Theology 7372, Fall 2009

So, I’m back from India and I’m just beginning to figure out everything that happened. If you’re a faithful reader of this blog, look forward to hearing more about my trip – my reflections, my pictures, my witticisms. However, today, I thought I’d go with my “summary of the month” motif and give a highlight summary of each day.

May 22: Left Waco EARLY in the morning (before the sun was up) and spent the day traveling
23: Had a LOST finale party and am still annoyed about that finale
24: In one of my favorite conversations of the trip, we got to chat with Varun Soni who is the Dean of Religious Life at USC. He’s the first Hindu person to hold such a position at any institution in the U.S. and he offered us valuable insight into Indian and Hindu culture and the interplay with the United States. We boarded a flight that night to leave for Hong Kong.
26: Landed in Hong Kong (after loosing a day to the International Date Line) and marched around all day, getting to know the city and attempting to stay awake. We took the Star Ferry from one island to the other and experienced Hong Kong cuisine. Hotel: Tao Fong Shan
27: Conversations with knowers about life in Hong Kong. I had blisters that had blisters on my feet, but I persevered! We also had one of my favorite meals of the entire trip – Dim Sum!
28: Met Sam Say of Bolaven Farms and decided that I want to be involved in this man’s work somehow. After a quiet afternoon at Tao Fong Shan, we caught a midnight flight to Delhi

29: After a long journey, we finally arrived in Chennai. The drive from the airport to our hotel was a overload of sights and sounds and an excellent introduction to India. Hotel: YWCA
30: After attending church in the morning in Chennai (a deeply Anglican church that could have literally been on the Ormeau Road in Belfast), we boarded the bus for the drive to Mamallapuram. We walked on the beach next to the Bay of Bengal and enjoyed our fantastic room at the Ideal Beach Resort
31: TempleTastic Day! I got blessed for marriage, walked out of lunch to see elephants on parade and saw statues that were from the 6th century

June 1: Spent most of the day traveling to Hyderabad but spent the night shopping for proper wedding attire! Saree shopping is intense, y’all. Hotel: Club View Hotel
2: Sang at a church dedication, got henna on my hands and attended a Banjara groom preparation ceremony. AMAZING day.
3: Attended Vijay and Priyah’s wedding in full garb. Watch out for a full blog about this – it was intense.

4: Travel to Cochin. While at the Hyderabad Airport, got to talk to Sarah which was dearly needed. Hotel: can’t remember the name but it was right on the Arabian Sea. Ridiculous.
5: Sabbath Day! Team meeting in the A.M and truly odd oil bath in the afternoon. But overall, excellently restful day, capped off with watching the sunset over the Arabian Sea.
6: Toured Cochin – saw Jewtown and the Royal Dutch Palace of Kerala. Topped off the evening with possibly the oddest theater experience I’ve ever had.

7: Travel to Jaipur and our entrance into North India. Hotel: Madhuban Guest House.
8: Conversations and interactions with knowers and exploration of Amber Fort. To say that Mike – the architecture geek – freaked out is an understatement.
9: Instead of hanging out with the team as they walked around Jaipur, I hung out with Dustin and we had a doctor come visit us and diagnosed us both with pre-pneumonia. So we had great conversations and watched old episodes of 30 Rock. Then, at night, the whole gang went to Chocki Danni (which we affectionately call the Rajasthani State Fair). Highlights included a man-powered ferris wheel and camel riding.

10: Travel to Calcutta and our last domestic flight of the journey. Hotel: Fairlawn Hotel
11: Quiet morning of exploring and lunch included one of my favorite conversations of the trip. The afternoon included a tour of Mother Theresa’s house and I am still awed and humbled by her life and choices.
12: My head chose ‘no’ to life and so I spent most of the day resting processing and thinking. The silver lining was more good conversations
13: Worked at PremDan – the Missionary of Charity’s Home for Physically and Mentally Challenged Adults. Lots of thoughts about this – look for a further blog
14: Quiet day in Calcutta spent talking with people back home and people on the trip
15: Another day of random errands and saying goodbye to Calcutta. That evening was spent at the Calcutta Train Station, waiting on our train to Varanassi which was delayed by 8 hours. But yeah, India via train is an experience.

