Revsmusings

“Fling wide the gates..” She pushed those words to the back of her mind.” Open the ancient doors,…” Nooo, she didn’t want to hear them, “….and let the king of Glory in.” Ahhh. The soft still voice was persistent.

It had been a couple of frustrating days. She was beyond irritated and angry. Her arched eyebrows and furrowed forehead as the hot summer sun beat down on her head would have made anyone hesitate to even ask her what was wrong. A soaked mask and the added irritation thereof. And then there were the tears she was fighting back- tears of frustration, lost battles, and the desire to emerge like the Hulk from her normal work clothes and just stomp over the world. Passionately angry. Because she had passionately loved. And passionately trusted and hoped.

And in all that mess, another passionate voice was calling out from deep within. Pastor had said that verse a number of times in church last Sunday, it was etched somewhere deep within her tired grey cells. “Let me in” the Father was saying. “Fling open your gates” She didn’t want to. She wanted to close herself up in her room and weep for sometime. Cry out the frustration, and spend some time wondering why she still did what she did. Didn’t want to let anybody in for that moment. Wanted to dwell in the darkness as the waves came crashing in.

After yanking the lock of her house open and banging her door shut, she finally gave in, letting Him in on the disappointment and the distress and the helplessness. And as she slept off on her knees from the heat and the exhaustion, the sound of singing filled her heart. The old hostel room. Her senior strumming this chorus on her guitar, ” Can you hear the sound of heaven, like the sound of many waters? Its the sound of worship coming from the throne of God…” As those notes played out, a loud thunderstorm woke her up. She ran up to the terrace and stood right there as the heavy raindrops washed over her. A calm descended and the din of the day died down, she let that river of living water flow right from the throne of God into her heart… some days don’t make sense, they hurt more than others, some battles are harder, some leave scars- but as long as her eyes were on her Maker, it was all worth the pain. She’d rather live out her life passionately being what God had called her to be than live from paycheck to paycheck- loving, laughing, crying, singing,sometimes winning, sometimes losing….living.

Tired, sojourner? The sun might beat down quite furiously, but it always rains . Look around. You’ll hear Him in the trees and the bushes and the birds and the plains and the valleys. Just throw open your gates, and let the King of Glory in. Let Him wash over you. Let Him remind you why you do what you do. Let Him take that burden. Let Him….Let Him…and then go live! In every sense of that word. Look up. It might hurt, but He is enough. More than enough.

Fling wide the gates,
open the ancient doors,
and the great king will come in.
Who is this great king?
He is the Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, victorious in battle. (psalm 24)

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries. _{-Elizabeth Barrett Browning}

Ever noticed that most hospitals have a chapel within the building or somewhere in close proximity? Or even a prayer room? They’re small, simple yet beautiful.

As a freshly admitted medical student, I used to think about our hospital chapel as such an oddity – a place meant for worship and prayer built smack in the middle of a noisy hospital corridor cluttered with the sounds of trolleys rushed to and fro, people asking for directions, doctors screaming out orders over the din to each other and so on. Weird! I’ve thought. Who would even notice this place in the midst of this craziness? And besides, who would have the time to come in here anyways?

A few weeks into my training I decided to enter the chapel one day. There was a sudden change of atmosphere from the noisy buzz outside to a calm that gripped my soul. As my eyes adjusted to the lighting within, I saw two hands lifted up just in front of the altar. An elderly woman wailing out loud on her knees. She wasn’t saying too many words but her desperation was palpable. As I sat and watched her for sometime, I started understanding the strategic positioning of this space.

Many years and different hospitals later, I’ve developed a sense of reverence for these places. They are places of solace. Of light. Of hope. Desperate pleas. Honest prayers. Unhindered praises. Freely flowing tears. Unmasked selves. These are some of the emotions that mark these chapels.

People seeking refuge from the only One who can offer one. Where scientific explanations end and miracles begin. Where the search for a highly experienced super specialist ends with the acknowledgement and the desire for a touch from the Creator of the Universe. The Healer. Where there is no pretence.

Broken souls. Melted candlewax. Raw emotions. And just outside, a world that keeps moving.

Whoever thought of the concept of a place of worship smack in the middle of a crazy hospital environment couldn’t have been more genius. Beyond every level of expertise the world of modern medicine can offer, every man’s ultimate need is the need of a Saviour. In need of things only He can give. And that begins with the breaking down of walls we’ve built around our hearts , with taking off the masks we wear (No, not the triple layer/N95 ones). Right in the centre of our workplaces and our maddening lives.

He was a special child. Mentally challenged they say. Exceptionally intelligent I think. He’d seen me before and recognised me from a distance when his mom came to me to get his regular medicines. He kept nudging her to tell me to remove my mask so he would know for sure. I removed my mask for a few seconds for him. I did not expect the reaction I got from this 14 year old boy with developmental issues. A sudden throaty laughter- one of sheer joy, and a high spirited small jump. He was right about me! He came over and gave me a sideways awkward hug in a way he knew how. And then held his mom’s hand and walked away smiling through his teeth. That’s all it took to make his day. Me removing my mask for him. Covid-19 protocols had to go for a lunch break!

“It’s like we came to the chapel. He feels seen,” his mom called out as they walked off.

Hospital chapels, OPD waiting areas, ICU counselling rooms, operation theatres- are some places where all disguises come off. And they remind us of a greater need.

In a world that teaches us to pretend and live up to the expectations that nobody knows who laid out, there is also an aching people. Aching for grace, mercy and love. Aching for the love of Jesus yet not knowing where to find it.

A touch. A hug. A kind word. A nudge on the shoulder. A word of encouragement. A small note of appreciation.

A conversation with no pretence. A space where they don’t have to keep up appearances. Haven’t you longed for some authenticity like that?

This is what the Lord has been challenging me to be over the past couple of weeks and a thought I’m putting out there for you to ponder on.

Oh Child of God, you who have tasted and known of the goodness of this amazing God, what can you do today to reach out to an aching society? To be that space of no pretence to somebody who needs to be seen or heard? To be that conduit that guides them to the Saviour. To be the salt. To be the light. To shine. Beginning from right where you are. Right now.

In need of Grace, In need of love
In need of mercy raining down from higher above
In need of strength, in need of peace
In need of things than only you can give to me

In need of Christ, the perfect Lamb
My refuge strong, the great I am
This is my song, my humble plea
I am your child, I am in need _{(Ross King)}

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” ( Matthew 5:16)

On the drive between Palani and Oddanchatram, two small towns in southwest Tamil Nadu, there’s a particular wonder to behold in a particular season. Vast fields bathed in yellow. Yellow- the unapologetic bright kind. Oh yes, the colour yellow is associated with Palani a lot, especially ‘cos of the robes the pilgrims to the Palani temple wear and walk the roads on. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

It was Monday morning, and I was on the way back from an eventful weekend at home back to the place where I live and work. The driver anna was being his usual chatty self, filling me in on the local political scenes and all that was happening in and around his village and I kept him engaged with an occasional comment here and there and mostly with the vigorous nod that most South Indians have mastered over time. The kind that almost compromises the stability of the atlanto-occipital joint. We kept at it, me encouraging him to go on, while my mind kept busy, pondering over the demands of changing seasons in life. Noise on the inside and noise on the outside.

“Madam look!” He suddenly said, pointing to the sides. And there they were. Golden yellow fields. On both sides of the road. The sun shining on them enhancing their colour. Vast fields of sunflowers. Big ones. We stopped for a couple of minutes to just take in that beauty. As we gazed at those fields for a bit, the driver anna’s friendly voice faded into the background and the noises inside of me died down. There was a peculiar thing though. I was looking at the sunflowers. But the flowerheads were all turned in the opposite direction. Each one of those hundreds of flowers were faced in the same direction, their stalks straight, their heads held high- the direction the sun was shining on them. There was not a single flower that turned the other way round and not one of them drooping down. Not one flower turned the way the people who stopped to admire them were looking at. They just had one focus. And that was the source of their beauty, their nourishment and all that they were about. Named appropriately- Sun-flowers.

“Madam, polaama?” (shall we go?), the driver’s voice interrupted that moment with an urgency. As we resumed our journey forward, there was a strange peace inside of me. I was being reminded with as much clarity as possible- ‘ Why’re you looking around? Look to the Son (Jesus).’

That’s been the image in my head since. That sea of yellow.

No matter what everyone else has to say, or how much you’ve left to do or how impossible you think things look, will you look to the Son- the Author and Perfecter of your faith? Your Rock, your sure foundation.

Can we do that in our day to day lives, casting but a glance at what is around us, fixing our gaze though on Jesus? Unashamed, heads held high, undisturbed in our devotion to Him?

And when we do that, what others will notice about us is the light that falls on us- the glory of the Almighty God dwelling in us, His love brimming out from us. The colour of His love- that’s our ‘yellow’. Whatever season of life we’re in.

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.‘ _{(Helen Lemmel)}

“and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…“( Hebrews 12:1, 2a)

Weariness.
That’s what I saw in the eyes of that grandmother who’s been coming for steroids month after month with her little grandson with Nephrotic syndrome, whom his parents had forsaken, in the tears of the mom who brought her son with chronic kidney disease once in 2 days for dialysis simply so he’d be alive, in the face of the father who brought his daughter with Beta Thalassemia every 21 days for her next blood transfusion- there are many more- all of them with the same question- When will this be over? Or will it ever? And their eyes searched my face… for hope, atleast an inkling.

Funny thing is, I was asked the same question three times over the past one week that I’d been asking myself already- Is there hope? Is there an answer?

As I sat back against the terrace wall and closed my eyes, my thoughts drifted to that one blank page somewhere a little more than halfway through my Bible- the one that separates the Old Testament from the New Testament. That page was symbolic of 400 years of waiting- when so much of recklessness and oppression prevailed, and there was no prophet, no leader, no dreams or visions, no voice from God. A loud silence. Deafening in fact. A prolonged wait for a Saviour. Nobody knew when or how. They were a tired people. Weary.
Sounded like my life, I thought.
And when you turn that page over and as the gospel of Mathew unfolds, you hear a cry, a newborn baby’s shriek, breaking that silence. The wait for a Saviour had come to an end. He had come! And how!

My mind’s been blown away again and again as I read and reread the account of the birth of Jesus as given in the gospels. A young woman, a bewildered carpenter, shame, confusion, a census at an inconvenient time, rejection, a manger of absolutely no significance, a helpless baby- these were some of the circumstances that God chose to display His glory through. They were weary, Oh yes. Tired of what people were talking about them back home, tired of being misunderstood again and again, exhausted from a journey on a donkey’s back and about as comfortable as anyone could get in a stable surrounded by animals- and yet the baby’s cry brought hope- He had come to deliver us from eternal damnation.

You know, that’s the story of Christmas, that’s why the bells and the carols and the candles and all that jazz- it’s not about the big man in a red suit riding reindeer, it’s about a God who became man to save our souls. A God who came to give us that hope- the hope of eternity.
This story is the beginning of all other stories- a story where in the midst of weariness, pain, anxiety, disappointment, unanswered prayers and uncertainty- hope shone through.

Dear friend, I do not know what your Christmas might look like this year, whether there’s a family you’ll be going to or you’ll be in the ward, like me, on duty, whether you’re in a place of weariness and you’re close to giving up on God or you’re filled with thanksgiving, whether you’re drowning in your doubts and uncertainty or you’re hanging on for dear life, whether you’re prepping for an upcoming wedding or you’re wondering when you’ll ever find the one for you or whether you’re wondering like the parents of those children I mentioned earlier, “when will the suffering end?”.

Interruptions, inconveniences, unanswered prayers , doors that refuse to open- whatever this year has handed out to you, may I remind you as I was reminded that God chose to break nearly 400 years of silence with a tiny baby’s cry from a manger in Bethlehem. His magnificence shone through the darkest of times, through the most obscure circumstances, through two very normal people who were going about their usual lives that were suddenly interrupted with a lot of inconvenience.

What child is this
Who lay to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping

This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary

So bring him incense, gold and myrrh
Come peasant king to own him
The King of Kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone him _{(What child is this, William c Dix)}

There is hope. As the houses light up and songs are sung and gifts are exchanged, let’s remember- there is hope. Esperanza. Jesus is the hope.

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2)

‘Doesn’t this look like something from the Enid Blyton books?’ My brother asked, after sending us this picture. Oh sure it did, only it was a miniature version of it. It was a bonsai tree and he was looking through a nursery when he came upon this sight and was blown away by how expensive it was!!

I looked at that picture for sometime and smiled wryly. My mind recollecting the excitement I had felt as my younger self read those books, how I’d checked on a few big trees outside the school campus later on to see if there was any magic to them. Almost expecting to see some branch leading to a door that opened to fairies or brownies or animals that talked in them! Like the Magic Faraway Tree.

“there was such a lot of whispering that it sounded like a thousand leaves rustling at once!”
― Enid Blyton, The Enchanted Wood

Isn’t there one particular tree all of us remember or have fond memories of? It might be the one in our backyard that’s older than our grandparents or the one huge tree in our school campuses that looked like it knew every dirty secret from yesteryears? One such tree I remember that well is one from our college campus- right next to the mess hall. We called it the ‘mess tree’ ( not very creative, I know, but a landmark nevertheless) . Oh that one tree knew it all! It stood tall like the whole campus was built around it. It has given shade on many a sunny day to those who preferred the outside air to the lecture halls, has attempted to shelter a few strays in heavy rains, has seen friendships strengthen over relentless rants, has been the meeting place for all kinds of meetings, has tolerated overenthusiastic college kids hang decorations on it for every festival all year round, and has been the one thing that really brightened the entire campus when it lit up with on New Year’s Eve with an explosion of lights. It still stands strong to this day and whether we remember our batchmates or not, every student in that campus had and still has a story with the ‘mess tree’. It left a lasting impression.

The bonsai had the shape and the looks, but it could never ever provide the experience of that enchanted tree we read about as children or the ‘mess tree’. Nope- no one could rest in it’s shade, it would not bear fruit, it’s bark would never have anyone carve their names on to it, it would never have any stories to tell. Because, though it looked like a tree, but it had been robbed of it’s very potential to experience the fullness of its existence when science decided to genetically modify it to fit into our comfort zones. That which was supposed to thrive and live in all its glory in some park or in our yard, now sat in our living rooms or terrace gardens- a poor excuse to what it was actually meant to be.

Do we live bonsai-sized lives? That’s been the question on my mind ever since I saw that picture. Teeny-weeny pretty versions of what we were actually made to be, self designed to fit into our comfort zones, while the Creator himself longs for us to live in the freedom that He offers? To thrive and not just survive? Are we afraid- to make commitments, to take stands, to follow the One who has been calling out to us even before we were born, to live to the fullness of our existences?
Pause for a moment. And think about it.

Bonsai is safe. Very comfortable. Pretty. Yet… way too small… To make a difference.

Or will we respond to the Shepherd’s call- committing our lives to Him and thereby stepping out into the glorious freedom He offers- selflessly loving, fully giving and thereby truly thriving and engaging with the world around us. (John 3:16)
I asked myself this today, “Would I be like that tree that stands tall, bearing marks of a race well run, having stories to tell, having been a shade to many, standing strong in the wind and the rain- unapologetic, because I know and I’ve trusted the One who called me?”

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7,8 (NIV)

What about you? Do you want for your life to amount to more than cosy decisions and safe hideouts?

Bonsai lives or not. You get to choose.

“Akka, neenga super !” A smiling starry eyed five year old popped her head back into my OPD cubicle, just to drop in this statement and then danced off into the rest of her life, her shiny black plaits waving around in reckless abandon. It took me a few seconds to realise she was paying me a compliment and then by the time I registered a confused smile through the layers of masks on my face ( these days it doesn’t even feel like a foreign object on the face) , she had already disappeared.

In the place I live, the word ‘super’ is pronounced ‘sooper’. Give them a chance and they’ll even spell it out like that for you. There are certain English words that’ve been localised by the locals here ( yes, a befitting punishment to the ones who introduced the language to us in the first place.) ‘Sooper’ is one such word. It’s a compliment word y’know – more like a word that comes from a full heart. It can mean anything ranging from a delicious meal, a good friend, a nice looking dress, a pretty girl, a fulfilling time, an exciting cricket match or even a brilliant idea. Many meanings, just one word- Sooper. Broad spectrum. No specific grammar rules. No particular contraindication to use it. Can be used freely. For all age groups. Yeah. But a compliment nevertheless and one that is uttered from an overwhelmed heart. There are many other such words that’ve been forcefully converted into the local language, and very seamlessly woven into daily vocabulary, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Anyways, as I wondered as to which of these meanings my little patient was alluding to, there’s no denying the warm fuzzy feeling that settled in on my heart on an otherwise cold and grey afternoon. She had taken that time out of her regular buzz of activity, to just run back in to let me know she appreciated the time we spent together. She didn’t need to. She’d gotten what she had come for. The exhilarating pleasures of childhood were beckoning her from beyond. But she set apart a teeny tiny moment of her universe to gift me a ‘sooper’. She didn’t need to. But maybe I needed it that day. Kindness. And a reminder.

A reminder that my Creator and Father God also looks at me today, right where I am, and sees me not as a frail human being with this innate tendency to fail Him at any given moment, but as a broken vase He took, cleansed, purified and justified – calling me precious, the apple of His eye. Sooper.

So also each one of you reading this today.

This year with all its incessantly flowing unpleasant surprises has neither been easy, nor a pleasurable journey. Fed up? Frustration, anger, irritation, disappointment , resignation, loneliness, exhaustion- are some of the many emotions most of us have been going through. But dear friend, would you look up today, lifting your eyes from the darkness around you to the Father above? And hear His voice in your ear, calling out to you?

“I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me and because I love you and give you honor.”                                                                         ( Isaiah 43:4)

When we dwell in that overwhelming awareness and assurance that we are so precious and so loved by such an amazing God, kindness will flow out of us to the people around us. Like that little child, we’d be able to take a tiny moment out of our universe, to maybe tell the next person (Be it your boss or the milkman ), ” Hey you’re appreciated!” The more we open our hearts to His love, the more we would be able to see God’s fingerprints in these dark times.

Put this blog down, and look at the mirror today. And remind yourself what God Almighty thinks about you this very moment:

Days will come when you don’t have the strength
When all you hear is you’re not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart, they’d see too much

You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred
You are His
You’re beautiful ( Beautiful, MercyMe)

And when you’ve done that, open your door and tell the first person you meet, ‘You’re beautiful!’ or if you come from where I write this from, ‘Sooper da!’

In His Eyes.