By Johnny Coomansingh
Although this article is by no means an opportunity to pontificate or a moment to be pedantic, it borders on the cusp of moral education. Some of the stories and instructions I heard and received as a child fortified my resolve to follow after righteousness; right doing. It is a stark reminder of the maxim: ‘Children Learn What They Live.’ In terms of the way things are happening in our world today, people need to take stock of themselves. In Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), certain ‘good behaviours’ seem to be presently skidding off the tracks at home, at school, and in the wider community. Crime and violence on this landscape is too high! We already have 35 murders for the year. I keep asking the question: How Many more must die?
Maybe I am dreaming, but our mindset should be one of care, concern, consideration and understanding. We must be willing to stand up for something or fall for anything. We must have a dharma; the eternal and inherent nature of reality, regarded in Hindu philosophy as a cosmic law underlying right behavior and social order. Where greed is operant in the society, the resultant effect is crime. It was Gandhi who said: “This world has enough for every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.” According to Kevin Birth in his ethnographic text Anytime is Trinidad Time, ‘future gratification’ seems to upstage ‘instant gratification.’ Nonetheless, it was clear in the book that there are those in T&T who prefer instant gratification; we want it fast and we want it now! This could be the reason for the country’s surge in criminal activity.
So what is your dharma? In other words, what is your duty? What is your purpose? Is it simply being painstakingly dutiful to a religion? Is it obeisance to a cause or a cult, accompanied with the arduous completion of tasks in daily rituals to some deity, stuck in the quagmire of self-made opinions? In the book of Ecclesiastes, inspect carefully what the wise man Solomon said: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” So simple a statement, yet we make it so complex. Let’s look at the example below.
Mishael, Azariah and Hananiah, three Hebrew boys who stood before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden idol on the plains of Dura purposed in their hearts that despite the punishment, despite the fire, the heat and imminent death, they will not bow down or genuflect to the statue. Imagine that they just stood up there amidst the thousands or millions of citizens looking around like nobody’s business. I still marvel at what they told the king: “… O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. In other words, they told the ruler that what he was doing was none of their business. Note carefully here that I used their Hebrew names, Mishael, Azariah and Hananiah, not the names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego…the idolatrous monikers that Nebuchadnezzar ascribed to them.
I guess we all know by now that people tend to remember the negative things about others rather than the good things, so even today, we have forgotten their real names and continue to refer to them as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Although the three youths were wrongfully labeled and deceitfully renamed, they understood their calling, and their purpose, and they held fast to the good that they were taught from childhood. They remembered that they were a people with praise and light. During my ramblings with the concept of light I realized that there is a moment between light and darkness, which we tend not to decipher. Is it that we chose not to?
Understanding what is happening here is so insightful and powerful. By changing their names, Nebuchadnezzar thought that he could force them to change their minds, their views, their history, and their outlook on life as captives in a strange land. In other words, he wanted to convert them, to make them true idolaters. Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah chose to obey what they knew to be right despite the consequences? By the way, what consequences? Did they entertain consequences? This is what I call commitment! When the opportunity presents itself, do we stand our ground or cower in a corner because of what people will say or do to us?
One of my favourite examples is found in the story of Moses. Moses chose to serve God, whatever he conceived God to be. He counted it all joy to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the dalliance for a season with Egypt. Egypt in this sense is used as a metaphor representative of pomp, bigotry, arrogance, debauchery, excessiveness, depravity, idolatry, and cultural insularity. Instead of wallowing in the mess pot of evil, and wickedness, concomitant with criminal activity, we must choose to channel our God-given energy into productive service to humankind. We must find pleasure in assisting with lifting each other’s burdens, to enjoy the psychic rewards in blessing others.
The admonition given here is that we should choose to serve, to remain humble, to seek to do good and realize the beauty in assisting others, to acknowledge the fact that we have no life of our own…to know that we do not own even the air we breathe. Can you remember the first day you took your first breath of air into your lungs? Wasn’t it miraculous? Can you remember? No, you cannot! Yet you grew into someone wonderful and precious. Just think about it a little more and you will find that you are a living miracle! You did not happen by some magic. We must recognize that we are but puny diatoms in this majestic, magnetic universe; so tiny, so apparently insignificant, yet “fearfully and wonderfully made.” What a privilege we have in choosing life rather than death. Life and death is like yes and no, good and evil, all or none, no compromise.
At the very basic level, compromise is finding middle ground, negotiating, giving and taking, making a deal, bargaining. Throughout our lifetime we tend to take other people’s concerns, values, and feelings into account before we make a decision. The power to choose, to say yes or to say no is more than just an art; it is about maintaining your conviction. Some people say that you must go with the flow. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do;’ try not to upset the proverbial applecart…stay quiet, do not rock the boat. Yes, you can forgive ‘seventy times seven,’ take a slap on both cheeks, but in the same vein we must understand that we must not give our bread to the dogs or cast our pearls before swine.
We tell ourselves that political correctness is all that matters. We tend to believe that we must become servants of protocol. The jellyfish, no backbone attitude does not promote strength and honor. Bending to suit the whims and fancies of your peers, friends, schoolmates, colleagues, and associates negates the development of trust. The question remains: Can people trust you when you present with fickle and capricious overtures? The ‘not so wrong’ mentality is not a good attribute. What does ‘not so wrong’ mean anyway? I guess it means the same as “…you shall not surely die.”
On Adventist Street, in Sangre Grande where I spent seven years of my early life, influencers and influences were all around me. My escape from imbibing illegal drugs and engaging in illicit activities was all about choice, sifting and winnowing the right from the wrong. How do we know how to sift? Knowing how to sift comes about with spiritual discernment. Hear what Solomon said: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?”
Solomon did not go to any ‘Witch of Endor,’ any soothsayer, wizard, obeah man, Tarot card reader, or palm reader to find his answers and to negotiate for his people. You cannot be a ‘scorpion’ and want to follow the good path. Scorpions do one thing; they sting. If they find nothing else to sting, they sting themselves. How can you stop stinging yourself? Stop looking at yourself and turn your eyes upon more noble and worthwhile activities. As Deepak Chopra said, “… in every problem can be found the seeds of opportunity.” This is all about the big word, choice. You have that power that no one could take away from you.
Many people who are seeking for money and material gain, will sometimes, as my mother would say, “hold the devil by his tail” to get what they want. Note carefully that getting money is not wrong at all! It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. Someone said that “as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined.” Millions are bent into conforming to dishonourable exploits because they are not in control of their own minds. It is as though they are hypnotised by some evil and treacherous force to commit a crime. Many have not been educated, for education makes an individual fit to live and fit to live with.
If it is still opaque; if what I wrote in my book: Seven Years on Adventist Street (published in 2015) is still lacking clarity to some. If the words are still not plain or transparent, then the reader has a deep need; the need to order some new spiritual spectacles. When people choose to do the right thing, others tend to look at them as weird, crazy or peculiar.
John the Baptist surely appeared to be crazy but he chided the authorities with his words: “You are of your father the devil…you whitewashed sepulchres.”
I leave this with you. When you are in doubt about who you are, where you are, and what you are doing at any given moment, remember there is a yardstick that you can use to test and measure yourself. Just reflect on what Saint Paul said in the book of Philippians:
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
To ‘bow down or not bow down’ is a decision we all must make at some time in our lives. We have the power to choose.
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