Heading Home

Heading home, I must thread my way through a tangle of traveling threads. Life is never dull going west from India.

Usually I take a 5 a.m. train out of Dehra Dun that gets me to Delhi about noon. Since the Continental flight to Newark is listed as departing at 11:55 p.m. that means a long hangout in the Indira Ghandi airport. It’s not a bad airport but it’s dull as dust.

Hearing that there is a train leaving at 8:45, I ask if that is doable. Why not? Not knowing why not, I say “Why not?” That’s how you learn stuff. Let me tell you.

First of, not all trains here are equal. In the USA an Amtrak train is what it is—a string of various cars, mixing coaches with sleepers with diners with baggage and so on. In India, having more rail miles than any nation in the world, you would think that trains would be state of the art.

Ah, ……. No.

India’s roads are stuck in the 1950s. Totally. No interstate highways. Only in Delhi and only this decade, Delhi is getting a few overpasses to help the flow of traffic. So people move by bus and by train. Train is the better way, of course, since you do not have to stop at every intersection, as a bus must.

The poor people ride in what look like cattle cars. Filled with benches, you can squeeze a hundred or more people into each car. But it’s basic. No cushions, no fans, much less AC, just a cut above Hitler’s death cars that carried Jews to the final solution in the 1940s.

But the first class trains have seats that recline, a tray table, and a steel holder for your gratis litre of cold water. There are fans and even AC, plus hooks for your jacket and overhead baggage racks. You get some food in the ticket price, too. I think it is OK bordering on “nice,”

But the 8:45 train has no chair cars. All berth cars.

Scene I.

So picture this. A compartment open to the aisle, with two cushy seats facing each other. Fastened above your head is a drop-down “bed: platform", with a second above that. So when you sleep (and you do on many runs, for a Christmas trip home for my colleagues is a three days and three nights journey on the rails. That’s for a distance of 1000 to nearly 2000 miles in some cases, such as going to Kerala where Uncle George and most of the faculty hail from.) So there is no definable space that your ticket secures for you. No reclining. No personal tray tables.

OK I can handle this, right? Yes…after a fashion.

You see, my ticket is for “seat” number 1. In that compartment, however, is a couple with three kids, one an infant. She looks imploringly at me. “Would you mind taking the other seat we had to purchase at the far end of the car, so our family can sit together?” I cannot say No to that now, can I?

But my “handler” (for whom I thank God constantly) knows things are not that simple in India. “We’ll have to look at that seat and check with the ticket master first.” (He knows that another family may already be there and possibly spilling over into all available space.) But the adjacent cubicle has a woman who speaks up right away. “I have a ticket for a companion who could not make the train, so please take this space.” Sounds good. I agree.

Now just wait a second before you breathe a sigh of relief with me. This is India. It’s not going to be that simple.

This white woman is obviously from the USA, probably East Coast. She has a shaved head and is dressed in Tibetan Buddhist outfit—you know, the one with the maroon scarf thingy. I naively think she has the whole compartment bought up and that I will sit on one bench seat and she on the other. Looks OK. We go for it. I find out the she is of Jewish roots (non-practicing) and New York City area. At age 8 she thought of suicide because life, as she had it explained to her, “sucks and then you die.” So what’s the point? Then she heard about Buddhism. It made some sense. So now, in middle age, she has a resident visa and has been in India three years at various centers studying the ancient texts. She even is learning Tibetan!

Now across the aisle there is a narrow bunk parallel to the side of the train with a middle-aged Indian woman perched there. The attendant comes around with pillows and blanket-sheets so we can stretch out if we desire and catch some zzzzzzzs.

Chatting amiably, we suddenly are invaded by a family getting on at Haridwar—a favorite holy shrine for Hindus—who have the other seats in our vicinity. Of course, if we were all sleeping they would have those four upper bunks, plus the one over the lady across the aisle. They have as much baggage as the Clampetts would’ve had going home from their first visit to Disneyland.

Onto the upper berths they pile a zillion duffles and “onion” bags marked “walnuts” and shopping bags from the Indian gift shops. They want the woman to move off somewhere else. (I only get snatches as this is going on mostly in Hindi with occasional lapses into English.) She is not moving. Decibels are rising. Gestures are more menacing. I would guess this family is a higher caste than this woman and thinks they can bully her.

My companion is really a Jewess from NYC disguised as a Buddhist nun. She is not to be trifled with. And she knows this culture well, having lived here for three years. She starts to shout at them. “Why are you yelling and threatening this old woman? She has the seat she paid for. She has an injured knee and needs to stretch out. You are so rude. You Indians are not nice—I’ve had enough of you people throwing your weight around. You leave that woman alone!” After five minutes of this, the family backs off. Now they want to sit on the lower bench where the nun has her sheet and pillow.

But Mrs. Nun is ticked. No. You will not sit on my shelf. I am going to lie down. You go on the upper bunks you paid for. One of them looks at me imploringly, with his arm on his 8-year-old brother. Can we sit on your side? “O sure—why not?” So finally the dust settles. The nun lies down. The upper bunks are lowered (BTW you cannot sit up on that bottom bunk now unless you are under four feet in height—you bump your head on the bunk above.)

Mrs. Nun has a palm pilot and state-of-the-art cell phone (she has access to money, I’m sure, as she dropped the tidbit that she had given a bundle to one of these monasteries.) She is talking aloud—putatively to me, while she calls this one and that one because this train is running late and she will miss her connection to Andra Pradesh (a state in the south of India) and will need a driver to pick her up in Delhi and take her to a guesthouse she frequents, call the 100 monks who have already left the monastery for the overnight trek to the place they intend to pick up their benefactress, etc., etc.) For relief she spars with the Indian family, running down India as an intolerant ignorant country—you get the picture.

Meanwhile she is astonished that a philosopher like myself knows little about Buddhist philosophy. I ask her to tell me what she has learned. She makes a few stabs at it, showing me a copy of the scriptures she is studying—a sort of interlinear Tibetan and English version.

She is telling me about karma and how over the course of many lives you can work your way to enlightenment when the things of this half-real world no longer have an effect on you and you are released to become one with the One. Meanwhile, on the calls she is making she is twisting people’s arms to do her favors and using all kinds of bad words when the tech people on her Mobile Office help desk don’t know English, and so forth. She reminds me of what they used to call the Ugly American. “This lady is working up a huge pile of bad karma today,” I think to myself. “She is going to go around and around for along time!”

What a relief when after nearly six hours of this, my colleagues from the college’s Delhi division rescue me at the end of the line! I had started to answer her question (after my listening to her for a couple of hours) about what I believed. I got off a few ideas. But when I started to tell why I followed the Way of Jesus, she pointed to something out the window, changed the subject and dropped back into the Land of Complaints and Curses.

Next year it will be the early chair train for me. Even a cattle car if need be.

Scene II.

Out of the crowded station. Just recall if you can a scene in some old flick about the British in “In-jah” pushing their way through mountains of beggars, coolies, porters, and rickshaw drivers. That’s what it's like.

Now my two friends, Premji and Martin, are struggling with my big bag, loaded with books bound for the USA. The extended roll handle was busted by the baggage-smashers on my outgoing flight so bag cannot be rolled, especially on the stairs that get you over one platform and onto another. The small handles are not placed for two people. So they limp along like the Two Stooges, bag akimbo.

In the Land Rover we debate the prospects for my day. Go directly to airport. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Spend 10 hours in Jail at Indira Ghandi International. Or, go to Premji’s, take a rest, re-pack to meet airline weight requirements, and head for the airport later, shortening the wait to three hours. No contest. We’ll take the latter.

At Premji’s I am in the real India. No polished hotels, limos with unformed attendants, or gleaming Taj Mahals. Here is a neighborhood reminding me of Boston’s North End in the 1950s. Dust in the streets, dogs barking, and a kid driving a bicycle tire down the street with a stick. Cycles pass the slower ‘bike-shaws’ taking a couple downtown. People walk to the little convenience store across the street.

Up a narrow winding concrete staircase to the second floor (called first floor as it is over the ground floor) apartment. Premji’s wife, Lizy greets me with a big smile, showing me her sons, Blesson, age 6 and Ben, age 3. “Cup of tea?” “O yes—that would be welcome, thank you. But first I could use a toilet.” It's been seven hours since I left the Guest House.

I am pointed toward the balcony that overlooks the street. Wondering just what I will find, there is a door openng to a room about 4’x 5’ that has an opening in the floor about 12’x18” It is lined with china porcelain, slanting toward a 4” drain. An “Asian” toilet has no moving parts to fail as in western toilets with tanks and ball and cock gizmos and flappers. I came. I saw. I go-ed. (How do you say that in Latin?) Dip a quart cup into the pail of water, slosh it in, and we’re done. No muss, no fuss, no cuss!

The apartment, as in most tropical climes, is all concrete with terrazzo floors. Jambs and doors are wood. The living room is about 8’x11’ and has a table and small fridge on one end and a couch and coffee table on the other. The two bedrooms are about 8’x10’ with plywood platform beds that you can shift around or stack against the wall when the house church comes to meet here. One or two cabinets for your stuff and that’s it. Kitchen? 4’x7’ with a sink, counter-top 4 burner black gas cooker, a couple of cabinets on the walls. Basic. So in this flat that is about 400 square feet, including the balcony that has a tiny washing machine and some lines to string your laundry, this family of four lives and hosts their church.

I love it. They are low-profile and neighborhood based. A girl about 17 or 18 comes in – Ermela. She is all smiles. I get my camcorder to capture scenes in the street. Across is an apartment with a woman doing wash, kids playing at cricket on the rooftop. Below is a man with a big 1890s flat iron pressing some tablecloths. A shop has bakery sweets. Another has a big stack of in-the-shell roasted peanuts. All on the “sidewalk.”

A couple of kids below see me waving. Ermela takes my camera to shoot me signaling them. They wave back and start to show off.

Then that cup of tea. It has an appealing flavor that seems new to me.

I have torn a tote bag and need to re-pack it. But Martin takes it and disappears. A half hour later he returns on his motor scooter with the bag sewn up. How much did you pay the man? 10 rupees. That’s twenty-five cents? The patch doesn’t last the whole journey home, but it helped.

