Ideas for Reflection based on Bible Verses

Living in the love of God and faith that comes from living in the love of God.

There are many definitions of faith. We can use the term faith synonymously with the term religion. We say things like my Christian faith......or faith based curricula and so on. But in the bible there is another definition of faith. Faith is the same as believing. Some people, myself included, have had faith that something will happen for sure. We can have stubborn faith that it will rain on a particular day.

The focus of this essay/article is not that kind of faith. The focus of this essay is the kind of faith that enables us to live our daily life in a more affirmative way. The way to live in an affirmative way is to live in God. The Bible verse I would like to share is "Those who live in love live in God. And God is love." This Bible verse encourages us to live in God. That may seem mind boggling. How on earth are we supposed to live in God? What does it mean to live in God?

As recently as yesterday I figured out some answers to this conundrum. When we live in God's love we are living immersed in love. This may cause you to ask the question how does it feel like to be immersed in God's love. For this we have to look at the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 which tells us the verbs that qualify the noun love. The verbs are patience, kindness, non- competitive, encouraging, forgiving, humble, truthful, honoring unselfish, protective, hopeful, trusting and persevering. (This is paraphrased) God's love is an all encompassing concept that contains within it many qualities. If we do something good God's love tells us how awesome what we did is, and tells us to do that awesome thing more and more--encourages us. What if we are immersed in kindness? If we are immersed in kindness we would have a lot of peace and joy inside our heart. This means that we do things in such a way that reflects the fact that God loves us even if the world does not. God's love is enough to help us feel happy if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong we will not take it to heart. God's love is enough to make us feel courage. Suppose you are going to do a social media post and you are not sure if it will be okay. Then God's love will give you courage to post it. Negative emotions such as envy and pride don't have a place in God's love. Love does not dishonor others. God's love will make us feel honored. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God's love points us to the truth. God's love grieves at evil. God's love does not participate in evil. God's love always protects us. If we are immersed in God's love we are able to trust God and others. To live in love means God's love will be patient with us if we are not already perfect. God's love has high expectations but God's love accompanies us as we try to become perfect. To live in love means to live in goodness. And in a holy and pure environment. Because God is pure and holy. To live in God means God helps us to have hope. We can have tons of hope. We can have hope for our kids. We can have hope for our future. We can have hope for everything in our lives. God's love helps us hope in big decisions of our life but more importantly it helps us have hope in the little things of our life. God's love helps us persevere in good things. It is easy to forget God's love. Sometimes the problems seem so huge. It seems insurmountable. We feel overwhelmed. This causes us to forget God's love. But if we remember God's love then we can overcome the challenges. Jamie Grace, a contemporary Christian singer said when she was ill as a young girl the disease seemed large. But she reminded herself that God is larger than anything we face in life. That is what it means to live in love and live in God.

God's love causes faith to be a positive force in our life. It is not the kind of stubborn faith that believes that a certain thing will happen. But it is a faith that makes everything positive in our life. This makes us truly live happily in the universe created by God. God's blessings abound in our life. Purple flowers under the kitchen window, pink flowers on the side of the road, a video of innocent children singing and dancing, a sermon by a lady (Jamie Grace) telling us to be uninhibited like children. It is a faith that trusts God and surrenders everything in our life to God.

Painting of land and sky

I painted this yesterday. Today I added some finishing touches. It is inspired by a painting in Hobby Lobby. Here is the painting:

The land and sky are depicted in this painting. A large portion of the painting is sky. A house nestles in the land. There is very little land.

Charcoal drawing of Evergreen Trees

Yesterday I had set aside some time to paint. Yet I felt very lazy to go downstairs where the sink is located to get water for painting. So I decided to do a charcoal drawing because all the supplies --two charcoal pencils, sharpener and eraser were nearby. My inspiration was this picture I saw in Hobby Lobby. For the foggy look I just rubbed a piece of paper all over the page after I drew the trees.

Supplies from Hobby Lobby

A few things I bought from Hobby Lobby recently. The painting book is $9.99 each but since it was 40% off I got two for $11.00. I bought an individual tube of green paint, a shade of green I did not have before. I think this green is different from the greens in the two painting sets I have. Two bottles from which I can pour water into the dish for painting. And a hello kitty crew socks. All this came to $19.00 and a few cents.

Tree with Dark Pink Flowers

I photographed this tree yesterday. I really like the color of these flowers. Flowering trees are so awesome. This time of the year there are many trees in iowa city with a ton of flowers.

Kuyil

These are pictures of a park I photographed two days or so ago in Iowa City. Just the fact that there are so many trees reminds me of some tranquil yard in a countryside in Kerala, India. My grandparents homes had lots of trees. Here is something I wrote about childhood memories of visiting my grandparents homes. I always noticed my cousins were so much closer to nature than me.

In Udayamperoor on lazy afternoons if we sit and listen we can hear a bird call. The name of the bird is kuyil. We can call back to the bird in a similar way. When we mimic the bird call, the bird responds and makes another call. We can again respond. And the bird will respond too. The frequency and speed of the calls gradually increases. Then suddenly the bird flies away. My cousin rubeena taught me this-- to listen carefully to the kuyil and respond to the kuyil. My cousins who grew up in Udayamperoor and Thyccattussery knew more about the mysteries of nature than me. During my visits they would share this knowledge they had with me. They knew the names of trees, they knew how to make aquariums with glass jars, they knew how to find saplings of cashews, they knew how to make home made henna, they knew how to make home made shampoo with the leaves of hibiscus, they knew how to cure irritation in the eyes with the juice of the parijata flowers, they knew how to feed chickens with rice, they knew to find the eggs laid by the hens somewhere in the backyard, the knew about butterflies and dragon flies. They knew that goats only eat the leaves of jackfruit trees. I was always amazed after interacting with my cousins. Milk from rubber trees collected in coconut shells, different types of shell fish washed ashore on the brims of paddy fields, to listen to the sound of the sea in a seashell shaped like a conch. It was so idyllic.

