Shattered windscreen, rubble, red earth, some uniformed men with automatic guns, abandoned toys and a Christmas stocking in the backyard…. This is the world we encounter on the media, in haloed halls of international diplomacy and in our backyards. This is the world where a gunman kills a kind hearted pastor, another gunman draws up a hit list and marking the death day on the planner, a teenaged girl blows up her life in the name of a cause killing a dozen others, where small children are killed by their parents or are lost forever. This is also the world where West Bank is razed, Africa has only hazy numbers for its batches and batches of genocide victims and Afghanistan keeps pushing back further into the Dark Ages. We cannot forget transactions of another kind---of not having food on the table, of business empires built and lost, of millionaire robbers from Manhattan and of rich countries unable to provide its citizens with health care in spite of the amazing progress in science and technology.
Amidst this blinding dust storm that we have raised by our well-worn heels, where is any space or time for the reptiles, crabs, groupers, frogs—lowly creatures that they are or the giant panda, the black rhino and the wild cat, good in the Wild, who will vanish from this earth forever. If these animals could ever speak, they would probably have a round table to tell us that when species become extinct, the entire ecology around them slowly dies and no amount of ‘bail-out money’ can save an earth with ecological breakdown. Or maybe they will join their paws, wings and fins to pray for the Life that we are not able to. I am no expert—my high school biology taught me this much. And it is probably a no-brainer to understand that our worlds are so gravely interdependent—high finance, international boundaries, the internet and even a community member avenging his old disappointment.
How long will we know and hear everything, yet turn deaf and blind?
It is interesting to watch how hierarchy flourishes in our world. From the hawk high above to the burrowing worm underground, from the colonial white-skinned peoples to brown peoples to the black-skinned ones, from the urban, sophisticated to the rural tribals. Power is blinding and it makes us corrupt, losing sight of the ground where we take our next step. And Greed is unending. These are nothing new. For centuries, we have struggled with our own follies but today it has come to a point where we would not know how our end came.
Pretending over ages has taken away our ability to be humane, that which apparently makes us superior than the rest of the living world.
For once, can we open the doors of our hearts and minds and look at the neighbour and truly love her? Can we create spaces where we can listen and learn and not get into bitter fights over petty ‘my idea is superior to yours’? Can we remind ourselves that for all we do and speak ---when we come and go from this life, we are nothing but our sensient, spiritual selves?
A small start is all it takes.
I might not be able to change the country or the continent. The world is anyway too big. But can I do something in my community which comforts another member well enough to stop him from killing his kith and kin, from destroying the life forces that share the natural resources with us?
Terry Tempest Williams raises the call softly, deeply as only she can in
‘Finding Beauty in a Broken World’. Mosaic is what she calls it---from the classical art of Ravenna, Italy, to the dying Prairie dogs of American prairie lands and genocide ravaged Rwanda---everywhere she listens and feels with her whole being. She quotes
Katherine E.Standefer a line which rung through my head for days after I read it.
“Once upon a time, we knew the world from birth. Now we have to learn it again,
piece by piece understanding from the name out.”
Mosaic is made of broken pieces. Yet the skill in bringing these pieces together creates awesome beauty.
Williams says
“Finding beauty in a broken world becomes more than the art of assemblage. It is
the work of daring contemplation that inspires action.”
Can we accept that we are broken? Vulnerability is power without the rush and it can lead us to re-build our families, communities, countries and religion.
Shattered windscreen, rubble, red earth, some uniformed men with automatic guns, abandoned toys and a Christmas stocking in the backyard…. This is the world we encounter and this is the world we can rebuild.
