THOUGHT FOR TODAY

EVEN SUCH IS TIME.

This poem was found in a Bible in the Tower of London. It was written by Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), a favourite courtier of Queen Elizabeth I. He was imprisoned by King James I, her successor, accused of treason. He was eventually put to death.
Raleigh, apart from being a writer was an adventurer. In 1595, he led an expedition to Guiana in search of El Dorado. He described the expedition in his book The Discoverie of Guiana. He did discover some gold mines, but no one supported his project. While in prison he also wrote “The History of the World.”
Popular feeling has always been on Raleigh’s side ever since 1603. After his death in 1618, his collective writings were collected and published.

Here is his poem:

Even such is time that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us back with earth and dust.
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up i trust.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

RISK TAKING

Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Helen Keller.

Risk Taking Is Free

To Laugh Is To Risk Appearing the Fool

To Weep Is To Risk Appearing Sentimental

To Reach Out For Another Is To Risk Involvement

To Expose Feeling Is To Risk Exposing Your True Self

To Place Your Ideas, Your Dreams Before The Crowd Is To Risk Their Loss.

To Love Is To Risk Not Being In Return

To Live Is To Risk Dying

To Hope Is To Risk Despair

To Try Is To Risk Failure

But The Risk Must Be Taken, Because the Greatest Hazard in Life Is To Risk Nothing

The Person Who Risks Nothing, Does Nothing, Has Nothing And Is Nothing

He May Avoid Suffering and Sorrow, but He Simply Cannot Learn, Feel, Change, Grow, Love or Live

Chained By His Certitudes, He Is a Slave, He Has Forfeited Freedom

Only a Person Who Risks …Is Free.

— Author Unknown

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

INTERVIEW WITH TWO STUDENT DOCTORS, 2001

This is an interview I had with two student doctors in the USA, who interviewed me in 2001 when I was 89 years old. — Randall Butisingh

Question; How have you kept your health over the Years?

Answer: My state of health is not fortuitous. Apart from being born into a strong, healthy family, I had a good start from babyhood. I was breast fed from for many months. My parents had a small dairy, and as a child, I was given milk fresh from the udders of the cows which were grass fed. I liked fruits and in my days as a child, we had them in abundance. I exercised a great deal during my life; I ran, I swam, I boxed, I played cricket, I did acrobatics. I remember as a child, I never liked to be a mere spectator in a sporting event. I always liked to be a participator. Throughout the years, after surviving all the childhood illnesses, except typhoid and whooping cough, which I never contracted, I believe I built up a good immune system.

Mentally, I improved with old age. At eighty-nine, I think clearer, learn faster and remember better. My eyesight has very much improved after cataract operations so I can do much reading and writing. At present, I read Oriental philosophy and Comparative religion. I read and write poetry. I am interested in music also and did some practice on the violin at the age of seventy-five. I started to play the recorder (German flute), only a few months ago and have acquired some degree of proficiency. I can also translate music to accommodate it on the recorder.

Apart from being a teacher, which I am all my life, with a few breaks in between where I garnered good experiences in other occupations, I am a learner . I learned shorthand and typewriting, Hindi and Urdu while at school and the Arabic Script after I was eighty. I believe that when one stops learning, he ceases to live, and it is never too late to learn.

Question: Whom do you admire most in life? How do you feel that influences you in how you live your life?

Answer: The person I admire most in my life is Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of India’s freedom. Although I never saw him, I wept when he died as many did all over the world. I have read his autobiography and several of his biographies. I have also translated a hundred page biography of him from Hindi to English.. His doctrine of love and non-violence and self-denial appealed to me. He taught that I can live comfortably on very little; while others are poor while being rich, because they are never satisfied. I can be rich without having much because I want nothing and can share from the little that I have.

Question: Knowing that you live two months in the U.S.A. and two months in Guyana, what are the differences?

Answer: I enjoy living with relatives in the United States. My physical needs are well taken care of, but I am pampered and dependent. I have, however, made many good friends here, ranging from early twenties to past middle age. I am a good teacher, and there is always something which I can teach someone, . Here I am exposed to the best programmes on television, to music, to art, (I did six paintings of sceneries at a class I attended), to philosophy. I can follow the issues of the day, be an armchair traveller where I can see the countries of the world in the comfort of the living room, can communicate freely by telephone and e-mail. Here I have all the time of the world at my disposal.

