What to do?! This is a regular expression that we have picked up here. It is an expression of resignation, exasperation and realisation that what you were hoping is not going to be. Nepal is a fatalistic culture with a lot written about the ways that impacts daily life but also interactions with the wider world (through say development projects) and a personal sense of agency. It is a useful expression when the power goes out for an hour, or the heavy cream is not heavy enough to whip– but I am not comfortable using it these days when flood waters [link here] ravished the entire country (and parts of the US and the UK), lives are lost and homes destroyed.

For some (with so little power), “ke garne” is what they say- understanding that this is their fate, due to the lives of their ancestors, an act of karma (in Hinduism and Buddhism- the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future lives/existences). I don’t want to suggest that this fatalistic notion is only in the Hindu and Buddhist people here, I have heard it in North America and here as well among Christians, but then it sounds more like, “it is all in God’s hands,” or “well, this must have been God’s will.” We don’t need to get into a theological discussion here, other than to say, I have had some interesting conversations about the dangers and the in-creeping of prosperity gospel here and I do not believe that God causes natural disasters to teach lessons, or as a result of bad behaviour. As an aside, God repented of that in Genesis after the great flood.

We have a justice focused calendar on our wall and in the midst of the the heavy rains and flooding all over the country we turned the page from September to October and there found the theme for the month of October “Preserving the Fragile Balance” with this illustration (by John Simpkins), and this quote “no one who isn’t us is going to destroy the earth, and no one who isn’t us is going to save it….We are the flood, and we are the ark.”- Jonathan Safran Foer.

While I love this quote and it goes so well with the beautiful prayer lecture from St. Theresa of Avila in the 16th century when she said, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks lovingly on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which He blesses all the world.” I always have to hold in mind the good words of Ted Koontz that “God must also be more than us and our work, because alone we will never be enough.”

So here I am sitting in my house as the rain pours down (yet again) saying both “Ke Garne!?” (what can you do!?) because our work/family travels that I was really looking forward to, our first work visit to the hospital, to meet with expats, offer a worship service, individual and family meetings, have been cancelled. I am disappointed about that, and yet, I am drinking tea out of a mug that my dear friend made me, with a back up power system that we just got installed, paid for by the sponsoring support of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. I know that my frustrations and disappointments are in stark contrast to those around me who have lost so much, or who have so much to lose, because I know that no matter what, I am living with more cushion, more safety than others around me have.