When we first came to Venezuela

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson dawson@cantv.net

Second Sunday before Lent sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas

When we first came to Venezuela, we were met off the aeroplane by a young lady who ushered us down to an immigration official who stamped our passports looking at us with curiosity more than anything else, and within a five minutes we were out in the reception area where we collected our bags and were then waived through the security to be taken to a waiting driver. He put the bags in the boot, we climbed into the air-conditioned vehicle and we were on our way to Caracas. The whole operation took less than fifteen minutes and we felt like top VIPs.

It has all changed now, and we are herded along with every other passenger into the overcrowded immigration passage and, more often than not, there is at least one other plane load of passengers who have disembarked five minutes before us.

• Thirty minutes later, if you are lucky, we enter the luggage area and wait while we get shunted up and down as someone decides which luggage terminal they are going to use.

My luggage has a special tag that says, please put me on the conveyor belt last of all. We then run the gauntlet of security. They are in two minds as to who should be next to have all their luggage inspected. We have devised a system that if we get the red light we are on our own, but if we get a green light we are together. We try and hover around and go in directly after a red light.

It isn't that we mind the security that much, in principle, and certainly we have had all our carefully-packed belongings sorted through, creased and crumpled and then stuffed back into our cases on plenty of occasions during the past few years.

I guess it is the inconvenience of it all ... the idea that someone should think that we were potential terrorists, but worse than that that we are people of no consequence who are a threat to humanity ... that we are people who can be ordered around and all our underwear put out for everyone to view.

We are no longer VIPs and no one treats us as such. We are simply Mr. and Mrs. Nobody -- travellers with few rights; no privacy and frankly, we are something of a nuisance wanting to travel at this time and spoiling everyone's pleasure.

We ... all of us ... consider that we are people of dignity, who deserve not just reasonable deference but respect of the highest order.

It was not always like this ... at one time respect was given only to the wealthy and the aristocracy and the rest of us were nobodies ... everyone knew which category they were in, and everyone followed the conventions.

Change came through war and revolution.

In Europe it happened slowly over a period of three hundred years, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and two world wars.

By the end of all that, actors ... who were a despised race in earlier times ... suddenly found themselves the heroes, and top of the social heap, with more VIP treatment than kings had ever been afforded.

The world had been turned upside down but not in the way that Jesus had preached.

In Jesus' day the VIPs were high-ranking soldiers, wealthy aristocrats and priests. It had been like that for many a day and looked set to remain so for many years to come. Naaman was a soldier-diplomat and he knew what VIP treatment was all about. He was so used to it that he expected everyone to give him the respect to which he was accustomed, and which he felt he deserved.

To find that he had a skin disorder that may or may not have been leprosy was a shock to his dignity ... he felt worse than having to have his luggage opened in a public place.

High officials hold their positions by playing the part of high officials, and assuming airs and graces that are not natural to them as people, but are part and parcel of their believed position in life.

Now film stars who actually are nobody, and have come from nowhere, but who have vast bank accounts, play the part of shocked and distressed gentlefolk because a magazine shows pictures of their wedding from which they did not benefit by a million dollars.

Naaman was equal to the act. When he arrived at Elisha's house, after first admitting to the humiliation of not having Elisha coming to him, he was furious to find no reception committee waiting to give him the honor due to his person and his position.

Hearing that he was to wash in the river, out came his best acting ability and he threw a tantrum in front of everyone. I thought that for me, he said, he would come out and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot and cure my disease.

No matter that Elisha was already doing him a favor, he wanted his position as the member of a foreign government to be also taken into account. He lived too many years before Jesus to know that God is not interested in the hierarchies that men create.

The hierarchy that we should be looking to enter is one in which we can be leaders, and that leadership is achieved through service to others.

Ironically, one part of that service is to give due deference to others by generously affirming them. However we are to treat all people the same ... President or pauper ... they equally deserve our respect and help.

What about our dignity you ask? Well other people's dignity matters more than our own, but our's will be enhanced if we put others before ourselves.

That is one of the strange facts of life ... the more we put ourselves at the service of others, the greater other people's respect for us grows. In this modern world, we are all too swift to believe that our dignity has been affronted, but please, let us not wallow in mock hurt and instead share something worthwhile with those who are nearest to us.

I think that our hardest days in Venezuela are yet to come, and, as the days grow more difficult, there will be plenty who will show little regard for us, thus it will be easy to slip into the Naaman tantrums of hurt pride.

We must be on our guard and avoid all kinds of conflict and spend our time in devising ways of healing rather than revenge or displays of pride good enough to win an Oscar.

If there is to be a solution between the people of this country, it will not come because we have put them in their place and made them feel worthless, but because we have healed each others infirmities and affirmed each others dignity and worth.