My Dear, dear, Children & Grandchildren,
As my body was being flown South, away from you, my mind was in flight faster than the speed of light. It was naturally racing North towards you - You All – Dear Children and Grand Children! You, who with God are ALL that I have known and will always want to know and love a little better every day. No matter where, no matter when, no matter how - This is, will and must always BE!
While on the one hand, we were flying and fast moving across the night or day skies crossing different time zones, on the other hand, time often seemed to stand still. Was it so because I so very much wished for it to be so?
But! Alas! Regardless of my wishes, all fiction had to eventually cede over to and make room for reality. Reality came storming in with a multitude of very varied thoughts. My body was gone from Bellevue and from you! My body and my torn mind had arrived in Plaisance, Mauritius. Eventually as the plane door opened, I tried to breathe in new hope and new life with a heavy dose of renewed faith – But the taste of reality was to be strongly flavored by and impregnated with deep regret for both distant and recent memories! It is then, that in a desperate effort to divorce myself from myself, I resolved to become a little bit more each and everyone of you!!! I tried to view all that my eyes and my mind were perceiving with your eyes and from your point of view. Divorced from myself I was no longer viewing everything with the previously charmed eyes of a returning native/tourist returning to the magic land of his birth but rather through the analytical eyes of loving children, wanting the best for me. I asked myself: What would you dear children and grandchildren see, think and feel facing that scenery of stark contrasting realities? Beautiful nature created by God on the one hand and abominations marring the landscape on the other created by man! Shortly after we landed, like in a movie, together, you and I, we watched the frames of this land, the real, the imaginary and the visionary, all unreel themselves to provide me (through your eyes) with newer and better frames of reference. Thus, while exploring the possible vistas of my future and while viewing it all through your eyes, I could get a better picture of the bleak reality. I could hear you lovingly hear you ask the begging question: Is this really the place where daddy can and will indeed want to write and let us read about a new chapter of his life? Chapters filled with fishing stories, treasure hunting and tourist opportunities… Indeed, how long will daddy be able to stay there writing these chapters bodily far away from us? Will it be all worth it in the end? What will it reflect? For my part, the appeal of my birth place, the dream of starting to read the old/new world around me and to write about new chapters of my life, those excitements that the first impressions had aroused only two years ago and then again to a lesser degree last year were fast fading. Through your eyes, reality was setting in! It is one thing to view your birth place through the eyes of a transient tourist – It is quite another to view it through the eyes of your children and through those of an ex-emigrant – now turned into a possible immigrant! NOW, through your eyes, my dear children and grandchildren, I could see it all better for what it really IS! Thus, as one set of words rang and echoed loudly in my mind: What you see – Is what you get - This Is IT! This is It!! This is it!!! Another more persisting set of words framed the question that popped up continuously: What is it? What is this? What is that? What is it/this/that…? Those echoes gave birth to THE RECURRING QUESTION: For how long would I want to make an uncertain dream become my every day reality?
The only present reality I knew with certainty is that: No matter where I am, I will always want to be and therefore WILL BE with you all till the end of times on earth!
Thus my priority upon arrival in Curepipe was to go to Mauritius Telecom to get hooked up back to you ALL. After a long flight and a tiring day, I thought that I would sleep long and soundly until late the next morning. But obviously I sleep fast no matter where I am!
The call by the Muslim muezzin ‘in chant’ starting at 4:15 AM addressed to the multitude begging the ‘faithful to come to praise and to glorify God woke me up and instilled a new dimension on the universality of prayer here in Curepipe, Mauritius. Indeed it feels my heart with joy! In a most vivid way, it reminds me that we the prayerful Catholics are not the exception. It is comforting to find that in a multi ethnic society, we indeed have a common though most uncommon denominator: ‘GOD’. In a way I was comforted to note that, that call to prayer is indeed a form of ‘publicity’! It is an effort to sell God and the necessity to praise Him to the heathen multitude! I considered that here, this ancient vocal way of advertising freely the one and only God publicly, indiscriminatingly and loudly through the natural air waves far surpasses what we find in a secular society where paid advertising through selected air waves tends to ‘glorify’ mostly all the false gods of consumerism. Furthermore short of plugging their ears, even the atheists do not have the ability to ‘click’ and change the channel or to mute the voice of the muezzin. Like it or not, here God is worth being advertised. God is worth being made known broadly and is most certainly worth being thanked, glorified and begged every morning at the start of the day at 4:15 AM.
As if the call of the muezzin did not suffice to highlight for me the universality of prayer, at the crack of dawn, I opened my curtain to better watch daylight swallow the darkness of night. On the horizon the bright emerging colors revealed that the God of Power was indeed busy turning on His gigantic source of light – The sun was gradually appearing to brighten our life, to promote and to sustain growth in all living creation. Moving my eyes away from the horizon, right below my window I was delighted to find another most inspiring humble form of beauty. In silence, yet somehow possibly answering the call to prayer being sung loudly for all to hear, an elderly Indian woman was moving reverently and most discreetly in the twilight, around her own piece of this world. She was silently obviously praising and showing deep respect to her gods through her actions. The old lady, all bent over and modestly wrapped from head to feet in her sari was lighting wicks dipped in little earthenware pots filled with oil and placing them in her ‘kalimai’ (Indian grotto/altar) in praise of the gods of light and cleanliness – asking them to purify her at the very beginning of a new day.
