My brothers and I carry on a family tradition—Sunday breakfast at Elmer’s with Aunt Margaret. We have enjoyed this ritual since medieval times when our parents were there—and since our grandparents were with us, too. Now we are the elders. Margaret is the matriarch, and we are joined at times by our children and grandchildren.
Margaret and I have solved all the world’s troubles many times as we have lingered over coffee. The world hasn’t seemed to notice, but we are always greatly cheered.
Aunt Margaret knows my philosophy for the Bentari Project is to promote Universal Peace with Prosperity for All.
At breakfast recently I asked Margaret about her philosophy of life. Without hesitating, she shared this rhetorical belief, “What is life for if it’s not to make things easier for others."
In A People’s History of the United States,[1] Howard Zinn shares the dreams of writers and artists through the ages “that people might cooperatively use the treasures of the earth to make life better for everyone, not just a few.”
How people use “the treasures of the earth” is a core theme of Bentari. We learn that unthinkable wealth lies hidden a hard day’s march from Bentari’s village. The hoard seems destined to fuel a global war. Or, it could remain a talisman that has been defended for centuries as a form of security by a tribe that does not realize the existential threat that it truly represents for its custodians.
What should we do with the treasures of Earth?
I can think of things—things invoked by Zinn’s artists and writers. Remember Charles Dickens and his lessons for Ebenezer Scrooge. It is the orphans of Humanity whose needs are greatest for relief that our planet’s treasures could provide. It is “Ignorance and Want”[2]—the children of our neglect. It is the millions of innocents born into squalid circumstances by bad luck at birth. We are linked to them by shared existence. And we are unwilling to tend their basic needs. Our lack of custody does not free us from a great and growing responsibility.
Yes, Aunt Margaret, “What is life for if it’s not to make things easier for others?”
Images: Aunt Margaret at one of her favorite places (a tennis court) and Howard Zinn (from the “History is a weapon” site noted below)
[1] See online at: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html or buy your own copy of A People’s History of the United States at Amazon or Powell’s Books
[2] From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, “… the spirit shows Scrooge two hideous children named Ignorance and Want…” and these words for us more than for Scrooge, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”