By Johnny Coomansingh
My last article concluded with the mandate to choose. This is about a power that we all possess. It’s the power of choice. With that power we can choose to dance. It’s a given, we all love to dance. As the saying goes in Trinidad, we could dance ‘until cow come home.’ Written on a cutout from a cereal box that sat on my desk in graduate school was the proverb: “If you choose to dance with the alligator, be prepared for when the music stops.”
The alligator mentioned in the proverb represented myriad things; the events, activities and definitely the distractions that seemed attractive. Despite my desire to dance with some of these distractions, the issue at hand was about the process of choosing; how to not dance with the alligator. Dancing with the alligator is almost the same as living with a false sense of security and procrastination; ignoring the environment and aimlessly walking into a minefield of truth mingled with error.
Sometimes we tend to believe what we want to believe. In some cases, we are coerced into believing untruths or what appears to be true. We tell ourselves, no, no, that alligator is cute. That alligator is too nice. Look! He is dancing with me. He is so gentle. He would not bite me. I can’t bring myself to believe that he would want to eat me after such a wonderful waltz. It just doesn’t seem like him. Do we really have concerns about the music and when it will stop? Nevertheless, there is no fooling, the music will eventually stop. The longest rope has an end.
Mingling truth with falsehood is still falsehood with all the mire and muck. It is as Shakespeare inferred in the Merchant of Venice, ‘A goodly apple rotten at the heart.’ We always ask the question: “What is truth?” How do we distinguish the false light from the true light? Is there a false light? Isn’t all light the same? Of course, most of us believe that light is light. So how come we speak of false light?
A burning candle emits light and heat. The reflection of that same burning candle in a mirror reflects light. Does the reflection of the flame in the mirror generate any heat? Sometimes we dance along believing that the replication of the light is the true light. I have come to acknowledge that there are counterfeits for almost everything created. Some shoes, handbags, purses and coats in the store look like real leather but on closer inspection they’re just pleather. Leather smells like leather.
Regardless of what we think, we were born with the common ability to choose, provided we are not coerced into choosing. We all choose the path we want to take; we make decisions based on what we perceive. Our five senses, touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing serve as the only avenues through which we perceive our world. Perception of our environment assists us in planning, in choosing, sometimes imperceptibly, in making decisions, as to whether we should steadfastly go forward and not look back.
Dancing with the alligator is basically taking a chance, choosing to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Yes, so many of us choose to gamble with our lives. We prefer to dawdle (dilly-dally) in the proverbial Egypt, in the gutter and mire of enslavement and bondage. Is it because we choose to be free and unfettered in what we do? Is it that we become blind and insensitive concerning the activities in which we engage ourselves? Nevertheless, be reminded that freedom is not a license. Truth is truth, and no matter how we turn it, falsehood will remain as untruth. Sometimes we turn our eyes away from the truth, the light and the way and we choose to be blinded by the serpentine lies of others. Snake Oil Salesmen are everywhere with their cunning spiels. Take note: ‘None is so blind as he who will not see,’ and ‘to obey is better than sacrifice…’
Some say that people should be allowed a little rumspringa; stay out there in the world a little, enjoy life, do whatsoever your mind tells you to do. Yes, go sow your wild oats. Do it if it feels good. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt. In other words, why should anyone refuse to have some pleasure at an early age? In the poem The Ant and the Cricket there’s this verse:
“My heart was so light
That I sang day and night,
For all nature looked gay.”
“You sang, sir, you say?
Go then,” said the ant, “and dance winter away.”
The following words in the Book of Ecclesiastes provides abundant counsel: “Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them.” It is highly apparent nowadays that a concept of God is not as popular among some people. Many say, God’s way is too difficult, too controlled, too serious, narrow, staid and regimented. Some who had their fling would come back to a place called home. Some won’t.
When the compass of the soul is lost, many lose their way on the shoals of life. They hit ‘rock bottom’ and never make it back to the shore of safety. Their ship flounders because they did not see the lighthouse or choose not to see the lighthouse. Although they were counselled to stay away from a life of debauchery, some people prefer illicit drug use, the excesses of alcohol and misbehavior; the way of the wicked; the danse macabre (the dance of death).