16: After getting of the train in Varanassi, we made our way to our hotel which was right on the Ganges River on the Assighat. As Cara Jane so eloquently said, we arrived at the bottom of the well. After settling in and getting a great lunch, we took a boat down the river and had a conversation with a Hindu Christ Follower about how he dances out his faith
17: Visited the Monkey Temple, attended the evening puja to the Ganges and traveled most of the day by cycle rickshaw. Crazypants.
18. Definitely my “it’s time to go home” day. After waking up seriously early for a sunrise boat ride down the Ganges (which was excellent and enlightening), we drove to see Buddha’s tree of enlightenment and then sat in a super hot hotel room, watched the first half of the US v. Slovenia game and then schlepped to the train station. Now, friends, I love India. But the Varanassi Train Station doesn’t fall anywhere in that love. It was a situation.

19: After arriving in Agra and at the super fabulous Trident Hotel, we went to the TAJ MAHAL. That’s right, one of the Wonders of the World. Ah-mazing. Oh, and I may have realized I had an absessed tooth. The trip largely became about pain management at this point.
20: Traveled to Delhi and checked into the Swargarath Hotel
21: The morning was spent at the Sikh temple where I got to help make chapati and had easily one of the holiest moments of the trip. We then got to see where Ghandi was assassinated and had one of our last team times over a pizza party in Stroope’s hotel room.
22: Spent the morning affirming the goodness and strengths we found in each other – I found out that I’m a Banyon Tree – and then began the process of traveling home. We made a brief detour to the house of some friends and had a final puja and then drove to the Delhi airport for the first of three flights home.
23: Landed in Hong Kong, then landed in San Francisco, then landed in Dallas. Craziest thing was that my parents were waiting in DFW to surprise me!

Clearly, there are many stories to tell from this trip and many things left to process. I have myriads of questions – ones that I’m not sure have answers and ones that I’m sure must. I plan on typing many of my thoughts out, but I know that many will linger for years. My trip to the bottom of the well and back shaped me in ways I am only beginning to understand.

I’m sure are you’re reading this, I’m on my couch, hovering around consciousness and trying to re-orient myself to Waco.

Thanks for following me as I’ve journeyed. I look forward to conversations where I can more fully explain what I’ve experienced. In the mean time, keep your eyes peeled on my Flickr page as I post pictures in the next few days and weeks.

Thus concludes my Indian Follow-Along-Blog. Thanks for reading.

And this is what we’ll be seeing when we finally leave an airport next….

After saying goodbye to our teammate Andy in Hong Kong (so that he can do his mentoring there for the rest of the summer), we’ll be returning to Texas via San Francisco. Theoretically, we land at 7:40 CST in Dallas – but this is international travel, so who actually knows. I’m going to look like death getting off that plane – let’s hope that people still chose to love me once they see me. I’m sure that if you asked me about the trip at this point in the journey, I’ll grunt and tell the funny stories. Check back with me in about two weeks as I begin to translate my groanings into words. I know that I will not be the same – I never am after accumulating another passport stamp. I can only hope that as I continue to experience other cultures and peoples that I am transformed by them into a better version of myself.

Quote of the Day

“Those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there…” – C.S. Lewis

“There is no place like home.” – Dorothy Gale of Kansas

the Red Fort in Delhi

There is far too much to see in this city in two day’s time, so I’m sure I’ll leave feeling slightly unfulfilled. We’ll be spending a majority of our time on this last day in conversation with Jesu Bhaktas – Hindu Christ Followers(HCF). We’ll have our farewell dinner as we attempt to end well with the team and continue to lean into the questions posed to us by the HCFs. What does it mean to be a HCF? Why is the title of “christian” deemed inappropriate by some Hindus who chose to follow Jesus? These are questions that are probably best discussed over coffee so I hope we get to do that once I’m back stateside.

