And everything ends with God
By Longrangty Longchar |EMN
I admit with a little sense of regret that I haven’t been to a church service in many years; my daily devotion was about a prayer during bedtime when I am not too tired and a short grace during every meal. Of course, I did attend some special church services, but it was more of a reporting job to write for the paper and not essentially for worship.
So, before I came to Dimapur, I did promise some special that I would attend church every Sunday to worship God and also as a means to socialize with the decent Christian folks of the community. Today, July 22 2018 was the third Sunday, and it really felt good to sit inside the church, to feel the serenity, the reassurance that a higher being looks after us, and the gratitude in our heart to have the time to thank God for His blessings.
Incidentally, this Sunday’s sermon was about ‘the faithfulness of God’, the pastor did pronounce it out loud and clear in English, and the moment he said it, I was lost in my own thoughts instantly.
As the pastor blabbered on, I was there sitting in the last bench near the window – I like sitting there because of the cool air that breezes in through the curtains on repeated intervals – and thinking about the faithfulness of God in my own context. It was a nice forty-five minutes of uninterrupted thought and the restless brats that sat next to me and their distraught mother could not disrupt my thoughts.
I thought about my childhood days and the days when my friends and I used to bunk Sunday school classes, trek down a kilometer and half through the jungle to Tzüza River and swim in the clear cold waters for hours. I still don’t know from where we got the energy those days, to walk that distance and to swim and find the strength to walk back home. Well, my parents never knew about it and that was that.
Then the cable TV arrived; there was the Cartoon network with the Power Rangers, Popeye, Tom & Jerry etc and the endless TV series, we could have watched the whole day had it not been for the regular power cuts. Before the cable TV, there was only the Doordarshan channel where we used to watch ‘Chitrahaar’, Rangoli, Mahabrata and an occasional drab Hindi movie which featured Dev Anand as the hero. But we did watch DD channel and the programmes on the small 14” B&W TV as if we were watching some greatest shows on the world. Back then, Pranon Roy, the Chief Executive (or proprietor) of NDTV, with his trademark beard (it was black then) was our favorite newsreader on DD channel which used to come at 12 noon.
Sigh, those were the days, I recollected my thoughts inside the church, and I instantly felt sad when the pastor again repeated the phrase, ‘the faithfulness of God…”
All those childhood years, I had attended Sunday school classes only about three years, that also quite erratically. I haven’t been an active member of the Christian Youth Endeavor (CYE) and attending church services was quite out of question. I did, out of compulsion, used to attend church services during college days; but unfortunately, I used to doze off right after the sermon starts. Thank God, I don’t snore.
At that moment of time inside the church, I did felt sad and a bit embarrassed in front of God and silently asked God’s forgiveness. The lines of my favorite poem ‘Lead Kindly Light’ by Cardinal Newman did stream into my heart with the cool light wind that breezed in through the window. It was quite solacing.
Now, as I sat in my kitchen, with the curry churning on the stove, I was lost in thought again. All those years gone by, quite literally flowed away like the river into the ocean. Most of my friends, unfortunately, have passed away (May their souls rest in peace) to become just a memory and be faded away in time like the evening shadows engulfed by the night.
The phrase ‘the faithfulness of God’ is still reverberating in my mind and I ask myself, ‘what did I do good to deserve this blessing?’
Yes, I did bunk Sunday school classes, never did attended Church services (of course, I do give my tithes diligently, though my understanding behind giving tithes was reached after I read somewhere about Albert Einstein words, “Success is 90 percent perspiration and ten percent inspiration”; therefore I realized that whatever, amount I earn is through 90 percent of my sweat and 10 percent of inspiration that comes from without. Therefore, I simply put it in the offering box with a prayer saying that ‘it belongs to you God’, but I don’t and write my name. That’s another story), had been wild and adventurous, and yet, ‘the faithfulness of God’ is glaring…
Then I realized, I did remember that though I have never been to Sunday school classes, yet I have read and know about the life of the saints and prophets through reading of the hundreds of books till now; I have a mother who loved to narrated the stories of Moses, Noah, David, Solomon etc during my childhood days as I and my childhood friends (my neighbours) as we played around near her as she gently weaved the traditional shawls. And most of all, I have a sister, Atu, my and my brothers first grammar teacher, who introduced us to the beautiful world of reading books especially the illustrated comics about the great prophets in the Bible.
Still then, I felt an emptiness in my heart and the sense of regret was overwhelming. There is nothing that I can do now to rectify it but just to pray that ‘the faithfulness of God’ would endure like the Lode star – unchanging, constant and reassuring.
I am simply writing this not simply because I love to write, but in the vain hope that if you are reading this, and if you have young children or nephews and nieces; then do encourage them to go to Sunday Schools, it would really help them to know (I mean not ‘know about’, but ‘know’) God’s faithfulness in their lives. Cartoon network, swimming and others can wait, let them know God’s faithfulness, and make them understand – unlike my poor soul here – that everything begins and ends with God only. God bless you all, and may God’s faithfulness be with our Naga children, as always.
(Longranty Longchar is a senior sub-editor at Eastern Mirror. He can be contacted at longranty@easternmirrornagaland.com)
