A Lenten Gift

I had great plans for Ash Wednesday. I was going to take off work, even had the vacation time approved by my boss, who is currently out of town. I planned to spend the morning at the St. Francis Retreat Center where Days of Lenten Recollection are offered every Wednesday during Lent. It has been such an overwhelmingly stressful couple of months that a day off at the retreat center seemed like a wonderful gift to myself. I went to bed, happily ready to start dreaming about a day of peace, with no fires to put out, no high visibility projects to shepherd through obstacle courses, and no static-filled environment, intruding into the silence I often desperately seek in vain for conversation with God.

I had difficulty falling asleep Tuesday evening (actually, early Wednesday morning), however. I felt tugged toward email even though I had read the last incoming missive of the day only a half-hour earlier and had closed down the computer. Sleepily, I pushed the on button. Oh, no! There was a slate of new email from work! After midnight?! I had better read it. With a bit of trepidation, I looked at the latest note. It came from our Washington office and demanded to know why a planned business trip from one of my subordinates had been cancelled. Cancelled? I had not cancelled it. It was essential that she be in Washington Thursday afternoon. I looked at the next note. It was from a senior manager, who had been out sick, and the supervisor of the employee with the cancelled trip. He said he would come in to work on Wednesday, sick or not, and wanted to know why I had cancelled this important trip. Cancelled? I had not cancelled it. Now I was very awake! I started reading through a rash of messages between the employee and the Washington office. After wending my way through one particular thread, I found what I was looking for: a comment from her to him that I had cancelled the trip. What? Cancelled? I had not cancelled her trip. So much for the rest of the night. I sent notes to my assistant and the assistant to the senior manager, asking if they had authorized trip cancellation. I had to wait until 6 in the morning to get their negative response. I also wrote to the senior manager and suggested that he not come in if he were sick. (He came in.)

I tumbled into bed around 4, planning to get up at 6 to find out if there were any responses. So much for taking Wednesday off. I made plans to go to work. There was no alternative, especially since that would be my last day before leaving for Alaska.

I got up early, took a shortened period of time for prayer, and then checked the email. The negative responses were not enlightening. I had to get to work and get the employee on the plane. Or did I? I had planned to go to the Ash Wednesday Mass at the retreat center, but since I could not go there after all, I had changed those plans to attend the Spanish Mass in the evening. However, Fr. Ed was offering an early morning Mass in English. I would be considerably late to work were I to go to it. However, I needed more than my shortened prayer time, so I put aside my time-essential concern over the employee with the cancelled trip, sent a note to the assistant senior manager re getting her on a plane somehow, and informed him and my assistant that I would be in, but late. Then I went to Mass, where I found peace, prayed for wisdom, received the ashes, and left for work.

I really did need wisdom because the senior manager had been failing at one high visibility project after another, not getting the people hired that we needed, and not supervising well the people he had. He has talent and is dedicated. He is also very loyal to me and does anything I ask of him. The problem is that he did not get his second-level set of supervisors hired in a timely fashion -- we do not yet have them. So, he has to supervise by himself all the new projects, and he simply does not have time. Last week, I pressed him to fill behind his assistant manager who is leaving soon for another position. He said that he wanted to wait and see if an incoming intern could do the job. (No!) At the time, my arguments held no sway, and I left his office frustrated. I remained frustrated until Monday, when the senior manager was out ill and I found him an assistant, someone I could promote from another division who could start immediately. I had already talked to that other person and his supervisor, and the position had been accepted. I have never gone around a senior manager and hired someone for her or him before. Now I had to break the news to the senior manager -- along with trying to resolve the dilemma of the cancelled trip and deal with an employee who took undelegated authority upon herself to cancel her own trip. Oh, Lord! I needed help!

I am so glad I went to Mass. My frustrations melted away. I found enough inner peace that I could listen. I needed to listen.

"How do I handle this?" I asked, more to myself than anything else. This manager is very sensitive, and if all the issues I had to discuss with him (there were others beyond just the cancelled trip and the new assistant manager) were not handled well, I could end up with more problems, not fewer, and a very unhappy and offended senior manager.

