. Baruch Hababa B'shem Adonai

Adonai . Baruch ha ba ba shem.

John 20:1-9
We can come t church to 'check out' /verify what we have heard from another's mouth, like Peter and John did when Mary Magdalene brought news of Jesus' missing body. Or we can stay till we get to meet Him. Why do we attend church?

                     Here's a little expansion of these most famous verses in story form:

    They peered into the dark tomb. Empty! Mary was right,Jesus was missing, Bewildered, they ventured further in, looked around and finding no body, left back to where they had come from. They had forgotten what Jesus had told them: they who had been the closest to Jesus while he had been alive.
         Mary, as a woman had not been allowed according to custom, closer than the fringe of their all male circle, watching from a distance but nevertheless had followed Jesus everywhere he had travelled. Not a member of the privileged Inner Circle yet faithful to him whom she had accepted as her master.
           Now, the two men, confused, frightened by the news left her to herself. They returned home: back to familiar surroundings, back to what they had left behind for their master. He was no more; they had to rebuild their old identity. Her news had excited them but there was nothing more they could add to it.

        Mary sat outside the opening in the wall of stone, weeping.
      Reluctant to leave the last known place he had lain, refusing to follow the example of the men who had been closest to him for surely they knew him better than she did. They, had new plans now; she, had nothing left.
      Her desperation, her brokenness, her sense of utter loss was far greater than her need to rejoin the group. Without him,she had no connection to the group. Without him,she had no direction. Where was she to go now? Who else could give her a sense of identity beyond what men labled her? What was she without him?
      She would remain here.

      She'd better get out of sight before the sun rose bringing others to the graveyard. People revisiting memories of other loved ones. They may question her presence, her tear streaked face outside an empty tomb. She didnt want to meet anyone. She had no answers for anyone. She didnt have any answers for herself. She would hide inside and mourn her loss by herself. Alone as usual.
      The linen used to wrap the master's body! She would take them. She remembered, before she had run out to call the disciples, that there had been something strange about them. They were neatly folded and placed at where they had laid his head. The kerchief that had covered his face though was away from this neat pile as if dropped in a hurry.
   Mary Magdalene looked into the empty tomb again only to react in shock at two men in white who had entered without her noticing. Mary was disappointed. Was she to be cheated of her last hope? She felt anger rising. They were strangers. They had no right to be here.
       One sat where Jesus' head and been and the other where his feet had been. This was her master's place, now hers! Her bitter disappointment lent courage to the words she would use to eject them out.
 
     "My lady," one of them spoke before her, shocking her by his tone of respect. She, a woman need not have been acknowledged with any more respect than a dog. "Why are you crying?"
   
      The silence stretched between the three of them; the men waiting unusually patiently for her answer, she, wondering how to answer. Finally, " Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have put him." She couldn't think of a plausible lie. They would probably laugh at her- who would rob a whole body? Grave robbers only looted treasures buried with the dead. Jesus had been buried with nothing. Hearing the sound of her own voice speaking the words she had been refusing to believe, punched home the reality. He was gone!
      Fresh tears flowed out through her fingers as she wept into her hands, a deep groan coming up from her broken heart. It would not, could not ever be made whole again. He was gone.
   
      She sensed a third man behind her before he spoke. "Dear lady, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” Dawn had brought the gardener who tended the grave sites.
      "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away.” She didnt know how she would carry the dead weight but she would think of something later. If only they would give him back to her.

   "Mary!" A soft call. A firm voice.
 
    Her heart stopped. Her head swam. Its him!! "Teacher!!" She spun around in disbelief, excitement. Her hands stretched forward to touch him. Was he real? Or had her heart forced her head to trick her?
   
     "Dont touch me." He stepped back. "Not yet." He was laughing with her. "Don’t hold on to me, because I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I’m ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

   She didn't understand what he meant, but it didn't matter. She couldn't wait to tell the others!

An old clam shell and I.

He did it again.
The world outside say I shouldn't let it get to me, but it hurts anyway.

 So, like this old clam shell, I added one more layer of hardness over my heart and vowed (though I knew it wouldn't last), to never let anyone matter enough to hurt me again. We settle back to maintain peace as best as we can...till the pressure cooker inside lets off steam. Again.
Its a fact with every relationship, I find. Life, in itself is an experience.

