Namaste

Bowing to the divine in others

Psalm 84: 8a, 11

R. How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God! I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. R. How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!

             We Indians have a curious custom when we greet someone.  We don’t shake hands like the Hispanics, we don’t kiss on both cheeks like the French, we don’t give bear hugs like the Germans, and we definitely don’t do the chest bump like football players after a touchdown.  We fold our hands, like we’re praying, and bow slightly, and say, “Namaste.”  Do you know what that means?  In Hindi it means, “I bow to the divine in you.”  In other words, we believe that each person has a spark of God in them, and we bow to them like Catholics bow while passing in front of the altar.  Notice we don’t believe that human beings are merely the end of the long line of evolution from monkeys and apes.  Rather, each person also possesses a divine pedigree.  There is something divine in us.  Or better, there is Someone divine in us.

            The whole Bible can be read as a slow but steady discovery of where God desires to dwell.  In the Old Testament, we believed God wanted to reside in a Temple.  That’s why Psalm 84 reads: “I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”  And we all repeated, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!”  But in the New Testament God decides to relocate: God’s preferred residence is not buildings of brick and boulder, but human beings of bone and blood

.  You could almost say that Jesus came on earth and said to each of us: “Namaste,” but with this difference.  He didn’t BOW to the divine in us; he BECAME the divine in us.  In other words, what Hindus see in shadows, Christians see in HD and surround sound!

             If we truly believed there is Someone divine in every person, we’d totally change how we deal with other people.  We’d be like Tim McNally, who always pulls over to help anyone stopped on the side of the road.  We’d be like Allison Montiel who wants to adopt all 60,000 refugee children who came across the border.  We’d be like Dc. Greg who wants to help every homeless person in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and in Texas and Missouri, and in Kansas and Louisiana, and Alaska!  That’s what “Namaste” means.

            Let me leave you with my absolute favorite C. S. Lewis quote.  It comes at the end of his celebrated essay called, “The Weight of Glory.”  Listen carefully: “There are no ORDINARY people.  You have never met a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours like the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit …”  Now comes the best part.  Lewis concludes: “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.  If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”  That’s what “Namaste” means, and that’s a little better than an exploding fist bump, “Pschew!”

            Praised be Jesus Christ!