India travel seminar: Deep care & kindness
BY CHRISTOPHER TWEEL (M.Div.’14)
“Hypnotized by the gentle “click-clack” of the railroad as we traveled, today was focused on our travel to Amritsar from Dehli. We rose early, ate lightly, and watched the many vignettes unfold as we traveled north from the place we had come to know over the past few days. There were many familiarities from home — the fields and farms supplying the city, the groups of children playing at jump rope and flying kites, men and women working in smaller villages at rail line repair, construction, or cooking the morning meal over a low charcoal fire. We all relished the break in our pace and got our journals, and chatted, and laughed, and planned our next moves together. There has been a blessed sense of deep care and kindness as we have entered into the culture here. From the offerings of chai and coffee, to the hospitable wreathing of our necks with garlands of fragrant marigolds and the accompanying “welcome home” that greets us in each new place. We have felt like honored guests, which changes the way in which we move through this place. Hospitality, as Christians, we know changes the world and our places in it.
As we exit the trains we are faced with other harsher realities, and have discussed the very visible population of mendicants who see rich tourists as opportunity. In some of our conversations as a group in private, we commented that our country has many in need, who go hungry, who are children, and who are in dire need of medical aid — we just have tighter rules on where we are able to see them. Our communities of need are not perhaps so visible in the circles many of us usually travel, and so perhaps, they are easier to forget. The experience changes when a young mother tugs at your sleeve.
When we met this evening with Christ Church Cathedral here in town, we were not only treated to song and laughter and incredible food, but also with a taste of the amazing ministry they do as a larger diocese and as a local church. As a minority population the work they do seems a daily miracle, which they simply call “living the life of joy through the teaching of the Gospel.” One of the most interesting works of this 168-year-old church begun by Robert Clark (the first missionary to the Punjab region), is their work in interfaith peace. Our churches in the states also do this, but the power of the work comes again from their minority status. What is it to request and work for and hope for real peace, when you have none of the power and station that our Christian majority enjoys at home? What is it when the former Bishop of the church in Pakistan, who also attended our dinner, still works for peace in the midst of his own daughter being beaten and forever damaged, because of her faith? The stakes are so much higher and the “power” seems far less than what privilege we enjoy in the U.S., and still, their joy in the Good News persists, and they “find family” together as they meet. As they fed us delicious pakora and curried peas, they reminded us and shared with us their passion to reach people who hunger.
The world truly is filled with those who still hunger, at train stations and in our own city of Richmond, and we are inspired by the work of these Christians, our new “found family,” who are at work in the world. As we continued to enjoy this Holy hospitable place, we will continue to pray over them and their awesome work.
Christopher Tweel is an alumnus of Union Presbyterian Seminary and associate pastor for Christian education at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia.