      

 A patch of yellow on its shoulder and a white lump on the other, betray companions who had stuck onto the shell, obviously much later on in the life of the clam. Passengers who had weathered the storms that raged in the seas around them, together. Had they sung with mermaids in the watery beams of sunlight that played on the sandy sea bed and stoic coral where multi colored fishes swam among dancing weeds?  What secrets had they shared, these completely different species from separate worlds, yet so close that even death could not separate them? A symbiotic relationship no doubt.

      Reminds me of the friends who have weathered storms and been the rainbows for me.


         















 I turn it around and it fits perfectly in my hand. Its as if it is mine, beyond the fact that I found it. Born for me. Could it be as old me, its first layer of shell created along with my situation and adding layer on layer along with me? Now isn't that a thought?

        Inside it is smooth, polished, completely different from what it exposed to the world outside to be so easily dismissed as inconsequential, unappealing. 
I rub a thumb over and marvel at it. I enjoy it with my eyes closed...till I meet a slightly, not so smooth patch, an obvious scar. It is white, and I wonder what could it have held so close, absorbed it even to become an extension of its very being. A pearl? A very costly possession created by its own tears? Embraced and treasured. Not shared, not discussed, not to be misinterpreted, not to be judged. Savored as uniquely its own.

        How did the clam loose it then? Was it wrenched out, taken over by someone else; displayed as a thing of beauty while the old clam who had given everything to make it was tossed aside, discarded as worthless? However they were separated it had cost the clam its life.

  This shell found half buried on a sandy beach at the lip of whispering waves, could have been me...or you.

Conversion / Coercion

"i've converted my maid!" I declared and more than 40 members of my group congratulated me.

        My maid, over time had been watching me collect kitchen waste and dry leaves for composting. Intrigued, she announced one day that she too would like to try this. She had been converted. Oops I have just used the dreaded 'C' word. 

         But honestly, what are they afraid of? If your example is worth emulating, why not? Should you be condemned for daring to change another's thinking? Should you be discouraged, abused and driven out of your space for daring to allow another human being to make a calculated, sensible judgement which they prefer to their present state?

        Why would a bystander be offended? Because he was not invited to the party first? Because he was not the one who had done something good enough to copy, to inspire, to convince another? So the only other way to get some attention to himself is to pull down the two, with as much noise as possible. People are always attracted to loud noise, so the louder, the better. The more abusive, the more attention. And there you have it, his name is on everyone's lips, for better or worse; everyone has an opinion on his actions, and he, only he, is the centre of all that attention, that glorious attention!

       Conversions are different from Coercion. If something is forced on anyone without their consent, it is not right (even a marriage). But to say that no one is allowed to make a sensible decision to change their mind over something, is not democratic nor reasonable. To expect everyone to remain in their state of existence just because they happen to be born into something, is unjust - where is the freedom as a human being?

      Sure, my maid never thought of harbouring kitchen waste for 90 days or more. She had always been told that waste is waste, and you had to get rid of it - never mind where - throw it out on the street in front of the house, in the neighbour's back yard or around the corner when no one is looking...just get rid of it. But being 'better than her neighbours', and rather than dump the contents of the dustbin directly out for all to examine in detail, she, the enlightened one, would put them all in a plastic bag, and throw it out on the street, in front of the house, in the neighbour's backyard, or around the corner on her way home from work.

     But now, she is confronted by a new thought : Dont throw, Segregate.  
     It took some time, but now she is convinced that there is another way of doing things, another belief that she can cling to and call her own. One day, she did the unthinkable - she stepped outside the house to sweep up dry leaves from the road!! 
"Oh heavens, the ignominy of it all", her family cried. "What will our neighbours think?! Are we so common, that you should stoop to that level? Stop this practise right now! You will bring disgrace to our exalted name!"
  But she needed the leaves, she pleaded, its for her bin.
 "Bin?! You are collecting garbage as well?   Stop this unholy practise right now, or forever leave our house. We have NEVER had rotting garbage in our homes. We are clean! Holy!"

    That could have been the scene at her home, because as far as I know she doesn't segregate nor does she compost anymore. She had been RE converted.

