Two episodes from the forthcoming Journeys with Justine
19 Helping Others
Justine woke up before dawn. She meditated cross-legged on the bed until the light crept in under the door and through the window, and she heard the tea tray being placed on the floor outside her door.
After drinking the whole pot of tea, she gathered her shawl and descended several flights to the waiting car. The early morning traffic was already thick. Bumper to bumper they drove south to Kalighat, the oldest temple to Goddess Kali, originally located in a small village where Ramprasad composed his awesome songs to Her. Later on, as the capital of Imperial India, Kalighat had become, as the British pronounced it, Calcutta, city of the poet Tagore and poetic filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
Justine’s taxi stopped at the temple entrance. An elderly scholar wrapped in a brown wool shawl stepped forward to take her in. Some festival was underway. Thousands of worshippers waited in a crushing line to see the black Goddess. Justine was ushered directly to the inner sanctum, to a narrow side entrance. But she felt too guilty to bypass all the peasant women who had come from so far away to see their beloved Mother. She stood back and watched. I’m just a spiritual tourist, she thought wistfully—seeking, still seeking.
She wandered slowly around the crowded temple grounds and observed the sacrificial area where every morning a goat was slaughtered, offered to Kali, and cooked for all who were hungry. Then she returned to the car, asking the turbaned driver to drive on to Mother Teresa’s House. He nodded knowingly, turned into a wide boulevard, and in just a few minutes had stopped in front of a large plain building. As Justine opened the door, a group of boys rushed toward her calling, “Mother Teresa?” She nodded and they pointed around the corner, running alongside her, herding her up to a simple brown door. It doesn't feel right to knock on such a private looking door, she thought. One of the boys, a thin boy with large brown eyes spoke up, “OK, Mother Teresa, you knock, OK.” So, lightly, she knocked.
Immediately the door swung open. A smiling young nun stood before her. “My name is Justine, I’m a writer,” she ventured, “and am wondering if it might be possible to visit the Mother House.” “Yes, please come in. Mother is upstairs. You can go right up.” Justine froze. She hadn’t planned on seeing her in person, not face to face. She had hoped to get a glimpse from afar, but what could she possibly have to say to a real live saint? “Just take the stairs up,” the nun continued encouragingly.
At the top was a balcony, which surrounded a courtyard several stories deep. There was nobody in sight. She walked to the right and found an open door, that lead in to a prayer room. Entering, she found Mary in her blue and white robe, gazing upon her with gentlest compassion. Justine knelt. She closed her eyes and began to pray. In a couple of minutes she opened her eyes again. There was someone in the corner of the room, kneeling on the floor, also praying—an old woman in a blue-bordered white cotton sari. Oh, my goodness, she gulped, it was Mother Teresa! But looking closer, she realized that she was, disappointingly, not Mother Teresa, just an older nun of the order.
Wandering out of the prayer room into the open hallway, Justine stood at the rail, looking down into the yard below. A woman in a blue and white sari stepped into the courtyard. Justine gasped, Mother Teresa! but immediately realized that the hefty woman was certainly not Mother Teresa. She continued to stand on the balcony, absorbing the purity of the atmosphere. It was so peaceful here. In the midst of this city shrouded in unfathomable layers of dust and dirt, the Mother’s house was clean and clear.
Now Justine noticed, straight across from her, two nuns leaning over a small woman seated in a chair. Mother Teresa had, she knew, a very serious heart condition. She had frequently been advised by doctors to stop working but had always refused. Could this possibly be the old saint, who had spent her life serving the poorest of the poor? The nuns pulled her to her feet, and she shuffled out of her room onto the balcony, where she called out a greeting to Justine, waved with her whole arm and a big smile, as if she had been expecting her forever. Then she continued around the balcony and disappeared into another room.
Justine followed in the same direction, until she came to some benches where there sat a young western woman. “Are you waiting for Mother Teresa?” she asked. “Yes, I work in one of the hospices for the dying. I have some personal problems and have some questions to ask her. I’m from New Zealand. Where are you from?” she asked. Justine sat down and they talked until the door opened, and out walked the beautiful old woman in a white cotton sari. The saint smiled at both of them, her wrinkled face emanating a dazzling radiance. Slowly she moved toward them, and Justine stole a glance at her ankles, greatly relieved to see they were not swollen from heart failure.
