A MOTHER'S JOY,DELIGHT AND LIFE. AND AN AWARD

A picture speaks a thousand words. I am not saying anything more on this with the hope you will share your thoughts.Best wishes:)




This is an award I have received from Yvonne-WELCOME TO MY WORLD OF POETRY.She is a fascinating poet who has already published a book of poems-NEGATIVE VS POSITIVE and is planning to publish one more collection of her poems shortly.Please visit her blog and I am sure you will instantaneously like this wonderful lady and become life long friends.

I am passing on this YOUR BLOG ROCKS AWARD to the following friends:

SKY JUICE'S SCRIBBLES

YESU GARDEN

RHAPSODY PHOENIX

MALHAR

WORLD OF POETRY

REFLECTING ON THE BEACH

MY JOURNAL ON THE GO

FREE WING WATERCOLOR

DAY AND NIGHT DEVOTIONS

MY TRAVELOGUE

A MIXED BAG

OLD DIGGER

Kindly collect the award,post it in your blog and pass it on to as many friends as you like.

Please visit these interesting blogs and I hope you will be able to find a good rapport with the great writers of these fantastic blogs.

INTERESTING COMMENTS ON MY COMMENT.

Here are some interesting and thought provoking comments on my previous post.Kindly visit these friends of mine and I hope you will like them so much that you will form life long friendship.

nikgee said...
Hi Joseph, as I have spent a majority of my life influenced by Christianity, I find myself in mixed emotion. Not in question with GOD, but on a doctrinal level. It is difficult to accept man added teaching, as well as the actions of said believers. I am not professing any form of self righteousness or perfection. I am a fellow traveler equal to everyone else. Steering my way through this maze of kaos and darkness. With that said our travel demands a vehicle to our liking. As in our physical life our spiritual like are diverse. Simply put we share different ways of getting there. And often times it is a matter of semanitics and not belief that divide us. My hope and prayers are that we find common ground to live in peace and let love motivate our actions

JI said...
Interesting philosophy and a sound one too.

I think faith in God has the power to transform a human being. As Christ said, it is like the yeast that turns dough into bread and a mustard seed to grow to a tree. Good works follow with faith.

I agree we should enjoy this world in moderation. It is after all a divine creation and should be respected as such. Everything came from nothing at the command of the Creator. But what is certain is that it is a passing world. As human beings we have a natural tendency to prize the things of this world. We can become short-sighted to the things of this world. The flesh will not last. There is a mightier purpose and that is to grow spiritually. I’ve come to realise this myself in recent years.

Deb said...
"...We can do everything in moderation, with control and temperance as long as we don't commit a sin."

I agree with most of this, that moderation is key with anything we do in life. If we don't have complete balance in all we do, we'll suffer in other ways. Having said that, I also believe that we all sin, whether it's an impure thought, a bad decision, words said, actions done --- God knows that we are all human, which is why He gave His only Son - to save us. But even so, the biggest commandment is to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as you would yourself. To treat people with respect and to share yourself with those who need you. I think "human nature" is sinful in itself, but God knows our hearts. I believe that God knows the difference between deliberate evilness/bad intentions and those who seek out to harm others with a bad heart. We're all flawed, which is why we need God's perfection. :)

Mel said...
Hi Joseph! I enjoyed your post so much! I think the overarching theme of the post, and of so much of life (and scripture, and the message of Christ) is balance! Balance between enjoying and being grateful for the blessings of this live, while not allowing those things to rule over us. Balance between work and play, between eating too much and eating too little... The list is endless and applies in nearly every aspect of life. I enjoyed reading everyone's comments, and think the world needs more eye-opening and thought-provoking blogs like yours, Joseph!

MY PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Simply stated my philosophy of life is this.

We are all coming from God and to God we have to return one day.When we are born in this world we have a destructible body and an indestructible soul.The destiny of the indestructible soul depends on what choices we make in this world.If we make good choices our soul will go to heaven and live in everlasting bliss with God and if we make bad choices our soul will burn in eternal hell and suffer for ever.

Of course my belief is mostly based on Christian doctrine and those belonging to other religions may not accept my point of view.In any case I would like to hear them.


This is a comment written by me in May's blog DAY AND NIGHT DEVOTIONS in her post under the heading LOVE NOT THE WORLD.
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God has given us this earthly life not to give up everything in this world,not to stop enjoying the worldly pleasures,not to prevent us from having a good time,not to give up the fun and frolic of life but to enjoy our life in the best possible way so that we can derive happiness, satisfaction,peace and joy in this worldly life.

