Liturgies

First thing that hits me

Arriving back at Brisbane airport

Is how clean the air is

How quiet the street

How blue the sky

How clean the surrounds

It's as if I've been living under a veil all these years in clean Australia

“I wake suddenly and reach for my phone to check the time - it is dark outside and the last time I checked it was 1.45am. It's 4.50am - I jump up - aware of the fans whirling and feeling the stickiness of Varanasi at the beginning of October - the air thick and skin dank. I have a cold shower, pack my carry-on bag, strap on my boots, whack on my check-in back pack, lock up the villa and walk in the dark along the track to the waiting taxi at the entrance to the Krishnamurti Centre on the banks of the Ganges.

Even at this early hour, The drive to the airport through this city of 2 million has to be experienced to be believed - all my senses are ablaze - the death-defying drive dodging potholes and oncoming buses, trucks, bicycles, people, cows and dogs - thick pungent smell of cow-manure and burning coal making morning chai - rubbish piled and burning by roadsides - people living in squalor and going about their lives regardless.

I suddenly think about the swollen baby floating down the Ganges yesterday morning.

Bohdgaya was similar but more in your face - pigs immersed in stagnant mud and fetid garbage, starving dogs and goats everywhere, Brahman cows fossicking, piles of smelly poo, rubbish scattered and piled everywhere and being burned, thick diesel and dust in the air, polluted water lying everywhere around this swampland and rice fields surrounding the swollen tributary to the Ganges. The air rings incessantly with blaring horns. Every now and then you hear the mesmerising sound of Curlews and see the beautiful faces of smiling children.

I reflect on how privileged I am - living in West End by the Brisbane River - where people pick-up their dog poo and keep them on leads - where the streets are clean and water runs clear.

Our response is to share our wealth to help relieve the distress of poverty - to contribute to the operating costs of schools for the poor, not buy water filters and food and school uniforms for children in orphanages, to buy water pumps and sewing machines for women in villages, to pay for medicines, to raise funds to build toilets in village schools.

Friends at home - internal suffering

Second week back home I encounter the suffering of my friends.

One has lost her job, the other their relationship - both are deeply distressed and unhappy. I'm struck by the contrast with India.

There - people suffered poverty, but here, people who are wealthy by comparison suffer internally. Their pain is real, their unhappiness palpable.

Our response is to give time to our friends - to truly listen and sympathise - to take them out to dinner - to truly care and give them our time.

Family

When I met up with some members of my family I am struck by how unhappy they are from deep divisions and bitterness arising from feuds and disagreements.

I am reminded by the words of a woman who lost her baby in the novel and film called The Light Between Oceans states – “we only need to forgive once, but anger and resentment live on in us and are corrosive”.

Forgiving is magical - it is powerful, liberating, and frees us to love with an open heart!

Looking after yourself

Coming back to work I find a colleague has been sick for 6 weeks and may continue to be unwell for up to 6 months. He is a person who gives all he has to give - to his partner, his children, his parents and his work with people with mental illness. I wonder if he has nothing left over for himself - his very body succumbing to illness and exhaustion!

Our first responsibility is to keep ourselves in the

Ggreen Zone - to keep ourselves resilient.

It's only then that we can help those in the Red Zone, and keep our tribe in the Green Zone!

Dying                            Surviving                                Striving                         Thriving

Red Zone                      Orange Zone                                    Green Zone

Negative mood                                   Worried                                             Positive mood

Anxious                                              Defensive                                            Grateful

Depressed                                           Irritated                                              Optimistic

Angry                                                 Stressed                                              Resourceful

Ashamed                                                                                                        Energetic 

(Graeme Cowan, opening address at National Partners In Recovery AGM 9/7/15 – citing ‘Back From The Brink’ and ‘The Elephant In the Board Room’; www.IamBackFromTheBrink.com)

People suffering in the Red Zone talk about 4 key things that work best to guide them back into the Green Zone

1. Emotional support from loved ones, friends and work colleagues – good relations with other people matter
2. Regularly Engaged – doing what we love and enjoy
3. Meaning and Purpose – making a positive difference and accomplishing what matters most, including revitalising work
4. Exercise

Reflecting on the trip - I realise that to contribute to caring for this planet, people living in poverty, and my family and friends –

I need to look after myself - to maintain a quiet discipline of morning and evening yoga and meditation, to eat well and exercise, to have time to do what I love and have affection for, to spend time in relationship with family and friends, to commit to community with others and their spiritual growth and development - to keep myself resilient in the Green Zone so that I can help those in the Red Zone and keep our tribe in the Green Zone.

Poem

Still Strong

I look into the lines of her face .....

What suffering has she endured?

Hair grey

Forehead furrowed like imprinted bricks indented above eyes

Telling a story held deeply within

I try to imagine but no imagining comes near her reality

Heavy burdens she carried

Pain and deprivation she endured

She knows the taste of hunger

Smell of death

Sickness and loss

Woven into her features

Fearless her fabric

Oozing strength

Heavy-lidded dark eyes downward cast

Nose straight and strong

Lips closed

Chin buckled

Cheeks high

Still Strong

(Inspired by Darjeeling artist Ava Devi's painting by the same title)

St Mary’s In Exile Homily 5-6/11/16