Order and Meaning

Both by nature and training, I am inclined towards order. Others are often confounded by my leanings. This morning my colleagues at the CBSA office didn’t understand my point, or that eccentric excitement, when I saw a perfect pattern in the vapour bubbles formed inside the lid of the Starbuck coffee cup I brought to my work space.

I observe. I look for order. I see patterns and synchronicities all the time. Then I boldly, often, with fear and trembling, announce this order. Consequently I end as a witness, without becoming a religious fundamentalist or a philosophical absolutist, to a higher order that some dare to name as God. Naming as God is not my primary concern. But I like to recognize that there is in life always something more than my mind can readily grasp with the aid of my senses and educated rationality.

The basic religious instincts are sparked by the human requisite for order and meaning in life. All centuries old God-talk, hence, is hard-work to establish that combo of order-meaning. The desire to discern and discover order and meaning, in an otherwise chancy, chaotic and meaningless loitering, or a flowing, a flooding in human life, yields a variety of religious expressions.

Meaning, then, is only an inner aspect of that order. It is this preoccupation -- as some may consider it -- that eventually led to my evolving, both professionally and existentially into a religious person. But earlier when I was a teenager I fascinated myself with atheistic discourse. My role model was Abraham Kovoor, the then president of the Rationalist Association, promoted an absence of any transcendental meaning or order.

But today I have no religious models to imitate. My preference is a mystical merging into that self beyond the ego! I came to this movement from religious-social activism and after flirting in religious ritualism as a full-time parish priest for a short time in Canada.

Recently, with all that chaos on my family-front, when my soul was completely besieged by circumstances beyond my control, I have consciously explored the eastern concept of vanavāsam.

This notion of journeying through wilderness is to be found in the great epics Ramayanam and Maha Bharatham India has produced among many other. I think this is also found within other religious faiths. Some of these religions did not emerge from the Indian subcontinent. I see the concept and practice of vanavāsam also in Jesus’s faith and in the Native American spiritualities.

Vanavāsam is a process discussed in the epics to handle crisis in an individual’s life that is similar to that of Job, a non-Jewish character who had been included in the Hebrew Bible. Vanavāsam enables one to handle with patience -- that Qur’anic sabar -- the turbulence, or the rough time unexpectedly settling around a helpless self. Vanavāsam, gives you time and space, like Joseph’s prison in Egypt, or Muhammad’s Hijra, that fleeing to Madina, waiting for the opportune moment.

Vanavāsam can be compared to an unfolding of events, like a soft caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. The maggot, symbolically the struggling human, plods through countless hazards, covering self into a cocoon, transforming and pushing through a tiny opening to stretch as a bigger person. Such an evolution is usually very complex and carries within a miraculous element. With the commitment to vanavāsam, then, there is renewed calm and appreciation for the imminent order present always in all life and the greater meaning to develop.

Discernment and discovery of this already existing, that evolving order speeds my inner transformation. When pain is in excess, then, faith is vital. And faith is that ability to see the already surfacing order.

Therefore, the individual rooted in spirituality – the person striving to find order and meaning -- learns also the art of abandoning the need to fear abandonment. Religious persons can affirm, as does this Evangelical claim, “Even when people turn on us, friends forsake us, or circumstances separate us from loved ones, we are never alone.” This is a mystical, not mysterious, experience available to anyone who wants to look for greater order and meaning.

Yaris: Japanese Therapy!

I consider my drive to Dawson Creek and back to Ramada, my home away from home, one that was powerfully therapeutic. I did this during the long weekend that included the Good Friday to Easter Sunday. After the long drive I feel magically healed of all my Maundy Thursday’s sickness -- a piercing pain in my soul -- and feel the burden of the previous week suddenly lifted away like fog in the valley.

I also had another day to drive the Yaris, temporarily mine during the holiday season, around Vancouver, enjoying -- alone -- a South Indian lunch at Sarvanabhavan and, later, a North Indian supper in a Panjabi restaurant at Surrey. The latter meal was a generous hospitality of RB. That’s how Dr Ran Banda Herath, a Sinhalese Sri Lankan-Canadian, a civil engineer by profession, wants me to call him. He is my new loquacious friend. And Hemamala, his wife, is just the opposite. RB is very caring; readily he came to pick me when I dropped my rental car on Easter Monday evening.

