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Sure of My Sightby Patti L. Auber, published January 2014
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Last night I watched the movie Cry, the Beloved Country. This iteration of the movie was made in 1995,
and starred James Earl Jones and Richard Harris in masterful performances (but
do those men give any other kind?) The
movie was based on the book by the same name written by Alan Paton in
1948. Paton was banned in his own
country and was officially silenced, but the book became particularly popular
during the ‘60s, which was when I read it.
It helped to feed our universal consciousness during that era of the
Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
Perhaps it was the recent death of Nelson Mandela that brought it to my mind
again.
The story tells of Steven Kumalo, a black Anglican minister, who learns that his son Absolom has been jailed for killing a white man. The father of the white man, James Jarvis, is a supporter of apartheid, (which became the law in South Africa the same year the book was written), although his murdered son, Arthur, was not. The story tells of the two men’s experience as fathers, both mourning for their sons, and of their coming together across the great divide of their understanding. Alan Paton says of his book, “It is a story of the beauty and terror of human life, and it cannot be written again because it cannot be felt again.”
The vision of South Africa held by James Jarvis and that of his son Arthur were radically different, as is often the case with different generations. Their divergent viewpoints drove them apart. Not until after Arthur’s death does James come to understand his son’s vision. And in that understanding, he is able to recognize and empathize with the tragedy of Steven Kumalo, the father of his son’s killer.
Is it not true of all of us? Are there not times when we are so sure of our sight that we become unwilling to consider another vision, to allow the possibility of another’s worldview? Thereby we overlook opportunities to expand our own understanding. We are afraid to listen to other opinions, because they may, in fact, change our own. It’s a scary thing, this changing of a mind. For when minds change, the world changes also. Sometimes, even, it means we must admit that we were wrong in the first place.
I am guilty often of being so sure of my sight. Sometimes my focus is just too narrow, and I refuse to allow the possibility that there may be other ways to think and be in this world. And yet, who among us can say we have considered every question, and have come up with every answer? No more discussion necessary, thank you. If that were the case, then the world would still be flat! There are always unanswered questions, always anomalies that niggle at the edges of our current view of things.
It’s tempting to ignore those loose threads that don’t quite fit in how we see the world, because looking for the answers leads down a sometimes frightening path. Frightening because our dominant paradigm is being challenged. But though the emerging answers may be uncomfortable and scary, at least for a while, the consequences of not opening our minds to other possibilities are even more dire. This is what happened to James Jarvis in Cry, the Beloved Country. He faced clinging to the dominate worldview of a separation of the races in South Africa as represented by apartheid, or with dishonoring the memory of his son and all he believed and had worked for.
Alan Paton eloquently penned these lines bespeaking the inherent tragedy for future generations when we let fear close our eyes to new ideas: “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”
For myself, I hope I will have the courage listen to the ideas that are beyond my realm of understanding, and to confront the unanswerable until it has been answered, and a whole new set of unanswerable questions emerge. Is that what’s called progress? Is that how we evolve? Yes, dear reader, I suspect it is.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
Citation: Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York City in 1948 by Charles Scribner’s Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape.
The story tells of Steven Kumalo, a black Anglican minister, who learns that his son Absolom has been jailed for killing a white man. The father of the white man, James Jarvis, is a supporter of apartheid, (which became the law in South Africa the same year the book was written), although his murdered son, Arthur, was not. The story tells of the two men’s experience as fathers, both mourning for their sons, and of their coming together across the great divide of their understanding. Alan Paton says of his book, “It is a story of the beauty and terror of human life, and it cannot be written again because it cannot be felt again.”
The vision of South Africa held by James Jarvis and that of his son Arthur were radically different, as is often the case with different generations. Their divergent viewpoints drove them apart. Not until after Arthur’s death does James come to understand his son’s vision. And in that understanding, he is able to recognize and empathize with the tragedy of Steven Kumalo, the father of his son’s killer.
Is it not true of all of us? Are there not times when we are so sure of our sight that we become unwilling to consider another vision, to allow the possibility of another’s worldview? Thereby we overlook opportunities to expand our own understanding. We are afraid to listen to other opinions, because they may, in fact, change our own. It’s a scary thing, this changing of a mind. For when minds change, the world changes also. Sometimes, even, it means we must admit that we were wrong in the first place.
I am guilty often of being so sure of my sight. Sometimes my focus is just too narrow, and I refuse to allow the possibility that there may be other ways to think and be in this world. And yet, who among us can say we have considered every question, and have come up with every answer? No more discussion necessary, thank you. If that were the case, then the world would still be flat! There are always unanswered questions, always anomalies that niggle at the edges of our current view of things.
It’s tempting to ignore those loose threads that don’t quite fit in how we see the world, because looking for the answers leads down a sometimes frightening path. Frightening because our dominant paradigm is being challenged. But though the emerging answers may be uncomfortable and scary, at least for a while, the consequences of not opening our minds to other possibilities are even more dire. This is what happened to James Jarvis in Cry, the Beloved Country. He faced clinging to the dominate worldview of a separation of the races in South Africa as represented by apartheid, or with dishonoring the memory of his son and all he believed and had worked for.
Alan Paton eloquently penned these lines bespeaking the inherent tragedy for future generations when we let fear close our eyes to new ideas: “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”
For myself, I hope I will have the courage listen to the ideas that are beyond my realm of understanding, and to confront the unanswerable until it has been answered, and a whole new set of unanswerable questions emerge. Is that what’s called progress? Is that how we evolve? Yes, dear reader, I suspect it is.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
Citation: Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York City in 1948 by Charles Scribner’s Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape.