disturbing that calm
The big fish ignored

19.04.2003

28

Defeating is my natural inclination
Vehemently avoiding victory of being defeated

19.04.2003

29

Two that I desire most: One that I walk to my grave
Two, I make this stride without my self

17.05.2003

30

Accomplishment comes from
Taking that single most risk
Than waiting to grab that luck when crossing my path

17.05.2003

31

Time I have for that risky task
Wisdom I need to perform the work
Lest I see not friends at fireside

17.05.2003

32

I detect and discern
My authentic self in that my no self
Like that seed whose true being is its death

17.05.2003

33

I have learnt through some struggle
To find God’s stimulating presence
In the sure and certain divine absence

17.05.2003

34

Those that spend excess time at the beach
Rolling on sand and making sandcastles
Will never appreciate diving in deep sea

17.05.2003

35

When beetles defend themselves
It is terrorism
When elephants walk to defeat
It is battle for freedom!

21.06.2003

36

Affairs of the world deeply troubles me
So are my own

21.06.2003

37

I proposed to work an extra ten years
After my retirement
Only to be disposed ten years early

21.06.2003

38

Desire to dominate
Is not same as
Serving the Servant Lord

22.06.2003

39

Joke the joke! But not make life a joke
Lest the others choke your hour, day, and week
Until your years choke, and you die

19.07.2003

40

I’m listening to the chattering and chirping
Of sparrows whose genus I neither know
Nor my own intentions

22.07.2003

41

Three I received from my father
And three I pass on to my daughter:
With secrets practice restrain
In sweating curtail energy
And in posting never trust another

02.08.2003

42

Am I surprised that I’m scared of my own honesty
That brings more pain and suffering, and at last
To my own death on the cross, my own construction

02.08.2003

43

Events are designs that the unseen artist sketches
That I may ponder in my heart the secret intentions of the artist
But never am I permitted to publicly interpret
Or proclaim the meaning of artistic events

02.08.2003

44

It is indeed an unjust race
Even if the most just judge judges
If race is between an elephant and a tortoise

06.08.2003

45

In my neighborhood
The smaller ones on smaller bikes
Never catch up with bigger ones on bigger bikes

06.08.2003

46

My home is the university
I teach, research, and publish
With no book releases, promotions, or increments

16.08.2003

47

Greatest achievers are those who have learnt the art
Of discarding, omitting, ignoring, and leaving behind more
With much joy and no regrets

16.08.2003

48

Cougar trait I trail
Strong, resilient individual
That I want to be

19.08.2003

49

What has happened is the best
That can happen; better, therefore, to accept
Rather than rage in revolt

Henry Victor 06.09.2003

50

When the flower was not visible
It was not that it was not there
But the bud was hibernating

06.09.2003

51

Lord of the Worlds may delay but will never deny
You the blessing; for those who perceive
Delay is nothing but a blessing

06.09.2003

52

I waited not with patience
But faded not the supreme patience!

06.09.2003

53

Seed met with patience and the leaf evolved
Leaf exposed to patience and the flower arrived
Flower copulated with patience birthing a fruit
Fruit made life to prolong piping for patience

09.09.2003

54

Beauty that stimulates subterranean joy within my being
I sought it in women, and Satan, my lust, got released
Beauty that stimulates bliss deep within my soul
I sought it in shoe-flowers, and Song, my muse, was let loose

09.09.2003

55

A road that was not closed I cherished much
That I may reach home like mother bird to feed nestlings
But now a road that is never open is that I desire
That I may never leave home

09.09.2003

56

Put on the garment of patient placidness
And the coat of love that let goes
For your strong and swifter movement

20.09.2003

57

My neighbour’s poplar and poplar’s neighbour
Both teach a lesson I never let my heart learn:
‘To grow, I must let go’

17.10.2003

58

In middle of autumn the mountain ash
Has let go all her lush, much of her load
Only to shine with bright red light!

17.10.2003

59

Trash pits are gold mines I dig for wisdom
Gold that never corrodes nor thieves steal
Revealing self and core of my community

11.11.2003

60

Much printed materiel is re-cycled
Without being read in the first place

11.11.2003

61

Much of spoken word is heard
Not for its intrinsic worth
But for its entertainment value

11.11.2003

62

Bulls listen
Only to a bull with a bell
And I have seen this again and again!

11.11.2003

63

Turkey, chicken, cow, sheep, pig, and many
Dwell deep within my bosom
Determining values for my now and eternity

11.11.2003

64

I am much bigger than I see
And I am much smaller than I conceive

11.03.2004

65

As a priest, I realize
I need not know much theology
Nor learn too much liturgy
But, politics I must sing!

11.03.2004

66

What my father achieved in harder way
I like to achieve in the easier way!

11.03.2004

67

Spirituality, my Christian friend thinks, is:
Sharing the pain of a dead
Ignoring the pain of the living!

11.03.2004

68

Life is stronger than death
When death is embraced with open arms

16.03.2004

69

Those who embrace death
With open arms, never die

16.03.2004

70

As I embrace, with open arms
My daughter and wife
I embrace insecurity and death in life

19.03.2004

71

Mutter and mutter, and call it a sermon?
Nothing but a clutter of empty words
To litter the world of serene silence!

20.03.2004

72

I, for sure, saw your grace
And sat down to draw that face
But my lines, a flaw in your space!

29.03.2004

73

Laugh, and laugh louder
But let not that laugh create disorder
To the already chaotic order!

