God Will Provide: Mother Teresa

I was chatting with a friend yesterday who is running a new foundation whose mission is to provide musical performance experiences for students with special needs. It is called “United Sound,” and is worth you taking a look, and maybe busting out a few dollars.

In our conversation, my friend shared with me her struggles relating to the art of fundraising. Having spent many years working in humanitarian circles, I could empathize. It brought to mind a story I had once read regarding Mother Teresa, one of the great humanitarians of our time, and her approach to getting things done.

I told my friend that I would find the book, type up the story and send it to her. As I was doing so, I figured that some of you might find the story interesting as well. It is always good to learn more about how people go about doing good in the world.

The story is an excerpt from the autobiography of Bob Geldof, “Is That It?” For those who don’t know, Bob is the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats (a British punk band), and the guy who started the Band Aid/Live Aid African famine relief effort back in the ’80s. The story of his meeting and interacting with Mother Teresa stuck in my mind – mostly because it is the embodiment of a scripture that I love:

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)

Here is Geldof’s description of meeting her in an airport in Ethiopia:

We were sitting in the departure lounge when Mother Teresa came in with several other nuns all wearing the white habits with blue borders of the Missionaries of Charity. She was astonishingly tiny. When I went to greet her I found that I towered more than two feet above her. She was a battered, wizened woman. The thing that struck me most forcibly was her feet. Her habit was clean and well-cared for but her sandals were beaten up pieces of leather from which her feet protruded, gnarled and misshapen as old tree roots.

I bent to kiss her. I do not normally kiss strangers on a first meeting but it seemed like the right thing to do. She bowed her head swiftly so that I was obliged to kiss the top of her wimple. It disturbed me. I found out later that she only let lepers kiss her. The photographers crowded around. We sat down. I felt like a clumsy giant next to her.

…She then began to tell me about her work in Ethiopia…where they cared for the old, the blind, the disabled and the incurably ill. It was the same philosophy she adopts in India…I told her that my band had played in India, and that, if it seemed like a good idea, next time we were there we would do a benefit concert for her mission.

She said that she didn’t need fund-raising activities – God would provide. She then gave me a clear demonstration of the way in which God provided.

While the cameras were rolling she turned to the head of the RRC (Russian Red Cross), and said that on the way to the airport she had seen a couple of old palaces which she had been told were empty and asked him if she could have them as homes for orphans. With the cameras whirring, the Commissioner did a bit of fancy footwork. “Well, I’m not sure about those particular places. I don’t know what they’re being used for. But…er…I’m sure we can find you some suitable premises for an orphanage.”

“Two orphanages,” she corrected.

“Two orphanages,” he conceded.

The second I met Mother Teresa she struck me as being the living embodiment of moral good. I felt I had no business sitting beside this tiny giant. But there was nothing other-worldly or divine about her. The way she spoke to the journalists showed her to be as deft a manipulator of media as any high-powered American PR expert. She does a sort of “oh dear, I’m just a frail old lady” schtick.

She was outrageously brilliant. She made them laugh and she defined the terms of the questions they could ask her. She understood that the moral ground she occupied gave her the right to march up to airlines and ask for a free ticket to Washington, and once she arrived, to ask to see the President, knowing he dare not refuse her. There was no false modesty about her and there was a certainty of purpose which left her little patience.

But she was totally selfless; every moment her aim seemed to be, how can I use this or that situation to help others. She was never pious about this. She had given over her whole existence to a life of moral worth. That is what makes a saint.

She is one of the few people who have ever impressed me on sight. I was in awe of her. She held my hand as she left and said, “Remember this, I can do something you can’t do and you can do something that I can’t do. But we both have to do it.”

Bob Geldof, “Is That It? (pages 240-242)

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There you go. Hopefully some food for thought.