powered God- Christ

Deified and politicised God is all powerful, but is in need of human defense and protection.

Christ within a religious framework is not Christ at all. Because truth of Christ cannot be contained in definitions. He became one among us, and we claim that we have known him fully.  Christ is not in an up-above heaven. The truth of Christ involves all of us, all humanity, all differences. To understand him, we need openness to the other despite all the differences. To realise in-Him, we need the vibrance of with-the other and through-the other. Christ lives in us, and we all live in Christ. Without learning to trust the other whom we can see how are we to trust Christ who lives in all others and us together and in entirety?

I too do not condemn

 These days of lent help us to be closer to Jesus and enter into the heart of God. We began with understanding our struggles and temptations with the presence of Jesus and strengthened by the voice of God. We reflected on ways of closely imitating him, believing and walking with him through the daily realities on the plane. Then we began looking deeper into the heart of God and reflected how we enter. Now, these days we are meditating how we possess the nature of God in our person and community.

We know that it is not easy, and demands a lot of effort. Let us keep the passage of last Sunday also to reflect on the passage given today. “… the Pharisees and Scribes complained, … and then He told them a parable: …” He came to the temple, all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman …” Women like this are to be condemned to death by stoning according to the law of Moses. A similar tone is seen also on the woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, “What sort of woman is she …” We heard the same accusation last Sunday from the elder son, “this son of yours who devoured your living with harlots ….”
According to the law of Moses, what is to be maintained and achieved? It is a covenantal bond. It does not aim at an individual righteousness which can hounour someone with the position of judge. The covenant is to a people, and any failure in the covenantal bond needs to be repaired by the ‘people’ together. ‘Anyone of you who has no sin…’ is not only a reminder of sinfulness, but also a call to build each other in grace so that no one may be in a state that one loses themselves and unable to experience God’s grace. Are you a righteous one? Thank God, and extend yourselves after the heart of God that they may also live.
‘This one’ was lost but is found, was dead and is alive is a cause of rejoicing and celebrating; not an occasion to condemn. We can go to the extreme that we can find fault with God too. Because these are condemnable according to the law of Moses; they are sinners, immoral, strangers, outsiders, pagans, and unholy. We cannot believe that God can love them. Somewhere there is wrong with the approach of God. Perhaps some need a judge-saviour and judge-deity to serve their own ethical codes. We may not be able to apply fixed definitions to participate in God's nature. Entering into the heart of God is a celebration without biases and judgment. It is a giving and receiving of life to the full.
Jesus asks us to grow a bit more from the possibilities of the law. More than surety of discipline, order and perfection, life is to be directed to a maturity in Christ in whom we grow and participate in the nature of God. St Paul presents it as the goal of life, a goal for which Christ has made us his own. The past is gone; perhaps using the law as a judgment tool, or being condemned by the law, or being guided by the law. But, now “all I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and share in his suffering by imitating the pattern of his death.”
Christ is not an obligation-framework, he is the source of life. Being in Christ fills in us the newness of life, the power of the resurrection. Life, the Christ-nature has a creative restlessness until this same life flows into all those who are weak, oppressed, and those who don’t see a time of grace. So, naturally, our life and attitudes take a life-giving mode. Life grows as we take a mutually-consoling manner. “No need to remember the past, don’t think of what was done before” is not a denial or break away from the past, but a total reception of the entirety of life into God’s unfathomable love.
People coming back home, people thrown at our feet may not be in a religious context all the time. According to religion, according to our daily life routines, many are easily judged, and those judgements are justified. Can we examine in us for a Christ-response in our attitudes, evaluations and judgments? Recently I heard some holy Christians instructing that it is against the first commandment to help someone or donate blood to someone of a different faith. If our very Christianness becomes an obstacle to be Christlike and make us judge in a godless nature, there is a lifeless chair of Moses still in function. Christ is the door to enter to God and the home we enter into. Christ is the model to follow, in him we have celebration and joy. We welcome, we accept, we embrace, we do not condemn, we desire life and mercy. Let us try, let us ask God’s help to realise the righteousness, peace and joy of the kingdom.

