Hyderabad Crosswinds

Just back from US.  2nd night sleeping.  Slept from 1030 to 630.    How great is that.  Take that jet lag.  But skipped working out since I am afraid that I am getting a cold.   Instead I sat on our balcony looking over the beautifully landscaped courtyard.   Sunny.  Mild.  Watching  the bird kingdom wake up.  All kinds of variety of birds.  Medium sized green ones. Tiny birds. The size of hummingbirds. Flitting in pairs across the courtyard from tree to tree just above me.  Dark colored.  Bluish tint.  Then in the trees of our neighbors, 2 large birds with very long tails and extraordinary beaks.  Camouflaged by their brown color.  They are similar in size to a large black crow but their beaks and tails have to be 12-18 inches in length.   Then later, there is another large bird feeding on some kind of berry or seedlings in another tree in our neighbor’s yard.  Also similar in size to a large crow but with a brown trim body speckled with white spots.  This is what I am missing when I go to yoga or head downstairs to the workout facility to run on the treadmill.

Now a couple hours later, there is a loud cacophony of honking horns rising up from the streets below.  A constant din.  Then I hear pigeons that like to roost where we have a closet of water pipes on our back balcony.  There were four of them inside the metal grills before I chased them away.  The Muslims consider them holy birds of a sort.  When Muhammad was fleeing some warlords with whom he had been mixing it up, he ducked into a cave full of pigeons.  His enemies passed on and could not find him.  So the Muslims love to feed the pigeons and spread seeds out on the floor of their open mosques.  Kathleen thinks that we should leave them alone.  I guess that they will not hurt anything.  Our Muslim Man Friday likely will not want to mess with them.

A letter written to the Times of India newspaper seeks relief from a monkey menace:

I am a student residing in PS Nagar colony.  This is to bring to the notice of the authorities that monkeys are creating havoc in our colony.  Children going to school run the risk of having their lunchboxes snatched away.  The monkeys also try to grab vegetable bags and trouble banana sellers.  I appeal to the authorities to rein in these animals before more harm is done.

Zainab Ifrah

Hyderabad

The contrasts between the US and India come more quickly to mind than the similarities.  The spices used in Indian food often make it hotter than eating a raw pepper.  American food is bland by comparison.  I have cultivated an openness to the ways of India.  After all isn’t it marvelous how  cultures that developed in isolation from one another can look at the experiences of life and construct different paradigms, filters, stories and customs for humans to understand or manage our way through life?  Who am I to be dismissive or judgmental of how another culture sees and lives life?  A people can have a different approach rather than a lesser one.    However, the longer that I am here,  I am concluding that it is possible to judge one way is better than another.    I will let you make your judgments.  I thought it might be fun to list some of the contrasts that we have experienced in this and future posts.  Anyone who has been to India will bobble their head to the left and then back to the right several times in recognition.

Western society is very organized.  The subcontinent is very chaotic.  I recall one of Patrick’s Ugandan friends visiting us in Columbus and talking about how “organized” we are.  I was not sure what he meant at the time.  Now I do.  For example, the driving is here is completely lawless by our standards.  The lanes painted on roads are completely irrelevant.  A road that is painted to have two lanes going each way, will have three cars or trucks abreast with motorcycles flitting in between them.  At a stoplight, there will be 10-20-30 motorcycles side by side waiting for the light to change.  Stop signs do not exist and stoplights are rare.  You get through intersections by driving your vehicle as you honk into the middle of the intersection if there is any daylight between  other cars.  My driver almost hit 3 motorcycles that darted into his path yesterday.    However, there is some courtesy as cars will slow down as you push into the road.  It is not quite a game of chicken.

The same principle applies to any queues.  Why wait in line when you can walk to the front of it, make excuses and get the attention of any clerk?  With Patrick and Martin, we were flying from Goa to Delhi and were patiently waiting in line to get through security. We had already stood in a queue to have our baggage scanned and then went to another queue to stand in line to get our boarding pass and check our scanned baggage. Now we were in our third queue. After about 10 minutes of winding our way toward the security check and just as we approached the soldier  who checks your id and boarding pass, a few gentlemen cut in front of the guy in front of me.  I said “Excuse Me, the back of the line is over there.”   They responded that they were afraid that they were going to be late for their flight.  I said I had the same concern.    They could care less.

