Life in Abundance of Losers

Life is quite charming and enticing for the people who like to see the brighter side of things; these are the people who would look at the darkest clouds with a magnifying glass to trace thin silver lining, and that is all that is required for them to get back the zest and zeal that they require to fight back in life. There is no failure or challenge which is insurmountable to these people, because they have the inner strength to withstand all adversaries. These are not the brightest, cleverest and the smartest of people, but they know the art of living, and have learned it through the hard way, by submitting themselves to innumerable trials and errors. They have no pride to claim that they are beyond all vices; they know how vulnerable and fragile they are and yet they depend on a power which can put them at a level too difficult for the brightest, cleverest and the smartest to scale.

Let me again fall back on the wonderful miracle stories found in the New Testament. Every miracle that Jesus performs presents to us people who are weak, vulnerable, incapacitated, voiceless, unable to fight the odds by their own strength. The first step towards recovery for them comes from the fact that they do not shy away from acknowledging the situation they are in. Jesus helps them to acknowledge their vulnerability; it could be deemed as a testing on the part of the master healer, who plunges to purge their inner self, before healing them physically. What do you want? or what can I do for you? Or look at the mighty Centurion, I am not worthy to receive you, but you say only a word and my servant will be healed!

Why should the Centurion acknowledge what he is incapable of, and what was the need for him to strip himself naked in front of the wonder worker? But it is only when he stands naked could he expect the Master cover his nakedness with his own cloak. It is only the empty pitcher, which can be filled. If I do not acknowledge that I am empty, no one can fill it. I shall present one lovely poem by Rabindranath Tagore from his Song Offerings (Gitanjali, 77) : “The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher. The evening air is eager with the sad music of the water. Ah, it calls me out into the dusk. In the lonely lane there is no passer-by, the wind is up, the ripples are rampant in the river. I know not if I shall come back home. I know not whom I shall chance to meet. There at the fording in the little boat the unknown man plays upon his lute.”

Those who cannot accept what comes in life knocking at their doors, do not want to accept their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. It requires far more guts and courage to acknowledge one’s weaknesses than to accept the strengths. That is why Jesus strengthens every person why present their vulnerability in front of him. The first lesson towards freedom, and its subsequent peace and happiness comes from accepting my own frailties. No one on earth is perfect; even the most perfect person would be quite impure in the sight of God. Thus to acknowledge one’s weaknesses is not a heroic act, but one which requires quite a deal of humility and submission. True healing can come only when I have the disposition to surrender myself fully before the all-powerful God, and prepare to follow his counsel.

Any loser who accepts and acknowledges his or her own defeat or loss immediately springs to hero or heroine. The healing that Jesus bestows is as an acknowledgement for the heroic act that they have displayed by accepting their weaker selves. Consider the story of Barthemeus, who is fully aware that he lacked sight and longed to see. ‘That I may see’, he cries out to the Lord, and he restores sight to him. The woman who had been suffering from haemorrhage for twelve years knows that only Jesus could restore her health, because she is aware that that was her real self, which had been haunting her for all these years. If I want to taste life and be enveloped by the aroma it emanates, all that I need to do is place myself before the Lord and accept my vulnerabilities, so that he could touch and heal me; why a word from his mouth may be enough to bring wholeness to me!

Tit for Tat

There are some men and women who still believe in tit for tat; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, even though they know only too well that Jesus taught them a formula different from this one. Leave alone following the new formula of Jesus, that they should give even the garments to the one who likes to take the shawl, these people know how to strip people of the little dignity and honor they have, and love to place them on a pedestal stark naked, and call all the people around and declare that their opponents are stark naked. Such is the kind of thing that one would hate to come across, but when such a thing happens one is helpless.

The man had asked for a genuine feedback about him and his operations in public, and we took it seriously and opened our hearts to tell him how we feel about him, some of his bias and prejudices, some of his lopsided orientations, and least did we realize that he was going to fire us back for airing our opinions about him in public. No wonder, he made it a point to justify our feedback and the so-called remarks, and showed that he was more innocent than innocence itself. His duty and responsibility of asking for a feedback from the people who worked with him in decision making process is done, and now he is scot free to pounce on others.

He had acknowledged a day before that he had inherited a tendency to be judgmental from his cultural background, and was recognizing this trait in him in the recent years; but a day after again he came across vociferously to brand and judge me for what he does not have sufficient proof and evidence. I would not claim that I was altogether innocent, but when he said that I was suffering from “compulsiveness” to certain human error, I was wondering if he realized what he was telling about me in public. It is not that I was overly concerned about my image in public, but I realized he wanted to “humiliate” me in public and had pleasure out of it.

Just because you have learned a couple of words from psychology and psychiatry, you are not permitted to brand people with such labels, and I had heard him brand so many of fairly innocent men, and was feeling sad for it. At one or two occasions I had stood up and had cautioned him from branding others, especially on the basis of the personal prejudice he might have had with them. After our feedback on him, I thought he would begin to recognize the log lying in his eye, and instead he had gone to tell me to remove the spec from my eye. I did feel bad about this calumny, but was helpless; I remained silent, in order not to embarrass other companions.

I had felt that this gentleman is known for vindictiveness; if anyone stood against him, he would not hesitate to destroy their dignity and honor, and some of my close friends had narrated to me how he was trying to do that with them, and of late, I had tried to tell him directly how I felt in the past months about him, and how he was dealing with me. He would not accept many of the factual presentations and observations of mine, and instead he would jump to justify his reactions and judgments. I feel sad for him, because he had failed to read the Gospel he always swears by, and if only he could open his eyes, he would realize what the Gospel was calling him to. That is when his salvation may dawn.