"Oh, Lord," I repeated, "How do I handle this?"

And then I heard: "with kindness, gently." Now those are not my strongest traits, but at least I had a direction in which to work.

When I got to work, nothing had been done about the cancelled trip, so I accompanied the assistant manager to talk to the employee who needed to go to Washington. To make a long story short, she has now reached Washington. We ticketed and planed her within minutes.

Then the senior manager came in, and it was time to confess my "sins" to him. I said a quick prayer for that gentleness that is not second nature to me and dove through his door. I could tell that he was hurting -- overwhelmed, sick, feeling like he had failed me and the organization, and pretty much at wit's end. There was no defensiveness. I asked about his health and talked about the other problems, looking for some solutions. Then I broached the topic of the new assistant manager, telling him that I had done something that he might not like but that I had done for him, to rescue him from his own willingness to take on too much with too little help. When I pronounced the name of the new assistant manager, the senior manager broke out in a big smile.

"I am so pleased," he said. "That is the perfect person. I can't believe he agreed. I would have been hesitant to approach him. Thank you!"

Wow! I floated back to my office (maybe I actually took a little skip). I had a dental appointment and had to leave in just a few minutes, but decided to do a final check of email before leaving for the day. There was an enote from an employee in Texas. She is very ill and had run out of sick leave. I had sent out a note to all 400 employees, asking anyone who could afford to do so to join me in donating some of our vacation time to her so that she would not be without income. People have been donating. She had found out about it, and wrote the following to me:

"Since you came, I have felt that we are just one big family. Big and spread out around the world, but supportive of each other. Today that feeling has been confirmed as reality. Thank you!"

I got up this morning, feeling discouraged. I came home after work, feeling elated. Thanks to the guidance of God, the right words somehow came to me at the right time, my bull-in-a-china-shop directness was somehow blunted, the people I touched were affected positively, and I realized that I really love my job, a job that God insisted I take and keep. (I wrote a post about that once.)

I did not get my planned gift to myself today: a morning at the retreat center. I got something better: happy employees, thanks to divine help. Thank You, God, for my gift today!

Blest Guest Wednesday #8: Dear Jesus

From time to time, it is difficult for me to post regularly, given my crazy travel schedule, which you can follow, if you have such a liking, in the Twitterlets. I have been able to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday."

As I am leaving for Alaska this week, I am especially appreciative to today's "Blest Guest," Colleen (Thoughts on Grace), who has contributed a letter to Jesus.

Dear Jesus,

Lent has begun. A season of renewal. A time of spiritual growth.

I want to grow closer to you, Lord, and I am not sure how. Usually I try to DO too much during Lent. But I sense that you do not want that from me this year. I sense that you want me to focus more on you, Jesus. To keep my eyes on you.

I sense this because I keep thinking of Mary and Martha. You tell Martha that Mary has chosen the better part - sitting at your feet and listening to you.

I feel that pull, Lord. I feel that call to sit at your feet and listen.

So with that in mind, this is my plan for Lent.

Fasting – I am already on a diet to lose weight, so any dietary restriction seems to be more for me than for you.

Instead, I have decided to fast from complaining. I think I often complain without even realizing it. It can be a habit and I would like to lose this habit! I would like to create a new one! With your grace, Lord. With your grace.

Almsgiving – this one is between you and me, Jesus, OK?

Prayer – Here is where I often set out to do too much. But this year, Jesus, I wish to sit at your feet. Here are some ideas of mine:

Spend more time in silent prayer before you.

Go to daily Mass as often as my work schedule permits.

Read ONE Lenten devotional everyday instead of 3 or 4!

Listen to spiritual music and reflections in the car on my way back and forth to work.

This seems like a simple list. Much simpler than usual, for me. What do you think, Lord? Still too much? Not enough?

Jesus, please guide me over the next 40 days and beyond. Help me to keep my eyes and heart focused on you.

Jesus, help me make it all about you, rather than all about me.

I long to sit at your feet everyday. Not just during Lent, but for the rest of my life.