Clouds

I painted these clouds two days ago. I looked at a picture of a kid's drawing of clouds which I found in the internet to paint this. I was trying to paint a picture of a painting in hobby lobby. In that picture the clouds are round and billowy. But I was not able to get that look. So I searched in the internet and found this picture and painted it.

This is the painting I painted which had clouds that were difficult to paint.

This is the inspiration for that painting.

Character of the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son in the Winter's Tale

I jotted down these points about the character of the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son on March 10 this year. It is a collection of impressions about these two characters in The Winter's Tale

The shepherd is very noble.

When he saw an infant in the savage land he could have chosen to give the infant away to someone else or could be like the characters in the story of the good Samaritan who did not help the man in the street and he could have walked away from the infant thinking someone else would help.

Instead he chose to pick up the child and raise the child as his own.

He did a good job because Perdita grew up to be a good young person.

In the sheep shearing feast he encourages Perdita to play the part of the hostess.

This gesture tells us that he wants her to take leadership positions.

He is generous in praising her.

When Polixenes compliments her dancing he says she is good in everything.

Just as Florizell and Perdita are getting married he vows to make her an equal heir with his own son.

She is only adopted.

But he gives her full status as his own child.

For this he is willing to give the inheritance that is his son's to her.

Perhaps he does this because he feels she is a girl who needs his protection.

Or because he feels love for her because he raised her for all these years.

And she would leave him to be with Florizell so he could not bear to send her without giving her full inheritance as his child.

I also liked his relationship with his son.

Together they make the most hilarious twosome in the play.

They are so gullible and get taken in by every tale told them by Autolychus.

When they decide to tell the king that Perdita is not their flesh and blood the conversation they have is very funny.

The conversation they have with Autolychus shows how worldly wise they are not.

Finally in the end of the play they are made gentlemen because they are related to Perdita and their simple joy shows that their sincerity.

Only once does the shepherd get angry.

And that is a righteous anger.

It was when Polixenes gets angry at the engagement of Florizell and Perdita and threatens to punish Florizell Perdita and the shepherd and he scolds Perdita for liking a prince and for not understanding her station in life.

The Shepherd takes the initiative to go to the king and tell all about where he found Perdita so he could be saved from punishment.

The Shepherd's son is also a laudable character.

We meet the Shepherd's son in the scene where the Shepherd finds Perdita.

The Shepherd's son at this time witnesses a gory scene and the father says to the son you see things dying and I see things new born.

Then during the prep to the sheep shearing feast the Shepherd's son faithfully buys everything in the list given to him by his sister.

On the way he meets Autolychus who claims to be waylaid by robbers and he goes out of his way to help Autolychus.

He does this without realizing Autolychus has robbed him.

It was his idea to save his father by telling the king Perdita is not their flesh and blood.

He believed that once this was disclosed his father would be saved from the kings wrath.

He does not resent his father wanting to give Perdita a share in the inheritance although it would have made his inheritance lesser.

This shows that he does not have avarice and is willing to share.

He is excited to become a gentleman.

In the class ridden society that Shakespeare wrote in to become a gentleman is the ultimate social accomplishment.

When he and his father were made gentlemen he says that only after becoming gentlemen could he shed real gentlemen tears.

This shows that even a normal human emotion like crying is connected to your social status.

Although both the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son had no dearth of human emotions like kindness and compassion.

It was the person in the highest class the king Leontes who lost all human emotion because he was consumed by jealousy and suspicion.

He became so cruel that he banished a newborn to a savage land.

A few photos of Trees

These photographs were taken by me last week. I had to bend my head backwards to photograph these to get the upper branches and the very top of the tree.

I had edited and cropped these photos to give them the look of photos in flickr and posted a few of them a day ago. These are the same photos except these are unedited.

Avalosunda

I made this old world sweet yesterday. If you are a Malayalee, from the south Indian state of Kerala, chances are you have been served this traditional sweet called avalosunda at some point of time in your life. An avalosunda, a sphere or ball made with roasted rice flour, grated coconut, jaggery and a few cumin seeds is the hardest thing you will ever eat. Usually it is served on a plate over a small pile of avalose podi. Here is a very likely imaginary scenario when an unda is served if you are visiting a relative's house. "Please have," your relatives persuade you. "Ok," you say in agreement and you reach out for an unda. You put the unda in your mouth and bite. It is the hardest thing ever. "Ayyo you are not able to eat it? they smile. "Come, give it to me," they say. They bring a heavy metal spoon. The spoon is as heavy as a hammer and they beat the unda. The unda is unbreakable. They bring an actual hammer. They place a paper towel over the unda and hammer away. Finally the unda breaks into a few pieces. It is small enough to place in your mouth. The unda is soft only for a few hours after you make it. Within a day it becomes the hardest thing in the world. Other communities in India have their ball snacks. The laddoo, the coconut laddo, the rawa laddu and the besan laddu are all spheres. They are not hard at all. But the Avalosunda is the hardest. The ones I made were thankfully not very hard.

Photos of branches of Trees

I photographed these pictures yesterday. These branches are from a tree in the park. The color of the leaves is light green. It is nice to look at the sky through the network of the branches. I liked how blurry the last photo looks.