I did'nt sign up for this!!!!

I was telling you in the last post here how I have signed up for being the Catechism teacher at Church.

It is now mandatory for children who are in school, in every parish to be part of the catechism classes that are organized in the church every Sunday.  The format is very structured, but in certain states like Kerala it runs so beautifully, that a Sunday Catechism is conducted  literally like regular main stream school.  The attendance is marked, every class has a teacher, there is a standard curriculum followed, recommended books, examinations and children need to clear the evaluations, to move from one class to another.  Not so well in any other states I guess.  Chennai is no better.
 

So the whole structure is a little fuzzy and for someone like me who likes being organized and formal, this is a little difficult to handle.  ( I realized I find a lot of stuff that is difficult to handle just last week, but that is fodder for another blog post, maybe)  But I am mentally prepared to manage this and I instruct  myself to fall in place with the madness around these classes when I signed up for this.
 

So today, I walk in for the Catechism class, and I get a message from the senior co-ordinator that two teachers are on leave, and hence between the remaining two of us, we have to manage.
 

And by the way, must be my age, the moment I said I am in for this as a tutor, the senior co-ordinator   at church told me that I have to handle the children coming from the higher secondary classes, and I have been handling the older children till now.  Which means my preparation for the sessions need to real good and I also realized how limited my knowledge is in the religion itself, and I am not mentioning about how much I know of the bible.  Shame on me. My father stands first in Bible Quiz held at a city level, which also includes some nuns as participants and he did that some 7 or 8 years in a row. I digress again.
 

So today while assuring the senior coordinator that I will take care, I realized that the little children, the ones who are in grades  4 and below had no teacher and so I just out of curiosity thought of handling them.
 

First of all I realized if you had to get the attention of these kids, you need to be real good and its not simple.  So I had to add a lot of drama to my sessions. Lots of movements, lot of voice modulation, swaying and headshakes, and using my hands and literally my entire body and all my lessons that I learned over a period of time, as a Learning and Development professional had to put to good use to get it, and I did.
 

As per the lesson plan I had to teach them Creation and once I had their attention, I started telling them the story of creation.   I felt like a pied piper in front of those kids.  They taught me the meaning of optimistic curiosity, pure enthusiasm and sense of wonder -  they were swaying along with me, putting out their hands and loudly emoting when I asked them questions, with eyes that opened out like a saucers when I explained how god created the various animals and living things.  Their Jaws dropped when I narrated how God created Adam from clay and breathed life into him,  and it stayed that way for a long time ( the dropped jaws, open mouthed – you should have seen how cute they looked).  When I told Adam was an unhappy man since he had no company, their brows contracted, lips drooping down and had such a sad face, that I felt no wonder God created Eve for Adam.  And this was so different from the reaction you manage to get out of the grown ups in the IT industry.
 

I was so thoroughly enjoying this and I didn’t see how 45 minutes flew past in a jiffy, leaving me wide eyed, happy, content and blessed.  Infact, I had yet another reason to thank god for, today. Among other things.
 

Now you see, this is not what I signed up for.  :-)

P.S:
Catechism classes : Classes conducted in the churches of predominantly, Roman catholic churches, to teach the principles of christian religion

Parish: A small administrative district in the catholic church typically having its own church and a priest.

Expect the unexpected :-) :-)

I realized that there are few horror stories that appear in my blog and so here is one for all of you.. at least to me it was.

My life had become so organized that I guess I started casting eyes on myself- how else could I explain what came upon me four weeks ago?

I was regular with my walks, rain or shine, I did it. Even on a Sunday. And I came back so energetic, that I could complete the mundane tasks at home with a song on my lips. The cupboards were organized, laundry done, the cleaning schedule went on without a glitch and my house was sparkling clean, my garden was coming up so well, my fishes were happy, I was running errands without any dependencies cos I was driving and could get everything in order, no backlogs, and I thought I was completely in control.

And it happened. And I didn’t see it coming.

On 26th of July, Saturday, I started my day as usual at 5.30 am, and by around 5.45 I was all set for my morning walk. I was walking out and I heard Joe’s alarm ringing in the living room – it was kept there unusually for charging. I peeped into the bedroom and saw J sleeping and knew he will wake up soon, and so closed his bed room door quietly and switched off the alarm left his mobile in the living room and off I went for my morning walk.

I was crossing the busy highway, which I have crossed so many times – been living there for more than a decade. I almost finished crossing and reached the other side of the road and …..

I realized a two wheeler hitting my leg, I was in air for a few seconds, thrown up a couple of feet and fell in a heap. I thought I was done. I was conscious and I had people gathering around me. I was in shock and was completely disoriented. I repeated Joe’s number again and again to the crowd around and he was not picking the call. Remember the phone was in the living room?

Someone offered water to me, I couldn’t get up from the road I was still sitting there and around 20 odd people looking around and doing nothing. I heard a voice behind me, saying, I know this madam and where she lives. By then there was a cop who called for a rick to take me to the hospital, which was bang opposite this spot where I fell. Till J came in 10 minutes later I had experienced the most lonely moments of my life in a crowd and by then an hour had passed.