Jesus, I love you.

Monday Morning Meditation #29: Let Me Discern Between Good and Evil

As I moved on into the book of I Kings, David's long reign came to an end and Solomon was annointed king after a failed attempt by Adonijah to appoint himself king. Shortly after becoming king, Solomon had a dream in which God asked him how could he gift him, to which Solomon replied, "Give Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and evil," whence came what we speak of today as Solomon's great wisdom.

Reading: I Kings 3:19

Meditation: Discernment between good and evil -- what a great gift! And to have the wisdom to think to ask for that instead of something more evanescent or of lesser ultimate value! Solomon did indeed choose well. May we all, if ever given the chance, choose as well.

I suppose that this particular action/verse stopped me in my tracks because this is been a topic that has had me in its grip in recent days. I posted yesterday on Modern Mysticism about nightmares and the visitation by evil forces while asleep at a time when I did not want to believe that Evil, as such, could really exist. I have also posted earlier on Blest Atheist about some unnerving experiences that seemed to be Evil up to no good.

At times, I find it very difficult to discern between Good and Evil. Perhaps this is because I expect to find only Good. (Yes, I am naive in that way.) Perhaps it is because I expect God to protect me from all Evil. (I suppose I am naive in that way, too, although God has never failed to rescue me.) Perhaps Evil can be so enticingly sweet at times that I simply do not want to believe that it is really Evil. (Yes, triply naive, I admit it.)

A couple of years ago, a friend told me that he was being chased by Evil. I remember how scary that was. I remember how much time we spent in prayer together. I also remember how much time I spent in prayer alone, dedicated to begging God to deliver my friend from evil: 20 hours! In the end, Evil lost and God won. It was, however, a battle. I guess that this is what we are being told over and over again in the Bible: there is a battle between Good and Evil, and we are often part of it.

Most recently, an acquaintance with whom I am required to interact at times seems to be caught in a battle between Good and Evil over him, but he does not seem to recognize it. I have pointed it out, and I have seen his face take on strange castings, so strange that I am relieved that I have never had to be alone with him at these moments. I am not the only one who has noticed these facial disturbances and a sense of evil, not emanating from within him but present all around him. He is a believer and professes belief, but sometimes the words sound hollow and his eyes look vacant. I don't know how to help or whether I should help or even if I have properly discerned evil in this case. I may be completely wrong. So, I pray for him. And I pray for me -- for the kind of discernment that God gave to Solomon (even for a small part of it).

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to continue to ask again for greater discernment, to repent for those times that I have mistaken Evil for Good, to thank God for protecting me from evil when I was too naive to know that I was surrounded by it, and to give praise for the way in which He leads me to safety even when I do not know where I am going except that I am following Him. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Only in San Ignatio

San Ignatio is a wonderfully quiet, peaceful, and crime-free place. Or at least it was until a couple of months ago when suddenly there was a rash of car break-ins. No one knew what to make of it, and without a police force (we have a sheriff and deputy for the county who occasionally cruise the town), catching the thief seemed unlikely until, in true San Ignatio fashion, along came help. Here is the front-page story from our newspaper, The San Ignatio Star (more exciting than most of our front-page stories):

RASH OF RECENT CAR BURGLARIES THWARTED BY HARLEY THE DOG
by John Hopper

Over the past couple of months a sudden increase in auto burglaries has taken place in town, including the police vehicle of Mayor Ed Lavarone as well as this reporter's vehicle. At press time, rumors of some 20 break-ins were being circulated around town. Undersheriff Pat Turturici confirmed that the numbers were more like seven and definitely less than a dozen.

According to San Ignatio resident Jeff Bagley, he was awakened around 1:30 a.m. one morning during the week of February 1 by the sudden growling of Harley, Bagley's dog. "He was looking out the window growling, and the hair was standing up on his back. he was really upset," said Bagley. Peering out the window, Bagley saw a sweatshirt-hooded scoundrel going from car to car in the parking lot, wiping the dew from the car windows and examining the contents with a flashlight.

With Harley keeping an ever-close eye, Bagley dialed the Sheriff's Dispatch Center to give a second-by-second account of the perpetrator's activity. Nearby deputies quickly emerged on the scene. "I saw him go around the side of one of my neighbors' car just about the time the Sheriffs were showing up," said Balgey. Bagley later learned that the vehicle had been entered and a wallet taken. Deputies contacted the suspected burglar a short distance away from the scene but did not find the wallet in his possession.

At press time, Undersheriff Turturici said that an arrest was imminent in this string of auto burglaries but was unable to comment on specifics.

Harley the dog was found by Bagley on the streets of San Ignatio about 10 yers ago. He found the owners and returned Harley, but when he found the dog wandering the streets a second time some weeks later, the owners said they no longer wished to care for Harley. Harley, a Chihuahua and Rat Terrier mix, is believed to be about 14 years old. Although Harly was very ill this past month or so, Bagley says Harley is much better now but still not 100%. Harley enjoys taking walks, chasing squirrels, and going to work with Bagley. "When I was on the Fire Department, Harley loved to ride in the engine," said Bagley.

Harley did not have a statement for the Star and was very apprehensive about having his picture taken.

The Star will be nominating Harley to the Sheriff's Office and the Mayor for a special Crime Prevention Award.

Send Harley a thank you note c/o The San Ignatio Star.

7 Quick Takes Friday #15

As I look around me and see that it is Friday again and time to contribute to 7 Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary, I am happy to report that I am still in sunny California.

1. (Picture: my friend's dog before additional snow fell!) We had visitors at work this week from Washington DC (amazing that they even got out), who have told us horror stories of being housebound there. One even put a shovel in his trunk so that he can dig his way back into his house when he returns! Did I say that I am glad to be in sunny California at the moment? Did I say that I am thankful to be here? Did I also say that I am being sent to Alaska next week? Wrong direction! Wrong direction! (Well, for this time of year; otherwise, I would be very happy to go to Alaska. My cousin is married to the chief of one of the Native American tribes there and is an artist laureate of Alaska, so going to Alaska is really a pleasure. I suspect, though, that returning from an Alaskan winter experience will be an even greater pleasure.)

2. We have had good news this week from several quarters. Yes, it is about time! The first piece of good news is that my brother's long-vintage girlfriend, who has been struggling with cancer, has just been declared to be in remission!!!!!! Yes!!!!! Now my brother can leave his New England home peacefully for a two-month assignment in San Diego. Two months! Yes! San Diego! Yes! In San Diego he is less than a day's trip from us in San Ignatio. Last year he came to visit, and we are hoping that, given the timing, he will be able to drive up this year, too, just in time for my February birthday. (We may change the celebration day because, in order to work with my brother's timing, it will conflict with Lent -- too many people giving up too many different things to do a good celebration, so I guess this year we will do a "moveable feast" -- or is that moveable birthday?)

3. The second piece of good news is mixed, but good. Noelle, as you may have noticed from my sidebar, is still fighting her bone disease and still staving off amputation of both feet. Several weeks before Ray died, she had been told that there was no choice but amputation. However, a doctor soon appeared on the scene -- a new guy in town -- who had some other ideas. He scheduled surgery for two weeks ago, but for some reason none of us know, when she showed up at the hospital, there was no record of the doctor having scheduled anything at all. She made an appointment and just got in to see him yesterday. The result? The bone disease in her right foot is gone, and she no longer has to do any care for it! Yes!!!!! (She is still scheduled for surgery, date unknown, for the left foot; we will deal with that when the time comes.)

