Women : Our crown jewels

As a man I am finding this to say this and the views might not be accepted by some ; but let me say this with the usual disclaimer - women are perhaps the crown jewels of Oasis, the organization I work for , its conscience keepers and its soul. To be sure, there are lots of good men here too, but embedded at various levels in the organization- capably, articulately and very eminently running several key functions in Oasis, without whom the organization would collapse, and even I would be handicapped , are some very gifted and talented women.

And this post is a recognition of that. It is not tha twe men dont need attention and affirmation. We do. But men do often get a lot of attention and are even vain glorious attention seekers. Women, on the other hand- and I am talking about the ones I meet at Oasis anyway, are quietly going about the work that we are all about - about restoring broken lives and seting them on the path to wholeness. inthe last 16 years that Oasis has been at work in India, several lives have been touched and transformed and repaired. and although we may not have clean cut research to prove it, women have been pivotal to this. And some ofthose women were around yesterday, are around today and I ask God that they are around tomorrow too. I say this with unbelievable appreciation for their work and perhaps for the work of all women who work in organizations with the ethos that Oasis has - where the efforts required are immense, the results are uncertain and the monetary rewards at least aren't great. And yet they go on.

I come from a generation where the men went to work, worked hard and passionately even perhaps, but once they came back from work , they sat down to chill with the daily paper or the television, or what have you, and perhaps did some work too , if there was a pressing deadline at the office. In any case that generation did (and do) pretty little at home. I know that times change, and it is a different generation that you might see out there at the workplace. But again, because the very nature of my work keeps me informed about how society is or is not changing, I am aware that not too much is changing. And so women still work a lot harder than men in most cases; at home and at work- and if they are lucky , they can expect to be affirmed and honored at one of these places; but if they have hit a bad patch of soil, they can toil tirelessly at both places without any recognition or reward anywhere. and so, if my colleagues represent any thing of mainstream Indian society, they too would be working hard at their multiple responsibilities.

I began this article well, but am fumbling to finish it, because it involves talking about and admitting to one's own frailties and foibles. Talking about working women in general including my own wife and my own colleagues in Oasis as our crown jewels is one thing, but to value them that way is another. Do I do that ? Well, this article is not a hypocritical ode; it is real and written straightfrom the heart and I can picture many of them, right now as I type out these words, and I certainly value them and as I said before, without the assistance of some of them, I would be personally crippled ; leave alone the organization. At home, without the immense burden that my own wife, a busy working woman carries, I would not just be crippled but paralyzed. But I am not sure that my speech or action reveals any of that respect to these women unless any one of them has a particularly high level of discerenment.

But let me not end this piece by self flagellating myself. I am here today and will one day be gone. And while I may need to see what I can do to shape up my own speech and conduct,these crown jewels are an institutional resource - each one of them a blessing from God that needs to be valued and then that respect needs to be conveyed. How do we do that ? Rewards and promotions and all these accsesories that come readily to mind and all these are important, but these are good outward indicators of some thing else. Perhaps, it is an inner reverence that we need to cultivate, that will then play itself out in many different ways.

Paying back

Last week , one of my friends of the last 30 years dropped by our home to spend several hours of her valuable time with our daughter and offer her professional help.( in this age when you can "add" and "delete",friends in seconds, I had actually to do some calculations to be sure that we had been friends that long). Years ago, when we used to cycle together to Bible Studies, I doubt that we thought that our friendship would last too many years- let alone reach down to the next generation. Sitting a bit far way from the action, I sit and wonder how I can pay her back. But that of course I cant - neither cash nor kind can compensate this sort of gestures and of course she is not expecting any recompense. The fact is that if she reads this, which is very likely, and recognizes herself, which is also very likely, she is possibly going to be very uncomfortable. Yet the gratitude I feel for this gesture is huge.

