Time for sitting on the grass in the shade of a towering cedar tree appears to be taking the edge off. Juan and Ilhuitl seem mesmerized by the exotic viands they are eating, especially Ilhuitl, who has never eaten cheese nor any milk or dairy product before. He begins with gentle caution, but soon is devouring with gusto this strange fare I have bought for us. Juan insists that nowhere in Spain has he ever encountered such wonderful food. He leans back on his elbows, staring at the rosebushes. He says they remind him of the gardens of Sevilla, though here he wants to know where the palace or castle is, for surely we must be enjoying the estate of the local feudal lord. He stares unbelieving when I tell him that there is no palace nor castle here. Then whose garden are we in, he wants to know. It is public, I tell him, it belongs to everyone. But who takes care of the flowers and the grass. Then he notices a young man and a young woman, city public workers, pulling weeds from a flowerbed nearby. Why are white people slaves here, he wants to know. I remind him that slavery was abolished almost two centuries ago, that these are public employees who are paid for their labour. Who pays them? he wants to know. We do, I say, through our taxes. We all pay taxes and the money is spent on public and community services, such as our parks. But who is the lord here, he wants to know. Who is your ruler? We rule ourselves, I reply, through our elected representatives whom we vote into power. Neither Juan nor Ilhuitl have ever heard of democracy. The concept is completely foreign to them, nor can they conceive of a system of government where we are all expected to accept some responsibility in the way we are governed.
Juan wants to know why Holy Church doesn't play a role in governing. Especially in the education of children. He is scandalized and offended when I explain that children are generally educated without religion. Are their no schools facilitated by Mother Church? he wants to know. I explain that we do have some Catholic schools, but not many. And the others? They are generally educated to be good and responsible citizens, though how effectively is always going to be up for debate.
Ilhuitl wants to know who educates the children. I reply, the state. And no priests? None, the children must be free from religion in order to be free to choose or not choose religion as they become adults. And if no one chooses the gods? he asks. I reply that if the gods truly have power then there will always be those who will choose them. Then I ask Ilhuitl if he ever felt free to choose. He replies that never in his life, until these first few hours he has spent with us here, has he even known that such freedom might exist. His chin trembles and his voice breaks a bit as he is saying this. I notice his eyes beginning to well up with tears. He mentions that he always sees the gods throughout the movement of the heavenly bodies and the plants and trees and birds. He sees everything as sacred, as infused with the holy, as being sacred. And other people? I ask. Yes, he replies after a bit of a pause. Other people. And you still think they should be killed and offered up as food for the gods? I challenge. Well, yes, he says, because they are sacred. But not sacred enough to stay alive? But they live on with the gods in the heavens, he says. And no longer can you see or touch or acknowledge the sacred presence that they are, only carry the shadow of guilt for having murdered them? He simply stares at me, as though beginning to see something for the first time, as though just starting to discover a new truth. He suddenly takes my hand in both his, lifts it to his forehead till my fingertips touch the skin just above his eyebrows. He whispers something in Nahuatl, his native language, releases my hand, and cross-legged, bows his head in silence.
Juan begins to weigh in about the women here, how many of them dress in pants, like men, and go about unaccompanied, their heads fully uncovered. Nor can he understand why so many young women, as well as men wear tattoos. And why do so many women dress like whores if they are not working as whores? I reply that they want to feel attractive to men. He retorts that they ought only to be attractive to their husbands, and then goes almost ballistic as I inform him that a lot of women, as men, are single, or they live with their romantic partners without benefit of marriage. Then when I tell him that ultra conservative Muslims have exactly the same beliefs about women as his, he goes very silent, but I feel truly chilled and frightened by the look I see in his eyes.
This is the Great Whore of Babylon! he shouts. I urge him to calm down. Regardless of who you are in 2017, everyone is allowed to live and believe as they choose, so long as they are not interfering with the right of others to live and believe as they choose.
This is complete disorder! he shouts, refusing to calm himself. How can there be any social cohesion without the joint rule of church and king, how could there be any unity?
I reply that here we celebrate unity in diversity and diversity in unity. Yet on a deeper level I hear what he is saying. I hear the loneliness, the isolation in his voice. The despair. I also have to accept the isolation and loneliness that we live with here as a fact of life, of how fragmented we are despite our scrambling efforts to find some sense of unity and order in the chaos we have visited on ourselves. I know what Juan yearns for, and this is what we all yearn for: an authentic experience of our humanity in authentic community, and an authentic experience of community in our authentic humanity. I know that the model we work with is far from perfect, but even worse the enforced conformity of belief, race and manner of life that Juan wants to revert to in Medieval Spain, or see reincarnated here. The loneliness of our human experience has been a high price to pay for freedom and diversity, and now I must carefully hear out my friends Juan and Ilhuitl to learn again what they had, and to try to imagine recapturing its essence without losing anything that we have gained in 2017.
I ask Ilhuitl to tell me what he thinks. He has just picked a small saffron coloured rose that he twirls about in his hand, examining the complex harmony of superimposed petals as though he is peering into his own labyrinthine soul. He looks up, smiles, and replies that he needs time to think. There is much here to absorb and in the meantime he simply wants to observe, listen, learn, and later, much later to judge, but only as he is able.
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