“This resurrection life you received from God is not a
timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a
childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?”. God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms
who we really are. We know how he is, and we know who we are: Father and
children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable
inheritence! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through
the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good
times with him!”
Romans 8:15-17
This week I update you from that confusing space between
homesickness/comfortsickness/controlsickness and being fully present here. Locationally
speaking, I am talking about the space between my protected room at the
Ramakrishna Mission, and the intimately shared, love-filled spaces that dozens
of Kolkatans have opened to me. It
is also the space between totally freaking out in your luxurious
air-conditioned hotel room when your internet stops working, and realizing that
you really don’t need much at all if you have community, basic shelter, and
clean food and water. It’s the
space between doing your damnedest to make sure your world is sanitized and
controlled, and saying a prayer and just eating that food that might make you
sick because it was given out of love. It’s the space between wishing I was
home, and enjoying where I am fully right now. It’s the space between me at my
worst, and catching glimpses of what it might look like to better live the Kingdom.
This is all coming out a little vague and bumbling, so,
first, let me paint some pictures of my past week. Actually, I just paint my
favorite picture.
Monday I took the bus to Hena’s office at the Society for
the Visually Handicapped. She helped to found the SVH, a non-profit organization
that primarily produces educational materials (i.e.audio books, Braille books)
and programming for blind students. They work entirely off of private funding
and grants. Many of the women and men that work with Hena are volunteers who
travel by bus or train for hours daily to volunteer their services, and on
multiple occasions, when they have heard that my project is to study Hindu
religion, they have told me that the truest religion is to serve and love
humanity. It is possible that this statement is one indebted to the incredibly
influential Kolkatans Shri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and Mother Theresa but
whatever the original source, their lives are guided by this beautiful belief.
Hena founded the SVH over 30 years ago with two other family members, feeling
called to the work after she worked for a blind scholar. She believes that if
you work passionately for something that benefits others, God will provide. She
has this totally uncanny ability to simultaneously exude warmth and love and a
no-bullshitting authority. I thank God daily that my academic advisor connected
me with this incredible woman who has taught me so much about service, hard
work, faith and love, and without whom my research would have basically been
impossible. I tell you all of this not only to illustrate what a blessing Hena
has been, but also to illustrate the goodness of the people I get to visit with
everyday.
(First, a side note/digression/soap box lecture you can feel
free to ignore: Ramakrishna and Vivekananda both suggested that Hindu,
Christian, and Muslim religious belief were guided by both their love of God
and their emphasis on service to humanity and, in that way, persons of these
faiths should discontinue their divisive thinking. This thought, Mother
Theresa’s years of service here, and the beautifully inclusive nature of
individual Hindu belief may also explain the presence of images of Christ
hanging in many Hindu homes I have visited. My identity as a Christian has been
shared in many of the conversations I have had with folks, and it is treated
with great openness. Folks have tended to emphasize how both traditions share
an emphasis on loving of others and God. I am continually amazed by the
generosity of such an approach to my Christian identity. When speaking of the history of
Christianity in India, there is a good bit of darkness, especially here in
Kolkata, which was for many years the capital of the British empire. The
British argued that their colonial control of India was a civilizing mission
supported by God, and for many generations approached Hindu thought as
inherently backwards and in need of civilizing and ‘modernizing’ that only the
British could do. I won’t go too
deeply into this, suffice to say that Kolkatans could be familiar with the
figure of the Christian, non-Indian scholar approaching their lives and
traditions with disdain, critique and an air of superiority, and it feels like
an act of forgiveness each time my Christian identity is approached with
acceptance. Ok, I’ll step off my soap box and get back to my picture
painting….although I do highly recommend learning about the British colonial
legacy in India as it still shapes cultural, political and religious life today.)
So, back to Monday: Hena had arranged for us to walk to the
nearby home of dedicated volunteer to see his wife’s thakur (home shrine) and
interview her about her daily rituals. This volunteer had been essential in
helping the SVH to procure audio tapes years ago when the organization was
producing educational materials on tape for students (they use MP3 players now).
He was so dedicated that the SVH soon started looking for other work for him to
do that they could pay him for (as he was in need of an income). He and his
family live in a government housing facility just a few blocks from the
SVH. He and his wife welcomed us
into their home with total enthusiasm and, as with every other home, humbling
hospitality. Their home is very small, perhaps 300 square feet, with two small
rooms and a tiny kitchen and bathroom. It is extremely clean and well-cared
for, and both of them are very well-dressed and wearing very proud faces as we
enter their space. The entry room, which doubles as a bedroom for many
families, has as many Indian homes, a large, very hard bed that doubles as a
seating area. His wife brought us into her bedroom, which consisted of another
large bed, a small dresser and a beautifully cared-for shrine. We sat on the
floor in front of the shrine and talked. As we talked a neighbor came by, and
listened, and her daughter and husband sat on the bed listening politely while she
showed me her shrine and spoke candidly with me for around an hour. After our
discussion, she, of course, offered us tea and biscuits and we all gathered on
the bed in the entry room and chatted about their family and the hard work that
the husband had done for the SVH. Many Indian homes do not have glass windows,
but open windows with iron gates from which they hang drying laundry and
perhaps a curtain. The Indian breeze blew into the room and as we sat and
talked I was struck by the deep goodness of the people I was spending time
with. The husband offered to ask
his neighbors if they would let me see their shrine room and speak with them—such
a generous and kind offer to me, an invader. In this housing complex, everyone
seems to keep their doors open and people seemed to flow in and out of one
another’s homes. We flowed into their next-door neighbor’s home, an older
woman, widowed, and living with her daughter and son in law. She had given them
the larger room and normally slept in the room in the entry of the home, where
we were currently gathered to talk. As we chatted, the neighbors came by and listened; we flowed
to another home, taking the neighbors with us, and we all crammed into the
third home admiring the shrine and speaking with the woman about her
no-nonsense, loving approach to daily care of God. She had prepared her shrine
for our viewing, lighting a candle, incense and twinkling lights, and she
looked so proud to share it. After we talked, the second older neighbor invited
us all back to her house and she made tea (again). So we all crammed into her
entry room (which is also her bedroom), drinking the tea she made for all of us
and talking about traffic in Kolkata, and the nearby temples, the best way to
get from one temple to another, and the best thing for an upset stomach,-- just
sharing life. As I sat in that room filled with neighbors all drinking tea,
looking after one another’s kids, I was absolutely confident that this was a
piece of the Kingdom.
I live in an intentional community and I love it. We make
lots of intentional decisions to be a part of each others’ lives and to, when
time and work allow, be with one another, in service, communion, and prayer. Others
in the community (ahem, Tim and Carrie) are way better at this than me, making
time to take care of Noel at least once a week. But we have to be intentional
about our community. I have to work to make time for my community; I have to
work to be hospitable; I have to work to find time (and its rare) to spend with
Noel. But these folks are community; they seem to live and breathe it in a way
that is unfamiliar to me. I don’t think there was some intentional decision to
be made at some tenant meeting about how to do life as a community. Its more
likely that they just lived right next to someone, because that’s what the
housing situation allowed, and they made one another a part of each other’s
lives, sharing tea and time and food and space as needed, because that is how
you do it. But, they seem to thrive as they live in this way.
I do not mean to make the overly rehearsed suggestion that
Indian culture is just inherently more communal and American is more
individual—although I do think there is some truth to it. And I definitely do
not want to romanticize the difficulty, which I did not see, but which is
likely there, that accompanies living in the kind of economic situation that
means one living in a government sponsored housing development. I’m sure daily
life can be quite difficult—finding money for food, for a child’s education,
for medicine if one gets sick. But nothing about what I saw was pity educing. The families I met were strong,
exceptionally hardworking (and I mean like working from 6am to 11pm kind of
hard work), proud of what they had produced, and very happy to share what they
had earned with others. I mean, they are volunteering for the SVH! Moreover,
they have an authentic joy that was palpable as they shared space and time with
one another. It didn’t matter what
they were doing. As soon as someone came by, they dropped what they were doing,
made some tea and made time for one another.
I guess what I’m saying is that they’ve got their priorities
right, far better than mine. What I am saying is that I met some of the best
people I have ever had the opportunity to meet.
Ultimately, what I am sharing with you is that you cannot
fathom the goodness that is hidden in homes throughout the world. I would never
have had the opportunity to be in that space, to share in that goodness, if it
hadn’t been for Hena, and for this kind gentleman’s willingness to open his
home. But I got that opportunity, and it was eye-opening. I feel like I have
won some kind of ultimate “travel package” where I get to meet the best human
beings just doing life in their homes. I am only a visitor. I cannot pretend to
belong in these homes, although they make me feel more than welcome to do so. I
do not bless them the way they bless me, so the relationship is uneven, making
it feel like I am just some tourist that takes from the place. But it is such a privilege, such an
honor to witness such goodness, to step into a home that I would otherwise
never have stepped into and meet people that I would on any other day never
have met, and to just sit in their rooms and share conversation and, for just a
few seconds, life, with them, is truly one of the greatest gifts I have ever
received. And those visits will continue to bless me because they will remind
me of a better way to live, and they will remind me that the goodness of people
is bigger than I can fathom.
I am telling you that while, yes, we all encounter other
humans when they are at their worst, and while we can be that human at their
worst with others, hidden in homes you have never been in, amongst people you
will probably never meet, in every corner of the world is a goodness beyond
measure. When I question the goodness of humanity, or its future, I will remind
myself that it is there. It is everywhere. It was in those homes, and it is in others,
in unique and miraculous ways. There is goodness, yall, and it is beyond my
comprehension the depth and breadth of that goodness.
So you may be asking yourself, if you can be in the midst of
such goodness, where’s the conflict? Why want to be anywhere else? Good
question. The short answer is that from my totally clean and safe room, I can
feel like I am totally protected and in control. Outside of this room, lots of
things are out of my control and lots of things can happen, some of which I
might need protection against. Of course, some of the things “that could
happen” include the lovely, unforeseen conversations I have had in good
people’s homes. But it’s the threat of everything else that keeps me, some
mornings, feeling like I just want to stay in bed, or counting down the days
until I get home.