Indeed, I had landed in another world! Indeed I was far, far removed from Bellevue, Washington. I realized that in my small Bellevue world, through a dose of arrogance I tended to think that starting my day with prayer set me apart as an odd ball exception rather than being the norm. Here, I had the impression that those who fail to pray or at least to advertise the need to worship at the start of every day are the exception. Here, the ‘Faithful’ are not alone, the prayerful are not closed cupboard religious! Here, instead the faithful and prayerful boldly proclaim their religion.
While I most definitely pride myself of my Roman Catholic Faith and heredity, while I find great security through the very unique apostolic succession and through the very UNIQUE claim that only Jesus ever made: “I am the son of God! I am the Way, the Light and the Truth”, I further considered all that was going on around me. It helped me to better understand the reading from the book of Revelation in the Bible – Ch. 7:2 - “Then, I saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the Living God….’ Then again at 7:4 – “Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty four thousand out of all the tribes of Israel.” Finally at 7:9 – “After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language, they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands.”
With that reading in mind, I was most humbled by all that I had just heard and observed. Yet that was still not enough. I was quickly moved from the last book of the Bible to the first book of the Bible. The vision of the huge and seemingly inert ‘morning glory’ flowers opening themselves and offering their beauty to the first rays of the sun was enhanced by the sound of the wide variety of birds greeting God and a new day with their songs feeling the air with so many notes. The aroma of the tropical flora was also rising with the first morning heat waves to offer their perfume to God in praise! Again how marvelously humbling? To think and to realize how the various forms of life choose to thank God for the gift of a new day!!! And to further think that we, human beings have been placed by God at the summit of His entire creation, at the top of the living chain. Genesis 1:28 – “Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living reptiles on the earth…” Indeed it is humbling to note that even lesser forms of life choose to somehow, anyhow glorify the living God while many who are blessed with the unique ability to think, to understand and to counsel, unfortunately choose through pride and righteousness to turn away at times from the very source of who they are!!!
God sure works in strange ways! Here in this ‘simple minded’ society composed of so many different faiths and colors, common people still venerate God albeit in uncommon manners while in more ‘developed’ circles the ‘elite’ having lost the common bond with their Creator choose to attempt to ‘godify’ things instead!
Things! Things are sure very different here!
As my body was being flown South, away from you, my mind was in flight faster than the speed of light. It was naturally racing North towards you - You All – Dear Children and Grand Children! You, who with God are ALL that I have known and will always want to know and love a little better every day. No matter where, no matter when, no matter how - This is, will and must always BE!
While on the one hand, we were flying and fast moving across the night or day skies crossing different time zones, on the other hand, time often seemed to stand still. Was it so because I so very much wished for it to be so?
But! Alas! Regardless of my wishes, all fiction had to eventually cede over to and make room for reality. Reality came storming in with a multitude of very varied thoughts. My body was gone from Bellevue and from you! My body and my torn mind had arrived in Plaisance, Mauritius. Eventually as the plane door opened, I tried to breathe in new hope and new life with a heavy dose of renewed faith – But the taste of reality was to be strongly flavored by and impregnated with deep regret for both distant and recent memories! It is then, that in a desperate effort to divorce myself from myself, I resolved to become a little bit more each and everyone of you!!! I tried to view all that my eyes and my mind were perceiving with your eyes and from your point of view. Divorced from myself I was no longer viewing everything with the previously charmed eyes of a returning native/tourist returning to the magic land of his birth but rather through the analytical eyes of loving children, wanting the best for me. I asked myself: What would you dear children and grandchildren see, think and feel facing that scenery of stark contrasting realities? Beautiful nature created by God on the one hand and abominations marring the landscape on the other created by man! Shortly after we landed, like in a movie, together, you and I, we watched the frames of this land, the real, the imaginary and the visionary, all unreel themselves to provide me (through your eyes) with newer and better frames of reference. Thus, while exploring the possible vistas of my future and while viewing it all through your eyes, I could get a better picture of the bleak reality. I could hear you lovingly hear you ask the begging question: Is this really the place where daddy can and will indeed want to write and let us read about a new chapter of his life? Chapters filled with fishing stories, treasure hunting and tourist opportunities… Indeed, how long will daddy be able to stay there writing these chapters bodily far away from us? Will it be all worth it in the end? What will it reflect? For my part, the appeal of my birth place, the dream of starting to read the old/new world around me and to write about new chapters of my life, those excitements that the first impressions had aroused only two years ago and then again to a lesser degree last year were fast fading. Through your eyes, reality was setting in! It is one thing to view your birth place through the eyes of a transient tourist – It is quite another to view it through the eyes of your children and through those of an ex-emigrant – now turned into a possible immigrant! NOW, through your eyes, my dear children and grandchildren, I could see it all better for what it really IS! Thus, as one set of words rang and echoed loudly in my mind: What you see – Is what you get - This Is IT! This is It!! This is it!!! Another more persisting set of words framed the question that popped up continuously: What is it? What is this? What is that? What is it/this/that…? Those echoes gave birth to THE RECURRING QUESTION: For how long would I want to make an uncertain dream become my every day reality?
