Sam

      Two thousand three hundred kilometres from where I am sitting fairly comfortably, is a spot where a few weeks ago I was destined before creation to stand (and sit and kneel and bow) for a fleeting period of time. From my position when I extended my neck and gazed at the apse, I realised the true purpose of my being and me being there, to see and know where I belong- at the feet of the King, the love of my life. May the dust that braced His feet shadow my existence. Before I could ponder if I was worthy to be where I was, to covet where I want to be and even to dare raise my eyes further up to His face, “Behold!” I heard the priest exclaim. The invitation was to see, not His feet, but His body and soul and not just to behold but to touch, taste and become. The answer to my question came from me in the timely response, ‘Lord, I am not worthy…’      ‘Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap,’ promised...

I dare say I am familiar with the heat greeting the entrants to the outer circle of hell. Does this familiarity ensure a better stay for me in the inner circle? I doubt it. I deem myself experienced in the terrain of the valley of death. Does this mean I am fearless at the idea of the Dolorosa? Heavens, no! I have heard the deafening silence in the wind that shook the mountain and shattered the rocks. Does this equip me with the virtue to be able to listen in the breeze? I don't know.  But then, what do I know? All I know is that hundreds of thousands of faithful over the centuries, dared the summer’s heat, trod the undulating path and suffered a myriad of discomforts to get to a church in a small town in northern Spain. All I know is that the bones of a man lay in the crypt of that great cathedral. And all I know is that on that journey to embrace the bejewelled statue of this man, the faithful went expecting.  'What are you expecting?', we were asked on day zero, in an i...

She is dead.            The phrase I had uttered without hesitation during my time as the resident doctor in Palliative Medicine were the same words I was trying to avoid saying. She, a middle-aged mother of one, on life-support a few wards away from where I stood, had ceased her struggle with  the virus . Sitting before me, occupying a bed each opposite each other were what was left of the woman’s nuclear family. Her son on one side and her husband on the other side of a Covid general ward. The situation where, amidst a global calamity, entire families were admitted to the hospital, where a Psychiatry resident was called upon to care for medically unwell patients, wearing a dehydrating space-suit seemed something out of a dystopian novel. But the terrible update I was privy to wrung me back to the pages of reality.        The nursing staff and I were in possession of the knowledge that the third member (first?) of this small family...

            Pit against the Almighty yet frequently mistaken for Him is Life. Life is praised beyond words by some and yet cursed with rich verbiage by others, a few intensely meant 'F this's and 'This is S's. Unless asked by a teacher or demanded by a PPT slide, why would anyone attempt to define life? Humans commonly claim to be merely looking for the meaning of life rather than its definition. What good would a definition do? What good would a technical interpretation of life do to the twenty-four-year-old man who was parched beyond description on his way home on the back of a truck? Life bestowed the man with the determination to work as a labourer a thousand kilometres from home and when a global catastrophe struck, life blessed him with a few thousand rupees that bought him standing space on a truck that would take him home. Life in its generosity positioned a friend next to him who refused to leave his friend alone when he was asked to leave the tran...

           Not everyone has it hard.      Life on earth made him susceptible to disease and diseased he was, bound to a bed. Life placed him in the company of friends of faith. Nature bestowed these friends with the strength to lift the man and his bed to the roof. Divine Will placed Divinity under that roof. All the man had to do was lay still. Choosing the wedding theme is the most difficult decisions for some (believe it or not) while for a few it is the choice between an expensive treatment escalation or certain death.  Not everyone has it hard.      Not everyone has it easy.      A woman hid in a toilet for ninety days trying to flee the machete destined to chop her. When she eventually emerged, she realised that though she had escaped death her family didn’t. After a conflict that claimed the lives of millions including their loved ones, they  hoped for liberation. But  lit...

“I have come closer to God. Family matters have not changed much…” came the message on Whatsapp. “I have gone farther away from God. Family matters have not changed much…” the reply went. Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen! (Come, ye daughters, help me lament!)      Johann Sebastian Bach chose to start his masterpiece ‘St. Matthew Passion’ with this apt chorus. The passion narrative from the Gospel of St. Matthew set to music calls on the one who listens to it to gaze beyond this world to the One who is the source of the celestial music and the fountain of all that is good. The grief filled notes recall the day when the sweetheart of heaven was labelled a criminal.      It is said that if ‘Bach’s St. Matthew Passion’ exists, God exists.      This piece of music that is said to give us a foretaste of the beauty of heaven begins with a lament. This is not surprising though, considering the apparent oxymoron by whic...

     Of all the incredible scenes in the epic-animation film ‘The Prince of Egypt’ the most remarkable scene for me is not the parting of the sea but what happens immediately after. For a few seconds everyone including Moses is shown dumbfounded. No dialogues, just open mouths. No movements, just some heavy breathing. No awesome score by Hans Zimmer, just the sound of the wind. When mere humans stand witness to the hand of the Creator, all that they can do is just look. Scripture and liturgy use one word for such moments.            Behold.           “Behold the lamb of God…” the priest proclaims. A very apt use of the word which, when uttered during mass, demands that all eyes on heaven and earth turn toward the altar. Whether one realises it or not, those few seconds that you look at Him are no different from the moment when the sea stood still. Could all the visions of the old and the new testaments put toget...

     The regime had just decreed a new law and as a result, in every town and city that I came across there were long columns of frustrated people. One had no choice but to stand in the line. Many were not particularly fond of those in power or their methods. In fact they would be rather pleased if the rulers left their posts for good. But even thinking such thoughts could prove fatal so everyone simply complied and stood in the queue, even pregnant mothers.     It was a difficult time. Not just for the country but for the entire world.     It was ‘the fullness of time’.     The period in question was Anno Domini the year of the Lord and the country was Palestine, an outpost of the Roman Empire. Caesar Agustus's ‘Census of the World’ was underway.     I left my time-machine in the desert outside Jerusalem and set out to visit the Holy Family. After a change of robes and a neutral headgea...

    He made it.          It is a miracle that he did. Standing at the edge of a cliff expressionless but full of emotion is the obscure human. You may or may not know him. It could be the man you pray for or the woman you try to encourage. It could be the woman you detest because of her lack of faith or the man no one seems to understand. It could be your neighbour who you think simply needs to hope or your colleague who you reckon just has to believe. To openly generalise, it is a human who merely reached an inevitable milestone of human life. It could be you. No one is immune to life. That he came thus far is a miracle in the eyes of some but only a prelude to it for others.          Most don’t care.          He has travelled a long way. The memory of his journey is magnified by the depth of the valley inches away from him. He was not there by accident though the set up looks like it. Not just ...

      There is light at the end of the tunnel, it is said. How long the tunnel is, no one said.      Even when he hangs by a thread a person clings to hope.      The incredible tensile strength of the thread in the previous statement makes for a good metaphor for hope. The man is so proud of his super power (more specifically, a mutation) to hope until the metaphor morphs into reality and the thread snaps.      As he falls he spots a figure climbing over the cliff. That figure was also hanging by a thread. That figure also hoped. ‘What was the difference?’ the man asks moments before his head is crushed. ‘Hope doesn’t promise; hope doesn’t deliver. Hope only hopes’ the figure from above replies to the corpse below.      ‘Do not lose hope’ a woman was told once. She wasn’t sure if she had any hope left to lose but she was a human and humans have the tendency to dig out hope fr...

     That I am a hypocrite, I say with no pretence. I am a hypocrite because I claim to believe in a Person who forgave those who went a few extra miles in torturing and dragging Him to the hilltop where He was to die; forgave those who killed His followers; forgives habitual sinners; forgives those who have one foot in hell but I do not forgive. I was forgiven, I am forgiven and I will be forgiven if I repent. That is the assurance the Scripture gives me.          But I do not forgive.          Mercy I get readily, 24/7 and with no strings attached. Mercy I give with a reluctant heart, after a long pause and with a laundry list of clauses. Sometimes I do not have mercy on others at all. Somehow, I missed one of the most important take home messages of my faith, in fact a map back home.          I missed the lesson of forgiveness, I missed Christianity.          I...