RSS feedNovember Poya Program – a Point of View from Colombo
November 13th, 2006 by Avanka Fernando
The first programme at the new FOCUS office had to be lead by the leading university currently represented at FOCUS…although some university campuses are disillusioned and imagine that they are the best university in the world…they are of course sadly proven wrong when UOC takes centre stage!!! UCCF lead the Poya day programme this month and the theme was “Modern Day Idols” and this of course was an appropriate theme as it is painfully obvious that many others idolize us and desire to put us on a pedestal!!! This was only made even more painfully clear by the posters that had been printed…The three speakers elevated to the status of Greek Goddesses. An exhilarating time of worship lead by Nishu, Nilu & Sachi was followed by the three Greek Goddesses (heretofore referred to as G3) Ju, Vashni and Esther…who took us through Luke 9:57-62 and the story of the three wannabe disciples of Jesus. They highlighted the harsh reality of the gospel and the harshness of Jesus’ words to these wannabe disciples. Some of the main factors seen in these three wannabes was their commitment was inconsistent and they gave different excuses when Christ called them. There was also the fact that they gave priority to other things before following Jesus. Sometimes we tend to make customs, comfort and convention our gods. However, Jesus challenged all these three idols. He redefined the meaning of comfort by saying
“Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He challenged custom and tradition by revolutionizing social structures. He touched the untouchables of that day by physically transgressing the boundary between clean and unclean and touching lepers (Luke 5:13) He associated with women (Luke 10:38-42) and challenged the traditional role of women thus becoming one of the pioneers in the field of Feminism. He challenged the conventions of his disciples who loyally defended him in the face of Samaritan opposition and redefined the master/disciple relationship of that age. Some of the highlights of this session was the fact that when we obey Christ, there are no excuses. Something we constantly do is put off obeying Christ, especially when we have exams or in the midst of our assignments. However, there is no putting off Christ’s call. Obeying Christ is in the here and now, not when we are old and have children and have achieved all that we can achieve. G3 reiterated the fact that when we follow Christ, we follow Him on His terms not on our terms.
Next was a time of fellowship where the fellowships got a chance to mingle with the commoners. Coke, Fanta and Sprite were the beverages that were on offer by these supporters of MNCs.
Then we had Dr. Vinoth challenging us with God’s word and revealing the modern day idols in the contemporary world. He took us through the stages of the creation of idols and how idols lead to slavery and later leads to dehumanization. He said a hundred rupee note is created by humans and its price is determined by humans (or the Central Bank to be exact) and then he presented the fact that what humans created turns around and recreates human beings. And this recreation results in dehumanization. Soon the hundred rupee made by human beings, determines the life of human beings. The job you do, the house you live, the car you drive, the person you marry is all determined by the amount of man-made hundred rupees you have in your pocket or bank account.
He said that the God we worship is reflected in us.
E.g: if we worship the Internet god (and my heart sinks)we start to think that the real world is like the world of the internet. Rapid, instantaneous, in black and white etc. However, in reality the world of the internet is surreal and worlds apart from the real world. He also gave us the opportunity to think of our disciplines and discuss the idols emerging in these fields. This was quite an enlightening exercise as many of us realized that some of the foundations of our disciplines and some of the concepts were idolatrous.
Following this session, we proceeded to lunch but not before celebrating the birth of the NSE chair. This was quite a moment of celebration for this young man who has tormented the world for 22 years! So now let us all take this time to observe a moment of silence for all who have suffered…just kidding our best wishes go out to ALLAN who celebrated his birthday on the 9th of November!
Well, after this those who remained for lunch were kept entertained with Kelaniya humour. And with the conclusion of a joke which spanned a period of forty five minutes (some people do take a long time to get to their point don’t they?) the first programme in the new FOCUS Office came to a close leaving us with many memories and food for thought.
Entry Filed under: Articles
12 Comments Add your own
1. anushke | November 13th, 2006 at 3:23 am
Indeed the first poya program at the new FOCUS office was a success… Many students came to this and were indeed challenged by what was said… Let us hope that God willing these students will commit themselves to exposing what idols we have setup in our lives… to clear the houses/hearts of what is we have put before Him…
And let us also not forget that Avanka also celebrated her b’day on the day of 8th November. In her modesty (which we all know to be REAL
) she declined the offer of giving us a treat 
If she thinks she can get away with that it would be sad indeed… you aint getting away that easy.
