Honoring Guru Nanak Dev Ji
The teachings of Guru Nanak Dev and Jesus of Nazareth
on the 550th anniversary of the Guru's birth
Route 9 Library and Innovation Center, New Castle, DE
In January of this year I had the good fortune to travel to India with my husband, David. My mother’s oldest sister, Frances Colleen Gilmore, who died this past December at the age of 94, had been a Methodist missionary in India for 37 years and I wanted to see some of the places where she lived and worked.
One of those places was Batala in Punjab. She taught at a Methodist girls secondary school with Hildegard Grams, a missionary from Germany for whom a school there is named. While in Punjab we also visited Amritsar and the Harmandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple. A good friend arranged for us to have a tour. We washed our feet and hands before entering and surrendered our shoes. Even though the weather was temperate, the white marble was quite chilly so we walked wherever the bare surface was covered.
Everything we experienced about the temple connected us to the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev. We stood toe to toe, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others to enter the worship center or sanctum. There is only one pathway to enter, signifying that everyone is equal. There are four doorways—east, west, north, and south—signifying that no matter who you are, everyone is welcome. In the United Church of Christ we say “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” As a blessing we had a drink of water filtered from the pool of water or nectar that surrounds the temple. We passed by the tree under which in Sikh tradition a Sikh was healed of his leprosy. From this point people enter the pool for healing, for karma, and to remove suffering.
What spoke to me the most of Guru Nanak was the langar or community kitchen on the premises. A free vegetarian meal is available at any time to anyone who wants it, regardless of caste, religion, nationality, gender, or economic status. Everyone eats side by side on the floor as equals. Some homeless folks live there or nearby; no one tells them to go away. The community kitchen can feed up to 100,000 people a day, especially during Sikh holidays. The kitchen is staffed mostly by volunteers. Anyone can volunteer for as long as they want.
We saw three or four large conveyor belt gas ovens baking roti or flat bread. After the hot bread landed in baskets, the baskets were carried to a room where a circle of women flapped the bread back and forth in their hands to cool it. Chickpea stew or chole and dal or lentils and rice were cooked in huge vats. On the tiled patio outside, groups of volunteers chopped onions, potatoes, and garlic. And there was a noisy, joyful crowd of folks in the dishroom where the metal plates were washed five times to ensure cleanliness.
Recently a friend posted what they thought were the key teachings of Jesus: radical love, lavish generosity, extravagant forgiveness, inclusive hospitality, compassionate action, selfless service, a passion for justice, creative nonviolence, and simple living. You could insert Guru Nanak Dev instead of Jesus and the list would be the same. If everyone around the world lived out these teachings, no matter their religion, no matter if they believe in God or not, the world would change for the better and we would know the meaning of true peace.
October 12, 2019
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| Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar, Punjab, India |
In January of this year I had the good fortune to travel to India with my husband, David. My mother’s oldest sister, Frances Colleen Gilmore, who died this past December at the age of 94, had been a Methodist missionary in India for 37 years and I wanted to see some of the places where she lived and worked.
One of those places was Batala in Punjab. She taught at a Methodist girls secondary school with Hildegard Grams, a missionary from Germany for whom a school there is named. While in Punjab we also visited Amritsar and the Harmandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple. A good friend arranged for us to have a tour. We washed our feet and hands before entering and surrendered our shoes. Even though the weather was temperate, the white marble was quite chilly so we walked wherever the bare surface was covered.
Everything we experienced about the temple connected us to the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev. We stood toe to toe, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others to enter the worship center or sanctum. There is only one pathway to enter, signifying that everyone is equal. There are four doorways—east, west, north, and south—signifying that no matter who you are, everyone is welcome. In the United Church of Christ we say “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” As a blessing we had a drink of water filtered from the pool of water or nectar that surrounds the temple. We passed by the tree under which in Sikh tradition a Sikh was healed of his leprosy. From this point people enter the pool for healing, for karma, and to remove suffering.
What spoke to me the most of Guru Nanak was the langar or community kitchen on the premises. A free vegetarian meal is available at any time to anyone who wants it, regardless of caste, religion, nationality, gender, or economic status. Everyone eats side by side on the floor as equals. Some homeless folks live there or nearby; no one tells them to go away. The community kitchen can feed up to 100,000 people a day, especially during Sikh holidays. The kitchen is staffed mostly by volunteers. Anyone can volunteer for as long as they want.
We saw three or four large conveyor belt gas ovens baking roti or flat bread. After the hot bread landed in baskets, the baskets were carried to a room where a circle of women flapped the bread back and forth in their hands to cool it. Chickpea stew or chole and dal or lentils and rice were cooked in huge vats. On the tiled patio outside, groups of volunteers chopped onions, potatoes, and garlic. And there was a noisy, joyful crowd of folks in the dishroom where the metal plates were washed five times to ensure cleanliness.
Recently a friend posted what they thought were the key teachings of Jesus: radical love, lavish generosity, extravagant forgiveness, inclusive hospitality, compassionate action, selfless service, a passion for justice, creative nonviolence, and simple living. You could insert Guru Nanak Dev instead of Jesus and the list would be the same. If everyone around the world lived out these teachings, no matter their religion, no matter if they believe in God or not, the world would change for the better and we would know the meaning of true peace.
I am very thankful for my friends in the Sikh community who have been friends to me from the beginning of my ministry at the New Ark United Church of Christ, even though they did not know me. It is because of their compassionate action, lavish generosity, inclusive hospitality, and selfless service that we are now more than friends. We are family.
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