Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, August 26, 2010


All critics should be assassinated.

Man Ray, artist, born on this date,
1890


He made glorious images! I really appreciate Man Ray’s work!

His words may sound a little harsh ……… but so do the words of Jesus and other great Teachers on every level.

Let me be succinct. Essentially, negative gratuitous criticism is a way of denying Humanity to people. I have sat, on dark nights illuminated by kerosene lanterns, in Brazilian and Nicaraguan and West African villages, while people sang or put on plays or enacted “pageants”. I could have compared them to such things I knew in North America and “found fault”. I was never tempted ….. why I don’t know; did I inherit some gene somewhere? Was/is it in my DNA?

What Human Beings “produce” from the creativity of the mind is not to be evaluated for material or social or political worth. It is an expression of their Humanity, and of their moment in the process of the living out that Humanity “in fear and trembling”. This process is an act of intrinsic and inestimable value. It should never be judged from any crass or pompous or “right or wrong” dimension.

Critics are the pawns of a society’s disintegration. Rather, we Human Beings are destined to be handmaids to each other in becoming fully Human. It is beneath us as Human Beings to “criticize” others. Rather, it is a joy of the spirit to see, in the ritual or artistic expression of our fellow beings, the emergence of their Being.

Even better, to “sacrifice” some of our Self in order to give them Life. This is, in part, the meaning of the Cross.

Brian+