A time to go down on my knees and show veneration
Several people have e-mailed me over the past week or so about my
title - choice. Some have noticed that a series of them began with
‘Blessed are....’. One of my most faithful readers who happens to be the
sharpest critique, a lovely lady over 80 years of age whom I love very
much, e-mailed me a few days ago:
‘I notice that your recent articles in the Morning Inspection are
titled ‘Blessed are...(which would be an imitation of the Sermon on the
Mount given by Jesus). He had no copyright to the words, naturally, but
I’m intrigued that you actually use the phrase. Selwyn Hughes is my
favourite Christian author (CS Lewis is a close second). Many Christians
think that the Beatitudes are a New Testament version of the Mosaic Ten
Commandments. SH thinks differently. He says the Beatitudes should
really be called the be-attitudes, in contrast to the do-attitudes. They
should really be thought of as the ‘beautiful attitudes’.
Series of articles
Extremely stimulating, I found. I often visit the Beatitudes or
‘Be-attitudes’, reflect on them and find them inspiring. They do not in
any way contradict the be-attitudes contained in what to me is the
incomparable called the Buddha-Vachana or ‘Word of our Budunwahanse’,
when one takes ‘God’ as metaphor and/or a cultural or faith-related
explanatory or framing devise. I am not belittling the notion or the
faith, let me hasten to add. I am perhaps too poor in word use to write
in a way that guarantees no offence is taken.
The reason I used those words in this particular series of articles
has little to do with religious faith or philosophical predilection. I
used them to refer to those aspect pertaining to the process which ended
in May 2009 whereby this island and all those resident in it were
decisively liberated from the fears and threats associated with
terrorism. I used those words, moreover because those who vilify that
incredible effort to save close to 300,000 people held hostage by the
most ruthless set of people to walk this earth in remembered history are
ignorant about the things I commented on or else take great pains to
trivialize and even footnote the heroism and humanity embedded therein.
Hunger for justice
My friend’s observation opened a new window and therefore brought new
light to these as well as other more enduring questions about being and
becoming. Ways of ‘being’ do involve ‘doing’ of course. Those who are
meek, those who mourn, those who hunger for justice, those who are
merciful, those who are clean of heart, those who make peace and those
who suffer, for example, are seen to ‘be’ in these ways not on account
of assertion, but the way they conduct themselves and how these
qualities become manifest in thought, word and deed.
It is not in the disavowal or the aversion, the desisting in
accordance with commandment, but the conscious decisions to do this and
not that, to make choices, take positions and act accordingly that one
earns the descriptive ‘blessed’. I am not a student of the Bible so I
shall not venture into the philosophical underpinnings of these
contentions. Common sense tells me that the commandments and beatitudes
complement one another. The former are of the no-no type and the latter
of the yes-yes, if you will.
In that series I was focusing on certain qualities which stood out
during a difficult and tragic time in our history. Mercy was exercised
and whether or not this earned mercy for the merciful in the matter of
transgressions indulged in is not important; what is crucial, I believe,
is to ‘be’ and not to ‘be on account of fascination with promised
consequence’. Those who are/were clear of heart, I have noticed, get
their eyes uncluttered of all kinds of garbage. They are better able to
perceive the eternal verities.
Humble efforts
Many people called themselves ‘peace-makers’ even as they buried
reason and intellect while using heart-disguise instead of heart. Those
who were vilified but nevertheless did the ‘had to be done thing’ have
delivered peace. What they are called is only of secondary interest. If
indeed there is some entity out there that passes out labels, I am sure
they will not be downgraded for not letting label-want dictate action.
There were those who suffered persecution and vilification to the
maximum.
They were not thanked for showing error and suggesting corrective.
They were and still are vilified. They nevertheless won for the rest of
their fellow-citizens a land, a nation, a community. As for myself, I
feel blessed to have people like my dear friend taking the trouble to
read what I write and offering comment and criticism, and in the process
showing me things I might have not seen otherwise.
I remember a man who embodied most of the beautiful-attitudes. Gamini
Haththotuwegama, widely recognized as the Father of Street Theatre in
Sri Lanka. I have seen him at the end of each performance, regardless of
location or audience, going down on his knees, hands clasped in worship.
The audience made him, this I concluded. We don’t acknowledge this often
enough.
My friend, who will one day write down her story, deserves thanks and
so too all those who read what I write, whether or not they acknowledge,
agree or even notice my byline. I bow low. I am on my knees.
I murmur: ‘Blessed are those who indulge us in our humble efforts by
simply reading what we write, for they make our “being” more tender, and
for they encourage and edify, in their words and in their silences’.
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