{From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit} Shedding Expectations

It has been a long while since I've wandered down memory lane to talk about my conversion from growing up Hindu to living in the heart of Christ and His Church. Last we left off, I was entering my teenage years and had just invited Christ to be in my life, albeit without any magical transformation. I would leave for college in a few years not thinking about that moment again until many years later. 

Before I continue along with the tales of my journey, I feel compelled to stop for a moment and share with you what I learned about my story over the last year. After attending the Edel Gathering, I felt a strong tug on my heart to begin speaking more about my conversion. I felt certain that God was going to use me to reach others, as He does with all of us. Shortly after, I was invited to speak on a radio show about my conversion, my husband convinced me to reach out about writing a book, and I was invited to speak about my conversion at a couple of Theology on Tap events. 

I sometimes feel very close to St. Peter in that I seem to get things wrong the first time around. In my excitement to share the story of how Jesus called me into His arms, I forgot to consider that others would be looking for a story different to the one I lived. While it is true that I converted from Hinduism, I am by no means an expert on the matter. I was, like many teenagers, not a scholar of my previous faith. More truthfully, I was floundering about, desperately seeking a sense of belonging, of home, of love. 

Sadly, I'm afraid I disappointed those I spoke with in the eagerness to share my story. I had no grand rejections of Hindu principles. My identity had not been formed as a "traditional Indian" - my parents as I mentioned before were quite well assimilated into "American" culture. There was more of a gradual falling into the heart of Christ. I cannot speak to the details of Hindu worship or tenets of the faith in contrast to what I find in Catholicism beyond a surface exploration. 

My previous self would say "I'm sorry," but the truth is that I am not. I am sorry to disappoint people looking for a different narrative, but I know with certainty that God is asking me to speak. I still hear that whisper to share how I came to know and love Jesus, how I came find my place in His Church. I hear God tell me that there are so many lonely, lost, and floundering souls out there in search of Him. If that loses some of my audience waiting for that St. Paul moment of enlightenment, I apologize. My hope is that by shedding the expectation of others in telling my tale, I will make more space for Jesus Himself to captivate hearts and imaginations, to help other souls find rest. 

So next time, I'll pick up where I left off in my teenage years. Be not afraid!

Thank you for joining me along the way... Now let's get out there and love those other lost, searching, hapless souls like Jesus!

Blessings,
Rakhi


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{From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit} Knocking on Heaven's Door

It was a time when neon was in, Madonna was True Blue, and the girls would gather in the basement to belt out the latest love songs. 

Cue Atlantic Starr: "Girl you are to me, all that a woman should be and I dedicate my life to you always..."

Then we would giggle as we came to the part where they sang, 

"Come with me my sweet, let's go make a family.
They will bring us joy, for always.

Ooh boy I love you so, I can't find enough ways

To let you know, but you can be sure I'm yours for always..."

because, well, you know.

If you have seen 13 Going on 30, you will know exactly what I am describing. Perhaps this is why it is in my top ten favorite movies. (I know, fluffy for a top ten, but there nonetheless.)

I don't seem to have junior
high photos at my disposal.
This was just before then.

It was deep in the heart of the 80s, and I was in junior high struggling through the adolescent rites of passage. Strange tensions grew between friends as we tried to navigate the halls in all our pre-pubescent angst. Here lay the beginnings of all the cliques that would ever be: the jocks, the nerds, the popular crowd, the band geeks, the burnouts, the washouts, and then some that just didn't fit anywhere at all. Stuck somewhere in a mix of band geek/nerd/don't belong anywhere at all, the popular crowd was where I wanted to be. Friends, boyfriends, normal teenage activity instead of hanging at home with mom and dad - it held all of the appeal, but none of the promise for a girl like me. At the end of the day, it was a good thing, but not according to a tween/teen back in the day.

This was early high school. I really don't have junior high pics at my fingertips!
We can wax philosophical about why that might be at another date and time...

