India

Hummingbird Contributor and friend, Sarah Ehrenson, just returned from a trip to India—one with the specific purpose of joining forces with an old friend and colleague in an initiative with potential to bring medical, veterinary, and quality of life improvements to the village in which he grew up.  As she tells it, it was an extraordinary experience and one of many contrasts.  Beauty, grace, filth, disease, wealth, poverty, highs and lows.  Spirituality and blind faith.  She learned much from her journey, both through the complex, confusing, and difficult processes required to affect change, and through the people who treated her with tremendous love, respect, and kindness.  Many in the village remembered her from her last visit there—in 1984.

I feel fortunate to hear the recounting of Sarah’s experiences and for her to share with me some of the wisdom she brought back. A version of the quote below was affixed to a Hindu temple she visited— the temple in the photograph.  Sarah said that these words came back to her often while she was away, and are ones she hopes she will carry with her throughout life.  As she shared them with me, I am pleased to be able to pass them on to you.

If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing;

If you lose your health, you have lost something;

But if you lose your character, you have lost everything.