The only present reality I knew with certainty is that: No matter where I am, I will always want to be and therefore WILL BE with you all till the end of times on earth!
Thus my priority upon arrival in Curepipe was to go to Mauritius Telecom to get hooked up back to you ALL. After a long flight and a tiring day, I thought that I would sleep long and soundly until late the next morning. But obviously I sleep fast no matter where I am!
The call by the Muslim muezzin ‘in chant’ starting at 4:15 AM addressed to the multitude begging the ‘faithful to come to praise and to glorify God woke me up and instilled a new dimension on the universality of prayer here in Curepipe, Mauritius. Indeed it feels my heart with joy! In a most vivid way, it reminds me that we the prayerful Catholics are not the exception. It is comforting to find that in a multi ethnic society, we indeed have a common though most uncommon denominator: ‘GOD’. In a way I was comforted to note that, that call to prayer is indeed a form of ‘publicity’! It is an effort to sell God and the necessity to praise Him to the heathen multitude! I considered that here, this ancient vocal way of advertising freely the one and only God publicly, indiscriminatingly and loudly through the natural air waves far surpasses what we find in a secular society where paid advertising through selected air waves tends to ‘glorify’ mostly all the false gods of consumerism. Furthermore short of plugging their ears, even the atheists do not have the ability to ‘click’ and change the channel or to mute the voice of the muezzin. Like it or not, here God is worth being advertised. God is worth being made known broadly and is most certainly worth being thanked, glorified and begged every morning at the start of the day at 4:15 AM.
As if the call of the muezzin did not suffice to highlight for me the universality of prayer, at the crack of dawn, I opened my curtain to better watch daylight swallow the darkness of night. On the horizon the bright emerging colors revealed that the God of Power was indeed busy turning on His gigantic source of light – The sun was gradually appearing to brighten our life, to promote and to sustain growth in all living creation. Moving my eyes away from the horizon, right below my window I was delighted to find another most inspiring humble form of beauty. In silence, yet somehow possibly answering the call to prayer being sung loudly for all to hear, an elderly Indian woman was moving reverently and most discreetly in the twilight, around her own piece of this world. She was silently obviously praising and showing deep respect to her gods through her actions. The old lady, all bent over and modestly wrapped from head to feet in her sari was lighting wicks dipped in little earthenware pots filled with oil and placing them in her ‘kalimai’ (Indian grotto/altar) in praise of the gods of light and cleanliness – asking them to purify her at the very beginning of a new day.
Indeed, I had landed in another world! Indeed I was far, far removed from Bellevue, Washington. I realized that in my small Bellevue world, through a dose of arrogance I tended to think that starting my day with prayer set me apart as an odd ball exception rather than being the norm. Here, I had the impression that those who fail to pray or at least to advertise the need to worship at the start of every day are the exception. Here, the ‘Faithful’ are not alone, the prayerful are not closed cupboard religious! Here, instead the faithful and prayerful boldly proclaim their religion.
While I most definitely pride myself of my Roman Catholic Faith and heredity, while I find great security through the very unique apostolic succession and through the very UNIQUE claim that only Jesus ever made: “I am the son of God! I am the Way, the Light and the Truth”, I further considered all that was going on around me. It helped me to better understand the reading from the book of Revelation in the Bible – Ch. 7:2 - “Then, I saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the Living God….’ Then again at 7:4 – “Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty four thousand out of all the tribes of Israel.” Finally at 7:9 – “After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language, they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands.”
With that reading in mind, I was most humbled by all that I had just heard and observed. Yet that was still not enough. I was quickly moved from the last book of the Bible to the first book of the Bible. The vision of the huge and seemingly inert ‘morning glory’ flowers opening themselves and offering their beauty to the first rays of the sun was enhanced by the sound of the wide variety of birds greeting God and a new day with their songs feeling the air with so many notes. The aroma of the tropical flora was also rising with the first morning heat waves to offer their perfume to God in praise! Again how marvelously humbling? To think and to realize how the various forms of life choose to thank God for the gift of a new day!!! And to further think that we, human beings have been placed by God at the summit of His entire creation, at the top of the living chain. Genesis 1:28 – “Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living reptiles on the earth…” Indeed it is humbling to note that even lesser forms of life choose to somehow, anyhow glorify the living God while many who are blessed with the unique ability to think, to understand and to counsel, unfortunately choose through pride and righteousness to turn away at times from the very source of who they are!!!
God sure works in strange ways! Here in this ‘simple minded’ society composed of so many different faiths and colors, common people still venerate God albeit in uncommon manners while in more ‘developed’ circles the ‘elite’ having lost the common bond with their Creator choose to attempt to ‘godify’ things instead!
Things! Things are sure very different here!
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