In Guyana, however, I enjoy more independence. I do most things for myself, including cooking and washing. I move around more freely with the friends I have there. I am in an organization that propagates Hindi. I teach Hindi, set question papers for the Hindi examinations, edit a Journal, write Welcome and Farewell addresses in Hindi for High Commissioners and Hindi professors, give talks at religious gatherings and correspond with the newspapers.

Students: Thanks!

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

REDUCING POVERTY IN AFRICA

This is my letter to Brian and Kristen Konkol, recently appointed as missionaries in South Africa. They are dedicated and committed individuals, who were missionaries in Guyana before moving to South Africa a few months ago. They are now settling in and have asked my advice on: “How to reduce Poverty in Africa”. Here is my reply dated April 21, 2008. Your comments and advice on this most important subject are welcome. Feel free to contact Brian and Kristen Konkol with your help and ideas at: (bekonkol@yahoo.com

To: Brian and Kristen Konkol:

Before I attempt to give my opinion on “how to reduce Poverty in Africa”, I will attempt to define Poverty. In my opinion Poverty is a relative term. How? An individual may have very little, and it takes very little to sustain life. He may live in a one room shack with one or no shirt on his back, but he works honestly for the little that he has; he is always cheerful and will gladly share the little he has and his shack with a needy stranger. He is the personification of contentment; his conscience is clear, his sleep at night is sound and unbroken and he lives without fear. Would you call such an individual poor?

On the other hand a person may be laden with this world’s goods, like an overlade camel, much more above his needs; But he is the personification of greed; he cannot have enough; he is discontented; always wants more and more, never share what he has with the needy for concern that it will diminish him. This makes him grouchy, irritable, and cheerless. His sleep at nights is unsound and broken because of fear that someone may come and rob him of what he has. Would you call such an individual rich?

Now, how about reducing Poverty in Africa! Africa is a continent, beautiful and potentially rich, but it has been exploited by foreigners and recently, after independence by its own leaders. There were very few leaders, among them being Nelson Mandela, who did not succumb to the plague of corruption. Billions of the country’s wealth and foreign aid have been stashed away in foreign banks by corrupt politicians while those whom they have been supposed to serve go hungry.

This brings us to the question of education. If the populace is not adequately educated in order to understand the issues and the ability to confront injustice wherever it rears its ugly head, exploitation and corruption will continue to have a field day. Recently two benevolent Americans have been working in this field. They are Oprah Winfrey who is spending millions to educate over a hundred girls in South Africa to become leaders in the future and Bill Clinton who is spending millions to improve Agriculture in one of the countries in Africa.

It should also be noted that Poverty is an attitude in some of the countries. The men leave all the hard work to the women. When they do not hunt or fish, they gather in groups and idle away their time while the women work in the fields. Recently a group of women banded together in a community, and refused to slave for their idle husbands.

We need people who can educate, motivate and inspire these people, raising them from their present level, especially the women to one of respectability. Here is where you and Kirsten can fit in and I know that with the meager physical resources you have but the abundance of will, dedication and commitment, you will make things happen.
Africa does not need to be spoon fed. But while they are given the tools to progress, effort should be made meanwhile to eliminate hunger and disease.
Remitting of debts will be of little help if attitudes do not change.
Love, joy and peace,

Randall

randallbutisingh@hotmail.com

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

AGRICULTURE, A NOBLE PROFESSION
and the peasant the most important of all people.

Excerpts from poem, THE DESERTED VILLAGE
BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728 - 1774)

“Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith is one of my favourite poets. In the poem
above he depicts the destruction of the peasantry when they
were evicted from the land by greedy landowners. Many were forced by  to leave the land and hie to the towns where they worked long hours, for hard task masters, in an unhealthy environment for meagre wages and suffered poverty and ill health. This is what happens in any part of the world where wealth accumulates to the few who sit on it, while the majority labour for a pittance to continue to feed their greed.
Injustice, an evil can only flourish for a time.  The DAY of reckoning is not far off.
— Randall Butisingh

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

FREEDOM

Freedom comes from the knowledge of Truth. Liberty is not Freedom. Only knowing and being guided by truth can one gain Freedom. Liberty is license, the permission to act in any way, seemly or unseemly. Freedom is a state of being. It cannot be taken from anyone…

Stonewalls do not a prison make

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds quiet and innocent take

That for a heritage.

