“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
-Audre Lorde
Walking through the grocery store I felt no connection to anyone, many other customers moved around me without a smile or anything. I looked into eyes and saw hurry and impatience. There were people who shared brief pleasentries, just not enough to leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I hope I dont think about this when I get back home. Oh well...
Its dangerous to realize that a slight at the hands of a stranger could change my behavior for an entire day and perhaps longer. (The bruise spreads from your voice to your ego to your memory.) Once I recognize a larger perspective to take I realize its important to set aside time to understand myself and the context of the embarassing and/or insulting event before it becomes a permanent fixture in my mind. Of course, I cannot ignore the moments of great victory and peace when my world makes sense.
Taking cues from Lorde's quote I imagine the most important thing to me. I think of it in my head. I ask myself questions. What is most important to me encompasses many things including something like what Lorde referred to: speaking to how I feel. So how do I do that? I thread my scattered thoughts using motivation as the lines in my coloring book let the reckless coloring push past the lines and out my mouth. But, as important as verbal self expression is you can't exclude any other form of self-expression from minute to enormous. From a slight smile showing from the eyes of an old man holding a ripe cantalope fresh from California to a startled old woman forgetting the appropriate response to my exiting 'good night'. Regardless of extent of self-expression, I imagine all of it is equal to the fabled expressions engraved in history. Those big and small shows of humanity are all we collectively have to show for an evolution we have done together. I think sometimes we forget to think that we didn't arrive at this point alone despite our wishes for the contrary. We are forever linked to one another. Genes stretching unimaginable lengths, they weave there way through space and time and arrive at a family trying so hard to envision a majesty as powerful as their own story.
I am not exempt from this same naivete. I perform mundane tasks and don't appreciate the value. And it is not until someone can slow the stretching of time and space for you that we clearly see the value of the gestures of honesty. Regardless of form, honesty's good or bad side proves the paradox of our imbalanced lives: the good and bad existing side-by-side in the mind of our common dreams, our common god.
Such integrity and honesty is and always will be the foundation for any worthwhile exchange between two persons. Like a spark, it lights the world we built in the dark. Inevitably then such a trusting relationship becomes the foundation for converting the angry language of a mob into that of a people. What is the difference? A mob's core values are destructive confusion, whereas a people focus their energies to maintain chaotic peace at the midst of the group's orderly nature. That decisively trusting relationship uniting a mob into a people is truly the only saving grace for a species seemingly determined to break all guiding lights.
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