Flower of Jasmine

Flower of jasmine, oh so fair! 
Flower of jasmine, oh so fair! 
Budding and blooming here and there, 
Pure and fragrant all declare. 
Let me take you with tender care, 
Your sweetness for all to share. 
Jasmine fair, oh jasmine fair. 

********

Dear Kate,

How is one to help a person who zeros in on the Self with laser focus and cannot imagine any other way to make sense of life?

No, I am not having a certain "person" in mind, even though I am coming off a heated exchange with my son, after he made his mother cry.

I was on the bus to the dentist, to fit my night guard, half a thousand dollars all paid for by my insurance company, a piece of plastic precision-engineered to fit me and only me.  To me it means a lot, to anyone else a piece of garbage.

On the bus I was listening to this popular Chinese folk song from the 18th century, about, as you can see above, the flower of jasmine.  There's something very obvious but startlingly strange about the song, strange because we have already long since cleansed its fragrance off our palate and make a stranger of the world it once inhabited.  Can you hear it?

There is no I in this song.

I isn't even implicitly there hidden between the lines.  And "jasmine" isn't a metaphor for the I to speak about who I am.  The flower is simply praised for what it is, and if I am to do anything about it, I can only try my best to preserve its beauty and to give it away, spread its good news.  As to what the flower means to the I, that's not the point of the song.  You can tell it means a lot, but that's not the avenue on which we are invited to travel and find the meaning.  The meaning of the flower itself is affirmed with no articulation from the perspective of how I shall make it meaningful to Me.

Did I sound like I spoke a lot without speaking much?  I know music is not your thing, but do try to recall songs you heard and are still hearing everyday, how unbearably suffocating they can be.

It is hard to imagine how anxiety, confusion, and despondence will cease to be part of the make-up of the modern, Self-making Man.  The initial question I asked came out of this context, that when the song was playing, I also received a text from a friend asking my opinion on poverty and social housing, etc.  I didn't know how to answer.

What does a Self-making, modern Man want?  He is not asking for help.  She is not looking to change.  Not even a palace can contain a Man like this.  What was once thoroughly satisfying she found in the beauty of a jasmine flower no longer fits her picture.

"See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these."

It's poetry, we say, Jesus too, but our ears are made of tin.

Yours, Alex