Читать книгу She Made Me Laugh - Stephanie Emmons - Страница 7

In January of 1996, when my friend Miriam and I were in our twenties, we followed our mutual dream and traveled to India. Our aim: to help the poor in Calcutta and, hopefully, to meet Mother Teresa.

We had wanted to see her community, the Missionaries of Charity, in action and hoped they would let us roll up our sleeves and jump in alongside them. So, once we got settled in Calcutta, found out Mother Teresa’s address and mapped out our route, Miriam and I just walked over and showed up at her door.

As we had hoped, the sisters were gracious and happy to have us. They ushered us right in and we got to meet Mother Teresa that very day. And it was just that simple. I’m not sure what I had expected. But I do recall hoping that, if we did get to meet her, we might witness some really cool saintlike quality or manifestation—something. But she didn’t levitate. No glowing halo crowned her head, no great throng of followers hung on her every word. There was nothing like that. And though she must have received thousands of visitors over the years, Mother Teresa was patient and welcoming to Miriam and me when we met her.

What has stayed with me all these years is the kindness in her eyes. But there was something I didn’t expect: her sense of humor. She made me laugh. Not just once, but every time we met her. It seemed to come naturally—an easy kind of joking around. I remember thinking that aside from her being a living saint, I liked her as a person. She didn’t seem self-conscious or shy. She was the kind of person who puts you at ease and makes you want to hang around, even if it was just to shoot the breeze. She was just there—simple, funny, intense. And perfectly ordinary.

This book shares some parts of the travel journal I began during the trip, letters I sent home, and reflections I’ve written in the years since. And while there are plenty of, “Wow! We’re in India!” moments, I also talk about some of the darker parts of the trip for me. I had wanted to go to India since I first learned of Mother Teresa when I was a kid. But once I actually got there, things took a downward turn. I was overwhelmed by pretty much everything.

In the years following Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, some of her private writings surfaced. They told a story of a woman in love with God, but a woman who also knew great spiritual pain. As I had naturally assumed that Mother Teresa’s life was pretty much one of profound, unbroken closeness to God, I, like many others, was flabbergasted. I came across an article in Time magazine which did this big exposé. They titled it “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith,” which effectively turned the world on its ear. One of the people they interviewed, Father James Martin, sj, echoed my own feelings when he asked, “Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?”

I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with all of this. Even more surprisingly, though, was the discovery that that playfulness and good humor I had seen, and the pain she described in her letters—these could be present at the same time. It wasn’t necessarily one or the other. In fact, apparently, it’s a very real aspect in the spiritual life, this both/and theme—one that mystics and saints have long been acquainted with. I came to learn that maybe there’s much more to her story—and our story—than might be discernible at first blush.

But I’ll start at the beginning, back in the peculiar days of pet rocks, bell bottoms, and peace symbols: 1979 …