I spent eight hours with RB, first in the Tim Horton’s at Maple Ridge, then the remaining in his car, his home, and the rest, in the restaurant. This was our first face to face meeting. But both forthrightly open to the other. We have known each other only through emails for almost a year now, mainly through a mutual friend, the late Dr Mohan Thiyagarajah, an agriculture specialist, whose request for my response to RB’s A New Beginning for Humankind – A Recipe for lasting Peace on Earth, the manuscript of his new book RB had been working on for some time now sparked of a new relationship. I know I am likely to be persuaded to a writing a foreword for RB’s effort.

But my major concern is peace within. This is a reference to my soul, that micro-cosmos! My Maundy Thursday tornado, then, was caused by my learning from Leroy Hiller, my lawyer, the arrival of a new moment, perhaps, the kairos. The moment to let Chandra take away, a large sum of my “hard earned money”, with all the “gold jewelry” that had great sentimental value and an irrational emotional attachment, and a “divorce” that enables her not to belong to me anymore – or, for me to belong to her no more. He was actually asking for my signatures on papers for these things to become legal. The first and the second requests were reasonably easy compared to the third: to agree to the divorce. It pricked on my soul as if it was like a pin prick on my naked eye-ball!

Thursday evening, frankly, I suffered much. I was absolutely alone. It was my Garden of Gethsemane. I wanted to get into my corner, cry my heart out loud, and let tears roll to wash my soul. It was then I was also planning to drop this trip to Dawson Creek. Leanne, my supervisor at work place and Gitanjali, my general manager, tried to persuade me not to drive alone. Inappropriateness of the timing with not so good road conditions was their main argument.

However, on Good Friday morning sharp at 6.00, I jumped into the rental car, a small Toyota Yaris, and drove for 17 hours and 17 minutes to Dawson Creek. This was a nonstop drive though I stopped in many places when stung, or electrocuted by the beauty of the terrain, including Lillooet, the little hydroelectric town, to enjoy the beautiful reservoir that I saw as a gorgeous yoni-linga temple, a perfect marital cooperation between humans and gods.

The gift for this hard work, for dashing in my Yaris, was more work; Gitanjali and Jay dropped off Justin with me in the Peace Villa Motel around midnight. This was in Dawson Creek that not so big city that I used to dislike while working in Northern Alberta three years ago. Here for the first time Justin rolled and had his first fall from a bed while I was fast asleep beside him! I was, of course, quick in waking.

Though tired, obviously, from driving, I still found plenty of energy to play with my energetic grandson, soon to be two years old, as early as 6.30 in the morning. We went to the motel office for breakfast where the 70-year-old Korean-Canadian, too, connected with Justin so easily and very well. He himself is a grandfather of two granddaughters as I learnt from him.

It was also a life transforming, a very humbling experience to meet and shake hands with Murray, Jay’s dad. This is the first time I shook hands with someone from Jay’s family. Oh, no! Tina, Jay’s older sister, I hugged her, after Chandra had deserted the nest.

Murray, I noticed, ticked well with Justin and Gitanjali, relieving me of a great anxiety and a burden. I also felt encouraged by Jay’s desire to hang out with his father. That made me to comfortably drive back towards Prince George, the northern capital of British Columbia, where I had already made friends with Sonya and Ho, another couple of Korean-Canadian who own the Rosebud Motel beside Highway 97.

My drive to Dawson Creek was through very high mountains covered with thick white powder and literally dozens of hairpin bends in Highway 99 where one had to often let horses and humans walk safely. It continued in Highway 97. On both I drove through avalanche areas and hills where rocks fall frequently. On the way I also stopped at seven places for deer to cross, two places for moose to pass, and at least once, for a herd of elks to walk. The next day when I was driving back I saw a dead deer in the middle of the road, hit, perhaps, after I passed the previous night.

