Classnotes on Love

Lost cell ,found self

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Fri, 13 May 2016 21:53:00 +0000

Hi there, back after a long while. When one loses something (like that last bottle of wine stashed somewhere... and well one's senility is finally catching up ,despite all attempts to evade it, and that bottle seems to have walked out of the house because one has definitively searched high and low. ) it is always on the mind -a nagging ,in the heart,an ache. If your addiction is to God rather than wine, and you have somehow stashed Him somewhere in the recesses of your soul and now you cant find your way back... Read on.

Today is the third day since my cell phone has gone missing. I used to have it in one of my hands constantly prior to that unfortunate moment of separation.Today after having searched almost exhaustively, I have slowed the pace and resignation is beginning to creep in. A special Saint whom I shamefully remember only when lost things haunt me, has been on speed dial since the loss.

Plus points of this hiatus : I realized I used to use the phone for good and not just for endless mindless Insta-browsing ;)
cons: well I used it for- way tooo much filling-in of in-between times.

But now I 'm obsessing over finding it and I realize I should be obsessing over pleasing God and executing His will: single mindedly. Focus is easily given whole heartedly and single mindedly to the cell phone, to shopping ,to baking,to cooking, to laundering ,to child rearing but to the most important thing,well as long as it's not too urgent (the urgency is only definite when time ceases and we cross over into Eternity.)... we just can't bring ourselves to focus on it.

In our addiction to adrenaline, we have forgotten the importance of sober, unrushed ,premeditated action toward nothing immediate or instantly visible. We try to build Rome in a day, try to burn off all our fat in half a day and by-heart whole syllabi in the midnight hour .It seems to us that if it is not urgent,it need not demand our immediate attention.And often the most important things,like the salvation of our souls and the fulfilment of our missions are the least urgent and get pushed and pushed till we lose both soul and the opportunity to be missionary.

Are you doing something for the least person you know... that would be someone somewhere awaiting your service to experience God for the first time (maybe).If Yes! then not to worry you are doing right by your soul and mission.Do it always.DO it single mindedly.DO IT whole heartedly! :)

you have friends in high places

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:18:00 +0000

Hi world :)
Currently impressed by:
Ariadne of Greek mythological fame.
Only one reason: the golden spool of thread!
All of this analogous to the holy rosary and Holy Mary. Allegory works sometimes to spur this poor imagination onwards.

Fazed by: how I feel young but realize people half my age are achieving great things. Teenage is actually youth!

Read: my life with the saints.
St. Ignatius help me to study along side kids much younger to me.
Mother Theresa pray for me not to be lazy but always active for Jesus.pray for me to impart a spirit of joy even when I don't feel upbeat or cheery.and help me to stay faithful to the call which has been revealed once and confirmed many times.
St.Thomas Aquinas help me to be confident that knowledge and training in science doesn't puff with pride the learner but on the contrary fills the learner with experience about which to testify, that the hearers may believe and have faith in the Designer of all the science . And to work hard as you did.

Good pope John help me be forever dependent on God for grace to do that which is His work ultimately and let the Holy Spirit take care of His church.
Therese teach me the value of little things,the privilege of holding infinity in the palms of our hands.

