Mortality Captured in a Selfie
For six years Dr. Pratik Joshi had been dreaming of a new life for himself and his family. He had been living and working in London, preparing to bring his wife and children there to join him. After years of hard work, the time had finally come. He flew to western India to retrieve his family to begin living their dream.
Just two days prior to departure for the UK, his wife, Dr. Komi Vayas resigned her position, packed up their belongings, and prepared her children for the flight to their new home.
They then boarded Air India flight 171 and snapped this selfie of their happy, hopeful family as they anticipated departure for the future that awaited them.
(Image, X/@theskindoctor13)
Then, just 32 or so seconds after taking off, the plane began to fall from the sky, crashing into a residential neighbourhood in Ahmedabad. The crash killed all 242 passengers on board, including Joshi, Vayas, and their three young children.
We make our plans. We dream our dreams. Yet ... Life is short, fragile, unexpected. While we plan for or dream of a thousand tomorrows, we cannot know what tomorrow, or even the next 32 seconds will bring.
Make your plans. Dream your dreams. But do all in accordance with the will and heart of the Lord, remembering that "[we] are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."
"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9, ESV).
"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand" (Proverbs 19:21).
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'" (James 4:13-15, ESV).
May God comfort the hearts of the grieving in the wake of this tragedy. May they find HIM as they contemplate their own mortality. So may we all.
Of Whiskey Wars and Wholeheartedness
Hans Island is a small, uninhabited rock in the Arctic’s Nares Strait, situated directly between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark). For nearly 50 years, it was at the center of a quirky little territorial dispute known as the “Whisky War.”
Both Canada and Denmark laid territorial claim to this seemingly useless hunk of rock floating in those artice waters. Yet, it wasn't quite worth taking up arms over. Instead, each nation would periodically lay claim to the island by raising their flag there, and then good humoredly leaving a bottle of their nation's finest whiskey as a consolation prize for the other country having been "conquered."
The standoff ended peacefully in June 2022, when Canada and Denmark finally agreed to split the island roughly in half, creating a new land border between the two nations.
In the spiritual realm, God is endlessly in a tug of war with the world for your heart. He is not happy to settle for half. He is not willing to compromise for a portion.
In the war for territorial rights to your heart, Jesus wants it all!
"Jesus said unto him, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy mind'" (Matthew 22:37, KJV).
"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19, ESV).
"Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name" (Psalm 86:11, ESV).
Never Hurt Your Mommy
Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel), known as the over-the-top, theatrical front man for the world famous, hard rock band KISS, never indulged in drug or alcohol use. That's an amazing revelation, given the party hardy rock-n-roll culture.
But Gene had an interesting motivation for staying on the straight and narrow. His mother, Flora, lived through the Holocaust and survived the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
The Jerusalem Post reports, “I’m her only child,” ... “I knew I had no right to hurt my mother. Life had already done enough to her.”
They go on to site a fuller quote from a famous internet meme of Simmons describing his first major interview with Rolling Stone in the 1970s, saying:
“When I met the Rolling Stone writer, I was very careful to cultivate the mystique of the demon. I wore all my spider and silver jewelry and my leather pants. I puffed my hair as big as it could go. With my seven-inch platform boots with silver dollar signs on them and black nail polish, I thought I was ready to project the perfect rock-and-roll image.
"Then, at one point, the doorbell rang. I answered it, and there was my mother at the door with enough food to feed the world: fresh soups, veal chops, pancakes, jams, and cakes.
"She insisted that the writer and I – whom she referred to as 'hungry boys' – stop what we were doing and eat. She kept calling me by my Hebrew name, Chaim, and told the writer that I was a good boy. The big, bad demon was just a mama’s boy.”
The meme shows a towering, fully decked-out Simmons standing with his tiny, elderly mother.
Photo Credit/Attribution Unknown
Simmons' love, concern, compassion, and HONOR of his mama is truly admirable. And using that as motivation to be sure he never "does her wrong" is as good as any motivation one might come up with. Yet, should we really need anything so harrowing, so horrific to prompt us to always want to bring only honor to our parents? Shouldn't we all strive to do so just because it's the right thing to do?
“Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise—“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2-3, NIV).