The Untouchables
I spent time working in Mother Teresa’s orphanage last year. It was a gated community in one of the poorest slums of Bombay India. The gate was useful not just to protect what was inside, but more allegorically, to separate the dying from the living, on the outside. It was a community referred to as “The Untouchables” by the Indian caste system. In essence, they were the “cast offs” of society. Here I was able to witness many levels of compassion in the workers and amongst the dying. One such story follows……
As I left one evening, I noticed some activity involving an old beat up ambulance, a bunch of Indian paramedics, and the head nun referred to only as “Mother.” An old crumbling body lay between them in the fetal position. He was motionless, emotionless, helpless, and hopeless. His clothes were caked in dirty grime and filth. The most alarming part however, was the gaping hole on top of his head. Flies buzzed and maggots were crawling in and around his oozing wound. This man was actually being eaten alive! All the medics wore gas masks and gloves to protect themselves from any germs, diseases, body fluids, or smells. I am assuming the hospital had turned their passenger away, because they were begging the Mother, in quick Hindi, to take him in. I stood in the shadows undetected. She listened quietly, and gently reached down touching his head with her bare hand. The security guard opened the gate and she bid them in. Perhaps that man died that night. There is no doubt that the nuns attended to his wounds, washed his emaciated body, and changed his filthy clothes for something fresh and clean. That old man slept in a bed, under a roof, and he felt cared for, maybe for the first time. Tears streamed down my face as I walked home. I knew I had changed completely by the unconditional compassion I had seen. For……..
When I first walked to the orphanage weeks earlier, I had heard I would be working with some of the most deformed and destitute children in the world. I feared I would not be capable of “withstanding” it. I imagined the strength I would need to witness the poverty and gross imperfections these children had to bear. On this first walk, every muscle twitched with the instinct to turn away and run. I knew no one would know if I didn’t follow through with my plan. I was alone, and no one had wanted me to come. I continued on and in. What did I discover? That each of these little beings had been created differently than everyone else, but it only made me appreciate their individuality more. The children didn’t know their fate within the confines of the walls. They were a joyous clan filled with camaraderie. Many children among them did not have legs, so naturally the kids took turns carrying them from place to place. On that first walk I sensed blindly that I would find Love there. On the walk home, that evening, I knew I had. Through these profoundly deformed children and the nuns that cared for them, I recognized my belief of being an “untouchable” myself. I had wasted so much time imprisoned in an illusion of separation. The TRUTH was that I could not feel love because I was terrified to extend it. I must give love, and practice it, to feel it. I had remained “untouchable” until I reached out. I saw such unique creation in each of those deformed children, and through them I reached out and touched.
