Elizabeth Aracy Rondon Amarante rscj, province of Brazil
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Beth Rondon Amarante in the Myky village where she lives. |
Respectful sharing of life: an experience of life among the Myky
There were 23 of the Myky when they were discovered in the wild in 1971, in the north-east of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. When, I, Elizabeth Aracy Rondon Amarante, religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, member of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), came to live among the indigenous people in 1977, there were 28 of them. Today, the Myky number 103, more than half of whom are under 12 years old.
The Indigenous Missionary Council was founded in 1972. From the beginning, the mystique that drives and animates its action has been respect for the otherness and plurality of the Indigenous Peoples; this led to intercultural and inter-religious dialogue. The new paradigm of CIMI’s indigenous pastoral work is discreet presence, dialogue, testimony and prophecy directed towards giving the indigenous peoples a prominent role. All this reflection made its way into my vocation and made me choose an inculturated life among the Myky, an impelling and demanding choice to share life and respect.
My first realisation was that they, the Myky, were specialists in living together, past masters of respect for the other. Their language itself is clear: there is no verb to live, only the verb to live with. To live with nature, with oneself, with other men and women, and with the sacred. A living-with that is also sharing-with. The language has also explained to me that the other is so deeply worthy of respect that no statement can be made about another person. You can’t go up to someone and say: “You’re spinning cotton”. You have to ask the question: “Are you spinning cotton?” Then the person will confirm what he or she is doing. Linguistic subtleties? More than that: the expression of a whole system of relationships.
So I found myself with a new language, another “grammar” of human relationships, not those of domination or individualism, but always of otherness, of reciprocity. The important thing was to learn to commit myself to the life of a people, discovering and valuing their otherness, trying to enter into their interpretation of reality, their concept of the world and the person, of life itself. At the same time, I was reviewing my way of being and thinking, of positioning myself in reality, my way, too, of contemplating and discovering God’s action, God’s Love at work. We carry around in ourselves a system of references and cultural structures that get translated into judgments, very often those of superiority and power… But inculturation means a change of social and cultural position, an opening up of mind and heart: an apprenticeship in welcome.
It is not easy to go beyond our limitations, our frontiers… We have to keep going through an existential, spiritual experience which is called conversion. It is grounded in another logic, other symbols. It was the logic of space that gave me this change of vision, the logic of the “space-house”. Among the Myky, the house is a symbol, a big space, but a lived-in space. A space that breathes life, that expresses living together; experience of the sacred is possible there, and so is education. It is a model that symbolises the social organisation of the village. In the house there are no tables, no chairs, only hammocks hung in all directions. Today, the house is no longer made of straw; the outer form, the construction materials have changed. They are houses that look modern, but the basic truth is how the house is experienced from within. That is what does not change.
The house reflects the importance and worth of the other’s presence, as close to one as possible, a presence that becomes meeting: meetings of bodies, of affectivity, of persons in their diversity and originality. A space that speaks of another way of living, a way in which no one is opposed to another, but meets, touches and complements that other. A way of living out another possible world in which no one considers themselves superior, but all are equal, and interchangeable.
My need for privacy, my desires for silence, my whole way of being were questioned by this new style of behaviour in a group, a society. My first reaction was to accept the inevitable, later I felt an urgent need to analyse the symbols and respect the values, and in the end, I let myself be attracted by the contemplation of this different life-logic. As the years pass, I’m still trying to assimilate into my life this lesson of living together. Little by little I am beginning to see all the other ways of becoming human that it offers our dehumanised world.
Many moments, many events made me learn from these people rather than contributing anything or teaching them anything. I remember, when I had just come, I was writing in my diary, and some came up out of curiosity. I told them: “If you like, I can teach you.” A woman answered straight away: “What are you saying? You don’t talk properly! You have to say: ‘You teach me and I’ll teach you.’ That’s the right way to say it.” I haven’t forgotten that first lesson in how to take my stand as equal to equal, respecting the wisdom, the values, the capacity of the other, without any pretension of being better or knowing more. Among the women, my apprenticeship was more practical. They were the ones who situated me in the Myky cultural context, as they in their specific role make life happen, make history happen, make feasts happen.
Interculturality is a challenge. A challenge to listen. To listen to words and silences. I have spent many hours just listening. Not so much the spoken language (I don’t yet have a complete grasp of it), but, above all, the language of expressions, smiles, a whole way of sharing things, knowledge, affections.
And, more than anything else – sharing faith. This, I believe, is the fundamental point, the deepest respect before another culture, other religious expressions. Various theologians tell us that what can be expressed in one form in one tradition can be expressed in another form in another tradition, in another world-vision. This became evident to me when they asked me to tell stories about Jesus. I told them that that the rage of the powerful killed Jesus, but that, as he was God, he came back to life. I told them that to show that he was alive he went fishing, cooked the fish and shared it out. One woman never tired of saying: “He himself, he himself went fishing, and cooked the fish. He himself gave it to us, to show he was alive.” I think that from her religious experience that woman had understood perfectly: the greatest sign of life is sharing. Jesus was alive and so his most significant gesture was sharing fish.
Inter-religious dialogue is based on the value of otherness, the wealth of diversity of expressions of faith. But what a challenge to our life! Certainly, to speak explicitly of Jesus is easier than to give witness to his Life in our life! The basic thing is that the missionary venture should keep on “giving a reason for our hope” (I Peter 3:15). The measure of our consistency is the measure of our free gift. I have experienced that free gift in joy, but very often too in pain when I see what has happened to the Myky. I feel sad and helpless when I realise how the oppressive system ensnares, stifles and sometimes destroys ancestral values, cultures and wisdom.
Yet I believe that our spirituality grows and matures in the experience of meeting what is different, the other; it is truly a way of contemplating of the open Heart!
(Adapted from the magazine Testimonio)
Click here to see more photos from the village.
Elizabeth Aracy Rondon Amarante rscj
Aldea Myky, State of Matto Grosso, Brazil
Province of Brazil