Fire Smoldering Under Water. Anastasia Kuznetsova
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give up everything, which comprised palm oil, for the sake of his children’s lives and for the sake of saving the planet. And he would often think that if people realized the full horror of the disaster, which they brought closer with their own hands with every purchased product, food or perfume, drink or detergent – they would certainly give it up.
Forever.
When there is no demand, supply disappears.
And it would become possible to save this planet, which had been dying for a long time because of the devil of avarice of those, who believed that there were some pockets in the personal coffins for them and their children.
When his tears dried, Jean Batist who had already gone through a whole kaleidoscope of emotions, made up his mind. He would never forgive this person in a white coat.
Never.
For the pain.
For his rudeness.
For turning his back in response to the cry for help.
For the cruelty, which could not be natural for the one who knew the mystique of life and death.
For all the disappointment.
And he also made a decision that by all means he would become a doctor. In order to never cause pain to anybody. To become a real doctor and to help people with an open heart, looking into their eyes.
The time had passed. The results of Jean Batist’s education pleased his parents as well as his teachers. He drew the attention of his physics teacher – a monk from the congregation of catholic monks. They became friends. Monks with the mission of education or just with a kind human attitude had accompanied Jean Batist his entire life.
When the time came to go to university, the congregation of catholic monks helped Jean Batist, as one of the best students, to join the education program in Russia. Thus he got to Moscow, to the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba. He came to Russia with a distinctive objective of getting a high quality medical education and to come back to his homeland, to Africa, to serve people. To become a monk and to dedicate his life to medicine.
But often love of God cannot withstand a competition from the love of a woman.
– Damn it! – it was long since this had become Jean Batist’s favorite expression in Russian. – I don’t know what to do. Deeply confused he was sitting in from of a monk, in front of his former physics teacher, in front of his friend.
– All these years I wanted to become a monk so much that I did not look at any woman at all. Until she appeared. I don’t know what I should do! And I ask you, my teacher, to help me. I will do as you say.
The monk kept silence for a long while. Then he slowly began to explain in detail the things that at first glance were very obvious truths. But, as it turned out, only at first glance. This was a very long conversation. But Jean Batist had remembered its main and fundamental essence for his whole life.
We are all people made of flesh and blood. And it does not matter if we are monks or ordinary people living worldly lives.
It does not matter what we believe in.
And if we believe at all.
We are animals. This is our biological nature. And as any living organism we do react. We have feelings and emotions. We experience them in a natural way and cannot have a full control over them. The strongest feelings are Faith and Hate. Having the absolute faith a person is capable of almost anything. Even of giving their own lives. Having the absolute hate a person can take lives of others.
And when a human being meets a person, to whom he or she develops biological attraction and emotional attachment, we call it love.
Love of a person – is the highest emotion which is called a feeling and is peculiar to human beings only. As all the other highest emotions, love is a specific psychological state, which shows itself in a long-term and stable worrying about the object of love.
The feeling of love can be different depending on the object of love. Love of parents, love of children, love of a man or a woman, of work or pets, of reading or traveling – all of these are different manifestations of this highest emotion. That is why feelings are often classified according to subject areas. The last being divided into moral and ethical as well as intellectual, practical. This is very simple, as simple as an alphabet.
Love of God is not an emotion. And even not a feeling. It is called a true love because it cannot be demonstrated in the morning or in the evening. It does not depend on a season or a life situation. This unconditional love is a part of activities of a human being.
Love of God is a state. As breathing, for example. Breathing may become uneven when we worry. Or quiet and deep when we sleep. It may be different. Furthermore. Particularly the sound of our breathing is the main sound indicating that we are alive. Love of God is like this.
And it does not matter if you are a monk or a worldly person. The main thing is that you breathe.
Jean Batist had cherished forever the memories of that sleepless night, which he spent thinking after his conversation with the monk. Soon he married the woman he loved, and he spent the rest of his life in a close cooperation with monks who revealed for him this amazing insight into life.
After graduation from the university Jean Batist came back to Rwanda with his Russian wife. They built a beautiful house. His wife was surprised by a mild sub-equatorial climate, without heat or cold. They reaped harvest in their garden several times a year. There were no mosquitoes on the shore of a boundless scenic lake Kivu, where they used to come for vacation. Sunsets and sunrises boggled the imagination with their unusual splendor peculiar only to the equator.
There is almost no twilight at the equator. An absolute day starts to be filled with red, lilac, pink colors, the solar disk dives beyond the skyline and an absolute night falls. All of a sudden. As if somebody turns off the day light and turns on a night light of an endless starry sky. This world resembled a piece of paradise created for a family’s well-being. Nature generously rewarded every day of the year with the wealth of all the benefits, which it was able to give.
Together with his wife, a nurse, Jean Batist served the patients in the clinic and worked on his thesis. The time when we are absolutely happy is like a wave of eyelashes. We do not notice it. Soon their life got filled with children’s voices, their family happiness obtained the perfection of great creation of a great artist, and a war came to Rwanda.
Genocide of 1994 claimed the lives of a million people. Jean Batist’s father and brothers were killed. Rivers of blood were running through the city and corpses of the people hacked to death with machete closed the exits from houses. Jean Batist was forced to flee the country to save his family.
Again he had got help from the congregation of monks. Jean’s wife and children were first taken to one of the West African countries, then to Belgium. In Belgium they had to start everything from scratch. In the literal sense of the word.
Russian degree in medicine was not valid in Belgium and he had to study again. To study again to be a doctor. But there was no money, so only one of them could study to be a doctor. His wife stayed at home with the children in a housing provided by social services.
Everything was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar country, unfamiliar language, unfamiliar people.
They just had to survive.
And they were surviving.
It took 4 years to validate his qualifications. The congregation of monks helped in this situation as well. They provided Jean Batist with an opportunity to work at their psychiatric hospital. Monks in many countries of the world opened medical institutions for working with psychiatric patients as well as with deaf and blind persons. This was their mission. And this allowed Jean Batist to find a work for that long period when