Funeral Mass Sermon : Catholicism in a capsule

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 03:36:00 +0000

Antonin Scalia

US Supreme Court Justice

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more; a man loved by many, scorned by others; a man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.
It is He Whom we proclaim: Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of Him, because of His life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.
Scripture says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And that sets a good course for our thoughts and our prayers here today. In effect, we look in three directions: to yesterday, in thanksgiving; to today, in petition; and into eternity with hope.
We look to Jesus Christ yesterday—that is, to the past—in thanksgiving for the blessings God bestowed upon Dad. In the past week, many have recounted what Dad did for them, but here today, we recount what God did for Dad; how He blessed him. We give thanks, first of all, for the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our Lord died and rose not only for all of us, but also for each of us. And at this time we look to that yesterday of His death and His resurrection, and we give thanks that He died and rose for Dad. Further, we give thanks that Jesus brought him to new life in Baptism, nourished him with the Eucharist, and healed him in the confessional. We give thanks that Jesus bestowed upon him 55 years of marriage to the woman he loved—a woman who could match him at every step, and even hold him accountable.
God blessed Dad with a deep Catholic faith—the conviction that Christ’s presence and power continue in the world today through his Body, the Church. He loved the clarity and coherence of the Church’s teaching. He treasured the Church’s ceremonies, especially the beauty of her ancient worship. He trusted the power of the Sacraments as the means of salvation—as Christ working within him for his salvation.
Although, one time, one Saturday afternoon, he did scold me for having heard confessions that afternoon, that same day. And I hope that is some source of consolation (if there are any lawyers present) that the roman collar was not a shield against his criticism. The issue that evening was not that I’d been hearing confessions, but that he’d found himself in my confessional line. And he quickly departed it. As he put it later, “Like heck if I’m confessing to you!” The feeling was mutual.
God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love for his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing. A blessing quickly lost when faith is banned from the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there. So he understood that there is no conflict between loving God and loving one’s country, between one’s faith and one’s public service. Dad understood that the deeper he went in his Catholic faith, the better a citizen and a public servant he became. God blessed him with a desire to be the country’s good servant, because he was God’s first.
We Scalias, however, give thanks for a particular blessing God bestowed. God blessed Dad with a love for his family. We have been thrilled to read and hear the may words of praise and admiration for him, his intellect, his writings, his speeches, his influence, and so on. But more important to us—and to him—is that he was Dad. He was the father that God gave us for the great adventure of family life. Sure, he forgot our names at times or mixed them up; but there are nine of us. He loved us, and sought to show that love, and sought to share the blessing of the Faith he treasured. And he gave us one another, to have each other for support. That’s the greatest wealth that parents can bestow, and right now we’re particularly grateful for it.
So we look to the past, to Jesus Christ yesterday. We call to mind all of these blessings, and we give Our Lord the honor and glory for them, for they are His work.
We look to Jesus today, in petition—to the present moment here and now, as we mourn the one we love and admire, the one whose absence pains us. Today we pray for him. We pray for the repose of his soul. We thank God for his goodness to Dad, as is right and just. But we also know that, although Dad believed, he did so imperfectly, like the rest of us. He tried to love God and neighbor but, like the rest of us, did so imperfectly. He was a practicing Catholic—practicing in the sense that he hadn’t perfected it yet. Or, rather, that Christ was not yet perfected in him. And only those in whom Christ is brought to perfection can enter Heaven. We are here then, to lend our prayers to that perfecting, to that final work of God’s grace, in freeing Dad from every encumbrance of sin.
But don’t take my word for it. Dad himself—not surprisingly—had something to say on the matter. Writing years ago to a Presbyterian minister whose funeral service he admired, he summarized quite nicely the pitfalls of funerals (and why he didn’t like eulogies). He wrote, “Even when the deceased was an admirable person—indeed especially when the deceased was an admirable person—praise for his virtues can cause us to forget that we are praying for and giving thank for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner.” Now, he would not have exempted himself from that. We are here, then, as he would want, to pray for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner; to this sinner, Antonin Scalia. Let us not show him a false love and allow our admiration to deprive him of our prayers. We continue to show affection for him and do good for him by praying for him: that all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, that he be purified of all that is not Christ. That he rest in peace.
Finally, we look to Jesus, forever, into eternity. Or, better, we consider our own place in eternity, and whether it will be with the Lord. Even as we pray for Dad to enter swiftly into eternal glory, we should be mindful of ourselves. Every funeral reminds us of just how thin the veil is, between this world and the next, between time and eternity, between the opportunity for conversion and the moment of judgment. So we cannot depart here unchanged. It makes no sense to celebrate God’s goodness and mercy to God if we are not attentive and responsive to those realities in our own lives. We must allow this encounter with eternity to change us, to turn us from sin and toward the Lord. The English Dominican Father Bede Jarrett put it beautifully when he prayed, “O strong Son of God . . . while You prepare a place for us, prepare us also for that happy place, that we may be with You and with those we love for all eternity.”
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. My dear friends, this is also the structure of the Mass—the greatest prayer we can offer for Dad, because it’s not our prayer but the Lord’s. The Mass looks to Jesus yesterday. It reaches into the past—to the Last Supper, to the crucifixion, to the resurrection—and it makes those mysteries and their power present here, on this altar. Jesus himself becomes present here today, under the form of bread and wine, so that we can unite all of our prayers of thanksgiving, sorrow and petition with Christ himself, as an offering to the Father. And all of this, with a view to eternity—stretching towards heaven—where we hope to enjoy that perfect union with God himself and to see Dad again, and with him to rejoice in the communion of saints.
Reverend Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia.