15.09.2004

74

Woe unto me if those around me feel
What they sense, say, and act must have my approval
Better that a millstone is tied around my neck
And I am dropped in waters oceanic!

04.12.2005

75

Doing what you can do
And doing with joy what you do
Leads to a life of sanity, that life eternal

27.03.2006

76

Serving, and serving with joy
Serving with a wanting to serve
Transforms my self from a slave to a Master!

28.03.2006

77

Faith is that venture to create a meaning
In an otherwise world of meaninglessness
In that creating I create also a Creator to anchor my faith!

28.03.2006

78

Hope rooted not in a lofty dream
But in well informed wakefulness
That blooms to become real

17.04.2007

79

Drunkenness, I have seen
Many times, walking into wilderness
In roads less traveled

06.05.2007

80

Human nature, I have seen in plenty
In the communities of Canadian geese, loud
With quarrels and battles for space

06.05.2007

81

Human potentials, I have seen in abundance
Among the flocks of Canadian geese in flight, unison in speed
As they battle the common threat of a cold winter

06.05.2007

82

Watched pot never boils!
But conscious breathing
Brings baskets full of blessings!

14.05.2007

83

Death is the destiny I see
For the mighty river rolling into the ocean
Repeating the deathless cycle

25.05.2007

84

To hit back the Siamese fighter
Aches with enormous ache
But is trapped in his destiny

25.05.2007

85

Early, at dawn, in my garden
Many colorful flowers bloomed
Only to be scorched by the noon sun

25.05.2007

86

Morning after morning, very early
Flowers in my garden embraced the dew
The night had offered them, but only to let go!

07.07.2007

87

Days have arrived when dentures smile
Knowing not this, smile not
To be transformed into a growling ass!

07.07.2007

88

Gusting wind outside
Bird sits on tips of branches
To risk I expose

21.04.2008

Henry Victor 14.08.2008

Practicing the Presence!

I read the story of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, a story of three generations put in a nutshell (Genesis 37). It is a story of perils and success of “migration” into a new land. The land of Canaan was not so friendly towards Isaac, Jacob’s father. And Jacob worked very hard to get the land to somewhat respond to his needs in a more welcoming way, while he sent his roots deep into the soil that he had taken as the land which the Lord has given for him and his descendants. But the third generation, Jacob’s children, have their conflicts, and pain. The reasons for those conflicts may be partly due to Jacob’s folly of favouritism and partly due to the envy of Joseph’s brothers.

One thing I learn from this story is that wherever humans are, the disagreements and conflicting purposes are bound to be there. They are very real. And I need not pretend as if they are not there and everything else is going very smoothly.

Then I go to another story; a story Matthew record poetically in his gospel (Matthew 14:22-33). Here I see more of other human characteristics. It is a unique story of “Jesus walking on the water”. Jesus was quite at ease in walking over the water, perhaps like a Pheasant tailed Jacana, a water bird, or as some of the water bugs walking very swiftly on water without getting wet by water, or drowning into the water. Probably it is that that prompted those who discovered that lizard which walks on the water to be named as Jesus lizard!

In that story when Jesus summoned Peter to walk on the water, he walked initially but began to drown when Peter got “lost in him-self”!

I very consciously use that phrase-“lost in him-self”! Rather he should have got “lost in the Master” who summoned him to walk. In fact in most mystical religious traditions the goal of human life is the “human soul” becoming part and parcel of that greater soul, God. I, instead of becoming part and parcel of me, must get merged into God like a raindrop becoming part of the ocean, or as a river that returns to the ocean, its own beginning!

Peter, in that mystical lesson, was not quite at ease like Jesus while walking on water. Peter started sinking when his vision was turned from the Master to the storm! I realize that I must note this subtle lesson of the sacred scriptures in fixing my focus on the Master something that Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph naturally practiced throughout their life of turbulence. Focusing my vision on God enhances my “ease” to walk in this world, which is not just “a bed of roses”, but also full of thorns!

I recognize that it will be possible for me to say boldly, like the psalmist, “even though I walk through the valley of death I fear no evil”, when I can also say: “for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4); God with me!

This, I realize, comes not merely from a cognitive or intellectual knowing but a stronger feeling of the presence of God that has to become part and parcel of my life in this increasing mechanized and consumer world. I should somehow recapture this “invisible aspect” in my life. It is this that kept Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph alive and bold in a hostile land in which they were immigrants!

I am, personally, also as a somewhat newer immigrant to Canada, this so-called “land of opportunity”, beginning to realize the value and truth of this. In fact, throughout the history of the Christendom “practicing the presence” of God was one of very fundamental spiritual exercises. It is very easy for me to slip into becoming part of a “religious community” that is not constantly conscious of this “presence of God”. And when this happens I, as a member of the religious community will loose the power and boldness that I see in the early Church of the Acts of the Apostles.

The psalmist’s injunction, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually” (Psalm 105:4), is then a reminder to me. I may have to continually keep reading that phrase: “seek God’s presence continually”. When I consciously and continuously practice the presence of God a moment would come when I will “feel and realize” that there is no escape from this presence. Elsewhere, the psalmist says: “You (referring to God) hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). Or a little later in the same Psalm, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7).

