Ch.2 - Ravi's Walking From East to West

"Sometimes

in the shadows

of one's self

lie the problems,

and in the shadows

of one's shaping

lie the answers."

(Ravi Zacharias, Walking From East to West, Ch.2, p.40)

In this chapter entitled "Long Shadows", Ravi takes a look at his ancestry and how it has shaped him. Born in South India from whence it is said that "India's brains emerge", Ravi moved with his family to North India at a young age and sees himself as a product psychologically and culturally of both. It was to the south of India that the apostle Thomas came with the gospel and one of the largest churches, the Mar Thoma church, is named after him. His southern Indian heritage is apparent in the the kind of ministry he sponsors with its philosophical and intellectual bent.

It was in South India that he learnt more about his grandfather, a professor and linguist who co-authored the Malayalam-English dictionary. He was told by a former student of his grandfather who heard him speak that he had the same sense of humour with a touch of irony and sarcasm. He was struck that his own father also had the same wit; he says, "...I believe his type of humor bordered on genius--that rare ability to caricature reality in the moment and to play on words, adding a creative twist to a situation that reveals a different dimension to its reality..." I can attest it is in the genes because his sister, Sham, is my pastor's wife, and she is hilarious. (I also see this kind of humor in my friend Amrita in Yesu Garden.) Ravi sees his love of words and the ability to 'generate wonder' as a bequest of his grandfather.

Ravi is also cognizant of how living in the West since he was twenty has given him a keen understanding of how the Western mind thinks, and helps him to be a sympathetic listener to both the Easterner and Westerner, and helps him in addressing the question, "How can I connect with the soul of this man or this woman?" God has made a marvellous investment in him in allowing him "to learn to think in different languages...shaped by different cultures, to have a completely different way of measuring values in order to decipher the between-the-lines hints of the world and....the breaking points within each."

Ravi also gives us a glimpse into his early family life in a culture where you kept your "private heartache private", where you dare not wash the family dirty linen in public". You were expected to become influential. I grew up in a similar culture where you aspired to become either a doctor or lawyer. His siblings all had qualities and achievements that brought affirmation from his father. But for some reason, Ravi became the brunt of his father's anger and could never live up to his expectations. His father was a brilliant and driven man who had contributed greatly to Indian culture. Ravi was left with a life that seemed purposeless, without direction. But he had a special connection with his mother and credits her heart with shaping his soul. Her compassion for the poor left Ravi with a tender heart that underlies his ministry--RZIM Wellspring International-- that reaches out to destitite and abused women in Asia.

Ravi sees in his history how God marvellously planted "the roots of order" for his calling and it was much later that his hunger for purpose was fulfilled.

What about you? Can you see how your ancestry has shaped you to where He has called you now?