The pre-Lenten Trinidad Carnival will be celebrated in the month of March 03—04, 2025. Dimanche gras (carnival Sunday), Lundi gras (carnival Monday) and Mardi gras (carnival Tuesday) and the celebratory excesses of these days will be portrayed as the greatest show on Earth. I have no problem with the art, pageantry and the music but what kind of behaviors will we choose to exhibit and advertise?
In terms of ribald, foreboding and disgusting behaviors, some carnival celebrants go to the extreme with respect to the ‘freedom of the flesh.’ Come Ash Wednesday morning, they are in church receiving ashes on their foreheads simultaneously begging for forgiveness for the rest of the year until of course, the next carnival. Many people are enslaved in a cultic dance very much akin to what Marshal McLuhan said: “Fish is the last animal on Earth to discover water.”
Wrong and unrighteous deeds are so much easier to commit. It is as though we are programed to do wrong. Recently a preacher said: “It seems that we are hardwired for disobedience. We are better of keeping the Ten Commandments despite the ‘Thou shalt not.’” Choosing to do the right thing is so difficult for so many. We convince ourselves with the well-worn statement: “Everybody’s doing it…so what’s wrong. Who cares?” I care, and I will not follow a multitude to do evil.
To walk the path of righteousness (right doing), we must understand what it is to be humble. Rejecting pride, arrogance, pretentiousness, egoism and self-importance will lead the individual forward into the path of humility. Chiding oneself and carrying a burden of guilt like ‘Christian’ in John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress will not do. Do not continue carrying burdens as the text directs: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”
In every environment, witnesses are looking on. How long is the race? What are the weights that keep us down? Will I have the strength, the courage, the persistence, the perseverance to keep on going on the ‘straight and narrow’ path? Will I breast the tape? Many things seem real, but illusions are everywhere. Keeping unwaveringly on the straight and narrow path is not something that everyone chooses. It’s what I call the “alternative path.” It’s the path, ‘the way’ that relates to the instruction I learnt about many moons ago: “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, this is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left.”
This special way or path of life engenders the will to “…walk in the Spirit.” The Spirit is that part of our being that transcends the physical realm. Watch this: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The decision to walk in the Spirit is definitely not about joining some church or trying to satisfy the dictates of any religion; the combination of dogma, ritual, and liturgy. One Saturday morning in Minot, North Dakota. I remained in bed contemplating if I should visit the church in the district. There and then these thoughts came to me:
“When we cease to subscribe to dogma, ritual, and liturgy then we will come into the knowledge of the essence of truth, and we will not need anyone to unravel or decipher for us the mystery about truth, for truth in itself is not mysterious; no, never was.”
We do not need any church, synagogue, gurdwara, temple, shrine, mosque, mandir, sacred spot, hill, mound, stone, mountain, ziggurat, or Wailing Wall to tell us how to choose the good. We do not need an organization, association, religious affiliation or sacred or secret order to instruct anyone about what they need to do to be righteous. Righteousness is simply an individual’s choice to do the right thing; to live peaceably with all humankind as far as is possible. The righteous way of living is very far removed from being judgmental, parsimonious, and sanctimonious. Being educated helps to relieve us from ignorance and arrogance; education makes an individual fit to live and fit to live with.
Choosing the way of the righteous is choosing to be committed, to differentiate right from wrong; making a firm decision to serve in the way, to shed light for others on the way, to encourage others on the way, to accompany them on their way, to hold their hand as we walk together along the way. Lying and deceiving one another destroys trust! The truth cuts a clear path and eliminates the desire to use and abuse others. Choosing the way, the good and noble path, is about choosing to be committed.
There are many people who are committed; some of them are committed for the wrong reasons. Many are sincere, but sad to say, sincerely wrong. Along the way, we could dance all we want in the dance of happiness. Leaving all alligators alone, we could dance forever when we choose to really live. As I have learnt at a very early age: “Happiness is a clear conscience and the joy of just being alive.”
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