He was real, I was young enough to love him for what he was, a real sea creature in the early waves, Bay of Bengal. Through the years, he has followed me, city after city, lane after lane, along with a certain “Harrison” Aussy Life Saver/priest who took me to the Shoulder of a wave. The two become one in a world of creative fiction, where the real story is one about Trusting the One Whose Shoulder we may lean on with the heart of a child. Do check preview attached👇🏼
These days there are no words enough. We will heal when we heal;
we will die and birth either hate or more love:
the kind that is conceived in days like these when our children kill our children. What state is that?
Words fail. We sit in the grass that bears our babies – these are days of a state we never knew; days we blame God not hell; days we turn away from the Forgiver, to the Taunter of humans.
True life stories have a way of leaving you staring as movie credits scroll down your Living room:
after you get a glass of cool water, you re- live some of the scenes you just watched, then get back in current reality, a little re- arranged. This Movie had that effect on me/ us. I forgot to have a coffee;
👆🏼 90+ kids prayed, as terror unleashed around them, and then the 3rd dimension breaks loose, really?
Why isn’t this taught in our textbooks? Why are we systematically worried about stepping on anothers’ cultural toes, for tipping each other off on the greatest Essential ever – the presence of Heaven right in our personal hells?! Why is the God a ‘boring old man’ & better substituted by Red caped Santa, when the Real Deal is by far the very thing our wildest dreams scream for?
Strange things happen when we pray. “It doesn’t change things always, it changes us for things.” Famous Quote – they knew what they were saying. Yea strange things….
“miracles” : not just shopping lists ticked off by a celestial Arm, but soul details refurbished, “inners” thwacked back into breath.
If you’ve lived enough like I have, if you’ve watched your blind son dance in the rain (he’s got the whackiest moves😀), if you’ve watched him heal from seizures only to be impacted by Meds’ side effects in ways I’d rather not enlist here- zero assistance from more Meds, and dear Docs wondering whether we are training him alright or not, for now he manifests personality issues,
but then he is, steadily better, I’m saying “steadily”, cuz yesterday was a bad day. Pardon my short forms and zero editing skills. I blog best on the run, its a Mom- human hehe; a daughter of a Father Who hears my Prayers. I deliver them 9-5, a rant, a Psalm- a song on the hinges of Faith!
For there are days of zero strength, of numb disbelief, trauma, shock. Days I wonder why everyone is mad in the newspapers, why is life political…
and then there are the Miracles, they start like a small fire somewhere in the midriff, in the back of my tongue, a taste of a certain sweetness unimagined-
it is the start up of miracles. It beats what could happen if all were well with everyone, I mean factually, physically. In the presence of a not so cool moment, a sudden wellspring of joy, is not an imagined App, trust me, it is the Fact of the Act of Prayer. He does it every single time. Every single time.
We have had tea together a thousand times in these cane chairs facing her curry leaf tree and windows hung with old silk curtains.
Pic Ayaneshu Bhardwaj
Sia is a good woman with friends and folks who love her; why wouldn’t they, she is not just strikingly entertaining, she is one of the loveliest persons I have ever met. Dark long classic almond eyes in a determined oval shaped face set in wheat gold skin you want to paint! ( I’ve tried painting Sia and will try again; she is a hundred stories and I must wait to capture all their colours, oh she’s generous with comment and has booked a canvas from my battered easel). I was saying though, beneath that nice surface is soft steel, easier to break than I suspected possible.
“I should not insist on being loved by my only sibling, but uhm, who said blood is thicker than anything else? It is a liquid and it can dry up like a forgotten river.”
Sia talks that way between better days, so I’m not all surprised, and yet today the moment simmers like her eyes: they brim with aloneness.
Pic Niranjan
“One should know they are not needed or loved anymore, but I still hang on, I follow my sister, I wait for her to come home, I remember our childhood too much, now…it changes? Because...?”
I have not one nice warm thing to say. Her gold lemon tea with mint leaf waits in white ceramic; I cannot breathe, her hurt has to ebb. It doesn’t.
“..is alright,” she continues as if she heard me. “Let’s have that mint from my herbal pot, hehe!”
Just when I was settling into her sorrow she turns into the rising sun.
“You know, Ray. I do not feel bitter anymore?! They do not want me, that is fine. We fight for those we need to keep. Once that is not there anymore, what is the fight? How is the painting coming up?“
“What painting?!” I ask without thinking and her face blows up in laughter. Without warning, Sia Mayben is a skyful of crackers!
“This is what I love best about you, girl. You are not picking problems, you do not care, you walk in a Light that is not the sun.”
I do?
“…and there’s a God and He loves you, loves me. My entire life I hate Him, but He never leaves. Never. Nah….Yem! ” She says that for ‘yes’ occasionally, it’s her unusual upbringing; I will never know where she totally grew up in. She sounds like ghettos sometimes- raw, dismembered, and then she is a fountain of healing.
Today for some reason I’m the cause of her healing? I said / did nothing, but the woman isn’t listening. At 80+ she’s earned that right. She talks about her dead sis like she’s there in the next room, then she turns into the Psalmist.
I promise to finish her painting as soons I get more time between comforting Kitsy our second daughter whose Crayfish ate up her beloved Molly– I didn’t dare tell her ‘I told you so’,
Oh but I did tell her,
that, and our youngest fantastic blind 21 year old declaring hatred for his walking cane-
Pic Umaong Mirip
yes, must paint Sia. She is the color of an earth poised to smile: the blood in her runs deep as a river that never forgets. Did her sister really not love her? I’ll never know – Alzheimer’s is a deadly treasure trove.
Though, it makes Sia all the more a mystery to peer through – at a world aching for rest.
“Blood doesn’t matter …” Is a sentence laced heavy with truth. I know at least 2 adopted human beings whose love is not enarmoured by genetics.
Weaving my way back home between Bipolar auto rickshaws and pre- monsoon showers pelting the sidewalk, I can’t help feeling Sia’s feelings. Yem. There’s more that matters, than just blood.
like It had a thousand times but today It included me in Its Light. It wore my hands and feet, and ignored the shadows of death, the insanity of the night gone. Then It said my name. Like It says yours, this is none other than the Spirit of the Living Loving God. It calls…
Her eyes sparkle then dim as he walks out and leaves her to pay their bill. I didn’t dare take a pic while they were there.
Next to us a couple (late 30s?)….her eager smile full of pink lipstick; his laughter, …careless? The Cafe reeks of a few worlds the names of which I try find, they’re there in my sensitivities.
Another couple exchange photographs in their mobiles, then he stares long at his phone; she beams at him, waiting, then looks at me. Her paper thin cheeks crease in a smile that reveals one broken tooth, was I imagining that? What do I know except that we are pieces of a Life too complex to understand just yet and yet, aren’t we each fantastically full of pieces with or without God.
I ask our eldest daughrer Vi, why Cafes draw me so hard and she grins back, “Oh its stories…ma?” Hmm,
this is real, raw; they unmask certain some unseen things?
One solitary diner talks into laptop, two humans across the long low roofed cafe huddle in peppered ponytails and bright colors, a couple with resting faces burrow into gaudy salads:
people with words, or none, via a miracle of timing: we have coffee together celebrating a victory, a sadness, Hope…
Outside, before our flyover:
👇🏼
images mutate, then sink like rats in the sewer. Old crinkled velvet chair seat: it will go to dust. There will be new furniture for someone…
pic: Manisha Raghunath
a flower seller insists we buy her 2Roses. Kitsy our second daughter returns one rose to the girl who flares with the indignity of that. The dignity of Humility, oh. She receives her Rs 50/-, not thinking she could’ve priced it a bit more; didn’t dare offer her another note, her jaw defies pity?! This is new in my country of a billion contrasts and every contrast falling in me like a psalm;
like pieces of God brewing our attention to detail: perhaps we have misunderstood a few events between here and heaven? Perhaps what we call pain and suffering are truly Bridges into God raw real, screaming for Peace with man….
if you were sat in a chair in a room with closed door, your light spilt out Thresholds.
You did school, college & scrabble: got triplescores & blanks, double dares and heart break in crosswords where you
wrote Lyrics of Peace
✨
Nah, you were/ are not only as sons.
You, He calls “…Pillars of the palace”*.
There will be bows of white satin &war,
there will be loveanddancesandchances
to seek treasure in Pain; uh games of gain,
of songsinGethsemane Gardens *
where the Root of you~ will blossom o’ernight, as Lilies *
✨
Suns might fall in the sea but Woman, you
were summoned to breathe by the breath of God :
from the womb of the crust of the dust of stars:
lest you forget you arefirst born
NativesofTheLight. of Lights.
Lest you forget.
***
Innerdialects.
” daughters as pillars of the Palace ..”(psalm 144:12)
Hosea 14 :5:
“I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.
Holding hands together, palms warm with praying, the way children do- urgent, necessary quick, like they truly believe. Chocolates are needed now, or Pa needs his leg repaired, or a bicycle needs a new bell. Or it shouldn’t rain at noon today, or we need a puppy. Now. A child persists, he believes, he sees it happening and will not leave. He tugs sleeve, he makes a mess with tears and lip, he may even bruise his toe reaching for the answer. Holding hands with You the way….
PiCourtesy Kaushiki Choudary
**”
… a child prays, asking Love, Joy, Peace, asking that Humanity finds You;
asking that wounds become a healing place and death lose its proverbial sting, in the fact of Your Face my God my God.
Asking like children do, I hold Your Hand, the One nailed at the Cross. I ask if I may- healing for Peta’s daughter and job for Diran, for hospitals and govts to work well and for me to never stop holding Your Hand even after my shopping list is done, esp after that.
Negatives stem from disbelief at the State of Peace. And their reason comes from a space so deeply ingrained in us, it takes a super normal event for some of us to believe in the Impossible.
🌿🍂☘️🍁
I’ve always been fascinated by leaves : fat leaves, thin shrunk ones lopping off branches or in the ground, going in the wind. The older these things get, the more they call, they remind me of some thing….
With the pandemic and ensuing ‘plantdemic’ as a local journalist called it today, I too fell headlong into the flora of life. NJ my husband pampered our inner child: we got us succulents and palm. My sis brought home baby vine. Easter gave us Fern and Ivy, creepers, climbers, fabulous darlings with leaves and none of them dried. I hadn’t noticed but when we visited a local farm, I collected these jewels👇🏼pressing them in an old diary:
For me it was a fast from Negativity👈🏽 the thing is in my matrix like a mother.
Though, if you met me and we talked over lemon tea you’d leave with the sun coming out your ears, for all my miracles:
the time my heart got physically healed. And my spine. And how that one onion finds me when I need it, oh our beautiful blind son, and our daughters’ songs with the Psalmist in it, and yet before the sun can set I have a new worry surfacing harmlessly like an ant out of nowhere.Ask NJ.(We went for our second vaccine and it hurt nothing, it hurt nothing so much I really and totally wondered whether she gave me that Vaccine at all. Was it a trick. They were short on it too, weren’t they? NJ had to not only convince me he personally saw it, but that he had a pic to prove it).
It happened again these past 21 days as I aimed at kicking Negatives out. Not easy.
Being one who thinks in images, I used the dried leaves from farm: each to symbolize a need that needed a healing.
Biblically, ‘leaves’🍃 go for healing: Revelation 22:2, NIV: “down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
During our 21day fast, as I kept away from Negativity, I took out my farm pressed leaves, stuck one on each page, with a request for a specific need. Twas officially Repair Time.
As we went from one day to the next it was the toughest exercise, to steer away from sagging thoughts/ nail them at the Cross/ ask Christ to heal; to each query He gave me two choices: to succumb, or host His healing.
I realized how deep the Human psyche can doubt the power of invisible healing, all because we tend to gravitate towards memos from our monsters: 👥🗣
Tobiah who follows me via childhood, calling me this & that publicly. Sanballat snorting with self righteousness. Christ was asking me to pray healing on Tobiah & Sanballat. Yeah that was two nice dried leaves. I half heartedly prayed ; twas like praying for Covid to heal of itself! There was no external change except that a new emotion arrived, a wish that they’d really meet Jesus.
While the day’s prayer went up, so did my foreboding dark cloud that followed me from room to room. That cloud had hung in my hair, had drooped my lip and haggard’d my heart. Now it lifted.
I ran out of leaves but began finding one new leaf every morning in our balcony. Was God saying I had one more area to sort? Yes! Every morning a new dried leaf was there, and the same kind of leaf I’d collected at the farm!
Now we near 21 days this Sunday, I have more Drying Darlings than I’ll need, and He’s reminding me that there are needs out there, not just my own personal ‘negatives’ but a nation full.
As I write this my daughter gives me three she found in the floor.
These are rose leaves from our wedding anniversary flowers. 35 years, yes quite something. (Allow me to indulge: That’s a Trinity Reminder that we need to totally allow Them to work via our tiny existence…)
Teach me Lord.My heart trips with new emotions for my country & 550 tribes, for an Earth in a Time like never before.
This Post was Titled the way it was, because without Belief it is no use praying at all and expecting any answer;
I’m looking at every Persona of Faith in the Bible- Moses and Abraham and Paul and Peter ….none asked for cars and houses or jewelry … they stalked Red seas, slung Goliaths, slammed Pharaoh, brought down Manna, prayed rain …for others‘ welfare. They didn’t care whether they were healed or not, they didn’t bother to stop at personal imprisonment or stoning. They blest their jailer, and yelled joy till prison chains and floors hiccuped with an earthquake. Some of them died with a smile in their lips, no dying man or woman can fake that. That’s an inner fire that can warm the coldest day. The fire of belief.
We have these two choices, we believe in nothing, or something. Either way we believe. Whichever we choose, will exert its power over us. There’s Death, and there’s Life.
I try telling my new friend, this stray girl with fragile toes, silk ears and white eyelash; try telling her about Pandemic protocol but she doesn’t care. She loves Momos from the Tibetian lady at Top in Town Mini Mall, but that is closed since Lockdown.
Black Beauty our Block Watch girl/dog & I took years to make friends but as time went by, I could not help but notice we shared a kindred passion. For the Law of mutter…
Blackie
I have a reasonable temper but Blackie can be a wailing storm at 2 am. Sometimes she’s a lopsided ‘meh‘, or just does abstract poetry with her dark eyes in patch of white ash fur.
Aye, this in our strange day and time – I, human am pleased to say that she & I have things in common:
we are gulpers of Oxygen, we die without Water, or Food. We unashamedly exhibit dislike for the current confines of Distance,
that said, I envy Blackie.
I envy her maskless addressless state, unsure where she arrived off; why some of her paw is askew, why her neck bends 75% south; last December she suddenly healed of arthritis, the limp is less pronounced. Today Black walks up the stairs, visits at our door and mumbles for chow.
I’m thinking how Blackie and I were both made by God, not monkeys. I’m more like a monkey than she is though. I’m more Rhesus. More scratch-head, pout mouthed. Blackie is snout mouthed, “friend” person. If God had a four legged pet, He’d get a dog. They are faithful, they have crazy hearing and wouldn’t miss a word He spoke. They would follow like faithful disciples: we humans are more short sighted versions of cat.
Infant Lotus & some
B. has forgiven me for being different from her. Here she waits some noons when the sun slants in our patch picked from farms and gardens and seeds we ate and preserved.
Ahm. Some use for old furniture. (I should neaten this, right). Its like the wilds among Peace Lily, baby Gulmohar, water babies, strawberry (actually), and some names we’ve no clue of but call ‘Meer cats’, ‘Squirrel tail ‘(river grass). There’s Zeezee, Zuzu? <African fuss leaf,
All of us, flora fauna / homosapien : creatures of an unequal earth, co- species. Fathom that?
I truly wow that God made Blackie & Co.,for such a time as this:
to remind me that Life is way more complex than mere survival …
As our nation reels and staggers among seen and unseen factors, can all the kings horses and all the kings men put things back together again? Before we can get used to the day’s Papers, the next day dawns with worse stats. This is unreal, but like one person said, “..it was a disaster waiting to happen.” It is a war on everything we’ve known.
Today we prayed that we would really pray, set aside 21 days asking the Lord to hear our voice, for our people, our leaders, our healing as nations, as states, homes, families, individuals. 21 days of a fast from everything that holds me back: negative thoughts, distracted mind prone to worry..
all that. Remembering who God is, and what He means when He says, “If my people who are called by my Name will humble themselves and pray, I will forgive and heal their land…”
Took this pic- our tiny saplings grow into little plants, as a nation plummets…. where?
Moki, an acquaintance will laugh at this post: not everyone believes in God. And then not everyone believes God answers prayers. And then some believe in a God of disaster. When He speaks He is a mere Judge. He is, but He’s also the One that lets new skies each day lift my heart. Am spending the next 21 tugging at the hem of His garment, seeking Grace.
This morning my heart is curiously still: yeah I’m seeking His face. He’s brought us through worse. Covid and poor disaster management is not the worst ill there is. A worse one stares us in the face- the soul of man, woman and child that lives alone, without the Friendship of the One who made us all, one Who waits to meet us here before it is too late.
…every body that ever was here that’s a woman or appreciates women as they are, sweet kings as they are in spirit and in truth, the finger prints of God in all His glory, I say
With our fabulous son Johann.
***
Happy day to ye, makers of beauty, photographers, writers, messengers of hope, warriors in grace, gardens of peace you yes you, I know you by name, and not- I pray you know how blessed the earth is that you walked here, you browsed here maybe, or pinged, even fed back, commented, read, or just said naught, but you are here in this University of Blogs and you inspire the earth to spin again. God bless you with the knowledge of how fabulous you are! Amen😇
You see It* in naked mouths, in burdened markets, in death cells & cathedrals; we all await the same thing.
I saw It last week in a wee apartment & momma with sick child,
saw It crying in the Street yesterday outside a Cafe: a man sat in Crossword puzzles; his face sunk. A couple in phones, not touching shoulders like Love sits; she refused cake, he shrugged, got a green mango ice cream, the silence only stopped now and then when the happy eyed waiter grinned. He grinned as he walked between polka-dotted giant cups perched in high wooden open cabinets and acrylic fern;
we diced snakes & ladders at this Cafe called Narcos. Hmm. No drugs, just us in chilled sweaters and hungry for chat as mothers and daughters can be when needing to know we are loved – no conditions, no time to comb hair. There was that need, to taste a satisfaction…..
a diamond waiting to be sharved (just made that word) ;
It….is like Water waiting to Fall, like a Niagara e’en. We say, What. That….! But we turn into terrorists at Traffic messes, we become brooding hens over interruptions, we snarl at headlines, and run like headless chicken when ignored. Oh and this – we absolutely evangelize on the meanness of God when there’s an earth disaster, then we build Cathedrals of mistrust….
It was there yesterday at Happa Stationers‘- guy in dull red cap o’er few flat locks, he strung them over his shoulder, his face dead-fire, as we traded notes for exam accessories for my Kitsy,
she with eyes like stars over an unknown future. Some people are Bearers of Good. They go like a Lighthouse searching the dark:
we retrace steps back home, the sun is warm in our cold toes. Yea an Indian cold. Cold enough to shiver my pigeon;
am scared to read the papers – they lie face down in a jute bag under chair turned to the trees outside, as if asking these skies for Noah’s rainbow;
today’s unopened Times sun bathes next to Rosie, with her 50+ tiny spiky leaves and rose pouting…..
like us Humans rearing for relief.
We’ve schooled our Self to hiss like serpents in gardens of Grace. We rap our own knuckles if we fall prey to God’s Love. We skid, stop stare like rabbits caught in headlights, stammering- afraid to give in to Humanity’s best-masked need:
(Terrified of what we do not know, what we do know holds us safe among ‘relatables‘; eaters of edible bad news);
I saw It Staring at me via a Cartwoman selling tomatoes. No Cross tattoo in her throat like some of us Church goers host, no prayer beads except rich busy fingers at brinjal and coriander leaf, like she were a branch off Him who made her veggies! As if there was nothing to fear. Yeah her purpose to be the Bearer of Grace.
Yeah I can talk of Love and Valentine trophies all day but if I didn’t receive this Thing, I wouldn’t know how to give it. ‘IT’ …a 5 lettered word one sees best on a Hill far away.
Soon we’ll be doing Lenten fasts and Anthems to woo It back in our lanes, aye Grace– lurking in corners like a lost Lover, a jealous one, aching to forgive, bless, heal, restore, love:
aching that we believe *Its reach, Its depth, Its width, Its unfathomable Power to raise the Human Spirit from the Store Rooms of hell.
