Finding Calcutta

I thought Finding Calcutta by Mary Poplin would be a casual read – some good stories but nothing to write down, meditate about, and share.  I was wrong.  Mary Poplin spent a period of months working beside Mother Teresa.  She is a professor at U of Texas, but writes so even I can understand.  She writes about her inner and outer journey during those months, and I find her insights pierce me.

“Discouragement is a sign of pride.  It shows that I was focused on results, perhaps in my own power, rather than faith and obedience to God’s direction and his responsibility for results.”

As I read, I was faced with my own self.  Her insights on generosity humbled and frightened me, and I realized that I’ve never really sacrificed.  Her experiences of obedience stressed that my faithfulness to God’s present call prepares me for his call later.  If God calls me to wash windows, I must wash them so the angels stop and say, “There is a great window washer, a man faithful to his call.  What a servant of God!”  Obedience is the path to “my Calcutta”.

This book is an easy, but slow, read.  It was easy to understand, but the application of what I understood made me pause in every chapter.  Truth is like that.

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Truth And Transformation

Truth And Transformation by Vishal Mangalwadi

I was unprepared for the incredible depth and breadth of this book.  I had never heard of the author, and that is to my loss.  Considered by some to be India’s foremost Christian intellectual, he attempted to serve the rural poor of India.  ”Service is the legitimate means of acquiring the power to lead.”  The results were violent opposition.  He turned to a study of the West and why India’s civilization lacked similar justice and prosperity.

His insights regarding the caste system’s foundation and fruit caused me to examine the current situation in the USA.  “Without God’s value system, humans have no intrinsic worth.  They are only worth what other human beings decide they are worth.”  Vishal shows that the USA is traveling on a questionable moral road.

I highly recommend this book to those of us who have been numbed by the slow but constant decline of USA values.  “Jesus changes the world by planting the Church in the midst of it.”

My notes on this book can be downloaded in MS Word format from the blue “FILES box” located in the left side-bar of this blog.