Jerusalem Sunday, August 22, 2010

                               Lagois str. Krugersdorp 1947

Dear friends shalom,

Life has always been hard for me because I keep on complicating matters; for example, I'm asked to perform a simple task like holding a spoon in my hand and scooping the porridge into my mouth, instead I plunge my hand into the porridge, splashing it all around the outside of the plate, messing up the table, then I try to place the bit of porridge left in my hand into the spoon and then I proudly insert the spoon into my mouth, managing to get a little taste of the porridge. Then, like the diligent child I am, I clean the mess around the plate and the table by smearing my flat hand all over it. Then I get scolded, I know not why.

From the moment we are born we're being asked to perform tasks while really there are many tasks which we alot to ourselves, either because of our physical needs or our spiritual desires. So, naturally conflict arises between what we want to do and what others want us to do.

I decided, at a very early age, as you see from the example above that tasks others ask me to do are difficult while tasks I choose myself are easy.

Life has proved me wrong; it's exactly the other way around and I am complicating my life by choosing my own tasks, thinking they're easier while actually they're much more difficult than tasks others, like my parents, have asked me to perform.

Now, perhaps, you understand why I mention the porridge incident as the first important event in my life and not my birth, even though it was such a complicated affair that I confess to sometimes thinking that I must have chosen it.

My parents chose a house on the corner of Lagois and some other street which, even though it was more major, because cars drove up and down, I can't remember its name. But Lagois sticks firm in my memory.

Today you'll never be able to keep me from exploring my surroundings to get to know every stone, scorpion, bit of history etc of any street I find myself in, even for a short time. But in those early days of my life Lagois str remained a mystery to me.

7 years passed with me only being familiar with my cozy cot, lovely green dining room table, where I could hide to escape a beating which my poor mother thought would put me on the right track of things and of course the back porch, where I could mess with my porridge instead of sitting by the lovely green dining room table.

My experiments with the porridge and other notable events convinced me that I was destined for greatness and I was very impressed that this fellow Lagois had his name given to a street where such a great one as me would live.

He must have done something heroic to recieve that honor. Unfortunately my search for this honorable thing has lead to nought.

Amazingly, as a child I was imbued with the conviction that I was destined for greatness.

Most of my life I've been wondered how this would come about; I confess that I couldn't find any grounds for this conviction.

Even the porridge and other incidents, like releasing the hand brake of my father's new Hudson Terraplane didn't seem sufficient to qualify me me for my destiny.

I've constantly been checking myself, all my life, each day going over my activities, since early childhood to find some really outstanding thing I'd done which would warrant this thought.

To this day I'm quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that my search always ends fruitlessly.

Each day I used to sit proudly, expectantly in the back of the classroom, sure that this was the day I'd be pointed out as the one who'd written the best essay, painted the best picture or known all the answers but it never happened.

I admit that once, after about 12 disappointing years the thought occurred to me that my search for greatness had only covered good deeds, while my greatness, like that of Jesse James might be lying in a criminal activity.

I gave up the idea, however, because any bad thing I could think of doing would harm other people which I definitely didn't feel like doing even though some people angered me sometimes. I wasn't able to maintain the necessary amount of intensity and permanence of anger required to motivate doing something to harm them.

Now, just when I was beginning to give up my search for greatness two important thoughts came to me:

The first is the thought of the power of a father. I saw my late father as a great man of the world.

The second thought is that everybody is great simply by the fact of his birth. We don't have to do anything but get born to be great. Other things that we do in life are all minor matters compared to the greatness of getting born.

My late father had a shop in partnership with my uncle. His shop was near Lagois str and he glowed with happinness when I would come to his shop. His pride at knowing that I was watching as he served a customer made him full of enthusiasm and he'd always tell the customer that I was his son.

It was exciting to be there and to see his pleasure.

I felt great because of the power I had to make him glow with pleasure. To this day I am amazed that he looked for my approval of everything he did.

I admired everything he did even though they were complicated business negotiations which I never understood, he looked for my approval.

The only thing I really didn't approve of was his death by his own hand and I'm grateful that he wasn't here to see my disapproval. It would have made him sad.

Wishing you a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon Gork

Come for a walk with Leon Gork

Jerusalemwalks.com

Tel:0523801867