Scene 13 from The Bubble Rule to Spiritual Vision: “I am nobody”

What Christlike Love looks like

(Scene in which I am an untouchable in India)

I’m nobody, untouchable – never a somebody – started dying the day I was born and abandoned here in Mumbai. Lower than low, like a mangey street dog, shunned by all castes. I didn’t do nothing wrong – just be born. Back of my head rests on soft mud in a ditch by the road. People, hundreds of them, walk by looking straight ahead. I’m roadkill. Water trickles through my bones. I can’t move – my body ate my muscle. Never enough food. Skin and bone and me knowing. Nothing else to do but breathe. Flies and maggots feast on my sores like I’m already dead. No pain. A nobody feels nothing; somebody must feel something. I know I’m done.

The sky is wavey; my eyes open and close, lazy-like, drowsy. Blue turns gray, then black as sleep calls – oh sleep! Deep, deep, never to surface. A sound – like gravel sliding under the crunch of footsteps. I squint and see her stoop by my side, a wet cloth in her hand. She squeezes fresh water between my parched lips. I recognize her white sari – a nun, a sister of Mother Teresa. She looks into my eyes like I’m her child. Her touch is tender, even loving. She calls for help from those who pass, and they obey. I’m gently transported to her shelter and laid onto a soft mattress. No strength even to open my eyes as I feel her cleanse my body and gently dab my wounds. She offers me food, but I can’t eat.

I’m okay now, my head cradled in her arms. I sip drops of water from a cup pressed to my lips. Slipping, slipping into increasing peace. She comforts me. She’s kind, loving. I never felt this from a person before. Laying here, she makes me feel worthy. It’s like she loves me, and I don’t know why. But it makes me feel whole as I slip away, dissolving into cadence of her soft prayers blessing my existence and handing me over to her God. I let go into her heart’s embrace. It’s so beautiful, so, so beautiful!