4. I, too, had some good health news although I have not shared earlier that I have had any health issues to manage. Well, I have had them. They are probably of long-term vintage, but they are definitely of short-term knowledge. When I went into the clinic to get my very mild blood pressure pills re-prescribed, there was a new doctor. He did a quick and partial physical exam and heard a heart murmur. That was no surprise to me. I have had a systolic ejection murmur IV all my life. All my kids have the same thing. It is a functional, not a structural, murmur and is quite innocuous. I explained this to the new doc and thought he understood. However, two days later the clinic called me to tell me that he had made an appointment with a cardiologist for me! Sighing, I tripped over to the cardio guy to put the rumor to rest once and for all. I explained the whole situation to that doc, telling him that my heart is just fine. Yes, it goes squish-squish, instead of thump-thump, when someone listens to it, but that is an innocuous anomaly not of any great concern. Th doc listened patiently but insisted on an an electrocardiogram, the first I have ever had. He did not like the results. There is an electrical discrepancy caused by a left branch bunch node (what a name!). Essentially, it means that my heart does not keep up with me. (Donnie says that this is nothing to be concerned about since no one can keep up with me -- why should my heart be any different!) The doc then insisted on checking my cholesterol. I patiently explained to him that my cholesterol was fine (it had been checked a year earlier). He responded, "You told me your heart was fine." Oh! He insisted on the cholesterol test and an echocardiogram. To make a long story short, to the doc's surprise, the echocardiogram showed a functionally strong heart (that goes squish-squish instead of thuump-thump), about which the doc kept shaking his head, not understanding how this could be the case. So, instead of saying that I have a structurally fine heart with a functional anomaly, now I have to say I have a functionally fine heart with a structural anomaly. The cholesterol? At the very top of the normal scale. However, Dr. Doc still fretted, this time about my weight. He told me that if I were to lose 25 pounds, he thinks there will be no more structural damage (which was probably caused by untreated high blood pressure -- did not know for a long time that I had it), naturally lower blood pressure, and naturally lower cholesterol (because of changed eating habits). Ah, diet time! Sigh! I don't particularly like food or eat a lot. I certainly don't crave and sometimes forget to eat a particular meal. However, I get pressed into a lot of social eating because of my job -- guests, especially dinner guests, occur many times a month. Everyone has been understanding, though. I have had to go in for weekly checks, except for when I was in Lithuania (that would have been complicated). So, I lost one pound, then two pounds, then left for Lithuania. Yesterday at the weight check, I had lost another 8 pounds. Gotta go back next week, but I am not getting any more lectures from the doc. Nonetheless, he is still functioning on a doverai, no proverai (trust, but verify) basis! Oh, my! Look how long I have gone on about one simple thing! Sorry!

5. Yesterday was an enforced eating situation, but I was careful. Two of our Chinese specialists married Chinese mates, and we had a pre-wedding ceremony Chinese style, replete with very tasty but fattening Chinese food. It was interesting to see the differences between Chinese and American weddings. Some things, such as cake cutting and rice throwing, were the same. Other things, like the men telling the women in front of everyone why and how they loved them were not only different but touching. Then everyone took turns making a short formal well-wishing speech, including yours truly. (That caught me by surprise and because I was the senior person from our office in attendance, I had to go first, having no idea what I was supposed to say. Well, some good words I did say, but I missed the traditional ones that everyone else there, all of whom knew the culture, said, such as wishing the couples a marriage sweet as honey, a life as strong as diamonds, and a career like gold. Or something along those lines -- my presence made it a requirement to translate everything into English, so I know I miss some things entirely and some details in other cases. Unfortunately, Chinese is not one of the languages I speak.)

6. My "son" from Jordan is back in town. Briefly, "ibni" (the Arabic expression for "my son" - ibn is son; you may have seen that word, another variation of which is bin or ben; -i means my), which is what I call him in person and in writing, became ibni when my office sent a delegation to Jordan in 2006. Ibni is one of my lower level program managers, and he was in the delegation. We visited his family who had made a marvelous Jordanian meal for us. Like all Jordanian meals, however, it was so much and so slow-paced that we were there from noon until evening. The others in the delegation wanted to see the Dead Sea, 45 minutes away, and the sun was dropping. However, we had not begun dessert, and leaving early would have been rude by Arab standards. Donnie and I, who had lived in Jordan for two years (Donnie was still living there at the time although I had already returned to the USA), offered to stay with ibni's parents since we could handle the Arabic on our own (ibni had been interpreting for everyone) while ibni took the others to the Dead Sea. Ibni's mother, a traditional Arab woman, who conservatively dressed in black abaya and black hijab, broke down and told me how much she missed ibni and how she worried about his safety in the USA. (There is a general sense in Jordan that life in the USA is unsafe; when I had a residency permit there and would travel back to the USA for visits, Jordanian border guards would tell me to be careful because it was dangerous in the US). I promised her that I would be in loco parentis (or is that in loco matris?) for her son, and her relief was so deep-felt that I have taken the mothering role seriously. He is the age of my own children, and he has come to know them through family outings. He also comes to Mass with me, and on this past Wednesday he came to Bible Study class. He had been coming to Bible Study with me two years earlier until he was assigned to Cairo, Egypt, so everyone there was happy to see him on Wednesday. (He will be working here on a temporary assignment for a month.)

