Hope

Traveling, I met a man who was having a rough day. I was looking for shoes with my friends. This guy had some for sale.  So we followed him up into his shop and he began to show us some. They were nice and made in the traditional Tibetan way with leather and fur. As we began to talk to him, he began to tell us that he was sad. Maybe we asked to many questions, or maybe he needed to share, perhaps both. To make a long story short, he wasn’t just sad. He was angry, in fact well beyond angry.

I have often wondered what makes a man want to become a terrorist. It seems like a question that should be asked a lot more these days. And in talking to this guy I think I began to understand at least a part of it. For a decade and a half he had tirelessly worked his shop to barely make a living and now he was telling me he wanted to kill all those F'n people. Looking into his eyes, I could see hate burning, consuming his soul. And I don't blame him. I hope he will remain peaceful, but internally I fear he was losing that fight.

Muslims in north India face a lot resistance. They are still viewed as the enemy in many ways and a lot of hate is directed at them for that. In some peoples mind's being an Indian and being a Muslim are contradictory terms. After all, India is an encompassing term for Hindus and too often in India intense nationalism and religious fundamentalism are blurred together. But my friend wasn't enraged by that.

He was upset because he had watch opportunity come to so many other people's doors, but never to him. Always, because of what he is, he had been ignored and trampled under foot.  He had watched his life be ripped out beneath him by so many people. But that wasn't why he was angry either. It was watching the same thing happen to his little brother and the rest of his family. He had struggled his entire life to make things work, even if not for him.

All men want a better tomorrow for their families. They all want the chance to live and thrive. They all want hope. And this man, after fighting his entire life for a better existence, felt like he had failed. His ways of peace had let him down. And now I was sitting in his shop listening to him tell me he wanted to kill people. I sat listening to him sob and heave as he struggled with the amount of pain he felt. And as I listened to him, I could not preach a word of pacifism. It's what I believe but not what I felt. How can you tell a person who has withstood so much that there are better ways to deal with things? Had he not tried tirelessly?

A part of me felt like a part of the system that had helped screw him over. Maybe it was the way he talked, sometimes pointing to me as he said "you people." You people did this and that. I would like to think that I am innocent. I after all meant this man no harm and had just met him. But for every advantage in life I have had, I fear another had been snatched from him. Believe it or not we live on the same world under the same system. The same system that had given me everything has denied him a better tomorrow. Is this my responsibility? I didn't steal his hope for a better tomorrow but then again I didn’t give him one either

Left my family at the train station

No, not my real family. Those I left at an airport. These I left at a train station.

Last night was the last night of the ALL INDIA tour and I spent the majority of it on platform one waiting for an incredibly late train. This is where I met Grandma.

Grandma apparently has a mangled arm and can't see well. How do I know this? She pointed to it over and over and over again. Mostly though, Grandma wanted two rupees. She was hungry. So I gave her some rupees. I hope she ate but I don't think she did because later she came back to visit me and still had the two rupee coin in her hand. I talked to her. Told her she needed to eat and that I didn't know she was blind. She sat with me for awhile. I helped her sit down as she was a little stiff. And later when she needed to get up.

Grandpa was different and quite an interesting fellow. I think he was a little crazy in the head. Either that or he was just angry with me. He threw a dirty napkin at me. Then he found a dirty spoon. He threw that too. I think Grandpa really was crazy though. He took his water bottle and baptized some random man from behind. Needless to say it didn't make the man happy. Crazy Granddad. Then there was Uncle who was of a much more pleasant disposition. Perhaps it was the amount of alcohol he had had. But he did like to smile and loved to shake hands and pet people's heads. A fun guy to say the least.

But now they are gone now, left sitting at the train station. They are probably sitting their tonight too. Grandma's arm is still messed up. Grandpa is probably starting trouble; Uncle is probably still drinking. In fact there are thousands of people just like them at railway and bus stations across all of India. And come to think of it, the US too.

So why in the world am I writing about them?

Because I am sick of letting myself see people as inhuman. And I am sick of doing that to people. And I am sick of doing that to myself. Because when a hungry women comes up to you in a train station, by God she might as well be your grandma. Or at least a human being. Because when you forget a person's humanity you have robbed yourself of your own. And that's not even to mention all that stuff Jesus talked about. Cause when you start looking around for mothers and brothers in a world so broken, I feel like they can easily be found. Maybe even on platform one. And maybe it was wrong of me to sit and talk to this lady as my grandma, and to address her as such. But I have grown weary of ignoring the needs of others, even if it is just a beggar. And really I wasn't looking for Grandma and I think I have enough family in this world. But she doesn't. So many unaddressed needs go ignored. So many people overlooked as dogs. No more. And while looking a poor person in the eye shames me, looking away shames me even more. No more.

This one’s for you, Grandma.

Faces

A kid walks up to me on a train. I know what he wants. The same damn thing that they all want, money. He touches my leg. I push his arm away. I ignore him. He goes away.

Another kid comes. He touches my leg, this time to wake me from my sleep. I smack my mouth to tell him I am angry, something I learned from watching others here. He clicks back smiling. I smile, and close my eyes again. He walks off as I open my eyes just in time to see he is missing a leg.