It’s getting toward dusk when an awful racket starts in the street. I grab my camera. Out of an alley come 6-8 guys with snare drums beating. Behind are a dozen plus women with lamps lighted (flames, no less), followed by a few dozen marchers. “What’s that about?” I ask as they fade up the street. “O they are going to the temple to worship the sun god as they think that in winter when the sun is weak you can do puja (offerings) and get the sun to smile on your life,” explains Martin.

After Ermela leaves Premji tells me she is a high caste Brahmin girl who has started coming to the house church. This type of house ministry happens by the thousands in the cities of India. Keep a low profile. Hindus make trouble if they think you are converting anyone. Smart plan.

Scene III.

Time to head out. Driving in Delhi makes one feel like you are in some kind of competition. A blend of demolition derby and dodge-ems.

Martin tells me his story. As a teen he was playing guitar in the gothic rock band. Really extreme – slouching toward Satanism, when he found Jesus. His buddies still hate him for deserting. Feeling God’s call, he went to NTC and got a theology degree. He was in my class a year or two ago.

Now Martin is Punjabi. The state of Punjab is unique in India. Some five hundred years ago the Muslims were getting heavy-handed there. One Guru Nank formed a new religion, borrowing from Islam and Hinduism. He opposed the brutal caste system and the oppressive aspects of Islam in order to create an active religion that would fight for the rights of the oppressed. Sikhs are the guys who wear that turban of folded cloth that looks sort of like a bike helmet. They have proved themselves good warriors. And—Punjab is the only state in India that is neat and clean! So Martin begins to pray about where God would place him, hopefully in Punjab.

The Lord impresses on him the verse about going with the Gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to the ends of the earth. Great! He will start in his Jerusalem—Punjab. However, as is common for these students, he tells some faculty and asks them to pray and give their assessment of this word from the Lord. They do just that. Some days later they tell him that he is to go to India’s “Jerusalem.” That would be the place last on Martin’s list: Delhi. A very tough adjustment. But Martin goes. He is now content ministering through his house church and reaching out to orphans and the poor as well as to the well off.

He reminds me of his interest and skill in philosophy. He wants to get a masters degree therein so he can be an apologist. I decide to give him a copy of my Quest for Truth text. He is thrilled! So I give him three more copies for some of his NTC pals who also have been bitten by the gadfly of philosophy and are taking higher degrees.

We have now spent over an hour and one half dodging cars, bikes, three-wheelers, lorries, camels, and pedestrians to complete the 25 miles to the airport. It’s “Goodbye until next fall!”

Scene V

A blue uniformed young man sees me alight from the van and fetches his trolley for my book-laden bags. No line this time. So in no time I am safe in the “system” of international air transport. We leave Delhi at midnight and chase the moon west all night. 15 hours later I am flying over Chester, VT where our family has a 350 acre tree farm. We land at dawn in Newark. I call Ellie once my cell phone gets recharged. She has just returned from an early grocery run. By 11 a.m. I am in my hometown—and proudly so. The home of the 2007 World Champion Red Sox and the New England Patriots.

I thank the Lord for guiding me through all these “advenchas” and getting me safe into Ellie’s arms and into Jim Herrick’s car for the ride to Liberty Street.

The old song’s sentiment is so true. “There’s No Place Like Home, Sweet Home.” Be it ever so humble….

Praise God, I am a bit humbler now than when I left. And that’s a good thing.

Thanks for your prayers.

Nightmares

Apres moi, la deluge!

These famed words were uttered by the most powerful king of France when that nation was at its zenith of opulence and prestige. Le roi, Louis Quatorze. For you in Haverhill, that’s Louis XIV. As you know, within a generation heads would roll and France would never be the same.

Lying in bed when one awakens early can set free the sheep one counted as a sleep aid earlier to gambol around the fertile pastures of the mind. The issue from these sportive rams and ewes can be freakish—like the little girl in the news here last week that had 4 legs and 4 arms due to a very rare form of Siamese twinning. (She had one head and could control all her limbs. So when she awoke from the 30 hours that various teams of doctors worked on her, she looked around for her missing limbs! But she knew her jubilant parents as soon as the anesthesia wore off. Wonders never cease. But I digress.)

A Scripture came to mind in the darkness that disturbed me somewhat. When the disciples were standing in awe of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem (they gawked like any country boys would in the “Big City”), Jesus gave an astounding prediction. “You are impressed, are you? I tell you not one stone will remain upon another—all will be reduced to rubble!” Of course the boys couldn’t believe anything like that could happen. I mean, how could it? This was the sacred Temple Mount where Solomon built a house for Yahweh, where David had taken Mount Zion a thousand years earlier, and where Abraham may have “sacrificed” Isaac. The city was protected now by the mighty power of Rome. Yet we know that within their lifetimes Jesus words would be fulfilled, resulting in the unthinkable. God would allow pagans to plow the ground up, abolishing the Mosaic sacrificial system forever.

Ho-hum! We all know this is true. But that was then; this is now.

How nearly impossible it is for us to imagine the impact of this event on the psyche of the Chosen People in Jesus’ time.

The dark thought that came to me is this. We, too, shall see an equivalent in our own time. (Now I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. While not an orchardist like the prophet Amos, I am merely a maple-tapper. So I claim no divine inspiration here.) But still, the “signs of the times” are faintly outlining our future. And it is not reassuring.

Look at the lovely buildings we worship in—and are in danger of worshiping. Our local churches. The grand cathedrals in our great cities from Boston to New York to D.C., not to mention the empty magnificent wonders in Chartres and Cologne.

Islamic true believers boast that they intend to have the USA under Shari’a law by 2050. I’m not sure there will be a USA to dominate by then. Informed people speculate that the house of cards know as the global economy could easily collapse, either by its own weight or by some dirty bombs detonated by suicidal fanatics in a key city or two in the financial world. Or it could be a pandemic virus that wiggles out from the frantic efforts of scientists who work to control such threats, battling more resistant strains every year it seems.

Can we face a modern version of “not one stone upon another?” Gone will be the Christian mega-industries that pump out videos, music CDs, books and Bibles. Gone our comfy meeting places with those inspiring sounds systems and computer-enhanced worship experiences. No more mighty choirs supported by awesome organs and orchestras. No more grandiose mega-conferences or cruises with the Big Bugs. No more plush colleges and impressive foundations. I’m not saying that will happen. But it could happen. And possibly sooner rather than later.

How ill-prepared are we for such an event. We laugh at how in the 1960s people built backyard bomb shelters. But maybe we have just been spared so far by God’s grace. But we know from history that God will not forever strive with rebels.

Observing our counterparts here in India I realize that we can survive and even prosper when all that we take for granted is stripped away. We can meet under a tree or in a house. I imagine what would happen if we had to meet in our houses. In the USA many of our houses could easily hold 50 people. Think how much more personal and powerful the people of Christ would be in such a setting. No spectator attitude. No “What am I getting out of this Preacher?” kind of thinking. Lean and nimble will be what’s needed then. I wonder if we can start preparing our minds and hearts for such a time. The church is stagnating under the stifling affluence of the west. At the same time it is thriving in the “disadvantaged” world of China, India, Pakistan and Iran. The stories that trickle out to us here in India cause me to take heart. We do not need all the stuff we “need.” We only need the Holy Spirit.

O my! Still dark. I’ll try to go back to sleep and see if the sheep of sleep can come up with something a bit less solemn.

BLAT! BLAT! BLAAAAAAAT!

WHAT is that???!

Well, we are cheek by jowl to a Buddhist monastery here where the guesthouse is located. Some monk is blowing on a tuba, sounds like. Only he has ZERO embouchure. His lip must be a flaccid as an inner tube. This goes on and on and on. Well, it’s no worse than the monk who chanted on two low pitches all day one day last week.

Maybe I can tune it out and slip back to dreamland.

Maybe not. Toss. Turn. Toss.

There’s the morning star, slowly ascending over the mountain range. Now I know what time it is—about an hour until its light enough to see colors. I surmise that first light lasts until one can see colors. Then it is dawn. But I really have no clue how these subtleties are defined. Sunrise – that’s precise. I notice that when the sun rises over the mountain east of my window that its point of lift-off has come noticeably south—in just 15 days.

I’m up. Out for a walk up to the where the road drops by switchbacks to a river flowing down the valley. Awesome.

This day will go fast. Read some term papers, give the final, dive into grading. I guess it will be mostly nightmares all day long.

One bright spot. Babu’s wife, Lalee, is fixing a lunch for us. Some lunch! Six dishes with the best chapattis I’ve ever had, plus dessert and tea. The tea was lemon. I asked what made it different. She puts a few fresh lemon squirts into each cup. Mmmmm!

Before most of you read this blog I will be in Tunnel of Travel. After breakfast on Friday they will put me on the train to Delhi. A long wait at the airport. A long night en route to Newark.

Then dawn again in the USA and home by noon. God is good.

See you in church.

A Trinity of Saints

Without being too clever, I’ll tell of three men whose stories I heard in the last half a day.

The first is the Principal of the New Theological College, Dr. Simon Samuel.

I enter there house—one of the nicest on campus (he is the principal and must entertain visitors, after all) where his wife, Mercy, is preparing our dinner with the help of her domestic. The two children, a boy of six and a girl age two, are making pests of themselves and driving us a bit crazy—but no more than any kids of that age. The supper is too my taste, as Simon has a tender stomach himself and avoids really spicy stuff. We have rice (of course), chapattis, goat meet fixed with something really, really black—might be mushrooms and some sauce? Who knows? Who acres? Just try it. It’s good! Some fried potato (I’m sure in my honor), plus lightly sautéed fresh beans, carrot and the like. Some green salad, plain yogurt, and leftover cake from the last night’s all-college-community 50th Birthday bash for Dr. Samuel. The cut on the girl’s finger—helping mom in the kitchen—seems to be staying bandaged. So soon after we sit and talk.

Now Simon is a modest man but with great gifts for this college. It seems he came from a very poor background. His father at age five lost his father, leaving him to mostly to fend for himself. It made him very tough, even though he was slight of stature. Simon and his brothers and sisters grew up in a village in south India to which there was no real road. No electricity. The boonies of India. His father tried to open an iron shop with a few rupees he scraped together. But the supplier cheated him with shoddy goods and the venture failed at once. So Simon, being the oldest and bigger and stronger than his father had to assist with whatever hand to mouth work they could get. So here is a typical day for him in the late 1960s.

Up at 3 a.m. He and dad put water in what we would call an Indian spray pump that goes on your back after you pump up pressure by hand. There is pesticide mixed in so they can treat the rice fields they have. It has to be done in the dark as the neighbors do not take kindly to pesticide wafting around while they are cooking and washing outside their “houses.” Simon is knee deep in mud and water. His father goes to the far end of the field and lights a faggot so Simon will know the direction, since it is pitch black. Simon sweeps the area in front and to each side with this concoction as he heads toward the light. Try not to think of the snakes and other creatures of the night that frequent these paddies. In an hour or so he makes it to the other side.

Please realize there is no OSHA here. Simon is sucking in the fumes and mist. Once it was so strong he collapsed unconscious. But you—and the family—have to eat. Even worse, for three years running great rains came at harvest time and took everything downstream. But his father is hardened by life and never lets it get to him.

So the next plan is to sell some plantains. Cut bunch and start walking to market at 3 a.m. It is 8 miles. Plantains are heavy. Simon is bigger so he carries the larger bunches. At dawn he leaves his father at the outdoor market and walks home.
Now he heads off for school. This is another long trek—about 5 miles. That’s not so bad except the path goes through Marsh #1. Simon removes his clothes and sandals, piles them on his head and wades through. Re-clothes himself. Soon comes to Marsh #2. Same drill. Then on to school. Same thing going home. No wonder he is the only child in the family to persist through all grades. The rest dropped out by age 10 or so.

Getting home in late afternoon it is time to chop wood for the fires. Cut split, stack. All with an axe. Simon’s mother is, in his words, “a woman of prayer.” Despite the hardships he is being taught about the Lord. His younger brother runs off to join the navy at age 17. His father dies. So Simon is left with a mother and sister to care for. Fortunately, the Indian family structure is helpful here as some uncles help out as they can to keep the family afloat.

Somehow Simon goes to a Bible college, finds the born-again experience, and is called to ministry in northeast India. These are oriental people living in a tribal village with no store, no post office, no electricity. Simon teaches them the Gospel for two years. But he is becoming more ill as he cannot fight off the effects of bad water, poor food, and loneliness. If an army truck comes through, maybe monthly, he might get a letter. But maybe not. He is living in a hut. Health forces him to go back home.

In time he meets Mercy and they are married. He goes for higher degrees, even in Great Britain. He finds he loves to give lectures after he is aksed to fill in for someone ina New Testament class. Simon is fluent in English as far as reading and writing goes. But he has never spoken in English. Yet his tongue has no problem giving the lecture. He now senses his calling in life.

The Lord is indicating he should minister in north India. He replies, “Lord, you have to take care first of mom and my sisters.” In a few years his younger brother, now home from the navy, is selected for a job and can send some money home. His sisters find husbands and can care for mom. He and Mercy come north to teach. Soon he meets Uncle George, just starting this college. They are fast friends within hours. He comes to NTC, teaches New Testament courses (and is considered a superior teacher) and assumes the principalship here.

So when students come with their problems, all discouraged, Simon listens. Then he tells his life story. Generally they leave encouraged that God can see them through if they persevere as the Scripture enjoins us. This is Saint #1.

The second is T.S. Sam.

I was served breakfast today in the apartment of Sam and his wife, also Mercy. (How come Americans have not thought of that name for a girl?) The food consisted of a “pancake” made of rice flour that rises over night and then is cooked on a skillet. It looks like a giant sunny-side-up egg for shape, with a mound in the middle where the yolk would be. Only it is lace white and sweet to the taste. Over it we ladle a sauce with hard-boiled eggs. I like it.

I ask Sam about his siblings. He says it is a sad story.

When Sam was about five, his father palmed off him and his younger brother to a Catholic institution as orphans. He disappeared without telling their mother what he had done. She prayed, asking the Lord to help her locate her children. After a few years she did find them and took them back.

But in India a broken home is a cause for shame. Not only was his mother unable to find work, she was ostracized whenever anyone inquired as to her family situation. And here people always ask about your connections, so they know how to treat you according to your station in the caste system.

Sam knew hunger to the point of starvation. They lived wherever they could find shelter—basically homeless. They managed to get a few chickens somehow and Sam would take them to a shop to sell. Owners would want to know who he was. When they found out they often figured he must have stolen the eggs. It made it very difficult for them to survive. But his mother was a Christian and taught her sons about Jesus. She never gave up believing that she was not alone.

Sam left home for the north when he was seventeen and found work where he could. A bright student, he managed to get an education, sensing the Lord was calling him to ministry. He did not get his theology degree until he was forty. But now he is married and has two daughters who are well educated and have excellent positions, one as a doctor and the other in business.

While the poverty and hunger was a sore trial, Sam says that the constant rejection was almost unbearable. He finally would tell people his father was dead just to stop the questions. For all he knew his father was dead. Not too many years ago he was able to contact relatives on his father’s side, but before he could connect his father did pass away.

Sam works in ministry here at the college as the dean of students, with his wife the mother of the 45 girls in the Women’s Hostel on campus. His brother is in ministry also in a city not too distant from here. It is a miracle fo grace that Sam has found wholeness such that he is a fine counselor healed himself of the scars of a terrible childhood. So when students come to him with their woes, he often tells his story. “When father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up,” as the Psalmist puts it.

Sam is my Saint #2

The third saint is Wungyo Lungleng.

He is the student who preached his senior sermon this morning

Nagaland state. I can tell from his features that he is from the part of Asia that is closer to China and Myanmar than to western India. He explains why he is here studying to preach he Gospel.

In his home area Baptist missionaries came perhaps a hundred years ago when his ancestors were headhunters. There was no unity of peace or kindness in the entire region—just tribes fighting, raiding and eating their human prey. The people wore human bones for necklaces and kept the skulls of their enemies. To them the Christians came with the Good News of God’s love.

They learned the language and the customs. They ate the strange food and suffered many diseases from the water and the climate. They said goodbye to their dear ones, never to see them again in this life. They died in that village and are buried there.

What is the fruit of their sacrifice? Now the entire village worships Jesus Christ, as do surrounding villages. They live in harmony, ubnity and peace. Their entire life has been changed. Their culture has been transformed. All because they did not hold their lives and comfort dear to themselves but sacrificed all for Jesus and His Kingdom.

So, Wungyo says, he is here to prepare to do the same for those who have never heard the Message of Love in Christ. He is ready to leave his own people and do whatever it takes, for he too echoes the text of St. Paul. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.”

By this time in his forceful and very energetic presentation I am between tears and shouts of joy. What a Gospel we are given to share. What a difference Jesus can make in hearts, in families, in communities, in the world.

So this is Saint #3.

I have been listening to something most precious. From people most precious to God and now to me. I am as a grasshopper in their shadow. They have passed through the waters and walked through the fire.

If Christians were fowl, these would be the deep diving sea ducks, the pelagics that brave the shoreless deeps of the vast oceans, or the wild honkers that slice the highest heavens on their far-sighted migrations. As for me? I am no more than a dabbler, quacking about in the quiet pools among the sheltering reeds, picking a bug here and there.

Hopefully I can learn to fly with them some day. Or, at the least, be a loon for Jesus—gavia immer, the most primitive of the bird species but nonetheless worthy of respect.

Gang Man Marries the Virgin Mary

This is quite the story that I heard at the senior picnic here and that I promised to relate to you. Why the over-the-top title?

Well – I was thinking of “This Is the Story of Eddie Kuchichakakama-tozinary-tozinova-sammagamma-wacky Brown.” That old camp song we used to sing at Camp Fireside in the ‘60s is too frivolous for what I want to share. But this story, though true, is almost as hard to believe. (BTW – the Eddie of that song drowned, mostly because his name was so long. Maybe I’ll share it in a podcast some time. I’m sure you would be thrilled to hear it! (Bzzzz!)

This is about one of my current students here in India—John Luke Timothy. (Do not ask me why so many here have a string of first names—I dunno.)

And while JLT was a ganger, his wife is not the Virgin Mary. It’s just that she makes me think this is what Jesus’ mother may been like. Nicole maybe weighs 7 stone after a big meal. If I saw her among some kids at home I’d say she is 15. Her true age I do not know. Probably twenty—maybe. She has a sweet 6 month old boy named Ethan. Her father is a music teacher who also plays for the Milwaukee Philharmonic and other Chicago area orchestras. Nicole plays flute and is a ballerina, playing, among other roles, a mouse in the “Nutcracker.” How she got linked to JMT I am not sure. What I will tell you is how her husband came to Jesus Christ.

JMT’s father converted from Hinduism and became a street evangelist—a man who is bold for Christ among his people, making many converts. But he will not baptize a woman who comes wearing gold jewelry. And it’s not what you think—a literal application of St. Peter’s instruction for women of faith not to adorn themselves with gold and fancy hair styles. It is because JMT’s Hindu grandmother taught his father the symbolic meaning of all the bracelets, rings, and other ornaments that Hindu women wear. All of them allude to a Hindu god or goddess—of which there are millions. So it is a matter of renouncing false religion.

Scene I.

JMT’s father often prayed over his children and was sure God would call promising young John Moses to ministry. He, his mom and sisters were often beaten for their rejection of the Hindu way. This constant rejection caused JMT to hate Jesus. “His name has brought nothing but grief and misery to us,” he wailed. So as a teen, he joined a street gang and did drugs. He came to love blood—his own and others. Fearless, he would ride his bike straight at buses until they chickened out first. He was not afraid of dying. So he would be paid money to go beat up some family for someone. People he never knew. A hit man is what he was. But his Dad was still praying.

In fact, his father decided to send him to Bible college in the USA. He would enroll him in a school in Minneapolis so he would become the preacher he was meant to be, even though JMT hated Jesus.

In India one does not defy one’s father openly. So JMT has a plan to sabotage the enterprise. He will not sit the exam required for those seeking a student visa for the USA.

The day comes for him to go the embassy to present his papers as his father demands. Other students ask him how he did on the exam. “Didn’t take it,” JMT replies. “Then why are you waiting in line? You know no one gets a visa without a good exam!”

As far as human wisdom goes, this is all true. However we must keep in mind that beautiful Scripture phrase, “But God….”

As JMT inches to the head of the line he notices that some who got second or fifth on the exam are rejected anyway and go out with long faces. “Great,” he says to himself. "I’m home free."

JMT comes to the desk at last. As he does, the woman doing interviews asks an assistant to watch while she goes to the WC. So he sits down and shuffles JMT’s papers. “OK, these look good,” he says to JMT’s astonishment. “What do you mean? I didn’t take the exam, as you can see.” “Yes, I noticed that. But we can make exceptions here and there.”

BANG! Down comes the stamp. Visa granted!

JMT slouches out of the building with a long face. “O, you must have denied, too!” someone sympathizes. “No, you @#%&* fool—I was granted!”

Scene II

Our hero is now sitting in a fine house in Minneapolis. His father and he have flown to America to deposit the lad in the local “Bible Prison.” JMT figures he can find a way out—maybe he’ll just flunk out or break all the rules. He’ll figure out a way. His street-smart wiles have not deserted him.

“John, if you want you can use the pool any time,” suggests the host.

How many pools this big are there in India? JMT decides, “Why not?” So Mr. Fearless gets into his shorts, bolts out his bedroom sliding door and dives in.

I should perhaps say that JMT does not swim—at all. He does not know that even private pools in American can be deep enough to take a diving board dive from Mr. Big’nTall, the owner, probably a son of one of those former Norwegian Bachelor Farmers.

JMT is on the bottom and not coming up. I know what to do. I’ll crouch on the bottom and push up. He breaks the surface and gulps air before sinking like a stone. Repeat and repeat. “How long can I keep this up?” he wonders.

Plan B. Crawl along the bottom to the shallow end and walk out. Bzzz! The pump is circulating the water at a vigorous rate. JMT gets nowhere.

Plan C. Panic. Yes – for Mr. Fearless. Like so many others he sees his life flashing by on “warp speed forward.” If I die now I will go to Hell. Notice how he hates Jesus but still knows his father’s beliefs!

Plan D. “Jesus, save me! If you save me I will die for you!” This is a version, I suppose, of the foxhole prayers common in military combat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch so to speak, something (I wonder Who?) prompts Dad to check on his son—something is wrong. He and the host get up to search. Dad goes to the bedroom. Not there. Patio door open—he heads for the pool. The water is placid. As he turns back toward the bedroom, something (I wonder Who?) prompts him to look again. He sees JMT at the bottom, motionless. Crying for help, he and host get JMT out. The host works as a local policeman so does the CPR thing. Jesus has saved JMT! Maybe that's why they gave him Moses as his middle name-pulled out of the water.

Scene III

JMT at the Bible college. It’s another day—the day when doubt always comes from the Enemy. JMT needs some “proof” that Jesus is really in all this. After all, the policeman revived and he never claimed to be Jesus!

“Jesus, I need you to speak to me! I'll pray for four days. If you speak to me, fine. If not, I’m going on back to the gang—the only life I really know.” (Remember this young man is fearless—back to his old self.)

Following his father’s austere devotional practice (he gets up as Dad did as a Hindu, to pray at 1 a.m. and again at 5 a.m.) JMT fasts all food, shuts himself in his dorm room, and chants incessantly, “Jesus, speak to me!”

Day one passes. Nothing.

Day two passes. Nothing.

Day three passes. Nothing.

Day four. He is still behind his locked door and tiny draped windows. Then—LIGHT. Blinding light. He sees two angels walking back and forth in his room. Suddenly, Mr. Fearless cries out, “Jesus, do NOT speak to me! Please! I will die for you!”

Is this for real?

Get this. On day five JMT finds he is using no bad language. Previously he could not say two sentences without curses. He has peace in his heart instead of the seething anger and belligerence that has been his home page for years.

Scene IV.

He studies to be a preacher. He finds he has the gifts of evangelism, discernment and deliverance. It scares him. But he knows God is building on his native assertive personality to make him effective for the kingdom. “I do not want to sit in one place as a pastor or do shows like TV evangelists.” He decides just to pray for doors of ministry to open back in India. After several months he gets a call. “Could you come to our church and help revive the people?” Another soon follows. “Could you come for deliverance meetings in our city?”

As he is traveling back to India God puts him next to an atheist who is bragging about how he is going to lecture in a big Indian university on why there is no God. JMT listens. When the guy runs out of gas, he asks “What about you?” JMT relates his story. As the plane lands, Mr. Anti-theist says he is not sure now just what he will say at the big lecture.

Arriving at his first meeting, JMT is scared. He is a nobody. “What can this kid do?” He can read there thoughts. As he gets up to speak, a family comes toward the front with a very ill woman. He moves forward to pray for her. She is instantly on her feet, healed. Soon others are crowding to the front. (Remind you of anything in Jesus’ Gospel ministry?) One woman is mute. She has not spoken for years. Coming close, he touches her knee. “Do not touch me!” she says. He prays in Jesus name for the spirit to come out of her. It’s not pretty, but she is delivered and praises God. One is brought to him who is blind. He thinks of Jesus using spittle for blind people. “I can’t do that here!” So he shakes a bottle of water onto his fingers and touches the eyes. Sight!

Over time he has preached and healed in many places—though he cannot be more than 25 or so—“signs and wonders following.” He knows this is not due to HIS gifting. Only Jesus. And he knows that this type of ministry is usually found only in places where the Gospel has not come previously.

Scene V

As JMT goes back to his home city, he is warned twice. Once by a stranger in a conference in the USA, who came to him, saying, “I have a word from the Lord. You will die for Jesus.” Back in India another person came to him with the same message.

But home he must go. Once there an old gang buddy comes to see him. In an instant the whole gang is there, grabs him, stuffs him in a car and drives off. “We are going to kill you! No one leaves the gang and lives.”

“Dear Jesus, I will die for you as I promised. But help me if you can.”

JMT is shown that the driver’s mother is in trouble. “Hey, Raji, what’s this with you mother?”

Shut up. We are going to kill you!

A minute later. “Raji, there is something wrong with your mother….”

Shut up, I said. We are going to kill you.

Third time. “Raji, please tell what is wrong—I will pray for your mother if you take me.”

He sees a tear roll down Raji’s cheek.

At Raji’s house, JMT prays and the Lord heals her! Raji wants what Jesus can offer. Soon JMT baptizes Raji. And one by one, all the gang become believers.

I know this is hard for some of us in the sophisticated west to believe. But I sat on the mat with JMT and his bride and baby for an hour, looking him in the eye, sizing him up, reading his heart as best I could. He wants to work with the youth of India. He wants a challenge, not an easy life.

John Luke Timothy—fearless for God.

How Nicole could yoke herself to a man who knows he will die some day for Jesus is a testimony to her commitment. I know she is not the Virgin Mary. But evidently she has submitted. “Be it unto me according to your will, O Lord.”

And I fully expect that some day a sword will pierce her heart as it did the mother of Our Lord.

But this is India. This is the “end of the earth” Jesus sends us to.

This is what trusting Jesus, King of Angels, is all about.

A Theological College Senior Picnic

Remember the Sunday School picnics of yesteryear? How about the freshman college outing? Or, if you graduated Wheaton College (as Ellie and I and our three bairns did) the Senior Sneak?

Well, please do come with me for the annual senior-faculty picnic in beautiful North India.

It’s 8:30 a.m. and we are streaming through the Iron Gate by the guardhouse of New Theological College, heading toward three buses waiting on the paved apron at the edge of the road.

(BTW this college is named, not for anything “new,” but for its original benefactor—Luther W. New, Jr., who made an unexpected fortune when minerals were discovered on his land in South Carolina. This wealth changed his humble lifestyle not one whit, so that his widow, Janie Fountain New, driving their old Chevy to the day she died, gave maybe a million to get this place off the ground. She was a down-home southern lady who came for the original dedication ceremonies here, featuring World Vision’s founder, Dr. Ted Engstrom, Uncle George, et aliis. When brought to the mic during the proceedings the officiant made the mistake of asking her, spontaneously, how she felt about the marvelous occasion. She replied, to the astonishment of all attending, that she was as happy as a mosquito at a nudist colony! I know this account is reliable for it came to me from the mouth of Dr. Timothy Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.)

Sorry for the digression!

Back to the bus.

Here come the men students, in casual clothes for the most part—even a few baseball caps. And here are the women students in their ubiquitous saris—same as they wear for church, for class, for shopping, for working in the gardens, for sleep for all I know. Each seems to have just one outfit as far as my two weeks observation goes.

The day is beautiful, though boring this time of year. The sun comes over the mountains into a cloudless sky every single day, runs its arcing course through the heavens, past a few wisps of cloud, until the going down of the same as a red ball sinking through the distant haze. No wind, no storms, no rain, no nuttin. Just a benign 80 degrees every day. Life’s tough.

I am invited to ride with head of the college, Simon Samuel, his wife Mercy, their two small children and a domestic. It’s a mini-mini van about the size of the cargo end of my Expedition, with the two women and two kids in the one back seat, Simon driving, and I in the shotgun seat (which is on the left side of the vehicle here in left-driving India.)

Skirting the north edge of the city of Dehra Dun, trees soon surround us—not dense as they are in New England, but spaced some thirty feet apart with grasses between. The kids squeal, “Monkey, monkey!” They are all aglow to see these cousins of Darwin—macaques. To me they are nasty little creatures. Somehow I have never really liked monkeys. Don’t trust ‘em, I guess. They have a bad reputation. You see, one will jump out in front of you, startling you into a second’s hesitation. Then his compatriots will snatch your stuff in a twinkling of an eye. Simon relates how some did this to a few of the girls one year. The troop moved off a few yards and the head monk reached into the shopping bags and started tossing snacks to all his henchmen!

They are all over the roadside, the little beggars. Big ones are the size of a cocker spaniel. Small fry cling to Mom’s back, just inches from the roadway. Simon tells me that Hindus leave food along the road for them.

Now we go past a checkpoint where our bus friends are paying the tariff for all. We park in the shade of the trees and walk through the cow-discouraging turnstile (which is bent and no longer turns so you had better not be fat unless you are tall enough to just let your legs go through the gate.

A beautiful rushing river runs through sluiceways with terraced edges so bathers can walk down into the waist-deep waters. I look around for the picnic tables and benches. Oops! This is India. Mats are unrolled and spread on the dried up grass. I will be on my butt all day. Along with everyone else.

First it’s game time. Two lines of guys and girls. The task is for each serially to run to the post where a faculty person stands and tell him the next book in the Bible, then run back and tag the next person. I am amazed that this is a great treat and feat for these seniors, who horse around and cheer and jump at each advantage their team makes.

Soon the guys decide to swim. They must have a change with them, for they go in in trousers and T-shirts. Balls appear adding to the fun of keep-away. Some are not going. It’s going to get ugly, I know it. Bodies are snatched, stripped of glasses and wallets, and tossed into the rushing waters. A few of the younger faculty fall victim. (Simon tells me later that another rule will go into the books for picnics—no faculty hazing!)

Meanwhile I am lounging on the hard ground getting better acquainted with Mrs. Principal and one of my students who has brought his wife and baby boy along. She is from Milwaukee, with Irish-fair freckled skin. Her husband, John Timothy, used to be a gang member in an Indian city whose name escapes me. She looks 15 to me. I think that was about how Jesus’ mother looked – without the freckles, I mean. I ask how her mother handles the first grandson being 9000 miles away. Does she shop and send stuff every once in a while. “No—every week we get a package of clothes or toys!”

I have a long conversation with John Timothy. I’ll relate the tale in a later blog.

At noon lunch is ready. We walk toward the natural section of the river, where a propane heater has been boiling river water. (It really is a fast-flowing clean-looking river some 20 feet wide and maybe a foot deep. Simon has taken his son upstream a bit to wash him off. There he met some cowherds. O great, I think! Cows upstream! They warn him not to proceed as there are elephants further upstream. O really, really great! Elephants upstream!

People queue up with a plate to be filled with rice, curry sauce, some yogurt and chip-style chapattis. I’m so glad Simon suggested earlier I bring some stuff to eat and they would provide some tangerines and an apple for me. I have my bottled water from the guesthouse filter system.

Watch it! Some monkeys are in the trees! Guys throw sticks at them. Even a tennis ball. This keeps them from any lightening quick raids on our lunches.

Now it’s time to go back to the main field for a “time of reflection” on times at NTC. My old bones are glad to be vertical for a while—and in more shade. (Yes dear, I did put on sun block as Dr. Goldberg directed me.)

This time is to last an hour or so. I find a banyan tree with a large exposed steroid pumping root that I can squat on. It’s like sitting on an iron rail. So when the testimonies start I go over to the friendly mat again.

Simon is on his feet. “What was your time like at NTC? Any good changes in your life? Any complaints you may have that we can learn from?”

Silence. Repeat the welcome to reflect and share.

Silence.

Finally one guy gives a humorous account of his first year and how green he was and how some took him under his wing. All in Hindi. So I get only a fragment whispered into my English ear. Four other men follow, two in English. The Principal next gives a long congratulations, including an apologetic for “decisions we have to take as faculty.” The tone is one of mutual respect. No women stand to speak. But that is the culture mostly. Actually they are bold at heart. These women will get into homes in remote villages where a man could not find a welcome. They will have fruitful ministries.

Now it’s time for a half-hour of games—badminton (no courts or nets here) and cricket-with-no-wicket. Mostly folks stand around talking. Then a plastic cup of tea.

I am asked to close in prayer. The buses move out.

As we pile in the car Simon spies a large black-headed monkey. He explains that this bigger monkey species leaves people alone yet terrorizes the macaques. The government is training them to hang around the parks to drive the macaques away.

They have a ways to go!

Hanging about talking all day. Kinda nice. But next day my joints will remind me that I am not used to sitting on mats for 6 hours.

Senior picnic, India style.

Pretty basic.

Pretty nice.

Jars of Clay; Earthen Vessels, Cracked Pots

"We Have This Treasure in Earthen Vessels"

Now this is a handy quote, coming, as you well know, from the good Apostle’s pen. (More accurately, from the old squinter’s amanuensis’ quill.) The idea is that the deposit of eternal life through Jesus is, though priceless, secured only in fragile human hearts. Not exactly Fort Knox! In fact, our lives are so insecure in the face of life’s Hard Knocks that it takes the watch care of angels and the Holy Spirit himself to push back the Law of Spiritual Entropy that would let the treasure leak out in a trice. In my case, the jar of clay is likely a mere cracked pot. (No sniggers, please!)

Here in India I find extra time for meditation and prayer—is this an Ashram? You see, my one daily duty here is to make my bed—if I care to (which I do). It takes all of 35 seconds. Other than that, a hot breakfast is set before me a 7 a.m. and a hot lunch at 1 p.m., finished off by a hot supper around 6:30. Laundry? Just toss it in the basket and it comes back a day or so later, having been washed and then dried on the sunny line out back of the guesthouse.

I’ve been reading mornings from Hebrews chapters four and five about Jesus as High Priest. An office he could no more arrogate to himself than could the Jewish High Priests of old. It was a position awarded him by the will of the Father. Even though his was not a position in the Aaronic priesthood of Israel, where the High Priest went once yearly into the Super Holy Place (scary it was, too!) to offer atonement for the sins of the People, Jesus still had to prove faithful in his duties. This he did not by offering animal sacrifices (which could never atone for sin anyway, merely pointing to the Suffering Servant) but offering his own life as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is of the order of Mechizedek (King of Righteousness), that mysterious figure in Genesis who hinted of an eternal being, since he came from nowhere and disappeared into history as ephemerally. Thus Melchi-zedek is a type of the Eternal Righteous One. And get this: Abraham, the greatest figure in Jewish salvation history, paid this King of Salem a tithe of all his booty. This shows that there is a man greater than even Abraham—unthinkable though this was to Jews. So the writer supports the claim that Jesus Christ is the only true redeemer of sinners—those of us who are mere jars of clay, yea cracked pots.

Now why this Bible lecture, when these blogs are supposed to be a barrel of laughs?

Because in the context of India one can feel and touch the scope of our place in the world.

I see each morning a star high in the eastern sky as first light breaks. Early this week it was nestled close to the moon—much like the Muslims picture it in their icon. (They follow a lunar month, you know, and that’s why the holy month of Ramadan can come at any season of the year over time.) By yesterday the moon was a barely visible sliver far to the east of the star. Today it was too faint to show at all. But dawn soon comes and the sun rises behind the mountains, its brilliance hiding the moon, the stars, and the lights of the city on the mountain top a few miles above the campus. At the same time I hear blasts of fireworks celebrating a Hindu holiday as well as the blare of chants and music coming from the little Hindu puja shrines. A neighbor family living in the shadow of the college’s walls lights incense, puts out some food and worships one of the Hindu pantheon. I see the man squatting on the floor before the colorful photos of his god, bowing and swaying with the music praising Shiva or Kali, most likely. And the huts of the laborers camped next to the business building going up near the college have a spark of fire throwing shadows of the devotees beginning their day. And I think how in the two or three states of India's 28 that stretch from here south and then east to the plains, are home to over 400 million Hindus, not to mention the two billion souls in China and India and all the scattered races of our species clinging to life as best they can over the face of the earth.

This all gives me a sensation of the worldview a Christian embraces. We know we are on a tiny planet sweeping around a so-so sun lost in the billion stars of our galaxy, which in turn is merely one of billions of galaxies in the infinity of space.

Yet God knows we are here and actually cares about the jars and pots limping around Earth’s crust, fit only for the landfill. While God’s throne is in Heaven—far beyond all space and time I imagine—he has chosen to build his “Presidential Library” on this planet, where he will immortalize his administration’s accomplishments and display his kingly exploits. Of all the real estate out there, our Creator has chosen to call this home-away-from-home. You see His Son came to live here when He was in training to become the eternal High Priest, embedding himself with the clay vessels he intends to restore to usefulness and even to glory. When he is done, this will not be museum with Madame Trusseau's convincing look-alikes. It will be a living museum with reclaimed vessels proclaiming daily the praises of the one who came to rescue them from the incinerator to which they were headed. As Galatians puts it, “you are His masterpiece….”

So as I walk in the cool breezes of first light, with an eye on the moon and stars, I am stung by the realization that where we live Jesus still calls his “home-away-from-home.” I wouldn’t call it a vacation home—no way. It was more a place where he went to submit to the School of Obedience, the boot camp where he would go through something more rigorous than that of the Green Berets or Navy Seals. All of that necessary so he would not fail in his rescue effort.

And he knows my name! I live in a place dear to him. Fond to his boyhood memories. Location of his Greatest Feat of All Time.

So I care not whether you call me a jar of clay or a cracked pot—I’m in. That’s all that counts. He is not ashamed to count me among his band of brothers.

So while I am about to go to my assigned teaching duties here today, I have my plan. Three class hours. First I’ll lecture on family ethics. Then Shivraj Mahendra will come in the second session to talk about ethical issues in India (he has just published a book on the problem of pornography and sexual exploitation here), leaving the third hour for a look ahead to the term paper and the final exam next week. I’m really glad for Shivraj relieving me, since today is the day when my close cousin Paul Carlson will be buried in Cohasset and I am grieving my distance from this family event.

“My plan for the day….” I’ve been told God gets a good laugh when we tell him our plans!

After chapel, Anita, Shivraj’s wife tells me he is ill and won’t be able to come. O no! OK—I’ll ask Dr. Cherian to take a session—he knows just about everything going on in this country. Uh-oh! His secretary says he is in his own classes. Suddenly this cracked pot has all the water for the day trickling onto the ground.

Now what? I have no time to bone up on my notes from lectures heard other years on the "Indian context." I am a bit down inside. I have covered all the other material in the course. I’m just a hopeless potsherd sitting here baking in the merciless sun with an inner voice (is it Ellie’s or Eric’s) jeering “I told you before you cannot expect to wing your way through things!”

“But God….!”

This is one of my favorite phrases sprinkled through Scripture! When the Hobbitses all seem doomed, when the Lion lays slain on the bloody altar of Narnia, when the bars of steel are closing their deathly jaws on those who are unprepared, then out of nowhere comes the rescue.

Professor Francis, who is also teaching ethics to another class, comes to ask if he can be of help, as he heard I was looking for a lifeline. We decide to combine our classes in the conference room. He looks forward to my perspective; I look for him to make sense out of what church leaders face in India today. For two hours we improvise a discussion on topics spontaneously suggested by the 40 in the class. Result? Fantastic! Probably the best class I’ve been part of here at NTC. The students are engaged and after thank us both for a memorable experience.

To me it proves one of my life mottos: Why prepare when you can improvise? Why sweat it when God has a plan? (Ellie and Eric, you can stop rolling your eyes—please!)

And the bonus? No one can take any credit but Him—the one who calls this place a soon-to-be-renovated home and proudly calls us his brothers and sisters.

Jars of clay? Cracked Pot?

Who cares?

He came to us. And the rest—every day—is HIStory.

Against All Odds

“The Time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things—
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
And cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings!”

You immediately recognize this doggerel as from Lewis Carroll’s (AKA Ludwig Dodson, that old English mathematician who gave us Alice in Wonderland) poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”

My sister Lois and I numbed ourselves during the evening chore that fell to us as kids (washing and drying dishes) by reciting this poem in an antiphonal manner, speaking a phrase, stopping in mid-sentence or even mid-word, and waiting for the other to complete it and go on from there. Some six decades later, even though we cannot remember where we left our car keys, we can execute this flawlessly. (One small benefit from our step-parently masters who refused to buy a dishwasher. O! They weren’t invented then. No matter—they treated us cruelly even for those barbaric times.)

So what?

Well it’s an example of those trivial specks of lint on the dark suit of life that can be more significant than the obvious biggies we tend to focus on. One might, uncharitably, call it a kind of spiritual dandruff that can fall upon us from those who are head and shoulders above us.

You see, for Lois and me this is an elemental bond that time cannot weaken. It may mean nothing to others. It is nothing one would bother to type into a blog. But it speaks of something precious and personal. Something our older brother knows not of, since he was always off on some Jamaica Plain High School project requiring him to hunt for bugs under the garbage pail—or some such. Just a word or two of this poem from either of us spreads an entire landscape of meaning and memory onto the canvass of our consciousness.

What I am about to relate is an example of this on a grander scale by far, since it is woven into the fabric of a relationship with the Eternal One whom we are invited to call “Daddy.” (That’s what “abba” means in the Aramaic Jesus used to address his Father in heaven.)

You may recall from an earlier blog that I recovered my luggage due the airlines’ desire to make restoration for its sins of omission. But due to my own negligence I had lost my back-pocket diary for 2007. Lost in the black hole of India, the Mother of All Trash Heaps.

Try though I might to let this loss go and get on with my life, the thing kept intruding from time to time. It’s hard to stop kicking yourself when a little of one’s usual care to check and re-check while traveling was so unhelpfully lacking. Although I suppose it’s only a matter of time when the odds of doing something like that catch up with you no matter how good your record.

Did I say “odds?” Holy Cow! (A little more India influence there—sorry.) I don’t believe in odds. I’m a Calvinist for crying out loud! We don’t cry about anything, because we know there’s no use crying over milk spilt before the foundation of the world!

Ahem! To get back to the saga.

I am at morning tea last Thursday, November 1.

This endearing custom, likely a hangover from the British Raj, comes after the first two periods of classes. My guess is that someone noticed that even after two hours of scintillating lectures the students were still in a morning stupor and drugs would have to resorted to.

Now, the locus of this tradition has shifted since I first came here five years ago. We used to come down from our classrooms to a table that the staff spread before us faculty (I will not say in the presence of our enemies) with chai, plain tea and a plate of either Ritz crackers or Dehra Doon biscuits. Perhaps I should divulge that the classroom building is quite impressive with a large central atrium onto which four floors of classrooms and offices open. The opening is hexagonal. The effect is striking as one stands at the rail on any floor and gazes down upon fellow workers in this giant educational anthill, watching them scurry about with books and the like. On the ground floor (one dassn’t say first floor because here the first floor is the floor up one flight of stairs) the atrium had a sunken central square with two broad descending steps, which were designed, I presume, for potted palms and plants. That sunken feature is no longer with us. I would guess it was raised to floor level after some adjunct elderly faculty backed up a step with his tin of hot tea, and stumbled into the empty aquarium (it would have looked great with lilies and goldfish), breaking a limb or two and scalding himself to boot.

But now morning tea-time has been elevated to the new dining hall higher up the hillside, where there is a fine view of the Himalayan foothills alluded to in a previous blog. As one enters this marble palace, there are wash troughs to the side where one can remove the dust of the day before entering the hall itself. There is a tasteful but direct sign on the doors: DO NOT ENTER UNTIL BELL. Yes the old school bell is in use here still. And in these all-stone mausoleum-like buildings one can have an ear split and bleeding when, by mischance, you happen to be walking past it when the ringer asserts his finger. I have had the uncharitable thought that this guy—who comes out of his neighboring office—waits to push the button until someone passes by who, when startled by its ungodly scream, is likely to jump enough to set a new record for long-jumps. That would be someone like me, who lives in a humane environment where OSHA retired the shrieking school bell decades ago. How a country this poor can afford to add such an abusive task to a staff member’s daily duties mystifies me—ringing this monster every hour all day long.

So we enter the shining new alabastar city that gleams atop the hill at NTC. The student men line up at one station to fill a cup from the samovar (I exaggerate a bit here to add color—it’s only a stainless pot with a spigot handle), while the girls have theirs at a safe distance on the other side of the hall. Faculty still have their own station in the center (to ensure there is no hank-panky between the east and the west). Faculty get their traditional biscuit or cracker—not students. We use stainless steel cups with no handles, pouring in the steaming brew. In the USA OSHA would shut this down in fly-blink as these suckers can wick the heat in a nanosecond up to your dainty fingers grasping the top. So you make haste for the marble-top tables to set your cup and let it cool. When you can pick it up comfortably that is the sign that you will not blister your lips. Pretty clever.

You are wondering how I will get to the point? Read on!

As I stand in the queue one of the staff secretaries waves me to the side to announce some news. “A gentleman called to say he has your lost date book!”

Suddenly this woman is an angel, hovering over the plains of India, shining in heaven’s garb with a heavenly hosting singing “Alleluia” while trumpets sound and the dead are being raised, incorruptible. And we shall all be changed!

At least that’s the effect this Great Glad Tidings had on me. I was raised from the death of doubt and sad resignation to the joy Martha and Mary must have known when their brother was restored to them against all reason.

This may seem overblown to you. But this was so unexpected that I could scarcely believe what she was telling me. I asked her to repeat it—once more, with feeling.

“Yes, it is true. See, he has given his number and wants you to call him!”

Dr. Samuel, the Principal, spread the news over the loudspeaker to the assembly, saying, “Let us rejoice with Dr. Gustafson. I could see that he was troubled by this loss. And now the Lord has done what we said could not be accomplished.”

I took the mic to thank the assembly for their prayers, saying I would add this story to my Bible in Luke 15—the chapter about things lost, then found.

After several tries the office got me through to one Arun Prakash. “I am James Gustafson and have been told you have my lost date book from the Delhi train. Is that really so, and how can these things be, since I know no man who could bring such a thing to pass?”

It seems that Mr. Prakash is a Christian (Methodist) who is the executive secretary of a large charity for all of India. He travels this train north from Delhi so frequently that all the crew know him. His assigned seat was in car C4, seat 47. That was next to seat 46 assigned to me.

Mr. Prakash alighted in Meerut while I continued on to the end of the line at Dehra Dun. I had not spoken to him, as I was in less than a chatty mood after enduring 36 hours of travel with five hours fitful sleep in the YWCA in Delhi. I was reading and nodding off most of the five hours to Dehra Dun.

So when the train came to the end of the tracks, I put my carryon on the seat next to me—seat 47. Unknown to me, my date book slipped off the edge of the carryon and lodged on the seat somewhere. I never saw it. As Adi came to fetch me off the train and to the college car (an old 1950’s London cab) I grabbed his hand of welcome, reached back for my bag and made haste to get off. (We always wait for a college escort so we are not mobbed by ever-present sherpas eager to swing one’s bag onto their heads and earn a rupee or two.

As reported in a previous blog, I did not notice my empty back pocket until over an hour later when I arrived at the guesthouse. By then the cleaning boys would have swept the cars and tossed all trash into the Black Hole of Kolcotta. (This used to be Calcutta—back when Mumbai was Bombay.) Ergo – the Great Depression for moi-meme, the one who had never lost such an absolutely essential piece of equipage in over 50 years!

How did this needle in the infinite haystacks of India come back to me?

It was on this wise.

The crew boys knew Mr. Prakash sat in car C4, seat 47. He is their friend. Being a Christian, I imagine he actually looks at them with a smile and speaks kindly to them. “Look—there is Mr. P’s datebook in his seat. We’ll keep it safe and give it to him tomorrow on his journey back to his home in Delhi.”

Next day Mr P.gets this treasure in its worn out paper cover. He rifles through. He sees a professor’s card—from the USA. But wait. In yesterday’s slot is a fresh card from a John Varghese working for that Christian College in Dehra Dun. There is a cross on the logo. And a mobile number. This must be a brother in Christ.

And the rest—as they say—is history! John gives him the address and phone of the college. And here I am talking to this messenger of the Lord, thanking him profusely.

“Don’t thank me. It was the Lord who put it into my hand for you. I am but a fellow servant. Please, when you come next time, stay at my home in Delhi and we can get to know one another.”

As I hang up the phone, I sit—stunned. How can this be? In the grand cosmic scale of the Kingdom this is less than a fleck of lint on the dark suit, less than a scale of dandruff on the shoulder of the Body of Christ.

But to me it was—and evermore shall be—a token that God is indeed Abba. My Abba. “He knows my every need; he sees each tear that falls; and he answers when I call.”

As a child calls in the wee hours of the night at some smidgen of worry or concern, so when I called to him he came to restore such a tiny thing that means so much to a childlike traveler on a Kingdom Errand to north India.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things.” And to praise the Infinite for the infinitesimal.

Against all odds…. That’s our God and Savior—every day.

Adventcha

Ad-VEN-cha: a quest involving a degree of risk with commensurate anxiety, often into unfamiliar environments where the outcome is uncertain. (Wickedpedia)

How I got started on this “advencha” relates to a commitment I made last year to return to New Theological College to teach Christian Ethics. “Been there, done that,” says I. So this one shouldn’t be a biggie.

Bzzzz! Wrong!

Just because Jim Herrick and Zach have ferried me to Logan International numerous times, just because I have used e-tickets before, just because I can sit for hours in those narrow seats, I am not immune from the vagaries of international mobility.

Just because I know exactly how much of a belt buckle I can wear through the scanner without prompting that dreaded “here-comes-the-wand” beep, just because I can get in a three mile walk in the concourse holding pen, just because I can make it to the European terminal without having to visit the onboard water closet, I am not a bit unnerved when I am told I’ll be on standby for an earlier flight to Newark that is scheduled to leave later than the later flight I signed up for, but that, as an international traveler I will have priority and they will keep a keen eye for transferring my checked bag. Somehow all these extra assurances evaporate whatever assurance I have.

I’ve done the non-stop Newark to Delhi once before in these aluminum tubes with sticks on each side, sucking up fuel in two engines definitely on steroids. This time it’s not so bad as I catch more and longer catnaps, able to tune out the cranky baby and the guy in 36B who coughs when all is still like a barking banshee.

Delhi – on time, no less, at 8:40 p.m. Through customs by 9:10– yes! Next stop – baggage carousel. One bag is mine,to which I had tied orange flagging tape to make it leap to the eye amid all its black cousins. I should meet my contact before ten.

Wait – until the last new bags come onto the carousel.

Wait - until they have gone around several laps.

Notice people grouping at one end. Ah! Bags that the carousel boys rescued from the endless karma cycle for bad bags and set out on the floor. No orange flagging visible anywhere.

Notice people at a counter, waving hands at clerks and filling out papers. “What’s this queue for?” I ask a young woman. “Our bags didn’t come with us! Here—fill out the form. They’ll get them to us later.” Continental Airlines may have mastered the non-stop to India, but the baggage seems to have a mind of its own.

I can check off the color and type of bag mine matches. I can describe what’s in the bag. "Address for bag to be delivered to." Dehradun—a well-known city of some hundreds of thousands. I have nothing written in my trusty date book as to the street and number of the college. I know it begins with Sa—and is a long name. I try to get the mental photo from my mental files, but the image is indistinct. I just put down New Theological College. Everyone in Dehradun should know where that is, right? The young man reviews everything. Then says to get it stamped at the kiosk over there—which looks a football field away, given the size-appearance of the officials. I make the hike. Get the rubber stamp (literally) and come back to hand it in. They give me a number to call if I have questions. Somehow this doesn’t smell so good. I head out, hoping my contact hasn’t decided I missed the flight and gone home to wife and kids. I don’t have his cell number!!! He is a former student—John Varghese. There are surely at least 3 million John Vargheses in Delhi alone. “Please God, I need help and I need it now….”

I head through the last checkpoint. Scores of signs with names scrawled on them greet me. No time to scan each one. No sign of John. I decide to go back and look at the faces holding the signs one by one when a hand grabs my arm. Being the only tall white guy in the arena pays off for once—it’s John. (Thank you, Jesus!) I explain the delay. He suggests we call the number I was given. My cell phone is out of juice, so he does the honors. Good, I am too tired to decipher Indian English anyway. He gets through! He gives them the street address of the college. I can relax. My clothes and course notes will come through intact I pray.

John and Martin Daniels (the driver) and I chat as we squeeze through the late evening Delhi traffic, breathing smog from a thousand curbside trash fires. John now has a month old son—his first-born. Martin has two young boys. I hope I’ll see them in the morning....

No way. We are not staying at the NTC Delhi guest house this time. No one does any more. Why? The Hindu neighbors don’t like these Christians bringing in foreigners all hours of the day and night—it’s a residential block of apartments. The front room office has been moved to the back bedroom so it cannot be seen when the front door opens. No sense waving the flag in front of these bulls of Bashan. Bad things happen in Delhi every day. Veiled threats have been expressed!

Here’s the YWCA. Basic one-bed hostel rooms. But super clean and very secure. I’ll gladly take it. I arrange for a wakeup call at 5:30 and for a boxed breakfast included in the fee - about $10. (All this is arranged by the NTC crew here – I need only send a check to Uncle George—if I wish—at the end of my trip!)

I wake at 3 a.m. to the sound of a cantor. I look out the window. Next door is the dome of a Sikh shrine, spacious, showy, and well lit. He has a beautiful voice I note despite my heavy eyelids.

I decide it would be prudent to open the day with an Appeal to Heaven. I need God to speak to me.

Now I don’t usually believe in the “close your eyes and see where your Bible opens” method of spiritual guidance. But, what the—oops! not the phrase I want—I riffle the pages of my deck-o-cards-size New Testament. Page 56 comes forth with the opening sentence as follows. “It will be like a man who was about to go on a trip….” Wow! This could be for me!

Jesus is giving his parable of the talents. You recall how the Fortune 500 guy gave money to three of his men to invest in the market while he was away. One more than doubled the money. Another saw his profits go tenfold. While one poor loser hid it under his mattress for fear of losing everything. (Must have been a day-trader in penny stocks.) So this is a blessing to me—I’m investing time on a long trip for the Master. Or is it? It’s all risky. Which guy will I end up being in this story? That’s the trouble with parables—the Rabbi has to explain everything or you can go terribly wrong. O well. I’m an optimist, I’ll expect that the worst is behind me. I pray the luggage comes through even though I am about to board a train that will take me six hours farther from Indira Ghandi International Airport where the luggage will hopefully arrive.

End of the line—Dehra Dun. Sweet. Like a home away for me. And here comes Adi to escort me from the train to the college mini-van. “Where’s your bags?” “Didn’t make it.” His nod says this happens from time to time. "You are not the first nor the last."

On the five mile ride (dodging cows and dogs that belong to no one) to the college we stop at a “Corner Store.” Adi gets me a razor to get me by. I can use bar soap to shave with for a day or two. I have one change of underwear, so I can wash something by hand every day and dry it on the line. I’m good.

Through the college gate. Up the drive to the guest house. There’s my private room and bath. The previous occupant seems to have gone to another continent with the key, but that’s a blip I can ignore. Now I can relax at last.

Bzzz! Wrong!

My date book—my brain—is not in my back pocket where I have worn it (or one like it) for over 40 years. I search the ten items in the carry-on three times. It’s not there each time.

“Adi! I must have left my datebook on the train! Can we retrieve it?” It has my phone numbers, my appointments, and lots of data essential to me if “something happens.”

Everyone agrees. It is HOPELESS. The train boys will quickly sweep everything into dustbins to ready the train for its soon return to Delhi. My brains are in a black hole of trash headed for the crematorium.

“It will be like a man who was…on a journey….”

So this is how the parable ends for me? “Lord, if it be possible….”

But realistically, I resign myself to the reality. I have lost an extension of my intellect, a wing of my inner library. Something is different this fifth trip to minister in India.

A colleague listens to my saga. “It may be that the Enemy is not happy you are here,” he suggests. “There have been others suffering setbacks recently, too.” (Job's comforter?)

“Good!” says I. “Let him be unhappy—I’m glad. Our God works all things for good because we are called by and for His purposes!”

Our God reigns!

Now, if only I can get some sleep….

To Blog or Not to Blog—that is the question.

Here in sunny North India, I find myself tardy in my blogging obligations, but unrepentant.

You may guess that it is because of my lassitude—basking here in the semi-tropical sun. But you would be mistaken.

Despite the flowers, shrubs, and plants now blooming here in profusion, despite attractions of the swallows arcing overhead, the long-tailed shrike and the undulating archon bird, I have been reducing my sizeable shnoz on the proverbial whetstone, so much so that I have left not so much as to sneeze with, much less to gaze upon the majestic foothills of the Himalayas be-jeweled at night with the city set on a hill—Moosourie.

Now that my wandering luggage has come back to the Ark, yielding its lectures to my outstretched hand, I have worked tirelessly—yea, assiduously, to provide my protégées with syllabus, class schedule, and term paper guidelines.

Hence—now that the basics are in place, blog it is.

I have had, amid many severe trials, the pleasure of missing that great non-holiday: Halloween. (That word used to have an apostrophe in it—or am I mis-remembering?) But its spookiness has found me 8000 miles away. (That’s 12,000 kilometers for you friends in Great Britain.) You see, the campus here is again under construction. This time it’s the guesthouse—a 6-unit hostel, including the suite (two rooms) for the college founder, Uncle George, and his wife, Leelama.

Apparently there’s an ever-increasing number of guests that stay here for conferences, or as visiting faculty or chapel speakers, or even as visitors passing through. (You are always welcome to be in that number no matter what may bring you to India.) This is good. Very good. The west wall of the guesthouse now opens to a walkway that bridges a small ravine to the new wing. The concrete slab floors are held up with crookly hardwood poles until they harden. Looks kinda shaky, but at least it appears more reassuring than the bamboo scaffolding used in far East Asia. There is soon to be a larger suite for Uncle and Auntie, who spend a good fraction of their time each year here before returning to the USA for the endless rounds of fund-raising. And there will be four additional guest rooms as well.

However—here it comes, you say—my arrival must have circulated in an advance warning to the world. In yesteryears I have found a fellow-guest or two, and even Uncle “Founder” George was hear on my previous four visits for at least a few days.

This year—November 2007—no one. Not a living soul. “Home alone.”

And it is Halloween. I, like Scrooge, do not really believe in the holiday, nor have I the appropriate holiday spirit. And I too—like he—am to be visited by the spirits seeking to convert me to proper devotion to “those gone on.” as we used to say. All Souls’ Eve, indeed. Humbug!

The first to come is the Spirit of Darkness.

With a horrible SNAP the lights on the walkways and in the hall go down. They left me a tube light, but where is it? Ah—I feel it. I saw them twist the black top so the top would slide up and reveal the bulb in the lantern glass. But it’s not coming up. OK—I stumbled on the secret. But where was that switch?!?! There are some noises out there somewhere. Dogs are barking. I’m now feeling a bit tense as my jet-lagged alimentary canal is signaling “Urgent.” You can stumble in these all-ceramic cells. You can find yourself, in the darkness, sitting on the edge of the Asian shower sinkhole instead of where y—O, forget it—I’m not going there. Just as I think I have located the switch and can turn it triumphantly to “ON” there is a roar as the campus generator leaps to life, flooding the place with eye-squinting brilliance, since in your panic you had unknowingly turned all the wall switches you tried to their highest luminosity settings.

