Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught me About Meaningful Work and Service

Eli and I recently went to a Veritas Forum at Carnegie Mellon given by Dr. Mary Poplin titled "Radical Marxist, Radical Womanist, Radical Love: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Social Justice." Intriguing to say the least.

After hearing Poplin speak, I decided I had to get her book to learn more about her journey from being a feminist/pantheist/secular humanist to becoming a devout Christian working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. "Finding Calcutta" is a wonderful book in both the spiritual and academic senses. Poplin brought her experience as a professor to her writing and the result is a book that is well-researched but also profoundly relatable.

 The book is divided into small chapters, each giving a little glimpse into life as a Missionary of Charity in Calcutta. In one of the earlier chapters titled "Whatever You Did for the Least of These, You Did for Me," Poplin talks about how blown away she was by the sisters' approach to those they served:
 
     I began to think how differently I would work if I truly saw each person I met as a hungry, hurting Christ. What if every time someone came to me with a problem, I responded as though Christ himself had approached me? What if I saw everyone all day long as in need of a touch from God, and what if I were yielded enough that God could actually use me to give his touch? (40)

This book truly convicted me. The work that Mother Teresa did and that the Missionaries of Charity continue to do is just astounding. They not only serve the poor, but they also live like the poor. They have given up everything worldly this earth has to offer in order to live the way Christ would have them.

Now, if you're like me, about this point (if you're honest) you're going, "OK, I could never live up to that." There's still hope for us though! Mother Teresa is known for saying, "Find your own Calcutta. Don't search for God in far-off lands. He is close to you, he is with you." For Poplin, that meant going back to her teaching position at Claremont Graduate University with a fresh perspective on Christianity and the way it should be presented in the university setting.

I especially liked one of the closing paragraphs of "Finding Calcutta" and I'm going to leave you with that:

     Mother Teresa answered her call to love the most unlovable of people. There is no reason to romanticize the poor just because we make the mistake of romanticizing the rich. The people the Missionaries serve are difficult, just as you and I are difficult, yet their needs are more desperate. The divine love of God working through her drew us; her ability to love when there was no natural reason for it attracted us to Jesus (160).