Yea, yes- the most under-rated, least accessed, the Greatest Human need there is- Grace:
Love always follows. No matter the odds.
Grace : unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification. b : a virtue coming from God. c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance.http://www.merriam-webster.com › grace
Yes, a page off my diary as I listened to today’s word,”Do not be afraid“; this arrived without notice as poems do? Do take a peek if you can bear the blurry!
She wants to be loved like every other New Year, and I hesitate to call her good: I hesitate to say a nice word just in case it contrasts with something in the Headlines tomorrow: but then, the Still Small Voice inside me that urged the dusk to light up my holiday yard, It says, “Year of Harvest’, so
So here we are, another brand new Baby wailing to be fed, unwrapped, walked…. Um, stuck between a sigh and a smile; Jan 2nd feels like dew in fallen leaves: feels like health sneaking back in my bones, like summer in winter, like new ways to sit, walk, run, stand, be still, hush, God is in His heavens,all’s well. You don’t fake a good feeling. Its too late to fake much anymore. Not this time around, where we step into another 365….., what will it be?
I want to wish you the best year you’ve ever ever had, (said that to a friend and she sniffed loudly. Like it couldn’t be. She needed a new house and funds to run it. She needed everything humans need to run secure… but in a minute she grinned on the phone, as if she’d given herself permission to have the kind of year she needed, and I’m giving myself that permit too) –
“Choose life!” God always said, in His great Book we tend to blame for all our errors – the Bible. Some of us read old comics,for comfort, or Sudoku or Horoscope and the stars. We just want to heal, when no one’s watching we do just about anything to heal from things we are not healing in.
I’m looking forward to cold days turning warm in the light of days healing. Nice, you say. Um hm. Yes. There never was a better time as this one to be grateful for every miniscule and large detail here on earth. Never been a year where we looked beyond into the non material. Here we missed each other, we fell in love all over again with market places we shuddered at: we missed the way our morning papers fell at our door and the steps of the newsboy spiraling down away out past our gates where the jasmine seller woke up street after street of flower buyers; oh and dogs, they were silent too, like Christmas so quiet you could hear the sheep in old Christmas cards breathe! We gazed at stars and memorized each others faces,even politicians’ (and priests’ we remembered from churches now with locked down altars). We did not worry about lip gloss, we still aren’t, we mask new fears with new words; “..be practical, we must go out. We aren’t hermits,” but now we got used to sanitizing our tomatoes and phones. We are a Changed Race, we cannot go back to most things we did last year today, and I’m betting we are wiser, kinder,slower, sweeter,more giving, less fussy about toenails. We got used to pajamas at 12 noon, we understand Time better. Maybe.
What’s to be afraid of? Aunt Jena wears Psalm 91 like an armor; Minki eats spinach like Popeye and she a carnivorous being, now singing anthems to lemon and ginger brew first thing every morning, ah, inhalation too. And skull rinsing gargling, sounds like burglar alarms. No one’s laughing. We are waiting, for what exactly – is hard to say: for vaccines? For Life as it was? For what it can be, should be? Waiting for Immunities; for ourselves to wake from a nightmare that is still not inactive….
never the less, its a whole new year- the old has gone, the sky never felt this blue, the stars this wide eyed. Go to the country side, meet new people, a farm, a river, trees, choose Life, eat well, rest, pray, read His Word, drink His dew falling like gentle rain at dawn where an old woman named Thayi cooks you a hot pot of Forgotten foods. Ok I’m no promotional Blogger, but this Farm deserves mention for inspiring this Post!
Resolutions ? Yes, a huge one – to appreciate nice people in particular and to be grateful to God for making them! (Wish I’d taken more photographs, but that’s the way it is with a good day- you are not thinking of surface tension. You plunge in a river, you climb a tree, you scrape a knee, you kiss a scowl away! Life arrives differently, you bask in a new flurry of beginnings like a child happy about new socks to school never mind worries about homework).
I’m saying out loud Choose Life, I’m stealing my Maker’s line. He said it first. He knew we’d be making choices, not necessarily nice ones. So He makes years go round and round like a Relay race. This time around I’m not letting one day go by without paying attention to detail. This time around, is there really a choice ….to not choose?
**
Am attaching a👇🏼 must read by 17 yr old Gabriela and she’s good!
Lift your eyes to the sills of heaven, watch what happens when you pray. When the heart stills its noise and the mind rests with the pulse of God. How often I have not done that, amazes! The power of disbelief stuns me, its incredible power to hold us back from the greatest power ever given to humanity: the ability to talk to God.
Okayeeee! My first attempt at this, shaky albeit, in our messy:) creative space at home; but needed to say thankyou and too, if you’re on U tube – will be putting out Vihan’s Debut album EVENING WITH GRACE, the best in contemporary worship music I’ve ever heard! Description in Utube has a bit on that.
It’s a season of gratitude in my heart and home, gratitude to friends who’ve been so supportive, and God, the source of my Joy!
I’ve been writing a bit more than usual, hence the quiet days here at Innerdialects. However, I might be trying to talk Vlog here. Let’s see how this works. Happy thoughts, but let’s see. My heart is full of reasons to say thank you Lord God! It’s been an insane year for us all as Nations, but also a season of inner dialogue…. for me, and for you too I guess? Hmm. I had to absolutely conquer my fear of the camera to do this one…. for my little girl who does every possible thing she can to get me going! ‘Evening with Grace‘ happened to her all in one evening as she sat with God: 9 songs in exquisite arrangements and vocals (all hers!)that make me cry everytime I hear snippets in passing as Noe and Vi edit these beauties. I’m blessed to be able to put this out.
Thankyou dear Blogging community for every Like and Comment or Read,
in a time like this one, this space has been a Den of Joy for me. God bless you for being there, and for being who you are, fabulous!
she said that to me, just like that and I felt the arms of those words descend on my senses. We are limited by human description, we are victims of fatigue and yet, now and again, God sends His angels to remind us of the Christ within, waiting to be unfurled again, and again, and again.
May you know the power of what lies within you: for we were not born to be paper and twig houses. We are the original temple of the living God, if we would…
I’ve never done a repost this way: as someone suggested, here’s my take on “Mercy:…is this? “
unsplash
…he knew where it was. Day after day he watched her sit outside; he reached in that small ledge over the gutter- stood on the chair, then on his little toes … for that jar. The woman had no recall. Sickness had taken her mind away. She just knew this was somehow her home. Her family had gone in the plague. People passed by in the street, but no one stopped to ask. Except the little boy.
Ah there it was: a rusty old key, in that jar. He carefully brought it down; the woman smiled at nothing in particular. The boy looked familiar. Even the chair. She looked down at her hands but would not take the key.
He took the cement steps to her front door, then called the woman in. It was cool inside. He found water in an earthen jar;
the woman felt his smiling eyes and grubby fingers help her drink that water. It slaked a Thirst within; as she drank deep it was like a River quenching her parched days and nights searching for something she had lost but didnt know where to look to find it.
The Water went down her throat, first a trickle at a time, then more. She drank till the water jar was empty and till it swelled her death with Life.
She stared at the boy and felt Breath in her bones throb with newness. The boy grinned back and sat on his haunches, waiting, waiting.
Suddenly she knew this was her grandson. He had been there everytime she locked herself out; like Mercy pursued, like the Love of God : ’twas the Key to Life. Love like that was new. Twas like this child that had not rejected her. Like a God that had died for her. Words from sacred pages she had once read, returned. When the woman prayed a line, her own whisper startled her and the boy. He sighed a happy sigh then settled in the floor. He loved his Naana and the Words of life that spilled from her lips. “Lord You are my Shepherd ..I shall not want anything. You make me lie down in green pastures...”
Yes it came back in bit by bit, images, faces, indifference, pain. Even the face of her sons, her own children as they turned her away. But it was too late now to hate. Mercy did that: It hid its Key in secret places in the mind: Its Words of Life that cut away unforgiveness like a sword.
The woman laughed then cried: Re-awakenings were bitter, but oh so sweet if you found the Key!
…….
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Between all our rights and crime, we carve an existence. Someone made rules but deep within even a baby knows what is theft, what is hurt, what is cheating. You cant just say you and I can do what we wish, somewhere it hurts someone else. Our choices are dominoes. And like it or not we are responsible for each other. Like it or not, theres a sky and theres gravity. Theres hearts and theres love. Theres peace and theres war. Theres way too much going on in an earth keeling with need for understanding. We are bridges. We are bricks. We are more than just humans. We are givers and takers; we are borrowers and lenders. We hate, we are indifferent, we love. Emotion is unseen, and it’s there. There is right and wrong. Much as we yell about it, deep within we know, we knew it from when we were kindergarten and we took someone’s pencil and hid it; and we know it now too. We know when we hurt a sensibility, we know when we judge amiss, and we know theres evil and good. And if there is, then theres more to what we refuse to … and the chasm between those two is the answer to every question we ever!
So I get serial visits from childhood. My mates in ‘tails & school blue. Ashok in red bicycle and forehead lock, his bright eyes lit up with mischief that time he asks Sis M. why they wear veils and wouldn’t she please lift that veil for us once please? Sis M. blushes pink red purple and glares at him through her brows but you know she isn’t angry.
Unsplash
***
Yes we got in a school mates W/A group; we see new pictures of old friends, Yesteryears tiptoe in, loud in my mental ears…
Ranjana the fabulous, first she wore little plaits then her straight black hair grew out like a sheath cut blunt to shoulder. We were 3 ft tall… she sent me little cards strung with felt tipped flowers. Then she started talking and when she did whoa…. it was interschool debate, podium glossy words: I remember thinking she’s the most brilliant girl I’ve ever..! Large dark dreamy eyes that looked beyond our little confines into a wider world waiting out there. She is our class Genius, the life of the party, still is!
Devasmita, my ‘twin’ some said for our similar dark rimmed glasses and hair, but nah. This one’s our class Beauty, and a Sport! We did Sack Race and Badminton together.(“3 leggeds..” she reminds me. What sweet sport! Now they have Fear Factor🤯😅) Deva still has pure marble like skin, laughter rimmed lips, soft brown eyes and wit that needs just few words, with sass mind you. Do not forget we’re the late 70s high schoolers. It was Sholay and ‘Yaadon Ki barath’.. Bobby, Oh Zeenat Aman at her best. Hair worn in side bangs, xxx ear hoops and platform heels simmering under 34″ bell bottomed pants.
Who wore the widest bells? Unsure. The largest starched collars…? It was somethings between Elvis Presley and Amitabh B. The guys wore swag!….oh c’mon ofcourse you did, still do. I’m amazed they’ve not lost the gloss of Pre- Man days. They were Man – Cubs, and they were/ are big brothers.
Were there in- house romances? I’m certain. They were good days, as in Innocence. ‘Dates’ were eyes looking away in corridors and sports field, hehe.
Vimal (Design & more) marries a Beauty with brains, she’s a Doc who also Motor cross country races for heavens sakes, ofcourse he would; Vim so like his Ma. Wide Bambi doe eyes, dark lashed in high cheek-boned face, pure like Gujarati ghee, untouched by materialism. On saturdays, aunty would pack dhoklas in a tiered stainless steel tiffin carrier. Haven’t you had dhoklas? Then you must. Vimal sent us pictures wherever he went in the world… pics in garden chair or mountain rides.. he remembered birthdays, yelled when you forgot, he kept your scribbles and holiday letters (mine were filled with fish tales he grumbled) threatening to use them when we became an MF Hussain, haha.
Hey my classmates are beautiful people inside out. Joyati, our very own Bong-babe soft haired long plaits to the waist, voice like a song. You never heard her yell, her shirt always white, like her socks ‘ neath blue pinafore. Glad they did not give us ties;
this was 10 kms from Coastal Odisha, humid monsoons and summers ripe with mango, oh Lassi thickened with coconut gratings, and cashew if you were fortunate. I loved the rain, especially when it fell in the Grotto in Momma Mary’s smiling face like she were doing tears of joy. Ay they were days of serious fun, and some.
Exams were the monster. For me it was Hindi, and Math. The details are deadly. I felt hounded by heaven and hell; my mates were brilliant. I gawked at their intellect, their knowledge of laws and physic, of mercury and Algae, trigonometric squigglies and theories. Who was I, why ? I wondered, but not these Mates mine they laughed at impossibilities. Vimal was it, or Bhabani…. hummed like a bee/ dropped book piles in the floor?? Oh Bhabani: school Princy actually liked sparring with him. Sis Rosalie, she had this little Maddona smile that said much when Bhabani would not tuck shirt in, he’d grin back. They did these silent half-smile matches where I suspect they let each other win. I’ve never seen anything like that since. They were 2 Gladiators, well matched… never mind the decades between them. One was a curly haired tall teenager who could not cut his hair up above ears please, simply because he couldnot, he said. Then the thing about his footwear. It hurt him, he said. He tried once or twice. It was something with his feet. Not possible to wear shoes… did he succumb finally to Sis. R? No? Yes? I cannot remember. But the memoirs of those convos curl with humor.
Here were a generation without Google, WA, & Asphalt gamers. The Net was what fishermen brought home, and Apple was still just a fruit. Phones were black creations on a side table, you went to it. You “rang” it, then you “hung up”. How you hung up determined your mental state. There were no Emojis, just physical stickers you sewed on your jean knees, or stuck on books, on bikes. Books were everything, libraries ruled. I mean ruled. ( And you didn’t know to say Rock for Compliment) …
Oh Encyclopedia sat there like emperors and their wives & children, decked in gold edged flat greens and blues. Readers Digest stared at you, vying for your eyes along with Panchatantra and Cabulliwallah. Enid Blyton though! Some of us ate her pages feeding our soul with Adventure that had nothing to do with Bungee jumping. Horror was stories we retold in verandas, some moonlit nights. Sis Rosalie did our literature …. ” ancient Mariners’ seas .. a ghostly galleon…” she knew how to whisper, how to lift her chin like a hymn being sung, then she’d stand all regal with one foot nestling in her other foot; one wrist on hip, waiting for us to shhhhlisten as we met Wordsworth, Chesterton & RK Narayan….
Surprised at the recall here. I haven’t thought of her Coleridge albatross in decades! But I’m stoked, bro as our kids say.
Nah and we didn’t stoop to auto correct, hey what was a Comp? Lap tops were exactly that. Tops of laps. Here we hid lil notes,
Paper slips that horrific day .. when we didn’t know the name of an Island. But Bhabani. He knew. Ofcourse, he was Guru General Cool. Did he wear a lil ring on little finger? Unsure. But he knew name of that Island; how he spelled it was his own. None of us recognized the name though Ms. Shameem did. She hid face in her white dupatta wrapped around one arm: “You people…” she shut her eyes carefully inside pale pink coral glasses, knowing we had all carefully copied out Bhab’s version of ‘Sacremento‘. Then she slow- swung in my direction and said in sorrow, “You too?”
2 things here. I was official Church Mouse, as decreed by Class officials, not just because I was quiet and shy but too, my existence represented the church in all its forms- my mom was Mrs.David the gentle woman with guitar and songs of Jesus- I had sinned. We had also done Ceaser’s famous Et Tu Brutei… I felt like a murderer of trust. Uh.
Net pic.
We had seen worse days. The time we wrote in the walls of our class with raw mango: were we angry about something? Sure there was rage to follow: Sis Ro. standing there in the grounds by St.Vincent in marble looking down on us as we stood socially distanced from each others elbows, oh spread out for Primary and Pre- primaries to see and know. The eastern Indian sun never fell so harsh and long, food in our lunch boxes curled with waiting… other teachers tut-tutted, we examined our shoe’s buckle and lace, our socks and knees, we pondered on the sand. I forget if we had to clean up classroom before or after this Runway show, but we did. Aye, ‘Ratilal (our tall aristocrat) refused to partner with his broom’, someone reminded us this morning. It should’ve been a great video, but those days ‘viral’ was only a flu’ and ‘U tubes’ lived in Chemistry labs; though now we have memos in our chips inside,
dearest Lord God, souvenirs of such days You made…
You made Shailaja and how come she doesn’t change one tiny bit, her head held high on a neck that’s still slender like the rest of her: a Princess still with that same peace about her, as if all the changes around do not matter. Patsy, she has that quality too, she… our nightingale and abs.charmer, now a teacher herself …. we were “Little Women” together,
with Sis.Margaret scowling at the gorgeous Alpana Watwe for not liking her green and red costume. “And hasn’t God made red flowers with green leaf?!” Sis M. rallied. (Alpana flushed: didn’t she know she’d look great even if they gave her a sack to wear?!) I worried about my ‘necklace’. It was a pale pink large pearly thing I got from where I’ve no recall. My role was Hannah the maid, in this great black velvet dress from costume wardrobe; it reeked of mothballs and damp wood… now I thought it needed my pearls. Sis M’s ferocious black eyes went through my skull then she burst into laughter; she nodded at my odd pearls.
I still wear it inside, a Reminder that we are what grew us. Teachers like Ms Brenda D’Coutho too, not just fairytale pretty but respectful. I wasn’t a star student, but no one laughed. If they did, it was friendly fire. It built. It did not break your back. We learned the simple things. Oh Sujata, our Ms. Joy. Today she is a Wizard in a Tech world, the first time we saw her she was in little red ribbons. Today I saw a pic of her in stylish grey crop and sweater looking like a Desi Hollywood Halle Berry, just wow .. she’s designed Helicopters?!
Here we are decades later. Yesterday Ashok Lohia actually now a grown up and ace Businessman thanked me for helping him draw his bio practical book cockroach, and I teared up thinking how the core of us never changed.
Shailaja : “Change is inevitable but all look good. And there is that special something about everyone which hasn’t changed. 💕 Ranjana: “Yes that something special…that only an old friend can tell!”
I could say some more but the words want to stare at each other and just say thankyou. Thankyou my mates, for still being there.
Stay precious, stay blest.
RaylaRN
P.S.
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Images from yesterday’s news refused to leave but this morning a tree full of thumb- sized black birds, white chested (what are they?) they greet with rowdy song… what are they saying?
Last week we saw a family of Peacock. I thought it was a whacky dream….
Net pic
….glistening blue preening in the few meters between our home and Gulmohar trees….. all lounging around like that? Was too much to take a close pic but brief video below.
Can say with some confidence- we’re all a little more than numb; even beautiful things take time to process. My heads jumbling …..
startled by visuals in a world gasping with disbelief at its single cruel global event. Along with unavoidable casualties, will geographic justice prevail?
Yet these Beauties arrive: random signs of a Normal still here, after centuries of war & peace- while one is still gagging over lakhs of us hurting in ways we shouldn’t.
Lilies, Lent, April, Home …
Last night our son wasn’t too calm: aggression surfaces its head with random punctuality…
this morning he comes to where I am with my empty diary. Joh, 19, used to be the gentlest creature…. but the past 2 years were a dark valley. Now he reaches for my hair, and starts playing… his fingers gentle gentle….I remember an old song Ma and Dad used to sing ….He touched me… it feels selfish to be this Touched, not just in my skin by suddenly gentle-d son, which is a miracle in itself, but deep within raggedy heart, mine;
haunting images of migrant workers scrambling for a way back home to their villages follow me as I turn away from those tiny black birds I’ve not noticed before in trees we never planted… all yelling a song I wish I understood. My thoughts scramble ….
as our Govt. does it’s best, please let everyone stay in, help each other stay in, not go helter -skelter, not arrange a public meet like a very irresponsible group just did in lue capital city endangering an entire nation/earth.
A day ago, India Net pic. ***
Joh’s fingers now so gentle in my skin, what can I say. Words halt…
He Touched me….
when I was just starting out in life, 25…. newly married, a spinal defect that had been developing suddenly worsened. Spinal cortisone injections (a 2 year nightmare) only helped short term.
From our balcony. ….
One day a stranger prayed for me, and in 24 hours I was totally healed. This isn’t easy to talk about because few would believe but I’ll never forget that fire in my bones and the touch of healing. Who Touched me….?
I never forget that day, and today after our 19 year old touched my heart like that, like an angel…in a time when hands must stay 2 meters away, and distancing is a new kind of love…. yes we are getting Touch- hungry and will look for Soul – Touches more than we guess now.
It is April already, the sky is a startling blue, yes I am startled by life;
am persuaded to believe against all odds that today will be nothing like yesterday, no matter the news. Woke up today feeling numb, but there were these chirpy tiny white chest- black birds outside; how must I stay negative? (As I wrapped this post, we saw Peacock again, this time a lone one…distancing? Kitsy our daughter yelled ‘Penguin!!!!’ How isnt that funny? She was mad at me for laughing that hard).
