***** Warning... For my third world hygiene I suspect I could literally be condemned as a health hazard, though I am NOT one.
Near all who were at all active friends to me have dropped away. And they were right to do so. We were never cut of the same cloth. Of the several that have not dropped fully away, one invited me for dinner tonight with their magnificent children, spiritually, and spouse.
Yesterday I accepted. Today I declined. This is the note that I sent to the friend: " Hey friend. Many of we Palestinians are stinky and smelly. Israel steals virtually all our water thanks to America's unconditional support. And, last night I got my first bed bug bite in a month. I can't be sure of being free of them. So, as much as I would have loved to see you all, let's not do tonight. That would not be a good idea. By Wednesday I should know whether I will require further dental work that will delay my departure. In any case, by then, I should have a better idea of when I will hope we could transfer my suitcase to you for storage.
Hugs to you all......"
I don't know what it is about my third world hygiene. For my soul, those times when my soul has been in charge, it has been a profoundly low priority. Really no priority at all. I don't know for sure what that's about.
But I think it has to do with a proper rejection of our priorities. Not a rejection I intend, think about, plan, or deliberately execute. But I pretty much follow the dictates of what I sense to be my soul, and hygiene more atrocious than you can imagine is the consequence. Bathing is what I am talking about. I bathe when I literally can't stand myself. That is very infrequent.
I'm sure that some people distance from me as a consequence. But I think more than that I distance from people not wanting to inflict those odors that may be associated with me on them. I may pay a price for that, but in truth, I think there is a tremendously unintended benefit. I can think of no situation where my hygiene issue would interfere with a contact, an involvement, a dialogue, a working with... That would have benefited our neediest brothers and sisters. It is not my intention to have third world hygiene for the purpose of eliminating those interchanges with others that would be less than hugely beneficial to our global neediest. But I am aware of, and grateful for, that frequent consequence.
I also guess, that the few souls still alive enough to be at all moved by the life of devotion to the global neediest that I lead, are moved by this part of me that I am discussing, as well. At some deep level I think they understand it, as do I, as a fundamental solidarity with our neediest for whom hygiene that we Westerners consider decent is incomprehensible due to their near total deprivation of resources.
30 or 40 years from now, on destroyed planet Earth, my hygiene will be considered normal. The amount of resources, heat for water, water itself, chemicals, expense... that we consider normal in the West, is an unconscionable crime of hoarding and squandering , gluttony, against humanity. I am quite sure that this also is central to my lifelong abhorrence of the hygiene practices we consider normal. So, make no mistake, I have been Western hygiene normal 4 most of my decades, out of a lack of courage of my convictions, cowardice... for which I am ashamed.
