Arguing with Love
Sunday, I referred to Mother Teresa and the manner in which she led her life as reflecting how things really are. That in living as she did, no arguments were advanced, but the revolutionary perspective of Jesus was presented: perhaps as powerfully as it could be.I didn't put enough meat on this observation, but it's something that I--having got a master's degree in arguing about God--have been thinking about a lot recently, and wondering whether or not the money I sent CU was a waste.
In the documentary made by Malcolm Muggeridge that brought her international fame, Teresa is consistently telling Muggeridge how things are without being argumentative. In one scene, she is holding a small abandoned baby, and says to Muggeridge, "Look, she has life in her eyes; the life of God." "Yes," Muggeridge, a self-confessed atheist, repeatedly said--seemingly convinced. Later, Muggeridge--Britain's leading journalist--became a Catholic and said it was his experience with Teresa that really moved him to thinking about Jesus. (His book "Jesus Rediscovered" is worth reading. Though it is out of print.)
In Teresa's life, reality--Heaven--was breaking into our world, and the illusion put up by centuries of man's rebellion could not trump it. Note, in a country that had had a Cast System in place for thousands of years, Teresa didn't come out asking politicians to change their laws, nominate supreme court justices that would do something, get grass root support and all. She simply acted, and started a revolution. The revolution carried through her country where Indian women from across the nation came to help the Sisters of Mercy--many of whom were not Christian when they came. But she became the reason for many to seriously consider Christ's counter-perspective on life.
In a country with a massive Hindu Population, and vocal Muslim minority, a frail Christian woman from Albania often represented India on the global stage. When she spoke all India listened. She gave commencement addresses at Harvard (where she spoke on abstinence of all things). She spoke with any world leader she choose. Her influence was extraordinary, and yet her power came from doing nothing the world actually pursued as valuable. (There aren’t long lines to gain power by starting leprosariums.)
Looking at pictures of the woman, you notice a posture deformed by consistently loving those in beds, gutters, or on the sidewalks. The deformity is beautiful in live films where she moves easily picking up children and cleaning off the desperate. She backed up her outspoken critique of abortion saying, "A child is a gift of God. If you do not want him, give him to me." She was not playing the game from the bleachers, reading her script in a power suit on CNN and going home to her cozy life. In speaking about such hard issues, she volunteered to be the solution.
We might do better to study how one small woman, in a simple white cotton sari, didn't bother much with arguments; instead, she simply went out into the world and changed the lives of millions.
(A discussion on this post already began here if you'd like to see further comments.)
posted by Jeff @ 8:12 AM
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