Posted in church God

Giver of Life

Its not always that a Sunday School / VBS song gets chosen as the key song in a worship set, but ever since I heard the children sing this at our Church Retreat, it stuck in my head and I decided to take up the task of building a worship session around this song. We decided to let the children ‘lead’ this song by singing and doing the actions with us. I often feel that we ignore children during times of ‘worship’ at Church. God laid it upon my heart to let the Church know that the children are just as capable of worshiping during the time of singing at Church. I also wanted to let the Church know that…

Continue Reading... Giver of Life
Posted in fun general music personal

Fretting and strung up about a cracked bridge

Is this the beginning of the end. My Pluto guitar is about 12 years old and has been the main guitar I have used in my life. You can read the short story of how I got the guitar here. When we were returning from Australia in 2014, it got damaged in transit – Malaysian Airlines refused to let me carry it on board and asked me to check it in. I had to sign a waiver and that was it. It still sounded great even after this damage – there were cracks on the body in front and probably one of the support beams inside. I’ve used it immensely till now. It continued to sound good, but recently the…

Continue Reading... Fretting and strung up about a cracked bridge
Posted in church God music

Tremble – Worship @ Church

To cut to the chase, I had built the worship set today around the song “Tremble”. I had the usual hurdles before I reached church – stringing together the medley was not easy, only Surina was available to help and the weather was rainy and gloomy. I thought that the worship session would be the calm through all this. I wasn’t prepared for the tremors that shook me before the beginning of the service. I first discovered that the key to the mixer was not available – but that was an easy fix and Neelavenan Annan found it for us. As JJ and I set up the mixer and microphones we hit the next major hurdle. With just twenty minutes…

Continue Reading... Tremble – Worship @ Church
Posted in fun general

Microsoft ‘End of Life’ Discussions in the ICU

(Warning: Hypothetical Conversation only included) So I had this end of life discussion with a Microsoft employee who’s father was extremely sick and was probably not going to make it. Me: Your dad is very sick and is on multiple life support medications and machines with continuous dialysis. He has multiple cannulae infusing medications and more tubes monitoring his vital signs. He appears to be unresponsive to everything. Him: Doc, have you tried disconnecting and pulling out all the tubes, cannula, wires and monitors, turning everything off for 10 seconds, putting them all together again and then powering everything back on. (Silence)Me: That would result in a hard reset of his life. Him: And what exactly is that Doc?Me: All data and malfunctions will…

Continue Reading... Microsoft ‘End of Life’ Discussions in the ICU
Posted in church God music

Here’s My Heart Lord – Worship on 21st July

I led worship this Sunday at Church. I just loved how all the songs fell in place. I had listened to the theme song “Here’s My Heart” by I Am They more than a year ago and loved it. I somehow knew it would make it to a worship set one day and this was the chosen Sunday! With the theme revolving around HEART, ‘Open the Eyes of My Heart’ was a natural opener. The fun part came when I took Anaya to the park with lots of swings and slides and hoops, etc and watched her run all around happy. The Sunday School song ‘Happy All the Time’ kept playing in my head and as I sat down to…

Continue Reading... Here’s My Heart Lord – Worship on 21st July
Posted in academics fun general work

Not Enough Publications!

In an academic institution, a large part of progressing through a career is having enough publications to get to the next rung. It’s a battle I was aware of when I joined, but have not been motivated enough to fight well. Maybe I’m not equipped, maybe I’m not a battler, maybe I’m just plain lazy. “Not enough publications” is a yearly ordeal I hear every June as I settle into a stagnant life in my C grade quarters and I find myself unable to remove the Asst. in my designation. This is also an easy excuse for not being allotted a car park at work. But it hasn’t impacted on the joy factor in life thankfully. Only my overall impact…

Continue Reading... Not Enough Publications!
Posted in fun general God home nature

Wilted….. Revived

I have a small balcony garden that has made it to my blog on a couple of occasions. Summers in Vellore are harsh and the plants don’t like it since the sn sun shines directly on this side of the building through most of the day. I usually water the plants in the morning before I go to work. However, there are days when I can’t and by evening a couple of them start to wilt and droop. What surprises me is how they revive soon after I water them in the evening! I tried a time-lapse video over an hour or so and you can see how they perk up: Now there are some downsides. By allowing it to…

Continue Reading... Wilted….. Revived
Posted in friends God music work

Nobody loves me like you do

Once a year the departments of OG, Neonatology and RMU get together to sing a special song at the hospital chapel for the Sunday evening service. Today was the chosen day and I must say it turned out to be quite a good time. We started the ball rolling quite late (Thursday afternoon). After hurriedly choosing Chris Tomlins “Nobody loves me like you”, we had the priceless task of coordinating practice. Try getting a group of doctors ranging from interns to Heads of Departments in the same room at the same time to practice the same song….it actually happened! As usual we discovered talent and enthusiasm and dedication. On Friday we threw in a cajon and recorder and some variations…

Continue Reading... Nobody loves me like you do
Posted in church God music

MIGHTY – Leading Worship in Church

As we were struggling to find a worship leader for today, I decided on Saturday to finally volunteer even though I was a little unwell with a sore throat and cough. After committing myself for the task, I told God ‘I promise you God that this illness will not get in the way of me leading worship’. God replied, ‘That’s not your job Benji. Its my job to promise you that your sore throat and cough will not get in the way of worship at Church this Sunday’. Our MIGHTY God kept that promise and we could dwell on the mightiness of God through this time of worship. There is no-one like our God. He is so big, so strong…

Continue Reading... MIGHTY – Leading Worship in Church
Posted in general personal travel

The H terminal layover

The layover trilogy series has 3 parts and must be read in this order:The K terminal layoverThe D terminal layoverThe H terminal layover Experience is quite a teacher and I came up with a robust, but delicate plan (Oh! The paradox of it all). The starting point was Vellore and the destination was Kodaikanal. Rather than a lonely layover at the famed K terminal, I chose the more bustling Hosur junction – let’s call this the H terminal. I booked a combo which would give me a 1 hour break between buses. Neat! I finished work early and called Bus 1 as there was a discrepancy in the boarding times – it was 1 hour earlier than I thought. No…

Continue Reading... The H terminal layover