From 17-25 November, the MMM sponsored an inter-religious dialogue workshop at the Sameeksha Spirituality Center in Kalady, Kerala in India. 27 Maryknollers--lay people, brothers, sisters, and priests--attended, coming from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the US.
Below are reports on the activities of each day:
Today was a full day and we departed from Sameeksha at 6:00 AM. Our first stop was the ancient church of St. Mary's, of the Catholic Syro-Malabar rite, which has a more than 1500-year history. In the rear of the church is a spring where Mary is supposed to have appeared in the year 405. (Take THAT, Lourdes!) From there we went to a Hindu temple where many pilgrims were flocking. We were not allowed into the holy of holies but could only walk in a clock-wise direction around the inner building of the temple where the Shiva deity resides.
Arriving in Ernakulam, we had an extended lunch in a restaurant and then reboarded the bus for another hour to reach Cochin. We were supposed to have two hours for shopping there but that was shortened. Still people managed to buy sarees, souvenirs, Indian jewelry, and to make Internet connections to catch up with e-mail.
At 6:00 PM, we drove to another Hindu temple where it had been arranged that we could actually participate in a Hindu ritual, guided by one of the devotees of Shiva who led us around the temple around the linga and the sacred tree and taught us the Sanskrit chants that the pilgrims use there. Most temples do not allow non-Hindus into these inner areas but this temple was more liberal, and afterwards they invited us into their offices to share an Indian snack with them.
Then we made a quick stop at a nearby Jesuit residence for a bathroom break before getting on the boat. An English newspaper there mentioned that the Florida supreme court was going to hear arguments today on the Bush-Gore election dispute. Then it was just a short ride to Kottayam where we boarded a boat for a three-hour trip on Kerala's famed backwaters. The light rain we had experienced all morning suddenly became much heavier, and only the hardiest continued on the uncovered open upper deck of the boat where we had been huddling under raincoats and umbrellas. That made the fore and aft cabins below rather crowded but it was a good trip past the rice fields and coconut groves and the houses set on the waterway.
The day was not over yet, though. Next we arrived at 7:30 PM at the house of Govind Bharathan, an enthusiastic devotee of Sai Baba whom some Hindus consider an incarnation of Krishna. For the past 30 years, Govind has hosted a "pageant" or ceremony in honor of Sai Baba. It was basically a charistmatic-style gathering, especially joyful because they were celebrating Sai Baba's birthday on 23 November. Then it was a bathroom break at a nearby convent and we were on the road again back to Sameeksha.
Today's main presenter was Govind Bharathan, a Hindu layman who is an ardent devotee of Sai Baba. He was supposed to come to Sameeksha at 6:30 AM to lead our meditation then, but he was called to the Kerala High Court early this morning because he is high counsel for the state of Kerala. Fr. Stephen Thadam filled in for him for the first 1 1/2 hours of class time, and then Govind talked to us about the symbols and rites of the Hindu religion. These sessions continued on into the afternoon. Finally Govind led the group in a period of meditation in the meditation hall. His meditation was a bit different from what we had experienced because he used a harmonium, the Indian hand-pumped one-hand-keyboard instrument that is traditional in the south. Our daily eucharistic liturgy, led by Jim Kofski, followed that.
Then a group hurried into town in the last minutes of daylight for more shopping, sandal repairs, and Internet connections. Some also stayed for supper and got caught in a heavy rain storm later in the evening. Normally everyone is awake for the first meditation period at 6:30 AM and then is in bed by 9:30 or 10:00 PM.
Wednesday, 22 November 2000
We had a schedule change and celebrated the eucharist at 6:00 PM with Charlie Dittmeier as the presider. Following the liturgy we had another talk, this time by a Catholic lay man who is a professor at a local university. He spoke on the situation of the church in India and particularly in Kerala where the "Thomas Christians" claim a faith descended from Thomas the Apostle who traditionally came to Kerala and was martyred in India in the first century.
We had more rain off and on today, but also had several hours of pleasant sunshine. Maybe it was the rain that kept the dhobi-walla, the laundry man, from coming back with our clothes which he picked up yesterday.
At the end of supper we finally got the BBC tuned in on the short-wave radio we found in a kitchen cabinet last night, and we were at last able to get some direct news of the US presidential election although basically it said that the Florida supreme court had allowed the recount to continue until Sunday and other than that everything was still in the courts.
Today Fr. Paul Valiakandathil, SJ, spoke to us about socio-cultural trends in Indian's Hindu society. He is a social activist, working with fisher folk and other minority groups, and his comments and observations on Indian society and politics were quite interesting.
Today we met with Fr. Sebastian Painadath again, and he began his presentation of the Bhagavad Gita, his favorite of the Hindu scriptures. It offers a world-affirming theology and cosmic view as opposed to the upanishads which take a more negative view of the world as opposed to the spiritual cosmos. Each of us had a copy of the Gita and were able to follow along as Sebastian pointed out the different realities it presents.
One of members, Ralph Maughan, an affiliate from Seattle has been having a leg pain all week and finally today it was decided to take him to a local hospital to check it out. He was transferred to a bigger hospital in Cochin, and there an MRI showed a herniated disc in his spine. They admitted him and put him in traction to try and get him in shape to fly out of India on Saturday.
The food here at Sameeksha has been excellent. All vegetarian, it has an amazing variety, and it is so substantial that the absence of meat isn't even noticed. One village woman cooks for the center, and she was a bit worried when she heard that 25 foreigners were coming but she has met with full approval for her dishes! In Indian culture, there are no tables to eat at but everyone takes a steel plate, shaped like a cake pan, and fills it with rice and other dishes from the large serving pans. Then everyone sits on stools or benches in the small dining room--or stands--while eating. Indian people eat rather fast and do not speak while eating. They also eat with their right hand, instead of with a fork or spoon, but only a few of our group tried that.
Friday, 24 November 2000
Today we continued our study of the Bhagavad Gita with Fr. Sebastian Painadath. He again made it very interesting and a source of real theological reflection. This afternoon we had our final session with Sebastian and bade him farewell because he is leading an inter-religious live-in in Cochin for the next two days.
Our laundry came back this morning. It had gone out to the dhobi-walla (the Indian laundry man) on Tuesday but because of the rains the last three days had been delayed.
One of the new experiences of this workshop has been observing two tea times each day. In the morning we stopped at 10:00 AM for a half hour and then in the afternoon at 4:00 PM. Always we had Indian tea, about half tea and half milk with a heavy measure of sugar. Usually we also had some Indian snack cooked in the kitchen of the ashram, and usually these contained vegetables and were quite spicy. Today we were surprised when we had an actual western-style cream-filled doughnut, like a jelly doughnut and very sweet, for the afternoon tea. They were made especially for us because the Indian people among us would not touch them!
There was a bit of excitement this evening when, returning to one of the residences in the dark, a small snake was seen crawling into the foundation of the building. Billy Doerner, an entomologist and snake expert from Thailand, from his initial glimpse of it thought it was a krait, but later it was seen again and determined not to be a krait which is one of the most deadly snakes known.
Because the first part of the liturgy was dependent on lighting the oil lamps in the dark, we went ahead with the liturgy of the Word, processing outside with lighted individual oil lamps, and then each person reading a short favorite verse from the Bible, Koran, Vedas, or the Bhagavad Gita. It was quite impressive as the individual lamps were placed on the seven-tiered sacra, a large stone ritual lamp outside.
At 5:15 a group of Hindu people from the neighborhood, mostly children and teenagers because the adults were at work, came to the ashram for a prayer session with us. It opened with a lighting of the oil lamp in the center of the room, and then there were four Hindu hymns sung in Malayalam, the local language. These hymns are very repetitious both in their words and their melodies. Then there were three readings, from the Koran, the Upanishads, and the New Testament, and a final ritual of fire. The children were delightful. This was also the first time most of our group were exposed to the Indian musical instruments, the harmonium, the hand-powered keyboard instrument, and the table, two small drums which produce an amazing variety of sounds.
We were supposed to have our concluding liturgy with Fr. Sebastian at 7:00 PM but John Beeching and Dr. Scott Harris were not back from checking on Ralph Maughan. It turned out Ralph is going to need surgery, and they were discussing with him where to have it done and the possibility of flying Ralph to Bangkok on a stretcher.
This morning started off with the usual first session of meditation followed by the second half of last night's liturgy. In the liturgy each person was asked to state a highlight or special experience from the ten days of the workshop at Sameeksha.
Immediately after mass, we took a group photo on the steps of the meditation hall although now we were missing Ralph and Kate Maughan and David and Alison and Diep Purvis. All who had bought Indian dress during the workshop wore it for the photo. Then John Beeching and Scott Harris went back to the hospital to arrange for Ralph to be flown to Bangkok tomorrow.
After breakfast the rest of us gathered in the classroom for an hour of evaluation of the workshop and our experiences in India. Everyone agreed that the workshop had been excellent, exceeding most expectations, although a few noted that we really had not had time to look at the church documents like Ecclesia in Asia and Dominus Jesu as we had planned.
Then we were free to finish packing and take last walks around the grounds and down to the river before lunch at 11:30 AM. Then at noon several vehicles came to take us to the Cochin airport. Jim Campion got left behind at Sameeksha and had to take a taxi to catch up with us.
We flew 50 minutes to Madras (now called Chennai) and put 26 pieces of luggage into the left luggage room and arranged for four taxis to take sixteen of us into town. First we went to St. Thomas Mount, near the airport, where St. Thomas the Apostle is said by the Indian church to have been martyred in 72 AD. Then the waiting taxis took us to San Thome Cathedral in Mylapore where St. Thomas is supposed to be buried. This was a Latin-rite church and a Saturday evening mass was just about to begin so we hurried through the crypt to view St. Thomas' tomb and then stayed for the mass. The music was notable for its quantity and for a disco beat from an electronic keyboard. Communion was at a communion rail, pre-Vatican II style.
Back in the taxis, we went to what for some of the group was the most embarrassing moment of the whole trip. A couple of the group wanted to do some last-minute shopping for gifts for co-workers, but most of the touristy-type shops were closed. Then one of the taxi drivers called the manager of a rather exclusive Indian artifact shop and we headed there, arriving just before the manager and a staff of about ten all came back at 9:30 PM on a Saturday night too reopen their shop for us! Their stock was way above the price range of a group like ours and we only bought one or two small items. The store manager probably had visions of a rich European tour group wanting to make a last splurge of buying before heading back home and he had to be disappointed with us!
Back at the airport we paid our taxi drivers (905 rupees--$19.26 for five stops over seven hours, split four ways), and then reclaimed our luggage which was another 210 rupees for all 26 pieces. We checked in with Indian Airlines and then had several hours to wait until our departure at 2:00 AM early Sunday morning.
Next the taxis took us to the Egmore area of Chennai where we went to a garden restaurant for an outdoor meal under the stars. That was notable for the friendliness and enthusiasm of the staff who were genuinely happy when we applauded their efforts with the food and the service. One waiter was named Martin Luther King and another Muhammed Ali!
Sunday, 26 November 2000
We arrived in Bangkok at 7:10 AM and the group started to split up. Some were staying on in Bangkok for a day or two, and this afternoon at the Maryknoll house they were going to put up the Christmas tree after going ice skating!
Go to part one of the workshop
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