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.
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.
1 comment:
Wonderful introspection. .the essence of god is that.
I have done two works in talugu...the footsteps of Christ
And the great poems about Christ
In similar vein
Very good sir
Keep going
Lsr
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