Theology 7372, Fall 2009

street view of the typical chaos of delhi

We weren’t in Delhi for very long. Two sleeps, in fact. For me, personally, the time was marked by a ridiculously wicked abscessed tooth I had. I discovered that one can walk into a chemist in India, describe searing tooth pain, hand over 900 rupees and be given two sets of mysterious pills. These pills, referred to as the “Shady-Yet-Magic-Red-Pills,” helped my pain level better than anything else I tried and I will be eternally in the debt of the chemist in that shadtastic shop in Delhi.

But beyond my unbelievable amount of pain, we did some things in Delhi. Most remarkably to me, we hung out at a Sikh temple and drove past the location of Ghandi’s assassination. Also, we discovered the Delhi is more or less closed on Mondays and that Ba’hai Temples are sometimes shaped like flowers.

I’m not entirely sure how to – in this short space – describe Sikhism. I can offer you this link (as clearly Wikipedia is my definitive source) or this one (which has the benefit of being written by Sikhs). There are disciples and swords, a very special book and covered heads. What gets my soul all kerfuffled is that they feed people. The Sikh temple in Delhi is arugably the largest soup kitchen in the world – serving thousands each day with homemade food regardless of their faith system, caste or race. We were invited to sit down and press some chipati. I sat next to the woman pictured above in the blue shalwar. Without speaking the same language, she showed me how to make the bread and we sat quietly and rolled for a few moments. It was one of the holiest moments of my life.

Once again, perhaps you’ve heard of this guy. The museum was sadly closed, so we just took pictures of the gate of the home where Ghandi’s life was stolen from him by an extremist who felt he wasn’t quite Hindu enough to be an Indian leader.

A tradition on the team was to start each dinner off with a toast. We toasted a variety of things: friends from Truett, hygienic bathroom options, new Indian friends. This photo captures the last toast on Indian soil, made with Fresh Lime Sodas, our favorite beverage option. This toast was to “going there and back again” in honor of our journey home.

Our last act in India as a team was to gather at a home of some friends and have a puja, complete with communion through coconuts.

~*~

Well, that’s it. India in a handful of blog posts. I’ve been home for a little under a month now and I really have no idea what to do with most of what I experienced. I don’t know how to rectify some of the dichotomies I saw with each other and certainly not with my own existence. As Bartlet said, “There are a few black and white days, days with absolute right and absolute wrong, but those days usually include body counts.”Absolutes are so rare in this world – perhaps the journey is learning to live in dissonance and loving the person in front of me while doing it.

I hope that India will continue to shape me as I move forward from here. That I would continue to be shaped by the rough parts and the smooth parts. That I would continue to be a different person as I learn to lean into the grace and brokenness of creation.

Morning readers!

Just a heads up that I’m boarding a flight today to head to Bogota, Colombia. I’ll be spending some time down there with a dear Asbury friend who works for a mission organization with a presence in the country. I’m doing some research about conflict and its affect on society, hoping to have conversations with both perpetrators and victims. I’ll be in Bogota and Medellin over the next ten days.

Hope the rest of your July is fantastic and full of your own brands of adventure. See you in August!

typical sight in jaipur: camels

When we hit Jaipur, we knew we were in a different place. Camels mixed with BMWs, traditional sarees mixed with Marks and Spensers. Jaipur is a city of juxtapositions and I loved it. (Not that the other cities weren’t different, this one just was just another step deeper into the well of India.) It’s about the physical size of Waco, but holds about 3 million people to Waco’s 200,000. Located in Rajasthan, it was one of the places favored by the Raj. It was the first planned city in India, founded in 1727 and you can tell that it was organized. The traffic was the closest thing to logical that we saw during our time. Rajasthan is deeply proud of itself and its culture. It felt different and acted different in truly fantastic ways.

Unfortunately for me, this town also marked where I had to take some time off due to sickness. One of the boys on the team was down for the count as well, so we learned what medicine looked like in Jaipur. A house call and a bag full of prescriptions, we were $20 poorer and diagnosed with pre-pneumonia. It was a great time of conversations and rest, though. That night, however, the whole team took in a cultural experience at Choki Danni – which we affectionately refer to as the Rajasthani State Fair. Men on stilts, camel rides and magicians – it was fantastic!

Jaipur was the first city we visited that I want to go back to. The other cities were great and I enjoyed our time there, but I want to go back and spend more time exploring Jaipur. We had some conversations with expats living in Jaipur as well that added to that longing.

Typical. Guys on motorbike, ladies in a rickshaw, camels pulling a cart and I’m riding in a auto-rickshaw. I love India.

Amber Fort. Consecrated in 1592, it’s a MASSIVE structure (and gorgeous).

Team at Amber Fort

So, in India, there are monkeys. We were not allowed to interact with them. Ever.

Cultural dancing at the Rajasthani State Fair

So maybe we rode camels. No big deal.

The Madhuban Hotel : our home for our time in Jaipur

So when we were at Choki Danni, there was a man-powered ferris wheel. Clearly, our team was all over that. Six of them paid their 20 rupees and climbed on board. They claim it was the best money they ever spent.

Here’s the team on the wheel : Mike, Andy, Josh, Kari, CJ, Casey

Pictured above is the Mango Tree Temple, nestled inside the massive temple in Kanchipuram. Our tour guide told us that this was the temple you went to worship at if you wanted a spouse, or if you had a spouse, you went to pray for children. Most of our marrieds stayed far away, but us single folk traipsed through in hope. You enter right here and then walk around the tree counter clock-wise. Once you reached the entrance again, you were met by a priest standing in front of an altar. He then sprinkled white power into your cupped hands and placed a blessing on your forehead. A pretty straight forward process.

Except, of course, for me.

I somehow got separated from the rest of the team and ended up in the middle of what I can only assume is the Indian version of the YaYa sisterhood. Giggling young women around my age surrounded me as I approached the priest. He asked my name and I replied, “Kristen.” He then placed the dust in my hand and replied, “Name.” Confused, I said, “Kristen.” Because, you know, that’s my name. One of the women crowded in next to me said, “No, he needs to know the name of the man you are to marry.” Confused and feeling a little bit snarky, I replied, “Zach Levi.” He then nodded, placed more dust in my hand and some on my forehead and I was sent on my way.

Thus, if I ever meet/marry Zach Levi, I’m converting.

(For anyone who doesn’t know, Zach is the star of the television awesomeness Chuck and is pictured here: )

June 1 – 23 was spent in various cities in India. Head here for the bullet point summary of the most ridiculous trip I have or probably will ever take.

24 : Because my parents surprised us at the airport, Mike and I got to show them India pictures and process it with them in person instead of via technology. So very awesome. There was also American food and time with the Waco favorites.

25 : Watched World Cup games with parents and siblings and continued to emotionally detox from India.

26 : Last full day with the parents until August. I’m learning as I get older that loving spending time with a functional family isn’t weakness and that we should cling to healthy community wherever we find it.

27 : Waco favorites and I drove to Dallas to see Wicked – otherwise known as “The Musical That Speaks to My Soul on Deep and Profound Levels”.

28 : Woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck, so it was a low key day. Doctor’s appointments – as per usual. Then lunch with a life friend and soul giving conversations with my sister.

29 : Most of the day was spent doing my traditional post-trip ritual of cleaning out my DVR and drinking as much coffee as I can.

30 : Onion reunion part one and So You Think You Can Dance. Excellent.

Remember that post-semester hang-over I’ve talked about? Still in it. Still exhausted. Still fuzzy brained. Not sure of the full cure for this situation, but laughter seems to help. Thus, I present the following clips. Have fun.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Henry Davis Thoreau

Originally uploaded by **ANNE

So, I’m in the midst of creating my ahead-of-time blogs for the India trip and I stumbled across this image of Mamallapuram – our second stop on the sub-continent.

The photographer says it was taken on a beach just after the tsunami ripped through and put serious damage on the fishing industry of the city. I wanted to share the image – a testament to how the created order and the human one do not always cooperate as well they should.

I love the cow. Welcome to India.

Friends :

As some of you know, I’m heading to Hong Kong and India for one month starting on May 22nd. It’s a class for my seminary degree and I have the privilege of traveling with a beloved professor and eleven other colleagues. It’s going to be a ridiculous trip and I cannot wait to get started on it. We’ll be traveling to multiple cities in India, spending time with wise men and women who are willing to teach us how to be better humans and believers.

Our professor, Mike Stroope, has put together a prayer/reflection guide for the trip. While it’s written for those of us going, it also serves to help people “follow” us as we go.

I’ll be pre-posting on my blog the entry for each day, so you can follow us here on the blog or I’d be happy to email you the hard copy of the guide. If you want an email copy, message me your email to make sure I have it.

Thanks ahead of time for following me/supporting me on this journey.

For those of you who haven’t taken the graduate school journey, you may think I’m being hyperbolic when I say it’s akin to running a marathon that refuses to end. When you turn in that last paper or take that last final, you slip into what some of us call the “post-semester hangover.” I am fully in that now. It involves a complete lack of motivation and an exhaustion that transcends words.

It’s very hard to be creative after a semester like I’ve had, so I know the blog has been neglected. I thought I’d offer some random thoughts rolling around my brain for those of you who read this to stay connected.

- I leave for India in 12 sleeps. No, that has not become real yet. However, the more time I spend with the team, the more excited I am to spend a month with them.

- I have loved (at times) fostering Utley, but there are pieces of dog ownership that remind me why I don’t want children.

- After the popularity of Jersey Shore, I am even more concerned for America than I was previously.

- I have more respect for my parents at this stage in my life than I’ve ever had before

- British television makes me want to move back to the UK right now.

Books read: 39

Pages read: 15,000+

Papers written: 12

Pages written: 120+

Favorite book read for class: The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark

Favorite book read for research: Northern Ireland After the Troubles by Colin Coulter

Least favorite book read for class: Between Vengeance and Forgiveness by Martha Minnow

Least favorite book read for research: Studies in Linguistics by Martin Putz

Research topics: Story of Christianity in Northern Ireland, Christian response to Islamic view of Qu’ran, linguistic relativity (the power of language to shape culture), Isaiah 11 and the Peaceable Kingdom