Saji Cumaraswamy was an amazing lady. She was the first girl to attend Trinity College but that's the least of her distinctions. I got to know her about 6-7 years ago. She used to comment on articles I wrote to the Daily News. Email was the medium. She was around 80 years then. She was one of my most insightful critics. Whenever she pointed error or critiqued positions I had taken she was utterly civilized. She was kind and gentle even when her objections were harsh. I loved her dearly and I will always cherish her beautiful ways and especially the way she smiled and said everything she was unable to say the last time I saw her. I told her 'I've never come across anyone so at peace with who they are, where they have been and where they believe they are going.' She smiled again. I kissed her and left. Two days later she passed away. This is something that was published on June 4, 2011 in the Daily News. I post this by way of tribute to a beautiful woman.
Several
people have emailed me over the past week or so about my title-choice. Some have noticed that a series of them began
with ‘Blessed are….’.
One of my most faithful readers who happens to be the sharpest critique,
a lovely lady over 80 years of age whom I love very much, emailed me a few days
ago:
‘I notice
that your recent articles in the Morning Inspection are titled 'Blessed
are...( which would be an imitation of the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus).
He had no copyright to the words, naturally, but I'm intrigued that you
actually use the phrase. Selwyn Hughes is my favorite Christian author (CS
Lewis is a close second). Many Christians think that the Beatitudes are a New
Testament version of the Mosaic Ten Commandments. SH thinks differently. He
says the Beatitudes should really be called the be-attitudes, in
contrast to the do-attitudes. They should really be thought of as the
'beautiful attitudes'.
Extremely
stimulating, I found. I often visit the
Beatitudes or ‘Be-attitudes’, reflect on them and find them inspiring. They do not in any way contradict the
be-attitudes contained in what to me is the incomparable called the Buddha-Vachana or ‘Word of our Budunwahanse’,
when one takes ‘God’ as metaphorand/or a cultural or faith-related explanatory
or framing devise. I am not belittling
the notion or the faith, let me hasten to add.
I am perhaps too poor in word use to write in a way that guarantees no
offense is taken.
The reason I
used those words in this particular series of articles has little to do with
religious faith or philosophical predilection.
I used them to refer to those aspect pertaining to the process which
ended in May 2009 whereby this island and all those resident in it were
decisively liberated from the fears and threats associated with terrorism. I
used those words, moreover because those who vilify that incredible effort to
save close to 300,000 people held hostage by the most ruthless set of people to
walk this earth in remembered history are ignorant about the things I commented
on or else take great pains to trivialize and even footnote the heroism and
humanity embedded therein.
My friend’s
observation opened a new window and therefore brought new light to these as
well as other more enduring questions about being and becoming. Ways of ‘being’ do involve ‘doing’ of
course. Those who are meek, those who
mourn, those who hunger for justice, those who are merciful, those who are
clean of heart, those who make peace and those who suffer, for example, are
seen to ‘be’ in these ways not on account of assertion, but the way they
conduct themselves and how these qualities become manifest in thought, word and
deed. It is not in the disavowal or the
aversion, the desisting in accordance with commandment, but the conscious
decisions to do this and not that, to make choices, take positions and act
accordingly that one earns the descriptive ‘blessed’. I am not a student of the Bible so I shall
not venture into the philosophical underpinnings of these contentions. Common sense tells me that the commandments
and beatitudes complement one another. The
former are of the no-no type and the latter of the yes-yes, if you will.
In that
series I was focusing on certain qualities which stood out during a difficult
and tragic time in our history. Mercy
was exercised and whether or not this earned mercy for the merciful in the
matter of transgressions indulged in is not important; what is crucial, I
believe, is to ‘be’ and not to ‘be on account of fascination with promised
consequence’. Those who are/were clear
of heart, I have noticed, get their eyes uncluttered of all kinds of garbage. They are better able to perceive the eternal
verities.
Many people
called themselves ‘peace-makers’ even as they buried reason and intellect while
using heart-disguise instead of heart.
Those who were vilified but nevertheless did the ‘had to be done thing’
have delivered peace. What they are called is only of secondary interest. If indeed there is some entity out there that
passes out labels, I am sure they will not be downgraded for not letting
label-want dictate action. There were
those who suffered persecution and vilification to the maximum. They were not thanked for showing error and
suggesting corrective. They were and
still are vilified. They nevertheless
won for the rest of their fellow-citizens a land, a nation, a community.
As for
myself, I feel blessed to have people like my dear friend taking the trouble to
read what I write and offering comment and criticism, and in the process
showing me things I might have not seen otherwise.
I remember a
man who embodied most of the beautiful-attitudes. Gamini Haththotuwegama, widely
recognized as the Father of Street Theatre in Sri Lanka. I have seen him at the end of each
performance, regardless of location or audience, going down on his knees, hands
clasped in worship. The audience made
him, this I concluded. We don’t
acknowledge this often enough.
My friend,
who will one day write down her story, deserves thanks and so too all those who
read what I write, whether or not they acknowledge, agree or even notice my
byline. I bow low. I am on my knees.
I murmur:
‘Blessed are those who indulge us in our humble efforts by simply reading what
we write, for they make our “being” more tender, and for they encourage and
edify, in their words and in their silences’.
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance
writer. Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene.
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