Silly little things

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 20:18:00 +0000

When your little ones are celebrating their lung capacity and limb agility and you are at the receiving end of it all, shopping can be less than fun. But I have begun to notice that God ,yes God (because there are no coincidences, only God-incidences) , has led us to the best and most economical products that we needed, in the store. When I get home, I feel amazed at His providence.

Silly little things, yet very significant in my walk with Him.
:)

How studying, researching ,treating... do makes a difference! (S.Mukherjee : Laws of Medicine)

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 01:15:00 +0000

Pg 49:

"In Lewis Thomas'* time, such a law (ie. Outliers will provide the most informative pieces of data) would have made no sense : there was nothing to outlie. The range of medical and surgical interventions was so severely limited that any assessment of variation in response was useless; if every patient with heart failure was destined to die, then it made little sense discriminating one form another ( and even if some survived long term no tools existed to investigate them.)"

my paraphrasing of other text follows:

Variation in response to ( our treatments and investigations ) unravel more of the mysterious inner logic of the physiology of our pathologies.

(then from his TED talk)

It seems we use only 0.025 % of all our body's million chemical reactions to treat and probe our pathophysiology. (now again , LOM : his book) Our advances depend on our understanding of "outliers": (the single patient anecdotes of striking response to treatment) by studying them in depth.
David Solit 2009 New York studying bladder cancer, focused on the single responder (to treatment in the clinical trial),decided that since genes were likely involved, he could find the ones that were mutated ( as between 10 - 150 genes can be mutated in cancer) and he found 140 genetic mutations in her tumor sample , TSC1 and NF2 being most marked. TSC1 mutation would give good response to treatment. SO now in future trials cohorts may be sequenced up front so that only patients with TSC1 mutations will be treated with the drug.

The relationship between genes and tumor cell susceptibility to treatment was discovered.
It opened the door to new trials and novel drugs.

*Author of the Youngest Science (1937)

The need to keep running ( S.Mukherjee)

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:53:00 +0000

"In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice that the world keeps shifting so quickly under her feet that she has to keep running just to keep her position."

"This is our predicament with cancer: we are forced to keep running merely to keep still." (Emperor of all Maladies)
"Despite the sophistication of medical technologies , uncertainties have remained endemic to medicine....(Lewis) Thomas imagined a future in which machines took care of sick people. Now we have better machines but we are using them to take care of sicker people."
( The Laws of Medicine)

Thoughts on the hospital

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 01:52:00 +0000

Holier than the rafters of a stained glass Cathedral are the bland soulless beams of the hospital roof. For if prayers were vapours of incense rising to heaven, nowhere else have such sincere and humble prayers risen not from frankincense but from the blood surging through burning hearts and tears flooding from fading eyes, than in the hallways of soulless hospitals.

To be a sparrow in the house of the Lord, building it's nest near the altar, that it may always be stirred to love and worship as it sees night and day the devotion of the faithful and never ever forget to sing for the King of the Universe, that is wisdom. God is not contained in the Temple nor in the hospital but His supplicants meet here and they can inspire us to worship when our hearts frequently grow cold.

So I want to serve in the hospital, to be in the most prayerful place on earth. Here I will never ever lose sight of what is truly important. God and the life to come.

When you see a father in pain over his suffering son, you want the pain to stop and these wounds of the heart as we all know can't be medicated away. That is when I remember, in the next life,with the Holy Trinity in Heaven ,there will be no more tears and no more sorrow. This son will be restored to his father in full health. So it makes me desire the Kingdom come and loosen my tight clinging and death defying type of grip on life. The hospital teaches us to fear death less. No?

Final Round

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 19:37:00 +0000

Deuteronomy 8: ¹⁰When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. ¹¹Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹²Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, ¹³and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. ¹⁶He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. ¹⁷You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ¹⁸But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

How ironic.

The Devil keeps pulling the ground out from under our feet, thwarting every worthwhile effort till we wallow in futility , get downright discouraged and make several missteps backwards.

Then when he sees our Lord , pulling us up, bailing us out and rerouting us back onto the paths of success. Satan redoubles his sly, crude and disruptive tactics.

Finally, purely and actually only by the grace of God ,when we get to solid ground, and can achieve all our dreams, the Devil slinks into our hearts and tries to prevent us from giving our final act of thanksgiving and surrender to God. He tries to convince us that it was actually he and not God who trained us and made us adept to succeed in the world.