I remember another incident, which occured about a month ago when I was attending a program at our facility called Purnata Bhavan, near Nasik. A petite, bespectacled girl approached me and started a conversation : " Uncle" she began.I winced. Usually, when some one calls me "Uncle", it is someone who I am expected to know and remember and thereafter, address by the first name or some other form of endearment. But this girl, I could not place. But I quickly discovered that this girl,I was not expected to remember. She was part of Oasis's Purnata Bhavan facility at Igatpuri some years ago and was now studying for her Masters in Social Work in a reputed Mumbai college. What she wanted to know from me was simply this - once she finished her course, could she come back and serve Oasis ? She felt that the contribution of Purnata Bhavan was immeasurable in her life and she wanted to pay back part of the debt. I remember vaguely saying that there would be always a place for her In Oasis, but what I better remember is that it was dusk and getting dark and that this girl wouldn't be able to see the tears beginning to roll down my cheeks.In the past several months, I have cried often, but I still don't know how to cry in public.

Perhaps next to grace,gratitude is the noblest human trait that we can get to see this side of heaven - and it is a rare thing. But when you see it, it is sublime. An unforgettable story of gratitude that I always remember at times like this is the story of Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan, David's best friend who was killed in battle. Jonathan, when he was alive, saved David's life on many occasions and yet there was little that David could do to repay. He was then always the fugitive, trying to stay alive for the next day's battle with neither the resources or the ability to do any thing. And by the time, David was king, Jonathan was dead.

By the time, David had consolidated his power and conquered all his enemies, Jonathan was long dead and could have well been a figure in the past tense. But David remembered. David had no agenda to push here; no motives- hidden or open. He just remembered all that Jonathan had done for him when he was alive and even though Jonathan could no longer be repaid, David wanted to do some thing tangible for some one in Jonathan's family. And that is the noblest thing about gratitude - it has a long memory. Long after the event is over and the last chapter in the book is written, a grateful heart remembers, fondly, and often with nostalgia of gestures and favors that can never be repaid. And so the thoughts of this girl doing her social work course, being grateful for the chance and wanting to give some thing back to Oasis; my dear friend serving my daughter - a favor that I am unlikely to be able to repay in my life time - these are occasions when human gratitude and God's grace mix together to produce an aroma that is unbelievably divine.



Marching off the map

Oasis, the organization that I work for in India is changing and there are many things about change that are frightening and can unnerve even the one who is initiating it and that of course in many ways is me. And the main reason for my fear and also possibly the fear of others is that change follows no known road maps and in the non existence of maps, we often feel lost. It's our natural impulse to want to go back to familiar territory - to go back to the land we know, to the places that are recognized, to the areas we have maps for. Everyone in the history of the world has always been tempted to go back to what it has known, but to continue reinventing oneself will require that we will always march off the map and conquer new worlds and do different and untested things. We have a choice - we can be an entity that turns back to what is familiar, or we can be a truly pioneering entity and march off the map to do the things that truly need to be done instead of doing the same things over and over again

Every one of us reaches a point in our lives when we're challenged to march off the map, to step into uncharted territory. . In my personal life as well as professional life, there have been many- , when I chose to follow Jesus Christ, when I left the secure job in the Indian Air Force, when I married my wife who is not an Indian, when we chose to adopt our daughter. Some situations and their consequences I could expect, but I can guarantee that I have and all us have to learn to always come face-to-face with the unexpected, no matter how well we plan or research or learn from others. There's always something new, an uncharted course that's waiting for us. And some of the twists and turns of the course of my life has left me bewildered. And though frightening, we need to learn to be able to take the risks that are involved in advancing God's kingdom here on earth.

The apostle Paul gives us some suggestions as to how we can best do that. "Forget what lies behind," he says. That doesn't mean that Paul doesn't want us to celebrate the past. Paul is always about celebrating the past; sharing the lessons he's learned, savouring his successes. What Paul is telling us here is "don't dwell in the past?" Don't always look back and think, "Remember when we used to do it that way.

