Held in the light

Dear Friends,

When I was in Swaziland this year, I wrote to you about one of my dear friends.... a young beautiful girl named Yvonne.

I received word today that Yvonne is very sick and has been hospitalised again. Im not sure if she has tuberculosis or whether its a recurrence of aspiration pneumonia.

What i do know is that she is one of this worlds quiet angels.... She lives and loves through her smile, in one of the most wounded corners of our blue planet. I have been blessed so many times by the soft grace which dwells gently in those brown eyes. Even now when I think of her, radiant love shimmers across me like sunlight across the water....

I ask you to take a moment to read her story....here

And join with me as I hold her in the light.

Love the world into change,

Maithri

Climb every Mountain - A poetics of Transformation

Taking a photo in Malolotja Swaziland

"My soul looks back and wonders, how I got over?" - Clara Ward (Spiritual)

Almost every day I receive an email from someone telling me about the personal challenges which they are facing. There is a deep need in us to not only surmount our obstacles, but to do it with as much grace as we can.

Let me tell you a little story.

By the time I reached my final year of high school, I knew that I wanted to one day become a doctor. I wanted to help people, and i thought that medicine would be a beautiful concrete way of doing just that.

At the time in order to receive an interview for the medical course in my state you needed to finish in the 98th percentile of all those who sat the Victorian Certificate of Education. I fell short scoring 96.25.....

For a while it seemed that these 1.75 percentage points were going to separate me from my dreams. But like all good stories, there was far more for me to learn....

I enrolled in Biomedical Science and majored in physiology and anatomy. I loved the course and moreso loved all the kindred spirits which I met along the way...some who are still my treasured friends almost 14 years later.

One of those friends was a beautiful, hilarious science/arts student named Susan. ;) She had long flowing blonde hair and was constantly being stalked and receiving proposals of marriage.. lol (you know im right Suze!)...

Our friendship was based on deep mutual respect and so much laughter.... To this day there is no one in the world who can make me laugh like Susan...

One day I walked into the library and Suze was wearing a hijab.... I've written about it here before... I never said a word....not because i didnt deeply respect her courage and faith, but because i knew she'd be receiving enough and more questions from the rest of the anglo-Christian world about becoming a muslim... all she needed from me was a friend to laugh with....

Today Susan is one of the most respected sociologists in Australia. She is a lecturer, feminist, wife of the amazingly generous and intelligent Waleed Aly, mother of two little angels and consummate humanitarian.

She was star of award winning television program Salam cafe and a few years back was given the honour of "Muslim of the year" for her amazing gift at raising awareness, dispelling myths, and bringing cultures together.

But I digress.... (dont get me talking about my friends.....i'll never stop lol!)

When i reached the end of my Biomedical Science degree I heard that the University of Melbourne was offering a post graduate medical degree.

The entrance criteria were as you can imagine very strict and required, among other things, applicants to sit a 7 hour examination which covered university level biochemistry, biology, physics....a psychological assesment (how i passed that part still remains a mystery lol)...and several essay questions.

I spent months preparing and somehow managed to achieve the mark required to gain an interview with the entrance committee at the Medical Faculty...

I'll never forget the night before the entrance interview.... I was a 'nervous wreck'... I kept thinking of how much work i had put in to get to this point and imagined a thousand worst case scenarios.... The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became...

Needing to laugh.... I rang Susan. Little did we know that the gift she would give me during that little phone conversation would change the trajectory of my life...

This is the story she told me:

There was once a mountaineer who had scaled the highest mountains in the world.

But there was one mountain in an exotic land, which he had never been able to climb.

He had tried, over and over again but somehow it seemed the mountain always defeated him.

One cold day he was in a village at the base of the mountain and he gazed up in a wonder at this great adversary which he had never been able to conquer.

As he scanned the mountain side with his binoculars, something caught his eye.

There at the top of the mountain, far beyond the level to which he had ever been able to ascend, was a pregnant woman with a child on her back.

There too, were children and barefoot old men.

He was dumbfounded. He went to a villager nearby and said in anger "How on earth can a pregnant woman, and children climb a mountain which an experienced mountaineer with all the modern equipment in the world has never been able to climb."

The man smiled and said to him "Sir, when you look at this mountain you see a foe. An enemy. Something which you must defeat. And so the mountain always wins.

But when the people of this village look at that same mountain, we see our dear friend. And it is the mountain that helps us to climb."

I went into the interview the next day and saw in the eyes of the selection committee, not my critics, but my friends, waiting to help me fulfill the dream which had been placed in my heart by the universe....

One week later I received a letter congratulating me on my entrance into medicine.

The rest, as they say, is history....

All of us face deep personal struggles.... Many far more profound than simply getting into a course, or achieving success. We live in a wounded world, and brokenness is part and parcel of the journey of life.

But what if the mountain before you, is actually there to help you climb?

What if the 'monsters' in your life are actually friends in disguise....there to help you unfold into the fullness of your own being?

What if by changing our minds about that which is bane and that which is blessing, we change the world....

I look around my little untidy office here in this hospital, and everywhere the light touches, there is proof.... Proof that dreams are possible.

Proof that it is the mountain that carried me every step of the way.

My warmest love to you,

Maithri

A little note from Maithri

I've not been a very good blogger of late ;).... So much is happening in my life... I thank you my friends for your kind patience and I look forward to visiting you all very soon.....

I found these words which I wrote a couple of years ago.... and they seemed to say what its in
my heart right now.

They are my humble gift to you this day.

Winged love to you all, Maithri

Picture Credits

Beloved,

There are days when nothing seems right. When every shell you pick up on the winding shore is broken. When the silken treasure slips through your fingers too quickly. When comforts are empty. And the world is noise.

