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.