To rise, to Fall and to Wake
Sometimes I wake up on the wrong side of the bed facing that wall. Sometimes I wake and I am paralyzed, my arms buzzing from lying in the wrong position. Other times the sun shines on my face and I slide into consciousness blissfully with birds chirping outside my window. Too often, however I am alarmed from my slumbers by the most hated of technologies reminding me of what I “must do”.
However I move from the dreamworld into this one I must remind myself that it is my doing. I choose to see the wall, I choose to lie with arms bent behind my back, I decide to rise in bliss or be to be forced from my reverie. Alas, far too many of us see this shift as something that is forced upon us by an outside force. We cannot forgive ourselves and believe that it is our own doing, and we suffer from it. To hold on to anything is to suffer, for bliss is but a fleeting phase, passion is simply a moment to behold and to let permeate us before we release it to the ether and anger is a rise in egoist separation that once experienced can be removed like muddy boots at the door.
I am realizing that too often I traipse my boots through the house, and when I look back at my footsteps I blame anyone other than myself for the mess; the rain I walked in, the dirt in my path, those whose ineptitude caused there to be a puddle that I then stepped in…. But my emotions are wasted for while I still wear these boots the only constant in this story of pity is me. All of life is a choice; to sit or stand, to walk or run, forgive or spit, turn or fight these are my options and I must embrace my choice. We are tripped up by semantics, wording, our perception of communication and a lack of trust. Our words flow from us before we have the chance to temper them and see from whence they came. We believe blindly in the “I” and we distrust the “we”. We have forgotten that silence and reflection is often all the more powerful.
The reason my words fall from my fingertips today is that I realize that in order to heal myself and the world around me I must first forgive myself. Forgive me for my inability to not see beyond myself, forgive me for not seeing my own role in my failings, forgive me for believing my word and perception is truth. Then I must forgive you for the same and not hold it in contempt of our interaction, but rather see it as a burst of perspective and be thankful for the chance to see your world. Then I must forgive “us” for we have contructs in this world from which we believe we cannot stray. The words that we bind ourselves with keep everyone down. The language we use stays our hand to act, banishes our virtues and forces us to live by a code that none of us truly understand. Words on paper are simply that; an opportunity that someone took to explain the world as they saw it at that moment. For words on paper to be made flesh is to lose the essence of the moment, to lose the ability to choose, to believe in pre-destiny fails us in action…. If we lose the belief that our actions are our own then we no longer take responsibility for what we do and we lay that burden on someone other than ourselves. Thus, we no longer take accountability for how we awake into this world moment by moment.
Whilst in Africa I have seen some of the darkest depths of humanity, and some of its brightest lights. It seems that the world flocks to “help” those in need here, yet the street children here still go hungry for the community that holds them sees them as a plague. I have had to avert my eyes from those pleading for my aid and I am ashamed that I believed I had to do so. What can I do as one soul in amongst this turmoil? What can my depleted, dilapidated bank account do to help? Where does my selflessness go when I say no, and pull my eyes from their hungry gaze? I am responsible for my actions, as you are for yours. I am the reason that children go hungry, that these sad faces must hold out their hands in shame, beg and be rejected over and over. My accounts cannot offer these children peanut butter and jam, it cannot patch their clothes, shoe their feet and wash their faces. My road takes me where it must, and I must be content to sit with the horrors that haunt my conscience because I know in my heart of hearts that the actions that I can take are being actualized. Sometimes I am a white man in a dark world, sometimes I am a dark man in a world snow-blinded, but always I am a man and I have eyes to see and hands to work.
I accept that the world is how it is, and I do not blame others. I see my own failings in it and I must work to rectify them until such time as the “I” part of “we” no longer stumbles in the darkness. For when this moment arrives a great sadness will be lifted from my waking eyes. When the wall is no longer a barrier but a part of my process, then will I truly know what it is to wake.
———————————————————————————————————-
We do the work here on the ground through the Bavubuka Foundation. If you wish to contribute to the kids we work with please do so through HERE. Use “we Got Skillz” as the purpose. Thank you for helping us keep boots on the ground doing good work.
