Living in Florida this winter, I am 750 miles from Port-au-Prince, the horrific epicenter of this week's killing earthquake. From my comfortable chair in New Port Richey, Haiti is about 1200 miles.Since I was growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I've been aware of the differences between neighborhoods. Kids who lived down off of Burdick Street had year 'round runny noses and played in the street.
During my first trip to India in 1970, this contrast was further seared into my memory.
But, oddly, England is where I experienced the most dramatic telling of this age old story of disparities; on a day trip in 1986 to medieval Warwick Castle. Built by William the Conquerer in 1068, overlooking the River Avon, Warwick was owned by the Greville family (the Earls of Warwick) until 1978, when it became a protected, historic site.
Educated in American schools, I knew nothing about castles. Walking the gorgeous 60 acre grounds, and touring the ancient phenomenal stone interiors, I was astounded by how the Greville's had lived. But nothing shocked me more than the Castle's six storey Caesar's Tower.
One hundred thirty three feet high, the Tower's second, third and fourth floors are beautifully furnished family quarters. The fifth floor was used as storage for ammunition, and the top storey a guardroom. So, how did the Greville's use the first floor?AS A DUNGEON.
I wish I could convey what it felt like to see and learn this fact during my summer Castle tour. How could the family be sitting down to dinner, knowing that directly under their feet, a French soldier or other enemy was being tortured to death, hanging in a metal contraption?Today, knowing Haitian families are burying loved ones by the tens of thousands just 1200 miles away is painful. Would I be able to handle knowing someone was bleeding to death less than seven feet away?
So reads the June 19, 2009, headline in The Telegraph, one of England's biggest newspapers.
Far from the quiet chamber I toured in 1986, the Warwick Castle dungeon was upgraded last year, and now hosts a very convincing drama, with life-like blood, suffering, screaming and more. Close to 20 visitors had fainted and/or thrown up after witnessing the dungeon show, especially during the demonstration of how prisoners had their tongues ripped out. Government officials warned that the entertainment would have to be toned down if more tourists got sick.
Watching television and the subdued, blanched expressions of American journalists reporting the Haitian nightmare, I can easily imagine they might feel faint and sick. Proximity not only breeds intimacy...it can make it impossible to ignore suffering.
A friend sent me a lovely youtube link this morning, THE GENTLE ART OF BLESSING. The five minute video closes with this wish, "May the lonely be comforted, may love abound, may divisions among us cease."
May all divisions, be they 1200 miles or seven feet, cease. May we find ways to share our blessings and our suffering. Amen.
Lovely and painful. MOM
ReplyDeleteOMG ..i have been to that castle ! and the one memory i came away with so VIVIDLY was walking down into the dungeon and feeling the pain, the hopelessness, the fear and the incredible wrongs that were done there. i swear i could hear the cries.. the feelings were so palatable and i had to actually leave and get up to the ramparts where the sun could help to let some of it go..
ReplyDeletei have told that story to others and they just looked at me like i was crazy.. i am relieved that someone else sensed the same, i guess i was not 'crazy'..haha.. i cant imagine that they have now 'improved' it with sounds and screams.. it was horrible enough without that...
john