However, I must remember that this “presence”, or feeling the “presence” is not to manipulate God, or to practice magic to enhance my ever-expanding “greedy needs”. Sacred Scriptures has no space for this. Instead Jesus, my Master, spoke of the cross! Presence for suffering, and suffering for others sake! In all this “the presence of God” takes me out of “my self”! “Unless the corn dies” is the metaphor popular with Jesus.

When Peter was sinking he called upon Jesus to save him, literally, prevent him from drowning. And Jesus gave his hand immediately and caught him! Paul, about whom I have mixed feelings, once said: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). But just two verses above he wrote: “No one who believes in him will be put to shame” (Romans 10:11). I know that Paul was firmly grounded on this truth. He knew that “God” Jesus revealed, “God” who was in Christ Jesus, is “God” totally dependable. And in this “God” there is no distinction of “colour, class, or creed”; this, for me, is something that is not only relevant but also very, very urgent. So Paul that man from Tarsus wrote: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him” (Romans 10:12).

I clearly note the phrase “no distinction” and the word “all” repeated several times in that verse. Someone once said: “God is colour blind”. To this I may add: “God is authentically ultra liberal”.

With this Paul also reminds me of my mission, the purpose of my life in this world. Paul actually raises a series of serious questions to those who call themselves Christians, including my self: “But how are they (now this “they” refers to the people in the world I live) to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? …” (Romans 10”14).

The presence of God is not for me, alone, to take comfort for my self and enjoy. It is for me to share. It is for me to proclaim with my words and more with my deeds. But in that, for sure, there is no space for coaxing or proselytizing! It is then, and perhaps then only, the presence of God becomes really “alive” in this world, and becomes relevant to my thought and living. I believe that the spirit of God is also in me, persuading me to believe in the presence of God, calling me and inspiring me to perform heroic acts of compassion and transform this world with hatred, competitions, and conflicts into that heaven, the footstool of God.

Relevant Faith

Why am I preoccupied with “faith”? For I have felt intensely and explored intentionally this “faith” for over four decades now!

Faiths, not just Christian but also other faiths, point to a presence of the transcendence, the unseen and invisible person, power, or energy, that most people call God, and persuade from humans an increased sense of accountability. It is this that is the concern of Christians around the world as they regularly join public worship and enter into private personal praying.

Faith, then, is that which emerges from my awareness of that which is bigger, greater, and worthier than my puny self. Faith, then, should make me to see my self with another perspective – not that is self-centred.

Extending kindness and compassion to the other, particularly the frail ones – children, the senior, those of lesser affluence, and those with special needs – caring for the world that is in some sense is so fragile, and sharing of the resources of much are non-renewable, are some of the outcome when “faith” is the preoccupation.

As such, concern for “faith” is likely to improve both our individual and communal life. But preoccupation with “faith” has led to the opposite as well. Then we call that “distorted faith”, “irrelevant faith” that needs to be discarded.

Saved to Serve

My “goodness” and “greatness”, I am now convinced, are purely related to, and dependent only on the “services I render” in my neighbourhood. If so, the economic abundance – the type of car I drive, the size and location of the house I live, the stuff I pile up in my abode – or a superior social status, or even higher educational qualifications that I am inclined to do not determine, or add up to my authentic stature, or to my real greatness. They do not in any way increase my goodness. Hence, I do not need to be crazily craving for all these. All what I have to be concerned in my day-to-day living is “my little acts of good works”. This is the ‘basics’ of faith. It is the only purpose of spirituality. All the fundamentals of religion are contained in that “little acts of good works”. All the rest are lee and scum of religious faiths and secular philosophies!

Those trained in a little Christian theology, I know, may object to my saying these words! Are we not saved only by “Grace and through Faith alone”? Are you preaching a Gospel of “Good Works”, they may query? God’s Grace alone saves us, they may warn me!

To them, I would say, “Sure”! But what I want to affirm here is that “we are saved, and we are being saved, only to serve”. God saves us that we may work his good and great works to those around us!

The Book of Proverbs 31:10-31, twenty-two verses, is an acrostic poem on “good works” of a woman, through which she earns the title of “a good and a model wife”. I know it is unfortunate that we do not have a similar poem on “a good and a model husband” to complement this! Without getting into an argument about the “andro-centrism” of the Hebrew Scriptures, I note, the heroine in that passage becomes good and great only by her diligent caring for her family. She becomes the ideal only by her eager sharing of her energies for the welfare of her husband and children – her immediate neighbourhood!

Conscientious care for those in my neighbourhood, and eagerly sharing – lovingly sharing – what I have and enthusiastically giving my self is that call I receive from that ever silent, odourless, invisible “More” – that some call God, others call Nirvana, some others call Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, etc. – that is always present!

That was the essence of the message Jesus of Nazareth taught! He even dramatized the same message of diligent care and eager sharing to his disciples, who, like me, were inclined to becoming great and good in the worldly sense of addition and accumulation! To them Jesus said you become first and great by becoming last and through serving – the word Jesus offered them is servant, serving as a servant! (Cf. Mark 9:35)

Jesus once took a little child, in Mark 9:30-37, and said: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mark 9:37). The point here is my diligent care for and an eager sharing with one of the least in my neighborhood. This, then, is that which will drive me towards “goodness and greatness”!

James, the writer of the little book in the Greek Scriptures, (which some may consider as one of the actual brothers of Jesus), like his friends who did not understand this at the beginning, appreciated the importance of diligent care for and keen sharing with those around him as the Wisdom. He therefore wrote in his letter, “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness” – your works with gentleness because you are doing to the least among you – “willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:13b and 17).

