Righteous In The Dark.

The blind man see more clearly that any other. There is a popular belief among humans that the standard for right rests with us. We are each privileged with a small window of choice and not just choice, but the definition of the boundaries for choice. Our years of existence bring us closer to the enjoyment of this privilege and our hearts learn to crave, almost lust after it. Its very corrupting, this instinct to set the boundaries for ourselves. We are like beings treading this road called life and regardless of what we have been taught we each experiment with the power that creates the signposts to be followed.

We have found many times that in the dark our shadows come to life; we try to flee only to find that all our powers mustered just draw us into our very shadows. The night becomes a walk in the dark where we are haunted from with in. The place of rest turns into the desert of great distress and we soon get used to all that is wrapped in there. This fearsome journey lives with us, grows faster than we do and most certainly covers more of us with each passing moment.

Light, however, has a different power over all of us. In it we find that we are each light, ready to hug and be hugged, more determined to live away from what is already with in us. It’s as if we have several portions of us and each has a moment of manifestation. Yes in the light we are not compelled to run or even hide, there we are as we are seen; individuals with a life and the only shadows that can be seen are those that are cast by and in the power of the light, or so we want to believe.

The transpose to the dark is what makes us different for in the dark we are all more righteous, more correct and more alive. In the dark we are who we really want to be, all the disciplines of restraint and control are abandoned as we live into who we truly are as we respond to all our feelings and our intentions are not confused with what is noble and what is not. There we abandon all conflict and all conflict abandons us, its like we see the truth in its nakedness because we are also naked to that truth; none is compelled to cover up. We are absorbed into our shadows and we are not afraid of them, what was two had become one and we can clearly and completely define ourselves. To touch is to hold and to own is to be.

Then the light comes in, and while we have hidden our shadows in ourselves, we notice a difference in us; it’s a discomfort that makes us regret our moment of utter freedom in the dark. Then some long to go back in the dark, others loath the light for exposing the shadows so well hidden and casting shame and guilt, where was freedom in pleasure.

We touch the truth in its small places, only in the places that will allow us to enjoy the freedom in the dark. We start out with a fight against the dark and soon join its camp, we then set the boundaries afresh, and large enough to allow us enjoy those pleasures. And when we meet with the light, in the fullness of the truth, we front only that which is permitted, what we crave and lust after, we keep protectively like an infant. To embrace the truth in its fullness, to keep the fight on at all times, to allow ourselves moments of vulnerability in the front of others, could be the rope out of the dark and its pleasures that so easily ensnare us.

In Hiding:

The latest we have in our society is the movement of activists; they are putting up a fight for butterflies, insect eggs and basically anything that makes them the heroes of humanity. We as a society are giving everything else the right to live, and in doing so, we are doing a lot of killing of who we are. When we campaign for the survival of an insect, we do great, but have we stopped to think that if the same insect is such a delicacy, we all do whatever it takes to enjoy it? This is the plague that has crippled our society, we want to stand for the rights of others, until standing for them is inconveniencing our pleasure and we want to fight for our pleasure but fail to look at the existence of our children in the future.

For long we have had the ruling father and his subordinate family, he stands at the peak of the family hands in the waist being the provider. He not only provides for the education( if he does at all) of the children but also the fear upon which the family feeds in his presence, he is like a fear god, trying to keep his worshipers alive in the desert where they thirst for leadership, love and association. There are other cases where the father has taken the place of a socialist at the expenses of the needs of the whole family. He stands at the beer place commanding respect among his peers, laughing ever so heartily in a way that his entire family has not even imagined possible.

We have become so outward minded that we have left the humans behind. We have stretched our hands so long to help women and men stop the domestic abuse, we have talk shows over this and yet the more we talk about it in the way that we do, the more we ravage marriages. The activist for the freedom of women in marriage often speaks from outside the marriage themselves. They give counsel where they failed or were failed or both and that is not proper. The movement that seeks to have women abort as and when they want and their opponents that stand against that choice are both practicing a kindness that will rarely affect them but the victims of their debate. When we try to solve the problems of the whole world, a thousand people at a time, we make a mistake because in each of those people is an entire world waiting to be redeemed and the hero of that world is the life that embodies it.

We are each gifted with a world around us, we may feel powerful enough to reach far and save the day but do we know the inhabitants of that day well enough to assume that the solutions we are providing are going to give birth to solutions, when we try to win the hearts of the world, have we won our own hearts, let alone those of the few that look to us, when we are providing a solution to an institution like marriage, do we understand the pillars upon which it stands and most importantly, can we translate our decisions through time? Our job is not a simple one, we tread on delicate ground daily, and some may want us to believe that as humans we have a standard above all, but that is not true, because even the highest standard is given through the lens of culture, history and the future.