Run, kick the devil in the balls and run! Run to Jesus, throw yourself upon Jesus' neck and weep like you have always wanted to, the deep soul wrenching heaves of relief, after all the times Satan tricked us out of our destiny, finally Jesus has brought us to our Promised Land of holiness.

Jesus I know that You love me. All Your patience with me, all Your sufferings for me, speak volumes to me of Your Eternal Love for me.

Inspired by: Irudhi Suttru (tamil movie)(translation: Final Round, Salaa Kadoos (hindi)

( Madhi never gave undue honour to the evil coach who wanted to take advantage of her and take revenge on Dev, she humiliated the villain in public and gave all honour and glory and love to her true coach,Dev.)

Giraffes eating grass :)

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 06:44:00 +0000

baby giraffe

boy drinking coffee on the grass

M sliding into the water

baby giraffe eating grass

M & E walking on the road

Is the kneeling christian a myth? ... do we pray?

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 21:45:00 +0000

What does the mind of the warrior keep busy with? It buzzes with activity, with the game charted out in the playbook of their regiment. We are Christians, our commanding officer is Christ through His Word and the game charted out for us is : Ephesians 6:

¹⁸And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. ¹⁹Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

read: The kneeling Christian (a book available free online)

Who is MY God?

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 07:09:00 +0000

What is prayer? It is ,I think, a relationship.
In a relationship ,we converse. We lay ourselves bare, this is our safe haven, where we toss the masks. Sometimes, we let our closest friends see us as we are and their eyes need a little adjusting before their brain realizes that this dim dark version of us is in fact the same one over whom we perpetually hold the lime light glorifying only the good angles while strategically putting the rest in shadow.

Recently I removed my "makeup"(metaphorical: viz. the magnanimous person I paint myself to be) and my very placid usually non-reactive friend was jarred! She was not used to the dimmer, darker me. She said," You are awful, how could you?!" (Note well: She didn't say, "You LOOK awful", she said," you ARE awful.")

Lesson learned. Get into relationship with one who can always understand there is a dim dark reality and still delights in you. Unconditional lovers are the best. And they are rarely found. But I found my unconditional lover when I was just 12 years old and His Name is Jesus.

But sometimes, self-help mantras, that encourage one to be forth-coming and real, speaking one's mind honestly in order to build lasting relationships , make me lay aside pretenses. But no sooner do I let my true colours show than I feel like a deer caught in headlights.

So I got to thinking, I should be forthcoming and real, but with my unconditional Lover. Instead of causing a dissonance in my normal friends' brains, by screwing with their perception of me, I should ask for help in prayer to become the good person that they believe me to be.

After all, the great ones say, "You are the sky,"..." everything else is just weather." Pema Chodron ... We are shown the bright blue sky of our sacredness and we are transfixed only by the ominous clouds. (c/o Tattoos on the Heart.)

When we are in relationship we also value our friend's advice. But what happens when our different friends give us several contradicting pieces of advice. Our brain-fog thickens. Whose love should we strive for? Whose good advice should we take?

John 15: 9- 11
As the Father has loved me,so have I loved you.Abide in my love.
Jesus abode in His Father's love by taking His orders and obeying them.
Jesus's joy could never be diminished,He was always full of joy.... no confusion,no dissonance when his different friends said different things.
I'm referring to Peter in Matthew 16.
It was difficult to tell if Peter was a prophet or a self-appointed shrink. Here he was at one moment speaking the truth that only Heaven knew,that Jesus is the Son of God, and then the very next moment He was telling Jesus to abort the salvific mission. Superimposing his vision over God's own plan revealed by Jesus's preceding words.
But Jesus didn't lose his joy. He was lucid and peaceful enough to point out to Peter what was from God and what was from Satan.

I need Jesus's joy in me ,that my joy may not vanish with the slightest breeze of contradiction.For that I need to receive His orders and obey them.His orders are to love. Obedience is loving. Love feels no burden. Yet I do the works of Love and weigh them, keeping tab as if to receive payment. Forgetting to be grateful and forgetting my debts which I can never repay to Jesus.
Yes, I am a work in progress... and the perfect,they take offense at me.

