http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPOilRen3Qg
“What is the purpose of my life? What am I going to do?” Narayanan Krishnan is from a Brahmin community and part of an Orthodox family. In the Indian caste system, Brahmins make up the highest social class, while the Harijans, or untouchables, are of the lowest social order. In this system, Brahmin’s are not supposed to associate at all with the lower class. However, Krishnan saw the poverty and hopelessness in these people of his community and decided to make a difference. “We feed the homeless, the mentally ill destitute, and the old people who have been left uncared, of the society.” Not only does Krishnan feed these people, which is one of the very basic necessities of life, but he also genuinely cares for their wellbeing. He bathes them, cuts their hair, massages their legs, and blesses them. “So the food will give them physical nutrition. The love and affection that you show, will give them mental nutrition.” Krishnan is able to see the potential in these people, the humanity in all of them. How often do we pass by the homeless and make general assumptions about them? What are we going to do about poverty? What is my purpose of life? “Everybody has 5.5 liters of blood. I am just a human being. To me, everybody is the same.”
Thursday, October 27, 2011
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I think that although Narayanan isn't a Christan, he certainly exemplifies the teachings that Christ tough through his ministry, especially the parable of the good Samaritan. I think that he is an example to us all, because in his society he would lose respect perhaps, whereas in American society nobody really cares if you help the homeless or not. However, many people feel that it is beneath them to do so. I think the biggest problem is judgements on the homeless. Many times individuals judge others with stereotypes such as laziness, addiction, or poor choices. But many times it is circumstances beyond the individuals control
ReplyDeleteI agree, there is a sense that homeless individuals are trivial, part of a background rather than the main characters. I am guilty of having walked by them and looked away, as if not seeing the problem will make it disappear.
ReplyDeleteThere are 308,745,538 people in America, on any given night there are between 700,000 to 2 million homeless people. We are clearly not doing enough to help them. If each of us allowed a homeless individuals to stay in our house for one day that would take 17 000 000 people, and the individual would only stay in our house for one night every eighteen years—there would be no homeless. Of course, there are several issues, but my main point is that I wish that when we walked by them, we do not assume someone else has, could, or should help, but rather ask ourselves what can we do to make a difference in their lives.
What a powerful example not only of the great poverty and need in the world but also of what it may take to make a difference in this. I think that a lot of the time, what keeps us back from serving like this is that we are scared. Maybe we are scared to realize just how destitute some people are. Or maybe we are scared of what we might forego in our career, income, family, etc. by donating time and money to others outside of our personal life. Either way, I admire Krishnan for overcoming a barrier of class segregation and giving so much of him to these homeless people. When he was talking about how it psychologically allows them to know that they are also human beings and cared about, it reminded me of one of the points by one of our guest speakers. It was that when you see me, you bring me into existence. By seeing the need and fulfilling it like for homeless people, we are able to aid them physically but even more so we are able to recognize their humanity and understand why each individual is important.
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