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March 2009

A Prayer From The Land Of ‘NO’!

The land of ‘NO’ is not the land of opportunities. It is not the land of new discoveries, of new frontiers of risk and adventure. The land of ‘NO’ is a passive land: a vacant theater of quick transition from the status quo to oblivion. The land of ‘No’ is that line of demarcation at the end of a dead-end track, where you are disappointed - to say the least and confused, not knowing which direction to take next. The land of ‘NO’ is found at the edge of a field, bordering into the thick woods where light quickly dims and frantic steps are lost covered by leaves and moss. The poet Dante, in the Divine Comedy, defined what I call the land of ‘NO’, as that place in time where he found himself lost and confused towards Limbo:

“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear."

The land of ‘NO’ is that place, so well portrayed by the movie director Shyamalan, in “The Village”. At the outskirts of an enclosed and protected life there is a fence that surrounds the entire Village. Cozy in its traditions, the village stands protected against the evil monsters that lay all around in the dark wood. The fence is the borderline of demarcation that separates the life of the Village, protecting and keeping the villagers secure from the thick unknown and dangerous mysteries of the woodland. Some of the children of the Village, at dark, would silently get together to defy the mysterious creatures of the forest by furtively crawling toward the fence. Torches all along the fence would shed their light on the woods, only to quickly fade hopelessly away through the ghostly shadows of the forest. The young boys of the Village would take turns boldly standing excited on the fence with their arms opened wide and their backs to the woods facing the Village. One of them might win the contest tonight by remaining trembling in that position for just a few more seconds…but he is too scared and terrorized and just cannot make it through. At the first sound of crackling dry leaves he jumps down and with his friends, runs back into the village terrified. For a split second, he remains vulnerable to the unknown on the fence, defenseless. Right there on that spot, he is not in the Village or in the wood. The boy is in that land of ‘NO’. He is lucky tonight and as fast as he can, safely runs back home to the Village with his comrades, back to security and familiarity under the blankets in his bed. It must be unbearable for those that cannot run back home, for those who must remain to remain in the land of ‘NO’ unable to undo what had led them there in the first place. While the children of the Village, dealing with theirs fears and terrors, dangerously played challenging the monsters that lay in wait in the forest, for many the land of ‘NO’ is not a scene of a movie and there is no way of escape and no courage to go on into the unknown. When you reach the land of ‘No’, often the scattered pieces of a wishful life are picked up, but quickly disappointment, paralyzes with its fears. The land of ‘NO’ is a land that gives no more opportunities or challenges.

It is written somewhere that old men shall have dreams! The ancient Scripture stated that when God would finally move graciously with his Spirit on all flesh, not only hovering over the face of the waters, old men would have dreams. Who knows if the Spirit would find some of these old men wandering and confused in the land of ‘No’ and whishing for the ardor and passion of their youth to be revived in their bones. Would a dream refresh them and motivate them to move on and not be paralyzed in their fear and disappointment? Could a dream numb away the anger and feelings of uselessness that often reside in the land of ‘No’?  Isn't a dream a mockery, an illusion? Why even dream? Be advised, the land of ‘No’ is also void of dreams; it is lifeless, a dry ground. Even just a disappointing dream, in the land of ‘No’, would be water to the thirsty. “Give us a dream and we'll hope!” 

When alone, looking sadly outside, through a window, let us wish for a mighty rushing wind to fill the room where we're sitting wandering around? “Please, give us dreams to see, songs to hear, passions to love, paths to walk on, give us people to believe in”. What the prophet Ezekiel saw in a vision, dark and horrendous, was a valley in the land of ‘No’, full of dead corpses. Dry bones everywhere. People who had reached the land of ‘No’ with any hope and purpose, in the dark…like the somber notes of Babi Yar of Shostakovich. What dreams can come out of Babi Yar? What can be restored from the painful grip of the land of ‘No’ on the lifeless thousands and thousands of bones? The land of ‘No’ is not the 'Promise Land'; it is the attempt to annihilate all sources of life and joy, it is spirit-less.

“Give us a dream and we’ll hope! Get us out of the land of ‘No’. May all your promises be YES and life will return into our bones”. The attempt to annihilate and reduce to dust was just a vain attempt, but I see cool water gently streaming down into the dry valley. The dreams of the soul were not grotesque fire-breathing vanishing chimeras disguised as hopeful longings; they were visions of new reachable lands to conquer. Give us a dream and we’ll hope! Give us strength and we’ll jump over the fence. Give us the Spirit and we’ll shatter the walls of our crystal prisons exploding in myriads of sparkling specks of emotions. Let the gentle drizzle of your rain fall on us and gracefully sprinkle stardust on our heads.”