People flit in and out

December 27, 2011. I was dropped at Mother Teresa's this morning, the sun angled through the pink smoggy sky, tips of buildings grey masses above. Jesse, a tall and broad Sikh who rarely slows for speed-bumps and whose beard trains outward, sped away toward the city, and I started walking on the moist newly-paved concrete, jumping down into the twisting paths of the vegetable garden that surrounds the center, roses unbloomed through the cracking earth, dust everywhere. My coat is warm, my legs bump as I shiver. Can I call this morning beautiful? Can I call this center, sundar, the Hindi translation?
A sister meets me as I walk towards the nuns house, a separate building, apart from the patients. Another nun hangs up white habits on lines, she is cold too. I'm sorry I wasn't here, I was sick. Yes, the hospital, but I feel better, thank you. Merry Christmas to you, too! What do you mean, closed? Because the road is drying? Ok. And I understand and accept, because this is India and all passes here. 
She invites me in, the house that is always locked to volunteers. You can call Jaggi here, he will send for your car. You may wait in the chapel, it seems the phone does not work. 
And I sit cross-legged on red velvet carpet, the shrine to Mary, the Altar to Jesus, the shrine to Mother Teresa, all decorated in blue and green and red flashing Christmas lights, plastic flowers drooping in buckets on the floor. The green curtains are closed, and it is warmer here, alone. I wonder what to think about, what I should be thinking in a nun's secret chapel, what do they think about when sitting here? I pick up a book, the cover wrapped in ivory paper, written in black, unsure letters, 'with praise and joy'. I read rhyming songs of belief and happiness and sacrifice and night and angels, and I don't see any of the phrases. I try reading aloud, my my voice is hoarse and not joyous, and I wonder if this is blasphemous, or wrong, me being here. I pick up the bible, and flip through, hoping a line, something, will jumps and excite and stimulate. I turn to the last chapter, Revelations, because I like the word, and I read and mumble, and an older nun comes into the room, bows to the altar, and sits in a chair in the corner.
I talk to God, hi, it's been a while. Remember when I came to the chapel at school to cry about boys and my parents, college applications and eating disorders? I liked the sounds of the creaking wood, the space that never felt empty, the organ almost to sound, my voice held more power there, echoing across shallow pews, over hymnals and under carved archways, the stained glass radiating light from inside. 
I start to pray for everyone I know, my family first, my friends, then myself, and I pray for us all to be fixed, healed, our cracks sewn with glue. 
I don't think this is the way to do it, so God, just give me endless love, don't try to fix anything. 
The clock moves across birds flying at each number, and the phone rings and we drive home. These are the laborers, waiting for work, he says, and we swerve and honk past the hundreds of men and men and men and women and children and more men that wait to build houses or shovel garbage. A few are picked, thousands more stand huddled in the chill.