7. Shane and Lemony decided to take the kids to Disneyland. It was a trip planned before he lost his job, and the first that they have been able to get away in two years because of all the medical issues with Nikolina. It will be Nikolina's first trip out of reach of Stanford University Hospital, but she is doing very, very well -- unbelievably well, considering her very difficult start and very tentative initial hold on life. She is now a bouncing, inquisitive, happy, clearly smart 9-month-old baby, so off they head south for some fun, finally. On the employment front, California Highway Patrol, where Shane worked for 12 years, has offered him a job at his former level of seniority. He had left because of the low pay, and the pay is still low, but the benefits that he needs for Nikolina are good. He will manage. Money isn't everything, as the Mahlou clan well knows!

I hope that your week has been as good as ours, and, if not, that your next week will be!

Blest Guest Wednesday #7: Pandita Ramabai, Indian Christian Liberator of Women

From time to time, it is difficult for me to post regularly, given my crazy travel schedule, which you can follow, if you have such a liking, in the Twitterlets. I have been able to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday."

As today's "Blest Guest," Amrita from India (Yesu Garden) contributes Part 2 of her presentation of saints from India with a female saint, Pandita Ramabai.

PANDITA RAMABAI: INDIAN CHRISTIAN LIBERATOR OF WOMEN

" A strong woman is a woman who is determined to do something others are determined not be done." These words by Marge Piercy describe Pandita Ramabai, who was born in an era in which women were oppressed and thought to be genetically inferior to men. She turned out to be a liberator of Indian women, an educator and crusader for the girl child.

Here is a short sketch on her life taken from Robert Ellsberg book:

"All Saints:Daily Reflections on Saints , Prophets,and Witnesses from our Time".

"People must not only hear about the kingdom of God but must see it in actual operation, on a small scale perhaps and in imperfect form, but a real demonstration nevertheless."
Pandita Ramabai, a poet, scholar, and champion of the rights of women, has been acclaimed as a "mother of modern India." In her own time, she struggled hard, as a Christian convert, to define her own identity and spiritual path, in the process drawing criticism from Hindus and fellow Christians alike. She remains an intriguing example of the effort to bridge the spiritual traditions of the East and West; both sides felt the challenge posed by this courageous and independent woman.

Ramabai was born in Karnataka (South India) in 1858. She was the daughter of a wealthy Brahmin scholar and his much younger wife. Though her father was a devout and orthodox Hindu, he scandalized his high-caste friends by teaching his wife and later his daughters to read the Sanskrit classics. This talent later stood Ramabai well when her family perished during a great famine. At the age of sixteen, Ramabai walked across India, visiting the holy Hindu shrines and attracting astonished audiences to her recitation of Sanskrit poetry. Her knowledge of Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism, eventually won her fame and honor. She was given the honorific title "Pandita," mistress of wisdom.

Soon Ramabai had become the leading advocate for the rights and welfare of women in India.

She married at the age of twenty-two, but her husband died of cholera after only sixteen months, leaving her alone with an infant daughter, Manorama. Her travels in India and now her present circumstances sensitized her to the bleak plight of widows and orphans. The practice among higher castes of betrothing young girls to much older men (her own mother had been nine, her father over forty, at the time of their marriage) had contributed to the vast number of widows, women without status or protection. Ramabai set out to do something about this social problem, establishing centers for widows and orphans in Poona and later Bombay, where the women were given basic education and training in marketable skills. Soon Ramabai had become the leading advocate for the rights and welfare of women in India.

