My Treasure

In my treasure trove are the memories created that got shaped into the works of art. Finished, unfinished.

Image 2017, Vagator,Goa 

 Some shared smiles and tears, some dreams woven together with family, and handful of true friends.

 Some words of wisdom, and advices that came from them, that I saved during the darkest hours of life.

home, Goa

Yes,I have travelled to the darkest places, and brought some pearls for you. It's a treasure for you to secretly keep in the sacred chambers of your heart.

~~payal~~

P.S. I am participating in Write Tribe Festival of words. This is Day 1 #FOW6 

A mail from a friend #MondayMusings

I am thankful to God for friends like sister Soraya and sister Fatima. They are more like a family. I remember the day when my husband and I went to visit them at an old age home in Goa, it was their prayer time. “Why didn’t you go for prayers?” I asked Sr. Soraya.

Calmly she replied, “Hospitality is important than prayers. No? Deeds matter. I’ll go to the chapel later. “

How wonderful it is when we can talk to such friends for hours without a single thought of being judged.

How wonderful it is when we call them and feel the happiness touching us through their tone when they hear our voice. There is so much I learn from such people.

A few days back I received a mail from her. Though it’s a forwarded mail, I would like to share it here.

 

 

Reflections on Mother Teresa from her 'Apostle of the Rosary'

Women’s rights activist Reggie Littlejohn is known for her fierce work fighting forced abortion and gendercide in China, often through grilling speeches given before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.

However, what is less-known about Littlejohn is that before becoming a successful lawyer and founder of the Women’s Rights Without Frontiers organization, she spent six weeks working alongside a tiny, hunched-over woman in India who would become one of the greatest figures of our time.

While on a yearlong break from Yale Law School, Littlejohn traveled the world alongside her husband, stopping to work with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, now referred to as Kolkata, for just over a month.
It was during this time that Mother Teresa not only asked Littlejohn to be her ‘Apostle of the Rosary’ during their daily holy hour, handing rosaries to everyone that entered, but invited her to join the order.

Although she couldn’t join since she was already married, Littlejohn said she probably would have been willing to, thanks to Mother Teresa’s humility, personal closeness to each individual, and selfless service to others.

Mother Teresa “was a humble person, she did not consider herself to be any better than anyone else,” Littlejohn told EWTN News.

When people told Mother Teresa that she was a saint, she would reply “‘no, I’m just holy in my state in life, just the way that you’re holy in your state of life,’ assuming that we’re all holy in our state in life,” Littlejohn said, adding that “I think most of us are not. But she had no sense of self-importance of all.”

Littlejohn, who grew up Catholic, said she wanted to me “a missionary nun” when she was a child, and consistently pestered her parents with the idea. However, she was eventually dissuaded by them and their parish priest, who told her the lifestyle was probably not for her.

“I guess if I had been more determined or a true saint like Mother Teresa I would have gone on,” she said, but instead gave up because “I figured that if the priest said no, this is not the will of God.”

However, when she heard about Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity several years later and discovered that volunteers could meet and join them in their work, she was “of course enthralled by the possibility.”

She said her desire to work with Mother Teresa in slums stemmed from “a powerful spiritual experience,” since one can work with the poor and impoverished anywhere.

“Why go to India, why work with a monastic community? It’s because I felt that there was something spiritually powerful about them that I wanted to experience, and I think that I did experience it.”
This experience is something Littlejohn felt from the moment she and her husband showed up at the Missionaries of Charity doorstep, where they were not only “welcomed right in,” but met Mother Teresa face-to-face the same day.
Littlejohn said she and her husband were sitting in the hall waiting to get a list of suggested places to stay and work, when they heard “this little rustling and shuffling down the hall.”

“We looked down the hall and there was Mother Teresa herself, and she immediately came to both of us and she took our hands in her two hands,” she said, recalling how the soon-to-be-saint’s hands were “big, and soft and warm.”

The first words out of Mother Teresa’s mouth were “welcome, welcome. Good. I’m so glad you’re here,’” Littlejohn recalled, noting that “we had just walked in off the street and here she is.”

“One of the characteristics of Mother Teresa is that she regarded every human being as Jesus Christ right in front of her… (even) a baby that she found in a trash can…when she was with you she was with you.”

Although Mother Teresa was typically traveling to the various Missionaries of Charity houses all over the world, Littlejohn noted that the nun was in Calcutta for the entire six weeks she and her husband stayed, which was an “unusual” but welcome blessing.

Speaking of Mother Teresa’s generosity and attention to others, Littlejohn recounted how her parents came to visit while she was working there, and at one point asked to have a photo with the nun.

“Being the immature person I was, I had the audacity to knock on the door – it was really more of a doorframe with a curtain in it – during their time of rest” and ask for the photo, she said.

Instead of telling them to come back, Mother Teresa came out “very good natured” and embraced her parents, consenting immediately to the photo.

“She was very cheerful, she stood there giving up her naptime to take a picture with some American whose parents were visiting Calcutta,” Littlejohn said, adding that “She was so un-protective of her time, and this was her humility.”

Littlejohn also recounted how she received the role as ‘Apostle of the Rosary’ during her time with the Missionaries. During their stay, volunteers had the option of going to Mass with the sisters at 5:50 a.m., and joining them for Holy Hour and the rosary at 6:30 p.m. after the day’s work.

The first time she attended a holy hour, Littlejohn said she was late, and “snuck in the back door” so as not to disturb the others, or Mother Teresa, who was praying on the other side of the room.

“I went far away from her and was trying to creep in unnoticed,” she said, but as she was kneeling and praying, “all of the sudden I felt this presence above me, and I looked up and there was Mother Teresa.”

Instead of chastising Littlejohn for being late, Mother Teresa “bent down and showed me which bead they were on, which is again her humility… (she) interrupted her own prayer to show me which bead we were on.”

Littlejohn said she decided to come to holy hour again the next day, and arrived on time. When she got there, Mother Teresa pulled her aside and said, “I would like you to help me. Would you be my Apostle of the Rosary?”

“What do you say to that? I was floored that she even noticed me at all,” Littlejohn said, explaining that she consented and was tasked with handing a rosary to each person as they walked into holy hour for the rest of her time there.

In addition to her spiritual support, Mother Teresa was also a source of comfort and strength after Littlejohn had been assaulted by a man while waiting for the subway.

“There is a long walkway in a tunnel to get to the subway and I was the only person in the tunnel with this guy, and he just turned around and grabbed me,” Littlejohn said, explaining that she tried to punch the man and chase him down, but wasn’t able to because she was wearing sandals.

Upset about the incident and finding it hard to carry on with her work, she approached Mother Teresa later that evening. Littlejohn said she was fearful that Mother Teresa would chastise her and say she should have “turned the other cheek,” however, what she heard was the opposite.

Mother Teresa, she said, told her it was a “grace from God” that she tried to chase the man down, and applauded her effort to catch him. However, she also cautioned her that it’s “unwise to ever go out as a woman alone,” which is why the Missionaries always go out two-by-two.

After the conversation, Littlejohn said Mother Teresa took time to pray with her, and in the end she left feeling “so elated, much more so than if it had never happened.”

“This is the time she takes for one person, I mean who was I? I was nobody, I was a volunteer among many dozens of other volunteers who were there at that time, I was among thousands of volunteers who had been there over the decades and she took the time to listen to my story.”

Littlejohn then recalled how at one point during her stay, Mother Teresa actually invited her to join the Missionaries of Charity.

The sisters had periodic spiritual retreats, and that there was always a certain time or talk that the volunteers could attend. One of the retreats, Littlejohn noted, was dedicated to the topic that “everyone on earth has a heavenly name” that they will discover only when they get to heaven.

As she was leaving the retreat alongside the stream of other volunteers, Littlejohn said Mother Teresa happened to be right outside the room, and walked straight up to her.

Mother Teresa, she said, “came up to me and took my hand in her two hands and she said, ‘Heart full of Love, you must take the sari,’” referring to a typical Indian garment worn by women.

The habit for The Missionaries of Charity is a white sari with blue lines running along the edges, representing both purity and the Virgin Mary.

“I felt like she was calling me by my heavenly name,” Littlejohn said, explaining that Mother Teresa’s words “you must take the sari” were a direct invitation to come live with the community for two weeks, to discern whether or not it might be her vocation.

Littlejohn said she had wanted to say yes, but couldn’t, since she was already married – a fact that shocked Mother Teresa, who “in her purity” never realized the man coming and going everywhere with Littlejohn was her husband, despite the fact they both wore their wedding rings.

Mother Teresa then invited the couple to become Lay Missionaries of Charity, taking them to the small room the size of a restaurant booth that served as the administrative headquarters of the order.

While Littlejohn was accustomed to spacious legal “war rooms” stacked to the ceiling with documents, “there was none of that with Mother Teresa.”

“She had one little rickety file cabinet” from which she pulled the typewritten copy of the rules for the Lay Missionaries of Charity. It was the only copy.

“I just looked at this document and I thought to myself, ‘if I were an irresponsible person and just walked off with this without returning it to her, she would not have the rules of the Lay Missionaries of Charity, it would be gone,’” Littlejohn said, but noted that this is how Mother Teresa lived.

“She lived such a life of faith that she just depended completely on God,” for both the small things and the big.

After going through the rules and discussing them together, Littlejohn and her husband came to the conclusion that being lay missionaries with the order, while beautiful, wasn’t for them.

However, even though they said no, “I feel that my experience with Mother Teresa has had enormous influence on my life,” Littlejohn said, adding that the order’s ministry of picking up dying babies off the street “is the spiritual inspiration” of the Save a Girl Campaign her organization is promoting in China.

The difference between the two is that while Mother Teresa and her sisters would shelter and care for dying or rejected babies, Littlejohn’s organization encourages mothers to keep their daughters, giving them a monthly stipend to help with expenses.

While her organization works to fight gender discrimination in China, Littlejohn said that it was in India that she first encountered female gendercide.

While on a trip to India before working with the Missionaries of Charity, Littlejohn said she had been visiting Varanasi, and that as she was stepping from the shore of the Ganges River into a small motor boat for a ride, “I look down and right beneath me was a fully formed, dead baby girl floating in the water.”

“I was aghast,” she said, explaining that the baby “looked absolutely perfect. It did not look like a child that had died from some kind of illness, this was a perfectly beautiful baby girl, and I’ll never forget it.”

Working with Mother Teresa and her order prompted Littlejohn to both take another look at the faith of her childhood, and to look more closely to the needs of others.

“One of the things that I learned with Mother Teresa (is) what your limits are; you learn what the limits to your holiness are, you learn to expand your limits,” she said, explaining that at first she was afraid to touch people with diseases, for fear of contamination.

However, “as you continue working your compassion for the person grows, so you stop thinking so much about yourself and you start thinking more about them and what they’re going through and wanting to somehow relieve their suffering,” she said.

She referred to the phrase “I Thirst,” which was inspired by Mother Teresa and is written on the wall beside a crucifix in every Missionaries of Charity house.

“Loving Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, as she would call it, was satisfying his thirst for souls,” she said, explaining that the phrase serves as an inspiration to her and her work.

While her organization has a “justice-oriented mission,” exposing forced abortion and sex-selective abortion in China, Littlejohn said “there’s this whole mercy aspect of it, which is helping these women and baby girls, these women who do not want to abort,” and offering a new, countercultural message that girls are just as good as boys.

“I think that’s very in line with what Mother Teresa was doing, and she’s a profound inspiration to me in the entire direction of my life.”

In a letter she wrote to friends and family while in Calcutta, which was later published in the Yale Law Report, Littlejohn described Mother Teresa as “a short woman in her mid-seventies, bent at mid-back as if in a permanent posture of prayer.”

“Her face is lined with love, and her deeply crinkled eyes pour out compassion. She is in such a state of grace that when she takes your hand, smiles and says, ‘God bless you,’ she opens the inner chambers of your soul and leaves you ecstatic for hours.”

As someone born into an upper-class Albanian family, Mother Teresa is proof that “even those of us with privileged pasts can aspire to goodness,” Littlejohn said, explaining that the nun “seems blissfully unconcerned about her stature in the world.”

“I don’t think she even thinks about how others view her. She just loves people, especially the poor, and caresses the hand of the leper with the same joy and respect with which she kisses the hand of the Pope or shakes the hand of a president.”

Littlejohn described Mother Teresa’s presence in the convent as “gentle,” and said she kept “a low profile.”

“She does not encourage hero worship, nor does she receive it. The nuns love her but are not preoccupied with her the way we Westerners are,” she said, explaining that their attention was always on their prayer and on their work, “as it should be.”

“This will leave the order strong once she is gone. For me, she is a brilliant example of someone who had the guts to give up an easy upper-class life to do God’s work.”

Mark Rebello

Linking this post with #MondayMusings

haiku time

2014, Goa
 

Mornings are blissful

Happiness spills all over

I taste time and life.

                   -payal

 haikumyheart

haiku time

Gurgaon,2016

Beautiful morning-
I capture a zen moment
Rapturous delight.
~~payal~~

 haikumyheart

silence

 

 

Journey of a rose..
perfect moments of silence..
varied hues of life.
~~payal~~

I had been observing this rose plant since childhood. There is something special about it. The bud is deep orange, slowly as the petals open up it turns yellow, Gradually, it's colour fades and slight pink appears on the corners of the petals. At the end it's all white with pink dots all over.

linking it to
haikumyheart

Brick walls

Saharanpur, 2016

 

 

The flowering creepers

Slowly grow wild

while covering the wall

reaching the other end.

Humming birds visit us again

And feed on the nectar.

Roots make a way

through the brick walls

in our sacred hearts

that we call Home.

~~payal~~

Linking up with Friday reflections

haiku time

Mussoorie 2016

Morning comes with smile

Singing songs of gratitude

It’s time to let go

-payal

 

haikumyheart

 

 

Music

Today, Gurgaon, 2016

Musical mornings
Unwrap the gifts of nature
Listen to your heart.
~~payal~~
haiku my heart

A friend of mine in Goa brought this chime for me from Gangtok. A wonderful lady of 50 who went for mountaineering. Though she couldn't see the Everest because of the rains but for me she is an inspiration! Dedicating this haiku to her.

haiku time

Gurgaon, 2016

It’s been a long time

Nature heals everything

Quietly relax

~~payal~~

 

haiku my heart



This too shall pass

 

 

 



Goa, 2016

 

 

Random clicks when put together gave me a clear message. This is how God talks to us sometimes, or so I believe.  I am always in awe of such wondrous ways messages that we need in the moment are revealed to us. Yes, with you dear God, as they say, everything is possible.

"Anyone can wear one, but can you bear one?" With power comes responsibilities. When our light goes astray.. We have to bear the cross, To keep darkness at bay.

 

2016 image

 

No matter how strong we are, at times we all feel weak and need support. Then, every ray of light matters! A genuine support is all that is needed.When we love and care for someone, being present  with our light in the time of need is more important than being together in person.Thank you all for your positivity and for the wonderful support that I received, when  my light was getting dim, and I needed it the most.

~~payal~~

This is just a grain of sand. I have seen a sand-dune.
 

#writingwednesdays

 

 

 

 

Pray

                                                           Ahmedabad, 2015
From mother earth,
till child birth..
love exists...

Love is God,
and God is love.

God is..

Goodness of
Our
Deeds
and GOD governs our destiny. Be good, Do good.
#writingwednesdays

I wasn't well but somehow managed to participate in FOW #5. Thanks to everyone who visited my blog. :)

Memories connect #MondayMusings

Krishnakamal, Panchgani, 2014

 

I wonder how one memory brings in another, and we dive deep in the pool of thoughts. Often we call it contemplation. While remembering a friend of mine in Dehradun, whom I couldn’t meet this time, I remembered a flower in her garden, Krishnakamal.

 I remember how I got fascinated by the charm of this flower when I saw it for the first time in Panchgani, in 2014. It was raining that day.

 I had a picture that I clicked then, so I started looking out for the picture of this flower in my saved photographs.

