For those who could not raise a Taj Mahal for their beloved

Albert Godwin, 1896

Taj Mahal
A  poem  by  Sahir  Ludhianavi  ( esteemed  Indian  poet  and  lyricist)
The Taj, mayhap, to you may seem, a mark of love supreme
You may hold this beauteous vale in great esteem;
Yet, my love, meet me hence at some other place!
How odd for the poor folk to frequent royal resorts;
‘Tis strange that the amorous souls should tread the regal paths
Trodden once by mighty kings and their proud consorts.
Behind the facade of love my dear, you had better seen,
The marks of imperial might that herein lie screen
You who take delight in tombs of kings deceased,
Should have seen the hutments dark where you and I did wean.
Countless men in this world must have loved and gone,
Who would say their loves weren’t truthful or strong?
But in the name of their loves, no memorial is raised
For they too, like you and me, belonged to the common throng.
These structures and sepulchres, these ramparts and forts,
These relics of the mighty dead are, in fact, no more
Than the cancerous tumours on the face of earth,
Fattened on our ancestor’s very blood and bones.
They too must have loved, my love, whose hands had made,
This marble monument, nicely chiselled and shaped
But their dear ones lived and died, unhonoured, unknown,
None burnt even a taper on their lowly graves.
This bank of Jamuna, this edifice, these groves and lawns,
These carved walls and doors, arches and alcoves,
An emperor on the strength of wealth, Has played with us a cruel joke.
Meet me hence, my love, at some other place.
Translation by K.C. Kanda, appeared in Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm published by Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. – found here

A Christmas Prayer

Painting  by  Harvindar  Singh


Dear Jesus,
It’s a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.
These killings, Lord. These children, Lord. Innocence violated. Raw evil demonstrated.
The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?
Your world seems a bit darker this Christmas. But you were born in the dark, right? You came at night. The shepherds were nightshift workers. The Wise Men followed a star. Your first cries were heard in the shadows. To see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame. It was dark. Dark with Herod’s jealousy. Dark with Roman oppression. Dark with poverty. Dark with violence.
Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.
Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.
This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.
Hopefully,
Your Children
-Max  Lucado

Images

Decorations and  images  of  gods  and  goddesses   on  sale  during  the  festival of  Diwali.

Image and Incarnation

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Jill Carattini

Malcolm Muggeridge is remembered as one of the most notable figures of the twentieth century. The wit and style of the self-dubbed “fatally fluent” journalist made him as endearing as he was controversial. His presence was a decipherable entity in print, over the radio, and on television. With over fifty years in the public eye, Muggeridge knew well the effect of publicity on the human ego. In the words of one biographer, Muggeridge was troubled by “the strange metamorphosis that turns an individual into an image.”(1) He once confessed, “There is something very terrible in becoming an image… You see yourself on a screen, walking, talking, moving about, posturing, and it is not you. Or is it you, and the you looking at you, someone else? [...] Once, sleeping before a television screen, I woke up to find myself on it. The experience was quite terrifying—like some awful nightmare to which only someone like Edgar Allan Poe or Dostoevsky could do justice.”(2)
In our media-saturated, celebrity-producing culture, the warning may well be appropriate. Though I do not think it is only the televised that find themselves in danger of becoming an image.
Of course, some of the images we may have of ourselves obviously come with the territories. New parents learn to see themselves as parents; a journalist sees herself as a journalist. Muggeridge was speaking of images beyond this—namely, a journalist who starts to see herself as an icon, the father who starts to see himself as an image of success or humility, or the woman who sees herself as the image grief or helpfulness. This is perhaps where many of us can relate.
God once asked the prophet Habakkuk, “Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.”(3) The most dangerous thing about becoming an image is that we start to believe that we created that image: I am the maker of my success in this company. I am the one who has molded myself to be this flourishing employee, parent, or Christian. But such images only teach lies. Interestingly, God spoke these words to the prophet after Habakkuk had uttered a complaint, questioning the image and identity of God: “O Lord, are you not from everlasting? … Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”(4) God replied by asking Habakkuk to look again at the images he had fashioned and the Image before him.
For the images we create, even our images of God, must be crushed by the creative God who moves and speaks, the one who spoke creation itself into existence. We are not the images we think we are.
But we are being made into the image of one who is. Thankfully, though sometimes painfully, God is continually at work shattering the images we fashion of ourselves and of God. The Incarnation is the greatest example. This is not the Messiah those who were waiting for him expected. It’s not the Messiah we would expect either. This is not at all what we imagined he would ask of us. Yet this man who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweat in blood at Gethsemane stands and asks us to consider it. Coming as an infant, Jesus brings us more of what it means to be human than we are yet able to emulate. Coming as God, he silences our questions of who God is—with a face, a hand, a Cross. We can no more mold ourselves into lasting icons than we can mold a lump of clay into a god that speaks. But we can be molded into the image of the God who lives, when shaped at the hands of the God who sent him.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.