Sam

“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...

     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...