I was the one they made fun of because not only was I a nerd, but I was different. I was the one the boy asked to slow-dance with at our junior high dance, but only as a dare/joke from his friends, which I found out not too long after. I was the one the boys flirted with just for a laugh. I was the one who they started embarrassing rumors about just to see what I would say. I was the one whose invitations were rarely answered for any parties. I had my small group of friends* and we struggled our way through. Some broke out of the nerd camp and figured out the fashion of the day and the right things to do and say. I wasn't one of them. Without having a reference to the rites of passage in this culture, my parents couldn't help me navigate them with much more than reassurances that "this too shall pass" and "there is a bigger world out there." Both were right, but not of much solace on a tear-stained pillow.

My already wanting-to-belong heart just ached all the more. 

Enter Mandy. Mandy lived a couple houses down the street. Her family had moved into the neighborhood a few years before. They were Baptists, and had a large family by our neighborhood standards (though still small potatoes considering my own extended family). With six children, Mandy's family was full of life. I remember her talking about Daddy Date Nights and Family Game Nights. Though she was a couple years younger than me, and I was many degrees nerdier than her, we would occasionally hang out, especially on those summer days when there wasn't much else going on. It was through Mandy that I would invite Jesus into my life. 

As time has gone by, I don't recall the specific details of when my first encounter with Christ came about. I'm fairly certain I was about 13, and I am guessing it was one of those late summer afternoons. I do remember sitting on Mandy's deck in the shade, probably drinking Kool-Aid or Iced Tea and talking about nothing too important. In the middle of all of that, I remember Mandy asking me if I knew about Jesus and if I had ever considered letting Him into my life. 

I confess I don't recall my answer about knowing Jesus. My guess is that I mumbled something about celebrating Christmas (though in our family it had nothing to do with Jesus beyond Linus's monologue in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special) and knowing people go to church. Mandy explained how Jesus takes our care and our worries from us. There were no long theological arguments - we were 12 or 13. It was simply her sure knowledge that life is just better with Jesus in it. 

That was all it took. When Mandy asked if I would like to let him into my life, I said sure. While much of the rest of that time was a blur, I remember her instructions so very vividly. To invite Jesus into my life, to help make my life better with Him, all I needed to do was to say to Him that night, "Jesus, I want you in my life." That was it. I went home, and as I crawled into bed after another likely leisurely day, I crawled in with hope for a better tomorrow. As I lay my head down on my cool pillow, I offered those words up in earnest prayer: "Jesus, I want you in my life." I knocked on the door.

My thirteen year old self expected magic. I was seeking trumpets and fanfare and a completely transformed life. What happened next was seemingly a whole lot of nothing. My troubles were not behind me. I was not instantly popular nor did I have a greater sense of peace or belonging. Rather, it seemed that nothing at all had changed, and I continued to struggle through the ranks of high school. Over time I forgot about that night and the words I had uttered and simply moved on with life, one step at a time, each one closer to getting out of small town Iowa as fast as I could. 

It was only in retrospect that I discovered the power in my prayer that night. God knows us and our needs. His timing is perfect, not ours. At a time that was perfect for me in His sight, my knock on heaven's door would be answered. In retrospect, I have no doubt in my mind that it was that innocent and unformed prayer that led me to where I am today. I just couldn't see it in the moment.

Until next time, let's get out there and love 'em like Jesus...because life really IS better with Jesus in it. Pass along an invitation this week to someone struggling, won't you? 

*To my friends during this time: Please know how much you were/are loved and appreciated. I would hate for the moral of this story to be that I just wanted an upgrade - that isn't true. I just wanted a deeper sense of belonging, which to a young, teenage girl (well, me) was popularity. This in no way is meant to slight the friendship and fun we had.



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{From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit} Growing Up in Small Town Iowa

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts;

and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:33

Skatetown, circa 1980-something...

