Quote of the Week: Mother Teresa

489px-MotherTeresa_090 — Photo Credit: Wikimedia

“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
― Mother Teresa

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Endurance

I read about this week’s challenge just before I took my ex-husband Al home from having a cardioversion, a procedure to stop his heart from fibrillating. To me he is the epitome of endurance.

On his way home from cardioversion last Saturday. — On the way home from the cardioversion last Friday.

In 2002, Al had a massive heart attack. It was so bad that they had to leave his chest wall open for several days because every time they closed it, his heart would stop. Our children, Sreejit and Chaitanya came from California and India respectively, to be with him and to take care of him. I recently found out that the doctor said he had never had a patient with that level of heart attack survive. The doctor credited his survival to the care Sreejit and Chaitanya gave him in the hospital and at home.

At the time of the heart attack, Al had a stent put in. In 2009, he had more surgery. This time six stents were inserted. Since then he had three cardioversions for atrial fibrillation.

His endurance was tested again last year, in a completely different way. In December 2013, my children and I were in India when we received a phone call from Al, saying that he had been mugged and beaten at 5:30 in the afternoon as he was going into his apartment building in the International District. He was 73 years old at that time and has M.S. in addition to his heart condition. Because of the M.S., he is very unstable on his feet, but he decided he wasn’t going to take it and fought back. As a result, all he lost was his phone.

He was very happy that he had stood up for himself. He also felt very grateful. Al has one eye that has been pretty much destroyed by glaucoma. If the mugger had beaten Al’s good eye, he would have been blinded; but since he beat the damaged one, Al still has good vision. I could understand Al’s sense of gratitude but was amazed at his ability to maintain a positive attitude in that situation.

I think by now, you can understand why I think Al is a very good example of the quality “Endurance!”

Written for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Endurance

A New Superhero for Me: Mother Antonia

Dungeon Prompts this week asked us to sing the praises of someone who is a superhero to us. The instructions were:

We all have heroes that we look up to for some reason or another. We may not want to follow in their footsteps, but there is something about these people that make them bigger than life to us. They may not be perfect individuals; they may not even be real people at all. Whether it is a story book figure, a comic character, a celebrity, someone doing good in the world, friend, family or otherwise, this week let’s take the time to sing the praises of one of our heroes.

Last year, I discovered someone whom became a superhero to me. Mother Antonia Brenner was born on December 1, 1926 and died on October 17, 2013. I learned of her when I read her obituary in Time magazine. Continue reading “A New Superhero for Me: Mother Antonia” →

Quote of the Week: Pir Vilayat Khan

Sufi teacher Pir Vilayat Khan asks us to view pain in this way:

Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of pain that was entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. You are sharing in the totality of that pain. You are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity.

What is your reaction to his suggestion?

From: Pir Vilayat, Khan, Introducing Spirituality in Counseling and Therapy (New York: Omega Press, 1982).

With My Last Breath

As usual, this week’s Dungeon Prompt is one that makes us explore our inner realms. Here are the questions we were asked to address:

Imagine that you were in an accident and you can feel your life fading away. With your last breaths, what does your mind fly to? Are you scared? Accepting? Worried for friends or family, work unfinished or some other business? Does your focus change to the hereafter? With your final breaths, to what do you cling?

I had an experience about 17 years ago that gave me some sense of what might happen when that time of my life comes. In December of 1997, I took my yearly trip to Amritapuri, Amma’s ashram in Kerala, India. Half-way between Singapore and India, our plane started shaking. Simultaneously all of the oxygen masks fell from their compartments. As we struggled to put on our masks, the plane started falling, first 15,000 feet, then another 10,000. The entire fall took about a minute. As the plane began to descend, my daughter and I glanced at each other and then we each focused inward. My mantra immediately started flowing freely within me. With the mantra came a great sense of peace. I had awareness that if I died that day, I could leave the earth without regret. I had no sense of unfinished business. (You can learn more about that experience at A Reason to Believe.) Continue reading “With My Last Breath” →

Gratitude Sunday in Advance

I have been reading gratitude posts on SeasonedSistha2 for some time. She regularly participates in Gratitude Sunday and today I read her Thankful Thursday post. That got me thinking. Why have I not started participating in one of those weekly gratitude prompts?

To me, the ability to feel and express gratitude is an incredibly important component of healthy living. I once was taught that depression and gratitude cannot co-exist. I don’t know if that is actually a researched fact, but I believe it to be true. I know that when people begin to focus on gratitude, the negativity within them diminishes and their spirits lift. They also learn to see the positive in events that might normally be considered negative. Continue reading “Gratitude Sunday in Advance” →

Wordless Wednesday

God is Able

Every year, I spend the Christmas season in Amritapuri, Amma’s ashram in Kerala, India. One of the highlights of the season is that on Christmas eve the Western residents present a Christmas play. For the last five years, they have been Broadway style musicals. That event is even more special to me because my daughter Chaitanya writes and directs the plays and my son composes most of the musical scores. In addition, he works with the singers and plays the harmonium, an instrument that has a keyboard and bellows. Continue reading “God is Able” →