Reflections from Calcutta

Looking back at my recent posts, I see a pattern of "wanting to escape from the ordinary to learn from the exemplary". My recent read Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa taught me about meaningful work and service has enflamed my passion for stepping out of the workaday world to commune with God. In addition to enticing me toward a period of monasticism, this book, written by Mary Poplin a former professor of mine at Claremont Graduate School, provided me with a few intellectual nuggets that engaged my mind as well as my soul.

The first insight concerned this notion of the way our society has enshrined the skeptic. Having just assigned Philosopher of Religion William James' essay The Will to Believe the matter of believing without sufficient evidence was a matter mulling over in my mind. Poplin quotes contemporary philosopher Dallas Willard on this related topic:

The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that, for centuries now, has cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than the one who believes. You could be almost as stupid as cabbage as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a hardy individualist or social rebel- or one desperate for another life- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright. Partly because of the social force towards skepticism, which remains very powerful even when we step into Christian congregations and colleges for ministers, very few people ever develop competence in their prayer life... Today we live in a culture that overwhelmingly gives primary, if not exclusive, importance to the visible. This stance is incorporated in the power structures that permeate our world and is disseminated by the education system and government."

The integration of intellectual explanation and spiritual application of certain phenomenon such as the one mentioned are highlighted throughout this book. Although I have witnessed the above preference for skepticism while in graduate school and teaching, I have not stopped to assess the way this "fashion of the age" has influenced my prayer life. I wonder what it would take to remove the cultural bias in my mind that predisposes me toward unbelief in the invisible. I wonder if the sisters of charity have this cultural hurdle to maneuver in their daily prayers.

The other point made which as incredible social ramifications is the one Poplin highlights through the contrast of Mother Teresa's work with that of the social progressives described in a quote by Theophan the Recluse, a nineteenth-century Orthodox saint who criticizes the progressives who seek the good of mankind at the expense of helping individuals:

"Those who keep thoughts of the welfare of all of mankind inattentively let slip by that which is in front of our eyes. Because they do not have the opportunity to perform a particular work, they accomplish nothing toward the main purpose of life."

I see this mentality in the upwardly mobile individuals in my building who would rather pay more taxes than go mentor an individual in crisis at the local homeless mission. I see this in the students who come to DOOR who come seeking to serve in our city but seem stymied when the discussion turns to what to do about "homelessness." I see it in myself when I would rather go to community organizing meeting that addresses homeless "issues" than walk across the street and introduce myself to the lady who has decided to camp out near our building. It is a lot easier to feel oneself more intelligent and strategic when addressing the issue as a whole, but if this is done at the expense of helping those in front of us we are more than a little off course.