How to overcome the trust deficit ??

The trust deficit the Jacobite clergy has in the Orthodox clergy and vice versa, I feel, is the reason for the stalemate in the CM mediated and other peace initiatives and talks between the two oldest Christian factions in Kerala. 

Will Orthodox clergy be ready to give whole Orthodox and Jacobite parishes under the guidance of Jacobite bishops and be ready to be their deputies ? That is the way to instil trust and confidence in the other party.

The Jacobite clergy does not want peace dictated to them, it can never be lasting peace. Their argument is very simple, though not stated openly. Their forefathers also shed their sweat, blood and tears to build the churches for 1900 years before the split happened. *An honourable and respectable union is what they sincerely desire*. 

Sadly, the orthodox top clergy, with no sincere intention to bring eternal peace, lacks the basic intelligence to understand this and *insists on dictated peace with the Jacobites*. Any idiot can see through this game plan of ours.

Can some educated and intelligent members of Malankara Orthodox clergy and laity together (we have many respectable public leaders) take leadership and initiative to replace the insincere people in the leadership to bring lasting peace in the United single church ? 🙏🙏👍👍

Who is helping Malayalam music industry most, Yesudas or MG Sreekumar ?

Being a person with some basic training in Carnatic classical music, I have been following Malayalam music industry, both film music, light music, classical music for more than forty years now since my school days in Don Bosco Irinjalakuda.

I have great respect for Dr K J Yesudas, as a great singer but these days I get slowly disillusioned with his contributions to the music industry. The reasons are given below.

The singers like MG Sreekumar, M. Jayachandran etc. are taking part in talent shows of younger stars and are giving them great encouragement. But I do not see this encouragement and motivation coming from Yesudas Sir. Being a great father and a parent, Yesudas tries to  promote his sons to the music industry, but rarely have I seen him promoting new budding talent. 

Even though the whole Malayalam music world considers Yesudas Sir as a demiGod, why is Yesudas Sir turning his attention away from the youngsters, who have all potential to be singers better than Yesudas sir imself ? Why is he not motivating and encouraging youngsters in the music field ?

On the contrary, I am surprised and taken aback by the selfless support and encouragement given by MG Sreekumar to the Malayalam music scene for the past many years. Sreekumar takes great interest in motivating and promoting youngsters to the music world. 

In the past two years watching Top Singer musical talent programme on 24 channel on Flowers TV, I have full praise for MG Sreekumar for the great service he is doing to the music industry. The way Sreekumar motivates and encourages budding singers to do their best, to never mind if they commit mistakes, if they fail  he motivates them to do better the next time and tries to be one among them. All these speak talks volumes of the great mind and good intentions of MG Sreekumar.

I have great respect for Sreekumar Sir as my elder brother, he is very valuable to the Malayalam music industry. Sadly Yesudas sir is showing signs of age and tiredness, does not care about budding newcomers..  I am extremely pained at telling this truth.

I bow my head in front of MG Sreekumar who is doing a great service to the Malayali youngsters. MG deserves the full support and respect of Malayalis from across the world as much as Yesudas sir, if not more ..

I hope Yesudas Sir would now devote more time with the budding singers of today motivating them, if so, posterity will be thankful and remember him for ever ..

George..

Are we giving and taking respect in the Orthodox church ?

It is very shameful and shocking that the most important stakeholder in the whole orthodox Jacobite church issue  the *church going, innocent, devout public, who are being taken for a ride and conveniently ignored* by other less important war mongering entities in the church, including the clergy, who do not want peace in the church, in the second round of discussions with the CM today.

Hope everyone respects others, becomes more accommodative of others. Hope all stakeholders become conscious, vigilant  and assertive of their roles and responsibilities in the church .. 🙏

Avoid the clergy in the feud - a creative solution to the Malankara Orthodox church factional feud ..

Malankara Orthodox church in India is going through a grave crisis. As an informed member of laity of the Malankara Orthodox church, I am suggesting an innovative, creative solution to solve the dispute between the two factions of Orthodox church. 

Some questions from the people of the church..

• For whom does a religion and a church exist, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who forms the congregation in the church. the clergy or the believers ?
• Who is funding the church, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who is donating the land for the church, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who is donating money to build the churches, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who is working for a salary from the church, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who are well informed and educated among the stakeholders, the clergy or the believers ?
• Whose ancestors are buried at the church tombs or cemeteries, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who gets on the road for the church, the clergy or the believers ?
• Who provides the money for any litigation, the clergy or the believers ?
  
• Who are the main beneficiaries from the church, the clergy or the believers ?

Who is the employee and who is the employer here ? It is very sad and unfair when employees boss over the employer. 

We all know the very existence of the church is for the believers. The whole institution of the church is of the laity, ie. of the believers, by the believers and for the believers .. 

The whole rank and file of the clergy are existing just to serve the laity in the daily activities to help in prayers to the Lord..

The clergy has many important, saintly and saner things to do than fight on the roads or in the court .. The mismanagement that has happened over the past hundred years in this case,  in my opinion, has been due to the unprofessional interference by the clergy who should have restricted themselves to spiritual things. 

Following saner experience and understanding,  let's keep the whole clergy from both sides, out of the picture and go for a consensus among the believers. 

Do the laity on both sides want to continue the fight between the factions or do they want to unite and be a united church ?

After the July 2017 SC judgement, we have already spent more than Rs. 12 crore on litigation ( Rs  120,000,000/=) just as lawyer fees to forcefully take over 40 odd Jacobite churches.  How much more we have to spend to take over the other 700 odd churches forcefully ? 

What great enmity and unrest are we going to create in society because of this forceful action from our side .. ?? 🤔🤔 Can we avoid this wasteful spend by offering an olive branch and lovingly taking the other faction along with us forward ?

We are already in a grave financial crisis as Federal Bank is at our throat to repay the Rs. 14 crore (Rs  140,000,000) we took as loan for the Parumala cancer hospital, and we are definitely going to falter in the repayment. 

One day, the financial burden of the Parumala hospital is definitely going to fall on each member of the laity of our church. We need to see through this game plan of the clergy.. 

We need honest, plain speaking, bold and effective laity leadership to help solve the crisis permanently once for all. 

The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace - Mahatma Gandhi 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Education, the true healer ..

From my interactions and readings of our past and present clergy, I am amazed at how constrained, selfish and narrow minded their thought processes are, how intolerant they are to criticisms or to any forward thinking .. 😳 

It is very sad, I agree. It is high time we reformed our Orthodox Theological Seminary education of the Malankara Orthodox and Jacobite Syrian Orthodox church. We should seriously consider giving our clergy, past and present, Universal education, to help look at the bigger picture which will help them open up their minds, than just giving them narrow minded, religious Seminary education. 

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth - J.F. Kennedy

Poor education and the unwillingness and prejudice to recognize learned, sensible, educated people is the root cause of all evils facing our church. 

It is high time we did serious soul searching..  *True education is a great healer* ..🙏🙏

George 

You're my best friend - song recording with Jobin ..

Don Williams (1939-2017) was born and raised in Texas, US.. Don sang and produced this country song at the Jack Clement Recording studio, Nashville, Tennesse, US and released the album with other songs by the same name *You're my best friend* in April 1975. 

This number rose to the No.1 position in the Billboard Country singles chart for 1975 and remained there for many weeks. A song remembered by all his fans world over for a good 45 years.

George Easaw from India is trying to recreate the Don Williams magic here ..

Click here for the link ..

I also recorded this song with my son Easaw George playing the guitar and joining in the chorus .. Click here ..

George..

Losing jobs during Covid time..

In my career spanning thirty your years after passing out from the Govt. College of Engineering, Trivandrum, starting from my first job at Cochin Port Trust to my present job at Alliance University, Bangalore, I have had the good opportunity to voluntarily change jobs five times, get kicked out two times and presently I am in my eighth job in the eighth year .. Don't know what will happen. A 120 micron pathogen, Covid 19 virus is doing damage this time, not just locally, but world-wide.

How does it feel like to lose one's job ? This question is more valid and meaningful during the present Covid times as all of us are staring at uncertain and unclear futures when Covid virus is breathing down our necks.

It is said during this Covid time almost 122 million daily wage workers from across India lost their jobs and almost 200,000 white collared workers from the management side too lost their jobs. But do we need to get unduly agitated over this development ?

How does it feel to be kicked out of one's job ? We are usually wedded to our job as we tend to give our best to the job and spend a good part of our waking time, almost 50% to it. When our employers find a misfit between our qualifications and experience with the job requirements, we become a suitable candidate for firing. Usually it does not happen overnight, but our incompetence gets developed over a period of time.

Firing from our job usually causes a massive shock for the first week, but over time, one gets over the shock and tries to find the good part of the act, get up from where we have fallen, blame ourselves for our misfortune, sharpen and hone up our skills in other relevant area and look for a new job.

My earlier experience in the firing zone has given me enough courage to write about it and wait and watch to see what would happen to me if the situation gets bad in the near future over the Covid virus.

The post-firing period in this Covid time would also have four stages

1. Understand the situation

2. Accept the reality

3. Hone up one's skills and

4. Be positive of the future.   

While going through this paper in HBR of April '20 by Sally Maitlis from Oxford Said School of Business, Making sense of the future after losing a job you have, it brought back interesting thoughts of how to cope with job layoffs that would happen in this Covid time. 

I hope people take it in the right spirit and go ahead. The world is not going to end tomorrow or the day after. 

George..