This should probably be two posts, but that won't change the length...and I'll have to think of another title. So, I'm just going to make it one. :) Enjoy.
I'm gonna start with a lyrics that have just been so good for my soul today...
"What you share with the world is what it keeps of you."
This is beyond true. My actions are what will dictate if my life is purposeful or not. If I share hatred in a city that is full of it, I fill it with more darkness. If I share love in a city that is lacking it, I'm a light. Whatever I share, is what it keeps of me. Do I want to plant more darkness, or give a little light?
The past few days have been beautiful...
Yesterday at Sari Bari, one of the ladies asked me to braid her hair. Well, I didn't know the Bangla word for braid, but she demonstrated. I was nervous I was going to do it wrong, but then I got over that and just did it...she just kept sewing away. It was a sweet moment. After I finished she just reached back to feel it and then looked at me and said "khub bhalo", which means "very good." I smiled so big. There was something about her grabbing my wrist and asking that favor of me. Like she trusts me as she would any of the other ladies there. Like I'm a familar face and a part of the sweet sisterhood there. Like I'm not a stranger anymore...I have relationship with these women. Made my day.
I also spoke more Bangla yesterday at Sari Bari than I have any other day in my life! Heck yes, I did. I'm learning this Bangla business. It was so much fun. At tea time we all sat in a circle and were chatting and laughing. And I actually knew what we were all laughing about! Haha. I could understand enough of the Bangla to get in on the story. Side note: two nights ago I had a dream that I was talking to a little kid on the street, and I was speaking Bangla. You got that right, dreaming in Bangla. That's for real. And I really knew what I was saying. For some reason I told the child "ranna korbo"...I will cook. Probably because I just have a strong desire to be able to feed all the hungry children on these streets. Ha, who knows. But I'm also finally able to communicate with a few kids at Shishu Bahvan. Mitu is this older chick who is serious business. She is the little mama of the place for sure. We've been speaking Bangla a bit to each other. Especially when she started noticing my nose ring and pulling on it. I told her "Amar nak chobi. Tomar nak chobi kothay?"...My nose ring. Where is your nose ring? Haha. She just says "nei"...as in that does not exist and laughed. :) Wonderful relationships are forming out of learning this language. It's so flipping awesome!
And another lovely thing at Sari Bari yesterday...during lunch time and tea time, two of the people shared their food with me. The people here in India that I have been blessed to interact with are so giving. I'm going to go ahead and say that it's all based on the reality that they have less, so they have a desire to hold on to less. I've noticed that trend. The poorest have been the first to give. It's a beautiful thing. It's as if they sit outside of the insatiable monster known as consumerism that is so prevalent in the states. Hording what they have, buying more than they need, and denying those in need is not even close to their radars. I honestly think the secret is simplicity, which I'm definitely gonna talk on in this blog. Regardless of the reason, it is one of my most favorite things about the people I have been so fortunate to build relationships with. Serves as a good mirror as well.
And before I get to what I feel like I've been needing to tell you kids for some time now, but not having any ability to process (until my silent retreat on Sunday, which was baller...definitely got to stand on a rooftop, feel the warmth of the sun shining on my chest as I raised my arms and sang out loud to worship music on my iPod...talk about the feeling of freedom), I just need to say that I've hit a point, nine weeks in and eight left, where I'm already mourning the fact that I have to leave this place. Today, as our team leader gave us the calendar for November and December; she walked us through our last week here and what it will hold. As soon as she said that the Sunday (25th) before the Wednesday (28th) night that we fly out on we will say our goodbye to the family, I erupted into tears. It was an absolute flood. It happened to be on one of the few days I chose to wear mascara. How perfect. And it was one of those cries that comes on so quickly that it's definitely headed to ugly fast. Ya know? Runny nose, poor breathing pattern, heart just totally messes up, face turns red, eyes swell, and there's nothing beneath you but your own tears? Luckily I got a reign on myself before that could happen, but at the actual goodbye/after the goodbye there's no way I'll be able to control it. I know myself well enough to predict that one. This family has become etched into my story. Beyond having the incredible opportunity to serve in a Mother Teresa home, and work alongside some mind-blowingly amazing women at Sari Bari, I have gained a new family. Leaving them will no doubt be one of the hardest days of my life. I'm crying again. Done talking about this...for now. But Jeez they are some great people. Beyond blessed to witness their faith, hear their life stories, and be loved by them in a city that doesn't seem to have the ability of loving.
