“I just can’t sell the idea of spending that much money to go to India, they don’t understand why you need to go to India”
I can understand this point of view, there are a lot of reasons for it, first and foremost, maybe I wasn’t specific enough, maybe it’s simply because I am not well-enough known there, either way this isn’t meant as a rant against anyone, this is me realizing exactly why I am going to go back to India; with or without the apparent money, whether it’s now, or I have to work for it for months…..

There is a little girl, around four years old now, living on the streets of Pune. I held her for hours one day. She sat in my lap and would turn around occasionally to stare up into my eyes with her deep, dark brown ones, they held secrets I will never know, and even at two years old, probably a profound depth of pain and suffering that I will never understand. Sometimes she would sleep, other times she would sit up and laugh and avidly watch what was going on with everyone else in the room. We ate lunch together, both of us dirtying our hands, while I ate steadily, she ate hungrily. I helped her dip sweet biscuits into a cup of chai without spilling it, and without losing the entire biscuit in the chai (it‘s never as fun to drink soggy biscuits). The entire time she latched onto my right hand with her tiny hand. And when the hours were up, I had to let go of that hand. I had to release her - back to the streets. Her older sister picked her up to carry her out the back door, and she looked up at me with those huge, deep eyes, and tears started their journey all the way down her face; they didn’t stop, she kept crying, and trying to get back down to come back in. I couldn’t stare at those eyes anymore, I had to leave the room. I had to leave so she could go back to the streets, I had to leave before I lost my own sanity.

It may not seem valid to go to another country to ‘just hang out’ with some street kids, or other people who live on the streets, or kids who used to but now are fortunate enough to live in a house with people who love them, take care of them, and make sure they have a chance other than the hopeless cycle of life on the streets.
It may seem much more valid to have an organization, some sort of visible project that lasts for a week and demands the sweat of your brow, like building a house or a church. (I am not saying these things aren’t important, I think they all have their place) But wandering around India, feeding random people out of a backpack, spreading Jesus where you can, giving listening ears, eyes to see and weep over, and a broken heart to offer on someone else’s behalf - a pencil and a camera to carry stories to another people who are also in poverty- poverty of love, how is that obsolete? A burning heart to try and get someone to just look into another pair of eyes affected by our way of life, and to get that someone to really look back- and to see, to understand what it is to feel real empathy for someone else, to feel real pain over someone else’s pain, to feel real repentance over our actions, the ones we weren’t aware could cause such pain, and to feel something other than indifference, something other than a cold heart of stone, these things are worth more to me than all the money in the world. How can you even compare the kingdom of God, how can you put God’s love on the same plane as money? They are two entirely different substances.

And it’s true, I don’t necessarily have to go all the way to India to love my neighbor…. Not in the sense that there are plenty of people right here before me to love (which should by no means be neglected either) But if the only way people can learn to love each other is by knowing a bit of them, by being entirely confronted by them and not turning away, then going somewhere, and in a sense bringing those people back with you, is of infinite value. Beyond that, how is it loving on my part, if I know what I do, if I’ve seen what I have, and do nothing, say nothing?


We can’t just keep ignoring our brothers and sisters, our family, while we sit around in all our comfort here. We don’t know what real poverty is, if we want the comfortable life that globalization and our nation’s setup provides for us, then we are also held responsible for those from whom we steal our comfort. We are responsible for those who provide us with an abundance while they have a lack.

We can’t turn our eyes away anymore.

I can’t turn my eyes away anymore.
I’m going back, and I’m bringing their stories, bits of themselves. Jesus gave his life so we could give ours. Let’s not toy around with that. Let’s not ignore blood that was given on our behalf, just for a little bit of fleeting comfort.
I don’t care if people think I’m crazy for it.
I don’t care if they think it’s dangerous or it really is.
My father is going to help me go. And that’s that.

sometimes peace comes in really unexpected ways, at really unexpected times.

I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!!!



...somehow.


:)

...... But we all die someday.

I'm lying on the hard floor, reading of India by the blazing woodstove. The narrative weaves in and out of modern day India, then moves onto the problems faced by a society if they want to keep growing(in a positive manner). Indians seem full of hope and passion that they can change their situation, collectively. I listen to the language of subtle deception; one that preaches hope, one that preaches success, one that promises a better life- one with more ease, one that proclaims people can indeed be lifted out of poverty. But they speak in the language of ethics, they speak in the verbiage of 'prosperity' for all. They speak in statistics and societies and governments. This seems to be a fairly common language for us all, evidently. ...but then the candle is snuffed out, the smoke goes in trails through the air, and I hear words in the silence:

"...but we all die someday"

The dialogue continues, I feel my heart start to contract, in despair I want someone to realize, I want someone to not be disillusioned. I want someone to realize what all this subtle language implies. I want someone to not ignore the fact that we are all of us, while living, hurtling toward death.
I am not negating the importance of some of these things.
What I am saying is that there is a lack.

