Plenty Good Room in my Father’s Kingdom

When we packed our bags to come to India we included a few of our favorite CD’s, not knowing what we would find here. Among the handful was the UUCA Quartets’, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” One of the songs on that CD is “Plenty Good Room,” a song that says there’s room for everyone in our Father’s kingdom. We listened to that CD several times on Christmas Day, trying to create for ourselves a feeling of being with our church families who are so far away.

We move through our Indian experience as expats. There is clearly privilege embedded in our experience due to our Western heritage. Upon our approach to the lobbies of the finest hotels in Bangalore, the doorman, typically in colorful garb, pulls open the door with the smart, “Good Morning.” At work, Jay experiences quick deference to him regarding leadership decisions. Helen is called “Madam” without pause. Sales clerks at the small kiosks where we frequently conduct business move their attention from their local customers when we enter. The experience is a bit disturbing. We are all God’s children…and he or she…loves us all, no exceptions.

There are so many people we see each day that form the circle of our lives, but never enter our lives. This is a land of great human toil. A billion people mingle about in India, 9 million of them in Bangalore alone. We see women in their saris, sometimes barefoot, as day laborers building or sweeping the roads of Bangalore. Sometimes we pause and take a “snap” with our digital camera. With the delight of children on Christmas Day, they chatter among themselves in Kannada, Hindi or Tamil when they see their images in the small display of the camera. We will continue on our way, they will return to mixing concrete and stooping to sweep the street. They will become only images on a jpeg file on our computer.

We see children all the time. This is a youthful country. Among our favorite pictures is that of eight young girls in their school uniforms packed in one of the many ubiquitous auto rickshaws that ply the Bangalore streets. Their future looks as bright as their shining faces. There are also other girls who have no school uniforms to wear. They have shining faces too, but someday they’ll be wearing their saris as they mix concrete or stoop to clean the streets of Bangalore.

Not all is bleak. People have their livelihoods that provide them income for a home, food and hope. Wares must be sold, taxis driven, buildings built, food prepared, newspapers delivered, and clothes ironed. When Helen pulls our clothes from the washing machine at the apartment they are hung from a clothesline nine stories from the ground. There is no fluff and dry, wrinkle free cycle. We have only the warm winds that circulate about our apartment. Clothes are sent to the basement for pressing with a charcoal-heated iron in the morning. They are returned, pressed and neatly folded the same day. Two rupees per article of clothing are exchanged; about 5 cents. We continue on with our lives, as do God’s other children. We are blessed, however, to have an opportunity to stand outside our “normal lives” to see another part of our wonderful world.