Right now I am working with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. In the afternoons I am in a home for severely handicapped children who are orphans.
These children are the epitome of beauty and authenticity. They have no concept of hiding emotions or living anywhere but the present. When I hold them and smile they smile back with all of the joy their bodies can contain. Some of them can't contain it in their bodies, and they begin to shake and shriek in excitement of the moment.
But then I have to walk away, to change another diaper or feed another child. That's when they begin to grieve. Once again they are overcome with the emotion of the present. Those who can't move weep, those who can't cry convulse.
I spend these hours trying to balance bringing love with the pain they inevitably feel when I walk away.
On one of those afternoons I was struggling to balance two baby boys. Each of them would cry if I put them down and calm down once they were held. I spent some time trying to go back and forth from holding one to the other. Until I finally managed to cradle one in my left arm and the other in my right. As soon as I had soothed them both, another child in front of me began to cry.
It took everything in me to contain my tears until I made it home. Because in this moment something I have held all my life was made clear.
I have always felt like I was made to sit in suffering, share the burden, and alleviate it with love. But there is so much suffering in this world that I cannot hold one thing without letting another go. I want a cause to give my life to, yet I am drawn to all of the causes. I feel it all so deeply that I can't manage to hold on to any one thing. I get caught in this cycle of pouring myself out until I am so empty that I have nothing left to give....
So what do I do?
Sometimes I get angry at God, I curse the universe for exposing me to suffering that I feel so deeply but cannot resolve.
Sometimes I get angry at others, I resent them for being able to choose apathy when I am being torn apart with empathy.
Sometimes I get angry at myself, I lie and tell myself there's no point in carrying on if I can't carry it all.
But being here in the presence of Mother Teresa's work I am realizing that there must be another option. I think I've been drawn to her all my life because this is the lesson I must learn time and time again- that all we can do is be love and be present. The beauty of Mother Teresa's life was that she always focused on the small things, on the one person in front of her. When she sat with a leper, she gave all of her energy to that leper in that moment. She did the same with the Pope, with children, with the dying, with her sisters. Whether she was in places of joy or suffering, prestige or lowliness, honor or humility- she was always there fully. She didn't resent others or herself for being what they were. She didn't agonize over which struggle was hers to engage with. Instead she simply sat so fully in the presence of God and others that eventually she became a mirror reflecting Christ back to each person she sat with.
Maybe I don't have to learn how to hold three babies at once. Maybe I can hold one child with all the love I have to give, and for that moment that will be enough.