On those jagged edged days, when the wind is screaming for a reason only she understands. And you find yourself all alone.

Turn your face to the sun.

There is goodness in the world, that even the river of tears cannot erase.

There is love in the world, that the numbed armies of fear can not destroy.

Sometimes that goodness is everywhere apparent. It pours from the heart of every moment. From the light of every smile.

On those soft days, love hides in the eaves to drop like sweet honey on your forehead and sings her lilting lullabies in the arms of the winds.

But on some days, Beloved. On days like today....

We need to look, to see.

So turn your face to the sun.

Even when she is nowhere to be seen.

Go inside yourself. Find a speck, a splinter of beauty to be grateful for.
'Yes', the day has worn you. And 'Yes' our mistakes have been so many.

But say 'Thank you' anyway.

Take account of all that is in your possession.

A mind. A heart. A body.

A life that breathes, even if for just one more day.

Now count the eyes that have smiled
at you on your wild journey,
the hands that have held you tenderly,
the ears that have listened,
the prayers that have been made on your behalf.

And whisper your 'Thank you' again.

Count the sky that has watched you grow
with His painted eyes,
The heaving waves that find their echo
in the tides of your breathing,
The little birds that have sung
you their songs,
The stars which have been a lamp
to your path,
and are your
rightful inheritance.

Count unexpected laughter,
Count undeserved grace,
Count Passion and Love making and Dreams yet to be born,
And bow your head and say 'thank you',

Now count the lives who still need your light,

The hungry, the sick, the helpless,
Count the children who will die today
and imagine if with the breath of your body
you could help just
one.

Turn your face to the sun,
And know yourself as a child of the light.

You are the Goodness that cannot be extinguished,
The love that burns through the darkest night.

And perhaps,
In turning
You will see what i have seen,

that this day where everything seemed wrong,
was not your curse,

It was your gift,

Your chance...
To find inside yourself a forgotten 'thank you',

To smile in the face of the grim suppressors,

To stand in the heart of the glowering darkness
and turn your face to the sun.


Copyright - Maithri Goonetilleke 2008

A Wave of Change

Dear Friends,

This last month and a half has been one stupendously exciting ride.... Possible Dreams International has exploded in a way which I never dreamed it could.....

We've already got people running marathons, holding trivia nights, concerts, dinners (this will be the subject of my next post...stay tuned), casual clothes days etc etc for the gracious people of Swaziland...who live in a country with the highest rate of death and the lowest life expectancy in the entire world.

What a priveledge it is to witness the generosity and compassion of ordinary human beings around the world joining hands to build bridges of tangible hope across the deep and viscerally real wounds of poverty, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and endemic disease.

Its not just the monetary donations which inspire. Its the heartfelt desire of people around the world to become ambassadors of possiblity. To find a way, however small, of committing themselves to the work of bringing hope to their yet unmet brothers and sisters in despair around the world.

One of the most touching emails i've received was from a young 12 year old girl in New Delhi asking me if there was anyway that she too could 'become part of the dream.'

I told her to hold the people of the world in her heart.... And to use whatever gifts she had, in whatever way she could to bring joy into the lives of those around her....

She is making greeting cards, some of which will be sent to impoverished people in Swaziland and others which will go to poor people in the slums of New Delhi.

One of our board members and my beautiful friend Jacquelyn Eisenberg, has put together this youtube video for PDI.... I wanted to share it with you today and ask that if you feel it appropriate you might find a place for it on your blog or website.... So that others might learn about the work we do for those in need....and be reminded that it truly is possible for ordinary people to make a difference in this world.

My love to you all,

M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYhEpMnfDg

A Song for the Wintertime...

Photo Credits



"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
~ Albert Camus

Stories of Hope: And there was water at Mambane...

As long as I live I will remember the day that water flowed for the first time in the community of Mambane.

A rural community high in the Lebombo mountains, 3000 people in the Mambane region have depended on one single water source for decades....(pictured below)

Women and children spend hours each day walking to this little pool of 'water' in a river bed which has been dry for well over a decade.

They wait patiently in line for hours and then proceed to fill their water container full of thick mud.

It is because of this lack of clean running water, that so many thousands of children die each year of diarrheal disease in Swaziland and throughout SubSaharan Africa.

In May of 2009, I shared with the readers of this website the desperate need of the Mambane community for clean water.

And you responded.....

In total 12 thousand US dollars (approximately half of which came from donations to this website) was raised by the Possible Dreams International team which paid for:

Surveying by the department of Geology for bore water.

The drilling of a bore hole in Mambane

Purchase of an electrical transformer to provide a sustainable energy source

Purchase of An electric water pump

Purchase of A 10 thousand litre water tank

On the day when the water flowed.... people came from miles around to see the beautiful sight which they had prayed for, for so many years.

An old Grandmother who has taught 70 AIDS orphans each day under the arms of a great Boabab tree.... knelt by the water pump and wept....saying "In my whole life.... I have never seen running water."

Your gift to the people of Mambane is priceless. Immeasurable in its depth and beauty.

Because of you lives will be saved.

Because you suffering will be spared.

Because of you an entire community living in the shackles of extreme poverty, have seen once again the flickering light of hope. They have remembered that they are not alone.

My gratitude to you, my friend, knows no bounds.

Together we have built a bridge.... across whose arms tangible love has come streaming into the lives of our brothers and sisters living in the fray of life.

I invite you to help us continue this work of love by becoming an ambassador of Possible Dreams International.

Together we will love the world into change,

We already are,

Maithri