Summer 2012 [pdf] - The Mill Hill Missionaries

Wisdom from thePeoples of the ForestThree Proverbs and a StoryDutch MHM Fr Peter Korse worked formany years among the forest peoples ofthe Congo, and among the Basoga peopleof Uganda. He came to have a deepappreciation of the culture of these people,and of how much we Europeans haveto learn from their beliefs and customs.In both countries Fr Peter founded anddirected a Cultural Research Centre for thestudy of the languages, rituals, symbols,and traditional stories of the people. Inso doing he discovered God’s Spirit atwork in the most unexpected places. In abook he has written (“Spiritual Dialoguewith the Bantu”) he describes how hisby Fr Piet Korse mhmeyes were opened to discover ‘the pearlhidden in the field’ that Jesus spoke of inthe Gospel (Matthew 13:44).In many cultures the wisdom of the peopleis expressed vividly in their Proverbs andStories. Fr Peter writes, “Proverbs are aprecious gift to strengthen and to unifythe life of a community.” He has madea large collection of African proverbs,and written a commentary to ‘open’the meaning of the proverbs for thosenot familiar with these cultures. Someexamples are given below, along withthe commentary.Three Proverbs...“A child is like a knife; if it cutsyou, do not throw it away.”Even if a child hurts its parents, theyshould never show it the door or bechased away. They may feel sad, but theyshould never disown their own child.We can apply this proverb to God whosechildren we are: God, in his goodnessand from his innate compassion, willnever disown us whatever we do,however badly we behave! We remainhis children. So never despair!“To catch a louse, one needs twofingers.”United we stand, divided we fall. In orderto accomplish things in life, we need thehelp of others, and they, in their turn,need our help. As they say in Uganda,“Two fools know more than one genius.”Two persons who assist each other willmake more headway than a singleperson just by himself. (In Cameroonpeople say in Pidgin, “One hand no fittie a bundle”, i.e. you can’t tie a bundlewith one hand.)“Only the tortoise that sticks outits neck will make headway.”In order to succeed in life, we need to takerisks. To make progress we shall have toget a move on!”...and a StoryOne day the root said: “The owner of thename ‘tree’ – that’s me, because I formthe trunk, the bark, the sap, and all thebranches.’The trunk stood up and said, “The tree,that’s me, because I am big and tall andpeople use me for all kinds of purposes.”The sap, however, said, “It’s only mewho can be called ‘tree’. You are allnothing, because it’s me who feeds you.If it weren’t for me, you would not bethere!”Then the bark presented itself and said,“The true tree, that’s me! I cover thewood, the sap, the roots, and I protectthe leaves. Without me there is no tree.”The leaves then came forward. One leafsaid in the name of all of them, “The tree,that’s me! You are all breathing throughme! I cover you against the sun; I makeyou all look beautiful. If it weren’t forme, the name ‘tree’ would not be there.”Which of these five has the right to becalled ‘tree’?The verdict is as follows: A person doesnot lack an origin. Even if he becomesa king, his roots and origin lie with hisfather and mother, even though they maybe desperately poor and miserable. Thesame with a tree: even when it becomesbig, even when it has bark, leaves, andfruits, the root is their master! The rootis like the mother of the tree. Withoutroots, the tree won’t stand upright. Inthe dispute of the root, trunk, sap, andleaves, the root is the owner of the name‘tree’. The life of the tree comes from theroot. The others are like its childrenIn future issues of the Advocate we hopeto include further examples of Africanwisdom.26 27