Switching Sides

The grass lies heavy, wet with dew. Birds flitter here and there, singing over their early work. Light slowly spreads first in shades of blue. And as for me, I am gathering the dawn. This is the moment of our time, just past night, seconds to the sun. And it is a good time to be alive. This moment is ripe for those who choose to wake up. Creation waits, dripping new, and it is a good time to gather. Maybe, the best time.

Meaning, purpose, significance, value. I am finding these things out here in the early morning. Not all at once and not completely, but there are hints, echoes waiting to be stumbled upon by this clumsy seeker.

I know of this guy named Levi. He was a collector too. Taxes. He worked for “The Man”, who at the time was this son of a wannabe king. He ruled over some land and his brother ruled over some land next to him. And these guys set up a system of tolls so that whenever you crossed the border, you paid. Travel tax.

These people were already taxed heavy. They didn’t even have control of their own country at the time. They were oppressed, under the boot of the largest empire in the world. Soldiers set up forts next to their homes and rode through their towns every day, reminding them that they were powerless.

This guy Levi worked for the oppressors. He was on the wrong team, and nobody liked him.

He worked a booth in a border town. If you crossed the border, you went to his booth and emptied your pockets. Deal was though, he had to make a living too. And he made his living by marking up your taxes and pocketing the difference. And you knew that he was marking up, and he knew that you knew he was marking up. And how can you like a guy like that?

I feel for the guy though. He has no friends except for other tax collectors and others that respectable people wanted nothing to do with. And he probably didn’t choose his life. He had to make a living. He was just doing his job. In some ways, he was just as oppressed as the people he was stealing from.

One day a teacher showed up. In their culture, teachers were special people. They were masters (think Kung Fu, grasshopper). After a student’s early education, most kids went on to learn a trade to help the community. The best of the best might be chosen by a teacher to go with him, learn from him which then meant becoming like the teacher.
Levi wasn’t chosen then. The guy didn’t even have a trade.

On this day, all that changed. A young teacher, a master, showed up at his booth – he had crossed the border, and when he saw Levi sitting there with his hand out, he invited him to be one of his students. This was an honor. It was surprising. Levi hadn’t been one of the best of the best back in school. And now he helping the empire to crush the little guys.

Levi left his booth behind that day.

He became a student to that young teacher. And that teacher taught him how to treat others as more important than himself. Once he oppressed his fellow man, now he served them. He would no longer press them down: he would hold them up. His days of taking behind him, he gave. And he would say that he found life. He gathered it up.

Levi’s story makes me wonder whom I am oppressing? I don’t think I do much of it overtly. Like most of us, I’m not generally brutal or uncaring. But is there such a thing as oppressive indifference?

The earth produces enough food to feed everyone living on it. But there are still 6,000 people dying in Africa everyday. Everyday. Most of them children. And most of them because they do not have enough food or clean water.

I am a part of a comparatively small minority of the earth’s population that hoards resources while children die hungry. But as long as I don’t turn to the Sally Struthers infomercial, I can remain indifferent. Oppressively indifferent.

I don’t have to go as far as Africa to see this if I would choose to. There are people here in my community who are hungry. Mothers who are skipping meals so that there kids can have enough. Children whose school lunch in their one good meal a day. And I loosen my belt another notch, belching up their share.

Gathering dawn means leaving the booth. In the morning light, my indifference is exposed. I see what I cannot see. And I can begin, even as I stumble through it, to lower my hand. I take a little less, and I give a little more.

And meaning? Significance? There is more of those things out here than I can gather alone.