    Should she have stayed the course of her decision? Which 'conversion' was the more acceptable one, the first time or the second? Was it better when she made a choice for herself, or more acceptable because 'majority rules and might is right' and she was forced to comply?

   Conversion or Coercion?
    

Nothing is right here.

Dear Blog,
    the recent beheadings of the Coptic Christians by the ISIS was shocking, but not really unexpected, given the cruelty already demonstrated by this group. But really, how bloodthirsty can Man be? How depraved and hollow inside?
         When confronted by the stories of Jack the Ripper and other 'monsters', one would shudder to think we could have passed someone like that on the street and just never knew how his mind worked...Then we calm ourselves thinking, that he was just one among the hundreds we pass everyday, he may not be that man in the mall, in the buss we just alighted from, on the parallel road to our homes, in the next car at a traffic signal....hopefully not.
         Then we read about mass murderers, monsters like these men, dozens, no hundreds who all have the same killing streak, the same need to hurt, maim, rip apart body, souls and minds of those who might even have been his neighbour, once upon a time. Who enjoy hearing the screams, seeing the tears of their victims, of those who are weaker, milder, defenceless against such cruelty. And then to take pride in knowing that those whom they had driven out now have no future, all their memories left behind in smouldering ruins, is a badge they wear with honour, while they shout out their victory cry!

   Victors of what? Who will acknowledge their triumph? No religion here on earth wants to be associated with them, nor claim true kinship with their doctrine. Is heaven really waiting for them as they suppose? If they are emulating their god, then what kind of a heaven awaits them? Where the supreme being they are imitating and obeying is waiting for them, with what- open arms of love? Hugs of joy? Unconditional acceptance of their past failures? For surely all man has slipped up sometime or the other, done something which in their minds might forfeit them eternal bliss? So what in heaven are they expecting for the carnage they have caused? Will all be forgiven in this heaven of thiers?
      Forgiveness...will they cry out to be forgiven? To be given another chance to do right? Mercy? Who would they cry out to, beg from; who would listen?

    But thats just us, Blog, what we deduce from what we have seen and heard. Taking another train of thought, knowing what we know now, wouldn't we want to approach these monsters with caution? Would a picture of these men holding kittens and soft toys suddenly brain wash us into thinking they are the Salt- of- the- Earth, Guardians-of- all-things-Good; Benevolent and Merciful...? Seriously?
   So the mind boggles when we read that teenage girls are rushing to be by their side.What are the girls going for? Something is not right here.

      Nothing is right here.

The cost of anything is the price you are willing to pay for it...

Dear Blog,
  The title has made me think.
Most things we have comes at a cost it is automatically assumed even before we look at the tag. But 'how much', is the only question we ask as we select the car, clothes or even groceries. Then we move to'do we really need it?' if the price seems a bit too steep, and finally, we may stop at 'maybe next time' or 'sure, why not?'
 Then blog I wondered about the things we cannot see nor measure except with our hearts - peace, happiness, love, time...
Time, you ask - surely we can measure Time.
Time on a clock, yes, but the quality of time spent cannot be measured so easily and it would come at price too, dont you think?

So Blog when it comes to PEACE - what is the price we are willing to pay? Or would the price, if our answer is 'do we really need it?', be paid by our children?
What then of JOY, LOVE and HAPPINESS? I guess we never really think about the consequences of our actions yet expect them to automatically end with one of the above or a combination of them....Is it really that easy or are we willing to pay the price?

"Price, price", I hear you say. "What is the price? Is it standard for everyone?"

No Blog, the cost of anything is the price you are willing to pay for it...

#Noah, the movie.Historical and Hysterical

Dear BLOG,
  What do you say about the movie we watched yesterday? Was it entertaining or what?!

You ask, 'but is that what really happened then?'

 I have to say, it does seem rather far fetched, so lets go check out a historical document of the event.

Lets see: Noah..hmmm, grandson of Methuselah...father of Shem, Ham and Japheth...yep, they got that right. But if we read Genesis 5: 32, the boys may have been triplets. Small differance really.(And Noah was five hundred years old when he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.[1])  But I wonder, Blog, if this verse is maybe, just a beside-the-point mention about the boys and is more a pointer to the fact that the next series of events - God's decision to wipe out the Earth came about when Noah was 500 years old. 

