There is such a feeling of shame when you let yourself down, when you have acted beneath your dignity. There is something demeaning about having done something that is “infra dignitatem.” You would give anything to return to the point two minutes before the event and act differently. Having dignity of presence is not to be equated with being nice, always good, or behaving conventionally. You can be as free as the wind in your views, beliefs, and actions; you could be angry and awkward at times and still hold your dignity. Neither is dignity equivalent to stiffness or arrogant aloofness of personality. Dignity allows an immense pliability and diversity of presence, but still holds the sense of worthiness and the honour of a larger horizon of grace and graciousness. Even in compromising and demeaning situations, you can still hold your sense of dignity. At such times your sense of dignity will keep a space of tranquillity about you. In the Third World, one is often struck by the immense dignity of the poor. Even hunger and oppression cannot rob them of this grace of spirit. If you do not give it away, no event, situation, or person can take your dignity away from you. The different styles of presence reveal how we belong to ourselves.
A Canadian who recently visited Ireland for the first time remarked on landing at Shannon Airport how the patchwork of fields had human proportion. Our world is indeed addicted to the vast expanse, be it the World Wide Web or globalization. With this relentless extension, we are losing our sense of the humane proportion. When a thing becomes overextended, it loses its individuality and presence and the power to speak to us. The landscape in the West of Ireland partly owes its intensity and diversity of presence to the proportion of its fields. Each field has its own unique shape and personality. When the walls frame a piece of land, they bring all that is in that field into sharp and individual relief: the stones, the bushes, and the gradient of the field. Patrick Kavanagh speaks of “the undying difference in the corner of a field.” The corner is always where a wall is most intense. The walls focus the field as an individual countenance in the landscape. It is no wonder many of the fields have their own names and stories.
Where there is neither frame nor frontier, it is difficult to feel any presence. This is our human difficulty with air. It is invisible and always the same blank nothingness. The sky is a massive expanse but it is rarely the same blue all over; it is brindled with cloud and colour and framed by the horizon. The human mind loves proportion and texture. Though we are largely unaware of it, we always need a frame around an experience in order to feel and live it. When you reflect on all the things you have known and experienced, you begin to see how each of them had its own different frame. Think of the time you met your partner and fell in love. This event happened at a certain time, in a certain place, and at a very particular phase in your life. At any other time, it could not have happened in this way. In the landscape of memory there are many fields. Each experience belongs in its own field. This is what hurts and saddens us so profoundly about death. When we lose people to death, they literally disappear. They vanish into thin air and become invisible to us. Our hearts reach towards them, but their new presence has no frame and is now no longer to be located in any one place that we can know or visit. Our voices call to them, yet no echo returns.
All of human experience comes to expression in some kind of form or frame. It is literally impossible to have an experience that did not have a form. The frame focuses individuality and gathers presence. Without this frame, neither identity nor belonging would ever be possible. Belonging presumes warmth and intimacy. You cannot belong in a vast, nameless space. There is no belonging in the air except for birds who ride its currents. Belonging is equally difficult in the ocean; the vast expanse of water is anonymous. It has no face, and only sailors who know it well can identify a particular place in its endless sameness. Where there is anonymity, there can be no real belonging. Of the four elements, the earth is the one with the greatest stable presence and thereness. Clay loves shape and texture. Of all the elements, the earth forms naturally into individual shapes, each of which is different. It is no wonder that the human body, being made of clay, is capable of such longing and belonging. The human self is intimacy. When we choose to give our hearts to or belong with someone, we do it only when we find a like echo in the intimacy of the other. Belonging seeks out affinity that has a definite form and frame. We feel we can trust that which has its own contour and individual autonomy of shape. This trust enables belonging.
