Interesting, disconcerting, challenging, a text or rather a personal testimony that goes beyond explanation. With heartfelt words, Pierre-René tells us about the multiple encounters that profoundly touched him during his many travels around the world; he recalls the numerous facial expressions that have left their mark.
by Pierre-René Côté

Facial expressions here, there, everywhere!

Everywhere, faces! One face stands out! A powerful, intimate, secret moment. A moment of intensity, thick with encounter, imprinted in my memory like a spurt of growth as a human being. Those moments of encounter have taught me, shaped me. “Remembering Faces” challenged me to admit and acknowledge to what extent I am who I am because of the hundreds of faces of people who, without knowing it, with no educational strategy whatsoever, have had an impact on my training, on the “BUILDING” of whom I have become. More than anything, I have learned that, sometimes, mere instances can last through time.

“All aboard! On our way!”

There is no other way for me to begin the journey than to tell you about some of the faces that have impressed me along my journeys. They are my faces and my stories: for you, the reader, they are unfamiliar and strange. Nevertheless, the part of me that has never expressed itself even after my trips to Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, France and Spain or even while in Montmagny and Drummondville, this hidden aspect of me will now make itself known.

“Last stop all passengers disembark!”

Yes, hasten the pace, and I hope you will take the time to wind back, so as to remember those trips you have taken and those faces that impressed you along the way. Though I will tell you about my experiences, do let your memory flash back tothose words, and facial expressions that still speak to you today even though they might seem like they are buried away in some old photo albums. One day, when I was visiting an orphanage in Bolivia, a child less than two years old stretched out his arms with pleading eyes. I did not want to pick him up but then I could not resist. As I was about to put him down on the floor, our tears blended. Once again, I had to convince myself that he would never be my son and that I would never be his father. Those facial expressions, smiling or sad, welcoming or mean, perhaps even indifferent, but nonetheless wounded by some dramatic event… all these faces have one common feature.

What is this feature? They have become a part of you. Somehow, they have touched you and so you are no longer the same, unknowingly you have changed. Through my "exposé" I hope to break down the walls of silence, of unconsciousness, or perhaps of forgetfulness to bring back to light the intimate and secret encounters which continue to linger within you notwithstanding time and distance.

You have just embarked on my train, but now go on to your own destinations. See and hear once again those facial expressions that have touched you deeply and have transformed your being and your history. Be attentive to these productive distractions and respect them.

The whole world belongs to you

Geographically moving about, my trips brought me back to a childhood experience. A mental snapshot of Joe Bégin flashed in my memory. He was our family’s neighbour and when I was four or five years of age, he took me to a mountain. From its peak, on a clear day in May, we could see the State of Maine, its green mountains, and beyond Quebec to the Laurentians. Joe helped me contemplate the vastness and beauty of nature. I was in awe before the lush green landscape.

Sensing my reaction, Joe Bégin looked at me and said: There you are my boy! From where you stand, the whole world belongs to you. That moment and that statement were engraved in my heart for always. Joe had taught me that I was a citizen of the world and that all of planet Earth was my own. Today, as an adult, I believe our family neighbour wanted tobless me with a gift—that of discovering something beautiful and share with me his contemplative outlook. Joe Bégin did not give me the world, but he invested me as heir of the earth, making me an active participant in my own time and in my own way, like so many other citizens of the earth who in the past took on that privilege.

Though I kept it a secret for years, truly I now say that Joe Bégin’s statement followed me everywhere I travelled to: on the height of Mount Sinai, with people at the heart of Jerusalem, at Mont Blanc in the Alps, on the boat crossing the North Sea while contemplating the wind turbines plan ted deep in the ocean, from the top of a mountain gazing down at the cityof Porta-au-Prince in Haiti, while navigating on a stormy sea along the seacoast of Ireland…

Beyond one’s self

We all have travelled. At one point in our lifetime we all walked away from home, from our familiar surroundings, to enter into someone else’s world. You and I can come across millions of people without ever meeting them such as in airports. We walk right by a variety of stories: romantic, tragic, crazy, each one different from the other, and without even taking notice we go our own way. Preoccupied by our personal agendas, we move around as in a shell. Whether in Dorval, Amsterdam, Brussels or Mexico, we hasten to be in control of our schedule, our luggage, ourselves. We don’t see the many faces that cross our path. They don’t leave an impression unless we come to grips with ourselves and, in an instant, become conscious of our humanity above and beyond our status as traveller.

Finding the other, divesting one’s self

Leaving behind my world, my power to control, and finding myself elsewhere: only then can I begin re-learning how to live it’s like a re-birth. It’s rediscovering the simple things of life: how to go from one place to another, how to find shelter, how to speak, eat, dress, how to contact people. With my new outlook on life I re-evaluate my former ways of being and living : the world I came from, the advantages I had, the economic, cultural, social and political privileges, the superiority complex I carry around though unaware of it but feeling it when I am in the presence of the poor, the humble : victims of our domination.

The strength of the other and my limitations

I also measure my limitations, my frailties, my failings, my own inner poverty, different from that of the POOR, but no less real. Encountering the other, remembering those faces I have kept hidden in my memory, help me become more human among other human beings. I learn to accept a new relationship that of being with in a covenant relationship; individuals can no longer be strangers.

A new world arises

I learn to set fear aside. I discover that everywhere on earth human beings want to experience wholeness for themselves and for others for whom they are responsible. They want their basic needs to be met: drink, eat, dress, have a shelter, work for a living. They wish to be respected in their dignity and to break away from all forms of evil, suffering, misery, of humiliations. Stripped from my former world, I discover my oneness with all of humanity on planet Earth.

More so, if I can put names to those faces I have come across in this world, nothing is more absurd and revolting than conflicts and wars. The sacredness of life drives us at all times to acknowledge the sources of conflict, negotiate to find solutions, resolve the problems, and to establish clear and just rules so that life may be served well and flourish. I have become more preoccupied and in-tune with the justice and peace issues to prevent evil rather than resolutions. The latter are often words half-way clothed with injustice, misunderstanding, fear, violence and halfway clothed with hope and courage.