Click ‘Refresh’

                        One day while sitting in a restaurant I saw one lady nearby using a Nokia 3310. Immediately my memories rushed back to my college days when I first started using a mobile phone – a borrowed 3310. The feel, the ease of using the keypad, the single buzz sound (for messaging while in class!), the tough look etc started flashing in my mind. Feeling nostalgic I went and bought an old Nokia 3310 (against the warnings of all my friends). It’s been 6 years since I used my favourite 3310 and I rushed back home to run my old buddy once again. I guess this phone might have been produced way back in 2000 and it showed all signs of old age. It blinked and coughed 2-3 times and then it died! Yes, that’s it. I was not able to use it even for an hour! As an MBA student I had done the worst investment in my life, but it taught me a great lesson – never try to relive your present with nostalgic feelings!

Some of us do the same mistake in our relationship with Jesus. We come into renewal or into the Jesus Youth movement through a powerful God experience. It may have occurred either while praying in a retreat/prayer meeting or while dealing a difficult situation in our life. We usually tend to associate this encounter with the personal image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever we are able to experience the same feeling we are happy and whenever we are not; we feel out of touch with God. Though normal and to an extent healthy (in the initial days of our growing relationship with Jesus); this “always seeking first encounter” attitude will prevent us from getting closer to him. Scripture says “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;” (Lamentations 3: 22-23).

Translated it means a new encounter every day. We get to know a new facet of the omnipotent and omnipresent Lord each new day. If we search for the same feeling every day we are limiting God. We are obstructing his amazing grace which flows to us in thousand different ways. It can be through the cool winter breeze (that refreshing feel?) or through the dry breeze (when we thirst for HIM?) or through that email from an old friend (when we feel wanted?) or through the unexpected smile of a stranger (got a new friend?) or after many failed attempts we finally stayed awake through that boring lecture (loving that boring professor or that tough subject?) or when we start praising lord in our sickness (THY will over our will?) or thanking Jesus for that tough situation (started kissing your cross?). This list is endless for you and me. Let’s start adding a new one every new day. 

P.S: Just now I experienced Jesus through the typed word - a reason good enough to keep me blogging :)

Some 'Fishy' Thoughts

                                      After nearly 15 years I decided to rekindle my old passion or hobby of having fish at home. Since an old tank was already available at house we only need to buy the fish and filter for it. We bought 2 big ones and 4 small ones. With great joy we cleaned up the old tank and installed everything in an hour’s time. We couldn’t control the excitement; we smiled n squealed like small school children :). My roommate - an avid lover of fish, also quoted a scientific study that states that watching fish will reduce our blood pressure – little did we know that our BP is going to increase in the coming days!

After one day we noticed that the big red fish is hitting and biting its pair. The bitten fish started hiding and whenever it tries to come out it will be chased back. Cutting the story short it died of bleeding and starvation in 2 days. It was a shock to know that such enmity and hatred exists even among fish! After few days, our close friend gave us his fish tank to look after when he goes out of town. It had beautiful golden fish gliding around silently and peacefully. Watching it was a serene experience. We tried to shift the small fish from our tank to avoid the “killer” fish. But the small ones also started the same biting behavior with the big silent golden fish forcing us to put it back. In short our tank became a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth (literally) and the friend’s tank became a place of joy and happiness. To finish it off yesterday we found that one of the small fish also killed its pair!

Whatever be the scientific or logical reasoning behind the behavior of our killer fish, it made me think about our homes. Aren’t some of us like that killer fish? Due to our stubbornness and hard heartedness didn’t we change our peaceful homes into hell? Didn’t we also transfer our hatred into other members of our family or maybe to our roommates in our hostel? We may appear very flashy and appealing to the people outside (we are supposed to be role models too!) but what happens in our personal life and our family will be quite the opposite. My mom used to tell me (usually after a quarrel) - “Let me see your coordinator; I will reveal your real face to JY!” I use to laugh at her but will feel guilty afterwards.  I used to be an altar boy from childhood and a Jesus Youth from college days – a model catholic boy for all, but not at home. I used to be lazy, stubborn and quarrelsome at home. By the grace of God over the years I have realized my mistake and I am trying to change since then. Jesus says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” [Mathew 5:9]. Is there a desire in me to become son/daughter of God? Are we really peacemakers at our home; at our workplace; at our parish or our colleges? To whom do we associate - the silent Gold fish which easily mingles with other fishes and create a serene atmosphere or the killer fish which creates lot of trouble and unhappiness in the life of others? 

