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Dear Bay Area Friends,
I'm delighted to invite you to an evening with Sister Lucy next Wednesday in Santa Clara. RSVP here. As always, we'll be able to host the first 85 RSVP's.
Sister Lucy is the founder of Maher ("mother's lap"), a network of 36 centers across India that are home to 800 severely neglected and orphaned kids, and serves tens of thousands of kids on a daily basis. In her youth, she was with Mother Teresa; in her teens, as she witnessed a horrid atrocity that she couldn't help with, she renounced her formal robes and started serving the neediest in society. Father Anthony DeMello was her close mentor. Decades later, she's received countless awards, but what she's most proud of are stories like Gaus in a White Shirt. Last year, when she met Pope Francis, she asked for his blessings so she can serve more -- and he replied, "No, Sister, I seek your blessings."
Sister Lucy is also a very dear friend of ServiceSpace. Recently, while driving down the streets, she found a woman on the streets, completely naked and out of her wits; because of the tremendous abuse she had endured, she was mute (and hasn't spoken a word till date). It turned out that the woman was also pregnant and delivered a baby girl. While she was unable to mother the child, the Maher community stepped in with great love -- as they always do. When I met the child, she felt like the most peaceful month-old baby -- her caretakers said that she never cries. Sister Lucy named her after one of our volunteers, Swara, and because they didn't have any of the father's information, they listed her last name as "Nipun". With the community, we had a wonderful naming ceremony, as I tied anklets on her feet. Here's a photo from that day. It remains an unforgettable blessing for many of us, and is emblematic of the quiet ways in which Sister Lucy holds the world in her "mother's lap".
To share space with Sister Lucy, here's a few options:
She'll also be speaking at couple of Church services, visiting City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, holding an interfaith circle, and more. If her journey really speaks to you and you'd like to engage further, drop me a note and we can explore feasibility.
With gratitude for the laps of all the mothers that hold up our world,
Nipun
P.S. An inspiring Awakin Festival in Warsaw, a few days ago.
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