Hence, I – giving it a title “Work the Faith” – say to myself:
You have been set free

To set others free

Faith is not

A spectator sport

Learn a simple truth

Share it

Discover your gift

And release it

Hook up

On a project

Not as the boss

But as a partner

Give your ear

Not your tongue

To talk her story

Look for opportunities

And meet the needs

Others passed

By the other side

Let Go the Colt!

Mark narrates (Mark 11:1-11) the story of Jesus’ “bold entry” into Jerusalem with poetic brevity. The phrase “as it was already late”, part of the last verse, is likely to create a sense of urgency – no space for lethargy, no time for procrastinating! And Jesus moves forward. The disciples are with him in that journey. There were others, willing to “let go”, or “offer” what belonged to them for the sake of Jesus’ mission culminating in “sacrificing of the self”, a final overcoming of the ego!

If every single Christian takes time to read this little story and allow it to echo in their heart, will they then sense the urgency to walk with Jesus? Where will this walk take them? Are the Christians today ready, for sake of Jesus, to offer their “colt” that they jealously guard? What is that “colt” in their “heart”, in their “wallet”, that they must now “let go” for the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, the Missio Dei, the Mission of God – very different from the mission of the Christendom, particularly of the western world – to continue in God’s World?

Fundamentals of Faith

Dr S. Radhakrishnan, the late philosopher president of India once said, “Christians are ordinary people making extra-ordinary claims”. He said this when he found the professed claims of Christians were not matching their life style.

Christians, sure, are humans! And they have all the human weaknesses. But yet the world demands “a validation” from those, enthusiastically and very regularly, “professing faith”. For that is the way the world ratifies the truth of a faith.

This expectation is not a mere “worldly” one; it is also a “godly” demand. Hence, Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)

One of the first things that we may want to note is that the “Word” and “Commandment” in John’s Gospel are synonymous words. Hence, “keep my word” equals “keep my commandment”.

And if we probe a little more, even the word “love” belongs to the same category. In other words, to keep the word, or his commandment, is same as to “love”. So Christians regularly pray: “Pour into our hearts such love…” And Christians are expected to repeat this until that “love” happens. It is then a useful exercise to keep repeating, day and night, the phrase “pour into our hearts love that we may in turn love”. So as God pours this love into my feeble heart “I keep his word”, or “keep his commandment”.

Or, those who regularly walk to the “Lord’s Table”, to the altar for Holy Communion, may repeat the same prayer with modified words: “May we who receive this sacrament always be strengthened to do your will”.

Second, in the writings of John “faith” is very simple. It is to love. Likewise to do God’s will is to love; to keep the words of the Lord of the Worlds is to love; to obey the commands of God is, again, to love. It is those who love have faith. When there is faith there is love.

When I love - I may not speak of faith. But still I have faith. Love that which lives and dies for the other, for sake of the other is that which marks a life of a Christian. This is precisely what Jesus offered the world at the cross. It is this love that I receive as I gather, with others, around the Lords Table.

John confirms the same elsewhere: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1 John 4:16b) Or, in the same chapter, John said: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who love is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)

Perhaps, not strangely, the opposite is also true. “Whoever does not love does not know God.” (1 John 4:8) Still further down in the same chapter John has some very hard stuff. He said: “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)

From this I learn that the only way to love and serve the eternal, unseen God, is to love and serve the mortal brother and sister whom I see in my every day life; now the brother and sister, as we all know, refers to every single human with no discrimination of color, race, or creed!

Earlier, I said, to have “faith” is simple. Because all that means is “to love”. Intellectually, it is a simple truth. But in reality, as we may very well know, it is the most difficult task. And perhaps that is why Christians as frail as they are fail to live up to their faith.

A reason for the failure to “love” is “forgetfulness”. At the beginning of the day, or on Sunday, at the beginning of the week, I say to myself I will worship and serve God by my love for my neighbour. But when I really encounter my neighbour, I see my neighbour not only as a threat to my interest but also as one who pricks my bloated ego. And I forget that love in my heart and replace with hate.

But I am not left alone to struggle without any support from above. The Gospel, the Christian Scriptures, speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to “remind” (John 14:25) me of the need to love! Interesting aspect in this “support” from above is my actual doing love. When I “do love” then I “receive” this “support” from above. Love is given from above to those who love, not to accumulate but to spend. So it is not magical. Neither is it something that I do with my own strength. And therefore I cannot take credit for my loving. I love because I am loved first, and I am given to love.

It is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes me and enables me to love, but that grace and power is experienced and realized only in my effort to love. They are both intricately connected. That is receiving love from above and spending my love are both inter-connected.

The love in the New Testament is not an expression of love from the “left-over” of my self-love. It is, as I said earlier, a love for the sake of the other; a love in which the other takes precedence to my own self. It is a love where the needs of the other is put before ones own need. It is, therefore, a costly love.

“For God so loved the world…” is the beginning of my faith. The “eternal city of love and light”, is the goal of my feeble and fragile faith. And this city has “riches beyond imagination” for those, and for only those, who love, and live this earthly life by loving!

