Suspension of Suspicion

I feel bad for my brother, who has been having tough time with his wife for the past many years, the main problem being suspicion of his wife. He is now so frightened of his wife that he does not even dare to speak to his siblings freely and candidly. My sister reported to me that his wife does not even allow him to speak to my sister, who had lost her husband a year ago, and is now staying at our house. With a child studying in class 3, and my brother now nearing almost 45, his wife still claims that he is not a clean man. But then why did she choose to marry him? She is plain – she did not know that he was of that type.

I have come to know what suspicion can do to families; if my brother’s family is in deep trouble, it is all because of the suspicion of my sister-in-law, so much so that she feels obliged to guard her husband all the time. Formerly my brother used to play leadership roles in the Church and community service, but my sister-in-law had forced him to stop all these, because she suspected him speaking to ladies, some of them too young, and she could not tolerate it. She had not verified any of her allegations, and everyone knows for sure most of her allegations are baseless, but that is how suspicions grow and thrive. If only she had trusted my brother and believed in him, the family would be a happy and peaceful family.

Any relationship is based on trust and confidence; I feel frightened of relating to persons who are suspicious of my relationship with others, and sometimes I even dare to tell them that I cannot relate to persons who have innate capacity to suspect. If these people suspect my faithfulness, fidelity and commitment to them, and try to check for themselves if I am failing in fulfilling my part, then they may be spared; but if they begin to suspect how I am relating to others, if I am closer and more intimate with others than this particular person, then I consider it unwarranted, and is breaking the basic trust I had in her, and she in me.

Any relationship is sure to crack the very moment one of the partners raises the question of faithfulness and fidelity; even in marriage, the mutual relationship is strengthened and revitalised by trust and confidence. A wife cannot follow her husband wherever he goes, and similarly a husband cannot follow his wife wherever she goes. There are indeed possibilities of mistakes and slips, especially if the gentleman or the lady is smart and good-looking, and therefore attracts many persons to him/her. But that should not be construed as betrayal of the one s/he is committed to. We cannot live as an island, and need the support of all in society, and restricting any kind of relationship is sure to slowly break the social fabric.

Common sense says that if I begin to suspect my partner in a relationship, what is the guarantee that my companion cannot suspect me of the same, and how can I prove to the other that I am beyond all suspicion? I have begun to trust my friends unconditionally, and do not feel the need to know anything about with whom they are relating to, what their relationship is like, and how many times they speak to each other, what they write to each other on email, etc. I find it quite unnecessary and immaterial, because that is not my concern. I can be concerned about my relationship with her, but not her relationship with someone else. She has to manage it, irrespective of me, and I respect her freedom to do so! She may even have my blessings for it.

Truth triumphs

When my companion told me that the lady who has been cooking for us, has developed a big boil near the calf muscle of one of her legs, I was not surprised. Maybe at the depth of my heart, I was smiling, and there are more reasons for me, not to feel sad for this tribal lady, who is here employed for about four years. I was also not surprised that she had a boil, which may need to be operated, from my companion, who has been her patron and friend, supporting and helping her in all ways possible. One of the main reasons for my smile was that I knew that God is beginning to give reward for her doings here in our house. I had found her cheating and robbing our kitchen things on several occasions, and she would not change her ways because her patron would not ever ask her to stop such cheating.

I had tried to bring the matter to the attention of the people concerned, including my companion, and proposed to change things in such a way that we do not allow her to have complete control over buying and handling things. But my proposals fell on deaf ears. I have felt terrible anguish at being taken for a ride by this lady; she buys all her household things on our money, when marketing is done for us; and my companion does not even have a good look at the kind of bills (all of them written in a white paper, in round figures) she would give him. She has been minting money at our expense, and I would only pray that God gives her something in return for her robbing us. I am aware that the problem is more to do with us, rather than her. We had given her scope and opportunities to loot us.

She should feel ashamed to call herself a Christian, for stealing things from a religious house, just because my companion believes in “trust”. On several days I had silently prayed to the Lord that my community members may wake up and realize what this one lady is doing to us; we try to save money as part of our vow of poverty, but it does not matter to her at all; she would go for the most expensive things, and I would not be surprised that the shampoo she uses (there are several brands in the room she occupies in front of mine) are bought on our money. I believe that God sees all our actions, and he waits for us to return from our wrong-doings. That is why I was not sad when my companion said that she had to be operated for the boil.

But since she has to take responsibility for her cheating and looting us, I do not feel even a grain of grief, if a misfortune were to befall her. It is not that I am being sadistic, drawing pleasure in her pain; it is not that, but she should realize she cannot go on making us pay for all her personal and family things, starting from cooked food carried away to raw vegetables, oil and other spices looted away. This has to stop and I believe it is the Lord who has to do something to bring in this transformation in her. She has to stop bringing to our house a large sized shoulder-bag good enough to carry about ten kilos of things; and many a times I had seen this bag bulging out with things.

We know God as a just God, who may not reward the just immediately, and punish the guilty soon; he explores other ways of getting this done. But the wicked may think that they can go on with their wickedness endlessly, and there may come a time, when they may find themselves caught in the pit they had dug for others. I would very much like to have a different person to cook food for us, and manage our house; a person who would consider our house as his/her own house, and care for each one of us. But unfortunately I am not in a position to voice my opinion, because there is none who would listen to me!

Blind Faith

In the recent past, I had a taste of what the result of blind faith on persons who are on a different level in human relations can really be. Very rarely do we come across persons, who have absolute trust in every person they come in touch with, including strangers, not realizing how dangerous and suicidal that can lead to. But needless to say, if we are able to create a world where we can blindly trust anyone, we need not look for the heavens then.

Selfishness and greed know no bounds and limits, and every time we trust a person, we are taking certain things for granted, and that is the reasonable risk that we can afford to take in the case of the people with whom we rub shoulders each day. But can we do the same with the people who have but a business or employer-employee relationship? Another important question that we can ask ourselves is : how much can I really trust a person?

Every person before being trusted or claiming trust-worthiness should prove him/herself. There cannot be grounds for trusting a person, if they were not sufficiently trusted. We have thousands of examples around us which show blind faith and trust in persons will invariably lead us to our own downfall. We cannot forget the fact that the world is not as sane and secure as we thought it to be. If there is one honest trustworthy person, there are nine more wicked, selfish, greedy persons around us. And most often we may fall in the hands of such wicked men and women, and may ultimately lose our face.

Every relationship, even if it is a business related, or customer related, is based on certain amount of trust. When I purchase cooking oil, I trust the shopkeeper will not give me adulterated oil, which may only lead to manifold sickness. I also trust the shopkeeper will not take more money than the just price. But can we take that for granted. Even the people who can afford to be cheated, would not take the words of the shopkeeper seriously and pay the money as demanded. The price stamp is made mandatory so that the customers are not cheated, and we have the duty to check the stamp and pay accordingly, and do not give scope for people to exploit our generosity.

What is the kind of faith that God has on the human beings? Is it the blind faith or the kind of faith that scrutinizes and challenges us? Trust is something that is to do with my relationship with the other person. If I prove myself to be trustworthy, I may experience God as one who accepts me with blind faith; but for some others God may also come across as the one who challenges their trust. Here there is nothing which is better or worse. These two are just two ways of relating to a person. But when I know that God trusts me as I trust him blindly, the relationship is in a higher plain than the other, and that is merely a matter of privilege, we can be happy about.