Coming Home

Did Christ die as a rebellious acceptance of violence?
Did he die as a victim of Jewish religious hypocrisy and Roman cruelty?
Did he die as a ritualistic sacrifice for sins; Did he die as a ransom before a judging deity who would pardon only if a cruel death would be offered?

He was a victim of Jewish religious hypocrisy and Roman cruelty. But he lived his life to the full, emptying himself. The abundance of life he would give to humanity would not be defeated by the wicked holiness of the jews.

Perhaps some need a judge-saviour and judge-deity to serve their own ethical codes. We may not be able to apply fixed definitions to to participate in God's nature. Entering into the heart of God is a celebration without biases and judgment. It is a giving and receiving of life to the full.

As we 'enter' our house, there is no home to reach, we make the home and we are the home. Repentance and homecoming is similar as we become one home that is Christ.

Opening the doors to heaven

Heaven is never closed in order to be open for us. Of course, we can make walls around us and be inside them, and be not in heaven. We hold the key to open it. Christ is the door that everyone enters into the Father. We know it, and we are very near to it. But make excuses and  be reluctant to enter.

The keys to enter: 1) free of biases and prejudices about others. It may be based on culture, religion, nationality, ethnicity ....

2) free of biases and prejudices about ourselves. There are biases that stand against the kingdom of God Jesus introduced, such as we are under condemnation, we bear curses, deserve punishments, unworthy and should be ashamed.

3) learn to trust in God, and his unconditional love.

4) Entering the kingdom means to stand against evil. Often many are fascinated by taking sword and fighting against a superhero devil. But it is by opting and living the values of the kingdom we resist evil. We need good will as person and community. Be committed as a community for establishing goodness, peace and justice. 

The kingdom is at hand. They keys are given to you. if you lock, it will be locked for you, if you open, it will be opened for you and for many.

'Adolescence'

 "Why all are speaking about 'Adolescence,'" a Netflix series? It can be seen that what they are speaking is not speaking fully.

Many articles speak of it as a wakeup call for good parenting. If parenting is taken in a wide sense, of course, it is right. Instead, if they points only to their character, behaviour, and their quarrels and anger issues, they speak very less than what needs to be spoken.
Primarily, 'the system' itself is unaware of the world of the 'adolescent' or the online world of people whatever age they may be. There are preferred worlds for them. There is a language, community, values, interactions in that chosen world.
Unliked, unloved, unaccepted, or abused children are Liked, Friended, and loved. Parental emptiness, or belong-nowhere get a filling source online. The breakdown of family and society had been happening even before with various reasons. But those voids were filled with toxic ointments online.
The Series points to the incel (involuntary celibate) groups. The basic belief contains that the women are highly selective and there is a possibility of being rejected. 'I am ugly' is an expression of this feeling of being 'sexually' rejected. So, a 'manosphere' in which a male uprising happens is seen as a solution.
Incel, whether it refers to sexual acceptance or various aspects it involves today, cannot addressed just within the deficiency of parenting. What the articles do not speak is about the standards on which the bullying, the denial, and the rejection are maintained.
Society needs to see the conversations, priorities it builds and maintains for whatever benefit. A denial, humiliation, of friendship, or 'sexual' acceptance base itself on race, colour, nationality, language, religion etc. As 'selection' is highly dependent on these factors, the same factors gathers them into rebellious, reactionist, and even violent online communities. Often they have shown themselves in the real world causing injuries and murders.
If society prefers to form governmental, political and educational system maintaining the hateful separations, and such conversations happen in families incels are not born out of 'personal' quarrels and anger of parents. Jamie's father tells 'we made him' cannot refer to him and his wife alone. it is the society and culture that made him.
What are the ways people, especially the children and the youth, feel they are ugly, unworthy, and get 'red-pilled,' find helpless in 'blackpill,' and get into nonexistence if they are 'blue-pilled'? How do religions and politics maintain and use these incel groups for their advantage?
We need to speak more, and speak sincerely and wholly. Only honest conversations can bring out a healthy generation online and offline.