P.S: Post our traumatic experience we are planning to donate the killer (sorry Red Parrot) fish; any takers? :)

Going Gaga - Silly or Senile?

                                          This picture may have been taken barely minutes after Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta received the flesh and blood of Jesus for the first time in her life. She attended Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school in United States. She described her school life as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure" as she told in an interview.

By age 19, this beautiful young girl started experimenting with life – in a wrong way. She started singing in bars and clubs to further her career on songwriting and singing and started her experiments with alcohol, drugs and sex. In her own words – “I went to a Catholic school but it was on the New York underground that I found myself."

                                        Turning 25 a few days back, she is no longer that innocent Steffanie Germanotta but Lady Gaga aka Mother Monster. She holds a twitter account with a record 9 million followers (whom she fondly calls monsters) and her youtube channel upload views have crossed 1.37 billion (137,893,744 as I write this post). In last April she was named the Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the year. Winner of both Grammy and MTV Awards Lady Gaga has shown the world how to successfully mix music, sex and fashion in the right combination to become a global celebrity. She makes sure that she stays in the limelight by wearing (or not wearing?) the strangest outfits possible. Gaga's influence on modern culture and society has provoked the University of South Carolina into offering a full-time course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" in the objective of unraveling "the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga with respect to her music, videos, fashion, and other artistic endeavors".

What prompted me to write this article is the recent news that Lady Gaga is planning to come out with perfumes that smell blood and semen. Intrigued to find out more about this strange lady, I went online and did a quick research on her life. The findings as explained above left me shattered! The first verse that came to mind was Deutronomy 30:15 "See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. Again verse 19 says I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.  This is the beauty of Christianity that you have a God who has left you with free choice – the choice even to abuse this choice!There is no compulsion or pressure on you to always take the “good choice” as some may accuse on the church. But for youngsters like lady gaga this freedom also paves the way for the destruction of their souls.

So the problem seems to be in the understanding of true freedom. True freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever you want but exercising it in the right context. Freedom finds its true meaning when you use it to obey God.

Venerable Pope John Paul II himself says:

“Freedom negates and destroys itself and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others when it no longer recognizes its essential link with the truth.  When freedom out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth. . . then the person ends up by no longer taking as his sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion, or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim”

Jesus is standing at the door of our heart (Rv 3:20) waiting for us to know the truth which will set us free (Jn 8:32), to choose life over death which will make us a complete man or woman. What do we choose today?

P.S:- While searching on Lady Gaga to write this blog, I got disturbed at the gravity of bondage of sin in her life. I offered the day’s mass for her conversion – may be the only sensible thing to do, as a Catholic for her soul?

PFA the LENT

                      

Its been more than 2yrs since I left my software job but still PFA, MOM, OOO etc means more than 3 alphabets to me! All software engineers will have a "yea I got it" smile in their face nw. For the others I just want to focus on PFA which suddenly assumes a new role in my Lenten schemes. PFA denotes 'Please find attached ' while sending mails with attachments but in this post it will stand for Prayer, Fasting & Almsgiving. Yes I am heading off to the Lenten season.  I am writing this on a Monday and by Wednesday Lent 2011 will begin attached with PFA!

PFA

Traditionally on Lent season we do the following - we fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstain from meat the whole period, meditate on the Way of the cross every Friday some places every day, do visits to orphanages and poor homes etc. Though this has worked out well for so many years, I feel this approach fails to see the unifying theme or purpose of PFA. To get more clarity I turn to Pope Benedict XVI message for lent 2011. He says "….we are moved to free our hearts every day from the burden of material things, from a self-centered relationship with the "world" that impoverishes us and prevents us from being available and open to God and our neighbor". Each of the elements in PFA specifically aims at these underlined keywords. Fasting helps to turn our focus away from 'us' and the world. Prayer helps us to gaze upwards to God and Almsgiving demands our attention towards our neighbors.

P for Prayer

Will there be a difference in our prayer during the Ordinary times and the Lent season? Tough question and even tougher answerJ It seems to me that prayers during Lent season should be focused more on sincere conversion not merely on a peripheral level but on a deeper level - dwelling deep into our inner selves seeking out those areas where we have denied access to Jesus! If we are successful in finding at least one such new area this Lent and purified it with the grace of Jesus, our P has hit right on the nail!

