In 2004, I stayed with a family in Varanassi, India, while I was volunteering with Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity.

I say "a family," but it was a very extended one. Within one urban household lived sons, daughters, moms, dads, uncles, aunts, a grandmother and a grandfather. They had a large house squished into one of the busiest quarters in Varanassi.

But despite the size of the house, it seemed that the occupants spent time in only a few areas of it, and they shared most of these areas, at that.

When I arrived, for example, they gave me the room of one of the young women. But when I came home from working with the Sisters of Charity, I would sometimes find a number of the members of the family congregated in what I had so quickly come to think of as my room.

What were they doing? Oh, just sharing some time together. And what was their reaction when I entered my room? Aside from greeting me, nothing. They kept on chatting amongst themselves. Evidently, they didn’t think of it as my room!

Furthermore, during the dry season, some of the family members slept on the roof, a common practice in Varanassi during that time of year. And they didn’t have their own personal spot that was always theirs. They slept where they felt like sleeping.

In all of this, one of the most striking things about this family was that, although they were poor and there were a lot of people under one roof, including some small children, I never once heard "Mine!" let alone "MINE!!!"

In the two weeks I was with them, I never saw the children fight over anything. In all my few years of life, this was the first and last time I stayed with a family where the children did not have at least a few scuffles. Yet from what I was able to observe, the children did not seem to be under any kind of oppressive, authoritarian rule.

I guess it’s no great revelation that when we stop thinking of things as "mine," we have a lot less to fight about.

A number of years later, as an applicant, I experienced the same sort of thing at Madonna House.

Recently, one of my dorm mates, Neil, was headed outside to smoke a cigarette. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his boots; he was wearing mine! I laughed to myself thinking, "Oh, he made a mistake."

But as he stood there at the door (three of us, including Neil, were in the midst of one of those fascinating conversations), I remembered that his boots were quite different from mine. He couldn’t possibly have confused our boots!

Then I realized that his boots are lace-up and mine are slip-on. Mine are much easier to put on. He hadn’t made a mistake. He had put my boots on because it was simpler. He had probably figured I wasn’t likely to use them any time soon, and if I did, I could just ask him for them since he was standing just outside the door.

With this realization, a smile came to my heart. How wonderful that my brother in Christ knew that he didn’t have to ask for my boots!

My boots were already being used by Charlie in the morning for his knee exercises. It seems that my boots are heavier than his and make good weights.

I am just waiting for my third housemate to figure out a good use for my boots. For all I know, he might already be using them to hammer nails in the wall for the icons he is putting up!