“ Sir, we ought to teach the people that they are doing wrong in worshipping the images and pictures in the temple.”
Ramikrishna: “That’s the way with you
Do you think God does not know that he is being worshipped in the images and pictures? If a worshipper should make a mistake, do you not think God will know his intent?”
~ The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Taken by me from Buddy and Seymour’s room in J.D Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. ~
I have now arrived in Nueva Suyapa, and, resting, I sit on my porch, enjoying the activities of the night. It is here that yearning and satisfaction; anguish and joy; fear and confidence, live together holding hands, one because of the other, the other in response to the other, it is hard to know after a while where it came from and who dealt what first. It is here that I live, and here that I come with a lot of the same.
The winding paths nearing entry ways to both well planned and randomly arranged houses offer an exciting through passage for children to lose a little control as they bowl down the hill. However, also it seems a perfect spot to jump some unsuspecting individual, to grab a trustful child. And outside, I see two guys standing on the corner, and maybe, I would like to think, they are simply talking, simply discussing the day, but it does not look like that to me. And on that same corner, were two kids consumed with the game pong just twenty minutes before; and I watched them until they noticed me because the process was so fascinating at that moment. As these two men appeared at that such corner, the song Alabare wafting from the church at the top of this mini hill seemed to create a new mood, because in some way, we all could feel it though it had no way of really understanding this condition. Not unless it was an honest praise; unless it was an angry Psalm turned grateful; unless it says “Oh God; my God; why has thou forsaken me”. But maybe, I feel that way more than they do, maybe they have something to teach me in that area. Maybe we have something to teach each other; humans struggling with human things when we take money out of it. When we stop looking at the outward signs and all that may represent in this stuff driven world. I am not proposing that I understand, just because I struggle, the level of material, emotional and social struggle that exists here. I am also not proposing that the emotional and spiritual and social ways of seeing oneself supersedes the physical, but maybe I am saying as I mentioned before, that the physical is simply a representation of those ways of being treated, being seen by the rest of the world, and in turn, the way they begin to see themselves. I am instead simply making the point that it is better to stop comparing levels of pain based on things our society deems as most important and to start to realize in many ways we all struggle; and maybe it is better to see it as struggling together than to start creating hierarchies based simply on lucky opportunity that one may have been allowed to have in one area instead of another. It just so seems that a whole community seems to be unlucky in many areas, and a whole different one very lucky in many specific areas. And it is at that point we notice, it is not luck at all; it is intentional malice, by one group over another, it is power stealing and grabbing, it is suffering never realized, deeply hidden and turned on its own. But it still does not make them very lucky or happy in the end. And some of us know that story all too well, and we do not want to perpetuate it, but our desire to help can sometimes further enforce such untrue artificially created feelings of inferiority in these people. I guess there in lies grace’s duty; to lift the veils of good intention and even grief guided bad ones and help us start to try to understand those of one another.
I guess at that point I can see a mother shaming a child for simply being a child as only doing what has been done to her, so many times, therefore only doing what she has known to be right, even if it is a way to grab a little piece of untouched power from the one group of people with which she feels she has been given some influence.
And the thirteen year old who says to her nine year old sister who is taking care of the baby “I am not the mother,” well she has probably taken care of more than her fair share for her age, and is maybe finally learning to stand up for what she wants and needs, even if it is not in the best way and at the expense of this such sister who simply wants some one to leave the baby with for a second so she can join the spelling game, because she knows she is a very good speller, and she loves it.
And I guess, in the end, that is what I want to do while here, I want to notice the smart girl who loves reading and spelling and help her find a way to do it, if the way is not very available to her, and if I have a way of making that more available.
I want to realize that the very same woman who shamed that child was also there when so many parents weren’t. And communicate that she did join in the game and let the little kid stuff her face full of a cookie when most others did not participate; and she did only laugh when that girl stuffed her face a little too full, and allowed everyone watching to laugh at and with her too, instead of getting annoyed. I want to make it known that that was her way of loving and knowing how to love; and I want her to find out how to use that rough charisma to rightfully regain that power from those who stole it from her, and to encourage those sitting on the sidelines to regain it too.
And maybe, maybe even first, maybe better, at the same time, I will finally do the same for myself, and very probably, they will help me as I explore such an option; I will write because I always loved to write, and sometimes, I can even be good at it. I will read because I have such a wondering imagination that would love to be transported to other worlds for at least some period of time; and then in turn, bring the lenses of such worlds back to this one, allowing for some type of cross world exchange. I will let myself wonder, and let myself ask questions, because when attentive, I always was so curious. I will also allow myself to be funny, because sometimes I can be, when I try a little less; and make room for laughing at the bizarre, the ironic and the every day, and to notice those things. Because, as Zooey said " there are nice things in the world---and I mean nice things, we're all such morons to get so sidetracked." (Salinger, Franny and Zooey p.152)
That I think, is our task, because the gold, we don’t need to bring that; it is already here, it already was here hundreds and thousands of years ago, it was simply taken by the conquistadors and every body else who followed; we just need to allow them to uncover it, reclaim it, and then, help people like ourselves to see it as such, and this time, allow it to stay with its rightful owner, realizing, we don't need to take theirs, but we can all share, for we've got our own gold too.
No comments:
Post a Comment