On the day I arrived in El Progreso, I took a bus to visit a little town not far from there. At the same time, a gentleman got on, to proclaim the word of the Lord Jesus. This is quite an every day event here; often you share the bus with pill merchants, water salesmen, or people who try to palm off batteries or TV aerials on you, and from time to time an evangelist belongs to such a group. Soon enough, I dozed off to the gently undulating tone of his winged words until I woke with a start when he said ‘Holanda’. The man was declaiming passionately against the Netherlands. In this cursed land of Sodom and Gomorra, homosexuals are allowed to marry and adopt children, and to make things even worse, people voluntarily let themselves be assassinated when sick. The people hung on his every word and I imagined a loud jeering and cheering would have risen up if he had called for a boycott of Shell and the Philips light bulb.
Distorted concepts tend to emanate from a lack of balance in the life of an individual or a group. Sometimes poverty is to blame for this, often a distorted interpretation of centuries old writings, or a mixture of the two, and usually fear is the root that is hidden underneath. Fear of change, fear of loss of power; fear that one’s convictions may be wrong.
History shows us that time always re-establishes the balance. All the realms known throughout history, without exception have faced their downfall after the height of their power.
The Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and also Caesar, Nero and their Roman friends, have one after another, believed that they had established a regime to last forever. The Franks did not achieve it and Napoleon met his Waterloo. A radical example is that of Hitler. His malignant Third Reich so excessively disturbed the balance, that barely two decades after his assumption of power, equilibrium was being restored. Her Majesty the Queen’s Commonwealth has slowly crumbled away and Mother Russia, the last on the list so far, has become a sick old granny in a matter of years.
Today also, our planet suffers from a severe lack of balance. This is the cause of many wrongs that can only be solved permanently if the equilibrium is restored; between rich and poor, between religions, between peoples and cultures, between man and nature.
In my opinion, now is the time for us to act to restore balance willingly. On the Internet I read that a 1999 survey of the United Nations revealed that the 225 wealthiest people on Earth own as much as the 2.500.000.000. (2.5 billion!) poorest.
For those who have nothing, the smallest amount of help, which may seem just a drop in the ocean to those more fortunate, can mean the difference between life and death.
Everybody merely has to assume his own share of the responsibility, as an individual and as part of a group. The rich by reasonably remunerating the poor for their work as a coffee picker or clothes weaver, the carnivores by showing the animals respect and not mistreating them shamelessly until inevitably, the most terrifying diseases break out. After all, nature looks for balance there too, so huge numbers of cows and pigs will continue to die until we will finally change our bestial behavior. The strictly religious by recognizing that their interpretation of the Divine may not be the only path, the energy user by making clean energy from the Sun, the water or the wind. The entire world community by finally realizing that in the end we will all be better off with balance: by sharing some of that which we have in excess and by not taking what is not ours.
‘Oh, if only I were the president,’ sighed the little boy who thought he had an answer to all the questions but who had still so much to learn himself.
Since a few days, Jorge came to the Patio with a deep cut in his foot, that grew dirtier every day, due to the lack of shoes. Finally I gave him an antibiotic salve and two pairs of socks to protect the wound. I couldn’t buy him shoes because Jorge is only little, he would lose them to a bigger boy within the hour. Overjoyed with all the attention, he threw his arms around my neck and long after the wound was healed, he still came to beg for a bit of salve, a plaster and, above all, a hug.
That is only a drop. But who has the nerve to tell Jorge that this drop will vanish in his vast ocean of despair? Who dares tell that eleven-year old child that his miserable, pathetic life is likely to end in a year or five anyway, due to an overdose of glue, on a stone hard bench in the park on a chilly night, a night with no stars, when his sticky lungs admit defeat and he dies in desperate solitude without having ever embraced love.
If that should ever happen, then at least Jorge will have known for once what it’s like to be taken care of, then at least he will die knowing what it feels like to be loved.
Thanks to the combined efforts of Honduran, American and European people, who sense that the restoration of balance is more important than internal differences, Jorge and all his friends are offered a chance of a dignified future.
Every day on our Earth, 30.000 children under five years old die of starvation and lack of hygiene. This corresponds to ten Pentagon wings, twenty collapsed twin towers and forty airliners. Every day, Sundays and national holidays included. Children above five years and adults not counted. The time is right to do something about that now.
‘Will you take me with you? Can I come to your country too? Luis stares right through me with his piercing eyes, and I feel guilty even before I can make up an answer.
‘You won’t like it Luis, in my country it’s cold and we have no frijoles or tortillas back there’.
‘Well you can buy me a jacket, you’re rich anyway…and you’re fat enough so I suppose you have plenty to eat’. I try to avoid his eyes and say that we do not speak his language where I live, but he retorts that he can certainly learn to speak my tongue if I have learnt his. Why do I feel cruel? I have given enough haven’t I? Why should I feel guilty?
‘Luis I only have this very small place at home’.
‘Oh don’t worry, I have no place at all, I would be happy with a mattress in a little corner’.
I need to look away. I know that I will burst into tears if I look into the depths of those eyes one more time. Pathetic softie, too much of a coward to cry in front of that courageous child, too afraid to show my weakness, too scared to be honest. But I am so terrorized that I can physically feel my impotence and distress. Despair stings like a lance, cramping my stomach, misery presses down on my chest and makes me catch my breath.
He promises he’ll be in front of the telly all day, ’cause sure enough I have one. Impossible Luis. Or he can help me in my job, or sell mangoes and coconuts in the streets to bring in a bit of cash. No Luis. Go to school perhaps.wouldn’t it be wonderful if he knew how to write his name? Forget it Luis. No passport.he’ll hide in my luggage. Luis you can’t..
Please, make him stop this torture, I don’t want to know, he can’t come with me. In a last desperate effort I throw back at him ‘But Luis, I cannot possibly become your father just like that, now can I?’ Once again his eyes pierce me. ‘Of course you can, I don’t have one anyway and I really like you so be my dad!’
A teardrop falls on my cheek. Luis catches it with his finger. He looks at it and then he looks at me again. My son gets up. He walks away on me and he doesn’t turn back.
Thank you dear Luis. You are to me the symbol of our world community’s dualism. When I look into your eyes, I drown in the darkness of your fears, but when I see your heart, I become one with the Light of your Love.
With my gratitude to all the Children.
WITH LOVE AND WITH LIGHT.
Bas
