The Making Of A Thousand Gods

I received a phone call in the afternoon. I'm afraid when the telephone rings. Don't know if it's because it's so sudden or what it can be. The emotion of knowing something more is on the way. I know the feeling, have experienced it so many times before. A man with an apparently young voice, expressing himself at ease, informally, but with great confidence in the tone of voice, in a self-secure, direct way. He introduced himself as the director of a wrestling association. He said he was looking for a professional with a certain profile that happened to be like many things I have lived through. I felt somehow it suited me. We talked and exchanged addresses. At about eight p.m. he parked his car in front of my house and rang the doorbell. He was really young, not above 30. He introduced himself as Lúcio Costa, reminding me of the architect of Brasí­lia. Had him sit down on the sofa and asked what a director of a wrestling association would want from me. I was very direct then too he looked at me, considering me for a moment. He made a movement with his hand that could be read in many, many, different ways.

"I know you work with kids and teenagers, I saw it somewhere on the Internet..."
 
I waited for what he would add to what he had already said, but nothing followed. Silence I ended up breaking lest we got even more embarrassed.

"What's going on with your wrestlers?", I said, taking a short-cut.

He took a while to answer.

"Some have had some inadequate attitudes", he said then. "Some allow themselves too much, while others fall into self-criticism all the time; I've had difficulty trying to balance all this in a coherent way."
 
"What does their training consist of?"
 
"What you can see in any other association." 
 
"Sorry, Mr. Costa, but I haven't been to wrestling associations much for the last forty-six years."
 
He frowned slightly at me and explained.

"Well, it's wrestling techniques what they learn. How to hold the opponent, the points on the body that can be used for immobilization, leverage, how to immobilize, pin... That's it." 
 
He had a pause and went on talking, "we need a psychologist that can work with us. We need to cheer the kids up, you know what competition is about, don't you?"
 
"Is it all you need?" 
 
"Well, there are those attitudes I was just talking about..."
 
"How many wrestlers at that age?"
 
"They're five."
 
"Have you got any idea, Mr. Costa, when these inadequate attitude problems started?"
 
He said he had not the slightest idea. The impression I got was that if he really knew the wrestlers in his own association, he was trying to hide something from me.

Later on, after Mr. Costa had gone, I sat down to talk to Meire on the MSN. She ended up dropping by for a cup or two of coffee. This is why I say technology brings people together. Meire told me about a book she had just bought and showed it to me; its title was The Making Of A Thousand Gods, written by Elisa Gold. I heard what she said about the book in a relaxed way, Elisa was an American author who had been to Santos for research from the University of Michigan. She researched old churches in Brazil and here in Santos she had come after the old Third Order of Carmo, she came as early as 1980. I was all ears then, it struck me as interesting, yet imaginable that old church could be some heritage.

Meire told me she describes her passion for the religious customs, nothing of faithful in herself, but wide open to everything related. She read one of the paragraphs to me.

"...and then I asked that responsive man at the churchyard what those names all did on the ground. He said we were walking on graves and took me to the most secret part of the temple: the Sanctum Sanctorum..."

It hit me that I had been to the same church in the same circumstances and viewpoint. The one of a person who isn't a believer herself but wants to know people's rituals. Rituals are an important part of my work. It helps me read how my clients see the world. Not to mention it's just fascinating. I walked over the graves too, only didn't make it to the Sanctum Sanctorum like her.

Meire left the book on my coffee table and took off. I turned off the monitor and started reading. When I finished the book, it was already three in the morning. I was dizzy; her description of the rituals, the heart of the matter in the book: the rise and fall of a civilization and customs, followed by another wave, wave after wave keeping the sea of life moving. The teaching of the old arts so the students could swallow their teachers one day, the burning of all their forces into building a new culture and mastering their walks of life. The fact that a man could ever give all his strength until he had none left to give, not only for a blaze of glory, but because he really believed what he was doing, consumed by his own ideals, burning bright, so bright they burned out completely in no time. Transitory but bright as a thousand suns, as life must be. I'm excited about it, so I turn on the computer monitor and start writing, inspired by the book, by my own thoughts at it that sent my mind spinning. It's going to be hell to try to sleep a wink today.

Meire | Natural little steamrollers

Radio Universal: The Making Of A Thousand Gods.