Is God Dead or Alive? - Broke all the Glass Framed Images of the Impotent Gods
hose who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs – Jonah 2:8”
In the meanwhile, I tried to collect the information about the exact condition of my son through some of my known friends in USA and through the Consultant who had employed my son. Information I received from them only aggravated my worries, anxieties and the Consultant asked me to take a flight immediately to Portland to be with my son. He agreed to fax me a medical certificate from the hospital to enable me to obtain the visa on priority from the US Consulate General in Chennai. While I was trying to get the visa and book a flight to Portland, I received another phone call from the hospital stating that due to some block, the shunt (tube) which was placed in the ventricular space of my son’s brain to drain out
S. THAYAPPAN 15 the excess fluid, is not working and hence they need to do another surgery to replace the shunt. I was really torn to pieces. The agony and pain of my wife was unbearable. Why all the Gods whom I had worshipped for the last 58 years have not helped my son? Couldn’t these Gods have averted my son’s sickness? Is fate and karma so powerful that even Gods could do nothing about it? Or these Gods have no power to change the fate or karma? Are they merely stones and metals? Is it my foolishness to have believed until now on all these so called Gods and to have thought of them as omnipotent, all powerful and capable? A person can fall sick. It can be a fever or a typhoid or even malaria or Jaundice. But if one’s brain was affected leading to coma and paralysis, isn’t it the duty of these Gods whom I had been worshipping so far to save my son from such deadly and fatal diseases? Are all the pujas, offerings, archanai (Prayer chanting mantras), abhishekams, homams, fastings and chanting of manthras I have done to these Gods only a waste? Do they have no meaning at all? Simply I could not comprehend. Is there a God at all in this world? Do they really exist or not? Or was I just worshipping a folly and non- existing god so far? If there is, is God alive or dead? Has the God got a heart, feeling and love for His creations? Does He not have eyes and ears to see and listen to our cries and the sufferings of His people? If everything was to happen as per karma and fate, then why should I worship these powerless and impotent gods? In my anger and anguish, I broke all the pictures of these so called gods which were in my house and which we had been worshipping all these years.