This was a beautiful week because the Muslims celebrated their Eid and it gave us all a chance to slow down. I almost treated it like a vacation week and it gave me the opportunity to paint three watercolors. I painted one exactly a year ago and I was discouraged by the results, but this time was much different. Oh, what I can do with spare time. It is rare that I get it, but it allowed me to work on some projects and get some rest at the same time.
I was talking with a few Filipinos at a birthday party and I said, "Every time you have spare time you cook and eat." They said, "There's nothing else to do. All we know to do is to have parties and go to Church."
I suggested that we do some arts and crafts, maybe take up sewing lessons, go to museums, and find other ways to expand the horizons for people and these women squealed. They shrieked, "We would love to do that." One woman said, "I love to crochet and knit." I asked if she would teach others and she said, "Father, I'm good enough to do that."
Oh, we have so many possibilities. I can't wait to get this started. There is so much life to live. I want to show them just how much their lives can be enriched.
On a more somber note, I have been watching news clips about slavery in the world. Slavery today has the largest numbers in our human history. We think we have wiped it out in the West, but it takes shape in different ways. In the Middle East, slavery is sanctioned even though it is always talked about as a legal arrangement.
It is enlightening for me to read the Gospels and the Old Testament in light of these present relaties. Life hasn't changed too much over 2,000 years.
Take a look at this website for information on slavery in the world today: http://www.walkfree.org/
Thank you for that link. I will explore that more another day. What an interesting post where, on the one hand, you were able to give the Filipinos freedom to express their creativity and desire to learn new things; and, on the other hand, we read about slavery even in first world countries, right in our own back yards. We are all responsible for the injustice in the world and we are all accountable to make things better for each person.
ReplyDeleteYes, we all participate in some way in our systemic institutional injustice. We have to combat these injustices one offense at a time at the local level while working for more sweeping changes at higher levels.
DeleteEven in so-called democratic countries like the U.S. limitations on access to resources stunt the freedom of those supposedly born to freedom. Perhaps the U.S. was a shining example for a brief period in history: by my reckoning, about 8 years From the voting rights At of 1965 to the oil embargo of 1973. Certainly it is no more.
ReplyDeleteThe weakening of public education and unions, globalization, tax policies favoring the rich and other such manipulations must be undone if freedom is to have much meaning. The masses must look away from the professional sports flickering on tv screens-- now in high definition-- stop stuffing Cheetos in their mouths-- and awaken to the Matrix-like reality our inattention has allowed descend upon us. The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance....
We give our freedoms away by deceptive tactics.
Delete