'Learn to do good'

Law bases itself on order, and gives a guideline. But it cannot ensure goodness. It is up to us whether we learn to do good. Good may differ in its intensity and kind. So, we need to be guided by wisdom. Wisdom itself is a fruit of our active attentiveness to our experiences. Wisdom is also a gift where grace has been present in those moments. 

'Learn to do good' begins in a deliberate decision to 'cease to do evil.' It is must when it is volitional. At least in intention, it must be addressed when evil remains as a weakness. Learning to do good, as an effort and by grace will help us in 'cease to do evil.'

Where do we find freedom to learn to do good unless we seek justice? Justice is not just one's due. It is attending to one's potential for flourishing. That is the righteousness of the kingdom of God. There is no goodness learned, nor justice sought, if a person, a nation, a community is not attended to one's potential to flourish. Instead, there is evil affirmed and constructed.

Compromising to these affirmed and constructed evils is well justified by the capacity of law, because they can be well settled within the matter of order without ensuring goodness. Our Kingdom is well imagined within cognitive, legal/canonical frameworks of the divine being and action, and similarly human being and actions. Compassion, mercy, and love can extend only from the felt need of the other, whatever it may be, as one's own need. It calls for responsible and committed efforts, so we take recourse on the judicial goodness which can bring about very less of our living or the divine life.

Life and death is set before you....

Its a prophetic call to discern the divine will within written laws.
Letters of the law have power and they can be under the manipulative intentions of the powerful.
'You shall live' if we can listen to the voice of God, not to the will of the powerful.
Renounce yourself also include losing one's power over the command of letters one uses.
These letters can be customs, liturgy, traditions, and perspectives.

Losing oneself for finding oneself in Christ!

Here is the commandment of God,

Here is the Holy God,

What is the voice in the 'commandment o God,'

What is truly Godly in the 'Holy God?'

Life and death is set before you....

be a prophet to know and follow life

new Christianity

There is a new Christianity
which Christ never knew.
Christian flavour everywhere,
no virtues of Christ.

They keep holy ideals, but intolerant militants in approach
They speak of virtues, but moralist dictators.
We suffered wars over claims on the promised land,
Now 'son of God' just claims lands for making a peaceful world.
National security, international security all assured when 'son of God' rules.

Mammon stretches his wings to the far space,
and the 'faithful' sing Hosanna to the convenient Christs.

Fun of Peace

 'PEACE' has become a fun now.

Some offer peace as charity.

Emperors and colonial powers had extended peace since they 'did not want war,' but at the submission of you, your faith, and culture.
Now, peace is extended at the submission of oil, minerals. and water.

They say that some GOD was with them!

What comes out of us

 “From the abundance of one’s heart, mouth speaks.” To know what fills our hearts, we must know what feeds our hearts. Jesus often spoke about fruitfulness; fruitfulness, not in the sense of great number or large sum, but they were to be of quality. This quality depended on abiding in him, being pruned for a better produce, preparing good soil for producing thirty, sixty or a hundred fold. What Jesus spoke flowed from his heart, the words given by the Father; his words had authority, his words were truth and life.

What do we speak as a person and as a Christian community? What are we fed with in order to speak? Are we aware of the level of poison that enters us from the polluted water, air and soil? Some deny that. Similarly, we are unaware of the mis-information and half-truths we are feeding on. In such an environment, how are we to engage in an honest and upright conversation? Truth is more than the correctness of knowledge, but it is faithfulness and trustworthiness of a relationship. In this relationship, we enter the process of knowledge about the Father, about ourselves, about our times and their signs. It is a process of gradually being known. Our prayer, faith, and relationship with God, all these are to be in the gradual growth of being the children of God. Our conversations need to flow from these aspects, that we set our heart in communion with the Father and others, and we humbly be open for the truth being revealed in our life and our society. “We don’t possess the truth, but we belong to the truth.” 

