Ruth amidst alien corn

G.K. Chesterton is going to be a saint!!!!! 
That's really great news. What i remember most about Chesterton is not his Holmes-like Father Brown. It is the anecdotes about his encounters  with G.B.Shaw ; hilarious indeed are some of those yarns! 
But to think of him as St. Gilbert Chesterton ........! Don't know,when I shall start praying for his intercession!! But he is the one who has written real saintly lines. Let me cite just two such quotes here:

"To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless."

 Here is another good quote from 'The Innocence of Father Brown"

" Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak."

Aren't these quotes enough to make GKC a candidate to sainthood?
My first ever prayer to St.GKC will be to consider throwing a rope to purgatory to pull GBS up to heaven. Or is he already in? Has he already managed to hook St. Peter with his jokes and has he slipped in through the Pearly Gates, I wonder! I do doubt that at the moment he fell down from the tree on November 2, 1950, he sure must have held on to the Tree upon which his Redeemer died, "paying for him in full"! And the day November 2nd naturally is the day when many souls just leave this earth to enter Paradise at no cost!!! (GKC, do pray for GBS if he is still not there with you!)
  ...
      And today's reading at Holy Mass was the story of Naomi and Ruth. Ruth too brings in a lot of memories. The first memory is of course the day I was in my English Literature class ( 44 or so years back!!!) . Ms. Thomas , our beautiful English teacher was taking "Ode to a Nightingale", and immediately I fell in love with Keats and his lyrics. The voice of Ms. Thomas still resound in my ears:

" Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home

She stood in tears amid alien corn;"

,http://britlitwiki.wikispaces.com/Ode+to+a+Nightingale

That picture of Ruth looking forlorn amid the alien corn has been an ever haunting figment that still prefers to linger in my memory. Ruth again became my favourite, when Rachel, my friend and mentor of those college days, spoke to me about the deeper meaning of Bible . She asked me,  in those my salad days of yore, to read the Bible. She asked me to start with Ruth! 

How the years have gone by. But still, Ruth remains as the very woman of faith, Ruth the Moabite, who left her idolatrous past to follow the faith of her husband. And Yahweh did reward her for her sacrifices - she followed her mother in law Naomi, and stayed in Bethlehem and is in the genealogy of Jesus! 

Life is beautiful!

Rapine, avarice, expense........

http://www.123rf.com/photo_9559703_3d-sale-bag-red-retail-shopping-discount-buy.html
Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.
William Wordsworth 

What have I discovered today? And yesterday...., and the day before?
Well, much, much did I discover!
On Friday I discovered the crazy sale in Oberon Mall!
'Time Out' was selling off things like mad.
80% discount on things I love.....Wow , the stationary items,
The brush, the palette, the pens.........
And of course the books at crazy prices!
But the timely  admonition prevented me from indulging in a buying spree!
Where will you keep all these things was the filial query, 
How are you going to organize an already overcrowded study room?
So I restrained my shopaholic avarice
And limited my shopping to the minimum.
Still...,  I did manage to include:
The Third Alternative by Stephen Covey, 
And an Encyclopedia of Immaturity by Klutz Editors.
I loved its spiral hard binding
And of course the funny cover Page -
A cloned Mona Lisa with a mustache n' a goatee beard!!                                                                                                       
                                                                                               

Yesterday was another day of discovering things.
Discovered the tiny toothbrush in a medical shop
That really looks so cute, I must admit.

Then a walk down the memory lane,
The good old Broadway....,

And the Calligraphy pen (Parker..., hm...!).
Finally  back home 
To sit and paint a little while
The amateur painting ........,.
My first ever painting on a canvas board!!!

And today at the painting class, the beginning of a tulip,
And after that the discovery of ABC...
................
Life is beautiful!

Here is the whole poem by WW:

Written in London. September, 1802

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

O Friend! I know not which way I must look
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,
To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom! — We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:

The wealthiest man among us is the best:

No grandeur now in nature or in book

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,

This is idolatry; and these we adore:

Plain living and high thinking are no more:

The homely beauty of the good old cause

Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,

And pure religion breathing household laws.

Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Luke 12:15 

I plunge upon the hues of life, I rejoice!

        

           

http://linesandcolors.com/2013/03/08/vasari-classic-artists-oil-colors/

Auguste Roding, the French sculptor, best known for "The Thinker" has said so succinctly , "I invent nothing, I discover ". Discovering the essentials of our being can be a fortunate stroke of serendipity. That's what I've discovered  last week. I met a person of extraordinary energy, I mean creative energy. A person who has helped me discover certain aptitudes within me , some basic loves I had buried for years. I always had a yearning to learn the art of painting. It's not that I am that good at art. But this longing was there, somewhere at the back of my mind or brain or whatever! And lo, I meet this lady , a born artist with umpteen skills under her thumb.
So here I am , slowly climbing the beautiful , serene hill of art. The woods are really lovely here. And I don't have any promises to keep. So I have decided to climb. Thomas Merton, the trappist monk has once said , " Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labour that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and beyond all desire, a fulfilment whose limits extend to infinity."
And to be a student at 60, and that too to a much younger and vibrant teacher is absolutely delightful. My second innings has begun, I think. Now I can live deliberately like Thoreau who went to the woods because he "wished to live deliberatley, to front only the essential facts of life", and see if he "could not learn what it had to teach".
 The colours... , its blending on the canvas sheet, and the shapes and patterns that come into being..., oh what a feast for the eye and the heart! I plunge into those varied hues and feel sheer joy! Shelley, why did you have to fall upon the thorns of life to bleed?That's because you looked before and after and pined for what is not!!!  Couldn't you see the deepest joy that God has showered upon us? Didn't you know the Man who wore the Crown of "thorns" , and still could see the beauty beyond? That Man of Galilee, who could look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and could make a profound discourse on Divine Providence:"Then have no care for tomorrow,: tomorrow will take care of itself.........." !