Picture it. Small town Iowa, population ~25,000. Only brown kid in kindergarten, yet blissfully unaware of it. So the stage is set for my childhood. My parents did a phenomenal job of keeping me sheltered from the difficulties they faced in such a town. Truth be told, I don't know that they even always thought of their experiences as difficulties. My dad had a righteous work ethic, so no matter the snub or slight, he put 110% of himself into everything he did. 

"No problem." That was his motto, and that held true for whatever was asked of him, regardless of the reason. Now my mother, as I have shared, has a slightly more lively spirit. I have vague memories of their discussions as I grew older and she felt he was being overlooked or put down because of prejudice. They are very vague and very slight memories because for the most part, my parents didn't spend much time dwelling on any of those occurrences. 

It was only later in life that I would learn that some kid had mentioned that if it weren't for me our class would be fully white. Clearly it impacted me so little I don't even remember it being said beyond telling my mom after school (which is how she knew). 

For the most part, I had my group of friends, and when you're small, it is a pretty large group. We all went to each others' birthday parties, played in school, joined the band, or chorus, or school teams. We nerds stuck together in the TAG program. Even as a family, we looked fairly "normal" from the outside. We celebrated Christmas, with Santa, a tree, and presents galore. We partook in Easter festivities with the bunny and egg hunt. 

We were, by all means, cultural Christians, who knew and partook of the festivities, but never knew or mentioned Jesus. Yet at the same time, we had our home altar to our Hindu gods and went to temples nearby for pujas (Hindu festivals). I wore a sari for multicultural day at school, performed some Indian dance for our talent show, and mom cooked some traditional Indian food for the International Fair every year. 

I had NO idea who I was. I just went along with the flow of life. I wasn't proudly Indian/Hindu, but I wasn't what I would consider just a normal kid either. As I grew older, those differences, and their impact on my self-image and confidence, would begin to have an impact on me. It was assumed, since I was Indian, that I was smart and would be a doctor. Quite stereotypically, my cousin and I both aced the school and district spelling bees. I gravitated toward debate instead of science, but still, I was a full fledged nerd before nerdy was cool. 

Take one part nerd and one part different, it seemed like growing up was always a bit of a battle. I had a wonderful group of friends, but even among them I was different. My parents experiences were not like their parents, so the rites of passage were just different. Being an only child to older parents, they may have been just a wee overprotective at times as well. Lets just say the party invites once I hit junior high did not roll in quickly, and some that came were just in mockery. When I look back over the throwback photos of the people I went to high school with, my world and theirs were drastically different. While in the grand scheme of things this is not important, to a teenager who desperately wants to belong, it was everything. 

As for the content of my character, I never gave much thought to it. While we prayed daily in our home temple, I wasn't educated in our faith beyond that. I don't think it was because my parents didn't value faith, or thought I could make my own decisions. I simply think that they grew up surrounded by their heritage and faith so it was naturally passed on, whereas I was not. Sure, we had a handful of other Indian families, and some Hindu communities nearby, like Ames where there was a larger population of Hindus due to the university setting (no stereotypes there). Overall, we were fairly isolated.

The basics were there, though. Daily prayer. Check. Human dignity. Check. Understanding of an absolute right and wrong. Check. Taking care of those less fortunate. Check. Marriage as an inviolable institution. Check. No dating until you're 30. Check. (Okay, that last one wasn't real...just preferred.) I was having a conversation with a friend a few years ago in the midst of a debate about Christian vs. non-Christian morality. I was explaining how I have such a hard time accepting any argument whose premise is that only Christians understand the heart of God. It was very much my experience that God had planted His law in the hearts of my parents, and they had passed along the basics to me. Clear evidence of natural law if ever I saw one. It was just basic morality.

Now what I did with that was another story. I would lose track of some of these things along the way as I found myself wandering aimlessly trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged. That longing for love wouldn't always lead me down the right path, but God in His infinite wisdom, knew it would eventually lead me to seek Him, and Him alone. Somewhere in the midst of my childhood and adolescence, in a small Iowa town, God set a plan in motion. 

