34 Drudgery and Transformation
There’s a part of the walk I like very much, where the road becomes a lane, with high banks on either side that are lined with trees and bushes and rocks. There’s a very different atmosphere here, and though it’s physically unlike, it reminds me of a walk I used to make as a child. I walk slowly so as not to disturb the birds roosting in the trees overhead. This lane eventually passes through our farmer’s fields: he had enough water this year to plant chilli, and following the poor monsoon the crop now commands a good price. I go to the well that’s been dug out, a large affair maybe fifty feet deep; or if the pump is on I go to a pipe that serves to irrigate the land.
After putting the water down round the trees I start the return journey, and by now the morning has woke up, and there are some creatures who have learned to live in this wasteland: munias in flocks, chatter as they go seeking seed in the grasses; a hoopoe waddles along picking insects from the sand with his long beak; and one morning I saw a family of lemurs, maybe 12 or more, in and around some mowa trees, they headed for the branches when they saw me, and we watched each other curiously for a while.
And now some of the villagers are braving the cold, bringing their animals out to graze; or a man walks by going for work in another village. Bullock carts clumsily bounce their way along the uneven roads, and some peasants, wrapped in shawls, appear leading a herd of goats, while their women folk, both young and old, follow along behind, their saris held up high to protect themselves against the clouds of dust cast up by careless hooves.
For many people life is an endless round of drudgery and toil, and it’s been like that for so long they know no different. Their life of unremitting labour is lived on the edge of existence, where a stroke of bad fortune can see them fall into difficulties they are never able to extricate themselves from. In this hard life I don’t say there is no kindness or joy, but the real wonder of it is that people can survive there at all. There are others who no longer know this grinding poverty, but their lives are empty also; they may be educated and might have learned to speak about themselves with a certain sophistication, but it doesn’t make their lives any the less mean.
His life had been like that; it is true he had seen the violence of the society around him – he had grown up in the shadow of Auschwitz and all the other atrocities, and of course he had rejected it, and turned away from it all. For years he had lived on the edge and had sought to maintain a distance between himself and that world. But in the end he had come to mirror the very thing he had rejected, a microcosm of all around him, his life had become ugly.
And then he had met someone who didn’t turn away from that ugliness, who accepted him and accepted others. He had fought so long and kicked so hard against all who had tried to reform him, that it was quite a shock to come upon someone who offered no resistance. And that man had taught him to sit quietly, and in that silence something had happened, and he had seen in a flash – a flash that had lasted for days – all the pain and sorrow, all the callousness and stupidity, all the pettiness and mediocrity of his life; and he saw that every action had been born of calculation, that the divine spark hadn’t been struck in his heart. It was an agony.
And then, God alone knows how, he had done something generous, it was truly remarkable, an act of kindness in his life again. And over the following months, one by one, all the dark things had started to fall away, and soon his life was transfigured. It was a miracle really, and no-one can say why it had happened to him, he obviously hadn’t done anything to deserve it; but at one point in his life he had been lifted up, and what he had seen had been enough to slay him.
coming through the gate
I am greeted by green
of field and hedgerow
every leaf a gift from god
the riches of this place
seem to say that life
is more than simply
survival in a desert
in the garden of life
there are trees and birds
and the presence of light
and grace and truth
as we learn to observe
we see with new eyes
that the kingdom of god
is quite close to hand
along different paths in dead of night
under sky and ancient starlight
with half moon setting slowly
we gather to tell the story
of shepherds who gave thanks in cave
of mother and child who came to save
in great quiet the new year arrives
as Jesus enters our hearts and lives
in god we are joined now together
committed to truth and to each other