Why I'm Going To Kolkata

When I tell people that I'm going to Kolkata, with few exceptions people respond, "Thats great! You'll have a wonderful time!" No doubt it will be an unforgettable time but I'm not convinced it will be "great". Never-the-less I leave tomorrow afternoon from London and here are some reasons why.

To Have an Adventure

This is my last chance for five years to spend more than a week away. Who wouldn't want to take advantage of the time off to see a new side of the world (literally).

The Shane Claiborne Effect

In his book, The Irresistible Revolution, Shane tells of wanting to spend time with people who are actually living as Jesus taught and lived. He lamented the fact that so few of his heros in this regard were still alive. He was fortunate enough to go and spend a number of months in Kolkata while Mother Theresa was still alive and spek with her once. For me, Shane's stories of what he learned was enought to create the desire to go and see what living life in the Kingdom of the Heavens amoung the poorest of the poor looks like.

To Experience Anti-Medicine

By anti-medicine I mean the opposite of the western medicine I've been taught at school. In Canada medicine is entirely concerned with fixing people. It is only recently that the field of paliative care has begun to change this but even so it exsists at the margins of the medical profession. The Sisters of Charity take an oath to love the poorest of the poor. I want to learn waht loving, when there is little if any hope of a physical cure or return to physical health, looks like.

To Put Faces on Ideas About Suffering

In Calgry it is often difficult, though by no means imposible to be confronted by people suffering. (I wonder sometimes if going to India to see suffering is safer than looking for it in the neighbourhoods where I live.) I am just starting to read God, Medicine and Suffering by Stanley Hauerwas. He starts, "It is one thing to think that 'the problem of evil' can be answered by the free will defense or explained through human sin; it is another to confront the illness of a child." We all see and experience suffering. I hope to learn a worldview that belittles neither the reality of it nor the God above it.

To Learn Skills To Be Around Dying People

I don't like being around people who are dying. I have no good explaination but I've choosen in which these interations will be a nearly daily occurence. To spend time with sisters who have commited their lives to doing so seems liek a good place to learn.

I'll try to post here frequently over the next few weeks. Thanks for being interested enough in my adventure to atleast read this. Stay in touch. Leave comments. Ask questions (I'd be happy to pass them on to the sisters I'll meet. Who doesn't have a question for a person who has vowed to live their entire life with the poorest of the poor?)

Later....