The Journey 248: Happy Teacher's Day
Read: John 5: 1-18
We all meet different types people in our life. Some people are just passers by, while some people stay with you for the rest of your life. But there are some who are only for a few years in your life, yet leave an indelible impression in ones life. What you are in life today, is that you sometimes meets people at some point of our life, who totally revamps your concept and vision of life. Suddenly in the company of these people you are moulded into a someone that you never imagined. Who are these people?. They are the teachers who come for a few years in your life, but stays for ever in the memories, teaching As I look back there is one teacher whom I need to remember this teacher’ day. She was my English teacher in the 8th grade– Mrs Pushpa Ramanathan. I did my schooling in Vivek Vidyalaya, a school in the suburban Mumbai. Being tall and lean, I somehow had a low self esteem while in school, and thus never had the guts to stand in front of someone either to speak or participate in a literary competition. I still remember the day when Pushpa teacher asked me to take part in the elocution completion organized by the Ramakrishna Mission in Mumbai. Though I declined, she forced me to participate which I finally reluctantly did. On the day of the competition as my name was called out, and as I went to the podium to speak, I felt dizzy looking at the competitors sitting in front of me. I made a mess of the speech which was the extract of the famous speech that Swami Vivekananda did in Chicago. When I came back to school I profusely apologized to Pushpa teacher. She looked dejected. But in a year time, she once again came to me and asked me again whether I was willing to be a competitor in the elocution competition again. I nodded my head in affirmative. That year what I had to recite was the famous poem of William Wordsworth , “The Daffodils’. I was asked to memorized the poem, and every morning in the first hour of class, I was forced to recite the poem in front of my classmates, by my teacher. Finally the D day came, and I stood in front of the audience and recited the poem; Daffodils. The first lines of the poem is still fresh in my memory “…….I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; …..”. I did not win any trophies at that event. But one thing I gained was that I lost the fear of “What others think about me”..The confidence to stand in front of a crowd. From then on I felt Pushpa teacher inspired me to conquer those fears that put you down, to stand up and to face a crowd boldly. Today as I work in the Lord’s ministry, I thank the Lord that there was teachers like Mrs. Pushpa Ramanathan, in my life, who taught me how to fly into the wide horizons of life, transforming your fears into mountains that one can climb.
As we meditate on the theme “ Transformed Living”, one of the things that we see in the Word of God is the way our Lord empowered others to face the challenges and fears of life thereby widening the horizons of ones world. In John 5: 1-18, you find the incident of a man whose whole life revolves around a pool. His vision and his life just centre's around a pool. He is focused on the pool and lies in that dejected state for about thirty eight years. When Jesus is asking him whether he wants to be healed, I believe Jesus is asking whether you would want to move away from this narrow world of yours– the pool, to the wide world of possibilities and challenges. It is to that world that Jesus helps the man to move up. I think if we examine our life, sometimes we are also like the man at the pool, our life revolves around certain familiar “pools’, lying there without any vision or hope. But just as teachers lift us up to the wider horizons of life, do our Lord also lift us up to horizons of life that is much more meaningful and challenging. Let us leave the pools that we are stuck in or are now comfortable with and travel with our Lord to a life of hope and adventure.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla
We all meet different types people in our life. Some people are just passers by, while some people stay with you for the rest of your life. But there are some who are only for a few years in your life, yet leave an indelible impression in ones life. What you are in life today, is that you sometimes meets people at some point of our life, who totally revamps your concept and vision of life. Suddenly in the company of these people you are moulded into a someone that you never imagined. Who are these people?. They are the teachers who come for a few years in your life, but stays for ever in the memories, teaching As I look back there is one teacher whom I need to remember this teacher’ day. She was my English teacher in the 8th grade– Mrs Pushpa Ramanathan. I did my schooling in Vivek Vidyalaya, a school in the suburban Mumbai. Being tall and lean, I somehow had a low self esteem while in school, and thus never had the guts to stand in front of someone either to speak or participate in a literary competition. I still remember the day when Pushpa teacher asked me to take part in the elocution completion organized by the Ramakrishna Mission in Mumbai. Though I declined, she forced me to participate which I finally reluctantly did. On the day of the competition as my name was called out, and as I went to the podium to speak, I felt dizzy looking at the competitors sitting in front of me. I made a mess of the speech which was the extract of the famous speech that Swami Vivekananda did in Chicago. When I came back to school I profusely apologized to Pushpa teacher. She looked dejected. But in a year time, she once again came to me and asked me again whether I was willing to be a competitor in the elocution competition again. I nodded my head in affirmative. That year what I had to recite was the famous poem of William Wordsworth , “The Daffodils’. I was asked to memorized the poem, and every morning in the first hour of class, I was forced to recite the poem in front of my classmates, by my teacher. Finally the D day came, and I stood in front of the audience and recited the poem; Daffodils. The first lines of the poem is still fresh in my memory “…….I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; …..”. I did not win any trophies at that event. But one thing I gained was that I lost the fear of “What others think about me”..The confidence to stand in front of a crowd. From then on I felt Pushpa teacher inspired me to conquer those fears that put you down, to stand up and to face a crowd boldly. Today as I work in the Lord’s ministry, I thank the Lord that there was teachers like Mrs. Pushpa Ramanathan, in my life, who taught me how to fly into the wide horizons of life, transforming your fears into mountains that one can climb.
As we meditate on the theme “ Transformed Living”, one of the things that we see in the Word of God is the way our Lord empowered others to face the challenges and fears of life thereby widening the horizons of ones world. In John 5: 1-18, you find the incident of a man whose whole life revolves around a pool. His vision and his life just centre's around a pool. He is focused on the pool and lies in that dejected state for about thirty eight years. When Jesus is asking him whether he wants to be healed, I believe Jesus is asking whether you would want to move away from this narrow world of yours– the pool, to the wide world of possibilities and challenges. It is to that world that Jesus helps the man to move up. I think if we examine our life, sometimes we are also like the man at the pool, our life revolves around certain familiar “pools’, lying there without any vision or hope. But just as teachers lift us up to the wider horizons of life, do our Lord also lift us up to horizons of life that is much more meaningful and challenging. Let us leave the pools that we are stuck in or are now comfortable with and travel with our Lord to a life of hope and adventure.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla