Hmm
So I met up with one of my very favourite people at Saturday night's Easter church service: an Indian monk named Father Silas. This man is a) completely filled with the love of God, and b) utterly hilarious.
On that first point, consider this: he left a life as a successful engineer to live in the mountains of northern India, owning virtually nothing and spending his time and energy ministering to the needs of the absolute poorest of the world's poor. He runs an orphanage; he feeds the hungry; he doesn't like dogs very much, but a dog died in childbirth outside his mission, so he took in all seven puppies. That's just the kind of guy he is.
When a bishop praised Father Silas, telling him, "You brought Christ to the mountains of India," Father Silas would have nothing of it. "No," he said. "I went to the mountains and found Christ waiting there for me in torn clothes, lying by the roadside." (This was a reference to a story Jesus told: whatever we do for the poorest of the world, we do for Jesus himself.) It's just amazing to me that someone would want to give up a perfectly comfortable life in order to seek out the poorest of the poor, the people on the fringes of society, to go live with them, care for them, and freeze in the mountains with them. That takes a kind of love that is just so far beyond anything I can imagine. This is the kind of person you want to get to know.
Weirdly enough, he's also entirely down to earth and extremely funny, which just makes him a fun guy to hang out with. And then every now and then, between jokes, he'll drop something brilliant and profound on you. This is not the picture you normally have of monks, but hey.
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Anyway, I mention Father Silas here because he found out we were going to India and got very excited for us, inviting us to come visit him in the mountains if we get the chance. He asked when we were going, and I told him we'd be there in May and June. He advised me that it would be hot.
"How hot?" I asked.
"Very hot." This is a man who grew up in India, mind you. He is no stranger to heat.
"Seriously, how bad could it be?" I asked. "I love hot weather."
He thought about this for a while, and settled on the following advice: going to India in May and June, he declared, would be-and this is the actual word he used-"naive."
Hmm.
On that first point, consider this: he left a life as a successful engineer to live in the mountains of northern India, owning virtually nothing and spending his time and energy ministering to the needs of the absolute poorest of the world's poor. He runs an orphanage; he feeds the hungry; he doesn't like dogs very much, but a dog died in childbirth outside his mission, so he took in all seven puppies. That's just the kind of guy he is.
When a bishop praised Father Silas, telling him, "You brought Christ to the mountains of India," Father Silas would have nothing of it. "No," he said. "I went to the mountains and found Christ waiting there for me in torn clothes, lying by the roadside." (This was a reference to a story Jesus told: whatever we do for the poorest of the world, we do for Jesus himself.) It's just amazing to me that someone would want to give up a perfectly comfortable life in order to seek out the poorest of the poor, the people on the fringes of society, to go live with them, care for them, and freeze in the mountains with them. That takes a kind of love that is just so far beyond anything I can imagine. This is the kind of person you want to get to know.
Weirdly enough, he's also entirely down to earth and extremely funny, which just makes him a fun guy to hang out with. And then every now and then, between jokes, he'll drop something brilliant and profound on you. This is not the picture you normally have of monks, but hey.
//////////////////
Anyway, I mention Father Silas here because he found out we were going to India and got very excited for us, inviting us to come visit him in the mountains if we get the chance. He asked when we were going, and I told him we'd be there in May and June. He advised me that it would be hot.
"How hot?" I asked.
"Very hot." This is a man who grew up in India, mind you. He is no stranger to heat.
"Seriously, how bad could it be?" I asked. "I love hot weather."
He thought about this for a while, and settled on the following advice: going to India in May and June, he declared, would be-and this is the actual word he used-"naive."
Hmm.