After a day in Trauma ICU, and two days in the normal room, and countless tests later, the hospital figured out that they cannot extract anything more from me and declared me under the category “not a patient “ ( this was the words of the physio therapist who helped me walk in the hospital). Thankfully for me there are no fractures or any need for a surgery, which disappointed the hospital quite a bit.

I had muscle injuries and blood clots all over my body and lots and lots of small bruises. I was advised rest and elevation of my right leg so that the swelling subsides. It must have been the exercise and diet that I was following in the last 4 to 5 months, my recovery has been pretty fast. Its been three weeks since I have been working from home, recouped quite a bit, though I am left with remnants of the accident in the form of scars (thankfully all of them are small and not visible at first sight).

I remember telling J in the hospital that things could have been much worse, if not for the Lord holding me in his hands when I went up in air during the accident and the blood clots are the marks of his hand holding me. Though staying positive with nagging pain is an arduous task.

Today I am thankful that I am able to breathe, walk, see normally for the gift of life and sanity. The awareness of what could have happened keeps me in a blessed state. I pray more for the people who are experiencing the appalling war conditions in different parts of the world, the countless children, women, seniors and all others on whom physical and mental pain is inflicted in the name of war for no fault of theirs. I continuously pray for the sick who are suffering in hospitals, the ones who lack financial aid for their cures and the ones who have no one to care for. My own pain has made me aware of those around me.

I am still in the quest for the lesson that I have to take from this incident. Why did this happen to me?

P.S:

• The guy who recognized me was our neighbors driver – I again see Gods hand there. He normally comes around 10 every morning and that particular day was asked to come earlier and was passing by when this accident happened. We got to know all this when our neighbor told us this.
• I am much better now though I haven’t started on my regular routines as yet. It may take a couple of more weeks.
• Thank you all so much – I truly believe it is a lot of prayers and well wishes that saved me.

Signs from above !!!

Sometimes I sound so silly that I wonder whether I have ever grown up really in life.

I don’t know if I can consider the following incident among those silly things that I do and experience in life.

Something has been nagging my mind for sometime now and I was trying to get over the damn thing and it just keeps coming back, how much ever I try pushing it out of my mind. Its like this - try holding a simple glass of water for a minute. It does not bother you much. Try holding it for an hour, and your hands starts aching.. terribly. Continue holding it longer, though the glass of water is not by itself, that heavy, it creates so much of frustration and pain, its impossible to distract yourself from the ‘ pain in the wrong place feeling’ of holding that glass of water. The stuff that is nagging me is as important to me as water :-), but it is actually a very silly thing. I am sure I didn’t make much sense there. But it was meant to be that way !

And this week has been hectic with sessions every single day at work, and on top of it there was a customer presentation and there was some stuff that was incomplete which I needed to finish on priority. With all these in the back of my mind, I began my day starting to go to church and there was this rain, all of a suddent from nowhere. Hubby dear told me, how can you go to church in this rain and all my resolve vanished and I decided against going to church.

Thats when my friend called and offered a drop to office,( his presentation to the customer was immediately after mine) which I was quite happy to accept, as I can reach office earlier, actually much earlier for the customer presentation. So I started on time, waited for my friend, only to get a call from him telling me that he is stuck in traffic and it would be better that I go by the office bus otherwise both of us would miss the time together.

Disappointment !! – On second thoughts it was fine as I was quite early to catch my shuttle. And of all days, the shuttle had to arrive late, today. Have you noticed that I always have second thoughts, is it a characteristic of Gemini? The funnier part I also have third, fourth and believe me nth thoughts on the silliest stuff in the world. Ok – Let me focus !

The reason why I am elaborating all this is to highlight the fact that my tension levels were slowly but steadily increasing. When tension mounts self doubt creeps in. I was wondering the leaders are going to be there in the hall – COO, CPO & CMO and the customers. Will I be able to make the presentation well etc., etc., And then I looked up and asked God, I am worried, looks like I am alone in this whole thing… and really was looking for support.

That’s when I saw a Navy blue Maruti 800 passby my Shuttle and on it in very visible bold letters it was there. I heard him speak to me. And the message was

“ No Matter how far you are from GOD, he is just a prayer away “

I felt so blessed. This is overwhelming – Almighty talking to me so very directly?

No reading between lines, no clues, no guesses, no assumptions. Just plain direct one on one communication. And what more do I need? I felt so safe, so protected, I didn’t feel alone any more.

I felt energized instantly. My fears vanished ‘cos I know my Lord is just a prayer away. I could be in the conference room, discussions with who’s who in this world, in any kind of situation and there He is, ‘ just a prayer away’.

It touched me all the more ‘cos the entire last week during my conversations with the Lord, I kept asking him, ‘Show me a Sign’ and help me decipher it.

Why would the Lord love me so much? This lesser mortal being. This very person who depends so much on worldly passions, ignores the Lord so much, with dependencies on people who are so very hypocritical and yet, when I was stranded he cares enough to respond to me, just like that – so instantly.

With this renewed faith, happiness, Top of the world feeling ( Imagine the almighty talking to me !!!) needless to say, I did well in the presentation and the day was Rocking contrary to what I had anticipated.

And I continue feeling Blessed. And I thank Lord for not allowing me to grow out of these little miracles of every day life.