We may hide from the future today, but our children will not, they will live in it. If we are to fight, we need to fight on two fronts, the individual front and that which holds all as one. But even then, we need to focus more on the individual front, that way we are guaranteed to touch more and to provide solutions that are going to translate into more solutions.

Specks and Logs:

The concept of judgement has always been a delicate one, the questions that accompany it range from who we are to what is right and what is wrong. But we have all been presented with opportunities where to say that something or someone is wrong was as easy as breathing. We have met people whose inconsideration of others made us question their maturity. The road to being perfect is a very long one, and daily we walk that road or at least we would love to believe. We aspire to be better and yes we even think that we are already better than many but in that very thought is the broken bone that hampers our movement to a better us.

There is a delicate line, upon which we find the accuracy of judgment on that line, and if we ever get to it, all the judgement that we make makes perfect sense and is indeed with justice and accuracy. There we build and re-construct morals and entire societies and yes we remain right. But that line, thin as it is, is an entire world of freedoms, freedoms such as have always enabled us to do what is right, to correct without fear or favour and to move with confidence into a future not yet perceived by the human eye. While we beg to excuse ourselves from that line, in reality it goes right through each one of us, like a strong and soft thread that holds us all together, reminding us that we are human and that as such we need to keep in line.

There are a few of us that have erred from this string so much that they are bound by another. They are children of lawlessness and they have been blinded to the truth of judgment. They are part of societies to which they do not belong. While we share with them the commonness of sense, they would rather hide and be buried in the piles of their folly. And we may not be able to dig them out of them, because their willingness to rise above the debris of their own destruction is inexistent. The pain that comes with watching such destruction thrive in our societies should serve to point to the societal need to get better as a whole by bettering the individuals in that society.

We should never give up on ourselves. The best judgment should be of ourselves, the more that we practice judgement of self, the better we shall see the specks in the eyes of others and logs in ours. We need to remember that the obligation to clean up and be better starts with us, and that we are all obliged to help us be better. We shall never surely stand as the better person until we know that the people in our lives have been helped to be better than us. And every time we find them dropping below our better selves, we need to hold our judgment of them at bay and finalise with that that pertains to us.

We get better by helping others get better and the purpose of our judgement should be to make those others better indeed. And to step upon and into that thin line , we need to have conquered ourselves first and committed to doing so continually.

The Best Fist:

On any rainy day, we look for the right equipment to help us make the journeys that we have to make; we may also take the opportunity to excuse ourselves from any sort of responsibility that may be such burden under the circumstances. That is just who we are. There are times when we embark on worthwhile journeys and we know the whys and hows and whens only to meet a rainy day and that is when we are to make the decision whether to move on or to excuse ourselves. We may question ourselves why we are making either decision and we may even find a solution but are we right! The temptation to take the easy route or the determination to take the hard route have been used as the yardstick of right and wrong, entire generations have been described by a moment’s decision and yet at the moment they made those decisions, few of them looked into the future to determine where to place their steps.

We question ourselves many times about right and wrong and we make demands of ourselves that we may not even know how to satisfy, but in all our doing we need remind ourselves of why. There are days and moments when we shall have to re-discover a new why and use it to define where we currently stand. Yes, the jungle through which we tread is not dark with red eyed foxes, while it remains a jungle; it is not so hard to walk through. The heart has got to be prepared for the unexpected, but it should not be filled with fear and pessimism because that is the darkness that clouds courage and blurs vision.

This is the journey to which we have been born; each day draws us closer to handing it over to the next generation. And we may never succeed at knowing with complete certainty, what was wrong and what was right, but we shall always remember that even when we were not sure, it paid to give all our best. In the summary of time, we may be judged by what mistakes we made and by how many we avoided or corrected, but we shall always be remembered by how much or less of ourselves we gave, and that is because that is what matters. And we shall all discover that no journey was worthless because when we pursued it , we followed our hearts and we put them into that.

Therefore, we shall live today, as if it were a reward, one that we shall have to carry with all our might and one upon which we shall have to pour the best of our thoughts the best way that we can. And yes we shall leave every regret exactly where we have found it, and march on to the victory that rests on the apex of our fists, our best fists at that. We shall wait for the sun so that it can shine upon our achievements and expose the darkness of misery because that is what it is supposed to do. May the best fist be raised.

Heart RisK

We risk our hearts every day. We instruct them to believe, whether in cynicism or optimism and yet we do not rest or hold back from that trust. Each day begins with new beliefs, some born before and others merely carried forward. We set out believing that the day will come to an end and that while we may not be sure about the end of all the matters of that day, we are sure to see the days end. And we have found that that basic faith, a hope in the things not yet, not seen or felt , has held us across the bridges of both time and space.

