Once I used to wonder, watching the obscure, weird and insalubrious obvious behaviour of people cramped into little cabins that grow smaller as the office grows larger in various secular and diverse places... once, at the fragility, vulnerability and the reality of survival that over-powers the discords of living. I marvelled once too, at the human capacity to endure suffocation, oppression and pain and above all, the ability to conceal it endlessly though they suffer immensly within and move on without a complaint-not even a subtle one would they dare. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that this unnatural endurance and the abnormal sacrifice was due to a natural instinct of love, committment and care they had for the unseen core-the family they were willing to sacrifice all these for. The family that would take the brunt if the pride, dignity and respect was not gulped down otherwise. They are the ones who are strong enough to take blows on their face, allowing the striker to think that s/he is powerful-allowing them to drool in their fantasy and fallacy-when his maker and he alone know that these blows if not taken, could land in the stomachs of the children and people he has to feed waiting back home for him. One small shift in any of these elements or maybe if it is one last chance-like Samson asked, could topple the dynamic, ripping it by roots from the pillars they stand. These were days when I would secretly wish in my heart, "Wouldn't there be more Christians in these places so that this ridiculous carnage would reduce?"
These days, I get to see in reality what I wished for earlier and I still ask, "Wouldn't there be Christians in these places...?"
I thank thee God for bringing this pain and suffering on to us though we tremble, as it has only drawn us closer to thee and helped us understand you better. It is in these sufferings that many of us are united and we thank thee for bringing us together. It is as we suffer that we are delicately reminded how they that stretched you, stretched you when you could be stretched no more, they that beat you, beat you when you could bleed no more, they that stripped you, stripped you till you could give no more, they that left you, left you when they could take no more... yet still, you only had more for all of them-every single unworthy one of them; you cried for them, you prayed for them, you wished good for them, you cared for them everytime, even when you could have stopped; even when you reached a point at which you had to cry, "Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabachthani!" you still never cursed, you blessed instead, you still cared, you still listened, you still prayed through the dark clouds, tears and blood and you still must have wished that the cross and the nails wouldn't stop you from touching us, hugging us and healing us one more time, every single time-every unworthy one of us.
And I remind myself that the last and only Christian indeed died on the cross long back... and we can find people to be Christ-like only in sufferings and never in deed, indeed.
A Silent Prayer: Would you Lord then let us bear your marks and rest in your shadows as the beating never seems to stop yet ceaselessly continues, allow us to partake the essence you set before of us as an example for an unshaken stand you took, even when everyone left, even when you were denied and betrayed not once, not thrice but every single time you wished we would not; sweet Lord then, would you still grant us forgiveness, grace, mercy and peace-everytime we ask and everytime we forget?! and teach us if you will, to endure this pain, bear this suffering and walk through this torture life throws at us just as you did and help us realize that if not in deed atleast through endurance in suffering, we could be Christ-like as a Christian we like to claim to be. In thee we rest and in thee alone we trust Lord moved by faith. Thy will be done...
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