Gibranian Spirituality

Gibranian “spirituality” is a concept not unconnected to “morality”, a very practical aspect of day-to-day human life. Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) is a “reformer” and a “people’s philosopher” – very different from, and perhaps, opposed to the philosophy of the philosophers (often in their ivory towers). What Gibran said and advocated is moral philosophy. Ghougassian, a Gibran scholar, was of the opinion that Gibran through his writings and paintings attempted to reform “the social woes caused by injustice, ineffective traditions, and the unnatural laws that hurt the innate laws of human nature”. (Joseph P. Ghougassian, Kahlil Gibran: Wings of Thought – The People’s Philosopher, New York: Philosophical Library, 1973.)

For Ghougassian these are the chief concerns that Gibran expressed in his Spirits Rebellious. This was translated into English by H.M. Nahmad, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948; London: Heineman, 1949). The basic message of this book is put through four stories – “Madame Rose Hanie”, “The Cry of Graves”, “Khalil the Heretic”, and “The Bridal Couch”. These stories inform that the laws of the Church and the State are human made, and at present, these social laws are much decayed.

Elsewhere Gibran wrote about this social decay, dirt and deterioration thus: “If you wish to take a look at the decayed teeth of Syria, visit its schools where the sons and daughters of today are preparing to become the men and women of tomorrow.”

“Visit the courts and witness that acts of the crooked and corrupted purveyors of justice. See how they play with the thoughts and minds of the simple people as a cat plays with a mouse.”

“Visit the homes of the rich where conceit, falsehood, and hypocrisy reign. But don’t neglect to go through the huts of the poor as well, where dwell fear, ignorance and cowardice.”

“Then visit the nimble-fingered dentists, [metaphorically the leaders], possessors of delicate instruments, dental plasters and tranquilizers, who spend their days filling the cavities in the rotten teeth of the nation to mask the decay.” (Quoted from “Decayed Teeth” of Kahlil Gibran, Thoughts and Meditations, translated by Anthony R. Ferris, New York: The Citadel Press, 1960).

And Gibran poetically proclaimed that these laws of the Church and State prevent growth, “the individual to develop a self-identity”. For according to Kahlil Gibran, there can be no spiritual wellness, or health, and the human spirit will not be free if these areas of our society are not renewed and made to serve the needs of humans.

For Gibran, to be closer to God necessarily amounts to be closer to people. And he saw that religious and political leadership with all its structural paraphernalia of his time was far removed from the people and their concerns. And he perceived these institutions, both religious and political, as self-serving, prompting in him a rebellion against the leadership and revolting against the institutions, including his Maronite Catholic Church.

As for Gibran’s followers, according to Ghougassian, Gibran is a prophet, like the prophets of the Hebrew tradition, playing the “same effective social role in educating the minds in spirituality”. And Gibran’s writings on social woes are similar to that of the Hebrew poetic literature. For Gibran, like William Blake, was very much influenced by the Bible. And his spirituality was pragmatic and firmly rooted in compassion towards the more “feeble” segment of the society, whom Jesus called the anāwim, the needy ones, demanding more equity.

Gibran’s Spirits Rebellious, according to some of the early biographers, whom Ghougassian used in his study, was burnt in Beirut by the then ruling Turkish Government, and Gibran was exiled. The Maronite Church too joined the state in punishing Gibran by her own excommunication. Later biographers, however, do not seem to find evidence for this inhuman acts of the Church and State!

Gibran saw in those organizations of his time, which he was critiquing, a sense of hypocrisy, shallowness, lack of love and forgiveness, leading, to a dearth of freedom for the human spirit. He believed human spirit was endowed with a forward thrust and toward the infinite. And Gibran saw how these self-serving institutions were enslaving the human spirit from leaping towards limitless expanse of life.

At the end what I hope to communicate is that Gibran despite his rebellion, particularly against his own Maronite Church, remained an intensely spiritual person promoting, joyously, spiritual values. In fact, Gibran himself said that he was deeply spiritual though we do not see him as a practising Christian, refusing even a Christian burial at the end.

As for Gibran a person who is spiritual “does not embrace a religion” and one who embraces a religion really “has no religion”, meaning is not spiritual. In this sense Gibran is a mystic who had no inclination for any “formulated” or organized religion. He was inclined towards an intrinsic spirituality that is often described as “esoteric” religion, different from, if not opposed to “exoteric” religion. Gibran had no space for any extrinsic religion in his psyche. Gibran believed that “the extrinsic religion”, like that of any organized church, including his own Maronite Church, “promotes racial and ethnic bigotry, religious prejudice” leading the followers not only towards a religious competition but also “to discrimination, segregation and denials” of other beliefs and practices.

Ghougassian is not wrong in considering Gibran’s condemnatory stance of the religion too harsh. But what Gibran condemned was only the forms of “extrinsic” religions while upholding and even promoting intrinsic religion even when it came from beyond the Christian boundary. However, the Maronite Church that condemned Gibran was harsher and irrational in her dismissal without considering carefully Gibran’s thought on the “intrinsic” nature of religion.

In a letter to his cousin Nakhli Gibran, Kahlil Gibran wrote: “The people in Syria are calling me heretic, and the intelligentsia in Egypt vilifies me, saying, ‘He is the enemy of just laws, of family ties, and of old traditions.’ Those writers are telling the truth, because I do not love man-made laws and I abhor the traditions that our ancestors left us. This hatred is the fruit of my love for the sacred and spiritual kindness, which should be the source of every law upon the earth, for kindness is the shadow of God in man. I know that the principles upon which I base my writings are echoes of the majority of the people of the world, because the tendency toward a spiritual independence is to our life as the heart to the body.”