2. ju | November 13th, 2006 at 3:52 am
kelaniya HUMOUR???? where, pray, was that??? torture was more like!!….i still haven’t thought of a fate fitting for mr. narrator…something that will keep all those who were unfortunate enough to be the audience ‘shape eke happy’…
3. Avanka Fernando | November 13th, 2006 at 5:14 am
Oh ju…you still remember the emotions the protagonist had…shape eke happy…generic happy…mara happy…aiyoooooooo…do not quote mr. narrator…giving him the publicity which he does not deserve…oops i quoted him as well…what a thing! The poor boy seems to have had quite an impact on all of us…well anyway he had his moment of glory… faintly reminiscent of the time on camp where he had a brief period in the spotlight (of course all his own ingenious conjuring up!)
4. Avanka Fernando | November 13th, 2006 at 5:17 am
Threats do not become you Allan…the Godfather persona is more the style of the Girls Water Brigade specially when we are carrying a coupla buckets with us! Do not attempt to imitate us, cos here’s a promise…you will surely fail!
5. anushke | November 14th, 2006 at 12:40 am
ok kids… enough about the threats and screams… Lets talk about what was discussed the other day…
one striking thing that I noticed was that the techno oriented group and the management oriented group were talking about similar situations of idolatry…
As I would once again re-iterate.. as from the discussion at camp.. technology cant be pushed onto our laps (technologists laps) and left to rot… oh yeah sure that discussion on camp was disjointed (mainly due to my un preparedness and a very eventfully soaking night the day before)…
And also when we started reading the passage from Luke 9:57-62 what hit me first on opening was that the people were talking about accepted conventions…
can I be insulting when I say, you know the accepted form of attending funerals etc.. is like “worshiping the dead”… that makes it sound harsh right.. but actually we call it honouring the dead…
Same can be said for the acceptable convention of honouring your parents…
hmm… thinking about the priorities in life…
comment anyone?
6. anushke | November 14th, 2006 at 11:00 am
I think I managed to fix the time in the website… otherwise people will think that we are jobless to be commenting at this time of the night!!! As I type thi it is 11.00 am
7. mahangu | November 14th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
1. Soother
2. Duplo
3. ???
I’m sure most of you (including the original poster) can fill that one in.
Seriously though, it’s kind of ironic that you devote a whole comment thread to me. I mean, we just heard about the effects of idolization. Then again, if the saying is true that you become more like your idols, that can’t be half bad for most of you.
Cheers minions!
8. anushke | November 15th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
soother, duplo, football, tricycle, crayola 216 crayons, cricket bat, leather ball, SHOTGUN, SWORD SET, MAHANGU…..
do not bring me to wrath for I do not wish it…
9. Avanka Fernando | November 16th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
think you missed a couple there allan…and u sure that it wasn’t 11p.m Allan? I think it was!
10. Avanka Fernando | November 16th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Well those involved in the Arts and Social Sciences field were mainly talking about how we’re taught to think and how at times this could become an idol! Our thought processes, the abstract theories and ideologies become our idols! What do the others think?
But on a different note I see that such a thing is happening to our poor brother Mahangu…his thought prcoesses have caused him to idolize himself! And to have severe delusions…somebody do something to this poor child…I don’t think Derrida’s deconstruction theory is working. Poor Jacques…oops sorry I meant poor Mahangu!
11. Avanka Fernando | November 17th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
hmmm…worshipping the dead…does sound rather horror movie-ish..but i think at times it is a rather futile exercise…having funerals and memorial services…and saying all these fancy tributes and eulogies(is that how u spell it) which you’d never tell a person when they are alive I think is highly absurd! I know I’m totally off the point but guess Jesus also challenged the rather futile conventions of the time as well… and guess we shld too!
12. Avanka | November 24th, 2006 at 7:54 am
The idea of becoming more like one’s idol is seriously something we really need to think of…and is something we need to really consider and evaluate in our lives. This is something I’ve grappled with and I’m still grappling with…when we have idols…our morals, our identity, our values, our character begins to be determined by our idol! Just like that 100 rupee note begins to be the determiner of our lives our idols begin to determine our lives! So jokes apart…Mahangu’s comment is one we really need to take seriously…are we becoming like our idols…or rather how much have we already become like our idols and how do we get rid of the idols and their oppression in our lives!
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed