Solitary Soul

An oasis in dry land Mario D'Couto      Living in the civilian world, often a times, I find myself tired and at times a bit distracted too with regard to my spiritual life. But I guess my idea of what the spiritual life should be was a bit too 'idealistic.' Rick Warren makes a nice comment of what spirituality ought to be in one of his books (although I cannot remember at this point of time). He says that one cannot be spiritual by living in an 'ivory tower' which is to say one cannot be isolated. There is no point in it!      True spirituality does not entail living continuously with good thoughts. Living with spiritual thoughts is good but it may not be good enough; that is to say only with spiritual thoughts. Spirituality builds itself on humanity and that is why it is important to be human and be holy. To use an analogy, it is like a couple who before getting married have a very idealistic picture of what their married life would be. Having s...

Bloom ..... where you are planted! Mario D'Couto    Working like any other normal civilian has given me another taste of reality and I must say that it has kept me grounded. Besides, this has enriched my philosophy of life and thankfully I can say that the 10 years of formation that I have had as a seminarian was certainly not a waste of time.    Looking at my colleagues at work, I do find that most of them keep switching jobs. Switching jobs after a considerbale period of time, after having weighed the pros and cons, is worth the take. But to switch jobs after a span of 2 or 3 months may not be the best thing to do. Why?    When a person plants a seed and the plant begins to grow, if one were to uproot it and plant it in another place, the chances are minimal whether the plant would grow or not. In fact, it would be a miracle to think that a plant can grow after it has been uprooted and planted elsewhere. The same applies with one's job and e...

There is no special time for success Mario D'Couto    What I really mean by this is that sometimes in order to succeed, we don't have to wait for a very bright day just to make things work. With regard, to future circumstances or how things would work out, there is very little we can do if not for nothing. But one thing we can rest assure is that although we may not know or be sure of our future, we can be sure of who holds our future.    There is a German proverb which goes thus, "Grow where you are planted. Begin to weave and God will give you the thread." This is like a simplified version of St. Augustine's version "Operative and Co - Operative grace", where operative grace is about God's action in our lives and co - operative grace is our response to that action. It may sound a bit strange but it is true. God's grace is available but He needs our co - operation to actualize it. He will never force us. Whenever Jesus worked a miracle...