Courtesy: Mike – flickr.com/photos/dmje

In other words, every inch of his head and body emanated the look and confidence of a shrewd corporate chief.

He had managed to convince his local sponsor into investing a few hundred thousand dollars in a new agency, and had personally supervised the furnishing of its office. He liked black and ordered lovely black leather couches for his suite. Even the transplanted tuft on the front portion of his pate was dyed black, although his natural hair was brown.

The first nine months he ran the office in true boss-like manner. Everybody, he insisted, was to address everybody with a mister before the first or last name. When some of the harder working staff began to repeatedly arrive a little late in the mornings, because they had been repeatedly working late into the night, he installed the latest timekeeping machine available in the market, which even printed a good fortune prediction alongside the punched time (no predictions, good or bad, were seen alongside the times of those over 15 minutes late). Every high and low employee, except the boss, had to stand in helpless submission before this machine twice a day, and use it to punch in and punch out, and, when no one was looking, punch on.

The machine lasted eight days. For some strange reason, since its appearance those harder working staff seemed to be as punctual in their leaving the office as in their arriving. At the stroke of 5 pm on the office clock, everyone dropped their pens, or fingers from the keyboards, stood up as if on cue, and walked to the punching machine.

After several days of perplexity observing the whole staff (except the office boy, who always had to stay back to lock the office after the boss leaves, which was always around 9 pm) queue up in front of the timekeeper every evening at precisely the same time to punch out, it seemed to have dawned on him some faint light that the new device might perhaps be the culprit behind the recent reduction in the volume of actual work done in the office.

Anyway, after several failed attempts to regenerate employee enthusiasm and after the consequent several near attempts to split his precious tuft, he caved in to the silent revolt.

One year of operations was coming to a close, and the account books still looked dismal. The sponsor had given the boss a whole year of unlimited funds to prove himself, and the pressure was now mounting. About three months before the end of the fiscal year, the idea suddenly struck him that a possible cost cutting scrutiny into the office kitchen expenditure was probably the one remaining area he hadn’t looked into in trying to salvage the company from closure.

The circular read:  ‘Please note that coffee will hereafter not be served any time in the office for staff, and is for the use of guests only. Staff, however, may help themselves to tea, subject to a limit of two cups in the morning and one cup in the evening.’

Surprisingly, not a syllable of a protest was heard from any coffee drinker, not even from Antoinette, our Lebanese secretary, a hardened caffeine addict. Instead, the next day, the office pantry was stocked with new bottles – Gold Café, Maxwell, Davidoff, Polson – each neatly labeled with the owner’s name.

The sponsor of the agency, a highly sensible and educated Arab – a double doctorate holder from Harvard, we were told – came to the office on a rare visit shortly after the circular was issued. Sulemani was the sponsor’s favorite beverage, but on that particular day he opted for coffee d’ lait, and on that very day the last teaspoonful of Nescafe in the official coffee jar had already been consumed an hour before by an earlier guest.

The office boy came back to the boss’ suite, and the dumb creature instead of going first to the accountant for some petty cash and rushing off to the nearest grocery…yes, instead of doing that, he said loudly to his boss,

‘Sir, only Miss Anita’s and Mr Cherian’s and Miss Antoinette’s and Mr Ashok’s coffees are available, sir.’

And that was the precise moment the boss’ coffee beans were spilt.

The sponsor got to hear the whole story of how coffee was expected to play a very substantive role in ensuring a favorable balance sheet. A couple of days later, he invited the boss to his office, and nothing is known to this day what actually transpired between them. But the boss came back to the office smiling, yea, smiling, and full of beans, contrary to all our expectations. He told us: ‘I’ve been offered a new and important assignment, guys. And it’s across the ocean. In Brazil.’

He couldn’t even wait to accept a sincere farewell party from his staff. So greatly was the urgency of the assignment pressed upon him by the sponsor that three days after he announced his new job, he had left the country.

The sponsor brought in a new general manager. He wore no gold-rimmed spectacles and his hair was bushy and unkempt. But after another six months of operations, the company was in the black for the first time, and continued to be so for a few years more.

Seven years later, after most of us had left the agency, one of our old colleagues told me he had heard from an employee of the sponsor that the old boss was still somewhere in South America. It seemed he was a supervisor in some import-export company dealing in roasted coffea arabica seeds.

Pappa Joseph

THIS EPISODE IS TAKEN FROM THE BOOK ‘BUSYNESS AS USUAL’. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE BOOK.

The Planning

Parenting begins long before your precious child is conceived in the womb of his or her mother. And the kind of parent you have been to your child long before he was born affects your child long after his birth.

This chapter is meant particularly for couples planning to have their first child. But it is also for couples who already have a child; they will gain a new perspective of the awesomeness of the coming into being of a life which never existed before and which will never have its uniqueness taken away or diminished in the least by another life in eternity.

As you unite your body and soul with your life partner, all the forces of heaven and earth rejoice in the ecstasy of that union, and join together to produce the greatest expression of their joy – a new life resembling yours in amazing ways, and yet so different in astonishing ways. For it is a union that sets into force a new dimension of existence, introduces a personality absolutely unique in eternity, launches a new element into the purpose of the whole universe, and starts recording new entries in the chronicles of man kept in heaven.

The love union is the very first cause and the beginning point of millions of equally unique existences, of many achievements on earth, of the changing of history in innumerable societies. For if that union does not take place at the precise moment between the two precise people, it means the non happening of the same number of existences and activities on earth. The non happening of your union would be the non happening of uncountable changes on earth and in the annals of history.

