101 conversation starters for couples-- Review

This little book of " 101 conversation starters .." is highly recommended for THOSE COUPLES  who take time to 'sit' and 'relax' for a while with each other, having an art of listening to one another with deep interest in building up a family.

In these days of "hurl-burl-life” one hardly takes notice of the other, leave alone to be interested in one's life-givings. This causes the married life to go on spree totalitarian way until it breaks down literally.

 
“Hey! It’s time to learn & practice the skill of conversing to your spouse, and thus build a SWEET HOME for the future generations."

Take an About Turn !! or you will be in a mess!!

Education  is all that matter to the human beings, everybody goes on to get a degree in one thing or the other, because the society would not give respect to the one who does not have degrees in academic field. That person may be highly skilled and good character being, still people ask him what he studied.  Where he studied, what degrees is there at the end of his/her name.

So it’s a known and accepted fact that one should have Degrees to get a job, or to get a promotion or to get respect in the society.  Even though one is exceedingly well versed in the his field of work, he would not be considered to go up in the strata of his employment.

Therefore every one strives to get degrees rather than knowledge of the subject.  There are so many short cut ways invented by Indian student to get these Degrees, by hook or crook, for which we should feel ashamed of the corruption prevailing in so called education system, where the principles, values are nullified.

It’s the time for the genius  of this academic area, to ponder over this, and urge the social strata, to think or  rethink where  our skilled , knowledgeable workers are drained, unnoticed.

Can we give some professional skills to the students in the areas they are interested right from elementary sections?  Improvement of language should be a must, and an inevitable subject, but the rest of the subjects, should not be imposed on the student to write an exam and to pass. This pass and failed system of examination should not be criteria to analyze the students’ caliber. It should never be. The other subjects like arts and sciences could be given an exposure to the student but never should they determine to go up into the strata of academic field.  Better to concentrate on one skill, even if it be a pottery, carpentry,  blacksmithery, whatever,  if once the student is confident of the subject he chooses, he will be interested in it and could invent great things in that area. 

Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank. Proverbs 22:29

This is the essence of education: one should attain skill, in some area of life. If it is not given in his life of 6 years of elementary section+ 4 years of High school+ 2 years of Jr. college studies+ 3 years of Degree course+ 2 years of post graduation course=17 years of  long academic years , what is the use of studying at all? We are producing  a great number of unemployees, who are skillless, and useless, and distressed youth..

Even the  so called professional courses are san moral education, there is no one who can educated them on these grounds, our governments are under the impression, that these youth of 18 and odd years of age know every thing in the world, etiquette, values, morals and rules and regulations, and give them only and only some training in computers, or electronics, or Medicine, or Mechanics  which make them derailed subjects of the country. They pass the exams and get gold medals in their subjects, swollen in the brain, and dead in spirit and heart functioning.  That is the reason we see so many people who are high in ranks of the society behaving silly and with criminal mind.

The responsibility lies with the Educators, , the rich who wants to establish the education institutions, One should be dare enough to show the world that a different type of education is needed and it would fetch great human beings, who can uplift the society. The Ministers of Education should be influenced by the moral educators, for better future of the country.  Prime Minister should be educated first to see the education is different spectrum.  Only people like you the youth could think of it, strive for it, and work for it.   I wish all the best for this website, hope this would bring real change in thinking  at least in some important leaders of the society. 

Teach children, when you walk with them...Deuteronomy 11:19

Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.







        "Poora 2 1/2 yearssodaa!!" I playfully said , to Jayden when he was trying to avoid me , fearing his mom would leave him and go  to the mercy of my protection.  
Immediately, he answered , "no , I am not Ssoda.. I am Jayden" 
    It took me a minute what he means of this word, later I realized he could understand yearssoda in that sense. (years+ soda  Only Telugu knowing people could understand this anecdote.

He runs to me and says to me" ammamma I love you"  and thank me for all the little things i do for him. 

       The other day, we both had a walk on sidewalk of the neighborhood   I was trying to show him the little flowers and admiring them. 

       He coolly said, " I do not like flowers" 

       Astonished was I, and confirmed it asking him again , whether he really mean it. He answered again the same way in the same tone. 

      "Oh i said, then what do you like?" I asked him.

       "I like big big trees." pointing at the tip of a big tree , lifting his little face towards the sky .

 This little man is hardly 2 and half years and not even measures up to my knee, I smiled and told him ,

         "But  i love flowers, because  God loves flowers, and  He created them in different colors and sizes, Look  this little flower here and that big flower there". 
        He was silent for a minute and said, " oh then i too like flowers." 

      "I don't come to you," he answered me.

      I was  being avoided since i come here, 15 days passed away, but this little man is not coming to me to love him. I was little sad too. This one has been changed, this one is not like the one with whom I used to play with in my last visit. 


