Category Archives: Apathy

Le nom secret

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Quand un enfant indien arrive au monde il reçoit un nom de ses parents. Ce nom n’est que provisoire, c’est-à-dire il peut changer ou être complété par un autre nom. De la part du sorcier de la tribu l’enfant reçoit en outre un nom secret qui est son vrai et propre nom et connu seulement de lui. Personne ne peut toucher à ce nom. Personne ne peut en faire un mauvais usage. Son vrai nom n’appartient qu’à lui. L’enfant indien reçoit aussi une pierre de la part du chamane. Si le sorcier meurt avant que l’enfant ait appris son nom de sa part, le jeune indien se retire à un endroit désert. Il reste à cet endroit jusqu’à ce que la pierre lui dévoile par un rêve ou une autre révélation son vrai nom. Dans beaucoup de ces pierres il y a des druses, ce sont des cavités avec des pierres précieuses. Dans d’autres il y a de l’or, et dans toutes il y a un enchantement curatif et la force du nom clandestin.

Après la tempête

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Pour cette histoire (l’une d’avant-hier) j’ai aussi la traduction Française…

La tempête a fait son œuvre. Dans la forêt il y a des arbres dans tous les sens. Ses troncs encombrent les chemins et les routes. Aucun voyageur ne peut y avancer. Mais une fois que la tempête est passée, le temps pour les ouvriers forestiers est arrivé. Ils dégagent les chemins avec leurs scies, enlèvent les barrières et libèrent toutes les routes, du bord extrême de la forêt jusqu’à son intime intérieur.

Everything Else

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In a land in our time there lived a man, who read a book and found lots of wonderful stories therein. There were true and invented stories, experienced and pensive, enjoyable and painful stories. There were stories which contained stories, and such which were actually not stories. For every story he read, there occurred to him nearly five which he had either experienced or thought up himself. So the thought came to him, that a lot in the world was a story which could be healing for himself and others; he only needed to absorb the healing stories well and to forget the terrible ones immediately. Then he would learn which story he had used when and for what. So he organised his own stories which he knew, and which had become a help to himself and others, or could become so. Sometimes he noted it down when a new story came to his ears and sometimes when a helpful story occurred to him, he memorised it.

Then he saw before him in a picture the storystories of this life arranged in long shelves, as in a large pharmacy. And behind the counter there sat a man who had learnt to listen to himself and others. He was a master of his subjectspecialty. His talent was that he understood how to tell the right thing at the right time to himself and to those who visited him.

The Ginnel

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I knew a man who told me this story. Someone came to him when he, like you, no longer knew what to do. “There’s nothing more I can do”, he said. “I’m stuck in a dead end”. Then something occurred to him – he who told me this – and he explained:

“This reminds me of the small passages from one street to the next, called ‘ginnels’. You can only get through them on foot. They are not much wider than a man. In the area I live, I know a dead end like you describe. When you go in, it goes no further, as is the case with dead ends. But with this dead end it is different, and I believe there are more like it: When you go right to the end, you find the ginnel somewhere on the side, quite inconspicuous between the houses.”

An Army for Peace!

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Do you also find that there are too many unhappy people in the world? Then I would like to tell you a story related to this.. In a large town, there lived a man who had a special trait. He could not bear to see people in misery. Perhaps that would not be worth mentioning, since there are many people who see themselves in this situation these days. But this man had a second trait. He had done everything he could to relieve the misery of the poorest people. He had, together with his friends and later co-fighters, helped hundreds of thousands to lead a worthy life.

The man asked himself: Why are some people so successful, when killing and destruction are concerned? Why do armies work more effectively than churches and many social organisations? And he decided to create his own army; a strict organisation with officers and soldiers, with flags and uniform. An army for peace. The war aim of this army was, so it was said, “to save at all cost the population of the slums which is threatened to go under in a sea of debauchery, alcoholism and vice”. That certainly did not please many pub landlords and pimps. The “soldiers” of the Salvation Army were attacked and often wounded; three of them were even killed. Gradually the persecution stopped. The Salvation Army remained in existence and continued to work against prostitution and pimping, homelessness, and the consequences of war, according to their Christian conviction. Their position was: “We want peace. There are enough calls for peace, but the evil in the world does not react to well-intentioned appeals. Conflict, strife, fear and desperation cannot be fought with admonitions, they demand a true fight!”