India Dispatches: Reflections in Poetry

02-11-2016

By Nannette Banks

After returning from the 2016 J-Term travel seminar to India, Rev. Nannette Banks (Director of Alumni/ae Relations) tapped into her poetical gifts for reflection.

Beautiful Morning in India

India was good to me
She showed me her underbelly right away
Reflecting a picture of poverty, homelessness
stench and struggle
God was blended through  out
Mosques, churches,  temples, ashrams and shrines
Faith  a part of the pollution  that easily wafts into your nostrils, expands your lungs and gets caught in the throat
The romantic notion unable to hold up to the reality of its richness, it’s belief, its culture, it’s reclamation of who we have  always been, a peoples, a land, a nation, a voice, we are India

January 19, 2016 (See the picture 1)

Nights over  Egypt repeating
Mornings in India more honest
both are beautiful, experienced both
They found me wanting, gave me themselves
I was unexpectedly different
The home front expanded, my soul that is
Spirit soaring with African lovebirds  
Singing the morning anthem
God is an artist, all around me the evidence
Even the crow speaks , warning or excitement to take note

January 20, 2016 (See the picture 2)

I  saw her
She saw me
The woman, the well
My faith spotted hers
Through trees, shrubs and gravel
It called me closer to see
The open hands of Jesus reaching, teaching
Telling her truth as she thought only   she knew
You must be God, that’s  usually how I respond when  
Jesus shows up as I go about my daily task
Filling me, feeling me  as if my skin was his, my heart beating in him..,isn’t that true? I’m in him, he in me?
The well, the woman, the jar on her shoulder
Toting the faith that quenches every thirst
She found me wondering in the  garden, no I found her
The jar, the shoulder, the faith of the woman and Jesus.

January  20, 2016 (See the picture 3)

Reverend Nannette E. Banks, is the Director for Alumni/ae and Church Relations at McCormick Seminary. She has engaged in ministry and learning across a myriad of contexts around the world including Turkey, Jerusalem, Cairo, London and Barranquilla.

picture 1

picture 2

picture 3