Tag Archives: Life

Alone By the Cradle of a Newborn

A couple I know were blessed with a beautiful baby boy today. I've heard it said that the birth of a child is one of the most beautiful miracles one can witness, and although I couldn't be there to experience what it's like, I can absolutely confirm that it is one of the most beautiful things a person can experience.

Here is something I'd like to say to the precious little bundle of joy.

***

Hey there little one. I know you can't understand me. But on the other hand, no one can understand you either. Not for a few years atleast. And by then you'll have no memory of this. And rightly so, because this moment is just between you and me.

Now that I have your undivided attention, let's have a chat shall we? If at any moment you need anything, just cry.

It's only been a while since you came into this world, which you will call your home for the next 70 years or so at the most. You must have a better memory of heaven than anyone else. After all, you were there before you came here right? If you could speak right now, I'm almost certain you'd speak about heaven. I've forgotten all about what it's like up there. But here you are, carrying a little fragment of paradise here to earth. How I'd wish to hear of what heaven is like. But you will suffice for now.
I'll just rest in the fact that heaven is infinitely more pure and more lovely than one million newborns. Thats not to take away anything from your loveliness, but only to add to heaven's!

So yeah… It's just fascinating to see you here. I mean you are an actual human being. Your body is one of the best engineered systems we know. And you're living, breathing, seeing, hearing, feeling all because of your wonderful body. You don't even know how you're doing what you're doing. And I'm not sure I fully understand either.

More fascinating than that is the hopeful expectation to know how the world will shape you to be who you're going to be. Your personality is a blank slate right now. You have no memories, no emotions, no inclinations.
There's so much the world can offer you. There's so much that you can offer the world. I hope you make the world a better place so that years from now, newborns like yourself will be born into a better world.

Just look at you… so innocent, so trusting, so pure…
It saddens me so deeply that one day you'll commit your first sin. And then another one. And then some more. Oh how I wish you'd stay this way. But even now, even in all your apparent purity, you still have within you the seed of sin. You can't help it. It's inherited from your parents. Those very parents who gave you life also gave you the seed that will lead to death.

I hope that one day, not too many years from now, you'd come to realize how sinful you are; how desperate in need of a savior you are. And I hope you find the road to Salvation. It's a narrow road, little one. And it's fraught with difficulties. But I hope you'll be given the grace, strength and courage to persevere. And I hope you'll make that choice to persevere. I hope you will choose the truth. I hope you will stay on the way. And I hope you'll find life in Jesus.

Created To Be Creative

Hey everyone,

To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t have any ideas for today’s blog post. In fact, I don’t even know what I’m gonna write. But I guess that’s the point of writing anyway – you just start somewhere and let the words flow. I’ve been having a mild case of the writer’s block of late, and I guess this is a way for me to break free from those shackles.

Anyway, writing helps me vent and I suppose it kinda completes me. I feel most creative when I write. Creative. Create-ive? Hmm… seems interesting…

I’m creative because I create? Yeah, I am aren’t I? But so are you!

I believe we’re all creators somehow. Artists more so than others, probably… But we’re all creators nonetheless. Scientists, teachers, engineers, tailors, painters, poets, writers – you name it – we all create. And I believe that by doing so, we fulfill an insatiable need to be creators.

You know, more often than not, what we create might most likely outlive us. Just take a look around you. Those famous monuments in your city, the poster of that famous painting that hangs over your mantelpiece, that poem that serves as your desktop wallpaper, the jewelry that’s now a prized family heirloom – they were all probably designed, built, painted, written, crafted, created by someone who lived decades if not centuries ago. You don’t know them, but their legacy lives on. A part of them is still alive through their creation.

And the thing about creation is that it inspires someone else to aspire to create something of equal or higher worth. Like 90% of the Renaissance was all about that. Like one dude paints or sculpts something totally awesome and then his student/admirer thinks he can top that and tries to make something better. Come to think of it, it was a curious case of ‘iron sharpens iron’. In any case, we definitely got some great art out of that time – paintings, sculptures, plays and poems – and all these and more remain timeless; they inspire us to this day.

[On a totally unrelated side-note, I think that this ‘inspiration’ devolved somewhere along the way, and we’re now stuck in a world where art galleries are filled with this abomination that is modern art.]

