Healing Memories

This evening, Elizabeth and I will be attending a lecture by Rev. Dr. Hans Ucko, director of the Interfaith Dialogue Division of the World Council of Churches. I was reading an interview recently given by Rev. Ucko and he was asked about the fear and mistrust among religious persons, both between different religions and between Christian denominations (and, we might add, between the scientific and religious communities). He said that we are in need of 'healing memories'.

It strikes me that this phrase has a double meaning – 'healing' can be an adjective or a verb. We need both. We need memories which are healing and we also need to heal our memories.

This year marks the 200^th anniversary to the illegalization of slavery in England. At that time, slavery was a very profitable activity, so it was a bold decision to make it illegal. This, I think, is a very healing memory. As a Southerner, I have long been aware of the fact that the US has still not healed from the Civil War. Evidence of this might be found in the last Presidential election. When I meet new people here in India, I am often asked if I am from a 'blue state' or a 'red state'. Am I a 'Repulican' or a 'Democrat'? Am I a 'liberal' or a 'conservative'. These are memories in need of healing. We have made dichotomies out of things which are non-dichotomous. States are not red or blue, they are red, white, and blue. We live in a republic, so we are all republican. But we live in a republic that strives for democracy, so we are all democratic, too. 'Conservative' represents an ideal that the government should not limit the 'liberties' of persons any more than necessary. 'Liberal' means precisely the same thing – it means that 'liberty' and 'freedom' are important values and ideals. Why have we allowed the media to dichotomize these principles? Why do we continue to allow it? We need to heal these memories.

De Las Casas represents both a healing memory and a memory in need of healing. As a person of Native American descent, De las Casas represents the person who stopped the ravaging and dehumanizaition of Native American persons. This is a healing memory. Unfortunately, De las Casas also represents the beginning of the capture, enslavement, and illegal
emigration (as opposed to illegal immigration) of Africans. This is a memory in need of healing.

I invite anyone who might read this to respond with a memory of your own – either a healing memory or a memory in need of healing, or both. This can be something personal or something global or something in between. If we do not identify the memories that are in need of healing, then how can we heal them? When we do identify them, one way we can heal them is by remembering memories which are healing. We need both.

Kali

In her last post, Elizabeth mentioned our new addition to the family - a little kitten named Kali. Just after she posted that blog, however, Kali got very sick. Her first day here, just 4 weeks old, she ate all day and was happy & healthy. After that, though, she stopped eating and drinking. After 5 days, we knew that she couldn't survive much longer, so we took her back to her mother in hopes that she would eat from her. It took a few more days, but eventually she did start to eat and has made a full recovery, though she may always be rather small as a result. Now she keeps a full belly and is happier than ever and back home with us. The nursury where we got her had three other kittens returned with the same problem, and they quickly deduced what had happened. All of the kittens had eaten full meals the first day - and all of them had eaten Whiskas kitten food. They learned that when the news broke in the US that the cat food had been tainted, the cat food companies shipped all the tainted food to India. That's right, even though they KNEW the food was tainted and poisonous, they decided that it was better to ship the food to India and salvage some profits rather than throw the food out. Kali is now eating a locally made cat food and is doing great, but I am just astounded that a company could do something like that! Besides all else, it seems like a pretty stupid long-term business plan for a cat food company to knowingly poison all its customers!