He used to come to me every morning and sit in mylap and sing the song " chirakala senhithuda"
     I sighed. and about to leave the room  and then I heard suddenly, something from this one, which bombarded me all together. I could not believe my own ears, 
    
    " you took my room:" 

"What ? What did you say? I repeated, not able to believe what he was saying.  
        His dad was there in that room and he answered for me, 
      " he says that you took his room."    Later  while i was climbing the steps, he also said, "you go to India"

Oh that is the reason why this little fellow was avoiding me all together?
     wow , what an individualistic thought!! And this little head was hurt, because I occupied his room for which he was accustomed all through his 2 and half years of little life.
  What can I do?  I have to stay here, because the basement room was too cold, and I dare not go and settle there, fearing the cramps of my legs and shoulders, I cannot suffer any more as I had this experience last year, and the year before too.  Cant help, I murmured to myself. 

I was praying , James and Happy , Jessica and Jayden and myself standing in the hall, suddenly  I was jerked , less than a half a minute Jayden hugged my legs and retreated back. smiling at me. What happened was an incident which comes as a sign from God all ways, to me, to show His presence.

Later his attitude towards me started to change bit by bit. I know there is power in the prayer, and it does it work, even when we least expected the results,, words are not important, what we asked for is not important, the very presence of His while we pray is all that matter.

   Now more than one month is over, now he comes into terms and tried to share his room with me. And accepted the fact, that I need to live in that room at any cost. 
What to do, life is full of adjustments and adaptations, not only to me but for this little man too. after all the better we adjust or adapt to new surroundings and people, the better we improve our personality. Its an index of the growth of personality.  So both Jayden and me are in process of adapting ourselves to new situations. God bless him.

When I say , "hey little man", he answers me immediately  " no I am not, I am boy, and jayden." Yes that is jayden, a great little being. 
  He loves the Rail engine.  In fact must say that he is obsessed with it , when I arrived a month back, even now he is having a great soft corner for the Rail Engine by name Thomas.   He constructs  the rail way, and shows me all the little compartments attached to the engine. 
He would be in reverie when he talks about the engine Thomas and Percy, James and Edward, all rail engines. He loves their colors and explains them to me vehemently having colors in his eyes. 
One day I was telling Jessica about the story of Jesus and his disciples, telling the names of them one by one. When I come to the name Thomas , he was thrilled so much and telling me,' Ammamma, Thomas Thomas, " I wondered for a minute not able to come out of the serious story of Jesus, why he like disciple Thomas so much, then I realized after a minute, that he means Rail Engine Thomas. 
( Here I remembered my own son john, once his dad promised him that he would buy bunyans , when we were listening to the word of God the preacher mentioned, John Bunyan ( author of Pilgrim progress)  my son started to should enthusiastically My bunyan my bunyan,    --- great,  we think children are not listening al that we speak, They look like that they do not listen, but remember not even iota, or comma or full stop do not go away from their little ears and attention.) 
Jayden sings a song for the Rail engine, " I am working on railways, chuk chuk  chuk chuk.." continously while he literally prostrates at the engine, he talks to the engine, and tells story to himself while kneeling at the engine. 

( will be continued.....)

w.w.w Moods. Moods@com

Moods ! Moods! Moods @ Moods.com    Some times we laugh, Some times we frown, Sometimes we have so many things to share at once by incoherent non stop nonsense, but some times we find that not even one word comes out of our golden mouths.  We feel  that we may loose some golden treasures may be stolen by others if we talk. NO, that is not what is true, exactly, but the moods prevail our conduct.  Personality of man  is divided by the famous psychologist into different types, Sigmund Freud--
he says that :

The id, ego and super-ego are functions of the mind rather than parts of the brain  According to this model of the psyche,Ego develops when individuals start interacting with people around. Ego helps in the fulfillment of id, taking into consideration the reality of the situation.

 The id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends;  refers to irrational needs and demands, something which has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. Freud believed that Individuals seek immediate pleasure in order to satisfy their biological and physiological needs without taking into consideration the reality.Id gives immediate pleasure to individuals and is often irrational.

the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.^[1]The super-ego can stop you from doing certain things that your id may want you to do.^[2]

An adult personality generally has three determinants: Id, Ego and Super Ego The outcome of the combination of all the three determinants shapes an adult personality.

According to Freud, the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the superego.

Our conduct our behaviour, our style of life , our outlook depends upon how much importance we are giving to the SuperEgo.  The small still voice of God within every soul of the man. We are basically ID driven beings, The Old Adam is there in every one of us. He does not go away at any cost. Till we die he is there using the ID in us, to test us at every crucial juncture of life. 

Ego comes at hand, its the outward personality we maintain, by our adapted social talents, our education, our socialization, the habits we are fond of, all makes us a being acceptable/ unacceptable in the society. The society we live in dictates our discretion,  what we think good in one society is bad in other society. We adapt according to the culture and norms of that particular society. Then how can we judge others? How can they influence our moods? 

