Category Archives: Articles

Resurrection in the Internet Age

Two days ago we got some great winds here in Russellville. Several houses on the west side of town lost power and were in dark all night long. When I came into my office early in the morning on Wednesday, I did not have power in my office either. Then I thought, we depend on electricity so much to the extend it takes a while to refocus and reconfigure the work of the day.

When all these wind and storm were happening on the previous night, I read a few facebook comments written by some of my friends. “I can deal with power outage. But if my wireless internet goes down or my Wii stops working, we have a problem. They don’t know who they are dealing with”. “If my facebook is down, I am going into depression and lonliness”.

Our modern life is so dependent on electricity and internet we hardly know how to live without it. To us a few minutes away from the web of the world that is right at our finger tips seem to take a lot out of us. We have all kinds of information available on on our fingertips from sources like Wikipedia and many times even if they are right or wrong, makes sense to us. As you know anyone can edit Wikipedia and the information you get there could be as good as you get from someone on the street who has a great imagination.

Now to draw our faith from these sources powered by electricity and downed by a surge, hacked by the unscrupulous and intercepted by malwares are not therefore the ideal way of growing in divine wisdom. Divine wisdom needs no power, www, or facebook. It is far superior powered by grace that depends on nothing that are fallible.

Faith happens within a community of believers and among a people who are willing to walk the journey with one another. Faith is not a set of statements such as I believe in God, I believe in Jesus and such, but a way of seeing the endless relationship we are in with one another and God. While events of history and statements of Councils might help us to clarify some of the notions of the historical faith as in Christianity, true faith emerges only when we it begins to take shape in the company of one another.

Behind the faceless facebook all emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, disappointments, hopes, dreams and everything else can live fiercely. But they are still in the clouds until it becomes real in the face of a living being in front of you and then healing, true love, freedom and such sublime experiences become real.

This is what happened on the day of Easter. Jesus could have been risen and gone to the heavens, in the clouds or to the web. It would matter nothing to the disciples. But then He chose to stand in front of Mary and say, “Who are you looking for”? And then He stood in the room with the Apostles asking, “What are you afraid of?”. He walked along with two of them to Emmaus wondering, “Who are you talking about?”. Then he chose to break bread with them, an act that is tangible, relational and at the same time vital. Everyone of them is personal and present. That is Easter.

Resurrection becomes alive only to those who have the courage to come out of their hiding places on the web, from the Second Life cathedrals and make believe blissful land in the clouds. Resurrection is for those who have the courage to die to those that imprison them some way or another from being with someone who cares about them.

Jesus could not stand being in the cave too long. He had to come out to meet those whom he cared about. That is when the Resurrection happened. Not when he went to heaven. It is when he chose to appear to those whom he loved, his friends in the room both men and women, in a form and a fashion that made sense to the scared them, that is being in human form.

On this Easter Sunday, I invite you to do the same. Do not be tangled up in the web of the world in your computer. Do not get infected by the malwares of the clouds that addicts you. Let not the outage of power of the world scare you. Allow the wind of grace to blow on you that you can float into the tangible company of someone. Someone is looking for you, someone is waiting to eat with you, and someone wants to break bread with you. These are what we call resurrection. It is then our eyes open and we recognize Jesus among us. Easter is here, because you break bread with God. Easter is not here when Jesus is here but when you are with Jesus.

Wish you a Happy and Blessed Easter.

Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Grinding Grace of God!

If you are reading this column I am pretty sure you have an interest in exploring what God has to say to you today through me or someone else who might appear in this place on a Friday. Or may be it is just out of curiosity that you landed on this page. Regardless of the reason of why you are reading these notes from me, I am sure something will come out of it for the better. That is a lot presumptuous of me to conclude the end result in the life of someone I don’t even know. I call it the grinding Grace.

But then what makes me say that is the strong belief beyond the logic of tolerance or reason in Grace that brings out the best every time. The only thing I can fall back on is the Grace of God no matter what situation I am in. It shall never go wrong or overboard to the extent I feel embarrassed or misrepresented. Grace is reliable and always available. What makes me so distastefully, for some, confident on what I say is the experience that I am blessed with love from those I have met and God who came to my life. Therefore I have come to this conclusion.