Anyway, I came across a sculpture today that absolutely blew my mind. It’s called the Veiled Virgin crafted by artist Giovanni Strazza from a single block of marble in the early 1850s. Although I bet it looks much more magnificent in person, this is what a picture of it looks like:

Vieled_Virgin

Just look at it and observe for like a minute. That entire sculpture was made from marble. How skilled do you have to be to make marble look transparent? And it’s not just the technical aspect of the art that makes it amazing. Through that veil, we not only see her face but we see the full extent of her emotion in it. So much perfection in one sculpture!

If we were to ask Mr. Giovanni what inspired him to create this awe-inspiring sculpture, he might probably say that he viewed art as something that needs to be freed from nature and that he merely ‘freed’ the sculpture from that block of stone. Every strike of the chisel and every soft touch of his palms brought the sculpture closer to freedom. Well, most artists of his time thought this way, and it was admirably modest. But if we were to press him further, he would tell us that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his role-model, Mr. Whoever-Giovanni-thought-was-better-than-him. Well, he might even admit that he succeeded. In fact, he might even say that he’s better than his role model. However, one thing that he won’t admit is that his art was perfect.

We might see the Veiled Virgin as the epitome of perfection. Maybe art historians have studied it in detail. Perhaps art teachers and students around the world use it as a gold standard… But Giovanni would never admit – not in over 167 years (remember, early 1850s) – that his sculpture is perfect. Maybe that’s true. I mean for one, it’s only a head. He could’ve finished the rest of the body too.

But it’s not just Giovanni. Ask any artist and they will always tell you that their art, their creation, could be better. And it’s true. It’s always true.

We create something every day. And our creation is never perfect. But it’s always perfectly imperfect. And that means room for improvement! As the days roll by and we create more and more, we slowly become skilled creators. Giovanni’s work wasn’t the result of a day’s work. Not even a month or a year’s. It was the result of a lifetime’s worth of creation – his own skill was sculpted each day as he practiced and became better. Each day was a chisel strike on his personality as his true artisanship was slowly freed from within himself to be the creator of the Veiled Virgin.

And so it is with us. We create and we in turn are created. Creation then is not a one-time event but a continuous process that perfects the creator. But there’s a different word for that – Rediscovery.

So let’s create something today. Let’s get to our drawing boards, our workplaces, our bedrooms, our backyards, anywhere really – and let’s create! Let’s get started on creating paintings, poems, babies, spreadsheets, clothes, music, gardens. Let’s create new experiences and cross some things off our bucket-list. Let’s create love and steal a bit of time. Let’s just start somewhere (anywhere!) and let the words flow – the art will follow. And at the end of it all, we would’ve created something.

It could be something small, something big, something significant, something mundane. But let’s create! And in that, let’s rediscover ourselves.

Peace!

Splinterwood

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We’re not so different
from trees, really…
and as branches of a tree
are broken off
by woodcutters
So are traits
of our personality
cut down by those
who see us
challenging the norm

Society pores over us
beats us down
stifles our individuality
constrains our freedom
chops off branches of us
that it deems “unnecessary”
And only when it’s reduced us
from a flourishing tree
to a withering stump,
It lets go.
Because finally,
it has planted conformity
in place of individuality

But every once in a while
there appears a tree
that refuses
To be cut down
Every time it faces the axe,
it grows back –
bigger and stronger than before
As long as there is life
in its roots,
and the sun shines
from above
It will grow
defiantly

This person does not care
for society’s rules
nor fears the axe that
brings him down
Branches cut off
will grow once more
Wounds inflicted
will heal
And when everyone else
Has given up,
he will break through
Those brick walls that confine

And as he soars
to new heights,
and bears fruit
in due season,
He will inspire
an entire generation
to stand in defiance
against conformity
to stand against those
who rob us of freedom
of individuality
of purpose.
And in their stead,
He will be
A symbol
A paradigm
A harbinger of hope!

A Privilege to Whisper

5th Nov, 2016. The day after my birthday. I was out with some old college pals that evening, enjoying the weekend. Little did I know that my perspectives on life, maturity and prayer were to be drastically changed that night.

It was a long awaited college reunion, and we were all at our favorite haunt – an old, dilapidated coffee shop tucked away in a narrow alleyway in Koramangala. As the evening wore on, we planned to graduate from coffee and cake to dinner and dancing. But just as we were to leave the coffee house, I got a text from a friend asking me where I was. That was odd, cuz we hardly ever spoke to each other. I replied and she said she was at a place which was on my way home from Koramangala.