In general, folks are accustomed to simply walking to the front of any line and when there is more than one individual at a time pushing to the front, it becomes standard operating procedure.  Gandhi described his experience of traveling by train in his autobiography  The Story of My Experiments with Truth.  In his quest for Truth which he identified as God, he sought to be “humbler than dust.  The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him…  Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth….Christianity and Islam also amply bear it out.”  That had to be said so that you can comprehend his behavior when purchasing a ticket.  He would only ride third class because of his desire to be humble:

“We came face to face with the hardships that a third class passenger has to go through even in securing his ticket.  ‘Third class tickets are not booked so early’ we were told.  I went to the Station Master, though that too was a difficult business.  Someone kindly directed me to where he was, and I represented to him our difficulty.  He also made the same reply.  As soon as the booking window opened, I went to purchase the tickets.  But it was no easy thing to get them.  Might was right, and passengers, who were forward and indifferent to others, coming one after another, continued to push me out.  I was therefore about the last of the first crowd to get a ticket.

The train arrived, and getting into it was another trial.  There was a free exchange of abuse and pushes between passengers already in the train and those trying to get in.  We ran up and down the platform, but were everywhere met with the same reply:  ‘No room here’.  I went to the guard.  He said, ‘ you must try to get in where you can or take the next train.’  ‘But I have urgent business.’”

We had a similar experience in Dubai.  We decided to ride the spanking new Metro to visit the fort that was the original Dubai.  However when the elevated light rail train stopped, there was not much room available in the last carriage.  We pushed our way on.  At the next stop, we were informed by one of the passengers that this carriage was for women only.  I apologized and the four of us stepped out.  We walked towards the front of the train and  I proceeded to push my way onto another carriage.  Unfortunately, the doors closed before Kathleen and the boys could enter.  The train departed without them.  Patrick had been our navigator.  Fortunately he had shared with me which stop was our destination so I was hopeful that we would meet there.  In the meantime, I realized that I was again in a female carriage!  At the next stop, I managed to find my way to one where I belonged. Thank God at the appropriate, but busy stop which was a junction,  we managed to find each other as Patrick spotted me when their later train arrived.

Is it possible to get enough?  Think not.

Some quotes for today:

We must not create difficulties in our own minds.  To be holy doesn’t mean to do extraordinary things, to understand big things, but it is a simple acceptance, because I have given myself to God, because I belong to God—my total surrender.  He could put me here.  he could put me there.  He can use me. he cannot use me.  It doesn’t matter because I belong so totally to Him that he can do just what He wants to do with me.

Wherever God has put you , that is your vocation.  It is not what we do but how much love we put into it.

Today is the day that Thomas Aquinas died in 1274.  Since I went to a Dominican High School, our religion classes were lessons in his teaching.  Since Grandpa was Aristotelian and often said that Thomas baptized Aristotle, he often talked about virtue and the importance of habits for a good character.  While Carmel spoke of John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, it was also imbued with Thomistic thought.  Here are some quotes for today from him:

Grant me, O lord my God,  a mind to know you,  a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you , and a hope of finally embracing you.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

The things that we love tell us what we are.

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.

To love God is something greater than to know Him.

Call it a belated Christmas message.   We did not get around to sending out Christmas cards this year.  Yes I said Christmas.  How politically incorrect.

Over here in India, people do not care about that.  They wish me Happy (Whatever the Festival Day Is) with eyes filled with great joy.  And believe me it seems like there is a festival every week here.  Recently they had a festival similar to our Thanksgiving that was based on the rice harvest.  One of the expats from Spain with whom I golf told me it was one of the few that he understood.  He also said that in his research ( his wife works and he plays golf daily, Face books  and apparently researches cultural items) that he found out that there are 60 Indian holidays.  Companies are required to provide 8 holidays for the festivals.  That does not stop our employees from taking time off for the others.

Today is Republic Day.   India has been a republic for 60 years.    A different Indian  golf mate  ( who lived in the US for years and  runs the  back office of Diebold here) shared with me that India is a modern concept borne out of the independence movement.  He said that India is similar to Europe.   Historically it is a region of hundreds of kingdoms.  The British were the first ones to consolidate the subcontinent which also included Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka.   ( I generally golf once a week despite creating an impression it is otherwise).

My favorite Jesuit this morning celebrated India’s diversity and what a great gift India is from God.  He highlighted how India is the only country in the subcontinent that has not devolved into a military dictatorship like the other countries mentioned above and the Philippines.  Unlike China, where political malcontents are jailed and human rights are nonexistent, a recent anti-corruption political reformer was swept into office as the governor of the state that includes Delhi.  Fr. Raj  focused on the variety of languages, customs and traditional dances.  He said  that India is unique by  harnessing such diversity.   ( He is always  mindful of my presence in the pews and mentioned how the US has also successfully managed diversity making a home for the Irish, Italians, Germans and more recently the Hispanics.)

He tied Republic Day backed to the readings of the day.  In particular,  Isaiah spoke of rod of the oppressor being thrown off and of those sitting in darkness seeing a great light in the land of Galilee.  He also referenced an ancient Vedic text which he said that they all would know.  He quoted a text about the spiritual journey from darkness to light.  He then stated that the constitution embodies a movement from darkness to light and how the fathers of India dreamed of establishing a classless, cooperative, free and happy society.  He then quoted Gandhi saying that it would not be a free country until a woman could walk safely through the streets at night alone.    (Rather sobering given weekly if not daily reports of women being gang raped here.)  The message was one of optimism, hope and a movement from darkness to light for all of us as followers of Jesus.

In his opening prayer and in his homily he also invoked JFK’s  “Ask not what your country do for you , but ask what you can do for your country.”    It is amazing how the Kennedy’s brief moment made such an impression.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Indian pride in their country.  It is pretty amazing.   A country of  1.2 billion people that definitely has it challenges but has successfully cultivated the fragile flower of democracy for 60 years.  Just feeding all these people successfully is an accomplishment.  Walking down our street you can see beautiful fruit displays for sale.

But I digress…I do have specific tidings of great joy.    This news also ties into today’s readings where Jesus told James and John to leave their boats and fishing nets.  “Follow Me.”

After Christmas, Patrick and Martin returned with us to visit Dubai and India as you will see elsewhere on my blog.  The evening before their departure we had another birthday dinner to celebrate Patrick turning 36 the next day.  At that dinner, Patrick said that he will be returning to the US after 5 years in China in August.  Not only that.  He has decided to enter Mundelein seminary outside Chicago to study to become a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago.  Kathleen and I choked up as he announced the news.

As my mom said,  “Deep down don’t you know that it is right?”  Indeed.   Mark Ricketts said “God has touched his heart.”

As the hart in the desert pants for water, may we share Patrick’s thirst for God and see rivers of water break out in the desert.  Keep him in your prayers as he responds to God’s call to leave all and Follow Jesus.

Past couple of days after mom and I do yoga,  I come back and do the Jesuit Examen:

Review the  prior day and what made me sad, glad, mad. How do I find God and understand myself in relationship to God by feeling those emotions?

Spend a few minutes heightening awareness of how I am in the moment and being grateful.

I conclude with a couple of readings.  One from the Courage to Change and some Mother Theresa quotes from Everything starts with Prayer.  I think the Bikram yoga helps me be clear headed and alert for this exercise and helps the readings resonate more.  Mother Theresa’s quotes are so rich that you can read them every day and get more out of the same ones.  Today I was touched by the following:

1)In most modern rooms you see an electrical light that can be turned on by a switch.  But, if there is no connection with the main power house, then there can be no light.  Faith and prayer is the connection with God, and when that is there, there is service.

Since I have also been working through the 12 steps, this quote connected for me with respect to the 4^th step where a searching  and fearless moral inventory is made of one’s self.  We need to flip the switch of prayer that God’s light may illuminate the darkness in our interior of those places we are afraid to go.    What are we afraid to bring to the light of God’s mercy?

2)  You may be exhausted with work, you may even kill yourself, but unless your work is interwoven with love, it is useless.  To work without love is slavery.

How often I am too busy or rushed to pay attention to people and what they are saying.  I will  not hear God if I am not listening.  Need to slow done.  Do less.  Not be so busy.  Love and reverence those with whom I work.

3)  People throughout the world may look different or have a different religion, education or position, but they are all the same.  They are people to be loved.  They are all hungry for love.

4) Everything starts from prayer.  Without asking God for love, we cannot possess love and still less are we able to give it to others.  Just as people today are speaking so much about the poor but they do not know the poor, we too cannot talk so much about prayer and yet not know how to pray.

Not sure I ever asked God for love.  I did today.  I ask God to make me aware of how God surrounds us in love and comes to us in love through so many people, events of our day.  Cannot give love if we do not have love.  Love the sentence about people talking about the poor without knowing the poor.  Aren’t we all experts on the subject?!  I certainly do not know the poor. Yet her point is tied to prayer.  We must learn to pray.

5) We have to possess before we can give.  He who has the mission of giving to others must grow first in the knowledge  of God.  She must be full of that knowledge.