When we find in us an injury that renders us incapable of the task ahead, when we wonder where the next bits of help are to flow form, we realise how vulnerable our positions and sate are. Help has been found at the bottom of cups, at the end of a road, in the seed of a fruit and yes we have been glad that it has come our way. But we have also realised that we are the help, that there are days we have stood at the end of another’s road, the bottom of someone’s cup or even in the centre of another’s fruit.

Today, we see glimpses of darkness and corners of light. It’s as if our eye has failed to tell the difference between the two. We have touched the heart of our desired joy and found that we are beaten by loathing hurt and nothingness. We have found that happiness has been fed to us by tea spoons and that while we would have desired to have drums and seas of it, we are limited by the giver of it. When our hearts have thought that we could not go on, we have found that we somehow managed the next step and that we have done okay.

There is a lightness in every moment and we have not been tasked to walk alone. While our eyes may be blinded to the small pockets of light, in reality our hearts have been designed to always look for that light, if only we could trust and follow them. Some have leaked into the nothingness of hopelessness, they have failed to see the small light or even to realise that where they stand is the end of the road and that is where the light is.

The risk to trust for a better day, is one we are all called to, that is what it means to live and while it may be tiring to trust each passing day, its the only way to truly live. We are never to give in or out, we are to keep searching for that zone in time and space where we shall have our grand opening. An opening to a new freshness and greater fronts. That is my calling, to look forward to those new fronts and to believe that they are meant for me, because out of our faith, is birthed great deeds.

Lets take each step in belief and receive the spoonfuls of joy well knowing that most of the angels we shall meet are wrapped in human bodies and clothed with divine hearts. This is the life of victory, its the ability to always see that light and realise that it is handed down to us, not only as a sign of greater platforms ahead but also as a memorial to the greatness in today.

Broken End:

We have embarked on journeys many times and in our endeavours we have found and been found by events and moments that have defined and led us to define anew. There have been moments when we stood ignorant of where we were and where we desired to go, we have dug deep within and still not found what we are or desired to be.

We are told to keep our best fist out at all times and that the journey that will engage the soul will demand only all of who we are. We have been hit by urges to keep trying and to keep on our feet and we have thought that we are not giving this fight our best. But our best fists have been up, they have been raised far above measure and above imagination but we have not found the fight that we were supposed to meet. And yet this is the state of affairs, we are who we are; we are not some miracle hidden in a sacred future with purposes that we cannot fathom. What we are today is all we have and while everyone will want us think that we are an army destined for great battles, I would love to suggest that we are also individuals, with inherent fears and doubts.

The place in which we stand today is not merely a battle field; it is also home, home to our dreams and ambitions, to the very desires that define us all. We are supposed to live here, to be. There will be times when we may be lost to ourselves unaware of where we want to go, actually we may know where we want to go, but we are not certain of how to tread the road. The conflict in our hearts and the battle in our minds have often proved relevant in our journey. There have been turns where we chose the lion’s den against the king’s palace and that has been okay because it has been us choosing. In the place of greatest error we have also found the biggest treasures.

Then it occurs to me that we are not only in a battle, we are also the battle itself, our mere existence presents life with many battle fields and while we think that we are to conquer distant lands, we have to get to ourselves first. Our battle is not tangible and yet it holds us, our entire being is wrapped up in each of our own battles. The conflict that we work through, whether loud or silent will always be here and even when we claim to be at peace with the universe and God, we are presently with the fear of losing that peace or stepping off the golden line.

In the end, the road will be broken and it is not up to us to fix it. Our calling is to walk the road as we found it, to place our feet where they were ordained to be placed, or where we choose to place them. This road with all its brokenness is the way home and we are the one it’s leading there. We are merely pilgrims each trying deeply to conquer their inside, each silently loving and loathing their own existence. If we are to define our worth by purpose then we are reduced or magnified to that purpose. It is hard to define who we are by what we are doing and we are still in search of ourselves. The question for me is not why am I here but who am I, what are the ingredients that constitute me? The answer to that question is never easy and I find that I am scared of what I want and I am not sure of what it is that I want. I ask why it has to be this way and not any easier and I still find no answers. There is a small window that opens and wants to suck me in, and while I want to sink myself in it, I find that I have to leave most of who I am behind, most of the things that have defined me and by which I have measured my success. That is the scary bit, that if I have to find a new way, I have to leave the old here, to abandon all the progress I thought I had bagged.

Life can be nailed onto a dead tree and while we hang on it, we do not have to die on it. To find ourselves in the space of nothing can be a scary task but that is okay because when it is done we will be able to see who we are and may be then we do not need to find or even understand that road. Maybe then we shall find that the road is with in us and we are left with the task of mastering it and knowing it. If we bleed today, it is not because we were hurt, it may be because we have not lived, that we have only sought definitions in glimpses of purpose and calling. We are who we are.