F for Fasting

Last Advent I had an interesting discussion with a lapsed catholic (LC) and a priest regarding the purpose of fasting. The LC was training his guns at the hypocrisy of fasting which involves mere abstinence from meat. He was arguing that we should save money through fasting and give it to the poor, only then fasting will be meaningful. Obviously he was repeating the same mistake of replacing holiness with goodness which is a topic I would like to reflect on later. The priest was explaining how the tradition of fasting came into existence and rather than skipping meals it should be sacrifices which will affect our personal lives. Listening to both, I felt the meaning of fasting is still not explained or understood well. Again I turn to the wisdom of our beloved Pope, he says "Fasting, which can have various motivations, takes on a profoundly religious significance for the Christian: by rendering our table poorer, we learn to overcome selfishness in order to live in the logic of gift and love; by bearing some form of deprivation – and not just what is in excess – we learn to look away from our "ego", to discover someone close to us and to recognize God in the face of so many brothers and sisters."

A for Almsgiving

Pope says"….the Church, especially during the Lenten period, reminds us to practice almsgiving – which is the capacity to share. The idolatry of goods, on the other hand, not only causes us to drift away from others, but divests man, making him unhappy, deceiving him, deluding him without fulfilling its promises, since it puts materialistic goods in the place of God, the only source of life." This makes us search for the real meaning of being happy or joyful. As children of God we can find 'real' happiness only when we start looking into the happy eyes of our neighbors – our brothers and sisters. To make them happy we need to do something and let's start doing it this summer!

P.S:- This Lent I have decided to stop facebooking and tweeting to take the focus away from 'my profile' and turn to the profiles of God and my neighbors who are not available in any networksJ

Missionary Mosquito

                    

Ouuch….Oops…aah…thus we were crying out by the mosquito bite on a nice evening in Bangkok. I was returning from the chapel after our daily 5pm mass along with the Father. While I was complaining about the cruelty of mosquitoes Fr who never runs out of funny stories & jokes told me about mosquito Evangelization. Having never heard of it before, I forgot the painful drilling for a moment and asked him eagerly what does it mean? He replied, "It is said that when we do evangelization we are supposed to be like mosquitoes! They have a very short life time but in that lifespan their aim is to bite maximum number of people who come across their way. Same way we have a very short life span, we should try to evangelize as many people as possible, who come across our daily life".

I laughed and we quickly dispersed trying to escape from the mosquitoes. Back home this new term came back to my mind again and again, I am not sure if it is the mosquito humming in my ears or the Spirit calling me to ponder more on this. Thoughts flied back to my first year in college. I was straight from my first Jesus Youth retreat during the holidays. Full of zeal and joy of Christ I baldy wanted to tell people about the love of Christ and for that matter to start a prayer meeting in college. I walked around, talked to all, made friends and waited for the right moment. But there was one problem.

Being a perfectionist I was not yet ready to start the prayer meeting. The reason – I am not even in the first 10 ranks in my class! How can I - a child of God tell others about the love of God and the victorious God when I myself was struggling to cross the 65% 'honour' line in engineering? Let me try hard and score well and then I can start a prayer meeting – I decided. No marks for guessing when that moment finally cameJ

I believe each one of us face this same situation or throw up similar excuses when faced with the question of evangelization. Let me become holy first…let me finish this work….let me complete the exams...let me finish the appraisal…let me change job…let me decide on my marriage…n the list goes on endlessly. Going back to our mosquitoes I did a Google search on mosquito bite to see how effective they are in their 'mission'. The results were shocking - mosquitoes are the most deadly animal found on land and on water overtaking African Lion, Elephant & even great white shark! [http://listverse.com/2007/07/13/top-10-most-deadly-animals/]. They kill over 2 million people every year and infect another 70 million with deadly diseases!!!

Now imagine each mosquito to be an evangelizer or a catholic or even a Jesus Youth! We would have got 2 million people who get to know Jesus every year or another 70 million who will start their quest for God. Are we missing the killer instinct when it comes to telling the story of Jesus? Next time you try to find an excuse, remember the Oouch…n aahasJ

Disclaimer: Evangelization should not hurt/disturb/irritate people; it should be done gently through utmost respect and love for the hearer.