While looking at this flower, all of a sudden memories took me to the day when randomly I had picked up a book in the central library sometime during these days, way back in 2012.  Jayadev’s “Geet Govind.” I remember that strange awkward feeling of restlessness that had engulfed me when I read the first stanza of the book, strange sense of longing and belonging prevailed. I could feel the pain! That place was too sacred, and I was all in tears and literally shivering.

 I closed the book, and couldn’t stand it anymore. I left the book there in the library, and left with my husband.

 All of a sudden I came back to my senses, and now I dwell in the land where words reside. I am wondering how a moment brought in so many memories reminding me of the book that I started to read but was unable to finish.

Clarity reside in our own minds. Stay aware, stay present and stay connected.

~~payal~~

 

#MondayMusings

Forgive and forget

Panjim,Goa,2016

 

 

Why fret?

Forgive and forget.

Hold on to goodness.

Do not expect.

 

Yes,

It’s easier said than done.

But expectations

When attached with choices

Can harm more, and help none.

 

We are just humans.

 

Keep walking.

For there are different pathways

To reach one destination.

-payal

Today the write tribe festival of words-5 comes to an end. This is my Day 7 post.

Silent memories

Caculo mall, Goa, 2016

Memories rush in,

beneath a new monsoon sky.

Sweet old melodies.

I get ready for the rain,

Paper boats float in my mind.

~~payal~~

 

 

 

Goa, 2016

 

Magical raindrops

Soft melodies of the yore

Soothing petrichor.

~~payal~~

Gurgaon, 2016

  

In quiet moments

silent night sings lullaby.

I sleep peacefully.

~~payal~~

 

This is my Day 5 post for writetribe festival of words 5.
 #haikumyheart

Liquid moments

Gurgaon, 2016

Flowing freely were the liquid moments telling a tale of the gleaming hearts, shooting stars, rose petals, and butterflies.

Scattered on the floor were the pieces of stories, composed and destroyed, beneath frozen footsteps of time.

Our hearts are too fragile, but tiny miracles save them. I kept wandering on the edge of dreamy realities.
~~payal~~


This is my Day 5 post for write tribe festival of words 5.



 

A hazy moment

Often melancholic reflections
ooze out in poetic renderings.
Words seem to repeat themselves.

 

In that moment of haze,
sorrow overshadows joy.
There’s no sign of hope.

 

 

 

Dwelling in deep murk,

light shines on elixir of creation.

-payal

 

 

 

 

This is my post for Day 4 of write tribe festivalofwords5

..and then it rained

Gurgaon, 2016
 

I was that cloud flying in the limits of the hazily framed azure sky trapped in golden chains with devil's shadow.
I was released with lightening speed as the walls cracked with force and the hazy sky cleared. It was limitless. The golden shackles turned to dust. The sky is now covered with silver lining.
~~payal~~

Sometimes, some words come to us out of nowhere. This is my Day 3 post for the write tribe festival of words #5

 

Burnt leaves

Saharanpur, 2016

Burnt edges of rough curled leaves smelt of invincible rain that somehow stayed back in frozen footsteps on the white shimmering streets.

Strong steady branches that flowered once on a stony path look like ghosts in the night. Sunlight in the morning clears the haze and we quietly indulge in heavenly taste of melted snow.
~~payal~~

p.s. This leaf was lying lonely in my dad's garden. He brought it inside, and placed it well along with his favourite money plant. It became my muse for Day 2.

We are celebrating write tribe festival of words#5. Join in the fun here.

She

Miramar, Goa

She kept walking, on the curvy slope, far from the crowd,  towards the sea, fearlessly, when all at once she felt the need to relax. Sitting quietly on the  brick wall , she could feel the turbulent weather. The waves roared within, gripping her tightly. 

Reminiscing the days bygone, sitting there talking to her shadows.  Holding on to hope, waiting happily, for the new morning. She took a few more steps to face the tides.                                  
 

Just then moist air touched her, she could smell the sea.

~~payal~~

We are celebrating write tribe festival of words#5. Join in the fun here.

Bloom

Goa, 2016

Cool summer mornings
often bloom with promises-
Poetic embrace
~~payal~~

haikumyheart