CHAPTER 15
Oil lamps flickered in the gentle breeze. Small mounds of fruit and flower petals sat in reverent offering before the images of a God who manifests in many forms and about whom seemingly endless stories have been transcribed.
After a refreshing period of meditation the trio left the temple and made their way to a vocational school run by the Chinmayananda ashram. Perhaps the most fascinating part of their tour of the vocational school was observing the greeting card cottage industry taking place there.
A wide assortment of delicately drawn greeting cards, with warm and caring verses printed inside, were being packaged in lots of twelve into plastic bags. These packets would then be sent to various shops for sale. Through projects such as this the ashram was able to run the vocational school.
This project was completely run by hearing impaired young adults. The rooms where all of this took place were almost completely silent on a verbal level. Non-verbally, however, the atmosphere was crackling with lively communication. A young Indian woman with sparkling intelligent eyes invited the visitors to sit on the ground and to become part of them, so to speak, with a welcoming wave of her hand.
About fifteen young and energetic workers were scattered on the floor in what looked like random fashion. Their work, however, was anything but random. Several of the workers collated the cards and envelopes and then handed them on to someone nearby who put the cards into plastic bags. Other workers collected the packaged materials, then quickly but carefully placed them into large cardboard cartons for shipping.
Brother Francis and Andre missed some of the humor, but from time to time one or another of the vocational school students would make a motion or give a look. Others would smile and laugh in response, sometimes audibly, sometimes not.
Francis reflected back on his communications studies from grad school. About eighty percent of communication is not spoken verbally he remembered hearing somewhere.
The largest part of communication is non-verbal. What is transmitted and received between the lines is really the message. Our own patron, Saint Francis de Sales, is patron of the hearing impaired. What was that incident? Now I remember. Francis de Sales took a young hearing impaired man into his home and made up a sign language so that they could communicate. Then he gave him a job helping around his home. Such a simple thing to do on one level, yet it profoundly changed the life of that young man.
In community we get to sense the moods of others, as well as their very presence or absence in a room. “Jesus, the Gospel tells us that you read the hearts of us humans. That is certainly a non-verbal experience.” I suppose much of the spiritual life is non-verbal. I deal with so many words in my clinical practice. Many are spoken and quite a few are written. Help me to keep the non-verbal primary, Jesus. It is when I listen on that level that real healing takes place.
How many times have I not known what to say to a suffering person? When I have the presence of mind to shut up and listen with my heart, things change. I don’t need to prod or suggest, just hear. “You are the healer, Jesus. Thanks for being the fire within all I do. Protect all those who minister to others personally or professionally from burn out.”
“What’s up, Brother Francis, you seem to have drifted off?”
“Sorry, Andre. I was just musing over things. We are so fortunate to have our senses, aren’t we?”
“Yes Brother, and I hope that I never take them for granted again.”
With that the guest master stood up and waved good bye to the group, which was the cue for the two travelers to do so also. It was hard for them to leave the greeting card workers. There was something so authentic about them.
They made their way to another huge section of the room and through a sea of looms where young women were weaving rugs and cloth. Francis went into another reverie.
They called the crossed fibers “warp and woof.” The beauty of the completed fabric comes from the combination of threads which crisscross. So it is the quality of the threads which really make up the final product. Each word, action, and thought, are threads which create our lives. “Help me, Jesus, to create life-giving threads and not tangles in the minds of others or in my own mind.”
There are so many on the streets of India in tattered clothing. It’s dull and drab, downright dirty in places. Yet their smiles are wonderful. Yes, there is real pain and anger here, but some manage to find deeper meaning in life than clothing, or even the ability to use their senses. “I am grateful for so much, Jesus. Help me to continue to be grateful, and may my gratitude grow stronger and be expressed by the way I live and the way I treat the people whom I serve.”
“Earth to Brother Francis, are you there?”
“Thanks again Andre. I must not be very good company today. I keep lapsing into daydreams.”
Andre laughed out loud. “I very much doubt that you are daydreaming, my brother. I think I know you well enough to understand that you are moving into periods of spontaneous prayer and meditation at those times. Am I right?”
“I suppose so, Andre. So often we get very formal and proper about prayer, yet we teach that it is supposed to be like a conversation with a good friend. So yes, and thanks for pointing it out to me. This is just one more reason to be grateful. You are a pretty good reader of the non-verbal, Andre.”
“Mais oui! I’ve been taught by the very best.”
The Hindu guest master was a very astute man. He had been observing the North American friends since he welcomed them to the ashram a few hours prior.
“We are all one. The same atman, the same spirit of God, is in us all, and you two have a way of seeing that, even beyond the confines of cultures and nations. You are both very blessed indeed. Please forgive me if I’ve spoken out of turn.”
The three men bowed to one another with smiles on their faces, then spontaneously hugged. The card packers and rug weavers clapped their hands in front of their shiny eyes. This is the sort of thing which could remove bigotry and intolerance from the world forever.