I don’t know why, but I just offered to leave right away, pick her up on the way and drop her home (we’re neighbors). My mates were puzzled that I had to leave early, but they kinda understood, I guess. In any case, I wasn’t feeling very social that evening. I got in my car, put on some Guns N’ Roses on the stereo, and revved away at a comfortable pace, watching the GPS for directions to my friend’s location. I picked my friend up on the way as promised and proceeded to drive home. It was hardly 8pm on a Saturday night, but I thought I’d retire early that night. The previous day had been tiring in any case. As I drove through the Saturday night Bangalore traffic, we indulged in small talk which, without warning, quickly transformed into a deep conversation about life, love, marriage and prayer.

The drive, although long, wasn’t nearly long enough to meaningfully finish our conversation. So, we decided to grab a cup of coffee. The conversation that followed was deep and illuminating. And as we spoke, it became apparent that my 23 year-old mind had way too much catching up to do in terms or maturity. I thought I knew everything – precisely because I knew so little. A lifetime of experience would mean little if it did not foster wisdom.

And that night was definitely a dose of wisdom. I learned so much – about how I was missing out on the big picture; how the world isn’t a hammock strung between two coconut trees with a sunset in the background; how I had to strive and push forward, kneel and pray.

Kneel and pray.

If there’s one thing I’d take away from that conversation that night, it was that I had to kneel and pray for another friend with whom I was struggling to make contact.

And I did. That night, for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, I knelt and prayed the most fervent prayer I’ve prayed in years. I prayed for God to work in my friend’s heart. Maybe God would work in my friend’s heart and bring him closer to Him. But one thing I do know – God definitely worked in my heart that night. And I know I’ll never see prayer the same way again.

The train of thoughts that night led to this poem:


It’s been a while since the sun went down…
I watched as the sky turned
from brilliant yellow
to scarlet crimson
to a dull glow.
And then as the glow faded away,
As the birds made their way back to their nests,
As darkness took over the land…
I watched.

A day had come to an end in a miraculous way.
I’d seen it a thousand times before,
But maybe when you’ve
experienced a miracle a thousand times,
you tend to take it for granted.

I watched
As the hustle and bustle of people died down,
As the moon discreetly proceeded
to dominate the night sky.
I listened as silence took over the land
in the same way sleep descends upon man.

And as my eyes adjusted to the darkness,
all I could see
were my hands fervently clasped in front of me.
My knees felt the cold hard floor.
And the rhythmic sound of my breathing
was a testament to the miracle of life I’d been blessed with!

Words were spoken in silence that night –
Words that only the Creator could hear.
A young man was down on his knees, communing with God.

From the End to a New Beginning

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The end approaches.
You can see it coming from a distance.
There’s still some way to go,
but there not much time left,
and you begin to wonder…

How many summers will you see
before the long winter overtakes your soul?
How many times will you see the sun rise
before you see that last sunset on the seashore of eternity?

For when you take a deep breath,
and close your eyes one last time,
What will you see
when you awaken on the other side?

Memories both sweet and sour
fade away at that last moment
when all you have and all you can
is manage but one last analysis
of the days gone by,
of those very memories
To prize and look upon your souvenirs
One last time

What lies behind this veil of darkness
We cannot know for sure
we can speculate, anticipate
But we cannot see it –
Until for the very first time
we enter it through that very veil
that hides us from the glories or horrors
that it so earnestly shields.

It all comes down to the quiet at the end.
And in those last moments as the dust settles,
as you prepare yourself to cross over
to your final home
As you make that final analysis,
reminiscence and nostalgia will meet one last time,
and a lifetime of experience will suggest:

That life was all about choices,
and that there were always
atleast two paths at every turn.
The paths you took led you to your destiny.
The paths you took became your purpose.
The paths you took led you
to this final walkway on the brink of life.

And so you begin to tread slowly
upon this final path of life,
and that’s when you will think
about the two inevitable possibilities –
Will this final walk lead to your coronation?
Or will it give way at the end to a dark bottomless ocean?

And that’s when you will realise
that it was never about all those choices.
You will realise that it wasn’t
about any of those paths you took.
You will realise that
it was all about that One Choice
which defined all other choices.
It was all about The Way
that led through the narrowest paths in life.

But why realise it then,
when you can realise all this now?
Why regret not having made The Choice,
when you can do it now?
Why cruise through life on the broad highways
and crash into a wall of dark nothingness?

For in that last moment,
Hope is better than regret
Light is better than darkness
And a lifetime of wrongs
could’ve been set right by just One Choice.

That Choice is Jesus.
His Cross helps you cross over
with Hope into the presence of eternal Love!
And all you need is Faith.