If I have freedom in my love

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone that soar above

Enjoy such liberty__

— Robert Lovelace

In its truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed. It must be earned.

– Franklin Roosevelt

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

CONSCIOUS SUBMISSION

When men are subdued by force they do not submit in their minds, but only because their strength is inadequate. When men are subdued by power in personality they are pleased to their very heart’s core and do really submit.

Mencius (Meng Tzu}

The power of personality or charisma or ideas can be more powerful than the might of the sword, or the cannon or the bomb. The use of force can capture and suppress but it usually cannot maintain allegiance when the force is removed. True power is invisible and accepted consciously through acceptance of the ruler and his methods of governance - conscious submission.

Great leaders have the ability to enthuse others and to garner support with their words and actions and their leadership qualities. People follow and obey their wishes and such leaders thrive in the power vested and bequeathed to them by their people. They have little fear that the people will rise up against them.

The same concepts ccould be applied to the conquering armies of the old civilizations of the Greeks and the Romans. Later, the great European colonial powers of the Industrial Age showed their longevity in controlling millions of subjects with minimum physical force. In some cases they may have conquered initially by force, but they were only able to retain their power through mutually beneficial policies like trade and power brokering with the local factions in their colonies e.g. The Indian Raj of Britiin’s colonialism of India.

Even in the historical writings of little Demerara, now Guyana, that the Dutch ruled from 1581-1781 it is said that the Dutch settlers did not subjugate the native indigenous Amerindian tribes. The Dutch settler policy was to actively befriend local tribes with gifts and trade so that they became allies and protectors of the Dutch interests there. This policy also ensured that their slaves, imported from Africa, did not successfully escape as they were quickly tracked down and returned by the Amerindians.

It can therefore be said that the likeable personality, like the pen, is mightier than the sword. That endearing personality can be embodied in an individual or in a whole nation or people, as they are perceived by others. Their rule is accepted by their subjects who consciously submit as they are pleased with their method of governance.

Cyril Bryan

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller

How true! Take for example poetry. Listen to what Arthur Gutterman says:

A poem should should be as our best ever are

Golden of heart like a rose or a star.

A poem should be like the brook that you hear

Sing down the mountainside, lovely and clear.

Yet in its music, a poem should hold

That which is felt, but may never be told.

.

The essence of a poem is not the beautiful structure with its striking rhyme and rhythm, its elaborate figures of speech; even its music. They are the ephemeral dress that clothe that which you cannot see but only feel; that aspect which is ineffable. This goes for a person also. We can see the outward comeliness, that part of the personality which perishes with time and which attracts most people, but the true beauty of one is the imperishable bliss that exudes from within and which lightens up the outside.

Helen Keller was both blind and deaf from early childhood. Her life was a miracle, and her miracle worker was her teacher, Miss Sullivan who has shown much patience, love, devotion and sacrifice, intangible virtues, to make Helen what she became - a Humanitarian, a scholar, a poet and a believer. What a lesson to those who are possessed of all their senses and fail to achieve.

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Randall Butisingh

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The photograph below, was shot in July 1888 in Brewster, shows an 8-year-old Helen sitting outside in a light-colored dress, holding Sullivan’s hand and cradling one of her beloved dolls.

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY

POETRY and GOD

Poetry is an analogy which can be used for God. The outward , visible form of poetry is the dress which clothes the invisible essence which cannot be seen, but only felt; that no thing that moves you to tears. It is like the invisible fragrance to the visible rose. The outward manifestations of God are Nature and the Cosmos which change and decay; but that which pervades every atom of Creation, without which there can be no life, is a no thing, inscrutable and incomprehensible, without form or colour, called spirit and soul by many, which is without beginning and ending but capable of countless manifestations, not only as incarnations.

Randall Butisingh

A poem for Valentine’s day

MY FRIENDS

My friends are little lamps to me’
There radiance warms and cheers my way;
And all my pathway, dark and lone.
Is lightened by their rays.

I try to keep them bright by faith,
And never let them dim with doubt;
For every time I lose a friend,
A little lamp goes out.

Elizabeth Whittemore

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY