Taliakum
Just came across a newspaper headliner: “Boys outshine girls.” It’s about some important post-intermediate competitive exams and the boys did better. So there it goes again, another game of segregating one from the other. Competition is good but ‘celebrating’ it isn’t. When will this game of stumping someone and encouraging the other end? Have humans lost sense? Questions of this sort have been around since ages past. In fact, the Fall brought immediate catastrophic questions. One such was Cain’s classic reply as God inquired about his brother Abel whom he had killed: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”(Genesis 4:9). Sounds like the lingua franca of today.
There are people who want to be always noticed and all they want to do is do what pleases the beholder –beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, they say. And I think contemporary Christendom has suffered more in this area –MY ministry, YOUR ministry and so forth (no one in particular). This is a sorry idea because that person is actually ‘commodifying’ himself for a totally different expression contrary to God’s design. There appears to be a shallow conception of how one should live, behave and the like.
Maybe a self-excavation beneath what, who and how we think we are will dig out some clues. Maybe there is something in everyone that needs to be nurtured because it does not develop or grow on its own terms or that there is an upright laziness to work on it. It’s only natural that the discovery of something doesn’t come easy. Besides, the events following the discovery are not easily understood either. Overwhelmed by circumstances, Moses struck the rock twice when he was asked only to speak to the rock (Numbers 20:8-11).Also considering the fact that he had a short fuse, leading the 3 million or so Israelites must have been an astounding undertaking for him. Just recently I read an interview article about Kalashnikov –the man behind the AK-47-where he told of the AK-47:” I made it to protect the motherland. And then they spread the weapon [around the world] - not because I wanted them to. Not at my choice. Then it was like a genie out of the bottle and it began to walk all on its own and in directions I did not want"(The Guardian October 10 2003). Jeremiah also faced a similar situation not of AK-47, of course, when he said, “O Lord, thou hast deceived me” (Jeremiah 20:7). He did not know that taking up God’s call and carrying it along in reality were different things. Kalashnikov had the similar realisation when he saw his AK-47 going astray.
So, what may be what is there to being a human? Contrary to evolution, we are not a mere collision of chance. Even Albert Einstein also said that God does not play dice. Some months back I remember listening to tapped telephonic conversations of some ministers of Nagaland government and their counterparts of Indian government. They were discussing about some projects and how much money should be embezzled out and shared. Just then on recently I heard a story of the activists of American Civil Liberties Union suing two persons because they prayed for Barack Obama. So, is life so unpredictable (or have we made so?) that we live the way we want to? I don’t want to think so.
God made every individual as unique and exclusive as Himself. I am a proof of His creation. My grandfather is not a monkey or a primate. I’m not saying that we are God. If there is no purpose for our existence, God Himself wouldn’t have had any purpose in creating us. Different faiths talk differently (Christianity included) and claim theirs is the only God. The primary question, therefore, is this: What if what we do or do not do is why we are here? Nobody does anything for nothing. There is an inlaid purpose for doing something. I’m sure we cook food to eat. However, survival and staying alive is the issue not the wanting to eat. Today’s generation seems to have reduced everything to a mere accident and therefore, there is no harm in even preparing the ground so that others can also partake of the brunt. Civilized but not ‘civil’ enough, I should say.
There have been many changes over the ages but one thing always comes back to the anvil to be hammered out into the right shape –the heart of man. The heart of man needs to be tamed every now and then (1 Samuel 16:7). So long as there is a consideration only about the outside appearance there will always be a struggle for autonomy and understanding behind all there is. What goes on on the inside goes on on the outside. Judas used a kiss to show that it was not a kiss.
However, God does not breach our will but when we do breach our will, we breach God.