We won’t head to a hotel tonight, but instead transfer to the airport for the long night flight to Hong Kong.

Quote of the Day

“The idea of the church without mission is an absurdity.” – Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered

the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib Sikh temple – a place we hope to visit today

Dehli – the capital – is insanely rich in history. I refer you back to my little summary of the East India Company for pieces of it. I have some issues with decisions made by the British government throughout history, so I’m sure that righteous indignation will be flaring today as we explore sites created by the British Raj. I’ll be sure to post many pictures when I’m back.

The guide implores us to begin to consider how we’re going to reorder our Waco lives and how we’re going to examine the things we take for granted.

Quote(s) of the Day

“Advice from one devil to another on how to destroy a Christian’s faith: ‘Talk to him about ‘moderation in all things.’ If you can get him to the point of thinking that ‘all religion is all well up to a point,’ you can feel happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all – and more amusing.” – C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“It is rare that a man is prepared to pay with his life for such a minimal achievement as causing cracks in the edifice of the existing order.” – Inge Scholl, The White Rose

“The cross alone is the criterion of the church’s identity and its mission to the world.” – Carl Brataan, The Apostolic Imperative

Happy Sunday! We’ll be waking up in Agra and taking the bus to Delhi. Tonight is the night we hope to take in a Bollywood movie and experience that slice of Indian culture. We’ll also be shopping a bit, so I’ll be dusting off my bargaining techniques. I’m quite good in Africa, we’ll see how I am in India. Delhi is our last stop before heading back to the states – so the guide implores us to stay focused and not travel home mentally. As I type this (over a month before this day happens), I hope I’m processing effectively and yet experiencing as it’s happening. I hope I’m soaking up the joy and dissonance and brokenness and hope. I hope as I partake of the Eucharist this morning that I meditate on brokenness, sacrifice and joy. I ask that you hope those things for me. I’ll let you know how it goes when I’m back.

Quote of the Day

“God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us… Only a suffering God can help.” – Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Conversion is the turning of ourselves to God, and that means all of ourselves without leaving anything behind or outside. But that also means not replacing what is there with something else. Conversion is a refocusing of the mental life and its cultural/social underpinning and of our feelings, affections, and instincts, in the light of what God has done in Jesus.” – Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?

THIS IS WHAT I’M LOOKING AT TODAY!

Seriously, I’m sure there’s other things happening – I’m sure some of us are sick and some of us have parasites and some of us are more ready to go home than we actually have words for – but today we’re at the Taj Mahal. Beat that with a stick. My life is ridiculous.

This is an excellent moment to publicly thank my amazing parents for granting me this opportunity and the other ridiculous ones I’ve had throughout my life. It is only through their generosity and guidance that I am able to be who I am today and I am more thankful than I know how to express.

We’ll spend the majority of our day on a river cruise down the Ganges. Then we’ll bid farewell to the city and board another night train to Agra – where we’ll see the TAJ MAHAL!

There’s not a lot on the guide for today – just the note about the river cruise and that we’ll be on the train. So I’m not trying to keep secrets, I just have no other intel. I will say that it’s a Friday, so if I was in Waco, I’d be watching movies with the Waco family. I know that I’m missing them quite a bit right now, along with my biological family as they’re scattered around the globe.

Thought of the Day

What does it actually mean that God loves the world? What does it mean to love the world and to love yourself? What is my role with these people, in this moment, in this time?

this is a picture from flickr user asis k. chatt who provides the following description:

Varanasi or Banaras is the oldest living city in the world. Established in 7th century B.C., Varanasi is the holiest of the holy cities to Hindus. The sacred river Ganga (Ganges) flows towards the north here which is considered very auspicious by the Hindus. The most famous of all temples of Lord Shiva is situated here(Temple of Lord Viswanath). Varanasi is full of temples, probably thousands of temples are here. There are about 365 GHATs or places of bathing on the river Ganga. These GHATs are always crowded with devotees & pilgrims, & there are hundreds of priests to help them in their sacred rights. At evening, priests perform AARTI (worship with lighted lamps) at some of the more famous GHATs, & the scene is just beyond descriptions. Thousands of people attend this AARTI ceremony, including hundreds of foreigners. With its narrow streets teeming with people as well as (sacred) bulls, Varanasi is a must for all the foreign visitors to India who want to have a glimpse of the eternal India & Indian culture.
This particular photo shows a portion of a Ghat in the evening with priests performing the AARTI ceremony.

stroope provides the following thought for our day in varansi:

The Ganges – the sacred river of Hinduism and the center of life and death in the city of Varanasi. The structures that sit right at the edge of the river where bathing and cremating take place are called Ghats. The word refers to steps leading down to the river’s edge but includes landings and structures at the top of the steps. There are over 100 of these along the river in Varanasi.

Varanasi – by the way – is also known for its textiles. So I’ll clearly be shopping at some point. I am a sucker for fabrics from foreign places.

Quote of the Day

“Men [and women] become interested not so much in abstract ideas as in individuals who represent their ideas. Victories are won because men [and women] follow some leader whom they have learned to love.” – Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf

“More and more I feel that love is the golden secret of life. The very air of heaven is love, for God is love and love never fails. So go on loving not only in loveless but the unlovable, the difficult, the perplexing, the disappointing – unto the end.” – Amy Carmichael

the banks of the Ganges River in Varanasi

So, we’ll wake up this morning (if we got any sleep on the train) in Varanasi. One of the oldest cities in the world, Varanasi is the holiest of Hindu cities, reportedly founded by the Hindu god Shiva about 5,000 years ago. It is one of the seven sites of pilgrimage for Hindus and often the place where Hindu persons travel to die. The Ganges (pronounced Gahngah) has its own significance. (the following is quoted from Wikipedia. I know, I’m lazy, but I don’t know a better way to summarize.)

The Ganges is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, the earliest of the Hindu scriptures. According to Hindu religion a very famous king Bhagiratha did Tapasya for many years constantly to bring the river Ganges, then residing in the Heavens, down on the Earth to find salvation for his ancestors, who were cursed by a seer. Therefore, Ganges descended to the Earth through the lock of hair (Jata) of god Shiva to make whole earth pious, fertile and wash out the sins of humans. For Hindus in India, the Ganges is not just a river but a mother, a goddess, a tradition, a culture and much more.

Some Hindus also believe life is incomplete without taking a bath in Ganges at least once in their lives. Many Hindu families keep a vial of water from the Ganges in their house. This is done because it is prestigious to have water of the Holy Ganges in the house, and also so that if someone is dying, that person will be able to drink its water. Many Hindus believe that the water from the Ganges can cleanse a person’s soul of all past sins, and that it can also cure the ill. The ancient scriptures mention that the water of Ganges carries the blessings of Lord Vishnu’s feet; hence Mother Ganges is also known as Vishnupadi, which means “Emanating from the Lotus feet of Supreme Lord Sri Vishnu.”

In team news, it’s Lee Fox’s birthday so we’ll be celebrating that! We’ll also be discussing form and function and how those two things interplay. I’m not trying to freak anyone out, but Varanasi isn’t the safest place in the world – so keep us all in mind as we move around wisely. Reminder, my buddy’s name is Casey.

Quote of the Day

“There will always be a cross somewhere int he midst of the Christian solution to evil, a cross of pain involved in not returning blow for blow; a cross of natural, human bitterness felt in the experience of hatred and returning love in its place, of receiving evil and doing good; a cross reflected in the near impossibility of counting oneself blessed in the midst of persecution, or of hungering and thirsting for justice, or in being merciful and peacemakers in a world which understands neither. Between us and fulfillment, between us and everlasting justice, between us and salvation of this suffering world, there will always stand the paradox of the cross, a cross not for others, but for us.” – Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered