Vancouver travel blogs | Deja vu

Deja vu

Today I saw this city in contrast
To all the beauty I beheld
We drove to parts that
Did not make me proud
But ashamed as déjà vu kicked in

Sights and sounds of
Home far away
Where din and dirt are common play
Did I ever expect experience that today?
Here in Vancouver?

Disturbed and disoriented
I looked around
Am I back home? Where is this town ?
Why are the streets unkept , not swept?
And shop windows tacky?

Did I hear a car honk?
Am I going crazy?
Litter and shops spilling onto the size walk
Make my head go dizzy
These are things I'm used to back home
What's it doing here? I ask

This is where your people trade

 I'm told
Do business and live.
Their homes look weather beaten
Bear and barren
No foliage no flora to trim their dull fences
They seemed not to care!
For any of this at all .

Ah! it now fell into place
This is just déjà vu
Of things back home
Where this is common place

Navaz DCruz

Vancouver travel blogs | City Lights

CITY LIGHTS

Like strings of pearls the city lights
Bedeck the street  at night
The hustle and bustle of the day
To a quiet hush gives way
As people make their way
Back home


Downtown morphs into this pretty princess
All dressed for an evening ball
The Cinderella like charm
will last but a few hours
As sunrise heralds the curtain call


She looks beautiful as though
Adorning jewels of every kind
The bay like shimmering satin
Embellished with rubies, sapphires and the like


She is  truly a sight to behold
By the light of the moon
And I take it all in savoring it slowly
In quiet contemplation.

Navaz DCruz

Vancouver travel blogs | O Canada

O Canada

Going down maple avenues
With pretty homes
And prettier gardens still
There is beauty to constantly behold
On every street and hill

Streets running at right angles
Each allowing its neighbor a view
Of the beautiful creek and island
There is courtesy in all that they do

Downtown the cityscape changes
From  cottage roofs to glass façades
Of structures tall and elegant
That speak of wealth and opulence?

The business center ironically
Juxtaposed between wealth and poverty
The drug culture smack
In the middle of this
Makes one wonder
Could not beauty and wealth
Have eradicated this?

O Canada the land of the strong and free
What ails these people so?
That city fathers cannot fix
Young lives adrift
Lost,
Wandering the streets
with vacant eyes
But not vacant hearts.

Who knows their story?
Who can tell?
What made these souls like living corpses,

 living in hell?
O Canada
For these , my heart bleeds for you.

Navaz D Cruz

Vancouver Travel blogs | First impressions

Its been a week that we have been here in the beautiful city of vancouver. This place is breath takingly beautiful. The sun is perfect

Corners of color
In verdant canopies
Soaking in rays of
Northern light.

Clematis creeping on wooden fences
Lavender gracing the stone walk
While hedges trimmed to geometrical perfection
Complement the ceraliun  skies .

Pines mapels and firs line the landscape
Like layers of a fluted skirt
Lofty snow capped mountains
Stand as sentinels in the background
Protecting them from the icy blasts of wind.

Vancouver has become to many a sorjouner
A new homeland
A melting pot of people from every tongue and tribe
Where they can build a future
Of hope.
where dreams come true.

Navaz D Cruz

The Vantage Point

I recently watched a video clip called “The invisible woman” byNicole Johnson. 
It was brilliantly presented; capturing what I feel is the essence of Christian life, though she was addressing women in particular: a mom's daily routines, daily real life heroes with faces and names unknown. 

It made me think of several things that I have been mulling over the last few weeks. This clip served as a catalyst to my reflections. Here are some of my thoughts

 
 What's true for those women described in the video clip is true for a lot of us maybe though in different ways. Most of our lives are unseen,and is  unnoticed by people around us. Even those with a public life, live vast amounts of time in a place where no one is watching,no audience, no one to applaud. It's just you.

When in that private place, is there a real me pops out from the jack in the box? Do I live life like in a jack in the box? Or is what you see is what you get i.e. who I really am? 
So what's it I do in the unseen places of my life? Who I am when I am alone, my thoughts, action, how I live my day is the real me. What motivates me? What makes me get out of bed each day? How far ahead am I looking or not looking?

 Where do I get my equilibrium from? Is it dependent on some position or title accorded to me? Am I authentic in who I am because I am not afraid or ashamed to be me- because my identity and security come from a relationship of  being totally loved and accepted. Full stop! I need to say it just in case you missed that punctuation mark! 
These are questions I ask myself as I ponder on several things.

What is my vantage point : the past, the present, my experiences, my failures or successes, the future? Do these things colour or dictate my perspective?
What is my life's vision? What is my vantage point from where I am looking at the next 20 years? And if I can’t see it in the present can I live with it in view?

I believe my vantage point will determine whether I have tenacity and strength of character to stay in for the long haul. Can I give myself to something that will outlive me? Can I give myself to something where the finished product is one that I will never see in this life?Can I give myself to another's vision? Can I hold onto God given dreams and work at them steadily, quietly while allowing the process to mould and shape me?

I have often used the story of two builder s when motivating people to have a right perspective to what they are doing. The story is of two masons doing the same job however one described himself as a brick layer and the other as a Cathedral builder!

This has always motivated me, especially when the daily drudgery of thankless tasks tempts me to slacken off or give up. I have often paused in my tracks to ask myself this question- What I am doing? Where is all this going or leading up to? 
If I can't answer the question satisfactorily then either I have lost perspective or am seeing things from a wrong vantage point or even worse actually  got engaged in pursuits of little value.

What really struck me a fresh from that video clip was that a Cathedral was almost never finished in one man's lifetime! It must have taken more than a 100 years to complete. Therefore the project outlived the original designer, artisans, supplies, funders. These scores of nameless people have contributed to the glory of a grand structure they would never live to see but they worked with dedication and precision.