It’s a strange time, an unusual life: the whole world on the same page. It is harsh and unreal, and yet any little/ large blessing looks/is larger than life.
My sky. ….
Outside white cottony clouds go busily away. April feels beautiful in my Indian window: it is getting warm, gold light filling green leaves. I want to cry but the colours are too many. Want to pray but there are no words. Joh’s fingers still gentle in my temples: I treasure, store them away along with little black- musical- yelling birds & other kinder action.
watch Peace like a Sword touch us thru’ mask & glove, slash open our eye to look look close:
at Us …..gone is yesterday’s menu. Here the old is changed to a new me & you
ne’er mind the virus of fear* : brother, sister may it* serve as servant, not master.
In this Place may we see who we are – stripped of all the roles we’ve played,
here in the seeming cruelty of these days, may we be what we’re groomed for ….
in this new Quiet, away from trending news, may I commit to defeat Giants that kill my immortal nature: please help me be the Person I could be- praying for friends, foe, neighbour…
here, look to Him who made us for these days
in this Hiding, I need I need to ask not just for family, but for my 7 billion: not just for health and food, but please, for the Power of Peace– nothing missing, nothing broken~
ay, we all die sometime….who knows Cause or Clime. It’s not the biggest scare… to die, but what after?
So, I ask that we receive True Love, yes yea, that you and even I, be persuaded against Blind disbelief, that we are Beloved of the Father.
Here in the Secret place of the Shelter of the most High: may you & I,
by what held us all these years: I’m touched, by the power within us that is greater than fear,
touched by how new leaf and bud appear, relentless of germs & sickness, they pout at my quick disbelief of personal endurance,
Touched, where I am rinsed by storms of cleansing…. I believe you and I and us are more than these days,
dumb founded by my own capacity to be afraid, I’m touched by the power of prayer, gratitude & praise:
This morning it went on and on in my head: the astounding fact, the act of prayer…. its healing ways, no matter how we used to think it didnt work, this morning It touched me, like a Glove, a Mask…. It held us in the secret place of Its hiding, not just me and mine, but you and yours: locked doors, sealed yards, borders, nations, hearts and minds….
May we wash our spirits, with the cleansing power of leaning on the most High. Man is wired to lean, on meds and safety measures: and that’s a sign a good one too…that by ourselves we are not enough. Together with the Leanable-On, we are stronger.
Choose Stronger, dear one, we aren’t alone. There is a Power beyond this,
I was touched by It this morning. Grace, Strength...call it a big word, let’s be touched by the One thing that can save us: The Hands of God that made us and flowers new every morning, I send you these, as Reminders,
Last month I wanted to look closer at this legendary masterpiece of Auguste Rodin’s, and found that it was a Type of Dante’s Poem, gazing at the portals of hell…. am I wrong?
There wasn’t time to dive deeper into that, we’ve all been flung a little further in at a new kind of emo/physical torment with Virus related issues. We’ve never been closer, in this new kind of loneliness, all of us together in a new kind of isolation, we’re like a Shadow of yesterday going into tomorrow, staring at Us all as through a glass, gazing at each other as if we’ve never seen us before, sans all the action. It’s a new kind of day. We’re unafraid of words we used to be afraid of. A friend who never asks for prayer, asked. What are we all thinking as we face another 24 hrs, an extended Lock down, or more news coming in from frontlines, where people are facing way more than emptied food shelves….
I got this ( pl see below Thinking Man). It isnt all gloomy. In fact, in it’s own heart rending way, the following words change me….
Thinking man, Musee Rodin. …
Pray for Italy🙏🏻
“From Dr. Julian Urban, a 38 year-old serving in a hospital in Lombardy, Italy:
—LIGHT IN A DOCTOR’S DARKEST NIGHTMARE—
Never in my darkest nightmares did I imagine that I would see and experience what has been going on in Italy in our hospital the past three weeks. The nightmare flows, and the river gets bigger and bigger. At first, a few patients came, then dozens, and then hundreds. Now, we are no longer doctors, but sorters who decide who should live and who should be sent home to die, though all these patients paid Italian health taxes throughout their lives.
Until two weeks ago, my colleagues and I were atheists. It was normal because we are doctors. We learned that science excludes the presence of God. I laughed at my parents going to church.
Nine days ago, a 75-year-old pastor was admitted into the hospital. He was a kind man. He had serious breathing problems. He had a Bible with him and impressed us by how he read it to the dying as he held their hand. We doctors were all tired, discouraged, psychologically and physically finished. When we had time, we listened to him.
We have reached our limits. We can do no more. People are dying every day. We are exhausted. We have two colleagues who have died, and others that have been infected. We realized that we needed to start asking God for help. We do this when we have a few free minutes. When we talk to each other, we cannot believe that, though we were once fierce atheists, we are now daily in search of peace, asking the Lord to help us continue so that we can take care of the sick.
Yesterday, the 75-year-old pastor died. Despite having had over 120 deaths here in 3 weeks, we were destroyed. He had managed, despite his condition and our difficulties, to bring us a PEACE that we no longer had hoped to find. The pastor went to the Lord, and soon we will follow him if matters continue like this.
I haven’t been home for 6 days. I don’t know when I ate last. I realize my worthlessness on this earth. I want to use my last breath to help others. I am happy to have returned to God while I am surrounded by the suffering and death of my fellow men.
Pls pray for Italy”
****
And may I add, pray for our neighbours, each other, ourselves. For international wisdom and tact as we go forward.
What started two years ago with a few young people across Bangalore city, today was just Family, oweing to ‘Janata Curfew’: people’s voluntary curfew where every Indian stays indoors all day till 9pm this evening.
So we got together for today: our daughter Vihan who made our Haven call come true with her heart of steel and love for Jesus & every soul ever; our son Johann (I’ve written about him here, he’s recovering so well. Thankyou all for prayers). There’s the one and only NoelJeff without whom this family would be an awkward lot. Our second daughter KitsyRuth, the Bijli(electricity) of us (and Chef!). Then me: still catching my breath from some weird sort of illness- that’s-not-Covid🥴: glad for the grace of God that’s brought us through a strange 365×2 days, hallel! It was worth it all, to watch Family grow this way. Do join every Sunday, Subscribe for Updates, Share with people who might appreciate company, comment so we know you’re there…
Trusting these Vids are understood for the purpose of Sharing God’s Comfort. None of us are Pros., just extremely ordinary -everyday- veggie- chopping- hassled over nitty gritty- kind of people with an extraordinary Father who loves us all no matter what we think of Him, no matter how dark the road might seem. You are not alone.
If you zoom in, you’ll see those Lotus low left in tiny pond at Cubbon Park here in Bangalore city. India. Warm warm day, 28 degrees already!– lunch and ice cream in the shade. Too much fun to take pictures, but we got a few.