Anyway, there are the next few verses that sums up what happens next:Genesis 6. 
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them.8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.

Blog, now here is something interesting : 7:6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood waters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. That's a good hundred years later! Obviously 1 old man and 3 younger men (with their wives) cannot build such a huge craft in a day, a week, nor even a month. Werent thier neighbours curious? 

So here I see God giving everyone who cared to ask, a chance to escape the flood by changing their ways and putting their faith in God...No, Blog, I don't think God was an alien to them, nor did they have a hundred different representations of Him. After all, they were direct descendants of Adam and just 10 generations apart. With most of them living for 900 years each to see their great grandchildren and more maybe, and God still speaking to men directly, they couldnt have been ignorant of Him. 

  Lets move on: Noah obeys, enters, and God said: 7:4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights" Now, that's Faith for you. In vs 16, you can see it says,16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. And I guess that must be true, since the door had to be pretty big, too big for Noah to close on his own. Anyway, I can see his neighbours who till then had thought him and family 'strange' and had ignored his building works, now would probably be curious. Word spread like wild fire - "The Crazy guy's got locked in!" They might have knocked, then shouted, then as neither side could open the door, decided to leave Noah and his family be, or maybe they taunted him...7 Days later,...10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

Now Blog, we know with God in action, we dont doubt that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, but ever wonder where all that water came from? Lets do a flash back to creation of the world:
genesis 1: 6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.  There was a ceiling of water above! So the humidity on the surface of the planet was high, high enough to cause a heavy dew:  Genesis 2:5 And every ^aplant of the field ^bbefore it was in the ^cearth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a ^dman to till the ^eground.
 6 But there went up a ^amist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Yes! You got it,Blog! Noah's neighbours did not believe him that it would rain, cos they..had...NOT...seen...rain! They could not believe that water would fall from the sky! Bbut neither had Noah, nor his family.

Yes, that is faith, Blog...Hope in things unseen.

Then the rest of it we know, the floods rose, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and Genesis 7: 24, The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. Genesis 8:3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark. 7and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

So that means, Noah was in the Ark was 1 year and 2 months!

So Blog, that is the truth behind Noah and his ark...Rock monsters? Ahh, that is a tale for another day...

Was the Pope misrepresented/ misquoted?

http://entertainment.vacancynigerians.com/2013/12/shocking-there-is-no-hell-fire-adam-eve.html

Shocking: There Is No Hell Fire; Adam & Eve Not Real ––– Pope Francis Exposes

Seriously?! 
             Blog, this cant be true, not the Pope. I'm sure someone must be misrepresenting him and misquoting the man who holds the lives and future of millions in his hands. A single word from him will be accepted by his followers as a divine revelation. That said, it is inconceivable that he of all people would disregard the original divine Word, the holy text that he has sworn to follow and uphold all his life, the Bible that is the very core of his being and the guide for his every breath.      
          No, blog, it cant be true that the latest Pope should suddenly upturn the beliefs and teachings of the very Church he represents. he is quoted as stating - "God is changing and evolving as we are,..." I'm sure he can quote the scriptures better than me, Blog, so whoever scripted his speech has forgotten that the Pope knows Numbers 23:19 - God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind." 
          And I know for sure the Pope remembers I Samuel 15: 29 - He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for He is not Man, that He should change His mind."
 So how can an unchangeable God, 'evolve' with us?

                 If God has sworn that the penalty for sin is death, then it is. But, because He loved the world so much, he couldn't bear that all us sinful people should face eternal Death, then He, in His great love for us, will make a way out for us...but NOT by 'evolving 'with us, and joining us in our madness. If God is going change with us, then Blog, what security do we have? 
             No, the Way out, had to be a sacrifice, (and I think, all religions will agree with me on this, that a sacrifice is always required, someway or the other). I agree with the Pope here when he said "“All religions are true,..."       
            And the Pope knows the Bible says that Jesus was the perfect and only sacrifice acceptable to God, (  Romans 3: 24 onwards  - they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement^* by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.^*)

       So Blog, we know that God cannot change, and that He loves us unconditionally, with no distinctions of race, creed, caste or the bad choices we may make in life, and His way out of our spiraling madness, confusion, chaos and 'building walls between ourselves', is Jesus, and the Pope knows this.