I think my biggest lesson as of late is watching my image of "home" move from this world to the next. For the first six weeks, I felt myself missing "home". Missing what life is back in America. But I've seen my heart begin to call this place "home". What I'm saying is that I've titled locations on this earth "home" my entire life...Center, College Station, now Kolkata. But it wasn't until I realized that my title of "home" can change so much because nowhere here is actually "home". I can always find a place to be comfortable in, to absorb the rhythm of, to love the people of, but that's because my "home" is actually a place I've yet to live in. My home is that of a promise. Of a hope. So until then, all this is "home"...his entire creation is "home", because it's all I've got until eterntiy.
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Now...on to whatever this is. Whatever it holds...not sure yet. Maybe at the end of it, it will make sense to both you and me.
On September 14th, I journaled this:
"Suffering isn't always ugly. It can be pretty. Yet in both cases there is a lack. Whether it is in the slums of Kolkata or in the high-rises of Dallas...things are missing. Suffering is occurring. Do not attempt to fit the face of suffering into a box."
At this point, I was really struggling with seeing the suffering of these people and judging my life back home. A life that I felt really had no claim to suffering because I get to shower in my own home...not on the street during the few hours of the day that the city decides to realease water (which isn't even clean water, I must add)...because I don't have to wonder if/when my next meal is coming, and because the street isn't considered my place of residence. For days I battled the life I knew I would be going back to...one I felt was so heartless, because it isn't marked with any obvious suffering. But the Lord was quick to remind me that the suffering is the result of multiple kinds of poverty. Material poverty. Spiritual poverty. Emotional poverty. All of these exist, and they all create suffering. Hence, the journal entry above to remind me not to judge my life back home and the way life is/can be lived in America, because suffering may not be evident, but it is present.
The Lord has continued to work in my heart concerning suffering...
My journal entry on Sunday:
"I don't really get this suffering stuff. I'm beyond thankful for it, because I can truly say it is then that I saw the Lord. Whenever I'm content and living my life the way I want to...using whatever it is to fill myself, to find false joy, to wrongly view as hope, I'm not in a state to see the Lord. Too much of "me" was in the way. But when I tasted suffering, my faithful Lord was there to hold me. Only then when it seemed I didn't have anything or anyone did I actually give way to his open arms. It's true. The Lord knows we are this way. He created us this way. I'm thankful he allows suffering, but it does suck. It also sucks that we are so stiff a people that we must be broken in order to finally search for freedom.
But here's what I'm amazed by...
Here, in India, suffering is very obvious. You cannot walk down one street and act as if you do not see poverty in this city. You cannot pretend that poverty here is heavily manifested in a physical form. There are people hungry to the point of starvation. There are entire families sleeing on the streets because there is no where else. There are men and women performing jobs of any sort (morals and pride don't really exist when you're child is asking for something to eat), because that is what earns money. There are people dehumanized in every manner here...from bathing on the street, being reduced to begging, wearing the exact same piece of cloth that can't really be considering clothing day in and day out, to those forced to calling a sidewalk "home". It all happens. And more. Suffering is visible here, and it's ugly.
In America, the same physical suffering does happen, but I see it less...and that doesn't mean it happens less, just makes me question the severity comparison between the two countries. And sometimes I think it may even be lived out in a bit more glorified manner than what I've seen in India. But at home, the suffering I've known and seen is such an internal thing. It's poverty excercised by the soul. (Again, not to say that India doesn't see this as well...what goes on outwardly here definitely drives a soul to bankruptcy.) There is a great emptiness to be found in America (one that I've only been awakened to since I've been here) as a whole. Each person has their own story, their own experience with suffering. The things that only I have encountered or have watched others encounter range from addiction to drugs, addiction to alcohol, addiction to pornography, addiction to child pornography, sexual abuse, eating disorders, broken families, children caving to sex, affairs in marriages, depression, to job loss...the list doesn't end. In the states, people appear as though all is well. We appear to be so privileged (we've heard so many comments...one being "Oh! You're from America? You've had an easy life, then." And by that man's standards and what he's seen, maybe so, but that doesn't make us any less broken) we are equally as empty, at the core, as the rest of the world. There is brokenness and suffering present...you just have to open up your eyes.
