I had a few days to paint this one: is a 5 footer (width), and meant for a Centre that is a Soul Cafe, probably one of its kind in India. It’s still there at Chai*, a reminder of how Time and other factors are sometimes little things in the face of bigger things. This was painted in barely a week (oil), dried in a week, then lacquered. In the history of my life as an artist I’ve never seen anything dry that fast. Is easier to paint, than have it dry when you need it to.

I’m thinking on the limitation of Time, and all in its wake. Life throws us these Curve balls, …. what can we do often, but sit it out in the silence of communication with Self, God, whoever can pull us through...

Maundy Thursday/ Good Friday fascinates me more with each passing year. The older I get, the greater my respect for the power of tough times. And the greater my respect for the power of communicating with One who reaches to me with tiny/ large miracles.

Today, you and I experienced at least a few billion miracles of breath (count every blessing), taking nothing for granted:

…Love. Kindness. Provision. Life. Beauty: Little bird in window, a warm meal, a well made bed, fresh air…

today I’m grateful for the Love of God that made us the persons we are, even vulnerable in this massive thing we call Universe.

The very trajectory of that virus, mirrors a Life we scarcely understand. Just when we were settling down to newer technology, we get hit by a hard-core old-fashioned thing like a Medieval type of flu virus! A riot of emotions, leave alone challenges turn us into a Commune of humans, all on one page, drinking a bitter cup: suffering.

‘God has not promised skies always blue…’ my ma sang this one over and over….it irritated me back then…

‘..but God has promised, just strength for the day/ rest for life’s labour, light for your way. Grace for each trial, and help from above, unfailing kindness, undying love…‘

The Cross is cruel, final: a blood print that precedes us in our own tour of Gethsemane.

We’ve had many questions as we watched/ still watch our youngest child go through the throes of an illness no one wishes for anyone leave alone a perfectly wonderful blind boy. Yet, nothing compares with the Bruise of the Cross. The wounds there make me feel I’m understood, I’m not an odd one out here in a society that may know nothing of hellish hurt. The Christ of the Cross met me years ago, and still does in the twists and turns of a Life that gets steadily steeper.

And I get a glimpse of Gethesemane. A tiny glimpse. It is rocky, alone. It echoes with dark whispers and rejection, despair. Ah, Dead Ends. This is absolute isolation. Social Distancing at best. Worst. I touch the surface of this. This is how aloneness really is. We haven’t begun to even understand that kind of aloneness, pain : a Best Friend no one wanted, wants.

This Time around, I’m staring at the Courtesy of the Cross that waits thousand and thousands of years for us to get a little of the real world: the one beneath my nail varnish and gloss. The real one, aching for me to wash my brother’s feet, serve one another above ourself. That real world that isn’t afraid of human hunger and thirst, or even a virus. A real world where God aches to commune with us on the same page, at a Table spread out for us in this Wilderness of Alone.

Well, it is personal. What else counts?

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