THE DEBT
Arriving home late one night, we saw a plastic bag at the foot of the gate post, tied up, with something inside. I thought I saw it move. Cautious as South Africans have learned to be in approaching their homes, I watched, and saw it move again. After parking the car and scouting around, I approached. Inside I found a bottle of Vodka, and a live chicken. A vagrant’s party, mislaid.
There is no certain way of working out who ‘deserves’ help in this life and who does not. If a man asks you for money at a street corner, do you interrogate him about his life history and set yourself to judge his worthiness as a recipient of your largesse? The Victorians spoke of ‘the deserving poor’. Not that they deserved to be poor, but that they judged them deserving of help. We have since learnt that life is not so straightforward, and the rules that determine worthiness have often failed us. Who is the greater criminal, the housebreaker who steals your television or the company boss who runs poisonous chemicals into the lake? In our meritocracy, we want to help people ‘who have talent’, yet that talent is no less an accident of birth than wealth. What about helping the people who have no talent? Do they not need even more assistance?
The truth is that in this life, there is suffering. We are on this earth plane because we are ignorant of our true nature, which is free of suffering. As long as we are here, we are all suffering in some way, and we are all deserving of all the help we can give each other. So I have chosen that I will help anyone who asks me for help, and I will accept responsibility to help those whom life places in my path, guided always by my feelings. There is a need to protect ourselves, to sustain ourselves, so that we can continue with our life tasks. My decisions are based, not on a rule, but on an awareness of what is really happening, of the underlying truth behind the appearance.
How well can I see this? Only as best I can. My responsibility lies in being constantly mindful, paying attention to being here, allowing life to teach me its lessons.
I know I cannot judge who deserves to be helped and who does not, so I rely on my feelings. This is not as arbitrary as it sounds. The real question is whether your feelings are in working order, or malfunctioning. If you hold prejudices where fear distorts your perception, if you mistake thoughts and dogma for feeling, or have never learnt to empathise or to love another, start by fixing your feelings. They are no use to you as a guide to truth because they are damaged. But if you have lived a life of self-awareness, holding a constant dialogue between your thoughts and your feelings, and testing that against your experience of the world, you have added an extra dimension to turn a flat and lifeless world into a three-dimensional one. You have developed the ability to break through when reasoning gets stuck. It is apt to do this at crucial moments, especially when time is short and a decision needs to be made quickly. And if you say, ‘But my feelings always lead me to selfish acts’, then know that that is who you are, a selfish person who has not yet evolved beyond that limitation. The selfish act is a problem. Having fundamentally selfish feelings is a bigger problem. Better look to who you are and who you are becoming than to have some rule that allows you to deceive yourself.
And so I opened the bag and took out the thinnest, most abused chicken I have ever seen. It could hardly be worth the eating, and had almost no feathers, probably as a result of having had no space to move. Life had placed it in my path, and I also felt a natural compassion for it. For no good reason, I felt I had some deeper connection with this particular chicken than the mere happenstance of it landing at my door. I put it in the shed, gave it whole mielies and water, and left if for the night.
We had the grain because we had raised chickens before, from baby chicks to full grown hens. (We did not live on a farm, but were hybrid suburbanites, living a farmyard life in the city.) We had been surprised because we found one of the chicks becoming more aggressive than the others, and defending them against the ducks and any other intruders. And then one day, it crowed, and the secret was out. We had thought them all to be hens, and as little fluffy chicks they were not differentiated, but at puberty, the male took on traditional masculine traits – at least for roosters. Sadly, we could not keep him for fear his crowing would awaken the suburban somnolence of our neighbours and bring in the Rules. However, in his absence, one of the hens took the lead role and proved perhaps to be more aggressive than ever he would have been. She would leave what she was eating just to run to some nearby hen and peck it on the head to ensure its continued submission.
Once, when she was much older, I heard a strangled cry, and came to see her beating her wings and crowing. She was one tough chicken. And over time, the other hens died their natural deaths, but she lived on. I wonder sometimes whether there is a connection between male hormones in women, and their longevity, and how their sons survive both their masculinity and their perpetuity. Think of Prince Charles and his mother.
In the morning, the new chicken was much revived, and I had visions of her growing feathers and returning to a sleek and good-looking health. The black hen, who by now was the sole survivor of the flock, did not take kindly to the novice. However, scrawny as she was, the new one had survived a tough upbringing, and stood her ground firmly against the black hen, who stalked off and bided her time. We let the foundling roam in the garden so it could enjoy its freedom, and forage for some greens and some insects.
She must have felt some connection with me, the same as I did with her. If there was a previous life, we must have known each other. It felt like that. I felt it even more when she chose me out of the group of us who were sitting socialising on the patio, and with featherless wings beating, scrambled up onto my lap. We shared a few moments of affection, perhaps of resolution? Then she went her way, and scratched about in the garden.
When I returned from work the next day, my visitor had left. I searched for her, but she had gone. I know that chickens do not smile, but the black hen had a look that was definitely smug. Life for her had been restored to normal. She was not one to share.
I had not foreseen this danger. Our dogs were no threat, and the garden was generally enclosed. I wondered if I had failed in my responsibility to the ‘vagrant’s meal’, but I think not. Whatever debt I owed her from this or another life, had been paid, by me to her, or by her to me. I am not sure. She brought in that brief time with me a knowingness, a sharing, and an awakening which remains with me. And she set me an example – she gave more than she received.
