I erred today.
"To err is
human; to forgive, divine".
The English poet
Alexander Pope penned this line in his work, "An essay on
criticism". This was a very long-winded work which I have started a
couple of times but have never finished.
I may some day.
One of the big
Christian and pagan festivals is on soon.
Christmas.
There are lights
and trees and strange Singaporean Christmas moose creatures erected everywhere
down Orchard road.
I will soon have
to don my Santa Suit in the tropical heat and be mauled by my friend Jo Bo and
other kids in her condominium.
I did it last
year.
Orchard road is
one of the main tourist retail places on the Island and I tend to avoid it. It
is crowded and full of tourists and I don’t like it.
I had to go there
today though.
This evening.
To do some stuff.
Back to the ‘erring”
bit.
In "An essay on criticism" Pope was
expressing his thoughts on critics and other poets and writers of his time. It
is a rather bitter and lengthy piece of writing,
Alexander wrote
this more than 300 years ago. Pope didn't actually coin the term, "To
err is human". It is an English translation of a much older Latin
proverb. "Errare humanum est". Pope just added the "To
forgive, divine" bit.
There are a couple
of other fairly well known lines from Pope's "An essay on
criticism". These are, "A little learning is dangerous" and
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". He was a bit of a
legend.
It is not a bad
word.
Err.
I like it.
The Latin "errare" meant
to wander or go astray. It is also the verb form of the word 'error' which
pretty much means the same thing. It is also an often and commonly used type of
pausing word or a response when someone says something to you and you don't
quite no how to respond. You say 'Err".
This is how I
erred today.
I was out in the
mayhem of the Orchard Road shopping district today. I was sitting outside
having a cool drink and a cigarette between doing my stuff when a young
Singaporean man approached me. He reached out to give me a plastic flower and
he told me, "Jesus loves you"
I was sipping the
last of my lime juice when he approached me and my initial verbal response was "Err".
So I erred. My mental response was, "Argh".
I do not like
being confronted by random Christians.
I noticed that
there were a cluster of young Singaporeans wandering around the area and all of
them were clutching plastic flowers. They were handing them out to passers by
and to people like me who were sitting down in the smokers’ area. They were all
attired the same in plain black trousers, black shoes and bright orange
tee-shirts upon which were emblazoned the words "JESUS LOVES YOU".
Front and back and in black bold lettering. They were all bespectacled and
looked to be very clean-cut and blissfully happy Singaporeans. My best guess
was that they were a Christian movement as they were all saying "Jesus
loves you" as they were handing out their plastic flowers.
I had a cigarette
in one hand and my near finished cup of lime juice in the other so I couldn't
really accept the flower from the chap who approached me. I smiled an "Hello"
though.
"Jesus
loves you", the
young man repeated and he again thrust the plastic flower towards me
"I am not
sure that he does"
I responded.
I refused to drop
either my cigarette or my lime juice to accept the flower.
"He does
lah" the
smiling Singaporean repeated.
"How do
you know lah?" I
enquired.
"He loves
us all"
"All of
us?" I
asked.
"He loves
us all"
the bespectacled Singaporean beamed.
"He loves
Kim Jong Un and Bashar Al-Assad?"
"All of
us"
"And he
loves evil people like pedophiles and rapists and murderers?" I persisted.
"Yes" the young fella asserted
although he didn't sound so assured anymore.
"And he
loved Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Hosni Mubarak, David Cameron, Tony Abbott
and George Bush?"
I continued - reeling off the first few evil dictators that came to mind.
I was beginning to
enjoy myself a bit now.
The poor young
fellow withdrew the hand holding the flower now and he gave me a blank stare.
This is a fairly common response in Singapore that I am quite used to.
"I met
Jesus a couple of weeks ago you know" I told the stunned Singaporean
Christian. I wanted to add a little to his state of bewilderment.
I did actually
meet a guy named Jesus.
I wrote about this
in a piece I titled, "Jesus and the Thunderbolts"
He was a Mexican tourist I chatted to during a big thunderstorm quite a
while back.
Maybe a couple of years.
"You met
Jesus?"
the young fellow asked. His tone and expression was one of mixed wonderment and
uncertainty.
"I did,” I asserted.
"We had a
coffee and a smoke at Starbucks in Novena and we watched a thunderstorm
together. He told me that the correct pronunciation of his name was 'Yaysoos'
but he didn't mention anything about loving me".
I repeat this is
all true.
I did meet a
Mexican guy whose name was Jesus. We talked a bit about lightning and
thunderstorms in Singapore but he definitely did not mention anything that
suggested that he loved me.
I would have
remembered this.
The poor young guy
seemed a little baffled by my comments so he moved onto a rather gruff looking
western fella who was also smoking a cigarette and was sitting a few meters
down from me.
I watched the
young Christian Singaporean endeavor to hand his plastic flower to this bloke.
He said "Jesus loves you" to him and I nearly choked on the
remainder of my lime juice when the man grabbed the plastic flower from the
nice young man's hand and threw it to the ground. He told the poor Christian
boy to "Piss off" in a very loud voice. He said this in a
broad cockney English accent so it sounded more like "Poos off".
I didn't think
that this was called for.
I also doubted
very much that Jesus would love him after such an act. Neither the Jesus
referred to in the Bible not the Mexican bloke that I shared a coffee and a
cigarette with in Starbucks a couple of weeks ago.
I stubbed my
cigarette out and as I walked past the rude Cockney bastard I paused and
stooped and picked up the plastic flower and I tucked it behind my ear.
"Jesus
will never love you"
I remarked as I walked away.
"You poos
off an all"
he said to me.
I just laughed and
continued on.
Merry
Christmas.
No comments :
Post a Comment