So where does this go? I don't know. But it does give all of humanity a common thread. Brokenness. Hurt. Emptiness. Need. Failure. Lacking. Bitterness. Ugliness. We all have these themes carved into our lives. Thus we are all in need of a great savior. Be mindful not to diminish any pain. It all boils down to the fact that there is something severely wrong with humanity...that there is something beyond this life, and the thirst for all things to be right is the echo of a voice (Jesus) that came to tell us that a right does in fact exist. How else would there be a hope among people? We aren't all laying down and allowing the wretchedness of life takeover, so there's something in us as a people calling us to keep going...keep holding on. Something else is coming. Darkness isn't the final winner. In the pursuit to name what we are all actually waiting on, many false gods rise. Such as the hundreds of idols I see around the city. But whatever the case, we are all looking to find hope and celebration in the promise of things not staying as ugly as they are now. Oddly, this search is a beauty. It proves that we are empty. And it proves we share that. The common thread of brokenness. Not necessarily something to rejoice over, but something to praise the Lord for. A void in us all. A void that drives us to seek. A void that will hopefully be filled by Christ.
When I go back to the states, I can't view it as a place undeserving of love or service. I may not see the same kind of brokenness that is here. The kind that, for blind people like me, cannot be ignored. The kind that calls you to act because there's no way to pretend it's not there. But I will encounter brokenness. My own and others'. It may be less evident and further buried into the soul than the body, but home is a people and a place in need of hope as well as the rest of the world that I feel called to serve. The suffering aren't only in the majority world...they are in all the world. I pray I see the places he is calling me to serve...I pray I can step far enough out of the way to do it. I can only love with his love. Mine is far beyond too conditional.
Brokenness may be a common thread...a void where our savior wants to stand, but it's also our chain to this world. Holding us down. Ruling our lives and decisions. We just need to keep heart and remember to look past the pain...and straight to the healer."
And to love all. I put up conditions that must be met in order to see something as being worthy of deemed a need. I'm wrong for that. And I pray that now my eyes are open to it, that my heart will be changed...by the only one capable of changing it. The same one that is the only one capable of removing sin from our lives. His power is great.
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I apologize if that was a bit mixed up and repetitive, but I didn't intend on sharing my journal entry. Usually I save that for things I don't really want people seeing. But it was the only way I could give a proper picture of what's really been running through my mind.
And now what I wanted to share about simplicity. Dun, dun, dun. I'll keep this short(er), no worries. Thanks to those still tuned in. Haha. I'm sharing a few thoughts, but I'm mainly sharing quotes out of Poverty by Raniero Cantalamessa. Go buy that book. Or borrow it...from me when I'm back if you need to. I'm down. It seriously has changed my perspective on how I've lived my life and how I would like to be living my life. There is so much freedom that can be found...even if you don't think you're being held captive. Shedding light is the beginning.
"Money is a tainted thing, and the only way in which I will not be tainted by it is to use it honestly and generously. I must see it as a means to do good for others, and not as the foundation of my own happiness and security. I am only a steward called by God to use the talents and wealth that he has loaned me to build his Kingdom here on earth. I shall be judged for my stewardship and not for my wealth. I cannot use money to pay for a better lawyer, nor to bribe the judge. I can only use it to lay up treasure for myself in heaven by every little act of love and unselfishness towards the least of Jesus' brothers and sisters whom he sends to me for help." We can't keep this dirty stuff forever anyways, why do we hold on to it so tightly?
"It is possible even now to begin living in the way that will be normal once the Kingdom is finally established, when earthly goods will have lost all value, and God will be all in all." This is just something that needs to be said. Sometimes we forget that we can actually prepare for the Kingdom while the world is still in such a dark state, but we can. And we should.
