The Journey 303
Read: Luke 10: 38-42, Mark 1: 35-39
Sandy came and struck. But the people are heaving a slight sigh of relief. Though there has been widespread damage due to uprooting of trees, breaking of power line and issues due to flooding, precious lives seems to have been saved. Though fear was looming large in each and every individual living on the east coast, though Sandy brought about destruction, it also brought about something positive. Because of the fear of the storm, families all over the coast were huddled together in their homes. A phenomena that is so rare in families here, as everyone is so engaged in their work and studies, working at different shifts to make ends meet. Though the power lines were down, at some places, most of the families were all together. For me personally it was after a long time that I got some time all by myself. To renew, to recharge and to relax. I never had an opportunity to watch some good movies as it was impossible for me to sit continuously for two to three hours at a stretch either because I don't like to sit idle or I am always on the move, because of my pastoral engagements and responsibilities. But finally yesterday, with a state of emergency declared here, and not able to move out, I decided to catch up with some good movies. Finally out of random decided to watch a Hindi movie “Rock On”. Wow, that was a movie that made my day wonderful. A movie which I feel every youngster should watch. A movie about a four friends who are passionate about their singing and music, creates a music band, but due to misunderstanding all the friends separates, not only from each other but also getting detached from their passion of music. Finally they all are able to unite together to rekindle their passion for music, but at the cost of their friend who dies dues to a malignant illness. It made my day as I feel what drives my ministry is the passion that my Lord gives to me each day. I think if each one us has a passion for the job or the ministry that we do, we will never regret even one day in our life and will always wait every day to bring out the best in us. But more than that another wonderful lesson that I learned yesterday as we all were huddled together, and as hundreds of families were also huddled together, is the fact that we need to consciously reorganize our time and energy so that our lives are made more balanced. Time and energy being balanced among work, family, hobbies so that we feel that life is worth living every day.
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living” and the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from two portions in the Bible. The first portion is from Luke 10: 38-42 and the second portion is from Mark 1: 35-39 . In these portions I find how Jesus organized his personal life and His time as He did His Father’s business. Even as He ministered to the poor, the outcaste, and healed people of their infirmities, taught the apostles, rebuked and corrected the Pharisees, and spread the news of the Kingdom of God, we find Jesus doing two specific things that helped him to relax and bring more balance in life. The first thing that He did was spending time with his friends. His close friends was the family of Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus. This was one home I presume that Jesus loved visiting, and this was a family that Jesus loved deeply. Here is Jesus consciously organizing His time in his ministry so that time is also spent with friends and families that He loved. In the second portion that we have chosen for our meditation is Mark 1: 35– 39. Here we find another way by which Jesus brings balance in life. He deliberately spends time all by himself, connecting with His Father. Here also there is something that we can learn in organizing our time and balancing of our life. Jesus spends time all by himself and in prayer and this is what He does before he goes out to preach the good news. In a world of today, where family living and personal lives are in a state of chaos and totally disorganized, Jesus teaches us that we need to get our priorities right and our lives to be re-organized. We could do that if we follow the model of our Lord. Let us spend time enriching our lives by strengthening the different web of relationship that God has given to us. The relationship that we have through our family, the relationship that we share with our friends, all these relationship needs to be strengthened and cultivated. In an age of Facebook, we just tend to post certain updates rather than connecting on an intimate way with our friends. I fell I am also guilty in this aspect. In the same way as we enrich our relationship it is also essential that we also have time for oneself, ones hobbies and passion that makes our life creative, time with the Lord that makes us spiritually dynamic. Let us not always depend on Hurricanes like Sandy or Hartals in India to spend time with our family and friends.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla
Sandy came and struck. But the people are heaving a slight sigh of relief. Though there has been widespread damage due to uprooting of trees, breaking of power line and issues due to flooding, precious lives seems to have been saved. Though fear was looming large in each and every individual living on the east coast, though Sandy brought about destruction, it also brought about something positive. Because of the fear of the storm, families all over the coast were huddled together in their homes. A phenomena that is so rare in families here, as everyone is so engaged in their work and studies, working at different shifts to make ends meet. Though the power lines were down, at some places, most of the families were all together. For me personally it was after a long time that I got some time all by myself. To renew, to recharge and to relax. I never had an opportunity to watch some good movies as it was impossible for me to sit continuously for two to three hours at a stretch either because I don't like to sit idle or I am always on the move, because of my pastoral engagements and responsibilities. But finally yesterday, with a state of emergency declared here, and not able to move out, I decided to catch up with some good movies. Finally out of random decided to watch a Hindi movie “Rock On”. Wow, that was a movie that made my day wonderful. A movie which I feel every youngster should watch. A movie about a four friends who are passionate about their singing and music, creates a music band, but due to misunderstanding all the friends separates, not only from each other but also getting detached from their passion of music. Finally they all are able to unite together to rekindle their passion for music, but at the cost of their friend who dies dues to a malignant illness. It made my day as I feel what drives my ministry is the passion that my Lord gives to me each day. I think if each one us has a passion for the job or the ministry that we do, we will never regret even one day in our life and will always wait every day to bring out the best in us. But more than that another wonderful lesson that I learned yesterday as we all were huddled together, and as hundreds of families were also huddled together, is the fact that we need to consciously reorganize our time and energy so that our lives are made more balanced. Time and energy being balanced among work, family, hobbies so that we feel that life is worth living every day.
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living” and the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from two portions in the Bible. The first portion is from Luke 10: 38-42 and the second portion is from Mark 1: 35-39 . In these portions I find how Jesus organized his personal life and His time as He did His Father’s business. Even as He ministered to the poor, the outcaste, and healed people of their infirmities, taught the apostles, rebuked and corrected the Pharisees, and spread the news of the Kingdom of God, we find Jesus doing two specific things that helped him to relax and bring more balance in life. The first thing that He did was spending time with his friends. His close friends was the family of Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus. This was one home I presume that Jesus loved visiting, and this was a family that Jesus loved deeply. Here is Jesus consciously organizing His time in his ministry so that time is also spent with friends and families that He loved. In the second portion that we have chosen for our meditation is Mark 1: 35– 39. Here we find another way by which Jesus brings balance in life. He deliberately spends time all by himself, connecting with His Father. Here also there is something that we can learn in organizing our time and balancing of our life. Jesus spends time all by himself and in prayer and this is what He does before he goes out to preach the good news. In a world of today, where family living and personal lives are in a state of chaos and totally disorganized, Jesus teaches us that we need to get our priorities right and our lives to be re-organized. We could do that if we follow the model of our Lord. Let us spend time enriching our lives by strengthening the different web of relationship that God has given to us. The relationship that we have through our family, the relationship that we share with our friends, all these relationship needs to be strengthened and cultivated. In an age of Facebook, we just tend to post certain updates rather than connecting on an intimate way with our friends. I fell I am also guilty in this aspect. In the same way as we enrich our relationship it is also essential that we also have time for oneself, ones hobbies and passion that makes our life creative, time with the Lord that makes us spiritually dynamic. Let us not always depend on Hurricanes like Sandy or Hartals in India to spend time with our family and friends.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla