This year a lot of devotees from Washington State came to Amritapuri for Christmas, one of them being my Seattle friend Marmot. She related a funny story to me last night and I told her if she would write it down, I would post it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Continue reading “She Fed Santa!”
I have come to Amma’s ashram in Amritapuri, India almost every year since January 1990. While to me it often feels like nothing has changed during that time, it is also obvious that so much is different.
When I first met Amma she was 35 years old. Now she is 61.
I arrived soon after the main part of the temple had been finished; the top floors were not complete. I remember participating in brick and gravel seva. We would form human chains and pass the bricks to the top floors, one at a time. We would also carry bags of gravel where ever they needed to go. I remember thinking that part of me would remain in Amritapuri when I left India because of all the bricks I had touched. This is a picture of the temple as it looks today. Continue reading “Reminiscing- 1990 to 2014”
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
I met Amma in summer of 1989 and took my first trip to India in January 1990. I have traveled to India almost every year since then. The first two visits were short (10 days to 3 weeks). The third and fourth were for two months. From then on, my yearly journey has been for five or six weeks. Continue reading “Gratitude Sunday”
“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
― Mother Teresa
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.
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
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”
Last May, my Sanskrit Class and our GreenFriends group put on a Sanskrit skit for Amma when she held a retreat in the Seattle area.
We started the performance with a prayer to Mother Earth. I love the words of the chant and thought I would share the translation with you. Many Indian children chant this prayer before they get out of bed each morning, i.e. before their feet touch the floor.
May we all learn to develop such respect for Mother Earth.
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