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Posted by Thomas F. O'Neill By Thomas F. O’Neill Whenever I watch commercials on television or see the movies and television programs that are being directed to our nations youth. I can't help but to wonder what effect the materialism in our fast past highly technological age is having on today's children. One way for me to overcome those feelings is by taking the time to tell children about my experiences in 1992 when I worked as a volunteer in India with the “Missionaries of Charity.” I worked at various centers that were started by Mother Theresa and her religious order. The Nuns ran the Centers but the volunteers did most of the work. I really enjoyed my experience there and on several occasions I spoke with Mother Theresa at her home they call her home the “Mother House” in India. Most of the population in Calcutta, India, live, wash, and eat on the streets. When people die, their bodies are either burned or thrown into the Ganges River. The Hindu cast system is what led Mother Theresa to leave the Loreto Religious order which she belonged to for about 20 years as a Catholic Nun. She wanted to help the poorest of the poor in India so she went off on her own in 1948. Eventually, in 1950 after her work became recognized and due to the number of followers that joined her cause she was given permission by the Pope at that time to start her own Religious Order which she named the “Missionaries of Charity.” She opened several centers for the sick and dying throughout India and in Calcutta there is “Prim Dan” which means “Gift of Love,” the “Mahatma Gandhi” Center and “Kali Gaht” which means “Shore of Kali” in Hindi. I also worked at one of her centers as a volunteer in Washington, DC which is called the “Gift of Peace” Center. I worked with people who were dying of AID’s at that center. There was a stigma attached to AID’s victims out of fear and prejudice in the early 1990s and there was not the medical know how too adequately treat AID’s victims like they have today. Today Mother Theresa’s Religious Order has centers in every country of the world and they have more Nuns then all the other Religious orders combined. They also have more Nuns then are Priests in the world due to the Roman Catholic priesthood becoming a dying breed. It is being predicted that if drastic changes are not made soon in the Roman Catholic Church that in 20 years or so three-quarters of the Roman Catholic priests will either have left the priesthood for various reasons or will be too old to function as priests. Sixty-five percent of the Roman Catholic priests are getting close to retirement age but they will not be able to retire due to the shortage of priests. Some of those priests that are close to retirement are going to die over the next twenty years and what that means is in about twenty years there will only be about twenty-five percent of the current priests practicing their religious faith. I would like to thoroughly write about my experiences someday especially about how Mother Theresa was so revered in India. Every Religion in India prior to her death incorporated her into their belief system. They saw her as a living deity sent to raise humanity. The rest of the world however did not see it that way. It was a real eye opening experience witnessing how powerful religious beliefs are on the Indian people. Religious beliefs are extremely powerful on the individual believer and collectively on the Indian people as a whole. In India Photographs of Mother Theresa are extremely valuable because people believe possessing an image of her will bring good fortune to them. They also believe a part of Mother Theresa’s spirit will be with her image. The Indians still worship her as a God even after her death in 1997. That is one reason the current Pope is pushing to have her canonized a Saint. In 1992 I was able to get a hotel room in India for a Dollar a night and a meal for 20 cents due to the nation’s poverty. India is an extremely poor nation for the majority who live in that country but they have rich spiritual traditions that go back long before the written word was invented. The Indian people have had a deep intuitive grasp of their spiritual interconnectedness for thousands of years. I have also been to Ecuador which is also an extremely poor country the people living in the hills of Duran in that country live in sugar Cain huts with no electricity, indoor pluming, and they wash with rain water. They eat only what they could gather for that day because they have no way of preserving their food. Water must be boiled prior to using it due to preventing an outbreak of cholera which is a common ailment in that country that can kill you. When I returned to the United States I was grateful for what I had and the little inconveniences were just that little inconveniences compared to how the poor live in India and Ecuador. When I look at life in terms of my experiences I realize how our beliefs are a major part of who we are in terms of how we relate to others. I also realize more so now then before how the people living in those impoverished conditions in Ecuador rely on their community for their survival. The individual cannot put themselves over the welfare of their community because it is the welfare of the community that is vital to their survival. In America we rely on our rugged individualism which in Ecuador in the hills of Duran where I lived for three months there is no such concept. In Ecuador the people looked at me with such curiosity and they were the most loving people. I washed my clothes with them, ate with them and we had to communicate in body language because I could not speak their language. There was one thing that they loved to do and that was laugh. They were not aware of what they did not have in terms of technology because they were pretty much isolated from the rest of the world. They were content in living in their community with one another because their community was their family and they could rely on each other in times of need. I have learned over the years that a great deal of my knowledge came from books. What I have read in those books helped me acquire a lot of knowledge but now I am recognizing that I am learning a great deal more about myself from what I write. I suppose that is one reason why I submitted this article it was a way of sharing apart of who I am with you the reader. I have also learned over the years that it is not the material gifts that count in life but rather it is all the unrecognized, undetected, and unremembered acts of loving kindness that one bestows on others that are the greatest achievements in a person’s life. What we give to humanity we give to ourselves and what we change in ourselves we change in humanity. If we want to live in a better world we must change for the better. If we want to see a world of loving and joyous people we must be loving and joyous towards the people in our own lives. That potential is part of our humanity when we reach out to touch others we touch apart of the humanity that is within us. When we change the life of another for the better we change our own lives for the better. To have a profound effect on others and to change and enhance the quality of others lives is not achieved by imposing our will or our beliefs on others but rather it is achieved by living our life as we would want others to live their lives in doing so others will emulate our way of life. Life is simply a quest with greater self awareness as the means to greater spiritual growth within us and in all that we touch within the eternal life of god. Written by, Thomas F. O’Neill
on 8/19/2005, 11:01 pm
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Don’t sweat small stuff encountered in daily life
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