Sunday Morning Coming Down
I don't know why Sunday mornings always feel different to me. I have never been a deeply religious person, even with my upbringing in the home of a holy man. I can say it has left me as a more spiritual person on many levels.
I remember a Sunday morning, many years ago, riding a horse into the mountains above a small town in Costa Rica. The path was narrow, crooked and steep as I made my way upward through the coffee plantations shaded by the banana trees. The beauty of the misty valley falling on my eyes. The sounds of birds I had never heard ringing true in my ears. The cool damp air as it drenched my skin the higher I climbed.
There...coming down the path...my first encounter with a man, I now greatly admire. From under the brim of his straw hat came these words:
"No No agarre bien las riendas.
Es posible que desee que el caballo tenga
Alguna vos en el asunto.
Es su vida tambie’n.”
"Don't grasp the reins to tightly.
You may want the horse to have some voice in the matter.
It's his life too."
The first words I heard from Humberto Maturana, a Chilean biologist and philosopher. He had taken refuge there after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état which was a watershed event in both the history of Chile and the Cold War. Days later, as we shared conversation in his small casita, I reminded him of his words and he said "just language."
My, how there is power in language. Humanness is not a genetic mutation. It is a manner of living where there is pleasure in each others company, sharing food, nearness, caressing and tenderness – nor is the capacity for language a genetic mutation – it is an evolutionary drift emerging from the intimacy of
human community and the coordination of actions in language together.
It is in the intimate community where humanness arises as a network of
conversations that is conserved over generations as a lineage through
the raising of children over hundreds of generations in manners of living that are conserved in that lineage. Humanness did not arise in competition and struggle . It arose in intimate family, and community co-existence.
I leave you with some Sunday morning language scribbled by a man, who taught me to loosen my grip on the reins of life...Enjoy your Sunday...Doc
Of You
Of you I tell and teach my children, don’t hurt that soul! Never, never, never,
But treat them like something very precious that’s been left in your care forever.
Yes, now and always, for they're a human being too, not a thing, nor wood or steel, but a living, breathing part of all we are, another who can think and feel.
And no right having been given us to act otherwise, via word or deed,
Injuring being a weakness, not a strength, and cursed are they who cause to bleed.
Such but evil, love knowing nothing of it, and why of you I tell and teach,
Don’t hurt that soul! Never, never, never, but always higher and better reach.