6)Love to be true has to begin with God in prayer. If we pray we will be able to love and if we love, we will be able to serve.

7)Whatever religion we are, we must pray together.  Children need to learn to pray and they need to have their parents pray with them.

I regret not praying with you all more.

Kathleen and I and our two boys recently toured a few cities in India.  In addition to Hyderabad, we toured Goa, Delhi and Calcutta.  The highlight of the trip was unexpectedly in Calcutta.  I was not sure that we would be able to visit the foundation of Mother Theresa’s work.  I was afraid that “tourists” would get in the way of the work of the sisters.  As it turned out,  the Missionaries of Charity have opened up their home to embrace the curious and the faithful.   We walked a half block down a narrow alley to find the entrance to her home.  After passing through a large vestibule, you are in a sheltered courtyard  that is surrounded by  balconies.  The courtyard is surrounded by modest 2 or 3 story buildings that have housed 200 sisters.  Sisters undergo formation here before they go out to carry out the mission of the order.   This courtyard is where the sisters would gather while Mother Theresa would speak from the balcony to them.

To the right is a room that has Blessed Theresa’s tomb.  It is an elevated structure.  To its right as you enter are two or three rows of benches upon which 4-6 sisters sit calmly and serenely in contemplation.  To the tombs left is a large kneeler.  As I sat on one of the benches, I watched as sisters would enter, kneel down and lay their heads affectionately  on Theresa’s tomb for a few minutes.  It is a beautiful room suffused with a gentle light.  On her tomb, at each corner are vases with beautiful flowers.  In between the flowers is Mary.  She has one hand extended down in blessing that happens to be pointing to Theresa in the tomb. I think that she is pointing to Theresa for our benefit.  “Look at her and her life.  She heard and understood me when I said ‘Do whatever He tells you to do.’ “

Theresa never wanted any attention.  She asked that all her letters to her various spiritual counselors and bishops be burned since she feared that people “…will think more of me—less of Jesus.”  Of course, Theresa like Mary is always pointing or holding out Jesus to us.   Just like all statues of Mary, the one on Theresa’s tomb has Mary holding Jesus.  Jesus is a little child of two or three years of age.  Excitement is all over his face.  He looks like a child excited and happy to see his favorite aunt or uncle, friend or adult playmate as his arms are outstretched toward us.  He is on the edge of falling out of Mary’s arms with the trust and expectation that we will catch him.   I was reminded of this statue when I later read from one of her letters:   “Every Sunday I visit the poor in Calcutta’s slums…Last time about twenty little ones were eagerly expecting their “Ma.”  When they saw me, they ran to meet me, even skipping on one foot.”  She was visiting a “para” where twelve families live in a group of houses.  Every family has one room with a ceiling so low that you cannot stand upright. “It was very painful for me, but at the same time I was very happy when I saw that they are happy because I visit them.  Finally, the mother said to me: ‘Oh, Ma, come again!   Your smile brought sun into this house!’”

Sitting in this little chapel with her sisters was so easy.  It felt like home.

Yet it was deeply emotional.  While serenity, calm and peace dominated, I felt almost a grief-like emotion as well.  God touches deeply here.

I am not sure if Theresa would appreciate this comment since it will be about her, but it felt like this sweet, smiling, loving lady  was there for us.

Of course as Catholics, we believe in the communion of saints and that we are surrounded by them as we worship our God in spirit and truth.

Later again, I read:  “ If I ever become a Saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’  I will continually be absent from heaven—to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”   Much like her personal patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, who said that she would spend her time in heaven doing good on earth.

The four of us had our darkness lightened by Blessed Theresa that day as our spirits and restless hearts found some rest and our home in God.

( There are 4 posts about Kolkata.  One of them is redundant and reflects ineptness with posting)

In the same room as the tomb of Blessed Mother Theresa, there is an altar at which the Eucharist is celebrated each day at 6 am.    The words “ I thirst” are prominently displayed.

Out in the courtyard, two sisters asked Patrick and Martin to help them carry some books for them to a car.  They smiled later as Kathleen told me.

In the courtyard, one could hear sisters praying the Rosary .

There is another room off the courtyard that is dedicated to her life.  It shows pictures and letters that she wrote.  The letters are in English which she learned as a nun.  There was also a bulletin board that had many of her quotes and next to those were 20-30 quotes of Pope Francis.

There is also a  staircase of ten or fewer steps that leads up from the courtyard to the room in which Blessed Theresa slept and worked.  It is a cell.  It has room for her narrow bed.  On the wall to the right of her bed is a crown of thorns.  The sisters who surrounded her at her death said that she looked at the crown as she was born into life after life.  She deeply identified with the passion of Christ.

