#MicroPoetry|August ’21 Reflections

Hope is not a fanciful tagline or distraction from life’s difficulties. We journey as living, fallible and mortal beings. It is easy to disparage the blessing that life actually is. We do not walk toward perfection in some science fiction tale, but toward wisdom. In that recognition that we all have access to Hope, it becomes a guiding principle for Now. This guide is an invitation to steward what we have inherited to thrive further for those we shall never know.Hope is not a fanciful tagline or distraction from life’s difficulties. We journey as living, fallible and mortal beings. It is easy to disparage the blessing that life actually is. We do not walk toward perfection in some science fiction tale, but toward wisdom. In that recognition that we all have access to Hope, it becomes a guiding principle for Now. This guide is an invitation to steward what we have inherited to thrive further for those we shall never know.

Whether as a community or an individual, we struggle in a culture to recognise that not only do we have choices, but agency. Agency is a powerful thing to claim. It reminds us we are not victims, but that our vulnerabilities and hurts, mistakes and erring enable us to advocate for ourselves and others.

People can do things to hurt and diminish us, and they will. We will be hurt, marginalised and oppressed, some more than others. How we respond to the external experience, is a spiritual discipline that leads to either returning an eye for an eye or being present to heal ourselves so hurt is replaced with compassion.

Wisdom’s dawning does not come easily or without struggle. These are truths I have experienced and ones which I think speak to a collective reality we share. Yet for such learning to be integrated into our being, we must be willing to dig into those experiences in which such gems abide. This requires not only reflection but being reflexive. This commitment is to explore the past. After that journey, we must then take action in the world. This is when Wisdom reveals how we might, in turn, nurture healing for all.

“Many of us mistake phobia for true fear. Whereas fear is a gift from God to be used for self-preservation, phobia are obstacles strategically placed in society by opposers of positive existence. Through stereotyping, innuendo, false documentation and glorification, they’ll turn your fear switch to a permanent on.” Outkast (1993)

These lyrics have been a central companion of mine since I first heard them in 1993. How we approach and embrace fear is as important as to how we respond to this natural and necessary emotion. When we can differentiate between the gift and the toxic nature of oppression, we can then begin to act to liberate one another.

The metaphor of roots or nesting are often with me. They are companions as I have lived in many different and diverse places in the Canadian context. How we nurture the space we find, cultivate relationships and connexions, and how we tend to one another ultimately seeds community. What the future looks like, with that work we all undertake, may not be for us to see. Yet what we do now, speaks to the kind of soil from which the future shall grow.

There are times when stories tell us that by simply imposing our will upon a thing, we can change it. Will is often used in this context of power over, and imposition. This tale carries with it a violence that does not make space for the collective, other than as that which might also be forcibly moulded.

What if ‘will,’ however, were considered a collective commitment of discerning and jointly acting to benefit the social good?
What if rather than imposition, we considered the word nurture? Other than force, invite?

Beauty is certainly a tricky word when considered in a consumer reality. In this context, too often things are flattened to simply the value of an aesthetic item or product.

What if beauty’s value were explored through not the value of a dollar, but justice realised?
What if this connexion to the #SocialGood expanded beyond simply a tribal or national identity, but one in which liberation was fostered in as diverse a manner as we can imagine?
What would beauty then mean and look like?

The word ‘imbue’ has a subtlety to it that I find inspiring. I am struck by one definition that describes it as “to dye deeply.”

From my Christian context, I cannot but be inspired when I recognise that all of us are Creator’s Beloved. From this centre, then the blessings and gifts we have been given are deeply dyed into our being. This intrinsic trust leads me to believe we are called to bring these beauties into the world together. As we are imbued, therefore, when we act together, we are invited to begin to deeply dye a future unseen for other Beloved whom we will never know.