If you were to chance upon a message in a bottle... would you descry the hope within? Or would the words within betoken nothing more than vocables plucked from a vulgar dictionary? For there's more to truth, than meets the eye... and there's more to messages in bottles, than epistles from prophets...
Emerging from the Fog
The truest truth is also the simplest one: everyone lies.
Yet herein resides a truer truth: everyone lies to everyone's body, everyone's mind, everyone's heart, everyone's soul... and... everyone's self.
For while we're accustomed to fathoming lies from the mouths of babes and tyrants, we're hardly inclined to scour within to unveil the artifacts that scaffold our myths, our fantasies, our legends... of us. Indeed, how many of our personal histories are fictions of personal vanity, conceit, and aggrandizement? Lest we pierce within and decree ourselves small, pitiable, and unworthy, we clutch our fabricated narratives like talismans that vanish, mists of Avalon yore against unflinching modernity.
The truth?
No one of us is a king or a tyrant. No one of us is a pauper or a slave. For all of us are kings and tyrants. And all of us are paupers and slaves.
Isn't this what it means to be human? To be dark and light, war and peace, animus and anima? To be Janus? Perpetually in opposition... to, with, of... ourselves?
When will we emancipate the swords that we embrace with such pertinacious virulence and prejudice against our own throats? When will we emerge from the fog... into the light of day... to be real, to be human... to be where we're meant to go and who we're meant to become?
For while we're accustomed to fathoming lies from the mouths of babes and tyrants, we're hardly inclined to scour within to unveil the artifacts that scaffold our myths, our fantasies, our legends... of us. Indeed, how many of our personal histories are fictions of personal vanity, conceit, and aggrandizement? Lest we pierce within and decree ourselves small, pitiable, and unworthy, we clutch our fabricated narratives like talismans that vanish, mists of Avalon yore against unflinching modernity.
The truth?
No one of us is a king or a tyrant. No one of us is a pauper or a slave. For all of us are kings and tyrants. And all of us are paupers and slaves.
Isn't this what it means to be human? To be dark and light, war and peace, animus and anima? To be Janus? Perpetually in opposition... to, with, of... ourselves?
When will we emancipate the swords that we embrace with such pertinacious virulence and prejudice against our own throats? When will we emerge from the fog... into the light of day... to be real, to be human... to be where we're meant to go and who we're meant to become?
Gifts
In the end, when we shed the fog of our chrysalides, we shed our selves as kings and tyrants, paupers and slaves, for a destiny far greater than vacuity and vainglory, pride and pretension:
To be more... to give more... to heal more.
When the world is all said and done, will kings, tyrants, paupers, slaves matter? Will vacuity, vainglory, pride, pretension matter?
Or will what matters... be what always matters...? Authenticity, compassion, generosity. Forgiveness, kindness, sincerity. Hope, charity, faith. Noble virtues, that a power greater than us, instilled in humankind, to succor us through pain, nurture us through agony, inspire us through despair.
Needless to say, despite everything, from brumes of self-pity to brumes of hauteur:
I give myself. I give my everything. And by small measures... one sincere word at a time... one act of kindness and generosity at a time... one leap of faith at a time... we will restore that which is irredeemable... we will love that which is execrable... we will forgive that which is inexpiable...
With a hug for the world and the world for a hug.
Thus, the cure for all that ails all of us, is as simple as our selves.
Verily:
What gives one Janus the right to sup at the table of peace, devour fruit from the tree of peace, ravage ambrosia from the gardens of peace... but not all others who are Janus, too? For are we not all Janus?
To be more... to give more... to heal more.
When the world is all said and done, will kings, tyrants, paupers, slaves matter? Will vacuity, vainglory, pride, pretension matter?
Or will what matters... be what always matters...? Authenticity, compassion, generosity. Forgiveness, kindness, sincerity. Hope, charity, faith. Noble virtues, that a power greater than us, instilled in humankind, to succor us through pain, nurture us through agony, inspire us through despair.
Needless to say, despite everything, from brumes of self-pity to brumes of hauteur:
I give myself. I give my everything. And by small measures... one sincere word at a time... one act of kindness and generosity at a time... one leap of faith at a time... we will restore that which is irredeemable... we will love that which is execrable... we will forgive that which is inexpiable...
With a hug for the world and the world for a hug.
Thus, the cure for all that ails all of us, is as simple as our selves.
Verily:
What gives one Janus the right to sup at the table of peace, devour fruit from the tree of peace, ravage ambrosia from the gardens of peace... but not all others who are Janus, too? For are we not all Janus?
Fin
Tomorrow is for the future.
Today is for us.
It is not too late for today to be our day.
To be more.
Today is for us.
It is not too late for today to be our day.
To be more.
More
It is not too late to plant seeds of hope.
It is not too late to plant seeds of peace.
For me. For you. For all of us.
It is not too late to be.
Great post
ReplyDeleteIn a world full of social media spewing hate and war, your blog is a ray of sunshine. Thank you!
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