That is the awesomeness of what you and your spouse are going to be responsible for when you plan to have a baby.

Because you plan to have a child, multitudes of people with your genetic dispositions will be able to experience the delight of inhaling the scents of fresh flowers; they will have the blessing of seeing the sun rise and set, and other awesome wonders of nature; they will be able to use their hands to build homes and societies, their legs to explore and inhabit new corners of the earth and space, and their minds to discover new dimensions of living – which will never happen if you decide not to have a baby.

In fact, the forces of the universe have already been set in motion from the very moment you and your beloved set sight on each other for the first time in your lives.

From the moment you first set eyes on your future spouse, and your mind allowed amorous thoughts and your body began to sense irresistible vibes towards the new person, spiritual and physical elements cohered within you and began preparing for a new life. These elements generated from heaven and from earth reach their maximum intensity at conception. Thereafter these elements merge into and become part of far greater elements of creation: the genes of the parents, their health, their dispositions, their weaknesses and strengths, their beliefs and attitudes, their fears and phobias, their joys and pleasures. Every single one of these newer elements plays a vital role in developing the embryo into a fetus, the fetus into a child. And when the child is born, still newer and even greater elements of creation come into being in the life of the newborn, and these elements continue its work until the child is an adult capable of making his or her own decision. These latest elements are: heredity, the environment, the cultural and spiritual environment, the society, parenting, and freewill.

You cannot do anything about heredity, and you may not always be able to protect your child from unwanted cultural and spiritual influences, or from the influences of the society your child grows up in. But as parents, you can have a monumental role in the character formation of your child, and the direction in life he or she would take as an adult. So consequential are the effects of good and bad parenting that generations after the parents are dead, their descendants would continue to reap the consequences of how those parents brought up their children.¹

In fact, the Bible states that in the present age no single factor in the world determines earth’s total destruction or survival as the quality of relationship between parents and their children.²

When you plan for your first child, or your next child, remember the awesome responsibility that God has placed on you. Your wise decisions as a parent will mean that there will be blessed generations of upright people who will rejoice in you as their first ancestor³; your unwise decisions will mean that your children and grandchildren, even to the fourth generation will reap a terrible penalty for what you as their progenitor has done in your parenting days.⁴

‘Has He not made you and your wife one?…And what does He seek from such a union? Godly children.’   Malachi 2:15 The Voice

¹ ‘Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.’  2 Kings 5:27

‘He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.’   Psalm 78:5-7

‘But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.’   Psalm 103:17-18

² ‘And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse [‘total destruction’- NIV].  Malachi 4:6 NKJV

³ ‘The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you.’   Psalm 102:28

‘Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.’  Psalm 112:2

⁴ The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’  Exodus 34:6-8

THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK ‘NOW OR NEVER’. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE BOOK.

Courtesy: Aleksandr Zykov (Flickr)

Before going to church today, I went to that iconic of all Indian cafes -Indian Coffee House – where turbaned waiters of regal comportment flit from kitchen to dining table and back in one ceaseless motion from morning to late night. I ordered a two-course breakfast: first, puffed puree with mashed beetroot, and then scrambled eggs on toast, concluded with what every fine breed of Indian is reputed to drink first thing in the morning – coffee brewed from the choicest seeds of the finest coffea arabica plants in the country, and available in its full aromatic strength only in this chain of coffee houses.

While enjoying my puree, and my next course waiting beside it, a man walks in, and after looking around for a vacant seat, finds one in a corner of the room. Then he gets up and goes to the kitchen…and emerges again after being shooed out from there.

The man then returns to his seat. He asks a passing waiter to bring him coffee, but the turbaned head does not turn and its bearer walks on as if he didnt hear.

The snubbed customer gets up and goes to the toilet, opens first the ladies’ toilet, peers in, and then the gents, peers in, returns to his seat, and repeats his order for coffee to every waiter that passes by him.

The man continued to sit there patiently for his steaming beverage. One side of my eyes was riveted on him, while the other was following the movement of each piece of morsel on my plate until I lost sight of it under my nose. But it was getting harder and harder for me to swallow the delectables on my table. I called the waiter who served me and asked him if that man had ordered anything, and, if not, to serve him something and I will pay for it. The waiter replied it was not a problem of the expense of a free coffee, but he was a nuisance and would come frequently and pester other customers if he was shown kindness.

As I finished my breakfast and got up to leave, the unserved customer came up to me and asked if I could help him. I did not answer but walked to the cash counter to pay my bill. The man followed me and stood beside me at the counter and repeated his request. I remarked aside to the cashier I would have bought him a meal, but I had been advised against it. The cashier smiled approvingly.

When I left the counter, I took the biggest of the bills in my wallet, gave it to the man and told him to go outside and buy something to eat. The man grasped the money, and in his ecstasy came with open arms to embrace me, but I ducked just before he could touch me. The cashier shouted his annoyance at him, and in the verbal melee I left speedily before the man got another chance to thank me.

I have no problem being hugged by anyone who wanted to show me gratitude or love. But he smelled contagion, and I didnt want to go to church with some of his vermin crawling on my body. I wonder why the coffee house people allowed him to enter their reputable premises in the first place. There’s no doubt hungry people like him are a nuisance to a satiated population.

I prayed as I got out of the coffee house: Lord, give him his daily bread.

Pappa Joseph

THIS IS AN ENCOUNTER TAKEN FROM THE BOOK ‘ENCOUNTERS OF A HEART KIND’. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE BOOK