A Letter to God
A Letter to GOD
When I was around 8 or 9 years old, my mother had
been sick for some days. I asked my father “when will Mummy be well again?” He
said, “If you write a letter to God to make Mummy well, she will get
well soon. God responds to small children very quickly.”
I took his word and tore a paper from my school
note-book and wrote a letter to God asking Him to make mummy well. I even
decorated it with small sketches colored with crayons to make it appealing for
God to read. Then I went to Papa and asked him for a stamp. He said that
letters to God did not require stamps. So I simply glued the edge of
the paper, folded inside like an inland letter, addressed ‘TO GOD’ and posted
it in the post collection box near our house. I was still unsure if the letter
would reach God without the stamp. But in my heart I hoped it would. I waited
for a reply too.Each time I heard the postman’s bicycle bell, I would run
out to see if he had got a letter from God. After 2 weeks Mummy was fine, and I
gave up on receiving a reply from God, and gradually stopped thinking about it.
I kept hearing about God
from people around me, but like I could see or communicate with people, I was
not able to see or talk to God, let aside the possibility of receiving letters! God
seemed to me, some distant power residing in some far off heaven whom I may or
may not be able to see. But with life catching up, this search didn’t seem to
hold any meaning, as ‘He’ didn’t seem to be concerned with the daily
events of my life, except calling up on Him before appearing for the exams. Yet
whenever the talk about God arose, it stirred me. I wanted to ‘see’ God, at
least for once, and know who this, that the world speaks of, to be so great,
looked like.
Until after 4 years, we had a seminar in school.
This seminar was to be conducted by Father Ivo Fernandes from the Holy Redeemer
Church. All from my class were required to attend this seminar. I was curious
and hoping to know about God from this holy man. After all he held an authority
in the church and was supposed to know about God. When the seminar started to
roll on, the subject of God came up, and this was my chance to express my
concerns. I told Father that I could not see God, and inquired how it
was possible to see ‘Him’. At this he replied that 'just as milk contains
butter in it, but is not visible unless the milk is churned, the world had God
in it but He cannot be seen. He had given an appropriate answer as per my state
at that time, but that too didn’t seem to satisfy me, as I kept reasoning with
myself that the butter still becomes visible at some point, then why not God?
The discussion, however, was carrying off too long
and it was difficult to convince me how God would be visible, so he dismissed
it to proceed with the seminar. Seeing God seemed like an eternal mystery,
solving which was something I didn't know how to go about so I kept postponing
it for reasons that were not clear to me then.
Over years I kept meeting all sorts of
people, ranging from theists, atheists, agnostics, fanatics and god-men.
The broad range of views brought huge insights, opening to me a new reality
each time. Each reality seemed to have an element of truth to it. Books and
literature on related stuff too brought fresh viewpoints, or rather old view
points seen in newer light.
These revelations
through people, books, and other sources kept enriching me, until this
discussion with my son. It happened one day that I asked him what he thought
about God, I wanted to know his views. His reply surprised me as to how he had
been knowing the views I had held and how his simple reply undid it in that
moment, “Ma, God is not somebody in some far off
heaven, God is very ordinary, found everywhere. I see God everywhere.”
Hearing this made me inevitably compare the views
of my childhood days to his... it had been a long journey from 'far off heaven
to everywhere'. I learnt that it wasn't about what you saw but how you
saw it that mattered.
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