What Paul is telling us is that things change. Times change, styles change, the culture changes, people's needs change. And if we don't keep up with those changes, we will get stuck in the past. And if we get stuck in the past, in the way things were, in wanting things to go back to what is familiar, to what is comfortable, to what is safe, pretty soon we will let fear and familiarity dictate what we do, and we will be afraid to try something new. Paul also tells us to strain forward to what lies ahead. Here's where there's a tension between all three elements of time - the past, the present and the future. We know we shouldn't dwell in the past, to wish for things to be the way they were. We know it's important to live in the present, because that's where we are today. But we're also called to "look ahead," to visualize a future.

It's the same message that Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you," Jesus says, "that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” "Don't long for the past and d the way things have always been." Jesus tells us. "I'm showing you a new way to live. Remember the past if it's important to you. Enjoy those memories, cherish what you learned, celebrate what worked, but don't live in the past. Because I have something better prepared for you."

Anyone knows you can't run a successful business without a plan. We can't run a household without some kind of budget. We need to look ahead to see what's coming next. All those questions relate to present and future planning. The future may not be exactly what we envisioned, we'll all have to make some changes to accommodate new thinking and new directions, there will certainly be a learning curve as we get to know and understand just what is going on, and adapt to new personalities and peculiarities, but we can rest assured in the fact that God has things provided for.



Comings and Goings

I held my first job 26 years ago and that is a long time ago. In that long span of time, I have held several jobs and the current job is my 9th. Except on two occassions, I remember my boss’s pained facial expression when I told them that I was resigning. They were much older than I was and hierarcy and seniority prevented them from openly expressing their anguish and hurt , but their body language displayed sorrow. On one occcasion, my boss plainly told me that if I left then my entire department would collapse if I left at that juncture, and then left me to decide what I would do. At stake was a job that would give me nearly four or five times my then salary, a couple of trips to Geneva a year, and a place on the international NGO circuit. But looking at my boss’s pained expresion , I decided to stay on for some more time. I think that is the only time, I chose to do so. The rest of the time, I couldn’t care less what my superiors thought. I had made my decision ( hopefully prayerfully) and stayed oblivious to what others - my bosses or my colleagues thought.

All that changed recently when a beloved colleague came up to me and said that he was resigning. The resignation letter was contained in an innocous envelope and intuitively , I guessed what the subject of the discussion was likely to be even before the envelope was handed over to me. I guess that when you have handed in resignation envelopes all your life, intuition becomes strong in that area. I didn’t and don’t want to lose that colleague. And yet, as I was trying to make eye contact with my colleague and convince him to stay on for some more time, I was finding it difficult to do so. In my colleague’s eyes, I saw reflected the pain and sadness of my many previous managers and directors who did not want to lose me and let go of me but had to, faced with my iron determination and grit. Who was I any way, having left 8 jobs in my career to preach to my colleague on loyalty and faithfulness ? Yet with a pained and hollowed expression on my face, I made a passionate plea for my colleague to continue, because very honestly if that person left, there would be a void that would not be easily filled. No one of course is indispensable ; but some are certainly dearer than others.

This evening, writing this , I see life differently, very differently. I have never had a great sense of self esteem; I have always believed that people like me can be easily found and easily replaced. But perhaps not. Hearing my colleague say all that I have been saying over the years, and hearing me say, all that my bosses have said over the years and seing in his eyes, a reflection of my many bosses ; all of them the noblest of people that God has created, makes me wonder. Makes me confused. I never thought that my leaving anybody would create a void or a vaccum anywhere, but perhaps I was wrong. Though I fumble in so many areas of my life, perhaps in some domains of life, I have some thing to offer; a place where I have some thing to give, even if it is in that just one place. Perhaps loyalty and faithfulness is a valuable commodity after all; just that one learns to recognize and value it once one is one on the verge of losing some one loyal.