Though most of my drive was free of other people, in certain, very dangerous and challenging places, I saw skiers sporting with the possible death that I am always dodging, particularly with a set of weak arteries to carry my blood around. There was cool and fresh air, however, for my heart and blood vessels to liberally enjoy.

There was a unique thing I noticed, almost, towards the end of the first day driving. This was, my radio blasting, loudly, English songs I used to shut down as noise as soon as my daughter switched it on! What brought that change in me? How did I manage to enjoy this music? This also involved Bob Marley’s freedom song and “Put your hand in the hand of the Man from Galilee”, written by Gene MacLellan and sung by "Ocean", a musical group consisting of the then young musicians from Prince Edward Island.

Also, I heard a story on CBC radio that gave me goose bumps, from Calgary, if I remember correct. A single mother there invited and shared her home with a homeless person. Her son, now 23 years old, considered her mother as one who always did the unusual things. Why not? Why not drive to Dawson Creek from Vancouver and get back to Pitt Meadows in less than three days, like the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, though all alone and before the arrival of the actual spring? The strength of her character made me tip, gently, my hat for this single-mother. I also tipped my hat to the homeless person who insisted on paying rent, though only $ 10.00 per week. This person lived on picking bottles for recycling and he described his job, humorously, a recycling agent.

I also admired, earlier, while at the Rosebud Motel, a couple of older men renting rooms in that motel and one man living in a trailer. There was another man walking around with his pair of binoculars and torn bird book, while another at McDonald’s in Pemberton walking with a huge camera but admiring my little Canon SX30. This man is a wildlife photographer, taking pictures of bears, including grizzlies.

I noticed these men were very independent and none of them exposed any trace of sorrow, or anxious fears in their faces. So did the men whom I saw at the Tim Horton’s in Quesnel. All these inspirations I picked up on my way, like Justin, my grandson, picking pebbles while picnicking, resurrected, on this Easter Sunday, that strength of my character, which was once very alive but now more or less dead. My determination to drive the Yaris to Dawson Creek removed those grave clothes wrapped around letting me walk into abundance.

Enough

I could have gone for work. But I didn’t. I have a very bad cold that also caused a significant loss of my voice, the main tool for my work. It was bad yesterday. But today it is a little better. Yet I thought I should stay back. This is my new way of saying “enough is enough” for unconstrained money making. Desire for limitless money is crazy leading, often, only to an “un-ordered chaotic life”. This want for more space, more money, and more fame is a sickening sickness, difficult to cure but very infectious, fast spreading, while no one cares about arresting it.

My everyday angels yesterday were Sina and Leanne. Sina, around noon, told me yesterday I should go home. Sina was also dragging me to come to lunch with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) crowd. Leanne, my supervisor, later said I should take leave today. Karry, too, was very affectionate and brought me her unused lunch to take for my supper! These young people from the CBSA wanted to give me more life, more love.

Gitanjali, my only daughter, too gave me a large chunk of life and love with her timely note on “Sorry”. She had difficulty in accepting that giving less love to me. That is the struggle that I saw in her letter. She is a wonderful daughter who wants to give me nothing less than “more love and much care”. I am grateful to that invisible Manager of this oikumene for sending these angels on the path of my everyday life. It is these angels that do not let me slip into sickness and to that greater disease of “meaninglessness”.

Two media write-ups that caught my attention during the last few days are those that inspire me for greater meaning through less craze for money and space. The first one was on “Minimalist living popularized by books, websites – Grassroots movement preaches living mindfully”. This appeared in The Vancouver Sun (April 5, 2011, page B11). This piece critiques “consumerism” by promoting “minimalism” as a concept and practice. Jay Baydala from Alberta’s booming Calgary, here, becomes a model for “purging excess stuff from your life and your home”. Jay Baydala is not a fool to think that all people are going to consider him the “coolest person” in Calgary or elsewhere. That in any case is not part of his purpose or focus on “simple living”! But he is aware that his tribe is on the increase in the North American surface.

