Blow Me Down

Well – “blow me down” – as Popeye used to say.

With a driver not showing up on Sunday at 2 pm to chauffeur me to Logan, things got off on a shaky note. Tim Chechowitz was the third frantic call I made and he drove my car home from the airport. Even with the delay I was there about the time I had planned on. Sunday traffic is great! And no ceilings fell on us as we sailed through the new tunnel in Boston. Big Dig becomes Big Bust. Scary.

But the nice lady helped me do my first touch-screen check-in. Sorta like Wal-Mart or Home Depot self-checkout only different. Through screening (they only took my water bottle thins time – I am a slow learner on these ever-changing regulations. Blow me down!

Flying in the Big Blow (50+ mile winds) made for a few bumps en route to Newark, but we landed safely enough even though a couple of runways were shut down due to high winds. 49 minute flight time. But Newark – is HUGE now. Three terminals with about 40 gates each. A neat air train takes me on a monorail to terminal C. Trains appear every 3 minutes and whisk you around a big loop.

But here an embarrassing episode intrudes. (I strongly suggest you skip to the next paragraph right now.) You see, showering just before I left Haverhill and gave my last bugs to Ellie, I found I had packed all my underwear in the BIG suitcase, which was downstairs. So after the shower I rummaged through my dressed to see if anything showed up. Aha! Yes – a pair of bikini briefs I hadn’t worn since I last felt like a teenager were tempting me from the back of the drawer. “OK,”says I ,“I can do that!” I’m feeling like old times now. Until they began to let me down. (I told you to skip this paragraph! It’ probably too late now, right?) Standing there waiting for the air train I notice the garment is kept from puddling about my feet only by the fact that I am wearing slacks. So I am discreetly trying to reach into pocket A to sneak it up a notch. Then pocket B and so on around the compass points on my pants. Try that three or four times with little success and you wished you had opened the big suitcase while you were still in the privacy of your own home! After waddling around the next terminal to find a men’s room I find a way to put myself properly together. Now I know why old men don’t wear those things if they have any sense….

13 hours on Boeing 777 is along time. And when they stack you up over Delhi for a while waiting for runways to clear, you know how far it is from NJ to Delhi: 7788 miles, more or less.

Then it hits you. What you forgot – because you wanted to forget – about India. Smoke. Smog. Smell. India is said to have the world’s cleanest people in the world’s dirtiest environment. Yep – still there – families sleeping on blankets in the terminals and sidewalks—homeless.

It’s 11 pm. Light traffic here is heavy traffic in Boston. You drive with your horn. In fact buses and lorries (that’s a big truck to you, McKenzie and Walker) have signs painted on the back—“Horn Please.” It remind me of geese in flight, each one honking away just to let the others know you’re coming up on the inside of the ever-changing flight pattern. Red lights? Simply means you look both ways to see if you can scoot through on breaks between cross traffic cars. Need to get ahead of the 3-wheel jitney spewing smoke at you? Just go down the wrong side of the traffic island for a block then squeeze back onto your side (left side) of the road. Here’s a scene not seen every day—a parade of white Brahmin cattle, some hitched to rickety carts. Along the curb side—some 50-60 of them. Cows have no lights. Neither do some of the cars and scooters beeping their way through the traffic. People walking on the streets; dodging vehicles of all types while crossing four to six lanes. Dogs. Old and young. Two or three on a scooter. It’s wild! Yet no one seems to get in trouble. I could really enjoy it driving here. “Those rules don’t apply to me….” “They’re just suggestions.”

Up at 5 a.m. to catch the train for Dehra Dun. Peaceful, those trains…. I got to finish and make notes on a library book: Islam for Western Minds by Henry Drummond. I’ll tell you about it—but not now. It’s time to rest a bit in the quiet guest house at New Theological College. I have my first class tonight.

You could blow me down with a feather.

Proclaim Good News

It was a dark and stormy night....__Actually, it's a dark and stormy day in Haverhill, MA as I pack for India. This storm was born in the turbulent Pacific last week to El Nina, who with her consort El Nino attacks North America repeatedly. Now, over New England, a triple convergence assails us with winds approaching hurricane force, together with pelting rain.__
But I sit comfortably near the woodstove, hoping that Ellie will be OK as I board Continental Sunday afternoon to head for India. I have called our oil burner guy - Cliff Peters, an old tenant of ours when we owned 105 Bellevue Avenue (where Rachel and Dale spent a stressful year early in their marriage) to resurrect our aged oil burner before the frosts get severe. That old Federal Huber furnace was sold me by cousin Harry Carlson when we built this house in 1970. So we have no basis for complaints!__
Friend Jim Herrick has become my personal chauffer to Logan and back on my recent trips to India and Kenya - bless his heart. So at 2 p.m. he will load my bags and deliver me at the terminal. This year I am flying to Newark, whence I can get a non-stop to Delhi. This seemed like a good idea last August when the plot to blow up planes to the USA was thwarted. "Maybe 11 hours in one plane, flying over Greenland, Finland and Russia isn't a bad idea!" So I'll put on my elastic socks to keep blood from settling in my aging legs, and also get up and walk the cabin aisles frequently. I'm even bringing along my new stretch-cord exercise kit, determined as I am to avoid getting out of shape during the cold months. (It now takes me too long to get back in shape in the spring, as the chain saw and wood-splitting chores inflict me with increasing muscle pain. I'm not wild about pain any more.)__So I ask your prayers for my journey.__
I get into Delhi Monday evening (although it's ten hours ahead of EST, so it will be Monday morning here) and be taken by Saju Varghese to the Delhi guest room. By 6 a.m. he will see that I am on the train to Dehra Dun. It's a 5 hour trip through the lush plains dotted with rice paddies and then into the hillier terrain near Dehra Dun. There faculty brothers from New Theological College will pick me up. By car we travel the several miles to the campus, dodging the ubiquitous cows that wander EVERYWHERE in India. Ensconced in the lovely guest house, I'll take sleeping aid. zonk out for 10 hours. Rengit (the cook) will wake me in time for breakfast before morning chapel. He is not a Christian (yet) but has become a friend to all who visit the campus. And that would include you, should you wish to come to visit India.__
Just a word about cows before I sign off.__
Hindu lore says that when a mother stops nursing her boy or girl around age 3, the milk of the cow sustains her children. The basis of all puja (sacrifices) is ghee - what we call butter, more or less. One sees milk in tiny bowls under trees where Hindus make their offerings. So the cow is divine, the source of all sustenance for life. When a motorist killed a cow a few years back a mob lynched and killed the driver. Officials pressed no charges. One of the gurus said that the life of a cow was worth more than the life of many humans.__
This is the context in North India, formerly Hindustan. Pray that I may add a spiritual value to the training of men and women whom God is calling to proclaim goods news in this wonderful nation teeming with people who have never heard the Gospel.