A very own journey…

     “That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are!”  Paulo Coelho

Becoming who I am is a lifelong mission.  The world looks at an individual through different eyes.  But do we have to look at the world through the lens of what makes us unique?  Becoming who I am will look like a lot of rubbish in the eyes of the world if I fail to make money and name… because that’s what defines an individual in today’s social circle.  One observation I have about people is their affiliation with clubs, groups, and even social movements, which tends to diminish their unique individuality the most.

There are times when we have to build our dreams all by our own hands, by our imagination and our strength.  It may involve relocation, reformatting, or a renewal of our beliefs and value systems.  We might have to do it simply because “it no longer fits” our present-day journey.  A deep voice within us, constantly echoing our passion and vision, will tell us of our vocation here on earth. I love listening to that voice all the time. 

The first time I read the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, it resonated within me an invitation to adopt a stoic attitude towards many of today’s social beliefs. “If” left in me a profound challenge. I got it written on a wooden board and hung it on a visible wall at home. I like that poem for its strong voice of aloofness and individuality. “Come what may… keep going, my son”, Kipling tells his boy. The main message is not to get caught in emotions and be carried away by the contemporary flow of the world.

Someone said, “It takes courage to answer a call”. True, it takes a lot of courage to embark on our own journey and pedal through it all the while. 

If we can live a life not to convince anyone and not to be in an ego trap, …. if we can fail to fall victim to a social belief or to a world that looks to overtake us, then we can pedal our wheels of freedom, to pedal, aiming for the golden sunset of our journey called life.

Still, it takes courage to be what we are.

Keep going ...

The Old Rugged Cross...

The year 2008. At the US Consulate in Chennai, I was standing in a long line at for VISA clearance. Behind me was a cassock robed elderly priest. From the cassock he wore,  I guessed he was from Catholic denomination. After making a few eye contacts, I accosted him in a conversation, “Father, are you for a VISA clearance to US?” … “ Yes, going on a parish mission.” “Me too”, I said. Then  I sprang up more courage to continue the conversation, and chipped in, “ Father, do you think we deserve all this?  That old rugged empty cross made our journey possible, isn’t it ?”  He smiled having no words to answer.

First Methodist Episcopal Church of Pokagon where
The Old Rugged Cross was first sung.
This church finds a place in
the National Register of Historic Places of USA

The year 1913… a small church in Pokagon was arranging a series of revival meetings. The Pastor was Rev. Leroy Bostwick, and he had called his friend Rev.Bennard to assist him in singing. Bennard was a gospel singer and an evangelist. A couple of weeks before assisting Rev. Leroy, he was singing a verse and chorus he had written,  in a small revival meeting at Michigan.  Bennard was ridiculed over that song by a group of youths who attended the prayer meeting.  But, traveling to Pokagon to assist Bostwick, Bennard did not quit on those verses he had scribbled. He studied more about the Cross and its significance.

At Pokagon, the revival meeting was in progress. And Bennard was working on the verse he had sung at Michigan. He sought the assistance of Rev. Leroy’s wife, Ruby, to be a sounding board for redoing his song. As the days progressed, at the church parsonage, he added more verses and composed the music… and he was readily strumming his guitar for a rehearsal. As Bennard ended his first rehearsal, it is said that Ruby was weeping aloud on her knees, in the presence of her husband Rev.Leroy.  Later that day, on 12^th January 1913 (the last day of the revival meeting), a gospel song was born which would influence every Christian who would ever listen to it. That song went on for 100 years and more to be performed by some of the twentieth century's most important recording artists in the West.

 

Each time I hear the ‘The Old Rugged Cross’, it shatters ALL my sense (myth) of self-righteousness. Where am I? What am I?  How am I? … these questions which reverberate in me will all end, I know, only when “my trophies, at last, I lay down …  (and when) I will cling to the old rugged Cross … And exchange it someday for a crown .”

"The Old Rugged Cross" to me is the one the great eloquence of Christian faith at all ages.

~Fine~

 

… the Kumbaya

THERE are things in life we don’t know where they originated from… may be a pandemic virus or a word in a song we often sing.

How powerful is an English word? This is a question many users of English ask themselves when they use a word for expressing their thoughts or emotion. Today a drummer will drum in the streets to show his protest or to demonstrate his support, a cyclist will cycle from one tip of the nation to the other, a runner will run and tell the world his message… footballers raise pay cards in stadiums and soldiers raise their nation’s flag to flutter their victory on enemy soil. But we need words ... and we need words to express ourselves to others… “Kumbaya” is just a summation of three English words.

When a group of people "Kumbaya", what exactly is their expression all about?  Originally, the "Kumbaya" was a folk expression… one such word that expanded its tentacles to campfire classics. Then in the 1920s, it was adapted as a negro spiritual. The first recorded evidence of this song exist since 1926 and is on a wax cylinder preserved in the American Library of Congress.  The expression "to Kumbaya" is for the English words, “Come by here”, as spoken by the Negros. And it was used to compose a Christian evangelical worship song.  

 

The warmth and the closeness one feel when we “Kumbaya”  is magical. Have you ever held hands together around the fire and said “Kumbaya” with your best friend? If you haven’t, please do it! As the sun wakes us up every morning and if there is a great sense of helplessness in our daily actions when the path ahead is unclear, any believer needs the personal closeness of God, that’s the “Kumbaya”… it is a mystical fusion of oneself with his God. “Kumbaya” can cross the spiritual borders , if there is a deep relationship between those with whom we “Kumbaya". That is where this expression becomes intimate around a campfire or across your best friend, standing close in your arms.

But why “Come by here”? Why not “Come here?” … There is a big big difference in it, isn’t it?  “Come here” can be anywhere here. But when you come “by here”, your stand close to the person you are coming to. Hence “Kumbaya” is a close proposition between you and the person coming near into your… it is not only come by here, but it is also merging in the closeness of devotion and love … it is a synergy of friendship between a helpless friend and a powerful friend.  Our "Kumbaya" moment is a moment of infusion of love and closeness with God Almighty.

But the words and expressions have their weaknesses when they are imbued into the mainstream, political or civil usage.  The expression "Kumbaya" is one of them. When we like to agree to disagree and go ahead peacefully with someone, a single word which the liberal and civil population can express is “Kumbaya”. Outside the borders of Christian spirituality, "Kumbaya" comes easy for civil rights protesters, pacifists and new generation resistant activists. But strange enough, this has discounted this powerful Negro English expression. It has become a weak expression and is a term of derision on the streets, as in English media and literature. 

You will not see “Kumbaya” in the Merriam Webster dictionary because “Kumbaya” has not become an English word yet. They have placed it in the “Words We're Watching” list. But for me, “Kumbaya” is one of the greatest expressions of intercessory prayer…. and a one-word English expression of friendship.

Come, let’s “Kumbaya”….