Soul searching

I’ve been in India for 3 weeks…and loved almost every moment of it.  I really didn’t want to come back.  It’s the third time I’ve been there, and it seems to get better each time I go.

I have much to tell, but there is one bit that I want to commit to paper.  Not because I think I might forget, but just to help me remember.

Driving into the centre of Mumbai we passed through an area and drove along a road which had what I can only describe as shacks on both sides, built on bare foundations, consisting of a room and little else.  Some were built on top of others, obviously where space could not be found on the actual roadside.  The doors consisted of a piece of tarpaulin somehow tied on, pulled back on some, pulled across on others.  As I glanced through the open ones, I could see through to the back.  The space was small, I would say about 6 square foot.  Of the people who were outside, I saw them brushing their teeth, washing their faces, getting dressed.  Children in the street…older than their years.

This was poverty.  This was what saddened me.  This was their daily life, and I felt embarrassed as I looked through their doors, driving past in a car feeling comfortable in my own clothes, knowing I had money in my pocket.  I later learned that about half of these "dwellings" woudl have been knocked down within a few days.  The number of houses that would need to be rebuilt from the foundations, and again with the fear that returning from a day trying to survive, they may find their house has gone.

No complaints did I hear, no begging did I see in this area.  What I felt however, that is what cried out the loudest.  Long after I had passed through, beyond the sights my eyes had seen, the images rang out, they appeared in my mind loud and clear.  It opened up something within.  It created a dilemma in how I should feel.  I couldn’t help but to feel so sorry for them, but grateful for what I had, and appreciative for all the things I all too often took advantage of, knowing it would always be there tomorrow.

It’s all too easy to rely on tomorrow….I should know that tomorrow is not a promise, and I now know that sometimes, tomorrow can be a dangerous and scary place to be.

The silence of my soul reaches out and rings out.  There is a picture in my mind I want to heal.