Wednesday 12 February 2020

It's the Lord!




The Word of God has power...
About a couple of months back I was fascinated by two verses in the Bible. The first one was,             " Lord, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief !"
That was a father pleading to Jesus for the healing of his son (Mark 9: 24). In fact, there is a universal prayer attributed to Pope Clement XI, which begins in the same manner, " Lord, I believe in You : increase my faith."
Well, the second verse that had an intriguing effect on me was Ephesians 3: 18, a verse that has already been there in my subconscious mind for years maybe, but one which I always thought was something like a metaphysical conceit, some kind of poetic exaggeration! But when these two verses got into a spiritual combo, it made some sense...Wow! Serendipity, a joyful discovery that my Lord made to happen...! Well, the verse says,
 " ... may you have power, together with all the Lord's holy people , to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ".

How did I find out that St.Paul really meant what he prayed for me in the eternal present tense of the Word of God, so that I can avail of its power even in the year 2020? That is another story altogether. Last month when my brother whatsapped in the family group asking whether anyone was ready to volunteer to make some corrections in the autotranslation in my mother tongue of a remarkable website created by him,  www. photoofjesus.com. Unaware of any consequences I just volunteered! Although I have taught in the Theory of translation to my students about the advantages and disadvantages of Machine Translation, this is the first time I was coming face to face with both the merits and demerits of the same! First of all I had to deal with the rubrics of a virtual keyboard. Then the content! Accuracy is not offered by machine translation consistently. Although we get a gist of the documents, the machine translation does only word for word translation without comprehending the information which might have to be corrected manually later. And that was what I had to do.
  And while doing this job, at a real snail's pace I must admit, St.Paul's prayer for me in Ephesians 3: 18 "was made flesh". Jesus also was answering my prayer, "Lord, I do believe: help me overcome my unbelief."

Yes, I was being shown the length, breadth, height and depth of the love of Christ through this machine, I mean this computer translation! The content of the document was just that, the unfathomable love of Christ explained in scientific terms.


Secondo Pia with his camera apparatus
http://www.gizapyramid.com/LECTURE-SHROUD5.htm

It all begins with a photo taken by an amateur Italian photographer Secondo Pia on 28th May, 1898. His photographic negatives revealed for the first time the extraordinary life-like image of the Man of the Shroud. On seeing the negatives , Pia himself is said to have exclaimed in shock
"It's the Lord!"


......may you have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,


Photograph of the Shroud of Turin and its negative

https://shroudstory.com/2011/11/07/a-scientific-approach-to-image-formation-on-the-shroud-of-turin/



Thursday 23 January 2020

Rejoice





I have been reading about how the Danes use the Hygge principle to make themselves happy. their candles and the cozy life of tranquility are all tempting. But there is a little carnal and worldly side to these in spite of its Zen Buddhist inclinations.
So I was wondering if there is any purely spiritual side to this happiness principle and turned to the Bible. Yes, there is a Word Rejoice in the Bible. And to my surprise, it has many Hebrew synonyms with a different connotation for each. Here are some of these Hebrew words.



Simchah – The Joy of the Lord
Samach – Joy in performing religious ceremony
Samerch – Joy that shows outward expression
Suws – An inward feeling of joy, not expressed
Sachaq – Joy that comes from playing
sahal – Joy in the success of someone else.
Alats – Joy in victory
Chadah – A re-joice. A renewal of joy
Masows – Joy in being with friends or family
Ranah – Shouting for joy.
Gil – Joy expressed in spinning around in a circle