At the same time God wants us to put HIM first and foremost in everything we do and live by HIS commandments. I agree Jesus said WHAT DOES IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAINS THE WHOLE WORLD BUT SUFFER THE LOSS OF HIS OWN SOUL.Yes, there is no point in gaining the whole world and lose one's soul to the devil.But gaining the whole world without losing one's soul is an absolutely acceptable thing to God.But whether we can gain the whole world without losing our soul is a different thing altogether and such a thing is not possible in real life.

But what God wants us,I believe is that, we should enjoy our life in this world and also in the next.This does not mean that we should give up all our worldly possessions, give up our earthly desires and not strive for better things in life..We can do everything in moderation,with control and temperance as long as we don't commit a sin. For instance, a person who loves to eat can eat in moderation,but not overeat because it leads to the sin of gluttony.If you really look at it,eating in moderation helps the body to be healthy and strong but overeating leads to sickness.

Everything in moderation without hurting others or oneself should be our watch word,guiding star and God will certainly approve our actions

Kindly visit May's blog and check up the original post.

A BEAUTIFUL CHURCH

Atham procession at Tripunithura took almost two hours to finish. It was a hot day and I wanted to rest for a while. As I walked I came across this beautiful church. This is not the first time I am seeing this church.I have driven in front of this church several times when I was working and traveling from Kochi to Kottayam. But at that time I had no time or patience to stop and see.I was busy with my work, running around to achieve my business targets, training sales executives in the field and there were problems to be solved. I was always in a rush and had no time to spare for such fine things in life.In fact I thought the whole world was spinning on my shoulders.

I saw a vacant chair in the shade of the church. I went in,sat on the chair and looked around.It was a cute little church. The more I looked around the more I appreciated the finer aspects of this church. I understand that the local king in those days gave the land, money and craftsmen to build this church according to local taste, culture and tradition. The result is this lovely church. The modern churches are grand, imposing, spacious and a large amount of money is being spent to build them. But they are not beautiful in the real sense of the word.

The name of this church is ST.MARY’S SYRIAN JACOBITE CHURCH.

Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

END OF CWG

The Commonwealth Games came to an end with a very colorful ceremony, brilliant lighting, laser display, pulsating music, lovely singing and dancing. Mike Fenner, Chairman of the CWG, summed it all up by saying that it was an exceptional experience.

The next day Prime Minister set up a committee to enquire into the issues of the CWG and the report is to be submitted within three months. I am sure the murky affairs of corrupt people will be brought to light and the guilty will be punished

I could not go to Delhi to see the Common Wealth Games. The next best thing I did was to sit in front of my TV and watch the games. The advantage of watching games in the TV is that one can see different disciplines sitting in the comfort one’s house besides one can get close up views. Of course I could not resist the temptation of taking some photos and post them here for those who didn’t see the games. These are only some photos of the closing ceremony.

XIX COMMONWEALTH GAMES,NEW DELHI

The Commonwealth Games at New Delhi is going on successfully and we Indians are proud of the magnificent arrangements and the efficient conduct of the games. It is heart warming to see that till date we are in second position in the medals tally above England and Canada.

Initially there was considerable criticism about the arrangements at the games village and also about the misuse of funds and massive curruption apart from the inefficiency of the government departments and apathy of sports officials to provide proper, clean accommodation to the athletes. This would have gone unnoticed but for the media uproar and massive accusations by sports officials from other participating countries. Finally, the Prime Minister had to intervene, pull up the officials and set right things on a war footing. I am sure there will be an enquiry and the guilty will be given exemplary punishment because the currupt officials were putting the country's honor,prestige and pride at stake.

This reminded me of my own bitter experience with regard to accommodation provided by the sports officials when I took part in Inter District Athletic meet as a 4oo meters hurdler long time ago when I was a student of Loyola College,Chennai. I qualified at the local meet and was selected for the inter district meet at Vellore. At Vellore I was put in a dormitory without any bed or fan but infested with mosquitoes. I could not sleep the whole night and as a result when I ran the race the next day it was impossible to concentrate and tripped over the third hurdle and fell. That was the end of my race and my dream of getting selected for the State level meet became dust.

It looks like the apathy and callousness of the sports officials towards athletes have not changed even after so many years. I hope at least now their attitude will change for the better.

ANOTHER RAJASTHANI DANCE IN KOCHI

As I said in one of my earlier posts that Rajasthan Tourism Department held an exhibition in Kochi and trained dancers from Rajhastan performed some dances.Here is another dance performed by them which I watched with fascination.