The second to arrive is the Ghoul of Noises.

This jet-weary troubadour has finally dropped off the ledge into sweet sleep, so much craved after a dozen catnaps on a twelve-hour flight and a six hour train journey that have served only to torment with the mocking memory of how delicious real sleep used to be. Then a wailing bugle call just outside the bedroom walls, cascading around the empty cavern’s concrete walls, floors, and ceilings. Now, I am a grown man who has spent nights in a plastic tarp on mountain trails (and whose honeymoon included a thankfully forgiven if not forgotten rain swept night on the slopes of Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire in a leaky WWII army tent), so I am not a weenie! But this is new. Nor can I recall any of the phone numbers of the nearby faculty. So the phone on my nightstand is no comfort. I have no clue what creature may be clawing at the foundations, scenting a tantalizing snack on the other side of the wall. If it would only trumpet again perhaps I could triangulate and make out its nature. But only silence. My mind races through all the files stored in the basement of every living brain, hoping to find a match. So many files, so little time. Ah—there’s one or two. I decide (hopefully) it is a cow. They do wander at will in this country, being sacred and all. That’s what I’ll comfort myself with anyway. Now maybe I can try again to slumber—please. I drop off while meditating anew on the biblical phrase, “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills….” Most of them must be in India now….

The third to come is the Spectre of Spooks.

They are running water now. I can hear it hissing through the pipes. Is someone in the kitchen? I recall how I did not bolt the door to the guesthouse, not knowing if someone had a key to one of the upper rooms and would wake me from my hard-earned rest in the middle of the night. They could let themselves in, I had thought. Now I remember that my room is the one where the previous occupant—cursed be he—had absconded with the key. So my room is unsecured. And now some Hindu extremist is rummaging in the kitchen, likely looking for an additional backup for his knife and is now running water to whet the edge thereof! I slip silently off the bed, slide into my pants and sandals, ready to see if the way is clear for my Dagwood-Bumstead-style exit from the front door into the lane. Poking my head out my bedroom door, I see that it is barely dawn, and a worker is at the spigot out back filling a plastic bucket. He is covered with what looks like a pair of boxer shorts and is all lathered with soap! He starts dipping water as he stands on the concrete slab. He douses himself repeatedly. Hair and head. Shoulders and arms. Down the front of the shorts. Down the back of the shorts, then the sides. His work-toughened brown frame glistens in the last-quarter moonlight high overhead.

He is clean. I am not, having no luggage with fresh clothing. He is rested and ready for an 11-hour day on the wooden ladders and rough slab site. He has slept on a mat and is tough. I am soft and tired. Have mercy! Let a poor pampered wandered from the West get a break. Why can’t you people have a second cup of tea or coffee and come to the job site when the sun is up—like maybe noon?!?! O MY STARS! There comes his wife! When will their nearly-naked urchins show up?

Now I know how Scrooge felt when forced to surrender to what he once called the affects of “a bit of undigested beef or underdone potato.” But he was rewarded with Christmas and the joy of his nephew’s holiday dinner. This is no Christmas. This is Halloween. I’m home alone….

It’s just not fair!

Signing off

Here endeth the postings of BLOGS on my trip to Greece. I can't wait for time to work up the photos and videos.

I had trouble posting these blogs daily, as internet opportunities were sometimes too expensive and sometimes non-existent.

So if you want to read the last few in sequence, you will have to scroll down the list of blogs and end up with the one on Patmos and Ephesus.

Thanks for reading my impressions. I hope you gained something of value.

Ephkharisto,
Jim

Patmos and Ephesus

The wake-up call was early today. Dale and I ate with four senior ladies from the south. They leave their husbands every few months to go touring like this. One of them was a Mrs. Bradshaw. “She won’t tell you this,” one said, “but she is Terry Bradshaw’s mother!” She was 90+ but didn’t look a day over 80. If you don’t know who Terry Bradshaw is, forget it!) Disembark at 7:15. On bus #10 and off to the Grotto and Shrine of St. John.

There are but 3 towns on the island, home to 1000 people. Three grammar schools, one high school, and a theological seminary. So students go to Rhodes, Samos, or, more likely, Athens for university. Not much opportunity here besides tourism. They do have some agriculture and flocks of sheep or goats—but not numerous.

It rains here November through March. But no rain in summer, when tourism is highest. So they have tankers sailing in twice a week to supplement what water is caught in roof-run cisterns. Some day they’ll have desalinization, such as supplies this cruise ship with water you can drink safely.

St. John was exiled here as an old man, probably in his 80s, by Emperor Domitian. Exile meant one is stripped of all possessions and all rights and sent to slave labor in the stone quarries here.

Tradition has it that on the ship bringing John to Patmos a storm arose, sweeping overboard a young son of a traveler. John prayed immediately, and the boy was swept back into the ship. Several accepted the Gospel at once. It was typical in those times for people to be impressed with any Power that could produce results, be it pagan gods, sorcerers, soothsayers or whatever. (It reminds me of my evangelist friend, Dave Walker’s message, “What Has Your God Done for You Lately?”)

On shore the captain told the Roman official administering the island. He also believed and released John from his chains, giving him leave to live in a cave in relative freedom. Here John secured a scribe, Procopius, to whom he dictated his writings.

John had the appearance of Christ here, which terrified him, issuing in the Apocalypse, addressed to the churches of Asia Minor where he had been staying when arrested.

There is a church there on the slopes, next to a school. When we visited a service was in progress. A priest decked in embroidered and en-jeweled garments and mitre, splashed incense as the teacher and boys sang the liturgy. As you may know, Orthodox churches use no instruments—voice only. I circled twice to get more of the rich flavor.

It’s a long winding stone stairway—outdoors—to reach this little niche on the rock. We saw a flat stone where John would lay his head to rest and one he used to steady himself to rise up.

Contrary to what many think, John did not die here. After the assassination of Domitian, Emperor Nerva released many Christians. John then returned to Ephesus and died there—the only apostle to die a natural death at an age over 100. Some say 120. But most scholars settle on age 104. Life expectancy then was 45 to 55 years of age.

Bussing to the high point we were guided through the small church, with painted saints and bishops dating back many centuries in some cases.

At the very top there is “the best museum in the Aegean” displaying treasures such as the 3 kilo mitre wore on special occasions by the archbishop when he visits. (That is nearly 8 pounds of weight—a lot to have on your head for more than a short time!) There were also manuscripts, including pages from a Gospel of Mark made in about 490-520 AD. Another notable was a parchment portion of Revelation, 10th century.

One icon was a painting of Jesus (waist up) with a look of suffering that is quite moving. A young painter, Dimitrious Ephthalmousious (that’s what it sounded like to me) was rejected because his work showed too much emotion for the monks. They liked that “flat” style of iconography. Unable to find work anywhere in Greece, he emigrated to Italy and then to Spain. Spaniards could not master his name, so they referred to him as The Greek. Bingo! That’s why that icon had hands with really long fingers—El Greco!

As I write this in Dale’s and my cabin #4020 we are once again at sea, heading for Ephesus. When I get there I’ll be listening for what the Spirit has to say to the Church.

(Next day.)

“Save the best for last.” A good motto.

And that is just what happened this afternoon, Sunday, March 18, 2007.

The ruins of Ephesus lie inland about 3 miles from the shore. Yet in Paul’s’ time it was a port city. In 2000 years silt from the river has filled in a long flat plane that would make a fine airport if it were not for flooding in the rainy season. So the city is high and dry now.

Most of the ancient city was buried under 4 to 12 feet of soil until recently, It is still being excavated. A truly awesome scale here. A temple of Artemis stands on the highest ground. Then there’s an amphitheatre for the politicians, not far from their offices.

Aqueducts brought fresh water for this ancient city of 250,000—one of the largest of cities in Roman times, the largest being Alexandria (400,000) A system of clay pipes delivered water to the baths, where poor people from outside were required to bath in order to prevent the spread of disease. Houses had bathrooms with drains to a sewer system that brought wastewater to the sea.

A long avenue holds offices of professionals on either side, with gods on pedestals appropriate for the profession, whether lawyers, doctors, philosophers and so forth. Walking on marble steps that Paul and he early convert walked upon, we descend gradually to the hospital, indicated by the medical symbol of the ancient world with the two entwined snakes. Further down is a house built for Hadrian, with the head of Medusa on the keystone of the arch, guarding the house from evil.

Next is a junction where the great library stood, second only in size to that of Alexandria. All the scrolls have been lost to earthquakes and fire. It has four goddesses by the two entrances: wisdom (Sophia), destiny, ___, and knowledge (Epistemethe). An avenue heads north to the gymnasium (floors only), while the main avenue broadens to about 50 feet going to the Agora. This is about ten acres in size and would have had goods of all types from around the world. Our guide points out the corner where the synagogue is thought to have stood. Paul always preached in the synagogues first, before going to the Gentiles.

No wonder Paul spent several years here preaching in this vibrant metropolis, making many converts, whom he would later chastise for their wayward ways and factions. It may been the San Francisco of its time.

On a distant hill is a small fortress where Paul was imprisoned for his own safety during the great riot of the silversmiths, who saw their lucrative business going the way our buggy whip industry went after the switch to automobiles. He would be a prisoner most of the rest of his life, as we now know. Here was the beach where he said farewell to the church elders after the incident with Eutychus.

And to think that a few decades ago all this was under soil where goats and sheep were grazing for a thousand years. Ephesus was abandoned in the 10th century after earthquakes and other calamities sent the remaining inhabitants inland to the Christian Ephesus with a church built over the tomb of St. John.

And think of what one will see here a few years hence, when the 40% excavated becomes 70% or higher.

After a week following the footsteps of Paul one begins to feel and smell and look with new eyes—eyes that are old by two millennia.

The ancients were state of the art in their technology—much more advanced than I had thought. This was part of super-power culture of its time, yet Paul fearlessly brought the Gospel of Jesus to that world. Christian faith is fully up to challenging the power centers of any culture, ancient or modern.

To this short, balding, brilliant man I owe a great debt.

To Paul, the apostle to us Gentiles, we must say thank you.