On a barmy morning in January, our democratically elected leader turning into a high priest, confirmed fears and shaky hope crumbled to a silence. The hush was louder than the shrieking of children over the loud exploding bombs, drawing their last cry and breath. Despite this, it is still our only home, and I can’t imagine any other way.
Well, it is Ramrajya or Achedin for the majority, the ruling party claims. If the majority are in bliss then what state are the 3% and 13% in? Can that small percentage suffer and pay for the majority to be in the throes of that blissful state? A physical impossibility. Thinking in materialistic terms that would leave us in that perennial burning fire – right here, right now. No waiting to die for purgatory.
I have heard folks say, “We are sending our children away to another country,” I nod as if to agree. Hate is more on display than kindness. Isn’t kindness the expression of otherwise formless thought – love? So to cut the preamble and come to where we are at and why we can’t blame anything external for what ails us. By We herein I am sticking to that place we call community which has none of the characteristics that would justify it being called family and such like terms of endearment that rings more false than the big useless bell.
But, somehow that talk is not a walk, not even a crawl. Institutions that have helped us live together in our diversity are destroyed. They are being made uniform and levelled to a new low. JCB en all. India, which once strived to be beautiful and tolerant is now in the throes of hate and violence. 500-year-old beauties were razed, and our church of over 130 years old was renovated and not restored – Bathroom tiles for the old stones and ugly cement cover the grounds that could have allowed rainwater to rejuvenate the groundwater. Let’s get to the point. We must acknowledge that we can’t blame external factors for our predicament. This scenario or how we came to it.
Let me trace back to this one microcosm that gave rise to this fine monster we created to rule over us. I am tracing back to one that I was/am part of. A benign Dic is what the 8-year-old minds in 50-year-old bodies have been asking for the longest time. And the wish has come to be. And now their 18-year-old daughters live in fear. This is what we got from our lazy understanding of democracy. Vote. The people we elected would then tell us what to do. They could destroy your right to decent living, faith, speech, and laughter. But we will talk about that in closed rooms. We will say it’s still the best, so we must obey the lame gods we created. Avatar we can call him, just in case god is a little bigger than that and His name can’t be used on a vain person. But then we have been working towards this dystopia with the intent of utopia. That lazy road of good intentions led to hell.
In practice, the Church (the microcosm) has had low democratic involvement. Having seen it for over 3 decades. And have seen this snake’s head rise and am aware of it too. Spoke about it and countered it when could. Most folks felt it was cute and harmless but now it is a full-grown one with a poisonous disgusting head.
I didn’t start to write this to complain but to see more clearly where our actions have taken us. And also that the outside didn’t happen by itself. I still remember when many in the ‘community’ cheered when the government’s people came and started to audit the church accounts. They bloody deserve it, they said. Not even knowing that they were encouraging destruction on the very grounds. The place where they came to find peace and nod off in blissful sleep. No no, that is not sarcasm or a nod to the sleep-inducing sermons. That is for another chapter.
And when those in positions got more and more corrupt finding very cool ways of leaving no money trails. The goodies flowed into the houses of those who were working for their betterment here on earth. Can’t wait for those mansions in heaven that the white-robed empty sermons promised the sheep, quoting the scriptures literally. We had to replace JC with a superior god. A god that answered when you called in clear lucid voices. He sent you money whenever you asked or gave your children seats in schools and various such things.
But this god was partial and gave only to his ‘own’ people. All the institutions built to serve ‘everyone’, not only Christians, were serving themselves. Baal was here and the coffers overflowing into pockets were the main aim. Yeweh was deaf and mute and didn’t even have form. A scholar said He is the very air you breathe. They laughed and danced around their Bullish gains. And now when the majority gets into that kind of behavior. cry? How sad!!
Look at the way this movement is turning out in this country. Does it not have the same flavour of the corrupt organised religion used to add gain to those who were yielding power? Power? Yes! The positions of servitude and voluntary service is just that. That most have left the fold is still no concern of theirs. As long as there is gravy for their lot the rest can stay out. Close the gate! And lock it. Come see us. You will see the spikes and the locked gates. That is us keeping the Lord safe.
Today a religion which was not organized has been organized for the purposes of power. But, then that is the nature of that act. When the church that preached an inclusive religion had to be divided to allow only your own. And you closed the gates and put up spikes on the wall..
And then those in high chairs used social media to call those they did not like – names. It even got as serious, as immature people who sat on those tall chairs (I wish they didn’t do anything at all). A man even died because of the stress an unthinking person caused him from vitriolic outpourings on social media. Well. May his soul rest in peace and may the grace of the lord and hours at the shrink bring that peace all around.
We have to pray. Like Cohen famously said: “When you see the world and you see the laws of brute necessity which govern it, you realize that the only way that you can reconcile this vale of suffering … to sanity is to glue your soul to prayer.”
That’s why the rich, who thought they were safe, now want safety in numbers. But they don’t know how to approach the god who promised to walk with them through the turmoil and pain.
We so easily chased people who didn’t agree with us and celebrated when our own stumbled. The robed guards themselves behave thus. The congregation chooses 12 to lord over them. It is not different from democracy as a state. The population understands casting their vote as being in a democracy, and the voice of God through them. Well, do they really? I think not! But what that being the only exercise of the citizen makes the elected not one of you but an avatar of the gods… and now we are worse off than when the kings rode roughshod.
