Let me start again.....

Let me start again,

Pick the pieces of my brokenness,

Fill the spaces in my emptiness,

Let me start again.

Let me start with You Lord,

Everything begins in You,

All my winnings and my loosings, all begin in You.

Come let me rise to greet the morning,

Let me catch the dew a-falling

Let the tidings of a new day keep my courage strong.

Let the darkness of my night cease,

Yes, the passion and anxieties

With You there to hold me Jesus,

I’ll sing a bold new song.

Dreams do come true….

…without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. As Walt Disney said, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”. So at long last, before it was too late, I mustered up all my courage of pursuing my most-cherished dream of becoming a work-from-home mother. Walt Disney also said that a man (in my case a woman) should never neglect his family for business (please read job) and so I have taken this bold decision just for my lovely family. I have always yearned to give more of myself to them – be with my daughters all the time and personify the so-called “hands-on mother”. Hope this turns out to be one of the wisest decisions I have ever taken in my life. Though a bit late for Googaa and too early for Goldie, I guess this is the best gift I give them on their birthdays this year. From momma, with love :)

I came across a saying that “Dreams come true if you survive the hard times” and it has indeed turned out so very true for me. I remember well the hard times we have gone through as a family because I had to work. I remember crying on the day I left Googaa in a crèche for the very first time. I remember crying when I was asked to resign from a certain job because I could never reach office on time. I remember crying every time my mother and mother-in-law refused to look after my kids. I cry from within whenever my kids are unwell and I have to go to office leaving them at the crèche because I was told once to never mix up my personal problems with work. I cry now while writing this because these memories are still fresh in me.

But by the grace of our Super God, everything will change for the best from tomorrow. From tomorrow I will be working from home. I will not be keeping my daughters in the crèche, I will not be serving them rice and boiled eggs or order food from a hotel if I happen to get extremely delayed at work; for that matter, I will not be running late for work anymore, I will not be feeling guilty of leaving them alone whenever they are unwell; I will be with them and for them almost all the time. Amen to that.

There’s always an appropriate time for a dream to come true and this is my time. I am really looking forward to tomorrow because it is a new beginning for us. The universe is working in my favor and come tomorrow, I will be in the BE HAPPY phase of my life because it’s not always about money. Tomorrow marks the start of a brave new future filled with all our dreams but I have a wish list here (see below). But honestly, all the adversity I have had in my professional life, all my troubles and obstacles have only strengthened me. So, dream on until your dreams come true. As far as I am concerned, I look forward to enjoy this loveliest phase of life.

10 things I wish to do while working from home is to
1) Laugh a lot
2) Learn to be patient
3) Be playful with my daughters
4) Drink the amount of water I am supposed to in a day
5) Walk
6) Learn salsa
7) Join aerobics class
8) Cook great meals
9) Work more on my spirituality
10) Join an NGO for stray dogs

NATUROPATHY

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. ~ Hippocrates

Yesterday we attended a full day Basic Course on Naturopathy by Rev. Fr. M. Britto Joseph, S.J, Jesuit priest, naturopath and Siddha Maruthuva Pandit, at our St. Joseph Church, Mira Road. He is the founder of the departments of Naturopathy & Homoeopathy in the Holy Family Hospitals of Patna and Delhi and has been working for forty years in the field of alternative medicine.

We thought that this day-long session will be too boring to endure but his humorous and inspirational style of preaching his message made the course a truly unique one for us both. We got enlightened about a lot of things which we already knew but never bothered to give a second thought.

Naturopathy believes that “All healing powers are within one’s body” and this science and art of drugless system of healing us for a healthy living is undoubtedly so informative. Naturopathy teaches us how we should live, what we should eat and how our daily routine should be. Naturopathy is a guide to increasing our vital energy for a holistic approach to increased healing, growth and metabolism. It’s nothing but the science of synchronizing our beings with Mother Nature.

We came to know that all diseases are due to the accumulation of toxins that have steadily been piling up in our body. We came to know about natural living because naturopathy’s philosophy is to be one with nature, understanding and respecting it. It emphasizes nutritious and healthy food. Naturopathy is not just a system of medicine but also a science of health promotion designed to increase our well being and happiness in all aspects.

Honestly, naturopathy is just the traditional system of health treatment which is practiced in many countries across the world. It’s actually a constructive method of treatment which aims at removing the basic cause of all diseases. For instance, acidity, which has been harrowing me since a very long time!

Naturopathy enables getting rid of physical as well as mental ailments and believes that the change in our dietary habit can bring about remarkable changes in our health as well. Naturopathy, in fact, prescribes a diet that can be adopted by anyone easily. The diet uses natural means to purify our body and balance our immune system. It explains to us that it’s extremely important to keep our digestive system healthy by eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables (ONION) and keeping away from red meat. Naturopathic diets encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables based on eating nutritious foods and adopting a healthy lifestyle.

I am sure that if I just religiously drink five liters of WATER a day, my perennial problem of migraine will be solved forever. It is because of not drinking adequate water that I have been developing acidity which is to leading to headaches and which in turn is leading to migraines. Looks like, I have at last found out the root cause of my problem and I am bent upon solving it. Amen

First class

On Sunday, 22nd July, 2012, I conducted my first independent confirmation class. I did it because the main teacher was out of town and I had to carry on with the regular teaching. There were butterflies in my stomach and I had absolutely no idea what I was teaching and what the students were grasping. I just know that I taught about the rich young man, the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. Though I didn’t fumble anywhere, I know for sure that there was chaos inside me as well as in the classroom.

Though I had done all my homework, now I feel that I should have also done my usual Google research. It always helps.

I taught Session 8 which was about JESUS, THE GOOD TEACHER.

Charles Dickens

“Remember! It is Christianity to do good always – even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace”.

These are the beautiful words of Charles Dickens, the great English writer and the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. He was a Christian and was often referred to as, “that great Christian writer” by Leo Tolstoy, the Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. During his time, Charles Dickens filled his works with Christian references to encourage devotion to Jesus Christ and that’s why I have decided to continue reading his books. From yesterday (3rd July), I have again started reading A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

I have always liked Charles Dickens but respect for him increased manifold when on Friday, 29th June, 2012, I came to know his views on Jesus and Christianity. Dickens was a member of the Church of England and deeply believed in Jesus though in all his writings, he is outspoken in his dislike of evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. I read somewhere that “the one aspect of his life that best reveals Dickens’ deep Christian faith is his fiction. Charles Dickens was not a religious writer but his novels expressed his Christian beliefs”. I like this about him and so don’t want to stop reading his books/writings.

But it seems that after 1847 he did attend the Anglican Church near his home. And you know what? He prayed each morning and night. In one of his most popular and endearing novels, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Scrooge sees the folly of his way and exclaims, “I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse”. Here, Scrooge says this about his “salvation” that comes not from an encounter with Christ, but an encounter with self. He displays the Dickensian view that salvation is achieved by loving your neighbor, giving a cup of water to those in need. The New Testament teaches that such acts are the result of spiritual conversion; for Dickens, they were the means. And that’s why I see no harm in continuing to read his books.

While speaking about A CHRISTMAS CAROL, how can anyone ever forget these famous lines from the novel? “Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas eve, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak biting, foggy weather….” This Charles Dickens' novel, published in 1843, is the famous tale of an old and bitter miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by spirits from the past, present and future.

According to charlesdickenslondon.net, Charles Dickens greatly influenced the shaping of Christmas as we know it today. In his early work, PICKWICK PAPERS, he sets out a splendidly homely, family and friends gathering to party together. It was only after this that the (A) CHRISTMAS CAROL came in followed by five lesser known, but still important Christmas stories by Dickens. It seems this great novelist also wrote numerous other Christmas stories. Interestingly, the earliest terming of the phrase “Merry Christmas” was coined in (yes, you have guessed it right), A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Then there’s this website, http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1990/issue27/2739.html, where it’s mentioned that in 1849, Dickens wrote an important manuscript that had not been printed until 1934. This work was so personal to him that Dickens requested it not be made public for 85 years. The work was a retelling of the Gospel narratives, adapted from the Gospel of St. Luke, titled THE LIFE OF OUR LORD.

In this website, Marie Dickens, Dickens’s daughter-in-law, says: “This book, the last work of Charles Dickens to be published, has an individual interest and purpose that separate it completely from everything else that Dickens wrote. Quite apart from its Divine Subject, the manuscript is peculiarly personal to the novelist, and is not so much a revelation of his mind as a tribute to his heart and humanity, and also, his deep devotion to Our Lord”.

Dickens wrote THE LIFE OF OUR LORD so that his children would become familiar with Jesus Christ, and he often read the story to them. When his children left home, he gave each a New Testament. To one, he wrote, “I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world…” How very sweet of him to say this!

It’s further written in the website that “Dickens respected Christianity’s founder, Jesus Christ, who practiced what Dickens so desperately wanted to find in humanity. Jesus loved all people. He rubbed shoulders with social castaways, rebuked wealthy elitists, and severely condemned hypocrisy. If ever a man could gain Dickens’ utmost respect and favor, Christ could, and did”. Like I wrote before, my respect for Dickens multiplied after reading this fact about him. Dickens portrays Jesus as a good man who is loved by God like a son.

I felt really nice to know that Dickens truly respected the Bible and Christ and sought to instill in his children the same reverence. So much like me and so being a diehard Charles Dickens fan, I will not feel guilty to devour his writings once again.

PS: On 1st July, 2012, I took my first Confirmation class. I just did the start up on a testimony by archbishop -----. But what the heck! Small beginnings have great endings…!!!

Jesus the teacher

Besides being the great Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ was also a teacher. Jesus was often referred to as “Rabbi” or "Teacher”. He was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea. One of his missions on earth was to teach people of God’s love. He often did this by using examples. Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, conceded that Jesus of Nazareth was “a teacher” from God, as documented by the “signs” which He did (John 3:2). In John 2:12-12:50 (Jesus’ Public Ministry), Jesus’ teaching material consists mostly of seven discourses. One of His disciples came to Him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him”. For which Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from Him who sent me”.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness.

Jesus was a great teacher – the best ever. Crowds listened to Him. Jesus told them to be merciful, good and kind. Jesus frequently used parables as a means of illustrating profound, divine truths. When He spoke in parables, He explained them only to His disciples. Torah in its relation to Jesus and his teaching is a prominent theme in Matthew. Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived. He taught the highest truths that were ever taught. He promoted the purest ideals that were ever presented.

Till date Jesus is known as a teacher (didaskolos) by the people. He set time aside specifically to teach (didaskein) the people in the temples and synagogues in Galilee. Jesus has been given the title of the great teacher by many people who have studied and applied His teachings throughout history. Some of the main principles of Jesus' teaching are love, forgiveness, and prayer, not being judgmental and being careful of hypocrites.

He was a mystical teacher. The teachings brought by Jesus Christ from God-the-Father came to us in the form of Jesus’ conversations with His disciples and with other people.

Jesus opened the door for me

Jesus opens the door to our hearts, Jesus opens the door of new life for sinners, Jesus has opened the door of salvation to every person, Jesus unlocks the door of our understanding – but today Jesus opened the door of my bathroom!

While taking bath this morning, I just don’t know how the bathroom door got latched from outside. After my bath, when I wanted to come out of the bathroom, I just couldn’t open the door. To my utter dismay, it was latched from outside and I was the only one at home at that time. The kids had gone to school and even Golu had left for work. I was extremely scared at the thought of remaining locked inside the bathroom till evening.

Then I asked Jesus to help me break open the door. I kept praying to Him and knocking on the door so that the latch on the outside could give way. I kept doing this for almost 10 minutes. Twice or thrice I called out the name of my neighbor but obviously she didn’t hear me. I was feeling totally helpless and miserable. But I kept taking the name of Jesus and kept hammering on the door.

Suddenly the door opened and I felt that Jesus had opened the door of heaven for me. I am very, very sure it was Jesus who opened the door for me in the morning. And I am extremely thankful to Jesus for rescuing me. Love you Jesus, praise you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!