The second one is actually what I read a few minutes ago (in the morning of April 8, 2011) as I switched on my computer. It was a Yahoo report: “Woman lives large in what may be New York’s smallest apartment” (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/woman-lives-large-may-york-smallest-apartment-20110407-115353-491.html). It is about Felice Cohen, a professional organizer -- I am not surprised a consumerist reacting to “minimalism” calls Cohen a “professional idiot” -- who lives in a small space in the large New York City. Mine, I realize, doesn’t have to be a 90 square foot house like Cohen’s. Yet I can stop in my heart that craving to increase my stature by increasing my space, or wanting that upgrading of my car.

My desire for, and thoughts on simpler living, did not suddenly fall from the sky on my lips or finger tips. I have been learning much of this stuff for a long time -- for almost forty years -- from others as well as my own experiences I often churn into poems. My poems “blocking with pride”, “lust for space kills”, “dance but touch not” and many other in my mongoose in chicken house & other poems (2010) and elsewhere, then, are my creedal affirmation on promoting a life beyond “affluence” that will not, I know for sure, influence the average crazy Joe chasing the “wind”, that nothingness.

Nonetheless, today I hum, in my heart, that poem titled, “simple pleasures”, I wrote almost two years ago. It reads:

“a strong cup of coffee

that plain black

with nothing added into it

a shorter story

to explore the collapse

of my strong youthful dreams

and a simple seat

to consume the free providence

of the strong morning sun

these are what I seek

these days in the dusk

of my crumbling life

that missed

those many birds in hand

with its focus on one in bush”

[http://isaachenryvictor.blogspot.com/]

Power of Positive Thinking

My mind this morning is fixed on two themes -- praise and friendship. The reading from the devotional booklet Daily Bread, put out by the conservative evangelical Christians in North America, speaks of the need to offer praises to God. The online devotional resource the Daily Word, on friendship subtitles its short lesson, “Thank you, God, for my friends”. The latter is from the unity movement, a kind of a new age, Christian syncretistic North American trend that helped me to overcome, a great deal, the 2010 tsunami of my life. I have these two themes to play with the whole day.

I used to think if God were to expect me to praise him, all morning, all afternoon, and all evening, he must be a silly and an egoistic God not worthy of my worship. I can’t remember the exact name of the philosopher from whom I learnt this thought! Nevertheless that attitude has been there with me, at least, to some degree! Since, I have certain Sufistic and mystical strands embedded in my religiosity I also practice “praise”, at least occasionally, to get lost in that little known “wide ocean” people call “God”. In the process I do, also, have an opportunity to consider the many “generosities”, “pleasant goodies”, I am surrounded with. This is how I am able to not only put up with but also appreciate my “Pentecostal friends” -- Danny, David, Yasmine, to name just three -- who also have contributed towards my healing since last March!

So, certainly, when I say, “thank you, God, for my friends”, I remember those Pentecostals, who also helped me to restore, rather continue maintain, my awareness of the transcendental dimension of human life and my sense of “calling to the ministry” by inviting me to regularly participate in their “acts of praise” and “preaching and teaching ministry”.

This has enabled me to look at the world and the act of praise in a new light that should satisfy also the secularists. The genuine and deeper friendships I enjoyed since the early 2010; that too from the least expected quarters. This is prompting me to put away extreme pessimism, replacing it with a new and a vibrant optimism that sees the unfolding life -- the destiny -- as nothing but generosity and maturity. All, at the end, works towards goodness. Hence, all what I can do is to continuously praise the creative energy, the being par excellence, the very source of my existence, the providence towards my unfolding, the birthplace of my becoming into an ever-changing, or an ever-growing bigger person, who puts away, gradually, like a tree dropping off its barks and leaves, the older selfish moments that made the older life.

Not that I hold one set of friends above the others. The others too have given me life, either equally, or even greater. The friends who challenge me -- here I am thinking of those who do not always agree with me -- too are generous and truly and genuinely friendly towards my soul. I have tons of them, including the following: Abraham, fairly a recent friend, but a difficult nut to crack, joined the earlier ones; others are, Brian, the poet, whose poetic style and intentions are so different to that of mine, Azeb, the strong Eritrean woman, and the American Todd with whom I have now not spoken for a long time.