Choose to have faith.
Make that Choice today
for there’s no better time than right now.
And it’s never too late until it’s all over.
But when your moment comes,
how will the story unfold?
Choose to live happily ever after.
And ride off into the sunset
to a new beginning!

My Lines Don’t Rhyme (Spoken Word)

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Is it a coincidence and that Life and Love
Sound strikingly similar,
Almost to the point that they rhyme?
Love and Life. What is one without the other?

My lines don’t rhyme…
But maybe I’ll try one more time

Before all of us on this journey start
Let me make it clear these lines don’t come from the heart
Thoughts inside my head fly like dart
But these rhymes don’t do justice on their part

They say penny for your thoughts but I don’t make a dime
Cuz I’m so constrained by this annoying rhyme
So I’m gonna do us all a favour and let this drop
That’s it, you heard me right. This is where the rhymes stop

My lines don’t rhyme
And they really don’t
Cuz I think I made a typo
Right at the start
I took a pen and paper
And as I put them one on each other
My thoughts choked altogether
And these thoughts – they conspired against me
and they made me realize
What I should’ve said all along
My LIFE don’t rhyme

My life is a poem
And so is yours (And yours, and yours)
Now the thing about poets
Is that we never know what they mean
For poets do not write to be understood

And as I sat prisoner
to these thoughts one evening
as the sun went down
I realized I was writing a poem with my life
That could not be understood
I knew for a fact that no one else did
Cuz I myself couldn’t

There was no rhyme or reason
For I just kept writing and living and writing and living
And the two were so intertwined with each other
That I realized that one was just as meaningless as the other

The more I made the lines
Of my life rhyme with each other
The more I realized that
They made less sense
The more I forced the rhymes
The lesser I could communicate

It took me a while
To understand what these rhymes were
What was I injecting into my life
In the hope of making it more musical?
What were these rhymes that seemed to
Make my life have a certain ring to it
While in reality, it made it just too simple and flat?

What were these rhymes that
Exchanged the transcendence of complexity
For the numbness of simplicity?

What were these rhymes
That convinced me to include them
In order to make my life, my poem interesting
When clearly it only did the opposite what
I intended it to do?

And as the sun dipped further below the horizon,
I was jolted to reality
As I came to realize
What these rhymes were

Is it a coincidence and that Life and Love
Sound strikingly similar,
Almost to the point that they rhyme?
Love and Life. What is one without the other?

The sun goes down
I open my eyes
The whole world sleeps
But only I rise

Let me hold the suspense a bit longer
I feel a little wise
What I didn’t understand
I now fully realize

That I look myself in the eyes
Cut myself down to size
Stifle my inner cries
And tell myself I’ve won the prize

But I RISE
Through my own deception,
I see the lies
And with this revelation,
My deception dies

For there are many rhymes that distract
But only one rhyme is true.
And it is but revealed to a few
You might think this is new
But its always been hiding in plain view

Don’t you see it?
Love and Life.
What’s one without the other?
Love and Life.
That’s the only true rhyme.

And somewhere
In the depths of your heart
You can hear them chime.

And now, my lines rhyme.

The Storyteller

Realize Step-By-Step Success… The Consummate Way™We are residents of a world in turmoil, a world in conflict with itself. We are but specks of dust on a barren rock hanging in a vast empty space. We lead seemingly meaningless lives – bound to eventually wither away and be forgotten. Yet, we have hope.

We inherently know that this is not our purpose. We go about our daily lives with a mindset that has purpose. We know that we are here for much more – that we are part of a bigger, much grander design. We know we have our own unique purpose – we play our part in a tale that is intertwined with our very existence. The tale is being told by a Storyteller.
He lets the characters decide what they want to be. He merely knits everything together, willing us to fashion a story worth telling.
And the story is set in motion. We play the characters that define us. We decide the ending.

And we have already made that choice.

Our world is doomed to destruction. We have taken the free will that the Storyteller gave us and we have squandered it! We are confused by our own free will. We have abused, misused and prodigalized it! We have made that choice willingly. We chose the ending of the story and when we get to the end, we are not going to like it. We have taken the grandiloquent story that the Storyteller originally penned down and turned it into a gruesome tale of horror. And we are going down that road. At the end, there will be no more pages to turn, nothing left to read. The story will have ended. But we cannot go back to change it. We have written it down in indelible ink. We will fade off the last page into a meaningless, hopeless void – disappearing into a darkness shrouded by obscurity, never to be remembered again.

Unless we choose to reverse it.