The only thing we are expected to do well and right is to love. We can add to that love God and our neighbor if that helps your Christian appetite. Then we have the best commandment of the Bible. Can we love someone right and well? There is no way of knowing it. Therefore do it anyway you know best and it is going to be right. This surety is what I dare to call my distasteful interpretation of Grace. What makes this right is the grinding nature of the Grace of God.

Our natural tendencies and cravings of everyday life are sometimes tough to deal with. The houses we own, the things we purchase, the loyalties we keep and the Theologies we adhere to make us choose separation of the other based on our preferences. The law of God is simple and easy to follow. But we have created binding restrictions to limit genuine love. This is why grace becomes a grinding process of our hidden selfishness. But always if we allow the grinding, grace will succeed.

  

Do you always understand your spouses, the one you fell in love with for the best person in the world? Then the list can be expanded with the names of our teachers, to preachers, to neighbors, to leaders and so on. The issues each of these people we have found names for are different from ours and that is why it is hard to love them. They are not anything like our own problems and therefore unbearable. That is why the grace becomes a grinding presence of God that will eat away the bite we have within us when we try to love the other.

Allow grace. I will promise you to your disappointment;(may be) it will grind every teeth you bite someone with. Now that you have read the column, I am sure it will grind your biting teeth today and every time you are about to bark at someone or pull down someone else. Whether you believe it or not, just because you read this, it is going to haunt you for the rest of your life grinding away the sharp words and comments, thoughts and fears you encounter.
That is why I call Grace is Grinding. It does good beyond the measure of what I can imagine and sometimes to my dislike. But it is still worth allowing grace in life. For it can transform us for the rest of our lives. Allow Grinding Grace.

Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Co-dependency to Freedom

In a vision given to St. Francis of Assisi God asked him to build His church. I think we are all given the same call today, to build God’s church. What are churches for? I believe it is a place for people to come and take rest. These are not my words. This is what the Lord says. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”.

Has this been your experience after a Sunday Morning worship? If yes Thank God. You have found the right place. Continue to nourish your soul. If not, Why? May be because we come with some a few chips on our shoulders. The biggest chip that creates tension than relaxation I found is the fear of being judged by the other. What would the pastor think of the dress I am wearing? Would he find out that I am not as clean inside as I look outside? What would Sally think of my hair if it is well kept? What would Joe think about the tie I am wearing? The color of the dress, the leather of the shoe, the smell of the deodorant and the list goes on. It hasn’t turned out to be a relaxing place after all. Because you got to really make sure that everything is well coordinated before you can step foot into the door of God’s house. If you can then dodge the bullets from the pastor’s sermon; whew… you made it through another Sunday!

Fear of being judged is a terrible feeling. Only those who have been judged know how it feels like and that is you and me. This can only be overcome by a community of loving people who knows and remembers what it feels like being judged and does something about it. However we all suffer from dementia when it comes to judging others. We easily forget that we have been judged before. We have forgotten that it is the property of God to judge and we freely have taken our place on the judgment thrown of God without being invited to share it.

To ease this tension, let me assure you, God has made us obnoxiously unique. I am sure someone is going to frown his or her brow reading this saying, “how dare he says we are obnoxiously unique”. Take delight in this that God is still happy with you though. It is because I can assure you that there is every reason for someone else in the world to judge you for what you are on the best day of your life. If anybody thinks otherwise, I would suggest get a new mirror of grace to see what you actually look like inside when no one else sees you but God. Our best judgment is worse than the worst judgment God can ever make, if God does! So, it will be better for us to let our obnoxious righteousness be put to rest so that God’s grace can actually hunt for us and carry us on His shoulders.

This can only happen when the spirit of Babel disappears from within us. What was the spirit of Babel? The spirit of the people of Babel was the fear of the other, their languages, their appearances, their pride, their righteousness and even the fear of being judged. We believe we speak one language. We don’t. We speak multiple languages everyday. When we are afraid we speak a language of fear. When we are angry we speak a different set of alphabets put together. It is not even a language many times. When we are jealous then there is a new set of phrases and languages that come up. I am very certain that none of us truly understand the other exactly even when they say the words we seem to know the meaning for. If we did, there will be no more divorces, fights, or tensions in our families. Only the Spirit Of Pentecost can help us remove our fears of the other.