At the church, there is no doctrine or ideology but the management of money. The oldest trick is construction work. That act continues to be the handmaiden of the corrupt. Not saying all work is corrupt but most are in most churches. And the purple-clad ones too look the other way. So before we look for change in places where we have no say or role. look at the places you are involved in – home, office, church. And try and be part of that change you want to see. But, we play the victim as the aggressor does. When my PM cries about being a victim, I am moved to believe that he learnt that skill from these organized places of religion!?
The Robed one does not even bother with the people of his congregation. And the congregation members don’t bother about their own. They outsourced the job of ‘kindness’ to the steel-cold office of the clergy. We are busy; we don’t have time, not even for our mothers or fathers. What do you think of the sick in the congregation? And so we go on: blaming the other for all that befalls the collective and self.
The people who held positions destroyed all platforms. These platforms involved the congregation in decision-making. They also destroyed platforms for celebrations, sorrow, and joy. We said nothing. We said they were doing their job. The task of more than 200 people being a community is now in the hands of 12 people. They were chosen from a demography of people who had nothing else to do. You are being unkind to them, I hear you say. NO! Who else can spend over 8 hours a day in a voluntary position?
Would you mind if those few who only know leisure set up a workshop for idleness? What change and life would that bring about? The one thing that this group, the sole inheritors of his kingdom does is: keep the rest of us away from here. They only understand the concept of fewer people meaning more material for them.
Good Lord, now pathetic is that? This is, in reality, a public place. And does not belong to anyone. And if this abuse carries on, the grace we undervalue will be lifted, and we will lose these grounds, the face of our little community.
The robed and their ilk think the community is in the empty WhatsApp walls. That WhatsApp does nothing; it only adds to your unhappiness. We are also a place of friends and family, and we keep telling our own to keep away from Church politics. You vacated those places to serve only the corporate gods and amass great wealth. You threw some of that earnings in the direction of the church. It got your child a platform to be applauded Well, that is a good thing you say. Maybe you see it that way.
However, the child finds herself in a diminishing returns system that relegates this place to the priority – least. Also, the abuse of wealth and position destroys it further for others and will do the same to you. Ah! I listed the most benign of the great dangers.
There is no room anymore for the poor here. The rich take over everything. We have a bell tower built for only one reason – so a wealthy man can have his father’s name inscribed on it. He paid for it, so why not? Yes, why not? And nobody else had to contribute!!
An aside:A few years after he did that, his children called the priest a bastard and other names to his face. Well, those who have eyes see… and those ears hear… cause what is coming is bigger than anything you thought would be, and it will take it all away from us. Those that abused may be the first to lose out. But be aware that you will not have this place of solace too. Before you say, they deserved it. But, yes, you may not lose something you didn’t invest in. We only know that kind of transaction today.
I didn’t start of to be hopeless about our existence but to shine life to the dimming hope and attempt to rekindle it. The change will come if we change. Cause the public consciousness/attitude has to change at our level. We wait for change to come from above – Messiah, the next priest, the next PM… but NO!. I have seen it only getting worse with every passing generation of the priest in this congregation I belong to.
People still wait for the next super priest to come by and we will be that house on the hill. Those who waited have gone into ripe old age and some even went on to the other side of the veil, but that messiah hasn’t yet come. We were ashamed of the Messiah within and let it die a million deaths. And now, we nor our children have any solace in this place but have to run to find peace and help elsewhere. The walls that the self-proclaimed guardians build will have no souls to house – the spirits having flown.
The church office bearers continue to hoodwink the congregation and themselves blinded by their power struggle. The priest doesn’t even care that the house of love is now a cauldron of ugly insects who hate. Some of us express it very freely on Facebook. But most of us just look through each other at very close quarters. Yes, they will know we are Christians by our love.
We were one of the few churches that didn’t even get out to do anything, even towards its own, during those 2 terrifying years when the pandemic raged. The Sikh community were exemplary – they walked our talk in confident strides. Giving more and more and more and didn’t tire. We waited for the winds to change and fought over ‘not enough pieces in this biryani’.
Do look at it: we are no church for young people and we will not be a country for them either.
I remember a conversation with the priest about our careless and cold ways as a congregation. She did things on a war footing after that.S/he said those who want the church will come here. And s/he went on to keep the main gates locked. That board with the stupid sign – ‘ALL ARE WELCOME’ hanging there waiting to peal off and fly to where there would be meaning.
Meanwhile, the office bearers fight over what new block to build and toilet seats to change in a place fast losing its flock. .and for now where only the rich are welcome to come to play. The prayers are for favours that can be bought.
You said hope?yes, if the few of us can find strength in each other and be forgiving (over and over and over again) of the community and work to enrich the core – the love of god and the love of fellow men. We can find it. We have no other way but this.
The present system where the rich operate behind doors to close doors on those they do not like has already driven us into an unsustainable way of being. It is also in their interest, until the grace we believe in heal us all. Yes, it is where we could all live together or perish!
That is all the hope?YES!
I still believe that place is open if some of us continue to go there. That is getting to be a big ask on any given Sunday. The very people who found relevance in the company of the people who walked the values of the idea of the lessons from the cross and crossroads want us out. So, the struggle is real. But I am also hopeful that the struggle itself is the way to light and life.
This small pocket can then be the light that can be the strength to that larger demography which we call my country. Where hope is not a useless dread but strength. Where our head is held high, and narrow walls will crumble down and into a heaven of freedom we will rise.
whispers,rants and murmers 