india ideals

Reflecting on my pro's and con's list, I realized that no where do I mention anything about India itself, or the people I would be with, what I would be doing. Essentially, I would be teaching english, helping out with things here and there, sitting with untouchables, and (hopefully) carrying a presence of love.

I don't know if it's bad that I didn't consider the "service" or "mission" I would be doing as a "pro", or if it's worrisome that I didn't consider living in and amongst poverty I have never seen before as a "con". As for the latter, I didn't consider living in poverty a "con" because that is kind of the whole point: find light, joy, goodness, satisfaction despite poverty, realize through poverty all the richness that is, see "how good I've got it", minimize my own silly worries in light of the serious problems of poverty, and enlarge my heart for those who live in poverty everyday. Sure it might be "sucky" at first (just the word "sucky" exudes my unrecognized wealth), but to let go of all my things and realize who I am without them-- a practice in letting go of accumulating material wealth and instead "storing up treasures in heaven" so to speak-- that is part of the spiritual goal.

But speaking of "my spiritual goals" brings me back to my former query... I'm not sure if it's "bad" or if it's okay that in my initial listing of all the pro's of doing a year long mission trip in India I never once included the pro of other people being helped. People finding needs newly met through my service. The benefit of someone helping teach english, or the benefit of someone being a loving presence, or all other random services I might provide while there. I find this unconscious omission interesting.

On one hand, it shows my selfishness and inherent self-centeredness. To be quite honest, my primary reason for wanting to take this journey is for my own benefit. I want to find spiritual nourishment, I want to feel good about myself, I want to have an adventure, I want the trip to look good on a resume, I want to have experience teaching English, I want it to be a way to strengthen my relationship with my husband. I, I, I, want want want. Frankly, It's all about me. This isn't something I feel great about... as in, I would like to be a self-less person, altruistic and "in it" for the outcasts and untouchables who cannot advocate for themselves. I am very interested in helping in this way, but when I think about the opportunity, I see it generally in terms of my own success. I have a feeling that this is somewhat normal... isn't it like, part of the human condition that we are all selfish? If not, why would a message like Jesus' really be needed? The golden rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, because it typically works out that one would wish to have good things be done unto them. I don't want to celebrate my selfishness, but I don't see the point of condemning myself either. The more energy I spend agonizing over my own predicament of self-centeredness, the more centered on myself i become. If I could take an approach of honesty, in which I allow myself to state it's purpose without judgement, the more clearly I can see my intentions and discern if this is the "right" thing to do. ("right" is in quotes because I don't think life decisions like this can be considered right or wrong. They just are. Sure, we can make "bad choices", but what's a bad choice is dependent on the goal. If the goal is to live a meaningful life, there are many ways to do so, going to India for a year being one of them. However, with the goal of living a meaningful life, shooting up with heroin everyday would, I say with a good amount of certainty, be a "bad choice", as it strips one's life of years (therefore cancels out the goal of living) and one's meaning is greatly limited to the effects of one potent chemical only... the meaning that a drug can provide seems relatively flat, like a "one trick pony").

So, it's established that I want great, deep, meaningful life for myself. Perhaps it is technically "self-centered", but I don't think it is intrinsically wrong. In just as much honesty, I also want these things for others. I like being nice because I want people to feel good about themselves. I do want anyone who wants to learn english get to learn it. I do want a destitute woman to feel supported. I want a random little kid to have fun. I want someone with a sickness to have a cure. Perhaps I want these things to bring myself comfort, or perhaps I want to do good so I feel more important. I don't think the reason why really matters. If showing love for another brings love onto yourself, and that love in yourself breeds love onto another, then the original intentions regarding selfishness really lose importance, because something greater has occured.

In any case, I also think I may not have thought much about the pro's of "helping others" because I dont really know who much I can help others. I can go, and do what's asked of me, and hope it helps others. But I don't see myself as an american saint, giving up my good life of "stability" and cars and jobs and air conditioning and other illusions to go save the lives of destitute Indians. I dont' see that as the point of this program. If I decide to go, and if I am raising money, I will not be asking for money so I can go help these people. If someone's day is brightened by me, if someone's English is improved by me, if something good happens by me, it isn't really BY me. It's through me. I can hope hope hope good things come through me, but I don't know that they are coming FROM me. Because I'm not sitting here generating my own goodness, I am getting my joy and light from something else. I am going to "give to" others because in that giving I recieve.

The prayer of St. Francis of Assisi says "Lord make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon... where there is despair, let me sow hope... ect ect... O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, grant that I may not so much seek to be loved, but to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." This prayer is probably one of my favorite "by-products" of Christianity. What it tells me is that we are in a predicament of selfishness. That is why we must ask to be the instrument of peace. It says grant that I might not seek to be loved as much as I seek to love, because it is a common thing to wish to be loved. I don't think the prayer says "it's wrong to want to be loved", but it says that in order to truly experience this love, you've got to go outside of yourself, and find a way to give it to someone else. In doing so we too will find the love we seek. Could this be a greater theme of "mission" in general? To go somewhere with the itinerary of taking on another's poverty, doing services asked of you, giving a gift you have (english speaking skills, house building skills, the gift of love, whatever), giving yourself in the form of your time for a year, that is how you will find yourself. That is how you will be blessed. This is the style of everyday living that I want to do. I know I don't need a fandangled trip to do it, but I want the intense experience of it to help teach me. It's my own wretchedness that leads to this idea. And my faith in the "system" described in St. Francis' prayer. My head says "this is how I want to live my life" but my head knows it needs a prayer from my heart to attempt it.

I didn't intend to go on and on about the notion of selfishness. But why one wants what one wants is intruiging. Why should I logically want to go on this trip to India when it means potentially setting myself and husband behind in terms of career growth, money, stability, direction, and other goals? I guess it's that those goals feel less important in an "ultimate" sense. It's a battle inside me. I am terrified to give up the scrap of direction and financial stability I think I've established. I'm not sure if I'm courageous enough to do so. I'm not sure if it even would be "courageous" to do so, or just plain stupid. My idealistic gut is bursting with hope about situations I am not in. My cloud of dissatisfaction rains on the everyday. No doubt this cloud may follow me wherever I go. No place or situation can eradicate that internal issue. Though no decision or change would solve all my problems, it would give me the variety of having new ones. Or the wisdom to see through them to the eternal ones. And then, perhaps, the greater wisdom to discover the ongoing surrendering of them to something Greater.