Skip to main content

God is not a ferryman



All my friends – with one exception or two – seem to be very God-fearing people. My WhatsApp space is replete with religious messages every time I open it. Some messages are prayers or spiritual messages related to COVID19. Some are warnings and threats issued on behalf of none other than God. Quite a few are prophesies made on the basis of certain scriptural verses or the visions that certain preachers claim to receive from God directly. I rarely open any of these. I opened one this afternoon because it happened to be a very large file, the video of a prolonged speech by a Catholic priest. The speech went on for an hour or so. I listened to half of it. The message that accompanied the video was that the priest was making an accurate prediction about the present happenings and the future of the earth. It turned out that the priest was opposed to all such predictions, miracles and other misuses of religion. So why did the sender of that message mislead people by giving a false introduction? I don’t know. Maybe, he was trying to grab some attention from people.

I noticed, however, that there are a lot of people who have suddenly become religious because of COVID19. I know that their religion is just a temporary shield that will fall off the moment the virus vanishes from their neighbourhood.

This is precisely my problem with these religious people and their preaching. They make use of god(s) and religions as if these were some ferry boats just waiting to row them across to a safer shore.

God is not a ferryman, please. Neither is he your replica to send a virus when he is angry with you and then perform a miracle when he is pleased with your slobbering prayers. If you wish to believe in that kind of a puerile god, keep that belief to yourself. Why send such silly stuff over to me?
 
She's a miracle too
My god is a divine presence within my being. It’s not a silly old perverted irritable man. It’s a soothing breeze, a gentle caress, a healing touch, a warm embrace, a soul-stirring melody… It has no religion. It doesn’t need prayers and sacrifices. It needs you. It is you.

Don’t ask god to work miracles. You perform the miracles. Love is a miracle, for instance. Compassion is. Goodness is. You decide what miracle you want. And perform it. You are the miracle worker. The world can be a better place if you leave puerile notions about god and discover the real god. May this lockdown help you in that. Amen.


Comments

  1. Durga Prasad DashMarch 28, 2020 at 2:05 PM

    God loving or God fearing people are divided into three categories - arta, artharthi and jignasu. Some are desperate, some are greedy and some are genuinely interested to know what stuff is this God made of. Of course the underlying presumption in all cases is that there is an entity called God, even thorough its form and concept may vary from culture to culture.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 28, 2020 at 3:17 PM

      I'm not sure I belong to any of those categories because God, for me, is not an external entity. God is a projection of ourselves. Or God is the best of me, for me.

      Delete
    2. The Moon's BOYFRIEND March 28, 2020 at 7:04 PM

      It's true and I'm with you for that, the thing is that, the people are not interested in taking God that way cause if they do most of the things that they do will pretty much sound awkward. So they just go on with the crowd.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 28, 2020 at 7:34 PM

      Yes, Tony. It's easy to go with the crowd. Most people choose to do that because that's easy. I chose to be genuine. I needed that.

      Delete
  2. JACOB POOTHULLILMarch 31, 2020 at 8:36 AM

    Well proclaimed.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...
7 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more