This brings me to the generation that  get to carry on another man's work or vision. It takes vision and humility for someone to carry on the dream design of another man and bring it to completion. Sure he may add his mark to the structure but in essence it works retain all the features of the original design - a piece magnificent!

In one sense we all are living out SOMEONE else's magnificent vision; to see that City come down from heaven, to see that bride being made ready.

One thing stands out as different from the builders of the Cathedrals of our time on earth. It’s this truth: we will not be unknown that day!!! We will be welcomed by NAME because the grand designer, architect and builder has been recording it in His big Book! 

Nothing we do will go unnoticed by our Jesus!! Nothing, no sacrifice, no toil, no pain will be in vain or uncelebrated by our King! I am  encouraged to carry on for there is our King who looks on “With admiration for what you (I am) are building when no one sees!” (quote from the video clip).

So  I labour with each brick,starting within the four wall of my home and then extending it to others starting with the first "Hello, are you new to Pune?".  I will lay brick upon brick as I serve up scores of meals and coffees, challenging, encouraging people in their walk of faith, journeying with them through all the rough patches of life, standing with them in joy, pain, confusion, doubt, love and laughter. 
In doing so, a grand cathedral to the glory of God is being built. I've had a part to play in it and one day I shall see and glory in the complete and finished work.  

So for now I will take joy in being an unseen Cathedral builder because my vantage point is Eternity!

Navaz D'Cruz

10,000 reasons and more...

I am overwhelmed at the fact that my blog has crossed 10,000 views. Thank you my friends for taking the trouble to read what I write. I hope that you have found it a joy to read as much as I did writing it. 
 Thank you. Please do share this blog page with your friends. 

With love,
Navaz

The Constant

So many thoughts swiveling my mind as I go about my daily chores, yet pondering, reflecting on life. But I as sift through the clutter I know there is a thought that constantly  drags me back to ponder on it and mull over it over and over again. I watch the days turn into weeks, the weeks turn into months and the months swiftly turn into years, even decades.

I also wonder how time has gone by so quickly with so much water under the bridge, so many changes, so many adjustments to various seasons of life, so many changes in a world that this growing increasingly small thanks to the internet and high speed travel.

 What is starkly different from the era gone by and this post modern era is, that it has come to be defined by a generation with a very short attention span. Very few have the tenacity to see things through over the long haul. “Bored” has become fashionable and not an anomaly anymore. Today we see people chasing after fleeting fads, the latest in music, fashion, relationships, job, gadget, car, home. There is an in satiated hunger and perusal of the “next” whatever that may be in the hope that that will fill the gnawing emptiness that needs to be filled somehow.

 And yet, in all the clutter of our commodities, ironically, often unknown to us, what we are actually in desperate search of the very opposite of “the next”! We all need that constant in our lives. It is that “constant” that grounds us, keeps us rooted, is our internal compass when life throws a curved ball at us. It’s what defines us, who we really are.

Sadly many are growing up in this existential world with no concept of this compass in life, therefore are tossed by every “ googly” life throws. Often we don’t know right from wrong therefore the choices made are often just looking at things with a short term perspective not understanding that everything we do has far reaching consequences not only for ourselves but for those around us, for society at large and even for the one we care about the most. The cause and effect of our actions have a ripple effect  through the sands of time  right into eternity.

That constant that we need and unknowingly are in search of cannot and does not come from a life that is always changing. It has to come from that which is not governed by the limits of time, culture,  tradition or the finite mind of man. This constant must transcend time – it is timeless.

 Reflecting on this  I know that I have found this constant in my life: unchanging, unwavering, rack steady to the very end. This constant is not a thing. This constant has a name : Jesus. I am reminded of the old hymn “all may change but Jesus never, glory to His name”. He is the uncreated ONE who alone creates and sustains everything.

Not only is He eternal but I am always amazed at HIS unfailing, unflinching, unflagging faithful love. This is constant and unchanging. There is no situation too dark or big or messy where His hand cannot reach into and pluck me out. He has been my north star, my constant in a very fast changing world that lives in a tornado of the temporary.

In life’s journey that is full of wonderful memories and painful ones; a journey checkered by uncertainties, shifting sands, fickle relationships, health challenges etc, the one constant that I could throw myself upon without any hesitation has been Jesus.

He is the one that faithfully leads us through thick and thin, through the highs and the lows in our lives. He is my guiding light, my moral compass, my salvation, my savior my faithful friend.

Reflecting on my 4 decade walk with him I felt the lyrics to a song stir within me and so I wrote it as a testimony to this constant in my life. It is a song of gratitude to my constant ever faithful God. My prayer is that you will know Him as your faithful GOD and Constant too.

You can listen to a recording of this song by CLICKINGHERE

Faithfully you lead me

You restore my soul

Faithfully you keep me

When life seems out of control

Faithfully you hold me

In the palm of your hand

Faithfully you lift me up

And you help me stand

Faithfully you comfort

In the darkest night

Faithfully you strengthen

To stand up and fight      

Faithfully you bind up

And heal a wounded heart

Faithfully you make a way

For a brand new start

Chorus

You’re my God through the valleys

You’re my God through the storms

You’re my God when I am broke  

When all my strength has gone

You are God

Faithful God.

Faithfully you will finish

What you have begun

Faithfully you help me

To face and overcome

Faithfully you’ll give back

What was broken and lost

Giving beauty for ashes

So faithfully, O God

Bridge

Keeper of my heart and soul

I know you will make me whole

I have put my trust in you

I know you will make things new

To make all things new

©Navaz D’ Cruz, Aug 2014