So many people come and go. They all want money. They have faces, but it is not as if I remember them. I am sure they have names to, but I have never asked. I used to look at them and wonder their story. Now I have learned its better not to even look at them at all. A glance to tell them I know they are there yet not enough to acknowledge their human existence. Eventually they go away.

They want money. I have enough. Why, then do I not help them? I often wonder this myself. I come up with excuses. I tell myself that money won’t help them in the long run. I tell myself that they need opportunity and not alms. I tell myself that they belong to a handler and that they will never get that money. I tell myself that another kid will lose his leg so he can beg more easily too. I tell myself that giving money only perpetuates the poverty making more people dependent on handouts. I tell myself a lot of half-truths because I don’t want to see. I just want them to go away.

Here, standing in front of me is a man. He is asking for money. He is blind, which makes it easier for me to ignore him. I work at a Blind School. I teach English. I create opportunity. I work for the long term benefit of the poor.

I missed the point.

It is easy to put people with needs into boxes, especially when you don’t bother to look into their faces. This man is in need. He is not a student of mine. He is in need. What do I care? I don’t recognize his humanity. I won’t. It is easier not to care that way. Robbing myself of my own humanity by refusing his, I have robbed myself of my Christianity by not seeing his Christness.

Just us

What am I to do in this world?

In 4 months I return home and I am afraid. I am afraid that people will not know me, or even worse not be able to understand who I have become. Deep down inside I am still me. In fact, aside from the long and increasingly curling hair, I even still look like me, but inside things are different. I find my heart hurts, and I know that pain will only grow upon my return. Because when I return, I will not forget what I have seen here. I will not want to forget what I have seen here.

Not all people are as well privileged as us, and I think there is a certain responsibility that comes with that. Our society is based on liberty, equality, and fraternity. My fear, and what I have come to know here, is that for most of us, those principles stop at caste, or class, or our nations' borders. It stops at our doorstep and never goes on to our neighbors. We even build walls to help us not see when our neighbors lack these things. We live with people who look like us, and think like us, and make the same money, and drive the same cars as us. We build walls around our borders and tell people we are the land of opportunity, but only if you are here, and we'll try like hell to keep certain types of people from getting that. And we ship crappy jobs overseas and we tell people that their labor isn't equal that of what we make. A million people can make the stuff they do, so they do it for less than two bucks a day, and as cheap as it is for me, in India, two bucks a day doesn't make ends meet. It means tea is the meal of the day. It means you have stomach problems cause you hadn't eaten in so long.

Where, as a Christian, does that leave me? Because, I do not believe that God, whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, meant for us to live this way. Does loving your neighbor stop at our doorstep? At our suburb entranceways? At our nations’ borders? Did Christ come so Christians in America could embrace the divine gift of living in luxury as the other 95% of the world wails out to the heavens in torment? I don't know.

The Christ I know was an underdog. He was the little person's man kicking it with 12 guys in a bass-akwards po-dunk town that no one talked about. He sat with people who were hurt and sick that no one else cared about. He cured them, and helped them, and taught all sorts of people to do the same. He taught them the word of God. He taught them love, the kind of love God had for us. The kind of love that we should have for each other. The kind of love someone would put you to death for having because the world might just have a snowballs chance in Hades to be heaven on earth if we all were like this man.

And his followers spread that love. They took care of each other, and shared meals, and took care of the poor. They were God on earth because they were God's love on earth. They showed men what their God was like, what their Christ was like, and it was good. Which brings me back today. I will come home, and I will be upset. I will be angry, and sad, and impatient, and at the same time wanting people to understand. I will be pissed off and passionately so. The kind of passion that makes you want to bust up into a church and flip tables, turn heads, tell people they have gotten it all wrong. Because this is not what God intended for the world to be. Christ must go outside the church doors. We should not be content to just sit in pews and sing songs to him.

In fact I pray that my God cares more about the suffering of the destitute and the broken than all empty songs of worship. I hope that the cries of the broken blot out all such noisy gongs that lack love. Because they are empty when they stop at just songs. How can you sing praise to a man and not follow his life? Jesus is not an idol to be put on a shelf. The cross is not a token or a brand name. It is a symbol of love. It’s how much God cared and sacrificed himself for us, for all of us, that we should go and do the same. Not to die and become martyrs, but to be an example of that love. As Christians we are called to be a personification of Christ, of God. We are called to be followers and walk in his shoes and be as he was. The day Jesus is a man solely to be worshiped is the day we missed the point. If God only wanted to be worshiped than really there was no point in Christ. But love isn't something that can be slapped on some stone and followed. So God showed us. But somehow we missed the point. Because there are people here who get less than two bucks a day, who are trying damn hard to make ends meet, and they aren’t. And they are wailing out to God for help. They are praying to God for Christ to come down and help them, but all they have are us, his followers.

There is just us. When the poor cry out, there is only us. When people are broken, and have been cheated, when justice as has not been served, when our neighbors weep for love, there is only us. And we can pray to God to help, and by God I believe that he will, but in the end there must be more than songs. And I am not knocking church, or the choir, or all those beautiful Lutheran and Methodist singers who got me here. I am saying that when all is said and done and that ending hymn is all wrapped up, we should rise up from our warmed pews knowing that things aren’t finished. Because at the end of the day, people are still suffering and hoping for a Christ and all they have got are us, his hands and feet.