Be the metaphor

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 08:50:00 +0000

You can shout it from the rooftops,but if people have headphones on, jamming to their own DJ's ,nobody's gonna hear you.
Nobody makes eye contact anymore unless you're a picture on their screen,then they might give you the time of day.So how to evangelise without words ?

The evident is overlooked, but the mysterious,well now that can't be passed on by,can it? It's a challenge thrown at everyone's intelligence,can they figure it out? All of us have just got to let that inner Sherlock shine. .. Right? A metaphor has got to be understood,otherwise,well I'd just be too dumb! So...

Be the mystery.Be the metaphor. Be like the stars and the scars, speaking volumes and telling tales of long ago and far away,without a single word. Be "Jesus in the apron." as Fr.G puts it. ( yes,still reading Tattoos on the Heart,and loving it!)

Ed Sheeran- I see fire

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 08:17:00 +0000

Have you seen fire?... Have you heard of the final destruction of our planet being by fire? .... Testing by fire? Purified by fire?.... So this fire that causes pain and is horrible can deflate the most high spirited of us. Even Jesus' sweat became drops of blood. It's got just enough potency to consume anything human I think. We need an antidote don't we? Antidotes against all possible forms of harm.... bulletproofing, fireproofing, vaccinating, good karma,....religion anyone?

Well, I must confess,I am a human with a lust for music with meaning... an indulger of the lobe in the brain that revels in metaphors, puns ,poetry (and rapping?..well some rappers are poets par excellence,no?) Anyways, Ed Sheeran's "I see fire" is off-the-charts, beyond 10 on 10, y'know what I mean? But really it needs a response of hope. It kind of brings us, up-to the foot of the cross, but forgets to mention the resurrection, where's the hope?

It's a beautiful melody for a loving philanthropist.... It's a description of earth (in all its beauty too, visuals to die for in The Hobbit) as is, desperate and lonely. It describes us too, when we focus on the shadow and the fire, our souls hollowed sick. It is our song as humankind, aware of its time-bound-ness, finitude. Together yet alone. Jesus' Last Supper and brotherhood with us can be read into the spaces between the lines ,yet as I said, the song forgets to climax in the resurrection.

Psalm24:7-8
Lift up your heads,O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord,strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.

Have you wondered what these gates are? well they are ancient doors.
Okay, sorry for the lame answer, but it just dawned on me that these gates and ancient doors are our minds/hearts... Allow fear to come in through that door, shut the gate to faith and you have the neurotransmitter recipe for full blown depression.Without the vision of the King,who is indeed mighty in the War and has already won the victory,we keep losing our battles.We are paralyzed by the polar opposite vision: the image of our seemingly limitless enemy and we frequently allow ourselves to be consumed by the fire that hollows souls.

We forget the battle-cry ,"Where oh death is your sting?Where Oh grave is your victory?"*
A scorpion without its stinger, a pharaoh in all his pride, with his best soldiers,standing in the middle of the Red Sea which will not stay parted for him... that is the fire. The New Eve has crushed the head of the ancient serpent under her heel, through Jesus, her Divine Son.The fire has been put out by the Living Water.

*1 Corinthians 15:55

Marie's Story

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 07:27:00 +0000

Watched a movie about a nun ,Marguerite ,and a wild girl ,Marie,who is both blind and deaf.

Life is more than what we can see and hear. It is to be felt through our touch,through sensitivity to the presence of a soul. We have power to set free souls imprisoned in the prison cell they build for themselves. Fear forges the bars and the walls.Since I am still vacillating between fearfulness and joyful abandon let me include myself in the lot of people who need to be freed.

We fear God the only good and believe the lie that He is bad. This feels like all the air around us is filled with some poisonous gas with no life giving oxygen. We suspect God and end up suspecting the whole universe.

Jesus sets free those of us still imprisoned by our fearfulness of God. When we are afraid of everything , we tend to lash out. Imagine being blind-folded and surrounded by wild dogs,we lash out in self defense, fearful and on the brink of insanity.

We can't see see Him or understand HIM so we sit alone, fearful and caustic towards those around us.I guess our souls innately know that God lives inside people, so we fear the people around us.