Gibranism, I maintain, that in spite of its anti-institutionalism, including anti-clericalism, still carries with it a sensible and a relevant spirituality to induce renewal. And this renewal is essential for the continuing safety and health of human life. Hence, Gibranism proclaimed through parables – prosaic and poetic - despite its ambiguity deserves a closer examination.

[More on this subject could be found in Henry Victor, “Scarecrow Spirituality: Exploring Gibranianism”, Religious Studies and Theology, Volume 24, Number 2, (2005), pp. 59-80.]

Pondering my Path!

I am in the latter part of my middle age! I realize I have the inclination to do what I did in the latter part of my teen – walking and wandering in the wilderness.

My walking trail, this morning, as I had been doing since the beginning of this summer, is the east of Cummings Lake in Fairview, Alberta. On the west of the lake is the well-driven road to Hines Creek and beyond into the Beautiful British Columbia. My work takes me frequently on that road. My leisure, however, directs me in the opposite.

This morning, as usual, again I secretly hoped I would encounter a black bear to make my day. Perhaps my hope was not strong enough that to happen. If it were, I would have carried my Canon PC 1130!

My preference to the backcountry has always remained steady. Now perhaps it is at the peak. This is perhaps strengthened by my sexual dysfunction, probably created by my diabetes with that additional catalyst, my inclination to becoming a hermit, at least in heart!

Not that I have acquired all the intellectual skills and physical muscles to promote my preference. I have tried in the past to learn more of natural life, exploring bird life, animal life, and wild flowers. I have also equipped myself with expensive books, telephoto lens and binoculars and so on. None of these have enabled me to see a black bear in this region.

But I did see this morning, for the first time, a newly born fawn, perhaps, born early this morning or last night. She was beautiful with her spots. The doe that looked very well fed left the fawn and started moving towards better security from an intruder. And the young one appeared confused and perhaps wondered why the mother in this desert has deserted her.

I am, I realize, is not in 60’s of the last century. On those days I would have walked towards that new beauty to make her my own no matter whether there was a road, or not! Since I will soon be 60, I decided to leave the fawn to find her mother and the doe to fend for her fawn while I retraced my path to my computer that is ready to listen to my adventure with hope for nothing.

My Journey to Emmaus!

“Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens” says John Dominic Crossan, a contemporary New Testament scholar of great repute! I too have made that journey! No. To be exact, I have not made that journey. I am in that journey right now.

In that journey Jesus often comes as a stranger. He, then, nudges me to take him as a fellow traveller, walking with me, listening to all my questions, feeling my fears and anxieties. Gradually, and sometimes suddenly, he turns into a kind of a wandering rabbi, a guru, teaching the obvious and dispelling that darkness. By the time it is late evening and the journey not over, I almost always consider him as a good friend to invite him into my tent.

Jesus, that wanderer, is a unique personality! He, whom I invite as my guest, ends up being my host. And the aura around him as he breaks the bread and passes the cup always unsettles me making me to want him more. But then he disappears leaving me unable to close my eyes for a very, very long time in the night.

The images of Jesus in my mind are never static. They keep changing. Sometime I look at him as a great hero mighty in word and deed before both God and human. Him as a Crucified Prophet is one that is foremost in my mind. He, of course is a puzzling mystery who appears and disappears. But when I exchange notes with his earlier disciples Peter, Cleopas, Mary Magdalene and other disciples in Jerusalem, Jesus becomes a resurrected Lord in my heart!

I am learning, now, to change my notion of Jesus, as I continue to travel Emmaus, then, is not wrong. I walk, I go through changing scenes of life, I encounter new events, I meet with new people, I read, I talk, I debate, I hear new accents, I sing new songs, I eat new food, and I am transformed both in my thoughts about Jesus and my life with him and in him. And that is the way God of the Holy Spirit, or the risen Christ, works within me. I realize, for sure, I must without any hesitation remain open to such transformation!

Spirituality, I am gathering, is a journey. Spirituality is a long walk. It is not a “one shot performance”, either in the Sunday school, or Confirmation Class, or reading a single book on spirituality, or reading all the books of a single author, or attending a conference or a single seminary training. It is a continuous Emmaus journey! I learn; I re-learn like Cleopas and his friend. I am re-trained in my discipleship to Christ, the risen Lord!

And in that journey, I am convinced, I must leave a little space for a companion to walk with me and talk with me! And that companion may, as I grow in my spirit, become an “angel” or “Jesus”!

That journey, I am learning, is training for me, where my mind and heart gets cultured in “hospitality”. This hospitality enhances my “seeing and perceiving” the “risen Christ reality” around me, present in a concentrated manner in that which I long to dismiss as “others” and “strangers”. This hospitality includes my careful listening to the outsider demanding that I put away from my faith and culture concepts and words such as “stranger” and “outsider”. Without that renunciation I cannot retain and rejoice within my circle that “risen Christ reality”!

This hospitality presupposes humility to listen. In this hospitality I am not the one, like that padre, provides the answer. I raise my questions and wait for the answers; I am willing to be corrected! In this I do not ask questions to prove my point. I ask questions. And I am open to the answers, even when it comes from a stranger.

This hospitality does not try to control my guest; in this I getting used to letting my guest controlling, if necessary, switching roles; putting me completely vulnerable in the hand of the stranger! There is “vulnerability” in being open to a “stranger”! With God, I know, I must be prepared to “loose my control”!