Her work brought her into contact with Christian missionaries. In 1883, she accepted an invitation by a congregation of Anglican nuns to visit England. For some time, Ramabai had felt a distance from her Hindu upbringing, both on spiritual grounds and on the basis of her perception of the status of women in India. While in England, she undertook a serious study of the Bible and eventually asked to be baptized.

The gospel of Christ represented for her the purest expression of her own spiritual intuitions, in particular her growing belief that to serve women and the poor was a religious and not simply a social work.

News of her conversion provoked angry public controversy in India. Ramabai herself wrestled with her strong aversion to the cultural imperialism of foreign missionaries in India. She was determined that becoming a Christian should not be construed as a denial of her Indian culture and roots. The gospel of Christ represented for her the purest expression of her own spiritual intuitions, in particular her growing belief that to serve women and the poor was a religious and not simply a social work.

She returned to India and continued her charitable work, among other things founding a center for unwed mothers, a program for famine relief, and a series of schools for poor girls. Now, ironically, it was her fellow Christians who became her public critics. They charged that because she made no effort to convert the poor women in her centers her own conversion was only superficial. They also pressed for proof of her doctrinal orthodoxy. Ramabai refused to be drawn into theological or confessional debates. "I am, it is true, a member of the Church of Christ, but I am not bound to accept every word that falls down from the lips of priests or bishops.... I have just with great efforts freed myself from the yoke of the Indian priestly tribe, so I am not at present willing to place myself under another similar yoke."

...she learned that the heart of true religion was the love of God and the love of one's neighbor as oneself.

Ramabai criticized the profusion of Christian denominations, a fact, she believed, that was bewildering to the poor. The spirit of Christ as reflected in the Bible sufficed to satisfy her own religious questions. From that source, she learned that the heart of true religion was the love of God and the love of one's neighbor as oneself. That she live by this creed, she insisted, was all that anyone had a right to ask of her. In later years, she prayed not for the conversion of Hindus but for the conversion of Indian Christians.

She died on April 5, 1922, at the age of sixty-four.

Professor A.B.Shah, a member of the State Board for Literature and Culture for the Government of Maharashtra, writes :

Pandita Ramabai Saraswati (1858-1922) was the greatest woman produced by Modern India and one of the greatest Indians in all history. Her achievements as a champion of women's education and social reform remain unrivaled even after a lapse of nearly a century since she first appeared on the scene. She was a Sanskirt scholar who at the age of twenty was publicly honored by the Shastris of Calcutta as a Pandita and a modern incarnation of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning. She was the first to introduce the kindergarten system of education in India. Most important of all, she was the first to rebel against the inhuman slavery to which widows were subjected in society and to lay the foundation of a movement for women's liberation in India.

You can visit the Ramabai Mukti Mission website HERE. You can get upon request a free copy of Pandita Ramabai’s biography authored by Nicol MacNicol and my author friend Vishal Mangalwadi.

- Amrita from India

Monday Morning Meditation #28: I Have Met My Enemy, and He Is My Friend

This week I finished I Samuel and read all of II Samuel. I have no idea why I just kept reading, with nothing touching me as a possible topic for meditation. Then, I realized that the two books taken together, with the stories of Saul chasing after David hither and yon, most usually for the purpose of trying to kill him, and David chasing hither and yon after women, with frequent time taken out for battle, provided a rich sujet for pondering.



Reading: I & II Samuel



Meditation: My first reaction after reading all the battles of Saul and all the battles of David, of the killing, of the deception was "what a bloody time that was" and "thank God I live in the 21st century. Then the image of all the wars going on today came to mind: the wars in which the US involved, the civil wars going on, and even the personal enmities that appear among supposed friends and in families. We are not far from David's time at all.



Then my mind wandered back to the Cold War. At that time, I was serving in the military, first as a soldier, then later, having received a direct commission, as an officer. The propaganda machine on both sides of the Atlantic churned out hatred day and night -- Americans of Russians and Russians of Americans. Hatred, fear, misunderstanding, cultural loathing, and all manner of ill along the very lines related in the books of Samuel. So how far have we truly come in the development of humanity?



Two incidents come to mind when I ask that question and when I think of war. One was a story from WWII in Belarus that was related to me by a decendent of the woman who experienced the incident. The other happened to me personally. I related both a while back on Mahlou Musings but will repeat them in full here although they are a bit long.



(1) Belarus. During WWII, advancing German troops would burn down entire Belarusan communities. To escape detection, the citizens of the towns would flee to the surrounding swamps as the Germans approached. In one small village, a mother of many grabbed her children and fled, only to discover to her horror upon reaching the wooded swamp that she had inadvertently left her infant in his crib. She wanted to go back after him, but it was too late. The Germans were already at the edge of town, and the townspeople made the mother stay in the swamp for fear of her giving away their position to the German enemy. The mother wept for her lost infant for three days. When the Germans vacated, the townspeople returned to their razed town, hoping to rebuild it. The mother walked along with them, in the blackest of grief. As the townspeople reached the outskirts, they saw one house still standing, the house that contained the crib of the infant who had been left behind. The mother, hardly breathing as a result of overlapping waves of fear and hope that crushed the breath from her, rushed into the house. There in his crib was her infant, well fed and happy. A bottle was beside the baby, and next to the crib on a rocking chair, which had obviously been used to feed and comfort the infant, was a German soldier’s warm winter shawl. To the shawl was pinned a note: “To the mother of this beautiful child.”



(2) Mahlou. In a most fascinating way, I once came face to face with the so-called enemy. That meeting remains one of my favorite memories. It occurred in a restaurant in Minsk in 1993. I was helping Academicians from the Belarus Academy of Sciences bring knowledge of individual differences in approaches to learning to the new textbooks being prepared in the Belarus language for K-12 students in a variety of subjects following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the nationalization of curricula. The Humanities University gave us a place to work, and the president and vice-president took me and several other guests to dinner soon after my arrival. I sat catty-corner from Anatoly, the vice-president. For some reason, Anatoly and I began comparing our biographies and were stunned to learn that during the Cold War, I was an officer in the US Army and he an officer in the Red Army; we had both had the same specialty and held the same rank. For a brief moment, we stared at each other, then Tolya (after such a discovery, it was only natural that I would begin to use the nickname for Anatoly) exclaimed, “You were my enemy!”



“And you were mine,” I responded.



We marveled about this discovery until long after dinner had ended. How could it be that two people who seemed to understand each other s poluslova (from half a word), as the Russians say, had been directly targeted against each other in an earlier time? Both veterans of the Cold War, we found we had even more in common than our scholarship. Thereafter, every day Tolya would bring me candies or cookies for our break, and we would sit and marvel again at how strangely fate had wrapped our lives together — and that we had found it out. We shared no military secrets; there were really none of any value by then, anyway. What we shared was a new understanding of the word, enemy.



When it came time for me to leave, the Belarusans, as is typical of their culture, threw a parting party for me. Tolya kept jumping up with a toast and running over to hug or kiss me. This is not exceptionally unusual behavior except that Tolya was known to be an extreme introvert and rarely took part in toasting.



"What did you do to Tolya?" one faculty member asked me.



"I did nothing," I replied. "He took an enemy to dinner."



With the recent cooling off of relations between the USA and Belarus, Tolya has become locked away from me for now, perhaps even forever. Who knows when winds of politics will shift again? But now I know what lies behind the old Iron Curtain that is being drawn again between me and a land and people I came to know affectionately a decade ago. And for one bright and shining moment, I stood side by side in friendship with my enemy.



And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to repent for those times that I have thought of others, any others, as enemies, to thank God for giving me the unusual opportunity to meet my enemy in flesh and blood and find him to be a friend, and to give praise for the way in which He teaches His children. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.



I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:



Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.



For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.