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{From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit} What's In a Name

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine. 

Isaiah 43:1

I have spent many hours mulling over in my head how to pull together the random thoughts floating through my head about my name. You see, I had this great idea based on what I was told my name meant. Then...oh, then I did the unthinkable and went to Google to get more details. Wretched Google with it's balloon bursting intricacies that more fully explain that perhaps your parents glamorized or romanticized what your name means.

Rakhi. Growing up, my parents told me my name meant "gift of love." I presume you can imagine what growing up with a highly-unusual-in-this-country, ethnic name that phonetically sounds a lot like the name of a famous boxer and mountain range might be like. Let me tell you anyway. Kids can be cruel. When you are one of the few non-white, non-"normal" kids in the class, kids can be cruel, despite well meaning teachers and parents. It wasn't the brown skin that got to me. Truth be told, even to this day I sometimes forget I'm not white. That's a story for another day.

It was the name. The name was the source of many-a-tear for me. Rakhi. Rocky. Yo, Adrian! Did your parents think you were a boy? You look like a boy. What, are you super strong or something? Are you gonna beat me up? Yeah, some kids are cruel and just dumb. (I won't go into the highly inappropriate pick-up lines I was on the receiving end of in college.)

In the midst of such teasing, I must have asked my parents why they gave me such a hideous name. Of course to them it was hardly hideous. It's apparently not such an unusual name in India, after all. It was related to a nickname my father had "Rakhal" whose meaning I don't actually know at this time. One thing about names in my family - not one person went by their legal name. Until Facebook, I had no idea what most of my cousins' actual names were. So while my dad's name was Ganen, much of his family called him Rakhal. Enter the name suggestion from his side of the family in India - Rakhi. 

This could have been an entirely different story if my mom had gotten her way back in California in the 70s. No, they weren't flower children, so no Apple or Rosepetal. Michelle. My mom wanted to name me Michelle. Sometimes I dream of what it might have been like to have a common name, to blend into the roll call of children at homeroom. There is an eerie calm that comes over me, but then I quickly snap out of it to realize that just in that one small detail, I would be someone completely different. 

You see, I am a big believer in the idea that names are meaningful and carry weight. Identities are formed in names. God allowed man to name all the creatures and to this day we identify them by their names. Names bring to mind images and defining characteristics. Now, that isn't to say that one's destiny lies in one's name. I'm not making that leap. Nevertheless, I believe names are important. We took great care in praying over our children's names before settling on them. 

Back to Rakhi. What does it actually mean? While it could be interpreted as a "gift of love," what I found after my foray into Google is that it actually means a "bond of protection." The "rakhi" is a string bracelet that is exchanged as a bond of fraternal love/protection between siblings. While I had to mull this all over for a while, I realized that it simply added greater depth to what I already believed about my name. 

I have always believed that I was born out of great love, and as such, born to share great love. Sure, there was always the pursuit of the great romantic love. When I would come out of that fog, though, there was deeper within a desire to pursue something that would do more, be more for others. Whether a doctor (because what Indian kid isn't meant to be a doctor, after all?) or a lawyer, or a politician, or eventually in education and ministry, I had an inner desire to fight for the other. 

It wasn't until more recently that I could give a voice to that desire - a desire for every living thing to know how greatly they are loved, their worth, their dignity - to know they belong to God and He to them. 

With a name like Rakhi in a small Iowa town, knowing its meaning...or an interpretation of it...gave me some consolation. A gift of love is what I was told, and a gift of love was all I wanted to be, and to receive. To belong somewhere, to someone other than my parents, to not be on the outside, to know that great love. All that desire lay in my heart, growing more torturous as the years progressed into adolescence. Love created longing. 

That's all for this edition. Shakespeare I am not, but if you want to continue reading, I'll be back with another installment!

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{From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit} Loved Into Being

{I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I would begin sharing a little more of my personal story here on the blog. This is the first in a series of posts regarding my life story and own journey of faith. Full disclosure, this post is a little longer than the rest may be as it is the first chapter of a book I began writing last year at the prompting of the Hubs. Working title: From Holy Cow to Holy Spirit. Too much? No matter. So far, this is the only chapter.}

------------------------- ///\\\///\\\ ------------------------

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;” Jeremiah 1:5

“For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.” Psalm 139:13-16

[Excerpt From: Bibles, Harper. “NRSV Catholic Edition Bible.” HarperCollins, 2010.] 

You might say I'm a bit of a Ross Gellar. No, not a character on Friends or a paleontologist, but a modern medical marvel. At least that's the way my mom would have you believe it when she is telling the story. An only child of immigrants, the story would be oft repeated, as though they were earning bragging rights with the rest of the immigrant Indian families who often had more children.

My parents were born in the late 1930s in a British occupied India. That sets the framework for much of the way I was raised. Dad was the eldest of eight children, born to a doctor who worked away from home at a tea plantation and his fourteen year old bride. My grandmother would be only sixteen when my father was born. With my grandfather away for work much of his life, dad would become like a father to his siblings, who somehow happened to come in rather regular intervals. It would seem my grandfather was not always absent.

Regardless of how one might think a doctor's family would live, my father's family was actually not well to do at all. With eight mouths to feed, and the standard of living not the best in the Calcutta area, dad did not know luxury or excess. (I can't imagine what it was like when he was growing up, but even as I would visit in my childhood the family home did not have running water or reliable electricity.)

As he got older, my father went to live with his cousins to go to school, and eventually went onto college to earn a degree in engineering. When I think of my dad, I have no doubt that God created him to be an engineer - more on that later. He worked his way through school, always supporting himself and working to support his family. This truly formed the core of my father's being. To his dying breath, he was always responsible for the welfare of his family.

In contrast, my mother grew up the daughter of a wealthy international businessman. It wasn't always that way, especially when she was young. They used to live in a little village in what is now Bangladesh. In her childhood before one of many "wars," it was East Bengal. Her father, my maternal grandfather, grew up quite poor, but had a knack for people and a head for business. He moved his family to Calcutta while my mother was still young to make a name for himself and provide for his family.

Growing up in Calcutta, my mother attended a private school, presumably run by a Catholic order, as I remember hearing many stories about the nuns who taught her. She feared them, but she loved them. They saw a potential in her and encouraged her at a time and in a culture when women were not to be educated too much. The second oldest of five, my mother had a vastly different childhood than my father.

My grandfather being a businessman, would always have foreign clients visiting and staying with them in their home. Let's call it what it was in its glory days - a mansion. Not only did they have running water and European bathrooms (showers and toilets), my grandfather eventually had a room installed that had air conditioning. We are talking about the lap of luxury here. She was most certainly spoiled, but she would say not rotten. The other trait my grandfather possessed was unabashed charity. There are many stories I remember being told of him bringing home people off the street - for a meal, for a bed, for a bath - random strangers he had met during his day. That played a large part in my mother's childhood and perspective of the wealth they had. It was never to flaunt, but always to provide for themselves and others.

As I mentioned, my grandparents were rather progressive allowing my mother not only to complete her education, but also to obtain a graduate degree. However, they were not quite as progressive as she would have liked. She was planning on flying the coop and going to Europe to become a Montessori teacher upon completing her degree. My grandfather had other plans for her.

A few months before she would be sitting for her comprehensive exams to complete her Master's Degree, my grandfather informed her that he had found a young man that he would like her to meet for the purpose of marriage. Yes, that is correct. She was planning on flying away. He was arranging her marriage. In some twist of events whose details I never quite remember, possibly because they change a little every time, my grandfather had run across my dad and knew that he was the husband my mother needed. He knew the family was poor. He knew they were from different worlds. However, he saw in him something that told him he would take care of his beloved daughter.

My grandpa on the right long after the aforementioned story.