Jesus let's us see with His vision and hear with His hearing, the Father who we are blind and deaf toward. He helps us use our heightened sense,the sense of the supernatural...the sense of Faith.
Marie held onto Sr.Marguerite's hands,feeling the movements. So we can hold onto Jesus who gives us Himself,His body and blood in Holy Communion. Feel the movements of Jesus and through our sense of faith,or our invisible vision of the supernatural and inaudible hearing of it ,see God and hear Him. Saints usually at least see visions to help them heavenwards, or hear inner locutions to know which road to take. But we the spiritual Helen Kellers and Maries are also called to become saints.. Through our "Marguerite ", Jesus, and with the help of those who have become proficient in seeing and hearing with the touch, (vi. Mother Mary,the saints and the Church),proficient in understanding God without seeing or hearing Him, we too can pass over from fear and suspicion of our heavenly Father to joyful abandon and trust in Him.

If you want the scenery to change you have got to start driving!

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:32:00 +0000

Do you sometimes have starting trouble?... I mean ,do you first have to take a walk, or dust all the furniture or pretty much do any other darn thing than the task to be done, before you actually get down to doing real business? Or do you wander off mid-work to follow through on that inspirational thought that just occurred to you and was itching to be written down in the blog?... ehem.. all the above is a short description of me, when I'm unmotivated. I would probably be bored because well I've been on the same page for the past 2 days, nothing getting past the book-brain -barrier (#badpunintended)... Well, like I said in the beginning, I can complain all I want that the scenery isn't changing, but really it's not going to, unless I whir up that engine and hit the highway!

Some shops reward you for buying their wares, by showing you some special wares reserved for those who make serious purchases .. stuff hidden from the casual buyer... and this stash is crème-de-la-crème stuff, to-die-for-classy ,y'know? Have you met shop owners who have this neat trick up their sleeve?

I'm beginning to suspect that God is one such Entrepreneur. When He sees you are serious about doing business, He shows you newer ,broader horizons. Mind-blowing beauty that you will gawk at and wonder,' Where was this all my life?!' Well the truth is ,I think, it's like levels in a game ,you've got to pass each one before better levels get unlocked and reveal their secrets to you.

Okay unmotivated person, time to get your game on!

Do you believe in "magic"?

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 18:12:00 +0000

I used to until around day before yesterday!... I sort of had it down that if I went to daily mass, or made some wonderful pious activity a habit, God would take care of all the rest . Seek first the kingdom and voila, just like magic, all the rest (anything I could ever need) would be mine!!!!!!!!

So what's wrong with that? Everyone needs a daily helping of the miraculous , don't they? Well, this made me a little careless.If you can understand the difference between a capitalist and communist, I'd be like the communist. [You do what you can and the rest well... sits undone (because ,well, your pay is fixed and your poor performance doesn't make a dent in it) . I think capitalists work extremely hard so that they can make maximum profits.]

Well, what Jesus was encouraging when he said ,"Do not worry about what you will eat or drink but above all be concerned about the kingdom of God", CANNOT be translated as,"Be a little laisez-faire about your work and be a whole lot religious...and God will take care of you." What Jesus meant was when you do your work, do it for the Kingdom of God (do it with the passion that only comes from the fire from the hearth of a dream), as a representative of God , as God would have done it.Finally, do it like a Capitalist (the one who got five earned five more, the one who got two earned two more),then all the rest shall be added unto you, everything you need will be yours.You will find "magic" at every turn, the universe conspiring to help you achieve your lofty dream , which unbeknownst to you ;was planted in your soul by God, for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven.

So now I believe not in "magic"", but that you make your own magic. ;)

There is always the temptation to leave the burden on God, (like this is kinda hard, so if you want it done, cut me major slack and do most of the work miraculously.. y'know?) But as my dear love says, "God can do it Himself, He can convert the homies in the ghettos all by Himself, but He used Fr.G . Why ? Because by our participation in doing God's work,we get sanctified." Isn't that what we need in the first place, our sanctification?

Tattoos on the heart

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 21:42:00 +0000

Guys and girls, read one book asap... "Tattoos on the heart"...It is amazing ...it's by Gregory Boyle the founder of Homeboy Industries.
Peace out.

Why does God need a doctor?

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 13:51:00 +0000

There are nuns and there are priests. Ordained ,consecrated. Aren't they the ones to whom the world goes when it needs healing of spirit and balm for soul-wounds? Aren't churches enough for spiritual healing?

Well ,yesterday; while at church, I saw a family with a sick child, who were not friends with the clergy (usually such families are really close to the church family, but this one wasn't),they were just attending the church service from afar. That's when it dawned on me that sometimes when people are totally knocked out by life's curve balls, they blame God and therefore do not plug into the one Power-source that can help them triumph over the universe's seeming conspiracy against them.

