There was a man without a home, his possessions in bags, buying a beer in front of me. He asked the clerk if they had matches. He shook his head no.
The man without a home looked truly dejected.
I bought a lighter for myself, and one for him, and followed him across the street.
I asked him if he was looking for matches, he said yes, and I handed him a lighter.
He seemed surprised and asked if I'd been in there.
I nodded yes.
He said thanks you and said that he would remember and pay me back someday.
I told him no worries, thinking how strange to think that someday he'd find me and pass a lighter my way.
But he's right.
In the sense of the universal self, I have no doubt that he will pass some kindness on to someone someday, and that person will be me, the anonymous intimately known, the intimate anonymous.
The practice of random acts of kindness provides spontaneity and humanity even in the most concrete of worlds.
Aren't we all, after all, simply looking for a salve from our suffering, whether it's beer, or a new car.
I am intriqued by the ideas promulgated in the 12th century by the Cathars, that the material world reflects a dualism created by forces of evil. That living in the material world, working, copulating, making war, all perpetuate an attachment to the world that is evil.
They were branded as heretics and persecuted by the Pope.
I find that mcuh of the threads that consitute my own belief are heretical.Whatever true christianity is seems to rely heavily on an ahistorical tautology - the shorter our institutional memory the more subject to abuse by forces interested in using religion to overpower others.
That is the danger of relying as much as we do on digital mediums for transfering information. Oral traditions have their own faults, but for minds practiced in memorizing and transfering information from one generation to the next learn that knowledge can be sustained within one's own mind.
Digital media allow much more information to be shared, but all that we know is deposited without, and if that information is lost, we will be without our most basic shared memories. And we do not use the fullness of what our minds are capable of.
There must be a balance among different means of transfering information and the power attached to that transference.
This is an age when the pathway is clear for a new set of axiomatic prophets.
Comments