My New Love Speaks Marathi (Part 2)

I started watching several movies a week at that point. I read about Bollywood every day. I learned about a movie that was coming out at the time called Ra.One. The closest place it was playing at was in Folsom so I drove down there one weekend to see it. It was so good I drove over to Elk Grove where it was also playing to watch it again. Movies are so much better on a big screen! Some other fun things that I have encountered since this new leg of my journey...

I recently finished Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief by Stephen Alter. This was a great book about the whole process of making one movie in particular, Omkara. It also has a lot about the history of the process as well. I got to watch Omkara this week and it was really one of the better Bolly flicks I've seen. It's based on Othello and they did a great job of combining the play into Indian life. Having read the book first made the movie more rich to me, I think. 

I started listening to music and online radio shows so I can keep learning the language. I was listening to BBC Asia on my iTunes at work on the last Thursday of 2011. The show that was on was Friction and the DJ asked people to email requests and what they wanted to see done away with from 2011. I emailed him and he READ MY EMAIL on the air! It was the best - that means people all over the world heard him. 

Another fun thing is I entered a online contest to have this guy, Akshay Kumar, call the winner. 

He's my second favorite Indian actor. After THIS guy...

So, as with many online social media type contests, you were supposed to post answers to a few questions. I know I probably won't win of course, but here are my answers:

1) Which talent would like to have the most and why? 
I would like to be able to learn a full Bollywood style dance and be able to dance with 100 people at once
2) What is it that u dislike the most?
People making judgments about others or what is going on in situations without being able to put themselves in the other person's position or realizing what part of their own fear is getting in the way 
3) Which is ur most treasured possession and why?
My family, someone who knows the things that make me me 
4) How would u like to die?
Quickly, like being shot or in a car wreck or in my sleep because I have the best dreams so it would hopefully just be a continuation of whatever story I was dreaming of 
5) What is ur motto in life? 
There are always two sides to every story, sometimes more. Don't decide until you've learned all you can.
6) If u were to die and come back as a person or a thing what would it be?
I would like to be myself, but keep the knowledge that I have gained. I wonder what I would do the same and what I would do differently.

So, in Part 3, I'll talk about how this opened up into a love for India and a desire to hop over there as soon as possible. 

My New Love Speaks Marathi (Part 1)

I have fallen in love... WITH INDIA!


So, since October 2011, I have begun to focus my efforts on getting to India. I don't know exactly what the path will be but I am learning and taking as many steps as I can while finishing school here. I want to live and work in Mumbai. I don't know if that will look like exactly. I am open to working for the US government, an NGO, a private company or a school. 


For a long time (I mean 5+ years) I have loved watching Showbiz India and Namaste America on Saturday mornings. It's on TV36 in the Bay Area. I loved hearing about the movies and the latest happenings of those Khan fellows. I could follow things pretty much and could recognize quite a few of the actors. I really loved the music and dancing, though.


I moved to Redding for school this fall. It took me a while to find a job and it's part time at that. I haven't had to spend too much time on homework, so that left quite a few hours to fill. I have read some good books (Wilder Life), joined some local interest groups (Redding Folk Dancers, Shasta Miners & Prospectors), visited church a few times and checked out a few local trails.


One weekend, I was looking for movies to watch on Hulu, since I don't have TV here. I decided on a movie called Baabul. Oh. My. Goodness. This is the day I fell in love. 


The movie was long. There were lots of bits and pieces to the characters but I found my self caring about what happened to them. It was like I was watching a Sandra Bullock movie in a language I couldn't understand. But the thing was, I could understand it, partly because there were subtitles. But mostly because I didn't need the subtitles. I knew why the girl was so sad she couldn't eat, and why she was crying and eating at the same time when it was time to bless her husband. 


So the quest began that night. I looked up Indian weddings and marriages. I looked up some of the words and phrases. The world opened up and I realized This is just the beginning. 

Usual MO for a deadline...

Here's a paper I wrote for my Bible class at Simpson U this week. We have to do a reaction paper each week on something form our last class or reading. It just has to be 2 or 3 pages of our reaction to said topic or passage. The papers end up being free flow writing, kind of like a blog entry, so I decided to post this one. Now you can see what I do at 1:30 in the morning the night before class.

          I subscribe to a magazine called Relevant. Every two months a collection of articles and advertisements is delivered to my mailbox, letting me know what’s going on in the world of folks in my generation. That is, the generation of 30-something post-moderns, somewhat jaded by the status quo of the mainstream church. Most people my age are just as enthralled by their iPhones as the devastation in Haiti. We are interested in striking a balance of the dichotomy of our desire to be active in God’s bigger picture and what the world says we should long for.

            In the most recent issue, there was article titled “Where Is God In Tragedy?” by Sarah Sumner. In this article, Sumner explores the issue of suffering, both our own and for others. On the issue of personal suffering, she compares the personal suffering of Job and Jeremiah with the personal suffering of Jesus on the cross. She references Matthew 27:46 (part of our reading this week), when Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the first line of Psalm 22. She goes on to explain that by just saying the first line of any passage, the Hebrew would know that that person is referencing the entire associated passage.

            Psalm 22 is about suffering to the point of crying out day and night and not hearing anything from God in reply. However, the author, David, goes on to say that God is still holy despite the silence. His steadfast holiness is shown by the trust in the fathers of Israel and the deliverance they received. Sumner reminds the reader that Job and Jeremiah ultimately could not see past their own suffering. While they never cursed God, they did curse the fact that He let them be born. To me, this is pretty much the same thing because they were saying God was wrong since he allowed them to be born. God can be and is quite often misunderstood, but He can’t be wrong.

            When we ask the question of why me or why them or why haven’t I heard form You, it may seem like we are questioning what’s around us, but really we are questioning God’s character. We grab that mystery of suffering and pain that God has placed in our path with both grubby hands. We twist it and try to peel it apart just so we can feel better about whatever circumstance we are slogging through at the moment. We think an answer to the why will act like a salve for our broken hearts. When we ask why, what we are really asking is why not my way?

            This question shines a light on the fact that we are losing our trust in the character of God. We have to understand that this mystery is what was put into place since that first moment when man exercised the muscle of free will. By choosing our way, we chose a level of separation that can’t be fully remedied until the story is completed in eternity. God doesn’t want to be separated from us and has made a way back. But the story has to play out. We have to trust that story. We have to trust that He can’t be wrong.

            I don’t think we will ever understand God fully, even when we are with Him in eternity. I don’t think Adam and Eve necessarily had some advantage way back then in the garden. Yeah, they walked with Him every day, but we can do that with the Holy Spirit now. If we are practicing the presence of God, we can know His voice, know right and wrong, know what steps he wants us to take. If we were to fully understand Him, what would be the point of Him being God? Besides, I saw what happened to that guy in the first Indiana Jones movie.

            This is not to deny the process of grief or the process of seeking justice for others. I think these are amazing parts of the footprints of God’s character in our being. He is capable of knowing pain, suffering, disappointment, grief as well as compassion, joy and laughter. They are a part of who He is. Because we are made in His image, they are also a part of how we operate. Because we also live with the legacy of the first selfish choice made so long ago, we must remember to look to Him and the example of Jesus, who said, even while being fully God, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup form me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36, ESV)

            So I ask my self, do I really trust Him?