The Fig Tree

Opening the window of my heart, a glorious site greeted me.
Ha, a fig tree.
Beautiful to behold.
The hue of its leaves made me gaze at it in admiration,
Like a thirsty man near a desert stream.
The hope of fulfillment filled my soul.
I ran outdoors in anticipitation, in joy, eager to delight in its succor.
Reaching it, I stopped, amazed!
Frantically I searched, for something, for what?
To satisfy my thirsty soul.
But, no fruit!

In dissappointment, in acute distress, I gazed at it in wonder
My sould trembled within me
In my mind I wondered,
Oh fig tree, why did the Creator make you?
Was it not to give succor.
He expected you to be a blesssing
But, no fruit!

Then in the window of my mind I see another scene
The advocate of the fig tree
Is in the Supreme Court of the Creator
Vociferously agruing for her
"Oh, Supreme Judge,
You cannot be so unjust and condemn her
Her lush leaves give her a beautiful look
Now that is what everyone wants
And she is popular
And glamourous
Nobody looks for fruit the way you do
So why curse her?"

Then the Creator looks gravely at the advocate
And says,
"You are right,
She has all the virtues that you say
But that is because she is using up my manure
And the succor from my ground
That she has all the virtues you so elequently state
But I woul d rather have an ugly tree in her space
That has fruit!"

What else can be your fate,
But to be cursed
To wither.
The world will see and wonder
They will shake their head and mourn
At your fall.

Objective view - Reformation in the Mar Thoma Church

March 29, 2009
I would like to put the following views for readers to ponder upon:
1. The Mar Thoma Church claims that St. Thomas was its founder and therefore the Mar Thoma Church is apostlic in origin. So, there must have existed an apostolic church in Kerala from AD52 itself. Why then, did we have to go to Syria to get our bishops ordained?
2. If God used poor fisher folk to form the body of Christ on earth, will he change his strategy when he sent his apostle to India. However, the the history of the origin of the church in Kerala seem to suggest that God changed his methology in that members of brahmanical families were the first converts of St. Thomas and it is through them that the church in Kerala was formed.
3. There is no evidence in biblical or reformation history that God has used a single family for the furtherance of his kingdom on earth. Yet it seems that God had a preference when he came to Kerala in that the bishops who were "crowned" in the Mar Thoma Church have their roots back to brahmanical families or to some renowned family in Kerala. Is God a respecter of faces?
4. The root of all evil in India is the caste system, which is one of the most demonic systems conceived by the human mind. This is the one of the root problems of the Indian society. Yet, it seems to me that we are unable to fight this system as the roots of the Syrian christian churches in Kerala seem to have their roots in brahmanical tradition. It is my hypothesis that in a very systemic way there seems to be a link of these families influence to the leadership of the Syrian christian churches in Kerala. If this hypothesis is correct, then the caste system continues to be perpetuated and so thereby render the church ineffective in combating this evil that plagues this land.
5. It seems to me that there has been a "political maneuvering" that has taken place in the reformation in the Mar Thoma Church, in that most of the bishops seem to come from one particular family or from renowned families in the Thiruvalla-Kozhencherry belt.

Therefore, it is my contention that an objective review or research into the history of the Kerala Church needs to be undertaken to see if there is more to the story than meets the eye.