Church on Fire

A church, near our living quarters, was burnt leaving only the external walls and Ashes...
I have been coming to this city for three years residing here more than three months.
I had the desire to visit that church, but never made an attempt to enter it.

This morning hearing that the Church was burnt, I went at last but I saw nothing but ashes...
the smoke is still on

Don't postpone anything... Visit something or somebody when you want to do so...

Religiosity and Richness

Why do people go to the Temple or praise God? May be, because they have everything in life. We praise God because we have all the wealth and enjoy all the benefits of the human world and therefore we are concerned about the higher life. This would mean that the rich praise God or that praising God becomes possible when we become rich. In other words, only when our lower needs are fulfilled we will be concerned about our higher needs.  Abraham Maslow had talked about the hierarchy of needs. If religious belief is concerned with the higher or fuller life this means that one’s belief is to be concerned with the higher life. It should mean that only the rich are very particular to praise God. We hear and read that people throw gold and money in some famous temples and Churches. The offering can be seen as the sign that they do not value money so much compared to God and his magnanimity. They are able to tell God – Money or gold is nothing in front of God –.

On the contrary we also know that the poor people are more religious than the rich. Jesus valued the small coin thrown in the offertory box. He also said that there will be always poor with you. Although he had said this in a different context, it seems to me that the passage can be interpreted to mean that these poor will always be there visiting the temple and they will be always faithful. It is obvious that the poor outnumber the rich in marching towards the temples and Churches. When one compares a country like India with the Western countries which are quite well off one can very well understand that they do have less believers and church attendance.[1]

It seems then that the claim that the rich will seek God seems to be false. God is not sought only when one is rich but there is something more to belief and not simply the material welfare. It can be argued that the poor rush to the Churches in order to seek the material welfare, seeking the help of God to attain human welfare. If the poor praise God only to receive material goods, then basic need is not God but my hunger, my clothing and house, in this sense Maslow may seem to be right. I doubt whether this can simply be associated with human needs of hunger. There seems to be more to this. The regular attendance, the affinity to religion can be awakened and one’s explicit identification with a particular religion can also have sociological or political reasons.[2]This affinity to religion can be also seen to be inherent in the human person. That is what some like Paul Tillich called faith as the ultimate concern of the human person.[3] In this sense it seems that the economic relations have nothing to do with the religious beliefs. Poor may be more religious (concerned about the higher life that is inclusive of the ordinary life) not because they lack wealth but in spite of lacking wealth. The rich can also be religious in spite of the wealth they have if they are poor in spirit otherwise the immersion in the world can block the awareness of the ultimacy. Therefore the awareness of one’s need of higher life has an easy access in the poor whereas it seems difficult for the rich.

Does it mean that the poor are really and spontaneously concerned about the ultimacy and the rich are not? Was Job religious because he was rich – or because he was poor in spirit? Or he was rich because he was religious? Did he praise God even when he was poor because he was already poor in spirit – or he became poor because he prayed?

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[1] I restrict myself here to Europe. I do not want to talk about the United States now. It is true that the United States has more believers and regular attendance of the liturgical celebrations. There are reasons for the differences.

[2] In India the celebration of vinayaga sathurthi has become very popular that can be seen to be associated with the political reasons rather than religious reasons. The question here is about believers therefore the question is raised in the religious context and not others.

[3] Paul Tillich calls the faith as the ultimate concern of the person.

Language and Identity - A Joke!

An e-mail is being circulated which also came to me yesterday about the possiblity of English as the official language of the European Union. This may not be true, because the following has been taken from  www.ahajokes.com which is not found anymore. one can find this in http://www.nairaland.com/1053641/european-commission-adopt-english-official 

It seems to be interesting how certain changes in english would look like:

Enjoy the joke.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as 

"Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and 

keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!

Language certainly has an important role to play in human culture and identity. It would be hard for many to give up and think that language is only a tool for communication. The contemporary world should learn to live  with multilingusitic communities and diversity. The liberals often speak of rights and understanding humanism plainly based on human dignity. The strict secular regimes often claim that multiculturalism is no good to maintain human dignity but only narrows down our vision. The choice of one language as official can only result in misrecognition...... 

But why do also people in the liberal state become so fundamentalist about language? Nine months ago, the European was accused that it faours English by the French Press.[http://www.euractiv.com/culture/commission-denies-english-langua-news-513705] The problem may still continue... who knows?

A Stranger is not a Stranger

It was 14^th October 2012. I was travelling from Germany in a train. I could not speak German well since it is not my mother tongue. Very few suffer like me.  But many today speak in many languages as though using the ‘shift’ key in a computer. I find it difficult to switch between three languages. I wonder how people do that between five and six. 

I was hesitant to start a conversation with a stranger who was sitting next to me because he was speaking in German with some of his friends. Another wonder with the system of the railways, when you book the ticket together you do not get adjacent seats. You find always a stranger inside. You have to personally and verbally request the stranger to change the place. In India they ask you to even change coaches. Here they are very hesitant even to request to sit in the next seat. What is given is given – but it also means that they do not want to intrude in what is given to them. More, one does not know how the other would react.

I was already a stranger in the train, and still a remote stranger between the companions who traveled together. Even with a stranger who is doubly alienated, a conversation could be initiated. It starts from silence. who said  one needs language to communicate? A peaceful silence that has a smile normally kicks off with a common, agreeing note like mamma mia – che caldo! Or what a bright and sunny day? Well if there is no smile, then there is no conversation. Even if there were to be one it will be cold, hard, and strict NO.

I had already smiled and he reciprocated it. After entering Austrian the border we started speaking about the rivers that flow, the climate, and the European Union. He and I shared the same feeling that this union could be a model for other continents in living together irrespective of different languages. I told him that India too has a model - which house different languages and culture. He thought that India has a single language. It was a revelation for him to know that the north Indians do not understand the south Indians and vice versa.  

India is a country but European Union is not.

... To be continued ...