Here is a way out of this situation. Speak a language all of us will understand. Speak the language of love that is patient and kind; that is not jealous or pompous or inflated or rude. Let it not be quick tempered or afraid of the other. (1 Corinthians 13) Speak a language of love for it has no alphabets or phrases.

This is what churches are meant to be. A church as a whole is called to be a place where all the chips we bring in as we walk in are to be deposited for safe keeping at least until the church is over. I can guarantee you that all of us will grab them back as soon as we come out. Do not worry. I am sure eventually we will leave our chips back for God to do whatever is best with them. That is when a church becomes truly a church. Until the chips are left in the basket of God, churches are still buildings with four walls, and a roof and we are a co-dependent people and pastor.

I hope you will find meaning for your life beyond co-dependent relationships in our churches to the freedom of the Children of God. Build your church on the grounds of freedom from fear mixed with the fountain of compassionate love. There is nothing more freeing than being freed of the need to judge and the fear of being judged.

Co-dependency to Freedom

In a vision given to St. Francis of Assisi God asked him to build His church. I think we are all given the same call today, to build God’s church. What are churches for? I believe it is a place for people to come and take rest. These are not my words. This is what the Lord says. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”.
Has this been your experience after a Sunday Morning worship? If yes Thank God. You have found the right place. Continue to nourish your soul. If not, Why? May be because we come with some a few chips on our shoulders. The biggest chip that creates tension than relaxation I found is the fear of being judged by the other. What would the pastor think of the dress I am wearing? Would he find out that I am not as clean inside as I look outside? What would Sally think of my hair if it is well kept? What would Joe think about the tie I am wearing? The color of the dress, the leather of the shoe, the smell of the deodorant and the list goes on. It hasn’t turned out to be a relaxing place after all. Because you got to really make sure that everything is well coordinated before you can step foot into the door of God’s house. If you can then dodge the bullets from the pastor’s sermon; whew… you made it through another Sunday!
Fear of being judged is a terrible feeling. Only those who have been judged know how it feels like and that is you and me. This can only be overcome by a community of loving people who knows and remembers what it feels like being judged and does something about it. However we all suffer from dementia when it comes to judging others. We easily forget that we have been judged before. We have forgotten that it is the property of God to judge and we freely have taken our place on the judgment thrown of God without being invited to share it.
To ease this tension, let me assure you, God has made us obnoxiously unique. I am sure someone is going to frown his or her brow reading this saying, “how dare he says we are obnoxiously unique”. Take delight in this that God is still happy with you though. It is because I can assure you that there is every reason for someone else in the world to judge you for what you are on the best day of your life. If anybody thinks otherwise, I would suggest get a new mirror of grace to see what you actually look like inside when no one else sees you but God. Our best judgment is worse than the worst judgment God can ever make, if God does! So, it will be better for us to let our obnoxious righteousness be put to rest so that God’s grace can actually hunt for us and carry us on His shoulders.
This can only happen when the spirit of Babel disappears from within us. What was the spirit of Babel? The spirit of the people of Babel was the fear of the other, their languages, their appearances, their pride, their righteousness and even the fear of being judged. We believe we speak one language. We don’t. We speak multiple languages everyday. When we are afraid we speak a language of fear. When we are angry we speak a different set of alphabets put together. It is not even a language many times. When we are jealous then there is a new set of phrases and languages that come up. I am very certain that none of us truly understand the other exactly even when they say the words we seem to know the meaning for. If we did, there will be no more divorces, fights, or tensions in our families. Only the Spirit Of Pentecost can help us remove our fears of the other.
Here is a way out of this situation. Speak a language all of us will understand. Speak the language of love that is patient and kind; that is not jealous or pompous or inflated or rude. Let it not be quick tempered or afraid of the other. (1 Corinthians 13) Speak a language of love for it has no alphabets or phrases.
This is what churches are meant to be. A church as a whole is called to be a place where all the chips we bring in as we walk in are to be deposited for safe keeping at least until the church is over. I can guarantee you that all of us will grab them back as soon as we come out. Do not worry. I am sure eventually we will leave our chips back for God to do whatever is best with them. That is when a church becomes truly a church.  Until the chips are left in the basket of God, churches are still buildings with four walls, and a roof and we are a co-dependent people and pastor.
I hope you will find meaning for your life beyond co-dependent relationships in our churches to the freedom of the Children of God.  Build your church on the grounds of freedom from fear mixed with the fountain of compassionate love. There is nothing more freeing than being freed of the need to judge and the fear of being judged. 

Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Our floor our table!

My mother used to tell me that table symbolized family. We had lots of friends, family and guests who sat at our table my mother set. Some of our family members were not that great in my view. But my mother would say, no matter what they are or how, they are going to sit at our table and we are going to be nice to them sharing and listening.
Sometimes we didn’t have a lot to share with our guests, but still we gave them all we had in our kitchen, and we ate what was left over. All those who sat at our table were considered people whom we could not judge because they are honored guests and would say, remember the story of Jean Waljean? Christ comes in different forms and specially at the table. She would say, open your eyes and ears. Christ may be talking.
We had some “servants” at home when we grew up. We didn’t have a lot of money to pay them, but since they were poorer than us and didn’t have a lot to eat if they got something to eat they were glad to work for us. In the culture people called them “servants” because they worked for us. They cooked our meals, cleaned our house and did the laundry sometimes. (By the way that is what my mother did everyday. So that is not an excuse for me or anyone to call others servants). At meal times they sat on the floor and we would sit at the table with our father. My mother used to say, it is alright to sit with them if we want to. We liked our “servants”.  They used to be our friends and we loved them. We told them secrets and they told theirs. So we chose to sit with them on the floor where they had their plates and my mother would serve food for all. Of course she would say in secret she wanted to give us a better share of the food but since we sat with our “servants” we were all treated about the same at the “floor” which was our table. She said no one is servant in her house when we all ate the same food.
I had the fortune of sharing the table with those with leprosy, aids, abandoned children, unwed mothers, prostitutes, beggars, in a colony run by the sisters of Mother Theresa in India, and of course a table with Mother Theresa herself. I was a pastor sharing God’s table with 900 “lepers” who lived isolated in the southern part of India. This was one of the most painful experiences of my life, and that was because I saw myself better and I couldn’t and didn’t want to admit it my sins and failures! Several times I was blessed by my fellow priests at our table, deacons, bishops and archbishops. I also had an experience of sharing a meal with a national leader. We all ate the same food, laughed, talked and when we left, we were closer some way.
I used to live in a place called Chester, AR. This is a small town with lots of poor people. One day a few years ago, I decided to invite a few of my friends to share a meal with me. I told about 40 of my friends to bring one sandwich for themselves and one for another. Also I told them that they are free to invite any of their friends to come with them. To make the story short we had about 400 plus people gathered and we all ate had more sandwiches than we brought left over. We shared the table on the hilltop and there were all kinds of people in it, the sick, the sad, the rich, the poor, and of course all religious groups as well with all kinds of orientations and spirituality. But one thing that night we all became friends. 
We were then reminded of the days when Jesus multiplied bread and fish. It must have been fun for Jesus to watch all kinds of people sitting at his table. Because He knew in his heart this meal shared at His table would be such a blessing for all present for they will see their own lives rather than of others around them.
Interestingly when Zacchaeus sat at the table with Christ he saw himself first, then Christ. Mathew saw himself as well and left everything to follow the Lord. Whem Mary Magdalene sat down to wash Jesus’ feet at the table of Simon, she saw her self too. So did Peter, and John. But Judas looked at himself and couldn’t take it. He walked away!
It fascinates me to see people and I always wonder why people walk away from sitting at the same table of plenty? What divides us? We have more in common than different. Who walks away from the table of God? Those who cannot see themselves. Not those who see others. But we might pretend that we are walking away because of someone else. In reality we are walking away because we are unable to face ourselves and our own smallness before the greatness of God. I find no more servants or lesser beings among the mortal men in this world, just children of God of all kinds. I wish we have the grace to acknowledge the truth.
This article was published in the Courier in Russellville, AR on 05/28/2010 (C) Fr. Jos Tharakan
Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Sweet Home Mountainburg!

On Tuesday morning, I drove my friend, Marian, to her home in Mountainburg, AR. As we approached this little town, 15 miles west of Alma, Marian had a glow on her face. I was amused, watching her pure joy in getting back to her home town. I said, “Sweet Home Alabama…..and Mountainburg”. She looked at me with a smile and said, “You read my heart, Jos. Although I was happy staying with you and your family for a few weeks, I felt like it was time for me to sleep in my own bed, cook in my own kitchen, and be back home”. Marian wanted to be  totally  herself, and to fully relax. Marian wanted to be at home.

I believe we all want a place and people that we call home and family. Home is that place where we know we can be ourselves, without being scrutinized by anyone who is not part of our family. We know our father, mother, brothers and sisters love us no matter what might happen,  and no matter how we look or act . Love!  Yes, they love us, although sometimes they may not agree with all we say and do.

Home is a place where all failures of one’s life are overlooked for the reason of love. Love surpasses everything. When my brothers and sisters disagree with me about the way I am and the way I live, my father says, “It is still my home.  Let no one disregard my children.”   In my father’s house, it is he who makes the rules.

This is one of the best lessons in the story of the Prodigal Son ,from the Holy Scriptures. The unexpressed mystery of the love of the father, gently teaches a lesson to the older son. The lesson is about who is in charge when it comes to deciding on the sibling’s future. While the siblings might wrangle over tiny details of insignificant matters, the father is set to feast because of the return of his child home.

We are all siblings in the plan of Salvation. We all share the same heritage and history. We are all sojourners in this world. We are inhabitants of this world only for a period of time, as was true in the story of the Prodigal Son. For a while, he was forced to live in the field with the pigs. We also live in the pigsty when it comes to this world we live in, as compared to the heaven we have come from. We have to return home. No matter what we have turned out to be, at the end of the day, we will be admitted back into  the father’s house. There are no “left behinds”, and no “lost”.

But then, for political reasons, personal agendas, and sometimes even for spiritual rightness (or perhaps it is because of “human righteousness”),we seem to judge one another. In fact, we even say that those who are different from ourselves don’t belong in the house of the Father. In ages past, it was women of all origins. Then, of course, we turned against one another on the basis of color. Now that we are slowly growing out of those prejudices, humankind is seeking other scapegoats on whom the blame for our judgmental behavior can be placed. Groups we target may have orientation differences, varied civilizations, multiple ethnicities, or languages different from our own. We are even jealous of  someone’s status which we perceive to be above ours, or of our own status we  perceive to be above that of the other person. Some of us might still believe in the philosophy that the younger brother has to be wrong, in order for the older one to be right!

The wise ones realize that Christian life is the joy of living in the house of God that we can all call home. It is an internal awareness that we all share the same space, and that it belongs to the first and the last, the new and the old, the different and the same. Regardless of the arrogance and righteousness of the older brother, the Father admits the younger to the family. 
Celebration is an invitation to grow into the understanding of the love of the Father as being greater than the rivalry of the siblings. The canopy of the heavens that we are all under is bigger than the tiny tents we have built for ourselves. The heart of God is greater than the hearts of those who think they control the tents they live in.

If my brothers or sisters are not entitled to the love and riches of my Father, then I am not worthy of it, either. If my Father’s love is so small as not to include my brothers and sisters, then His love is the equivalent of human pettiness. If all, or even some, of mankind’s polarizing  rhetoric can undermine God’s merciful love and God’s kind heart, then His loving kindness is not genuine.  It is, rather, merely the human concoction of a theory for control and manipulation.

If the fatted calf was the feast for the Prodigal, then it is the fatted hearts God is seeking today.  Hearts made fat by being filled with love and forgiveness, acceptance and affirmation, are the attributes of Christ. When we read the story of the Good Shepherd, we read the story of the Father who does not hold out on His children. Even when the last one hides behind the bushes and thorns, or is lost between the rock and the hard place, Christ gets closer and closer to take them home! Sweet Home!


(C) Fr. Jos Tharakan | 2010
Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.