In this journey I am learning to enjoy such “incredible events” to take control of me and the rest of my life. I let it guide my next move, or my continuing journey! I have no plans. In fact, I have dropped all my plans of work, rest and relaxation in Emmaus. And if I return to Jerusalem I return only to exchange notes with those who are on the journey.

And that journey is impossible without that hospitality, which interferes with my comfort zone! Yes, it is a kind of hospitality that calls for a letting go of my self, my ego, my plan, my hidden agendas; it is a kind of hospitality that expects from me to cease micromanaging others; it is a kind of hospitality that readily and spontaneously switches roles; it is a kind of hospitality that is dictated and directed by the “risen Christ reality”; it is a kind of hospitality that prays, truly, “may your will be done”.

Prioritizing the Poor!

Giving priority to the poor and their concerns within the Church, at least, is as old as Christian religion. The Greek Scriptures, the New Testament, which contains the life and teachings of Jesus, portrays him as an advocate of the poor and the marginal people. Jesus’ manifesto, a quote from Isaiah that he proclaimed at the beginning of his roughly three years of ministry puts into a nutshell his concern and commitment to the poor. This reads: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”. (Luke 4:18f) Later, summarizing the life of Jesus Peter said: “… God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him”. (Acts 10:38)

Jesus’ “going about doing good”, serving the oppressed, marginal poor and the sick become the model for the life style of the early Christian community. At least this is how the later Christians perceived it. A prayer that is used in most Churches in Canada – Roman, Episcopal, and Lutheran Churches – reads: “The earliest Christian community held all things in common, and no one was in need. May we recommit ourselves to hold the goods of this world in common and to work to eliminate hunger and homelessness. For this let us pray to the Lord.” (Gail Ramshaw, Editor, Intercessions for the Christian People: Prayers of the People for Cycles A, B, and C of the Roman, Episcopal, and Lutheran Lectionaries, Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1990. p. 103.)

In this we see a link between the professed faith of the contemporary church in Canada and her perceived vision of the early church, connected by this “concern and mission” to alleviate, if not eradicate “hunger and homelessness”.

The church of the Acts of the Apostles, in order to increase the effectiveness of their services to the widows and orphans, the early Christians even institutionalized that most important aspect of Christian faith by establishing “diakonia”, serving or service, particularly, “to care for orphans and widows in their distress”, along with their already established kerygma, the proclamation of the Gospel, and koinonia, the fellowship of the Christian believers. If kerygma and koinonia were fundamental, then diakonia too was. That is how the early Christians saw the spirit and structure of the newly emerging movement. For these people God is the Lord “who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who love the strangers, providing them with food and clothing”. (Deuteronomy 10:18)

Following the teachings and the living example of Jesus and deriving inspiration from the early Christian community, Christians now can learn from a long list of great champions and movements worked towards the cause of the poor and the marginal people.

Bishop Remi De Roo commending similar faith commitments to the Canadian Christians, in eighties wrote: “Concern for the poor and action on their behalf have remained the criteria for authentic Christianity throughout the ages.” (Remi De Roo, Cries of Victims-Voice of God, Ottawa/Toronto: Novalis in association with James Lorimer & Company, 1986, p. 68). And for him this “authentic Christianity” includes, among many other, the religious faith of St Ambrose (339-397), St John Chrysostom (349-407), St Augustine (354-430), and St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153).

St Ambrose, Bishop De Roo says, always taught his people “that when the rich give alms they are only returning the property they have stolen from the poor.” And for St Bernard of Clairvaux the only way the rich can enter heaven is by befriending the poor. We may also note that many of these champions of the poor also got into the bad books of their rich parishioners. And De Roo reminds us how St John Chrysostom was accused for continuously attacking the rich.

And we know even during our time Oscar Romero and many others have paid with their lives for taking up the cause of the poor in the name of their Christian faith. Such radical views of Christian caring of the poor are all part of the Christian heritage! Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and Jean Vanieer are only a few among the many that we may cite as examples for this radical Christianity from whose life and commitment we may receive greater inspiration for this concern. And what we need to note, now, is that this concern for the small and the oppressed was always kept alive throughout the Christian history.

From this discussion we learn that Christian concern for the poor, the oppressed and marginalized is in no way an innovative concern, or as some of the critiques of Christian social activism consider, it is not a newly politicized Christian faith. But rather that Christian faith demands Christians take issues of poverty, development, justice, and so on as fundamental to their faith concern.

Recognizing the increased consciousness of “justice and peace”, and writing in the eighties about the church of the future, Walbert Bühlmann said: “Christians have to learn that the option for justice, for development, for disarmament, is not the same thing as ‘going in for politics’, but an essential part of evangelization”. (Walbert Bühlmann, The Church of the Future: A Model for the Year 2001, Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1986. p. 108.) Christians, therefore, have begun to move beyond that unproductive, divisive dichotomy of the “spiritual gospel” versus the “social gospel” and to see that “humanization” of the poor and marginalized as the “total evangelization”.

With Eyes of the Poor!

There is some discomfort in my heart with much that happens in the contemporary Church with regard to the poor and the nations that are yet to develop. I see a lot of irrelevance in the way we go about. If our concern for the poor has to become relevant there should be a shift towards the perspectives of the poor. “Justice” not “charity” that should be the priority. C.S. Song, a prominent Asian Theologian once said, “compassion that does not oppose injustice is not true compassion; it becomes an accomplice of unjust power” (C.S. Song, Theology from the Womb of Asia, London: SCM Press, 1988. p.156).