Now some of this feeling, and this counting down of days is
just me missing all of you, missing my family, my church and my community, and
the way that a blue sky looks in Bloomington (its somehow bluer than it is
here), the way the morning coffee Nate procures at the Farmer’s Market tastes,
or the way it feels to ride a bike down a b-town street, and, especially,
missing the hugs and cuddles and every day life with my dream of a husband. I
am going to feel that. Its good that a feel that. It’s a reminder of the gifts
that absolutely permeate my life. Who wouldn’t feel that?
And a lot of these feelings are feelings we, living in the
middle class first world, are taught to feel about “Other” places. When the
news reports on South Asia, it reports on rapes, on poverty, on bribes and
corruption, on terrorism, on diseases, on the abuse of women. It doesn’t do
pieces on the people I have met or on the way Bengali sweets taste, or the
delight of sharing tea with another person, or the beauty of a Hindu festival.
We have been trained to fear South Asia, to think it is in need of more saving
than us, and that it is also somehow beyond saving. That’s why when I tell
someone I am going to India, most often they say, “Stay safe”, not “Oh, what an
opportunity!”. But I also cannot
say I wouldn’t say the same thing. We have been taught to think the worst of
this place. And, yeah, the water can make me hella sick and, yes, the police
aren’t trustworthy, and, yes, I don’t like being out at night (something that
some Americans could probably say of their own cities). But, as I hope my
stories have illustrated, this place is so, so much more than that.
The problem is that I let these feelings totally pull me out
of this place and time. I let my homesickness, or the unknown, new, and
uncontrollable become, in my mind, something to be feared and avoided. I wrote that last time I was here,
after taking an unintended bath in flood waters, that I had realized that whether
I am in India or in my familiar Bloomington, I’m not really in control. I am
probably in control of more things in Bloomington infrastructurally,
linguistically, and culturally speaking, and, to be honest, there are some new
threats to health and safety here. But the big stuff—you, know, living or
dying—is out of my control no matter where I am. Life is not in my control.
That is a lesson that takes constant relearning. India just more poignantly has
provided the reminder because it is so unfamiliar. That is one of the gifts of
being here. Its also what sometimes sucks about being here. It feels better to
live in the ignorance of control.
So some mornings here as I prepare to go out I get these
uncomfortable twinges in my stomach and I feel overcome with anxiety for a few
moments and pray the same prayer for health and safety that has marked each of
my trips to South Asia. Then, I try to remember the verse in Romans: “This
resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.
It’s adventurously expectant,
greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?”. There’s a lot in that verse, and it has new meanings with
each day’s experience. It reminds me to trust in a loving, good God who turns
all things to something good; it reminds me to act courageously and strive to
serve selflessly (neither of which I do effectively). But more than anything on
this trip, it reminds me of Colleen Rose who, one night during one of our small
group meetings said something that has helped me step outside the door and (in
my good moments) embrace what is in front of me. We were talking about a friend
who has been considering adoption. We were discussing all the issues this
person would have to negotiate if they adopted: how to integrate an adopted
child into their existing family of three; how to be a working mom of two; how
to negotiate the application process; how to somehow make enough money to care
for two children and still have time to care for them yourself. Then Colleen
said, “Well, what the hell is life for if it isn’t for adopting someone who
needs a home?” She said it
casually because she meant it, and because it is filled with truth. What is
life for if it isn’t for doing some honestly crazy and hard shit out of love?
Now I’m not really doing anything hard. I am not serving
anyone or doing anything selfless at all. I am doing things that feel hard for
me because of my own neuroses, so that it is something, but I am not really
helping anyone, beyond listening to them. Instead, I am being helped. Still, it
can feel anxiety producing. And still I miss my many beloveds in the States. So
when I get caught up in counting days (which is, like, every 6 hours or so) or
worrying about whatever random thing I have decided to worry about, I just ask
myself, “What else is life for than going to India and meeting incredible
people, than seeing the face of God in the face of strangers as I drink tea in
their living room?”.
Underscoring all of this is a call for me to have a deep
faith in God’s unfathomable faithfulness and goodness; to have trust in what he
will do with me and for me and others here and throughout my life, and to, in
that trust, have a joyful openness and enjoyment of life here and now. I do not
expect to figure out how to do this while I am here. As Ann Voskamp suggests in
her book One Thousand Gifts, such a
present-ness, and openness to living fully and joyfully in your here and now,
out of trust in God’s goodness, is a discipline that takes constant work. But I
think I am getting good practice here. And as I practice, and fail, I am
getting the most incredible experience to meet God’s people and experience a
totally different world as loved and filled by God as my own little
Bloomington. So that is my current struggle—embrace this place here and now. Be
here with Him.
That’s a lot of rambling for now. I ask for your prayers for
my continued health and safety, as well as for your prayers of thanks and
blessing for Hena and all of the people I have met. Please let me know how I
may be in prayer for you. Thank you for your support, prayers and love. They
keep me stepping out of the door each day.
Blessings,
ashlee
(Note: the confidentiality clause of my research means that
I cannot share the names of the people I am interviewing, which is why I am not
addressing people by their names)
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