"It indicates a capacity to moderate one's desires and to using things wisely without becoming enslaved." This to me will be the motivation to live more simply than I have in the past. If I'm not careful, I can get so entangled in the hour of happiness that buying a new dress gives me that I no longer have a hold on what truly brings joy...such as passing out chocolates to the kids here. I can honestly say that I cannot remember any ounce of the fleeting happiness I've gotten from buying a new dress that I just "have to have", but I will never forget the precious dance that Minu, an adorable 3 year-old, does every Saturday when I bend down to give her a chocolate bar as she sits outside the Tollygunge metro. Refusing that dress is what will allow me to have funds to give chocolate bars to all the Minu's that I encounter when I'm back in America. I need to be mindful of this...as earthly goods can easily take one over. I'll be the first to admit it.
So what am I speaking about when I say living simply? That is one of the nine lifestyle celebrations of the organization that has brought me to Kolkata. I will say that I didn't understand it until I've been given the opportunity of living it. It was so freaking hard in the beginning. I missed my closet full of cute clothes. I missed my make-up bag. I missed my adorably decorated bedroom. And I'm not saying any of these things are bad...just the attachment to it or allowing it define you is. And both of those can very easily swallow us. We are prone to that. As Ben Stuart once spoke at Breakaway, "we are an idol factory." We find and create idols without even knowingly creating them or seeking them out. One way, which I know will most likely be the best way for me to keep a guard on my heart concerning this, is to knock it out before it has the chance to choke me.
Here's my attempt to summarize what I'm saying (and let you get on with your day):
I have a picture of the way I now want to live my quickly approaching life of a twenty-three year-old, salary-earning, college graduate, Christian, in Dallas, Texas. I also know that I have a divided heart. And that I'm not perfect...don't claim to be, won't ever be. And then, I'll be honest, there is the way that I will actually be living this life of mine as a twenty-three year-old, salary-earning, college graduate, Christian, in Dallas, Texas. I hope the latter is a close to the first as it can be. I have a desire to live a bit more simply than I had first imagined the next chapter of my life being. I won't be needing the size of apartment I first thought. I won't be expecting all that I had originally been expecting from that apartment. Carpet over hardwood floors are okay. Light cabinetry over dark cabinetry will do. Granite counter tops are not necessary. I don't even have to have a one-bedroom, a simple flat will do. None of the things above that I listed are bad. Unless like me, you find a sense of pride in them...or in the "accomplishment" of being able to afford them. Unless like me, you tie your identity to any of the above things or any of your worldly possessions for that matter. That's just where I saw a small fracture of my faults in. But in sacrificing those things, not only will I be free from their chains, but more of my income is freed up to build the Kingdom of heaven here on earth (as was spoke of so well in the first quote above). I don't need 30 dresses. I don't need 50 pairs of shoes. I don't need 20 bags. I don't need any of that. I want it. Wanted it. My heart has been changed here, I pray it can be guarded from changing back in the states. Like I said earlier...none of this is bad. I'm not saying this to be condemning to anyone with 30 dresses, 50 pairs of shoes, and 20 bags (sorry, boys...just change those words for whatever y'all like to buy)...I'm saying it because that is what I've seen have such a tight hold on to me in the past, and I don't want to go back to America unchanged by what I've seen, heard, and experienced in India. And this is where the Lord has chosen to shed light. I can't ignore it anymore. I'm doing myself, the Lord, and the world that I'm not helping a disservice if I do.
I've realized that in praying for my heart to beat to the rhythm of the Lord's...he actually did it. And that heart beat is no longer my own. It's his. And his heart beats for the world. Not just me.
"Look, your King comes to you, triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey." Zechariah 9:9
A donkey. That's the life we were given as a picture to follow.
Triumphant. Victorious. And that's the King we were called to serve.
Not a bad deal.
I was going to end this by maybe asking a few challenging questions, but I realize I don't have that authority. I will give you a challenge, though. I challenge you to be praying the Lord to shed light...wherever He knows that light should be shed. Freedom, freedom, freedom. It is calling your name. Seek it out, child of God.
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