© John Mitchell 11 07 08
Arriving home late one night, we saw a plastic bag at the foot of the gate post, tied up, with something inside. I thought I saw it move. Cautious as South Africans have learned to be in approaching their homes, I watched, and saw it move again. After parking the car and scouting around, I approached. Inside I found a bottle of Vodka, and a live chicken. A vagrant’s party, mislaid.
There is no certain way of working out who ‘deserves’ help in this life and who does not. If a man asks you for money at a street corner, do you interrogate him about his life history and set yourself to judge his worthiness as a recipient of your largesse? The Victorians spoke of ‘the deserving poor’. Not that they deserved to be poor, but that they judged them deserving of help. We have since learnt that life is not so straightforward, and the rules that determine worthiness have often failed us. Who is the greater criminal, the housebreaker who steals your television or the company boss who runs poisonous chemicals into the lake? In our meritocracy, we want to help people ‘who have talent’, yet that talent is no less an accident of birth than wealth. What about helping the people who have no talent? Do they not need even more assistance?
The truth is that in this life, there is suffering. We are on this earth plane because we are ignorant of our true nature, which is free of suffering. As long as we are here, we are all suffering in some way, and we are all deserving of all the help we can give each other. So I have chosen that I will help anyone who asks me for help, and I will accept responsibility to help those whom life places in my path, guided always by my feelings. There is a need to protect ourselves, to sustain ourselves, so that we can continue with our life tasks. My decisions are based, not on a rule, but on an awareness of what is really happening, of the underlying truth behind the appearance.
How well can I see this? Only as best I can. My responsibility lies in being constantly mindful, paying attention to being here, allowing life to teach me its lessons.
I know I cannot judge who deserves to be helped and who does not, so I rely on my feelings. This is not as arbitrary as it sounds. The real question is whether your feelings are in working order, or malfunctioning. If you hold prejudices where fear distorts your perception, if you mistake thoughts and dogma for feeling, or have never learnt to empathise or to love another, start by fixing your feelings. They are no use to you as a guide to truth because they are damaged. But if you have lived a life of self-awareness, holding a constant dialogue between your thoughts and your feelings, and testing that against your experience of the world, you have added an extra dimension to turn a flat and lifeless world into a three-dimensional one. You have developed the ability to break through when reasoning gets stuck. It is apt to do this at crucial moments, especially when time is short and a decision needs to be made quickly. And if you say, ‘But my feelings always lead me to selfish acts’, then know that that is who you are, a selfish person who has not yet evolved beyond that limitation. The selfish act is a problem. Having fundamentally selfish feelings is a bigger problem. Better look to who you are and who you are becoming than to have some rule that allows you to deceive yourself.
And so I opened the bag and took out the thinnest, most abused chicken I have ever seen. It could hardly be worth the eating, and had almost no feathers, probably as a result of having had no space to move. Life had placed it in my path, and I also felt a natural compassion for it. For no good reason, I felt I had some deeper connection with this particular chicken than the mere happenstance of it landing at my door. I put it in the shed, gave it whole mielies and water, and left if for the night.
We had the grain because we had raised chickens before, from baby chicks to full grown hens. (We did not live on a farm, but were hybrid suburbanites, living a farmyard life in the city.) We had been surprised because we found one of the chicks becoming more aggressive than the others, and defending them against the ducks and any other intruders. And then one day, it crowed, and the secret was out. We had thought them all to be hens, and as little fluffy chicks they were not differentiated, but at puberty, the male took on traditional masculine traits – at least for roosters. Sadly, we could not keep him for fear his crowing would awaken the suburban somnolence of our neighbours and bring in the Rules. However, in his absence, one of the hens took the lead role and proved perhaps to be more aggressive than ever he would have been. She would leave what she was eating just to run to some nearby hen and peck it on the head to ensure its continued submission.
Once, when she was much older, I heard a strangled cry, and came to see her beating her wings and crowing. She was one tough chicken. And over time, the other hens died their natural deaths, but she lived on. I wonder sometimes whether there is a connection between male hormones in women, and their longevity, and how their sons survive both their masculinity and their perpetuity. Think of Prince Charles and his mother.
In the morning, the new chicken was much revived, and I had visions of her growing feathers and returning to a sleek and good-looking health. The black hen, who by now was the sole survivor of the flock, did not take kindly to the novice. However, scrawny as she was, the new one had survived a tough upbringing, and stood her ground firmly against the black hen, who stalked off and bided her time. We let the foundling roam in the garden so it could enjoy its freedom, and forage for some greens and some insects.
She must have felt some connection with me, the same as I did with her. If there was a previous life, we must have known each other. It felt like that. I felt it even more when she chose me out of the group of us who were sitting socialising on the patio, and with featherless wings beating, scrambled up onto my lap. We shared a few moments of affection, perhaps of resolution? Then she went her way, and scratched about in the garden.
When I returned from work the next day, my visitor had left. I searched for her, but she had gone. I know that chickens do not smile, but the black hen had a look that was definitely smug. Life for her had been restored to normal. She was not one to share.
I had not foreseen this danger. Our dogs were no threat, and the garden was generally enclosed. I wondered if I had failed in my responsibility to the ‘vagrant’s meal’, but I think not. Whatever debt I owed her from this or another life, had been paid, by me to her, or by her to me. I am not sure. She brought in that brief time with me a knowingness, a sharing, and an awakening which remains with me. And she set me an example – she gave more than she received.
© John Mitchell 11 07 08
