Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit.’ How sweet…
Gospel John 13:13 : Now he showed how perfect his love was ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you…
As dawn beckons on the streets of Yangon, I saw the ubiquitous dish of Myanmar, the Mohinga, a blend of vermicilli, in thick fish stock, and layered with the flavours of Indochinese condiments – witness to subtle hues and variations around a common theme. Here, in the morning informality of the railway stop beneath the…
We will never know what happened to the carcass of the other nestling as it emerged in the dim but clear photo, a tinier head wedged beneath its better formed and oh, slightly bigger sibling. My housekeeper had counted 3 eggs in the nest when she last peeped, but I had barely make out two…
In the planting season when the padi fields are left to fallow before they are flooded and the new saplings planted, the Balinese ducks get to partake of the fallen grains, when the stalks of rice are cut and the grains threshed and winnowed by hand. The rice stalks themselves, once de-grained, get fed to…
Jared Diamond, the distinguished Professor of Geography at the UCLA gave the Lewis Thomas Prize Lecture at the Rockefeller Institute, NYC, on March 27, 2003, on “Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions” and destroy themselves. This work is also published in his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin Book. The references to the US…
“The Second Coming” Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the…
There is a quiet solace in the sleepy air that envelops a tropical afternoon at the year-end, when the weather is cool and kind, the soft skies are heavy with clouds and the rain drives in gentle or sharp torrents, Here, the sleeping dog lies, bolstered by the faith that with evening, her proverbial daily…
Traveling through rural Japan, in the island of Kyushu, one is reminded of the fate of the Christian missionaries who were mercilessly persecuted by the then Shogunate of the Edo era. The fate of those who ministered to the Way, and their proselytes have been dramatized in the 2016 Martin Scorsese’s period portrayal of Shūsaku Endō’s…
In the quiet shade of a sun-filled morning, in a year that has just past its Autumnal Equinox, the lady brown-throated Sunbird rests and preens herself beneath the leafy sprinkles of a Dwarf Peacock, while a nearby Jumbo Wax Apple tree displays its nearly ripened offerings to a variety of impatient creatures as they careen…