For the real fallen ,on their way to Jericho ,neither priest nor Levite will do, but only the "good Samaritan." That's why God needs doctors to step in and be good Samaritans. Leading the fallen back into the embrace of the Father who never stops waiting at the gate*.

Sometimes, the priest and Levite do not ignore out of malice, but out of exhausted sympathy. They have comforted several dying travelers on this Jerusalem -Jericho road before, they saw that they weren't making any physical difference, it seemed like insignificant lip service and insufficient first aid. The travelers died anyway. So this time when they saw yet another traveler, they thought,"The thief, who comes only to steal, kill and destroy, has done his work yet again." It did not occur to them to hope nor to realize that our fallen guy was only half-dead ,not yet a complete lost cause.Only the lay man ,the Samaritan, who had perhaps himself received mercy in his fallen state, couldn't forget the life-saving-power of those seemingly futile attempts at first-aid and shelter, that are given at the most hopeless moment.

So doctors,wash and bind up their wounds, and then admit your patients at the Divine Inn,where God their loving Father can heal their souls. Say a prayer for the souls of those you were given the privilege to save. Those prayers are the denarii the Good Samaritan pays at the Inn . What is this mysterious value of words spoken in prayer? How can words cause effects?.... Remember God creates using words and He has endowed us with that similar kind of power by enabling/(ennobling?) us to speak, more specifically, to pray.Wow!...right? Mind blown!

cf. the story of the Good Samaritan -- Luke 10:29- 37
*the story of the prodigal son-- Luke 15:11-32

Remember

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sat, 05 Dec 2015 06:52:00 +0000

Nothing looks as good as Jesus's faithful friendship feels. Nothing.
(So no wasting time online when you should be studying for His Glory )

Inspired by: Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels.

A good doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 19:01:00 +0000

Is it the detective doctor with a police dog's intuition about the scents of diseases? Is it the respectful listener who realises every patient's case is as unique as their fingerprint? Is he the priest who exorcises the devil as an ambassador of God? Is it the friend who stays closer to you than a brother in the worst moment of your life? Is it the businessman doctor,detached ,impersonal and indifferent, who delivers accurate service without engagement of spirit,for whom every patient counts,but only as a statistic that broadens his database? I don't know... But I wish I could meet a good doctor and learn how combining detective work with personal investment while preserving his personal space and time is all done in a day's work.. I wish a good doctor would explain to me how like a priest, she listens and God does the diagnosing and treatment administration through her... It's almost tantamount to a sacrament yet no one teaches us it is sacred! Store up all the knowledge you can understand in your heart, think about the clever ways in which medicines have been engineered to treat different diseases... Serendipity favours the prepared, opportunity is found by those who are searching for it... For a doctor who is creative is better than all others,he stands on the shoulders of giants and leaps with faith into the possibility of spiritual healing through the physical healing. He is motivated by the best Doctor ever, who took all of mankind's infirmities upon his own body, who was wounded that their souls and bodies ,in that order of priority ,might be healed.
A good doctor like a good lawyer fights for the patient to be free not only of wrong convictions/ diagnoses but also completely free from the need for his services. He doesn't just deliver medicine/ justice but teaches the patient/accused how to steer clear of trouble in future . If the problem is genetic/ terminal or in the legal scenario irreversible like the crime of homicide, the good doctor ensures that his patient gets to live rather than receive a metaphorical capital punishment. He is the last bastion of hope for our society that needs his watmth and integrity. Therefore,the good doctor will always save a life and never take it.He is like a lawyer not a judge.He will always try to defend your life to the very end.

Lord,help my unbelief!

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 23:33:00 +0000

credits: Kinsey Mhire Photography wedding collection

"You magnify what you focus on." Kinsey Mhire

In response to the Paris Attacks, Antoine who lost his wife to terrorist bullets, has said, he refuses to hate. He focused on being free and happy rather than living in hate.He said "we are only two,my son and I and we are more powerful than all the armies of the world." I don't know exactly what he meant,but it stuck with me... because often we feel the opposite of that sentiment. Helpless, paralyzed by the awareness of our puny stature.Even if we had a gun we wouldn't use it, thinking what difference does one bullet shot into the sky against a nuclear bomb attack make...y'know?

But this fear is incompatible with Eternal Life. St Paul says,"For to set the mind on the flesh is death,but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."

In plain sight if it is water, remember that in hindsight it will be wine. In your eyes if it is 5 loaves of bread, after it's been through His hands,it's 5000 loaves and then some.In your ears if it is an unintelligible foreign language,when His Spirit moves,it's better than google translate,you hear the gospel in your native tongue!To human vision it is a wafer,but now the consecration and later it is for the eyes of faith,a spectacle even angels bow in marvel before,the God whom the universe can't contain has become as small as the Eucharistic Host.

So focus on the Holy Spirit's power and magnify Him.

There's sugar unstirred,it gets sweeter towards the bottom

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 05:53:00 +0000

Coconut coffee anyone? Apparently it's a thing... I added sugar to make it tastier and forgot to stir... Lo and behold it got sweeter the farther down I emptied the cup . It seems to me that's how all good things are... New to us, yet to become second nature,not yet habitual...but as we go further down into the effort ,we might find it gets sweeter and sweeter. ...No? What do you all think?

Anything worth doing, is bound to be tough...

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 17:54:00 +0000

Delivering a baby and participating in keeping it alive for the initial months can drain a mother's strength considerably. It's a revelation to the woman,when she suddenly has to cease being the centre of her world,and realizes that salvation begins when we decrease and God increases,God in the other (in this case the baby).The baby becomes a reason to shift her focus outwards,off of herself towards the other.But these are tough days,and "dead tired " becomes a literal phrase almost. Soon forgotten and not often dwelt upon,but poignant enough to make the selfish side of the mother think twice before saying yes to bringing another child into the world...

While this pity-party drums up a ruckus in the mother's soul,the Lord sees her wandering off-track,into a desolate wilderness of fruitless self absorption. God's word Matthew 18:5 , shines a flashlight into the darkness and peace returns.She begins to pray ,"Lord,in your Name and for your sake,we accept this child." She understands that to welcome a baby is to welcome Christ.

Doing good will be quite impossible...

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 00:25:00 +0000

Moses had the will to tackle the pressing problem which God had said was indeed his calling to solve....but Moses must have rolled his eyes in exasperation when the Pharaoh kept saying "no",despite all the proofs! He might have said,"Oh come on God,how do You expect me to do this..this guy is impossible!!!"

Then as the desert safari grew long-winded and the people started pining for Egypt and making golden calf idols,Moses was really wondering,how on earth everything could go so wrong,if it was actually the Sovereign God's plan for them to be victorious.

So what do you think? Why didn't God give smooth sailing for poor old Moses?

Well,2 Corinthians 4:7 might be an answer to this perplexing nature of the universe, to seemingly conspire against us in the nitty-gritties while the big picture, yet obscure, slowly unfolds( we believe that ultimately all will work for our good,but during the short-term hassles, it never seems so.)

God wants us to experience our fragility,that we are indeed earthen pots,mere clay not suddenly iron or brass,not angelic or mutant-like,no we're the same,plain old ,raw-as-they-come,bodies....carrying within us a mysterious treasure,some impossible mandate.

There's a dailogue in Kung Fu Panda where Tai Lung appraises Po and laughs at the obvious mistake by which he has been chosen to be the Dragon Warrior.How can a tub of flub even begin to practice Kung fu (forget mastery!...has Po looked in the mirror lately?) How can Moses lead a stiff-necked people and convince a stiffer-necked Pharaoh? How can Joseph a mere carpenter,raise a King? How can a Virgin give birth? How can treasure be kept safe in jars of clay? It can't be done.It is impossible. But it has been done and it became possible,by the surpassing power of God.You see,the impossibility is deliberately so ,in order to keep it always beyond the shadow of a doubt,that God is the Playwright and we his loyal showmen.

Each and every child of God has within him some impossible mandate.Impossible by His design.The story begins,when you discover your treasure,your impossibility,your totally uncomfortable mission.

Vanity revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Soul ja) — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 04:47:00 +0000

David Hume (via Maria Papova :Brain Pickings) "Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature" an essay; said,
"To love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake that it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former."

God gives us all that is his,including the glory of any work well done (for it was indeed only possible by His grace) He didn't hesitate to give us His beloved dearest Son,He delights to give us praise through our fellow beings.He loves to encourage his children through his other children...does that make sense? ...hmm... cf. Romans 8:32