Today, we are living a cultural phenomenon where facts are secondary to personal beliefs, emotions, and biases. So, truth is generated, often distorted, manipulated, or disregarded altogether. It affects our daily living environment, public conscience, interactions and social institutions. We have a great flood of information, and thousands of perspectives. We do not know what to trust. Just as we are vulnerable to non-truths and half-truths, knowingly or unknowingly we are also agents of misinformation and lies. 

When in conversations, what we speak about ourselves, about one who is listening, about our family, social and ecclesiastical institutions, are we speaking truth? We speak of problems, but we are rarely ready to see clearly what is the truth. Often, we go into defense or denial and go ahead as though everything is fine. We need truthful observations, critical and logical assessment to understand things. A good tree that bears good fruit stands in integrity in its life. The inner resources we gather must lead us to an integral form of life which manifests fruits from its resources. Whether we have seen ourselves within the communion with God, being in Christ, and being in communion with one another is an important question to be asked. Our own personal self, with its biological, emotional, intellectual, sexual, social dimensions is to be seen clearly and received as it is being known. Our true message is a response from this self in its entirety. We see that science, religion, and politics move away from truth and good will, and take perspectives. We do have perspectives, but we must make sure that we have not bought a divisive and politicised ideological perspective for ourselves. It does happen in religion, society and politics. We require an integral view of things, concerning faith, family, church, changes, relationships, troubles. Instead of seeing them clearly in completeness in their own structures and contexts we may approach partly and may bind ourselves to perspectives and ideological frames. As we are confined to these frames, our conversations cannot be free, honest, and upright. Then, our words do not carry truth and life. Our words are qualified with goodness when heart is filled with goodness.

In the parables of Jesus, there was a fig tree full of leaves but did not bear fruits, in Isiah 5, there was a vine branch carefully planted but produced sour grapes, in Ezekiel 17, there was a twig removed and planted on a river bed which grew but stretched its branches far towards other resources and securities. Each of these offers us feeding roots which frame our conversations. We might speak of the glories of ourselves and our history; in such pompous attires we make ourselves conveniently blind against crises and fruitlessness. We chose divisive securities and enclosed identities, and claim and proclaim them as divine. There is no good news in those words. We can easily manipulate the emotions and beliefs and reformulate in the name of God, causing the production of sour fruits.

Jesus listened to the Father, listened to the cry of his people and time. He was the truth that gives life to all, but the same truth of himself was seen disfigured in front of him. The nature of the kingdom he announced clearly shows that the truth of Christ was a gathering and embracing heart.  So, His words had to bring healing to the truths that exploited them. Religion and society had created truths, and they could not be challenged or questioned because they were declared divine. This divine did not qualify the Father, Jesus was speaking to. 

We cannot have our words lifegiving unless there is desire for virtues. The truth of our words grows deeper as our relationship deepens; both with God and others. The grasp of truth fills us with more compassion and openness. In a genuine conversation, there may be constant recognition of “your words are truth and life.” Those words have authority to heal and to forgive. A heart that seeks virtues considers something fully, not partly, and it takes courage to speak truth without seeing whether others are pleased or not. One speaks of oneself in humility and sincerity; and speaks of others in truth, compassion and charity, seeing good of all. In both, prudence is exercised in speaking what and how. Wisdom comes to the aid to guide the conversation, and the living of it.  The disciples on the Emmaus way asked later, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road and explaining the scriptures to us.” Lk 24: 32 Let us pray that our conversations touch the core realities of our lives, biological and genetic, emotional and psychic, social and cultural, philosophical and religious; not hiding, not pleasing, but strengthening, healing, and leading, interpreting our journey on the way in a new language of grace. 

“The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of God is in his heart; his steps never slip.” Ps 37: 30. 

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Flower of Time

Next year, by this time, we may be there, I may have a job, I will have paid back the loan, and we should have a house. My medications may be over and I may be well again. See, we are already in the future. There is an investment of time. This investment involves hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties, and disappointment. Among these moments, some are opening to further events. All of them have something to fill into our life. As the title of J.T. Fraser’s book stands, Time is The Familiar Stranger. Are we running behind an arrow of time, are we being carried on a wheel of time? Or are we creators of time?

Time is unprompted. If we reflect on the spontaneity of time through the thoughts of Henri Bergson’s philosophy, the nature of time is ‘duration.’ Duration is not a measured sum of time stretched out between certain ends. Time is not a series of quantifiable moments ordered in a line; rather, it is a living, flowing entity that we experience only intuitively. Time is lived qualitative inner subjective experience.

Time is ever same, and every day is yet another day. It is true. But we experience passages of life; passages of day and night, birth and death and so on. So, passages invite us to newness, not because we may be wrong somehow, but to move into a qualitative human living. Understanding time as a living entity we can cherish the spontaneous nature of our experiences. Each moment of our lives, no matter how ordinary and familiar, carries its own depth and significance. There is beauty in it. What may come is not known. It permits us to flow with time, finding meaning in the unpredictability and chaos of life.  It encourages us to liberate ourselves from a rigid grasp of time.

Even many spiritual traditions confine time within a horizontal-linear framework. Our craze for the predictability of reality makes time so determined that even God cannot escape from human predictable outcomes. There is sin and punishment, blessing and prosperity, morality, error, and righteousness, all in one line with their causes and effects. These impose limitations on the richness of time.  This reductionist view strips away the dynamic and spontaneous essence of time. They overlook the complex and creative interplay of moments that constitute our lived experience. They may fixate on goals and endpoints, neglecting the significance of the journey itself, with all its nuances and spontaneity.

Often, we value time according to its utility toward a predetermined outcome. What is the use of ‘wasting’ time like this? Here time has become transactional. There we miss the inherent beauty of spontaneous existence; the joys, uncertainties, and unforeseen encounters.  It is in the appreciation of simply ‘being,’ presencing that we can be in the fluidity of time. Michael Ende, in his novel Momo, introduces time as a flower blooming from our hearts. It gradually unfolds. Time is an ever-unfolding tapestry, where each moment is interwoven with the past and the future, creating a rich tapestry of experience that defies any form of calculated and quantified form of time. Time is what we have outpoured for others. We cannot measure it, it can be known only by intuition.

We must begin with courage and hope; we must end certain stories; there are changes inevitable in our lives; there are doorways or passages we have to pass through. There is something sacred about it. These moments are not the same as other moments. The Roman god Janus, god of seasons, time and change, is often depicted with two faces looking into past and future. While we dwell in the present, it is an active blend of all our experiences shaped by our history and aspirations. Though time is seen as abstract, the lived time is complex and layered, demanding a deeper reflection on how we picture our existence within it.

Taking the spontaneity of time leads us to a celebration of life in its most authentic form. There we stand with the unfolding freedom of our hearts. Embracing such a view enriches our understanding of our existence; and fosters a more profound connection with the divine tapestry of which we are all a part. This tapestry of grace carries our events most beautifully, and fully immerse ourselves in the beauty of the now, experiencing it as a sacred and spontaneous gift. The beginnings and the end mark gateways archways, and thresholds that lead us to peace. If there is no peace, there is no grace of time. Time is born of Terra and Caelus, the Earth and the Sky. Peace, grace, and beauty of time unfold as we have a harmonious living with the earth and the sky.

Time is a familiar stranger, but time has a name, Logos, the Word, the beginning and the end, the origin and purpose of all things. Logos is the passage through which all pass, the threshold at which everyone must make a transitional choice for peace, harmony, beauty and goodness. In Logos, every being unfolds and finds one’s truth. In logos one reveals and opens a petal of time. As the Word unfolds, so too does time.