me with her faith and love for the poor is Mother Teresa - The Voice of the Poor.
Anyway..
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
— Mother Teresa, A Simple Path
I love this article written by Robert Fulghum
I Believe In Mother Teresa
There is a person who has profoundly disturbed my
peace of mind for a long time. She doesn't even know me,
but she continually goes around minding my business.
We have very little in common. She is an old woman,
an Albanian who grew up in Yugoslavia; she is a Roman
Catholic nun who lives in poverty in India. I disagree with
her on fundamental issues of population control and the place
of women in the world and in the church, and I am turned
off by her naive statements about "what God wants."
She stands at the center of great contradictory notions and
strong forces that shape human destiny.She drives me crazy.
I get upset every time I hear her name or read her words
or see her face. I don't even want to talk about her.
In the studio where I work, there is a wash basin. Above the
wash basin is a mirror. I stop at this place several times each
day to tidy up and look at myself in the mirror. Alongside the
mirror is a photograph of the troublesome woman. Each time
I look in the mirror at myself, I also look at her face. In it I have
seen more than I can tell; and from what I see,
I understand more than I can say.
The photograph was taken in Oslo, Norway, on the tenth of
December, in 1980. This is what happened there:
A small, stooped woman in a faded blue sari and worn sandals
received an award. From the hand of a king. An award funded
from the will of the inventor of dynamite. In a great glittering
hall of velvet and gold and crystal. Surrounded by the noble
and the famous in formal black and elegant gowns. The rich,
the powerful, the brilliant, the talented of the world About
the author: Robert Fulghum is a Unitarian minister who
resides in Seattle. His first book, All I Really Need to Know
I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common
Things, is on the New York Times Best Seller list. in attendance.
And there at the center of it all-a little old lady in sari and
sandals. Mother Teresa, of India. Servant of the poor and sick
and dying. To her, the Nobel Peace Prize.
No shah or president or king or general or scientist or pope;
no banker or merchant or cartel or oil company or ayatollah
holds the key to as much power as she has. None is as rich.
For hers is the invincible weapon against the evils of this
earth: the caring heart. And hers are the everlasting riches of
this life: the wealth of the compassionate spirit.
To cut through the smog of helpless cynicism; to take only
the tool of uncompromising love; to make manifest the capacity
for healing humanity's wounds; to make the story of the
Good Samaritan a living reality; and to live so true a life as
to shine out from the back streets of Calcutta takes courage
and faith we cannot admit in ourselves and cannot be without.
I do not speak her language. Yet the eloquence of her life
speaks to me. And I am chastised and blessed at the same time.
I do not believe one person can do much in this world. Yet there
she stood, in Oslo, affecting the world around. I do not believe in
her version of God. But the power of her faith shames me.
And I believe in Mother Teresa.
December in Oslo. The message for the world at Christmastide
is one of peace. Not the peace of a child asleep in the manger of
long ago. Nor the peace of a full dinner and a nap by the fire on
December 25. But a tough, vibrant, vital peace that comes from
the extraordinary gesture one simple woman in a faded sari and
worn sandals makes this night. A peace of mind that comes from
a piece of work.
Some years later, at a grand conference of quantum physicists
and religious mystics at the Oberoi Towers Hotel in Bombay,
I saw that face again. Standing by the door at the rear of the
hall, I sensed a presence beside me. And there she was.
Alone. Come to speak to the conference as its guest.
She looked at me and smiled. I see her face still.
She strode to the rostrum and changed the agenda of
the conference from intellectual inquiry to moral activism.
She said, in a firm voice to the awed assembly:
"We can do no great things; only small things with great love. "
The contradictions of her life and faith are nothing compared
to my own. And while I wrestle with frustration about the
impotence of the individual, she goes right on changing the world.
While I wish for more power and resources, she uses her
power and resources to do what she can do at the moment.
She upsets me, disturbs me, shames me. What does she have
that I do not?
If ever there is truly peace on earth, goodwill to men,
it will be because of women like Mother Teresa. Peace is not
something you wish for; it's something you make,something
you do, something you are, and something you give away!
By Robert Fulghum - Saturday Evening Post,
COPYRIGHT 1989 Saturday Evening Post Society