My mother has a lively personality. I can only imagine the look she gave her father and the words that were exchanged. This was a different time, though. Out of love and respect for my grandfather, she agreed to meet this man who would be preventing her from what she had dreamed of doing at the time. (I should tell you, the fact that she was able to meet him at all was still quite progressive at the time, and in some instances even today.) Her analysis? "He was so serious!" Like I said, my mother is spirited. She mentioned her concerns to my grandfather who only asked her, "Do you trust me?" This my mom did - implicitly and wholeheartedly. My grandfather went on to tell her about him, that he was kind and responsible, that his seriousness would balance out her spiritedness, that he really felt he was a good man from a good family that would treat her well. So, in 1960, instead of flying off to Europe, my mother married my father in an epic celebration that I still hear about to this day.

Dad and mom on their wedding day.

Indian culture is not unlike Judeo-Christian culture. First comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage. For these two crazy young people who were learning to love each other (as my mother noted, in an arranged marriage, love did not come first), a baby did not come. For five years, a baby did not come. They consulted doctors. For ten years, a baby did not come. They lived and they loved, they embarked on many adventures and lived life to the fullest, but a baby did not come. After ten years, they decided it was time to try something else. The doctors there could do nothing more, so they secretly decided to move away from India. They wavered between Australia and the United States, but at the time Australia had strict racially based immigration policies and quotas. The United States would be their new adventure where they would make their home.

My mother couldn't keep anything from her father. When they were having some trouble getting the appropriate paperwork and clearing red tape, my grandfather with his business contacts and networks stepped in to help them jump the hurdles they had to jump. He did all of this with not a dry eye. It would be no small feat. They were moving half a world away with no family, and few connections. When they finally told all the family, there wouldn't be a heaping handful of enthusiasm for them there either. They were leaving, and in his family that just wasn't done. I would feel the impact of that decision in my own childhood years later.

My father, being the protector and provider, had decided he would move first and then have my mother follow once he had settled in and gotten established. My grandpa would hear nothing of it. The man who saw their complementary natures when he arranged their marriage knew they would need each other to survive the transplant into a different world. Besides, he knew my mom's experience with his clients and her spirit would be instrumental in helping them to establish their new life. So, in 1970, with $600 and two suitcases, they came to the United States and settled into New York City.

Mom and dad in Central Park circa 1970-71 (ish)

While a lot could be said about why they moved, my mom is really quite clear. They wanted children and wanted better medical treatment to exhaust all the possibilities. While my dad worked and took classes toward a Master's Degree of his own, my mom went to work on Wall Street. The woman had moxie! Upon door after door closing on her due to her lack of experience (never mind that she had a Master's Degree in Literature), her "spirit" finally broke through when she retorted in an interview that she would never have experience if no one ever hired her. Apparently that got her a job as an executive secretary on Wall Street. Moxie.

Once they were settled in, the search for medical treatments continued. From the stories, it doesn't sound like it took terribly long for a doctor here to figure out the problem. Having spent ten years in heartache over their inability to have a child, my mom for one wasn't immediately hopeful. In fact, she admits that though the doctors had found what they believed to be the issue, she had really given up and was now thinking about the possibility of adoption. Why get her hopes up when everything in her life had pointed to the impossibility of pregnancy? She didn't know the God I know now.

Within a few years, the company my dad worked for would be transferring them out to California. At this point, there was still no baby, and hope was dying. Shortly before they moved, at what would likely be one of her last visits to the doctor, he told her that he predicted she would be pregnant within a year. I'm pretty sure she rolled her eyes if I know her. So they packed everything up, which by now was more than just two suitcases, and off they drove across country to San Diego, California, where I would be born about a year later. Apparently doc knew his stuff.

Two young Hindu kids, from totally different backgrounds, brought together in an unlikely marriage, childless for fifteen years until they moved halfway across the world. What in the world did God have in mind for me?!?

Stay tuned for the next edition, "What's In A Name,: coming next week if I stay on schedule!

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