And yet another famous psychologist  Jung says, that

 the dimension of personality is--introversion and extroversion.

Introverts are likely to relate to the External world by listening, reflecting being reserved and having focused interests. 

Extroverts on the other hand are adaptable and in tune with the external world. They prefer interacting with the outer world by talking actively participating, being sociable, expressive and having a variety of interests. 

Again the question of confirming others to our own personality makes us fools of ourselves. We cannot make others to behave , to love, to talk, to do things like us.  After all God finds its a joy to create each one  of us in unique fashion. He likes to see each one of with different complexions, different features, different languages, yet He loves every one of us.  
The darkest , and the fairest, irrespective of colors and creeds, each one has a role to play in this vast universe, in his own peculiar way. And how can we dictate others to be just like us? Funny, we  and our moods , should they be depend on others dictations?
But still, God even He loves so much , when we go astray, He grieves over us, so  there is no wrong in having expectations of other beloved ones for our us. But should this influence our personality, just because they do not confirm our expectations? If it is God would have left us long ago. 

so if we have too many swings of moods, from the zenith to the Hades, We never did try to understand the human behaviour.  we are too quick to judge others because we never try to understand the exposure that they have in life. 

We are speaking about the martyrs, who died for Christ,  they had undergone fiery trails , and yet they rejoiced in their circumstances  seeking the opportunities to serve others with the love of Christ. We do not have such trails, we are not undergoing any trails, even for such little bumps in the life all the scum in our hearts is coming out as a fountain and dirtying us and others.  we blame others for spoiling our testimony, saying " only because of her/him I am like this"  How can we take Christian witness so easily?  Is it for this cause He died for us? 

Should out moods swing so drastically depending upon the people around. Should their moods influence our moods?  

A lonely sparrow

My thoughts running fast, i  like to put them on line often, but there have been many hurdles to overcome, specially those of physiological , get the accessibility of lap top is too is one of the many reasons now a days,  my climbing up and down the stairs makes my thoughts to flew away by the time i reach to my lap top. 

Does not matter here I am as usual to be alone with myself. This is the most wonderful thing to be alone, though I lately realized . My mind used to enjoy this loneliness so very much when i was not married, later i adapted to myself to hover over my family nest all ways caring for the needs of husband and children, and thereby i lost all the taste of loneliness for all most 22 years of my life.

 But once I realized i had to live alone when my empty nest was mocking at me, i was humiliated without any unknown reasons. I was scared to be alone.I sought for the company of people , i tried and tried and i was tired . I tried all means and ways to get hold of the lost strained strands of life threads once again in those most familiar ways of mine which were proved to be useless , nonsense and in vain. 

This fear of loneliness engrossed me so much , that i scared to be of myself in day time. Nights were too in a way stressing upon me so very much, I tried to be awake for long hours of the sleep time , doing something which i did never care. 

I sought for jolly get together s  hoping to kill the time some how, but at the end i feel more disgusted than be happier. I tried the books that never gave me interest, but found they were useless stuff which would never quench my soul.   I tried to travel to different places, but found those trips of loneliness made me to cry more than ever to express.Tried to spend time in reading , made me realized that I could not concentrate on those pages more than a minute. I wondered were these the same books I relinquished so much for all those years since I had been converted to Christianity. What happened to my taste  of the brain, why all in a sudden I found myself all together in a new frame of life. Which is just opposite to my adapted life for so many years of my youth.

These and many other queries of my life do not have answers  of any sort. I felt I was betrayed all together. If the life could be changed so drastically , the likes and dislikes , habits and social life could be so different from one phase of life to other phase of life, I questioned myself what is the true self of mine.

I saw some people like my mother, she was , she is and she will be the same . There is not even an iota of change in her life. The same good personality sustained her all through. The words she speaks are the same, I did not see any mood swings in her, she is a rock, rock star? lol. may be so. No notable changes at all in her personality.  I know there would be many more of her sort in this world, who would not opt for any change in life. They are self content ed, or docile ? I do not know. As long they do not bring any disaster in other lives they are the most respected human beings, I must say. 

But for me change is the unwritten way of my life. I crave for change, sought for change till I am left alone at the age of 48 years. I tried to not to bring much changes in my life for some more years , say 4 or 5 ? May be so. But later The life seems to be more rusted, and immobile. 
But though as it had been, no change occurred in my life. Only sighs and trails made me to take more revenge on myself, still not knowing what I really need to do.
Now when I am approaching my 61 birthday, I feel I am at REST.  Great, wisdom comes to the fools very lately. Here I am the most foolish one of all, who found out at last life is after all a lonely track, then why not love this track and enjoy in it. 

