“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” -Mother Theresa
Several weeks ago I was sharing my experiences abroad and on LA Term with a friend of mine after Church. I told her about Raul, my homeless friend that sat on our route to catch the train, and how incredibly selfless he was. I told her about my experience at an expensive-looking Western Church smack dab in the middle of the most extreme poverty I had ever seen, in Kolkata. I shared with her how difficult and overwhelming, but extremely rewarding, LA Term was for me and my roommate. And all of the sudden she asked me a question that has had me reeling every since.
“How are you okay?” she said.
I was dumbstruck. I had no idea what to say, so I started rambling. I said something about the Lord’s provision and still processing things, but in all honesty I made something up. Reflecting later on the question, I realized why it was so hard for me to answer. “How are you okay?” was a surprising question, because I am not. Still I am learning about pain and oppression, and it is touching me more intimately all the time. And the truth is, I’m not okay about any of it.
I have not had the luxury of going abroad and witnessing poverty only to come home to comfort and prosperity and forget what I witnessed. No, I have gone abroad and seen poverty, and I have come back to the U.S. and seen it again, in my city. I have gone abroad and seen heartache, and I have come back home and encountered broken hearts more desperate than I could have imagined. I have been forced to reckon with this painful truth: evil has gone everywhere, has touched everyone, and it has put on quite a convincing show of having won.
I have not been successful in compartmentalizing my pain; there are times when it has overtaken me. Still sometimes it is too much, and everything I see looks tainted. I hear many stories about rich white people who go abroad and see poverty for the first time, and they come home changed: ready to give their money and possessions to the poor in other countries, infinitely more grateful for what they have. I certainly saw poverty in my travels last summer, but instead of becoming polarized opposite of America in my mind, the two places became very similar to me. The poverty that I only glimpsed in Kolkata is not so different from the poverty I have had intimate contact with at home.
Mother Theresa said that “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody… is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” And there are forgotten people on every corner of every city, trapped in oppressive systems that take away their personhood. Poverty does not exist only in third world countries. Poverty, both in its physical and spiritual forms, is lurking everywhere, and those who have not seen it in their homes have lived their lives with the blinders society has so mercifully given them. It is infinitely more painful to see evil in your backyard than it is in a third world country.
 |
| Miga is the girl standing in front of me. :) |
When I feel overwhelmed with questions, I always think back to India. It was a time in which the Lord showed up so much, but not in ways that I often demand. He was truly embodied in not an earthquake, or a strong wind or fire, but in a still small voice-- in utter silence. He redefined what a miracle is, drawing my heart not to large problems and ambitious solutions, but to brief individual moments in which His love altered the cosmos in order to change a single soul. After studying the noise of marginalization and the messiness of oppressive systems, I am reminded that I must withdraw into the silence to hear God’s voice. In those times, God makes me remember a thirteen year old girl named Miga, whom I met in an orphanage in Darjeeling. She was working in the kitchen when God told me to barge in and see if anyone was back there. It was a little inappropriate, but I just had to go into that kitchen. And there she was. I introduced myself to her, breaking the ice that kept her from coming out and interacting with some of the team and the other girls. I’ll never forget her face when I told her she was beautiful: as if no one had ever said that to her in her life. That moment was a miracle. The condition of orphanhood was not eliminated in that moment. Poverty was not stamped out. A school was not built that allowed her to become successful. But God really wanted Miga to know how beautiful she was. And that was a miracle.
The college men we met in a village near Darjeeling, whom the Lord had healed of greed and apathy were living miracles. The freedom that gave an old woman permission to finally cry was a miracle. The hope I saw in Rozin’s eyes when Jesse held his hand and spoke life to him, who, after being prayed with for over an hour had not been healed of paralysis, was a miracle.
God is the one who breaks the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). This is the greatest miracle there is! The human heart, the most formidable fortress in the universe, is not beyond true and lasting change: but the Lord is the one who does it. While in the Himalayas, God showed me the way His spirit was moving among His people. It was not like a great fire or a strong wind, but more like the mist that floated in through the windows during breakfast each morning in Darjeeling. God’s spirit is surely moving there, but it is not knocking people over with its force. It is gently unraveling the cords around people’s hearts, slowly opening their eyes, reviving the land one single person at a time. God works like this because He is merciful. For if the full force of His love was unleashed upon the world in a great fury, we would all perish. If the great and powerful systems suddenly collapsed under the Lord’s great power, we would all lose our minds. God is loving and merciful, and therefore His miracles occur in the darkest place of all: within our hearts. It is the most beautiful thing in the world, but also the most frustrating for many who want change. But no matter how frustrating it gets, I cannot deny the most basic and inspiring Truth there is: God is here. He has not left us.
This reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickenson:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;
As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind
I am still struggling to embrace the paradox Mother Teresa talked about. But it is my ultimate hope that I someday understand the simple and profound nature of love that she so intimately knew. Right now, I am only hurting. I am frustrated and angry about the way that the world is, and I believe it is ok for me to feel that. I continue to despair and cry out for change, and I believe that someday all of the little miracles might align in such a way that the Big Miracle, Christ’s return, will finally come and bring true and lasting justice and mercy. Until then, here we are, stuck in this place. May we learn to love until it happens.
Amen.
