My Fair Lady
I love My Fair Lady, the story of a 'common gutter snipe' being turned into a lady. In the light of what we do and the people I wish to reach, I picked up some lessons."You see Mrs Higgins, apart from the things that one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will. And I know that I will always be a lady to Colonel Pickering because he always treats me as a lady and always will." - Eliza Doolittle
I wonder if this is any reflection of my views of people on the streets. How do I treat them? I'm sure they could tell me. But do I treat them as I would treat my friends, or more importantly, do I treat them as I would Christ? Or do I treat them as they are so often thought of, "the undeserving poor," kept there by "their choices" and my inability to see them as anything else? Do I allow them to be more than they currently are, who they were called to be, by treating 'a common flower girl' as a 'duchess'? I hope I do. I don't always know what it means in practice. I guess it means recognising their humanity as no less than my own. Or my humanity as any more than theirs. And if I were to love them, as Christ calls me to love them, it would be to think of them as higher than me. Now I wonder, how often do I do that? And I'm afraid that the answer would have to be far less often than not, if at all. Which in itself is hypocrisy. How can I talk about the love of Christ to people if I don't even show it in the way that I treat them?
Check this dialogue for more thoughts:
Black - Professor Henry Higgins
Green - Miss Eliza Doolittle
If you come back you'll be treated in the same manner as you've always been treated. I can't change my nature and I don't intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering!
That's not true, he treats a flower girl as if she were a duchess.
Well, I treat a duchess as if she were a flower girl.
Oh I see, the same to everyone.
Just so. You see Eliza, the great secret is not the question of good manners, or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you've ever heard me treat anyone else better.
I don't mind how you treat me.I don't mind you swearing at me. I shouldn't mind a black eye, I've had one before, but I won't be passed over.
And while somewhere in there he has a useful point (though I don't agree with all of it), in the end it doesn't get the to point of the matter: "I won't be passed over." I think in her words maybe sometimes we hear the voice of those on the streets. I know I've almost heard that before. I do sincerely hope that rather than simply having the same manner for all, that consistently I would be found to have the manner of Colonel Pickering, to always treat a common flower girl as if she were a duchess.
posted by bec @ 3:13 am
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