Oh my soul why are you so depressed, Trust in your Lord God is the cry of King David. 
Oh my soul why you are so frustrated, Lean on your Lord God was the suggestion of King David.  How much I do love this man of God.  His prayers are the most cherished ones for me, They teach me how to pray on different occasions of life. These are the prayers said by a human being like King David, in The Holy Scriptures of Divine. 

If only I could fly away to the top of the roof and sit like a sparrow and enjoy the beautiful loneliness , enjoying every minute of life. Oh why not I will try and try till  I adapt to this well known path of life . 

I lie awake ; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. psalms 102:7
why are you cast down, o my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me/ hope in god; ...Psalms 42:5

My Mother-

Many days have passed away,AS  today, is Mother's day This day made me to put my thoughts on blog once again.  I am thinking of my mother,  an abode of patience, love and child like heart.  Never complaining, never in negative mood, all forgiving mom.
she come to know of Christ after much struggle against to invite Him into her life. Though she professed that there is no other God except Jesus Christ, she developed a strange annoyance towards all the pastors and nominal Christians, saying that they are money blogger, and unrighteous people. She even used to sing a mock song on pastors , depicting how they teach morals on the pulpit of church but never practice it in their lives. She often used to say, that the Bible is hard to understand , especially the Old Testament. 
Yet strangely she was the one who advised to pray  , to come out of a peril I was involved during the final year exams of the Graduation degree. 
I obeyed her word and that was the first time God spoke to me through His word.
She was adamant to take away the Hindu mark from her forehead, for a long time, but after i resigned the job as an Air hostess in Air India because I did not like to oblige the rule of putting that mark on my forehead as an uniform of the Air hostess.  she started to realize that she should be obedient to God and take away that mark from her forehead, Only then God started to melt her heart, and started to talk to her about her soul. Till then she would never understand the Bible or any spiritual things.
My resignation from that highest post from Air India, made my relatives to understand the spiritual things of life. And they started to attend the church, among them my aunty and her children are there along with my mom and sisters .
Now my dear mom started to seek the Lord with all her heart, she was a very self righteous woman, all ways hating those who speak lies, or speak vulgar language, She used to be very neat and tidy in her personal habits, and outwardly used to her disgust nature if any body is not clean.
She sought the kingdom of God earnestly, and one day God spoke to her in a strange dream , wherein she was in the pool of fire, and angels came and rescued her, then she fall into a great flood, and again angels came and rescued her.

In fact it was so vivid , she was trembling by the time she woke up from the bed, later she regained her guts,  as that was the sunday, she went to the church and told about the dream to a great saint of God Br. Solomon , he explained to her that it is the word of God and that is fulfilled in her life and showed it in the Bible.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. Isiah 43:2

She was filled with joy, but she had this assurance of salvation only after my dad got his assurance. 

Thus she was the last member in our home to come to the Lord. 

But since she accepted Christ as her saviour and the Lord of her life, she never looked back or i never saw her show any single step of backsliding. 

She started to have regular hours of prayer and Bible reading , and all these years of 35 years of her walk with the Lord, she never skipped one day.

She is a praying mother, silently, steadily, in her own way all ways pray in the will of God. She may not have great vocobulary to utter, but her prayer is sincere and from the heart. There is circle of her prayer on each member of our family everyday. She prays for each member in the family early in the morning as soon as she got up from the bed, around 4 am for an hour or two. reads her Bible, and then takes her early hour coffee. 

She was faithful to the church she was attached, and never skipped it in her life . only now as she is bedridden she could not go to the church.  She used to take lunch box and stay in the church till evening, and share her testimony to the older and poor women in the church during those afternoons. 

She used to enjoy the Children retreats, youth retreats, and any other celebrations of the church immensely as a little child.  Now as her knees do not cooperate with her to walk, even now she never complains but speaks to me on phone very happily telling me she is good and happy and that i should be happy with my grand children, and adds that I wont be happy living alone, and says that i will be much happeir if I am with these little children as they are the images of God. 

Now as she is in her late 70s, almost nearing 80th year, she has some forgetfulness of short term memory, but she never forgets her grand children, and their names. she asks me every time about my grandchildren and about their parents by name. 

Such is the angel of my mother. I love her so much, and this is a little tribute to her life. 

Little Pilgrim's Progress-- written by Helen L. Taylor

          The story of Little Christian, Christiana, their other friends and foes that they met on their quest to reach their King in the Celestial City captivates the young children.    Helen L Taylor brought this allegory near to the original book of John Bunyan with little twists and turns to make it more closer to the heart of little children.

        This book Little Pilgrim Progress with its beautiful illustrations made the story  more vivid and fascinating to read in one sitting. Children see themselves in this book as they see their own reflection in the mirror and enhances their thirst for the spiritual growth.

     Highly recommended  to give it as a gift to your  children and  Grand children.