Christian concern for the poor must enhance the self-worth of the poor by working towards justice. Feeding, clothing, housing, teaching, counselling, training, loving, and so on that fills our Christian activism must transform the “doer” to accept the recipients of our doing as humans and equals.

The “doing” in our Christian concern for poor must decrease “dependency” and increase “self-reliance”. Christian activism must move towards finding more “permanent” solution, addressing the cause of poverty instead the symptom by constantly challenging false answers, overcoming prejudices, and eventually moving towards one community – no rich, no poor.

And this requires, first, a vision of the reality of the poor through the eyes of the poor. Therefore, Virgil Elizondo and Leonardo Boff, two prominent Latin American Liberation theologians, calling this as the Church’s preferential option for the poor, wrote: “When we enter the continent of the poor and try to think through their eyes and from their social position, we discover their strength, their resistance, their courage and their creativity. It then becomes clear that the society within which they live and suffer and from which they are marginalized has to be fundamentally transformed. From the position of the poor the urgency of liberation is beyond doubt.” (This and other quotes below are taken from their “‘Editorial: theology From The Viewpoint Of The Poor’” in Concilium – Option For The Poor: Challenge To The Rich Countries, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd, 1986.)

Second, they argued, in preferential option for the poor, we take up the cause of the poor. For Elizondo and Boff: “The cause of the poor is the cause of life and means of life such as work, bread, clothing, housing and basic education. The cause of the poor is a new society in which the vital questions which concern all citizens without distinction are given priority, in which relations of collaboration and equity prevail over exploitation and domination.”

Thirdly, Elizondo and Boff affirmed that in preferential option for the poor we take up the struggle of the poor. They wrote: “It is the oppressed who bring about liberation. They become aware of their dignity, organize their action, form links with other groups, which, like them, want a different society. The churches should join this struggle, make their specific contribution as religious bodies, reinforce the power of the poor to enable them to press for changes and participate in their implementation.”

Fourthly, they believed that option for the poor means taking up the life of the poor, as they wrote: “The option for the poor is not authentic unless we participate, at least a little, in the life and suffering of the poor…Support for the struggles of the poor frequently means suffering misunderstanding, persecution and even moral and physical injury.”

Fifthly, for Elizondo and Boff, preferential option for the poor, involves an identification of the mechanisms, which produce poverty. “The poverty of the poor is a result of a combination of causes, and first the international capitalist system and the relations of dependence and oppression it establishes between the nations at the center of the system and those at the periphery…The benefits are, on the whole, accumulated by the countries which are already highly developed or by the social classes in the poor countries which exercise social control in association with the multi-national interests of capital. The sacrifices are borne by those who are already poor and exploited. Development and underdevelopment are linked by a causal connection which makes them two sides of the same coin…If the churches and the theologians do not develop a critical attitude towards the socio-economic system within which they live, they run the risk of becoming mere reformists, reproducing the system in slightly improved form, rather than allies of the poor, who are demanding a once-for-all replacement of the existing system by another which makes possible more equality and life for all.”

And finally, they see preferential option of the poor redefining the task of theology for them and others who are committed to the poor, the oppressed, and marginal people in the world. “A theology today which does not place at the center of its concern the poor, justice, freedom and liberation will have difficulty in refuting the accusation of alienation and even cynicism, and will in the end become totally irrelevant…Without the poor the church loses its Lord and theology its evangelical content.”

Catholic Latin American Liberation theologians generally accept Pope John XXIII as the source of this revolutionary concept. For Pope John XXIII even prior to the Vatican II viewed the Church to be “the Church of all, but principally the Church of the poor.” And it is also accepted Pope John Paul II keeps repeating and reaffirming the same when he says: “The option for the poor is my daily concern.”

Thus, we may note, the Christians committed to the concern for the poor and the marginal today have been moving towards a bias towards the poor accepting the broad conceptual leadership provided by the Roman Catholic Church. This is very clearly reflected in the prayer used by the Canadian Christians following the ecumenical lectionary. Hence one of the prayers set aside for fifth Sunday after Pentecost reads: “We thank you, O God, that you favour the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the homeless, and the hungry. Make your compassion contagious that the rich might share with the poor, the strong befriend the weak”. The pastoral stance for the option for the poor is actually a response to a theological realization that God favour’s the poor, an aspect that is a guiding thought to the liberation theologies that takes the cause of the poor with utmost seriousness.

However, those who used the phrase “option for the poor”, particularly the Latin American Liberation Theologians, were aware that this was no small concern but one that involves large shifting for the Church that was not poor and hitherto had the sympathies and appreciation of the rich. These theologians were aware that this phrase was not for a mere announcing to the poor: “God loves you by preference” and do nothing. But closely connected with the words of Jesus to the learned lawyer to whom Jesus related the Parable of the Good Samaritan and said: “Go and do likewise”. In this regard Berryman makes an obvious but important point recognizing in it a call for a “change of heart” for the non-poor, for it is only the non-poor who can opt for the poor.

From this we learn that the challenge before the Christian community in Canada is, as Alfred T. Hennelly, another Jesuit commentator of liberation theology from United States puts it, “not only to accept and embrace this preferential option, but above all to translate this theoretical commitment into a creative and effective action on behalf of the poor majority of humanity”.