Security

 

                                                                    

Ade Santora



 "Security?" I marvel to myself "what is that?" Something negative, undead, suspicious and suspecting; an avarice and an avoidance; a self surrendering meanness of withdrawal; a numerable complacency and an innumerable cowardice. Who would be "secure"? Every and any slave. No free spirit ever dreamed of 'security' - or, if he did, he laughed; and lived to shame his dream. No whole sinless sinful sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could be) bought by, and sold for; 'security'. How monstrous and how feeble seems some unworld which would rather have its too than eat its cake!"

 

E.E. Cummings 

from "six nonlectures"

 





 

"Who would be 'secure'? Every and any slave."

 

I've been chewing on this thought for months now. I hear people signing off or saying goodbye to each other with that strange phrase, "Be safe." Like a benediction or blessing or a word-hex against some evil spirit? What is it? It sticks in my mind, a strange object I can't identify, can't place, even though it has familiar attributes.


"Safe." "Secure." Of course, but truly there are no such things on this earth. Why does it freeze my blood to hear people repeating them? 


And then I stumbled across Cumming's "Nonlecture" quotes in my Commonplace Book, and my thoughts suddenly came into focus. 


I have lost two children to disease, I know there is no such thing as "safe". I lost that illusion with my daughter, and it was ground into dust with the life and death of my son. I do not like the word "safe" the way we are using it now. It's repellent. 

 

You will see it how you will, but I'm with Cummings. "No free spirit ever dreamed of 'security'..." If we live with the aim to be "safe", we are only dancing with death. If we live with the aim to be free, to be wide open, to recieve good things, to share, to fully love and be loved - we must be risk-takers, cliff-jumpers, deep-divers, tree-climbers - and dance with danger. Life is dangerous. 

 

Life is dangerous! Security does not exist. Even for someone like myself who trusts that God has provided an eternal home for those who are willing to risk everything on the strength of His promises, there is no guarantee of safety here, there is no exemption from pain or the vagaries of life.The threat of death and disease and disaster is real, as real as it gets.  


So I love the realism of Cumming's words. They're a balm to my nettled nerves. I want to hear them again, to savor their taste. "No whole sinless sinful sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could be) bought by, and sold for; 'security'."


So help me, I want to live wholly in this dangerous world. Look at the children! Pushing against their limits, daring to go a little further each day, balancing on the fence-tops, falling and failing themselves into skinned knees and broken arms and victory. That's called growing. It's laughing in the face of all the things that stand against us, against all the odds that threaten to cut us down at the knees. "It's only a flesh wound!" as the Monty Python character insists. I'm with him, too. 





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