The best recipe at an younger stage of a child for gathering wisdom is to teach him how to worship the Lord our Creator. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Correcting others by speaking to him has been a Christian value so far, but it becomes slander and mud slinging in the latest culture of false prestige. Great people never betray their conscience because such souls carve out the destiny of theirs as well as those who depend on them.

The word ‘adulation’ means to flatter basely for benefiting something from others. Even God invites praise and glory from His creations, then what to speak of human beings who are bundled with the magnetism of flesh and blood. Every person is ingrained with the overweening ambition of excelling or overtaking others in honour, victory and achievements. The commandment of ‘Honour your mother and father’ given by God to the Israelites is a reminder for the glorification that is to be raised every minute as incense sent to the Creator. Man who is created in the image and likeness of God also expects that his children, dependants and friends adore him without criticizing and rebelling against. This is what we call ‘respect’ that is to be expressed at every vista of life, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, ethnicity, young or old. “ Pujya pujjayathi vathikramam shreyassukalle thaddangidum” (Unless giving honour to whom it is due, it will obstruct our growth and maturity in every field of life). Giving respect to others is a sign of self-respect in every respect. We have to honour the parents, respect woman for being the mother of mankind and love and help the young ones, for they are to be the ideal parents and citizens of tomorrow.

Life is a process of growing up gradually. During the different stages to maturity requires various nutrition and fertile soils for nurture and care. If one has to grow to maturity, he has to be conditioned in tune with every stage of development. I remember to have written somewhere about the Indian prescription of treating a child up to the age of 5 like a prince, then to the age of 16 like a servant, a friend thereafter. These are the stages of character development.

Cajoling, care and nurture is needed while during infancy, but praise and flattery in the next stage is a bribery for one’s destruction. One becomes an unripe fruit when character injection is not given when it is due in the second stage of one’s existence. “ Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” -Pro.22: 6; 29: 17. The best recipe at this stage is for gathering wisdom is to teach him how to worship the Lord our Creator. “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” Pro.1: 7. The friendly status is a psychological injection for confidence and attachment in the next chapter of one’s life. “ Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you” -Pro.4: 24. In all stages of one’s life, to give etiquette, decorum, honour and respect to others are a sign of human dignity shown to others who are the creations of our Father in Heaven. When one accepts the Fatherhood of God, automatically he entails the spirit for the brotherhood of man.

Flattery:
Attaining of assumed physical maturity for a man at the age of 16 means only the budding stage of mental development. Life is a book that has to be studied chapter-by-chapter and line-by-line at every stage or moments of one’s life. ‘Don’t say lie’ is one of the Mosaic commandments. One must have clear-cut understanding that flattery has so many cumbersome repercussions and negativities both for the flatterer and the flattered, as in the case of Jesus who was betrayed by Judas. “ Judas, will you betray the son of man with a kiss” -Lk.22: 48. Kissing one for death has been the tool used to be the destruction of the assumed enemies. This sort of slaughter by flattery is used in politicking in national and international treacherous politics, even in the holy church politics of today. Any institution is a marketing venue where treachery and lechery is the commodity that are transacted because correcting others is unethical in the present climate of individualism and personal privacy act.

Correcting others by speaking to him has been a Christian value so far, but it becomes slander and mud slinging in the latest culture of false prestige. The judiciary is the only tongue that can determine the truthfulness of an issue, only if it is reported by the police or similar bodies. We are living in a new culture of deceptive and artificial freedom; nobody has the right to correct another person. When this currency of correcting an individual by Christian ethics has vanished, gossips, sarcasm, intrigues and all such irrational and unethical methods that multiply tensions and sense of independence have become the lingua-franca of an intellectual culture that sabotages the real personality of an individual. The modern man thus has become a slave of his own suppressed passions and agonies that converted him to be synonym of multiplicities and duplicities of personalities.

As the modern man has become a product of stifled personalities that make him a walking grave, his behaviour and reactions become unpredictable and easily mutable. In one phrase, the modern ape-man is a psychological abortion. Blandishment is an art for some who want to fish in troubled waters. Many great men have become unripe fruits because of this art prescribed at the wrong time, meaning at one’s growing up stage. Many others have fallen from the pinnacle of their glory; king Solomon is a classical example. Life is a competitive racecourse; success comes only at the last moment of the race. The best recipe for the destruction of a man is praise and flattery.

Reproof:
Rebuking a person for one’s faults requires strong nerves. John the Baptist had the courage to reprove king Herod who cultivated amorous relationship with his brother’s wife. This cannot be an everyday life prescription because the Baptist was the forerunner of the Messiah whose aim in life was to be a sacrifice for the redemption of man. Prophet Nathan talked face to face to King David who committed serious crimes and repented; the proof is Psalm 51. Either the chastiser can save a person from debauchery or he can lose his own head. Persons who have made history are brave souls who wade through adverse circumstances by the convictions that they received by their sufferings or good discipleship. Flattery is the coward’s art of adulating others for immediate gains.

Great people never betray their conscience because such souls carve out the destiny of theirs as well as those who depend on them. This world is not a sanctuary either for the noble or for the wicked because they are likely to meet untimely and unnatural death. This world is a paradise for the mediocre because they know how to oscillate between the extremes. Hitler and Mussolini were butchers of mankind, whereas Buddha, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Mandela are the saviours or liberators of the storm -tossed from the gluttony of servitude. Jesus and his apostles were the ones who liberated billons from the sloth of multiple kinds of sins. These are the fruits of chastisements and adulations. Flattery is murder, whereas reproof is creation. I remembered to have been chastised by my friend for signing a petition against my college principal; group therapy of bringing down people to our foot is not a congenial weapon, talk to them directly that sometimes may cost our position and honour. The next day I cancelled my name from the petition.

To support a corrupt system or individual is suicidal, whereas to object the evil practice that needs steel nerves is beneficial to many in the long run. God sends such people for the deliverance of the oppressed from time to time. We should emulate their footprints, not the people who organize political or union group therapies for temporary financial gains. People are ashamed of malefactors adoring others in the religious venues, whereas they bite them at their backs and making intrigues against them. It is a pity that the local and international politics has denigrated to the level of wiping out entirely the integrity of man who was adorned with God’s honour and glory. The treachery and lechery of politics and the sex slavery imposed upon the vulnerable are all signals of the absence of dignity of man that only can build a healthy and moral society. When our eyes are on wealth and the glamour of high- life, the art of adulation is the best panacea.

Christian Religious Venues And Institutions:
I write this not to irritate anybody but to convey a principle, which I believe that everyone may agree with. Priesthood is a vocation and its field of activity is beyond the horizons. People who are called for this vocation should work to their maximum in tune with the talents that they received. “ Petty done and undone vast” is the actual reality of this field; otherwise we would have produced numberless saints in our land. As this is not a reality of our everyday life, our praise and glory of individuals only end up in flattery that become a naked sin at the end of the day. Wherever we congregate together, whether in parish or church level, we are bombarded with adulations, praise and sycophancy, particularly targeted at the clergy.

No priest of today is immune from criticism, accusations and complaints by a section of people. If I give a good opinion about a priest, another 5 persons are there with gnashing of teeth to refute my claim. It has become a parish culture to adore a priest by the section of our laity, while another section writes complaints and demand for the transfer of the vicar. This happens because holy politics in one form or another polarizes our parishes. As one person puts it, ‘ the ghost of a transferred priest remains there for haunting it on the incoming vicar/s” because the quality of politics is the one that makes or break a parish.

Even if the vicar is transferred, he won’t be left alone because he will be invited, consulted for unwanted gossips, like celebrations, baptism, matrimony as if the transferred priest were having no flock or such celebrations in his own present parish. Thus our parish life has become the stronghold of money gambling that brings the peril of our spirituality. As our clergy has become a product of such unholy alliances, everything that relates to religiosity has disappeared. If one wants to shower the flowers of adulations, do it after one’s death, otherwise it turns out to be the death of one’s soul- unripe fruits- before the death of his body frame. Instead of corrupting a person by adulation, make constructive criticisms so that one gets more room for correcting his approach and attitude. Before giving constructive opinions subjective criticism is a pre-requisite.

Internet religion and spirituality are also the nurseries of these detrimental politics. It is a channel by which our birthday wishes that are abominable in real spirituality are exchanged, even to the bishops, just as the cart is put in front of the horse. The clerical hierarchy is the one who is commissioned to bless us in our worship and outside. But a new infertile spirituality has budded in where the laity is wishing or blessing the clergy. What a contradiction that germinates only ‘ in end of days’. Leave them alone because it is otherwise a spiritual murder. Ordinary people who become shepherd in their early 20s without having any hard experience or noble sufferings or meditative life become a prey of predating flattery. Just a fortnight ago I read the message of a priest praising and adulating his diocesan bishop to an unduly extent. If our priests and lay people were of this extemporary status, our church and parish culture would have been the synonym of Paradise. I genuinely believe that such glorification of individuals is only either for some gains already received from those people or waiting to be received from them.

There are many parishes that are juggling with some intractable problems of ‘hosanna on Sunday’ and ‘crucify on Friday’ of few clerics. An experienced priest has put it this way. “The modern clergy is a curse to the church”. A couple of social elites see that the parish is their notorious stronghold of making their name and power and for their families. Thinking that such opportunities are favorable to these young priests, they dance to the tune of these miscreants. Thus the real estate politics and commercialized spirituality are the brainpower of parishes and churches. For getting some favour from the clergy, these miscreants double Achan’s salary and make some innovations with the help of youngsters who are dragged into it. When they taste the sweetness of power, they cling together to the tune of their ‘ masters’. Despite such vicars make some enemies, they thrive by diplomatic moves and underhand methods.

Some people use these vicars for personal benefits and power, and the vicars rape the parish for their personal benefits. It is a shame to attend such meetings where the clergy and the committee members are portrayed as role models who are exhibited as walking angels on earth. The more they raise them to the horizon; they pull them down to the gutter when their aims are achieved. It becomes imperative ultimately for the bishop to intervene. In some cases Achens get transfer, some priests obey the bishop, but some others go to other denominations for attending the Sunday mass in different churches, together with some of their flock, without honouring the transfer given by the metropolitan. Which will be such clerics’ tomorrow’s church, parish, hierarchy and flock? This is how the clergy and the flock fleeing away from one church to the other. Who is responsible? Our social elites who wants to play football in our parishes drive them away to other folds. Such handful of so-called ‘ believers’ perverts and hijacks everything to their personal glory. When religion becomes the nerve center of a handful of social lunatics, the fallout is upon the majority believers and the parish. Remember that how many monks or saints have fallen from their grace at the flick of a moment by fictitious praise that ends in various maladies. No wonder how Judas dug his own grave. “ This man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and his bowels gushed out”- Acts.1: 18.

The moral of the lesson is that don’t flatter people, particularly the church hierarchies because our piety solely depend on the religiousness of our clergy who has the authority in praying for the forgiveness of our sins. Leave the clergy alone for doing their assigned job entrusted upon by the Spirit of God.