Every child has a god in him;
our attempts to mold the child will turn the god into a devil.
There’s a lovely Italian film directed by Federico Fellini, 8 ½.
In one scene there’s a Christian Brother going out on a picnic or excursion with a group of eight to ten year old boys.
They’re on a beach, moving right on ahead while the Brother brings up the rear with three or four of them around him.
They come across an older woman, who’s a whore, and they say to her,
“Hi,”
and she says, “Hi.”
And they say, “Who are you?”
And she says, “I’m a prostitute.”
They don’t know what that is but they pretend to.
One of the boys, who seems a bit more knowing than the others, says, “A prostitute is a woman who does certain things if you pay her.”
They ask, “Would she do those things if we paid her?”
“Why not?” the answer came.
So they take up a collection and give her the money, saying, “Would you do certain things now that we’ve given you the money?”
She answers, “Sure, kids, what do you want me to do?”
The only thing that occurs to the kids is for her to take her clothes off.
So she does.
Well, they look at her; they’ve never seen a woman naked before.
They don’t know what else to do, so they say, “Would you dance?”
She says, “Sure.”
So they all gather round singing and clapping; the whore is moving her behind and they’re enjoying themselves immensely.
The Brother sees all this. He runs down the beach and yells at the woman.
He gets her to put her clothes on, and the narrator says:
“At that moment, the children were spoiled; until then they were innocent, beautiful.”Awareness
Anthony de Mello
