trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things
"And so it is of human life the goal
to seek, forever seek, the kindred soul."
- José Martí
In a story I'm writing, the current beneath the water of the words is the question - How can I know you, and how can you know me? - It’s part of one of the biggest question in the world - What does it mean to be human?
One way we know and are known is through language.
In my story one of the main characters, a ten-year-old boy from El Salvador named Little Salt, is mute.
He whistles.
No one around him really understands him. Not even his mamí or his abuelo. His quest is to find someone who can understand him.
Can we know and be known outside of language?
Yes, I think.
But this can only happen through careful seeing, careful listening, careful thinking, careful feeling, careful walking and careful touching. Carefulness.
The 5 Whys
The goal of life is for us to know each other.
WHY? The African proverb is true - "I am because we are; we are because I am.
WHY? Life is about community.
In community, I learn how to give and I learn how to receive.
I learn how to see beauty, ingenuity, wonder and courage in you.
I learn to be myself so you can see beauty, ingenuity, wonder and courage in me.
I learn how to be me, you learn how to be you, and we together learn how to be.
WHY? Life is hands and feet, hearts and minds, ears and eyes, thoughts and words, being and doing.
We are these in part, and when we are together, we are these in whole.
We are life.
Life is us.
WHY? Life has a heartbeat.
My faith tradition teaches me that every person I meet...EVERY person...is created in the image of God...in the imago Dei...and that the smallest and most forgotten persons are Jesus in the world in this moment and time.
Life is about our hearts expanding as we serve each other.
When I live my life to serve you, and you live your life to serve me, and we live our lives to serve the smallest and most forgotten, and the smallest and most forgotten become the example to us of faith, hope and love, then we build a little bit of the kinship of God on Earth.
WHY? By knowing each other, we build a more human world, a world of corazón and abrazó, as my Cuban friends would say.
We live.
That is why the goal of life is for us to know each other.
That is why I want you to know Little Salt in my story.
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