Justine introduced herself. The Mother walked around to a cupboard and opened it. “Here,” she said as she walked back, “I’d like to give you my card.” With a chuckle, her eyes twinkling mischievously, she handed Justine a yellow card with the words:
The fruit of SILENCE is Prayer.
The fruit of PRAYER is Faith.
The fruit of FAITH is Love.
The fruit of LOVE is Service.
The fruit of SERVICE is Peace.
—Mother Teresa
Into Justine’s hand she then poured several tiny silver medallions. On each stood Mary, Light streaming straight from her hands, surrounded by the words, Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
How kind, thought Justine, her heart utterly melted, to give me enough to give to others too. The great soul bent over her and said, “You could come and work with the children.” She looked deep into Justine’s eyes, as if reading her destiny, and then added, “But you don’t speak Bengali.” Pure compassion lit her eyes. Then she padded softly away.
A lovely dark-haired nun came to talk to the troubled young hospice worker, and Justine listened attentively as she transmitted Teresa's teachings. “Mother says we should always try to…” were the last words she heard, before she drifted off into the ineffable light of real goodness.
As Justine descended the wooden steps, the American ambassador was just coming up. Behind him a long line of people stood waiting to meet the living saint who devoted her whole life to helping others.
21 Into the Vineyard
The white puppy jumped in, while the older dog waited to be boosted in. Then Justine climbed in, backed the car out of the narrow driveway, and accelerated toward the Plaza. The light was already fading.
As she reached the square, her eye gravitated toward the woman in magenta tights who was dancing in the street. Thumping rock music blared from the court of the historic stone hall. Large clusters of burgundy balloons hovered over the broad stretch of grass where townspeople sat sipping their supper wine. The Bear Flag of the renegade Republic of California flapped softly in the breeze.
Ah, the lovely carnival, Justine sighed as her car purred on, content with its own purpose. Passing the last of the Spanish missions and the vanished village of the natives who had built it, she turned left onto Fourth Street. She passed the old Sebastiani winery and continued on toward the hills. The narrow bumpy road skirting Ravenswood curved through a dense dark bower of tall bay trees—that instantly intoxicated her with their powerful purifying scent. Beyond the trees rose the green terraces. She braked suddenly in front of a large gnarled oak.
The three climbed out of the dusty car, making their way rapidly. The sun was already over the hill. As they passed the roses, Justine bent down to sniff, then kiss their perfumy dark lips. They continued down the rocky road that plowed through the middle of the vineyard. Row after row of lush leafy gnarly old vines, weighted with fat clusters of purple, flashed by as woman and dogs mounted the beautifully terraced hillside. For a moment Justine stopped, looking upward to the rim. The deep blue sky, back-lit by the invisible sun, was glowing. Overhead hung a white sickle, cupping a velvety black ball. Beyond, beamed Venus, and farther beyond, scattered across the void, the stars. Music floated down from one of the homes wedged in the darkening hills.
It was nearly nine o’clock, the air was cooling, but she still felt warm in her cotton shirt. In the dim light she stepped cautiously now over the stony red earth. The wolf-dogs followed, the younger racing joyfully ahead then anxiously returning, uncertain of their direction, the older dog wobbling forward with experienced enthusiasm. Beyond the vineyard the rolling hills were covered with contorted oaks that were rapidly transforming into black masses. Her gaze rested on a mysterious light atop the highest hill.
In the growing dark Justine walked on, unable to see yet one with the ochre soil, thickly caked with the Mother’s blood. As she moved she became that blood, all the blood that had ever flowed, and was flowing inside her full-bodied now. Entering into the hills, she rose into a golden green light that merged into the Sun, the fire of Creation, that ultimate energy, the shakti. Then slowly she fell back into the moonlit night where a million stars shimmied, everything radiant with its own fire, everything basking in epiphany.
She felt her own glow warming the night, as she walked on.
