Transfiguration, Hiroshima and Burma, the human connection.
Not only am I not a Christian but I am also most certainly not a religious person. With regard to the professions, also, I am not a big fan; estate agents do not inspire, insurance brokers seem dull and uninteresting and I simply have never really trusted lawyers. So you will understand my friends’ amazement to find that I am now up to my armpits in Christians and Lawyers with my work at Human Rights TV. More to the point you will understand my own bewilderment at finding myself respectful of these Christians I work with and even finding that I like the lawyers I deal with. Great Heavens! it appears they are all human after all!
Having made this discovery of unexpected humanity I have, never the less, not lost my own position in life. For me the whole multi-verse is a place of extraordinary beauty and totally, without doubt, the most mind blowing element of the reality within which my consciousness dwells. The more I understand the science the more I see the awe. There are days when just feeling the sensation of rain on my face leads me to take a deep breath and rejoice in my moment of life. How others want to interpret the life experience, how others choose to have faith is not something I want to question because I am an individual and my individuality can only be supported if I respect the rights of others.
Those others all have paths in life and maybe they do want to be solicitors or, even in times like these, estate agents but I have to be patient, understanding respectful and remember the experience of being human is not defined by a profession. Who we are, how we think and what we do, whatever we do, it is impossible for us to truly ‘touch’ another, to ‘be’ their ‘soul’ for even an instant for to do such would mean in that moment we were no longer individual. This individuality is actually what defines us and this individuality is the treasure of humanity. In a multi-verse we struggle to explain, an incomprehensible external reality we exist within, there we are, an experience of life difficult to express, a rush of consciousness from moment to moment, an individual and unique sensation of life. How amazing, how wonderful, how awesome but how comes we then set about destroying our small community of life on Earth and ignorantly and wantonly disrespecting each other with greed and war?
Can we change this state of affairs? Can we come to accept each other, respect our faiths, see the value in our communal differences and understand that we share one common value; we are all alone within ourselves no matter how we see the greater truths. Many will stand and shout against such views, “Things will never change, you can’t stop humanity killing itself, children in Africa will always starve, Christians will kill Jews who will kill Muslims who will kill Christians.” I ask you, do you honestly believe that we do not have it within ourselves, collectively and individually not only to hope in change but to make that change a reality? I am not talking about the word ‘change’ that any politician will use to get himself/herself shamelessly into a position of their own power, I am talking about our own internal ability to change.
Many people think I am too optimistic, an idealist, but I believe that change comes from ideals and optimism, it certainly can’t be born of pessimism or indifference. Thankfully there is something called the Butterfly Effect, briefly it means that small local changes can and do generate larger global changes. What this means is that we don’t have to change all of our lives, all of our behaviour right here, right now. Be generous to yourself, give yourself a chance, for instance, do you know that coffee production is responsible for deforestation and destroys individual and community lives? What do you do? Well if you just cut down your coffe consumption, maybe try to use only Fairtrade coffee (those few pence more per packet have to be worth it so save a planet and the lives on it), then that small action makes you a butterfly. Don’t try and do everything, just choose one thing and try and do that, once you have conquered that personal behaviour then maybe you can try something else, change doesn’t have to come all at once.
But change can be dramatic, change can be startling, for instance, I received a phone call from Nicholas Sagovsky earlier this year. He wanted myself and my wife to read at the Sunday evening service at Westminster Abbey. Now, as I have said, I am not a Christian and my wife is most certainly what would be described as a ‘heathen’. She is Asian, wholly without a shred of christianity in her cultural make-up and more likely to worship at the doors of Barclays bank than in a church. She is a materialist, confirmed and baptised within the faith of herself and her pocket but for all of this she is a loving and generous person. We both said yes to Nicholas because, despite his irredeemable Christianity, in working with him on the Independent Asylum Commission, we found him to be a wonderful and genuine man, a real humanitarian and someone we would be happy to support.
On the telephone he had explained that the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ was on the same day, had the same anniversary, as the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Nicholas saw an amazing and tragic connection in the moment Christ ascends to heaven in a blaze of light and the inferno in which thousands were slaughtered by so called Christian leaders. As my wife was the only Japanese he could readily call on he wondered if she would read a passage from Revelations in Japanese at the evening service. He also wanted me to read from the diary of a survivor of that inglorious day when the value of our humanity is so openly questionable.
So there we are, the non-believer and the heathen, in Westminster Abbey reading to Sunday evening worshipers. I was talking about change, how is that for a change, and make no mistake, we were not in any way cynical about this event, we were there to support our friend Nicholas and, as I have said before, respect those of faith and respect their faith even though it was not our own.
After the service we were approached by a young man who was barefoot and carrying a heavy backpack. His name was Ewan Hardie, and he had just arrived in London after having walked from Edinburgh barefoot. He had left a month before and taken with him a pound of rice as his only resource. This was a big butterfly flapping its wings before our eyes so we invited him around for a meal and recorded his story for Human Rights TV.
You see we may all have to become a profession, we may all possess a faith but what we most certainly all share is our humanity and the essence of that humanity is our own cultural and spiritual creativity. We can create atomic bombs, we can murder monks as they protest for democracy and we can create wealth for our own lives but we can also create a better world than the one we inherit from those who have gone before. Surely in the twenty first century we can do better than the history of slaughter, genocide, murder, rape and planetary destruction that has gone before, surely we can take responsibility and be a butterfly rather than a maggot. Between now and when you die what have you got to do that is more important? Have a cup of coffee and think about it.
Jack Adams
Project Leader
Human Rights TV
Human Rights TV is a volunteer based project that is creating an archive of Human Rights activities and testimonies for educational and developmental purposes. The project needs volunteers from all disciplines and is evolving strategies and practices from coding to marketing, from filming to editing, form training to working, that are defining new ways of thinking. The project is wholly owned by those who make it happen and is global and multi-lingual. If you have a skill or ability you want to share then contact us at info@humanrightstv.com
Category: Politics, Student News
About the Author (Author Profile)
I am Italian, from Florence. I am doing a MA at Soas, but on part time basis. At the moment I'm looking for a job...Subscribe
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