IT'S CHRISTMAS

It's Christmas!

And while I feel the pain of a recent loss

I'm rich in the hope of an eternal abode

A joy that goes always alongside the Cross!

It's Christmas!

And we remember the love we have all received

Time and again, year after year

In boundless measure, beyond what we deserve!

It's Christmas!

And we feel in our hearts an indomitable peace

As we contemplate life in the evergreen tree

Some things never change, some things never die

They forever glow in the warmth of His Light!

It's Christmas!

And our hearts burst forth into songs of joy

That proclaim the wonder of a little boy

All swaddled in white and lying in a manger

We proclaim it in song to both friend and stranger

He comes and He comes and He comes once again

Bringing joy to the world and peace to all men!

THE CULVERT DAYS

I’m back again after a long break. Somehow I haven’t found the inspiration to write anything in a long time.  But recently I lost a brother and today he would have been 63 years old.  So I reflected on his life and then I reflected on my life and I was filled with a sense of nostalgia.  

I tell you kid, back then in the Santa Cruz that was, it was really great being a kid.  We played Hide and Seek on the streets, jumped over anybody’s walls and stood at the corners and laughed our heads off for silly reasons.  Life was simple and carefree.  Nobody bothered about exams until the last minute. We cycled down to the beach every morning in summer, we entered strange homes and enjoyed the hospitality and we shook or threw stones at all the trees that would drop down their fruits.  We could take shortcuts through the neighbour’s garden and as we walked down the roads we would shout out a friend’s name collecting the gang before we got together and decided what to do with our evening.  Nobody stayed at home any evening.  Yes, those were the days of the summer tournaments, the two rupee movies to be seen in the church hall, the hand out of boiled gram after the rosary in the church and the last minute mugging that got us promoted to the next class.  And those were the days of the culverts.

I’m sure you would like to ask me What’s a CULVERT?  They were little cement benches placed at the corners of every street for anyone who wanted to sit down in the open and rest their tired feet or watch the world go by.  They also accommodated anybody or any gang that did not want to go any particular place.  That’s how I remember my brother. He was a part of this culvert gang.  His friends came over every evening but they never entered the house.  They would whistle a tune from the street, a signature tune, and he would go out and join them and together they would go collecting other friends I suppose, whistling the same signature tune?  Their favourite haunts – the culverts of Santa Cruz, the Willingdon gymkhana and the church walls.  They never actually entered the church but for all the major services they would perch themselves on the walls  around and I never really knew what they did.  They were not particularly interested in church but they had a supporter in Fr. Urbaldo Barreto. It seemed like he championed their cause. In any case he was the one priest my brother spoke well of – a champion of the underdog. It didn’t seem like they studied or had any ambition. People suspected they drank but I don’t remember that Ramon ever came home drunk.  When I look back I see that they were disapproved of by many but I cannot remember that they harmed anyone, nor stole, nor took to drugs, nor even messed around with young girls.  They just clubbed together and had their own fun.  

My brother Ramon was never hot on studies although he had a good measure of intelligence.  He finished his catering course and went off to Dubai and stayed with the same hotel the rest of his life.  He never changed his job since he left.  But the days of the culvert seem to have given him a thirst for justice and generosity towards the underdog and a belief in working hard to earn his daily bread.  He took no short cuts on making a fast buck, he never took advantage of anybody and he gave generously in charity to uplift the not so fortunate.  Those who worked under him grieve his loss.  He had a healthy respect for the less fortunate classes of society and always treated them with courtesy and generosity.  There’s much to be said for a culvert education.  A life on the street has its own advantages.  And there were never better values imbibed than those on the street with the backing of a clean family life.  

Today you do not see any culverts in Santa Cruz.  What a pity!  The whole face of that little town has changed.  Now we are surrounded by cement jungles and there’s no more crossing the neighbour’s compound to get anywhere. Crossing has now become a matter of navigating between cars and buses. Today the world of the youth is a world of tablets and cell phones and most of the time the youth have their eyes or their ears plastered to one or the other.  No matter.  I’m not judging you kid. I suppose you will have your fare share of stories to tell when you reach the golden years. They didn’t approve of us either.  The laughing hyenas they called us.  But me – I’m filled with a sense of nostalgia kid, and a little remorse because you may never know what it’s like to sit on a culvert and throw back your head and laugh with abandonment.   

I AM WHO I AM

Wow!  Its good to realise that someone out there actually reads what I write.  This encourages me.  So for now I would like to share a poem I wrote a long time ago.  I am sorry I didn't do this earlier.  Sufficient to say that some years ago I made such an important discovery that changed the whole perspective of my life.  And therby hangs a tale!

I AM WHO I AM

Good people, ALL, of every sort
Give ear unto my plea
Too long I've laboured t'ward a goal
The WORLD expects of me.

In trying to be the "Ideal"
That would meet with your approval
I ended up being lost, confused,
A poor unhappy fool.

In struggling then with things "I can't"
I failed to understand
It matters not what I "cannot"
What matters is "I can!"

I can compose and sing a song
I'm gifted musically
And I can draw and paint and teach
And pray quite naturally.

And furthermore I realise
Owha tagoo Siam (Read this line quickly without pausing between words many times to get its sense)
Perceiving then what I am not
Forgetting who I am

I am a son of God, I know
I am everyone's brother
I am a teacher, artist, firend
I am to serve another.

And when I reflect this gift of life
I know it is God'splan
For me to work on who I AM
And grow in ways I can

And thus God worked upon my sight
And these days I am seeing
That in Him I move and live and grow
That's the wonder of my BEING.

"Go out, proclaim to the world," He said
What you know now to be true.
That Jesus is alive and lives
In me, and as well in YOU !

A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH

A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush

Hello Out there,

     I’m back on my blog after a long time. I have no excuse but the usual lame ones.  This one is going to be a rather long one to make up.

     Yesterday I was chatting with one of “my girls” who was in need of a little consolation.  So after listening to her for some time I told her, “Think of the things in your life right now at this moment that you really appreciate, which make you happy.”  She thought for a while and then said, “There’s nothing. My life is screwed.”  So I began to elaborate things in her life that she had in her hand at that precise moment, and as I went on and on with the list the frown on her face turned into a smile and she said, “Yes Sister. You are absolutely right.  I do have these things.”  “Why then,”  I asked, “ do you focus on what you do not have?  Look at your life again.  Do you think that you have all that you need at this moment to have a good life?”  She could not deny it.  I thought about it.  This is one characteristic of man that has existed right from the beginning no?  Take Adam and Eve, they wanted what they could not have, forgetting the fact that they had all that they needed and much more - the many riches that God had already placed at their disposal.

     When I was a youngster we lived in a house called The Ark.  It was a really big bungalow type of house with a huge unkempt garden in front of it and another big house in the same garden.  The house came with its fair share of problems – There was always a rat lurking around, we had to get up early in the morning to fill water and I could never ever enjoy a good bath under the shower, The roof was old and tiled and used to leak during the monsoons so we had to place buckets at different points to catch the water.  It badly needed a paint job which we could not afford. So I would sit and dream of living in a modern flat where there would be a continuous flow of water every day from TAPS and I could indulge myself under a nice cool shower.  And it would be modern and trendy and would have everything in its place.  It was only after I got my dream did I realize what a treasure I had left behind.  I mean, never again could I play cricket or hide and seek inside the house, sit out in the garden with the family on hot summer evenings and sing songs and laugh till our sides burst, collect pit pits during the monsoons and enjoy the cheap thrills you got when they burst like little crackers in your hand, run in and out of the neighbour’s house, sleep all together in dormitory style sharing a great many jokes and laughing hilariously at each other before giving in to drooping eyelids, eat fruit directly picked from a mango tree, a custard apple tree, little green guavas…….. and space, plenty of space…space within the house, space between you and the neighbours so their noise didn’t disturb you….a large dining table which fit well into a large dining room around which all of us could sit down together and have our meals.

     Hmmn …Right now I’m thinking about my father. We could learn a few lessons from him.  He was one man who always did well with the bird in the hand.  He managed his money carefully, never got into debt over his dreams and managed to feed a family of twelve – ADEQUATELY.  He never craved to own a house, yet lived in the best of houses that life could afford paying a reasonable rent. His only ambition was to serve God and family.  And we his children never lacked anything that was essential.  Though we had no large sums of money we really could never call ourselves poor.  There was always good food on the table, an education, a life with friends, family, church, lots of entertainment. There’s something to be said for that bird in the hand. 

     So here’s looking at you kid – Look at your life again.  And focus on that bird in the hand!  The two in the bush are not worth a tinker’s damn. You have all that you need right now to be truly happy. 

Are you ready to be His ROCK?

Today being the feast of St. Peter and Paul I thought I might share a simple reflection with you. Last night  when reading through today's gospel with our girls I asked them why they thought that God might have chosen Peter to be His rock.  Peter had nothing to offer.  He was a simple fisherman without an education and apparently no great intelligence.  He had had no great “formation”.  Yet Jesus said to him,” You are my Rock and upon this rock I will build my church.”  So what was the rock that Jesus saw in Peter?  It was nothing but his faith in, his great love for, and his complete submission to his friend Jesus.  This was the rock on which Jesus would build His church.  On the other hand Paul was the exact opposite.  He was a man with a superior education, extremely intelligent, zealous and passionate about his religious beliefs and his love for God, passionate to the point where he was prosecuting the followers of Jesus believing them to be blasphemers of the true God.   Yet he too was chosen to be a rock.   But Jesus had to “get him off his high horse first”.  And it was only when he came down form that high horse that he understood that all that he had lost was rubbish when compared to what he had found in Jesus Christ.  So I take the opportunity to put this question to you.  Jesus calls you to be His rock.  He wants to build something on you, some part of his church.  Think about it.  What is the foundation in you that Jesus is looking for? Are you ready to be His ROCK?

Anyone out there?

You who are reading this might wonder why I chose the title “Here’s looking at you kid,” for my blog.  Many years ago I watched a movie called Casablanca.  It is a very old movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  It is one of the greatest classical love stories of those times ever told.  But what really touched me was the way he looked into her eyes and said, “Here’s looking at you kid.”   It was not a story that could have a super happy ending.  Each of them must sacrifice what they wanted most in that situation of war and conflict. So many other lives must be considered.  And in one of the most painful scenes when he knew that he must trick her into leaving him he looks at her and says, “Here’s looking at you kid.” 

I often imagine that God my Father looks at me that way, His eyes loaded with love and compassion as I try each day to overcome the hurdles of my own personality that trip me up and cause me to fall.  It is that look that picks me up and puts the spring into my step again.  It is that look that helps me to overcome the difficulties or not to mind them at all.  It is that look that keeps the spring within me ever bubbling and gives me a zest for life and for love.  Each time I feel the look of God on me and I can hear Him saying with a smile on His face, “Well, here’s looking at you kid.” I know that I am on the right track and all’s well with my world.

So here’s looking at you kid, you who are reading this.  And May His love put the sparkle into your world.

Hello, Just getting started

Hello

Just a quick one to initiate what I hope will be an ongoing communication between you and me.  I have lots of things to tell you.  And I want to know what you think too.  So log on and let´s keep in touch.  Here´s looking at you kid!