2 weeks ago, Haven fellowship @ Cubbon Park. …
March always feels like sunshine warming herself up from cold waves and February mist/rain.
March’s flower- Daffodils, (in India its called Nargis), oh what beauties these are too, ‘Heralds of Spring’! As we get a new sunset, my heart fills with new colors. It’s like we must determine our flavour. What tones would you choose, what Flower/ (flavour) would you be?
Not a question I’ve thought of before,
NetPic. .
but today…..a young person at our Haven fellowship; all he could talk about was the Love of God, and how on earth did God love like that? He asked.
The more I listened to him, the more it struck me how different he was from the rest of us with issues at finance, or health! This guy, (I’ll call him Len) got eyes like liquid stars when he talked of the Love of God that drew him in. He spoke a few soft sentences and it went round and round that one thing: the Love of God.
Unrelated pic? But another of God’s touches of Love: little Chikku adopted by my cousins Shirl&Dan. At their table. …
After we went each into our lives, post service, there’s that gentle fragrance, of the touch of God. Like Light and Rain that falls on the good, the bad, the ugly. Nothing changes the way It falls in at us.
As this new month arrives, I’m feeling all blessed- up grateful for the flavors life brings in. Unsure of my own flavour, but I’d love to sample more of the Aroma of Christ:
how He is Manna and Dew in our days, how His Love has no limits, limitations. How It overwhelms all other love, need, want, showing me a pathway of peace and one that does not misunderstand my place in it all.
Tokens of His care, for ‘the littlest of these...’ (Thankyou ShirlDan; hope your infant squirrel Chikku won’t mind breach of privacy?) ….
As I wrap this, a lone bright star twinkles through branches of trees outside. Another month approaches, I love the way a new month feels, especially this one. Fragrances of Lent, of a Father Heart with room for us all.
It is almost too good to believe, the whole story of ‘Easter‘, the Cross, Gethesemane, the Passion of Christ for us each. We tend to lean on our own needs and their fulfillment, more than what is,
or perhaps tend to misunderstand why this or that happened in our lives. Why there is war, or crime, illness, loneliness, why something is the way it shouldn’t be.
My sister’s Gulmohar tree with shoeflower, last month at David’s Pasture. …
And then there are people like Len, all still in wonder at the Love of God.
I’m basking in those four words, THE LOVE OF GOD. Maybe it’s fragrance is best expressed in Joy? And I’m lending myself this, for the next 30 days. Maybe that’s the truth of Lent. That we take for free, not just as a Lending, the absolute Joy that comes from knowing how deeply we are loved by the One that made us, each, so intricately complex, every cell and thought process. How magnificent the aspect of each human, far more than lilies of the field, or all the blossoms in every tree, ever. I find myself staring at humans. Irises. Brows. Fingers. Smiles.
Laughter. The fantasticity of Births. Deliveries. Pain. Relief. Grace. Healing.
The way my friend Maya looks when she’s happy. Uncle J’s stillness. Light in the Gulmohar tree, and Dina’s voice when she prays. The hush of waiting…..
“Even a mother may forget her child, but I will not forget you..” quote, Bible. Pic – Sis Shirley and furry babe Chikku. …
it’s all too much beauty stacked in one life, and I’m bursting grateful for the opportunity to see it all. Not just the shiny bits but the grey of dawn as I wrap this.
Gratitude: it’s the flavour I want to be, for it delivers one to Joy.
idialects@gmail.com, updated in Contacts. Apologies, this Blog is taking a while to update. There’s some mail still going to my old blog address. And I don’t understand how 2 or 3 of my Blog friends are unable to see any email from here. If that’s you, please do let me know. Thanks! 🌻
“Almost 20,000 women & children were victims of human trafficking in India 2016, a rise in 25% ….” pg145, ASHA-Journey of Hope* :
Quote from new Release by Biblica Inc. & people who really care beyond the details of getting out a ‘Book’:
these Pages have broken my heart and healed me in ways I didn’t think could happen, simply because you wonder whether anyone can actually help. I’ve personally seen too much to believe there are groups like ‘Project Esther’. Even this Paperback* is not for sale.
‘I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD’. John 10:11,14,15. Really? What does Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago, even know about ‘Amy’ (true account) : below
‘Pain gazes at the reckless love of God that stops at nothing…’ Painting-Raylarn, for Asha -Journey of hope.* All rights reserved, Biblica Inc. ….
‘Amy’ an unwed young mother.. weeping uncontrollably when she heard this NGO’s name was ESTHER. She had given her baby away 30 mins. before, and had named her Esther.
Today this young woman’s life is being pieced together by the love of God and people who teach her to forgive. She never got her child back.
…….
I cannot read anymore for now, though I promised a ‘proper’ review. The enormity of this sits in my throat like a two edged sword. The Word of God can cut through all our silence. One wants to say something nice and wise. Some of us write, sing, paint…. is it enough? Maybe together we are stronger, we can see more with each others’ eyes and address. Right where you and I live, there are silenced voices, eyes that veil wounds.
…..
ASHA explores each of Jesus’ “I AM” statements in the light of how they apply to women who’ve suffered abuse. It also features stories of women and girls who’ve bravely entrusted to us details of their own trauma. Excerpt from original Print. Purpose of this book, is to reach out to members of our community: you are not alone.
……….
Published by Biblica Inc. All rights reserved. ASHA Journey of Hope. 2020
I admit of late, (with not much prior experience to saying such a thing), I now like the thing, I like cooking. Not a twinge in my bones warned me of this change, this betrayal of who I used to be.
Last month I found my Ma’s cookbook called Family Secrets; she’s written it all down there, I can smell her curry leaf seasoning, her tomato pickle in the window sill, her garden coriander leaf and onion gold fried in black bottomed pan;
my dad said that pan had nine lives, it never died.
I do not have Ma’s pan but I am changing, like my face in the mirror, like my hands that could not take cold water, or luke warm. Now I don’t need anything ‘just so’, just the aroma of veggie chopped cubes in slow stir; oh the experience, again of mint chutney we grew to love, all spluttery with mustard seed in coconut oil and tiny steel bowl served on dining table in veranda next to the kitchen. We lived by the sea, once on a mountain, an island, she always grew a garden, I have my own: sea shells in pots and Lime bonsai… those little green mint leaf? They spike lemon these days.
Flavors we once knew, they return in new ways. How d’you experience the same heart beat, in new rhythm… I cannot know, but its here.
I’m my Ma, a piece of her. I now love well- polished glasses, tinkly spoons. I never used to. Never admired wheat pure home-made breads in tiny warm basket, not just to eat but to serve. I’m changing, that’s for sure. It must be Time 😃!
Last night after the last dish went in and the moon was a full circle of cool warm shade in our window, a bird chirped full- throat, right in my pulse…I felt it, Life. In its simplicities. No fuss, nah no frill, just the old Order giving way to New. Like an old Prayer whispered all over again,
like tender mercies new every morning; I’m experiencing the everlasting Faithfulness of God.
Innerdialects 
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