None of these mean that I drift like a jelly fish -- a cowardly activity -- with no space for critical evaluation of events, moments, and persons. Focus on praise and friendship does involve, also, critical rejection, and serious dropping of the ticks that can suck your “God-given” life energy. That is the shedding of the barks I mentioned earlier.

However, my present state, away from my usual space, limits my interactions with my friends. But this also has given me some new acquaintances, from among which I have also discovered some good friends that make “praise” a relevant concept and practice, at least, for me. My many friendships and acts of praise, I must admit, at least, have given me the spark for the power of positive thought in my life as it unfolds in the present, in an unknown and a very painful moment.

“Your thoughts are tools by which you carve your life.”

Work in Progress

Joseph, my friend in Vancouver, sent me some old black and white pictures. They depict scenes in Sri Lanka when the country was known as Ceylon, the Paradise Island. These pictures are interesting, provoking a variety of emotions within me. But the scenes have now drastically changed.

I remember, in the late 50’s and the early 60’s, seeing hundreds of fishermen’s sailing boats in Trincomalee where my adolescent life and teen time were spent. People used to call these little boats with huge sails “pai kappal”, literally “mat ship”. In these boats as the fishermen reach the shores they will roll the sails as if rolling the mats early morning from their deep sleep! These boats are now replaced by bigger boats with smaller engines they, upon reaching shores, carry on their shoulders as if carrying pillows. Today, very rarely one might see a “pai kappal” around Trincomalle waters!

Becoming, a kind of changing, an unfolding of the new, an evolving, and a growing are part of not only a landscape -- nation’s history -- but also my everyday life. This is the very essence of life. “Yes, I know it; it is a fact that all know it. So, why bother?” A justifiable assertion!

The need to reflect on the fact of “unfolding”, for me then, is caused by awareness. It is my cognizance of the in-built, or the immanent, resistance to the continuous unfolding, or potential growth. Such fighting emerges from a kind of inclination to the ingrained comfort in the status quo within one’s soul. In Tamil proverbial tradition this is very succinctly announced: “puthu seruppu kadikkum”, meaning, “the new shoe bites”! Hence the reluctance to change!

I have seen this within my soul as well. But I have gone through tsunamic changes in my life. It is this that led to the sudden sharp learning curve -- a process of accommodating the unfolding -- that I went through since the last St Patrick’s day!

I am , I am aware, continually evolving, or becoming into a person I was not forty, thirty, twenty, ten years, or even a year ago. My values -- what I actually now let my eyes see, ears hear, feet walk towards, my hands reach for, my heart desire, or my mind imagine -- has been changed as I journey through new times.

I know, for certain, from the moment my life began, I have been evolving and growing. As an infant, through trial and error, I learned to crawl, walk and speak. In that I am not different to Justin, my grandson, whom I, even as I was recuperating from my open-heart surgery, watched to crawl in my bonus room, then walking in my moccasins and now running around the kitchen island expecting me to run behind to catch him! Earlier, Gitanjali, my only daughter, went through this “becoming” to eventually birthing Justin.

Today with another, almost, thirty years ahead of me, growing in harmony with that unfolding that continues in my soul is necessary for me. My feet yesterday cooperated well with my soul in discovering beauty along the backwaters of Harris road that went beyond the Old Dewdney road into the Osprey Loop! My mind, then, like the bald eagle I saw there in great numbers, took off flying along the Alouette River to the wilderness --jungles I walked as a teen, without a guide, exploring aimlessly, the birds and the nothingness.

Today each experience I encounter, each relationship I enter into, each insight intuitively or rationally I receive, offers me the opportunity to become stronger outwardly and grow in my inner self. I am delighted as I feel that my nerve endings are healing in my chest, left arm, and left leg that were surgically cut to repair my old sick heart. It gives me great peace to know that the one who began a good work in me continues with the same that I may grow and evolve to become the person I am meant to be. I am, in fact, a work in progress that becoming.