She shared a sense of the Lord’s pain, suffering and abandonment on the cross.  Indeed, doesn’t  the cross capture the finitude of our human existence and limitations of the human condition?    Don’t we all share in Jesus’ fear, panic or  Agony in the Garden when we face death and have to accept life and death on terms that we cannot control?    I know that it scares the hell out of me.

Therese of Lisieux talks of the path of living an ordinary, humble, hidden life for God.   This path was the path that Mother desired.  She wanted to keep hidden her trial of identifying with and knowing Jesus’ sense of abandonment and suffering on the cross. A dark night of the soul.   She came to embrace it like St Paul:  “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.”    As she wrote to her sisters:  “ My dear children—without our suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the redemption—Jesus wanted to help us by sharing our life, our loneliness, our agony and death…and has carried it in the darkest night, Only by being one with us…”  The paschal mystery is hard to grasp and understand  and evidently much more challenging to live.

Outside of her room, there was a picture of her on the day that she died.  She was flanked on either side by a young couple who had requested to have their picture taken with her.  Later that day, she complained of difficulty breathing.  A doctor and priest were called.    Then the power failed.  We experience power outages all the time.  As Patrick and Martin were packing to go home the power failed 3 times. Fortunately the backup for our complex kicked in and they had light by which to pack.  However I counseled them to avoid the elevator lest they miss their plane.   For Theresa, the backup lines also failed which had never occurred before.  The breathing machine could not be started  and she was born into eternal life.   Yet she continues to minister to us.  On her tomb in the ubiquitous yellow and orange marigolds of her adopted country India was spelled   “Love until it hurts”. As one of  my friends, who may wish to remain hidden, prays each morning,  “ May we love as she loved.”

In the same room as the tomb of Blessed Mother Theresa, there is an altar at which the Eucharist is celebrated each day at 6 am.    The words “ I thirst” are prominently displayed.

Out in the courtyard, two sisters asked Patrick and Martin to help them carry some books for them to a car.  They smiled later as Kathleen told me.

In the courtyard, one could hear sisters praying the Rosary .

There is another room off the courtyard that is dedicated to her life.  It shows pictures and letters that she wrote.  The letters are in English which she learned as a nun.  There was also a bulletin board that had many of her quotes and next to those were 20-30 quotes of Pope Francis.

There is also a  staircase of ten or fewer steps that leads up from the courtyard to the room in which Blessed Theresa slept and worked.  It is a cell.  It has room for her narrow bed.  On the wall to the right of her bed is a crown of thorns.  The sisters who surrounded her at her death said that she looked at the crown as she was born into life after life.  She deeply identified with the passion of Christ.

She shared a sense of the Lord’s pain, suffering and abandonment on the cross.  Indeed, doesn’t  the cross capture the finitude of our human existence and limitations of the human condition?    Don’t we all share in Jesus’ fear, panic or  Agony in the Garden when we face death and have to accept life and death on terms that we cannot control?    I know that it scares the hell out of me.

Therese of Lisieux talks of the path of living an ordinary, humble, hidden life for God.   This path was the path that Mother desired.  She wanted to keep hidden her trial of identifying with and knowing Jesus’ sense of abandonment and suffering on the cross. A dark night of the soul.   She came to embrace it like St Paul:  “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.”    As she wrote to her sisters:  “ My dear children—without our suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the redemption—Jesus wanted to help us by sharing our life, our loneliness, our agony and death…and has carried it in the darkest night, Only by being one with us…”  The paschal mystery is hard to grasp and understand  and evidently much more challenging to live.

Outside of her room, there was a picture of her on the day that she died.  She was flanked on either side by a young couple who had requested to have their picture taken with her.  Later that day, she complained of difficulty breathing.  A doctor and priest were called.    Then the power failed.  We experience power outages all the time.  As Patrick and Martin were packing to go home the power failed 3 times. Fortunately the backup for our complex kicked in and they had light by which to pack.  However I counseled them to avoid the elevator lest they miss their plane.   For Theresa, the backup lines also failed which had never occurred before.  The breathing machine could not be started  and she was born into eternal life.   Yet she continues to minister to us.  On her tomb in the ubiquitous yellow and orange marigolds of her adopted country, India.  They spelled   “Love until it hurts.”  As one of  my friends, who may wish to remain hidden, prays each morning,  “ May we love as she loved.”