A Marriage Proposal
Wednesday night I went to homegroup at my friends’ Tenu and Julie place. It’s a group of 6-10 young people mostly from the Northeast that crowd into a simple little room on the fourth floor of a concrete building. We sit on a plastic coated straw mat that covers marble floors. The walls are concreate covered in peeling pink paint. The bathroom is common for four flats and there is a closet-size kitchen off of the florestent tube lit room–just to give you a picture.
This week Tenu and Julie invited their landlady because she wanted us to pray for her. When she came in I was in the middle of sharing and she kept saying something to Tenu in Hindi and Tenu was telling her to wait until after. Then as soon as the group ended and we prayed for her this Auntie told me she thought I was very beautiful (I happened to be wearing a red punjabi suit–the traditional Delhi attire). I thanked her–but she continued. I wasn’t sure what she was saying something about marrying her son. I understand a little less Hindi then my other friends there, so they said, “Do you know what she is saying? She is saying ‘why didn’t you tell me about this one, if I knew her six months back she could have married my son.” I smiled, knowing this was a mother’s highest compliment . But she didn’t stop there, she said that her Baho (daughter-in-law) was causing many problems and if I agreed on this offer she would run that girl off and I could marry her son. The household recieves Rs. 80,000 income a month from rented rooms and I wouldn’t have to do anything except cook dinner and wash dishes. My friends were dying laughing but this lady was serious. They kept saying, “Do you know what she is saying?” In India a proposal from a mother is more serious than a proposal from a young man.
X-Patriot
It is weird for me to think that my this time next week I’ll be back in the U.S. of A. Being away for 9 months has made me very aware of just how American I am. Sure I have criticisms of my culture and certainly for our government, but America is beautiful and we take that for granted. The streets are clean. Furthermore the common courtesy that we give one another is unique. We allow space between people in lines to buy burgers. No one stands over your shoulder when you are shopping. Not to mention that we have porcelain toilet seats–here they are plastic. For an American reading this, you might say “of course,” but for someone else these things are not first nature.
Monsoon Season?
When a friend asked me about monsoon season a few weeks ago this is what I wrote:
The monsoon season in Delhi offically starts at the end of June and lasts until September. However it doesn’t actually rain much in Delhi so it reality it is more like this: there are two summers in Delhi. The first summer begins in April and lasts through June. It feels like Phoenix. The second summer begins in July, it lasts through September and feels like Houston. Only it doesn’t rain in Delhi as much as it does in Houston, it’s only hot and humid like Houston.
We were in summer # 1, it was dry and hot at least 110F each day. But then it started raining, and thunder storming and it has dropped 20 degrees. This nice weather has been off and on for five days or so. Last night it rained the whole night. I love sleeping to the sound of rain.
Lost theology
Confession: I am addicted to Lost-the T.V. show. This evening I imagined myself as Kate en-caged by the others (yes I am in season 3), and someone comes and lets me out. But I don’t trust that person. So when that person is off guard I knock him out and run through the jungle going my own way. That weird black monster cloud thing comes and just before it moves through me, my rescuer whom I have treated like a captor stands turns the energy field on and the cloud turns away. I am back with my rescuer and am safe. After a few days, I get suspicious again, why is he so interested in helping me? There must be some other motivation. I am better off on my own. So I run away again.
“Repent and believe the good news!” What does that mean? We have Christianized those words beyond comprehensibility. We seem to think “repent” means admit that you are a sinner. “Believe” means wish something so hard that it comes true. And “good news” means “gospel” which means that Jesus died on the cross so that we sinners can go to heaven.
But we leave out the beginning Jesus’ main message “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near.” The good news is that the kingdom has come near. On Saturday evenings my family gathers with the family who lives downstairs from us and is in fact our landlords for a time of worship and prayer. This evening my Dad read Mark 1:14-15 and he told us the contextual meaning of these words. His teacher these days is N.T. Wright. Wright talks about a story which Josephus (a first century Jewish historian) tells about being sent to put down a rebellion. When he reaches the rebels he tells them to repent and believe in him. Only those rebels didn’t hear the religious mumble-jumble we hear, rather they understood him to be saying stop trying to make your own way out, trust in me and my way.
This is just what the Kingdom of God is–the rule and reign of God. The ‘place’ where his will is done. So again I have to ask myself what that means to me. I know I’m that feisty girl that just keeps running away– who thinks she knows a better way. But I have set my whole life around entrusting my life to God, I say I believe in Jesus. Do I? Do I trust Jesus or do I think that I have a better way?
Where is home?
I am feeling homesick. The problem is that I don’t know where home is. They say that home is where the heart is…if only that was a simple answer. Perhaps there is something about only being a month away from returning to the U.S. that has me longing for my home land. This last nine months has been my longest time away from the States. My mom has taken a vow to see if she can go the entire time in the U.S. without having rice. She is over it. It is hard to know if it is better to talk to more people from home, eat more french fries, drink coke, drink wine, look at In Style Magazine or if it is better to put all of that aside for a few weeks and just throw myself in the water. Maybe if I do nothing that reminds me of home, I won’t miss it so much. The weird thing about this is that just last year I was in Jersey and went I felt home sick I’d make chai or Indian food.
I started reading this book last night called The Christ of the Indian Road by E. Stanley Jones. As a foreigner who committed his life to India this is what he wrote
I felt that we who come from a foreign land should have the inward feeling, if not the outward sign, of being adopted sons of India, and we should offer our message as a homage to our adopted land; respect should characterise our every attitude; India whould be home, her future our future, an we her servants for Jesus’ sake.
A few months ago my friend Hena who is an N.R.I. (Non-resident Indian) told me that I was a real American Desi. I was flattered. I love India. But can I bind myself to India as Jones suggests? Should I? Is this my calling?
I write this as I am preparing to go home for five weeks. Then I will return to India for at least six months. I will always love India, but is living here my vocation or season of my life? I do not know. Yes, though some of my friends may not believe it I am a “J” (on Meyers-Briggs). In other words, I like to make plans. I like to know what is next.