http://www.biblelandhistory.com/israel/lilies-of-field.html

Caravaggio aka Michael Angelo knew  that! He "laboured in that art God had given [him]  because [he] wanted to extend [his] life as long as possible"!   
                                     
 For me, there are more skills to be learned. But first, the art of painting. 

Blending and shading is the first lesson I am learning. There are 

more in store. .....
     
                         Life is beautiful!

Erase Your Negative Thoughts

http://freebiblestudiesonline.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/meditation-moments-46/

 The fascinating title of today's Spiritdaily.com is what captured my heart. How meaningful it sounds, and yeah a bit poetic too. 'GOD HEARS THOSE WHO HAVE LOWERED THEMSELVES AND LUBRICATES THE WAY FOR MIRACLES'

And I fell for the last lines of that article by Michael H.Brown:

When you encounter a person you want to dislike, step back, erase your negative thoughts, and replace them with understanding. If you encounter a person who is slow, exercise patience. If someone insults you, pray for that person. You could be his salvation! And only with prayer do some negative thoughts stop bothering us. It’s like God is prompting us to pray for a person through the very aggravation the person has caused!

-- Michael H. Brown

Let me just conclude this with a prayer for humility. I quote Isaac Watt's hymn here:

Psalm 131

Humility and submission.

Is there ambition in my heart?.
Search, gracious God, and see;
Or do I act a haughty part?
Lord, I appeal to thee.

I charge my thoughts, be humble still,
And all my carriage mild,
Content, my Father, with thy will,
And quiet as a child.

The patient soul, the lowly mind,
Shall have a large reward:
Let saints in sorrow lie resigned,
And trust a faithful Lord.

Isaac Watts

Chasing the wind……

The phrase that stuck to my heart today is “ Destination sickness”. I discovered that in a Malayalam book by Fr. Bobby Jose Cappuchin. Name of the book is “Keli”!

The phrase is about the vacuum within each individual heart , a vacuum that cannot be filled with  worldly things. All the beautiful and desirable items in a hypermarket cannot satisfy that thirst within. Padding the five senses  too cannot satiate that yearning within. That exactly is what ‘destination sickness’ is. I googled and found a quote by Dr. Richard Halverson. He has explained  “Destination Sickness”as:

“…the syndrome of the man who has arrived and discovered he is nowhere. He has achieved his goals and finds they are not what he had anticipated. He suffers the disillusionments of promises that petered out – the payoff with the kickback! He has all the things money can buy and a finds decreasing satisfaction in all he has…He’s the man who has become a whale of a success downtown and a pathetic father at home. He’s the big shot with the boys in the office and a big phony with the boys at home. He’s the status symbol in society and a fake with the family. “Destination Sickness” – the illness peculiar to a culture that is affluent and godless.”

That is exactly what the Teacher in Ecclesiastes has termed as “chasing the wind”

 ^“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”Ecc. 1:14.

Anyway, the author of the book I read, has given us a solution too for this predicament; it is the solution which the Samaritan woman found at the well of Sychar. It is the Living Water, the source of Life. The only drink, the elixir that can quench all thirst....! 

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”John 4:13-14.

To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality—this we can only attempt. It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time—the before and after—no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.- Pope Benedict XVI in Spe Salvi (Para 12)

What I’ve Discovered today.

This morning's news paper helped me discover the “Five Minds” ,about which Howard Gardner, the Harvard psychologist has stated in his book for the 21 century professionals . They are:

1. The Disciplined Mind

2. Synthesizing Mind

3. Creating Mind

4. Respectful Mind

5. Ethical Mind.

That led me on to the “Six Hats” of Dr Edward De Bono and about Lateral Thinking.

The Six Thinking Hats (or modes) http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm

The White Hat

The White Hat calls for information known or needed.

The Red Hat

The Red Hat signifies feelings, hunches and intuition.

The Black Hat

The Black Hat is judgment -- the devil's advocate or why something may not work.

The Yellow Hat

The Yellow Hat symbolizes brightness and optimism.

The Green Hat

The Green Hat focuses on creativity: the possibilities, alternatives and new ideas.

The Blue Hat

The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process.

Hm……..!

That much about Mind tools.

But what I enjoyed reading today is a one liner by Lord Byron( or is it Alexander Pope, or Richard Crashaw or our dear John Keats himself? A Google search will give us unimaginable probabilities (:)
It is about the first miracle that Jesus did - turning water into wine! To describe this event, Byron?/Pope?/ Crashaw?/ penned this stunning line:

"The conscious water saw its Master, and blushed."

Whoever has penned it, he did it too well. I love that line.