We speak in technical terms and goals.

But we don't speak in tears and compassion and brokenness and real hope.

We don't speak in the language of love.


We only speak in the language of a fixed world. A better "us" and more comfort and ease.

....but we all die someday.

And really, all this, is it just to provide our own distraction, just to ease the boredom of days gone by and keep our eyes flitting to and fro, but never for one moment contemplating the thought that we are all taking slow and involuntary footsteps toward death? Or the consequences of what this means in relation to the life we live?


I will say it again:

someday I die.

If I don't learn to love like Jesus what else is there?
What else does not turn to dust?

sitting on a bathroom floor

I want to know where you are??
Why did you take the chains off only to abandon me, only to let me get swallowed by the system? Only to prove to me that dreams are only dreams? Only to leave us all to the yawning blackness of all this.

Where are you?

I'm sitting on the bathroom floor after minutes of staring at the ceiling in agony, angry tears set loose from my eyes, hurling questions at God as fast as they come. I'm sitting on the bathroom floor because it is the only place I can find to cry. The only place I have a moment's semblance of being alone unless I want to go sit outside in the snow, watching that mystery fall from the sky. I don't want comfort, I want answers. I am distinctly aware, in the midst of my crying, that no defense is made in reply. I am simply screaming out to the patient silence. It waits for me to finish. Then I am aware of things I don't want to hear. I get no answers of dreams and impossibilities; only the realization that once again I have a small glimpse into the lives of my friends from the previous summer. The ones I spent so many mornings breaking bread with, hearing of God from, learning to see again from. I have no idea how they do it. I have no idea the hope to which they cling when everything around them is broken, when all the can physically see is the dull empty void around them. I think once I was naive enough to think I envied them, in the slightest. This is hard. This isn't easy anymore, and so I'm not sure I like it.
I don't have faith like Abraham. I'm just a lost girl discovering how weak I am. I am just a lost girl discovering how broken the world is. I have no money, no job, no home, even my dream (which involves none of the above, well, not directly at least) seems like a vast impossibility- a person thrown to waves of a restless ocean.
I look at the mirror of myself and laugh.
Am I done throwing questions? ....because I got no answers devoted to the questions I asked. Maybe I will keep throwing them, but maybe when there's nothing else left to scream out, I will turn back to hope. absurd hope. everything looks absurd right now, including myself. My dream is absurd. Who tries to go to India in this sort of situation, and then write a book about it, trying to portray to a world of unloving people this love that even I can't grasp? ...... But maybe I am finally starting to come to what real hope is. It's absurd. Jesus? I'm sorry, but that's absurd, what he did was absurd. What he asks me to believe in the face of what I see? ....that's quite absurd.
But what's hope if I can see it and touch it with my hands, and fit it inside my rationale? ...then it only amounts to another thing I can lay under the illusion of being under my control. Hope doesn't exist that way. It is grows entwined with trust.
And what is being thankful if it doesn't begin and end only with being given the chance to know this person who very literally is love? Maybe being destitute teaches us what it really means to be thankful? (I wouldn't know, not there yet) Maybe what I really mean is that it makes the contrast sharper,such as when you appear to have nothing and yet are thankful for everything.

I'm still left wondering what is going on, why something is proving so difficult, so impossible, when it is the one thing I feel like I am supposed to do. Why is it so easy to give up and go back to a system? so hard to crawl out of the dirt and try to lend new eyes to others, grow new hearts for ourselves? Why is the worthwhile thing the hard one, the one that makes you grit your teeth and struggle along, while the one that lends ease does so deceptively?

Where are you?

I'm waiting for you to make yourself known. I'm waiting for you to make a way even through the wilderness, regardless of what it looks like.

So I sit, here in the darkness. With all my questions, with all my hope, with all my weakness, with all my crying out....
Don't abandon us.

some have felt this much deeper than I :

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother's womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet —
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord!
May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

I don't have any words left, so I will borrow some:

Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it;
shout, O depths of the earth;
break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
and will be glorified in Israel.

I might spend a lot more time on a bathroom floor staring at the ceiling, wondering.

But make me thankful.

And give me hope.