Mother Teresa (DK Biography)

We as an American society are at a loss for good role models. When asked to create biography posters of people they admire, middle school students typically choose professional basketball players like Kobe Bryant, singers like Justin Bieber, actors like Miley Cyrus, and soccer stars like David Beckham. Occasionally a student will choose a parent, sibling, or other relative that has inluenced the student in some way. While all of the people chosen by the students have at least one admirable trait, rarely has a student chosen someone like Mother Teresa, a woman who consistently exhibited truly admirable qualities while working tirelessly to make our world a better place.

If you can ignore her religious affiliation with Catholicism (if it bothers you), I am confident that you will find that she was a remarkable woman. This particular book explores her childhood (born as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) in the Ottoman Empire, the day she decided to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary, her years spent teaching children, and her life-changing decision to start the Missionaries of Charity, a group of nuns and eventually lay people that ventured into the depths of India's slums to treat and care for the sick and dying. Today the Missionaries of Charity has expanded internationally.

While reading this very quick yet informative biography, I found myself stopping frequently to grasp the magnitude of the effect Mother Teresa had not only on the people of India, but on all the people of the world. Her perseverence and dedication to a life of helping others is not only admirable, but inspirational. She touched those affected with leprosy when others wouldn't. She chose a life of simplicity over one filled with possessions and the newest gadgets. She chose to spend her life spreading love to those that needed it most. She was a refuge to people who had lost all hope.

I have so much to learn from this extraordinary woman. In a society ruled by television, videogames, superstars, grossly overpaid athletes and CEO's, this biography of Mother Teresa offers an opportunity to go within and observe how we're living our own lives. Who do we want to be? There is no reason why company CEO's and oil moguls should be earning million-dollar bonuses while people around the world starve to death and don't receive adequate medical care. There are more than enough resources on this planet to accomodate everyone, if only we could learn to adopt an attitude of sharing instead of greed. I think that only when we begin to understand that what we do to/for someone else we do to ourselves, will we be able to change this global catastrophe. We have a lot to learn about how to treat other people, and thus ultimately our selves.

This book is a starting point.