The mother who was a pencil
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Qazi Azad
A discourse, half complete, is at best useless or it may be food for confusion. Having read one Mr. Maswood Alam Khan's letter on Mother Teresa in the FE issue of last Tuesday this scribe was impelled from within to supplement it. He read the letter in the morning after the hawker dropped his copy of the paper at his doorstep.
The morning is the time when the sleeping neurons of one's brain begin to slowly awake after the night's full rest and the mind, freed of anxiety, remains cool and focused.
While turning the pages of the paper, the caption of the said letter, "Why did Mother Teresa feel empty?", attracted your scrible. It drew him to flip through it with his soul paying tribute to the memory of the great lady and his eyes sending its message to his brain for further insight and explanations.
Your scribe had the rare privilege of shaking the hands of the serene old lady and exchanging a few words with her while she came to Dhaka in April 1991 to personally convey her sympathy after a tornado whipped up the roaring sea along our coastal belt in Chittagong that had created a human havoc with a massive tidal surge. So his memory reflected the image of the mother in his vision as if he was feeling her presence in that morning time.
Instead of feeling emptiness, mother Teresa at the ripe advanced age had a sense of fullness. She then saw God not as an onlooker but as a constant Modeller regulating everything of everything. This scribe quotes the mother to convey what she felt about God. She wrote, "I am nothing. He is all. I do nothing. He does it all. I am God's pencil. He writes through me. When he writes, He writes beautifully". A news report, as far as the scribe remembers, lifted those words either from any of her letters or interviews or lectures.
If mother Teresa has had ever said, "I don't believe in your existence, God", as Mr. Maswood mentioned in his letter, she did it to implore Him for showering His mercy to prove His constant presence. She was at no stage a non-believer. It only means that she was appealing to God addressing Him directly to draw His mercy. All saints perhaps do so.
Late Mustafiz Billah Khan of Sandwip, a scholar who never got less than first class up to his graduation from Chittagong College in early 1920s, in his book "Sixty three years" introduced his father as a saint. He quoted a prayer of his father in the book, which he said had brought in rain on a hot summer afternoon following a long spell of drought. Its uncommon words of appeal to God, as reproduced in the book, are: "Oh Merciful, we have committed sin. Not once, many a time. We have committed so many sins that You have probably reached the extreme edge of Your patience. We deserve punishment. You are the Almighty, the Merciful. You can punish us, You can forgive us. You have said we are the best among Your created beings. Would You undermine Your mercy for us by destroying us? Forgive, oh Lord, forgive us, Your repentant best creation, the human beings".
In a social function at the residence of late Mustafiz Billah Khan's daughter in Pallabi of Dhaka, your scribe humorously questioned the statement in the particular book about rain having immediately followed the prayer for the rain. An old man of Sandwip who was attending the function got very angry with him. He emphatically stated that he was himself a witness to that unbelievable event. He said he had joined that prayer under the scorching sun and been soaked with rain waters, fallen abruptly on some white patches of clouds joining miraculously together fast and then thickening and turning black as the prayer proceeded with the prayer leader appealing to the Lord emphasising on His mercy.
Another gentleman, late Fasiul Alam B. Sc, B. Ed., who was once the respected headmaster of the South Sandwip High School and later of a high school at Sonargaon, near Dhaka, perhaps Mughrapara High School, and was well known for his majestic temper, disciplinarian nature and superiority in knowledge and teaching, also got annoyed at your scribe's question. Both said that the quoted prayer brought in rain after a long spell of drought.
Perhaps, all great minds, which are exceptionally elevated spiritually, converge in varying degrees in their approaches to God. According to the holy Quran, on the Day of Judgement Prophet Jusus Christ would tell God " If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are Mighty and Wise"-- Surah Al-Maida. Christ (pbuh) would thus seek the forgiveness of the Lord for his followers imploring Him to show why He is Mighty and Wise.
Surely, all great rivers, favoured with an abundance of waters for negotiating their courses up to the confluences, merge with the Sea.
A discourse, half complete, is at best useless or it may be food for confusion. Having read one Mr. Maswood Alam Khan's letter on Mother Teresa in the FE issue of last Tuesday this scribe was impelled from within to supplement it. He read the letter in the morning after the hawker dropped his copy of the paper at his doorstep.
The morning is the time when the sleeping neurons of one's brain begin to slowly awake after the night's full rest and the mind, freed of anxiety, remains cool and focused.
While turning the pages of the paper, the caption of the said letter, "Why did Mother Teresa feel empty?", attracted your scrible. It drew him to flip through it with his soul paying tribute to the memory of the great lady and his eyes sending its message to his brain for further insight and explanations.
Your scribe had the rare privilege of shaking the hands of the serene old lady and exchanging a few words with her while she came to Dhaka in April 1991 to personally convey her sympathy after a tornado whipped up the roaring sea along our coastal belt in Chittagong that had created a human havoc with a massive tidal surge. So his memory reflected the image of the mother in his vision as if he was feeling her presence in that morning time.
Instead of feeling emptiness, mother Teresa at the ripe advanced age had a sense of fullness. She then saw God not as an onlooker but as a constant Modeller regulating everything of everything. This scribe quotes the mother to convey what she felt about God. She wrote, "I am nothing. He is all. I do nothing. He does it all. I am God's pencil. He writes through me. When he writes, He writes beautifully". A news report, as far as the scribe remembers, lifted those words either from any of her letters or interviews or lectures.
If mother Teresa has had ever said, "I don't believe in your existence, God", as Mr. Maswood mentioned in his letter, she did it to implore Him for showering His mercy to prove His constant presence. She was at no stage a non-believer. It only means that she was appealing to God addressing Him directly to draw His mercy. All saints perhaps do so.
Late Mustafiz Billah Khan of Sandwip, a scholar who never got less than first class up to his graduation from Chittagong College in early 1920s, in his book "Sixty three years" introduced his father as a saint. He quoted a prayer of his father in the book, which he said had brought in rain on a hot summer afternoon following a long spell of drought. Its uncommon words of appeal to God, as reproduced in the book, are: "Oh Merciful, we have committed sin. Not once, many a time. We have committed so many sins that You have probably reached the extreme edge of Your patience. We deserve punishment. You are the Almighty, the Merciful. You can punish us, You can forgive us. You have said we are the best among Your created beings. Would You undermine Your mercy for us by destroying us? Forgive, oh Lord, forgive us, Your repentant best creation, the human beings".
In a social function at the residence of late Mustafiz Billah Khan's daughter in Pallabi of Dhaka, your scribe humorously questioned the statement in the particular book about rain having immediately followed the prayer for the rain. An old man of Sandwip who was attending the function got very angry with him. He emphatically stated that he was himself a witness to that unbelievable event. He said he had joined that prayer under the scorching sun and been soaked with rain waters, fallen abruptly on some white patches of clouds joining miraculously together fast and then thickening and turning black as the prayer proceeded with the prayer leader appealing to the Lord emphasising on His mercy.
Another gentleman, late Fasiul Alam B. Sc, B. Ed., who was once the respected headmaster of the South Sandwip High School and later of a high school at Sonargaon, near Dhaka, perhaps Mughrapara High School, and was well known for his majestic temper, disciplinarian nature and superiority in knowledge and teaching, also got annoyed at your scribe's question. Both said that the quoted prayer brought in rain after a long spell of drought.
Perhaps, all great minds, which are exceptionally elevated spiritually, converge in varying degrees in their approaches to God. According to the holy Quran, on the Day of Judgement Prophet Jusus Christ would tell God " If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are Mighty and Wise"-- Surah Al-Maida. Christ (pbuh) would thus seek the forgiveness of the Lord for his followers imploring Him to show why He is Mighty and Wise.
Surely, all great rivers, favoured with an abundance of waters for negotiating their courses up to the confluences, merge with the Sea.