We are designed to operate on a higher intellectual level. We think deeper, we seek to understand. To realize that our society elevates such trivial matters to such a high degree of importance is almost laughable! We miss the point; we fail to see what really matters – what really matters!

This simple fact eludes us.

But it is not difficult to grasp once we understand what we have to do –

Eliminate the trivial. See everything in its own light. Give each matter its due importance. Understand how significant the matter at hand is relative to an absolute objective matter of infinitely high significance.

Only then will we be able to rise above the trivialities of base human desires and focus on what really matters – what really matters.

The world around us is in a state of suspended animation. This is a place where monotony is regarded as the pinnacle of success and is desired above all else – it is shrouded in phrases such as ‘settling down’ and ‘retirement’ and gives an almost satisfied exclamation of “having made it!”

We live in a sphere where the commonplace objects are deified and the truly marvelous, ignored.

We are caught in a world in a swirl of emotion. We are perpetually brewing a volatile concoction of emotions which is just waiting to explode.

Emotion is necessary. It’s what makes us human. It’s what separates us from the beasts. But as much as it is required, it must also be kept in check. Examining our horrible past with free will, we can see only clearly how superfluous emotion has played its part in our ruin. Emotion is arguably the only force strong enough to break down the barrier of the intellectual part of us and convince us with irrational and illogical arguments to make bad decisions – decisions we later regret having made. Temptation is an emotion in an abstract sense. It convinces us to make decisions against our best interests and we gladly oblige against better judgment.
Unchecked, emotion can spiral out of control and damage ourselves and those around us. Decisions made while on an ’emotional high’ are irrational ones. They are decisions we will not stick to once we sober down. Emotion has only worked against us from the beginning of time.
As we come to accept this foreboding imagery that superfluous emotion has wrought for us, we cannot help but realize that emotion is needless in many spheres of life.

Be as it may, emotion is still an integral part of us. It is indispensably vital to restrain us from becoming rigid. Emotion gives us personality, makes us who we are. Emotion transforms the creation into personified creativity! – So it is no wonder that the Storyteller gave us this distinctive characteristic. It gives our character that depth, that shade of unpredictability!
Nonetheless, we need a dynamic harmonic balance between intellect and emotion. When we are able to disconnect emotion from all decisions and acts which require intellect – pure intellect – that is the moment we stop stuttering and take a giant leap forward. It will expand new horizons for us. We will become aware of countless truths that had eluded our stubborn minds before.

That is why intellectual decisions – informed, calculated decisions – are the way to go ahead successfully! However, as we go through this transformation process, we must still remain humble. Conceit will work against the purpose of transforming an emotion-ridden society into an intellectual one – an intellectual society with just the right tinge of emotion, used wisely.

After having seen this from a bird’s eye perspective – seeing it in its true colors, stripped of all the fake vivacity – we are required to make a difference; we are accountable for this revelation. We are expected to breathe life into a world where change is fought for, but resisted when it arrives.

Remember the story we are part of. Remember the bigger picture. Remember the Storyteller.

What is our part in the story? Are we just passers-by in tale that unfolds around us? Or do we have a role to play in this drama?

We can’t all be protagonists, nor can we all be stagehands. But we can all be the change that this world sorely needs. We must do what we are meant to do, not what we want to do. For only then can the story come together beautifully as was originally planned. There are no small roles, only small actors.

What we decide to do collectively will alter the course of the story to extents we cannot fathom! What we decide to do individually will determine our character, our indentation on the story, our destiny!

Individually, our eventual goal is to achieve own unique purpose – the purpose that defines us, that defines our eternity, our place in the grand scheme of things. We must pursue this goal – this high calling. This is what we are here for. We don’t have all the answers; we haven’t perfected the details of our journey. But we do know this – we know where we’re headed and we know how to get there! It’s only a matter of how the journey will pan out.

But the best thing to do right now, is to just rest in the sovereignty of the Storyteller. Let his pen guide our character. Let us be colored in the Author’s ink. We may not like what we end up being in the story but when we read the book in its entirety, we will realize what a magnificent story we are part of – a story written by a Storyteller whose characters yielded their free will to him in exchange for the best possible conclusion to the story! The story, immortalized in memory for all eternity even though the characters themselves cease to exist.

We are residents of a world in turmoil, a world in conflict with itself. We are but specks of dust on a barren rock hanging in a vast empty space. We lead seemingly meaningless lives – bound to eventually wither away and be forgotten.

Yet, we have hope.

We can find solace in the fact that there is a Storyteller. We are not on our own. We have hope!