Learning about Life as Love

I'm recently back from a four-month stay at Maher in India, a community that walks with women, children, men and villages in need as they rise to new life. At Maher, the energy of love and life is palpable. I see it in the children's eyes, hear it in the women's laughter, and feel it in the gratitude of men rescued from life on the street.

Maher founder and director Sr. Lucy reminds us, "everyone at Maher has a story." Most of these stories have long chapters on poverty, violence, abandonment, loss and grief. Yet no one who has been there any length of time walks or talks like a victim.

Saddened as I am by reports of violence in my country and our world, I feel refreshed, inspired, heartened and hopeful because of Maher. In Maher's 40 homes in three Indian states, I watched:

• love elevate,


• respect empower,


• care convince,


• community strengthen &


• peace embolden.

"If you see us on Diwali, you will think we are all Hindu. If you see us on Eid, you will think we are all Muslim. If you see us on Christmas, you will think we are all Christian," Sr. Lucy says. During this visit, I saw the beauty of a belief community based on big love as we gathered for babies' naming ceremonies, weddings, memorial services, welcomes, farewells, and daily life.

The community members at Maher have few personal possessions. In fact, they live on about $1.65 a day. Everything they own fits into a small storage locker. What they do have is food, clothing, shelter, care, education, and one another.

One of my favorite sights in the morning are young people walking in pairs carrying metal containers filled with milk or vegetables from Maher's main center back to their respective homes. They are usually talking with one another as they walk. There's a lesson here for me about sharing the load. We are stronger and, at least at Maher it appears, happier together . . . in times of joy and sadness.

In February, Maher will celebrate its 20th year. This year on International Women's Day, Sr. Lucy received the Nari Shakti award from the President of India for Maher's contribution to the empowerment of women.

Since 2010, I've spent nine months at Maher listening and learning. I go there to heal and to be loved and because I see it as a model for the world. For me, it is a simpler answer than so many we devise, propose and research. An openhearted movement based on love where all are welcome and there's always room for one more.

Maher is a values-based belief community led by a visionary woman and leader who shares this about poverty in beyond: an encounter in art AUSTRIA . . . INDIA:

"Well, you see, I would be sad, if I had more and another person had less. I would like to look at poverty in another sense . . . Poverty of what? Is it of wealth? Is it of knowledge? Or of health? Or of so many things? When I see a person with poor health and not being able to get up, then I feel so sad. And a person who is not having a single meal, maybe I will get affected, okay . . . but . . . I feel poverty by itself, I don't know how I can say it . . . poverty should not make us miserable. Yet it should not be that I have more and the person next to me has less!"