A Glance Across the Room...

Psalm 10: 17-18
Oh Lord, you hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more.

I was reading through the Psalms today and a common theme seemed to be coming to the surface... and that was just how much God cares for the lowliest... the most unlovable... the ones with the least to offer... the ones society forgot. And I began to wonder, how is it our hearts don't break for the oppressed every day? For if we truly are people who love the heart of God, our hearts would be pained by just the thought of each orphan, widow, prostitute, war victim, slave, refugee... each and every impoverished family and homeless soul. If we really adored the heart of God like we claim... we would be overwhelmed by the thoughts of each one of these people... because if we actually sought the heart, of God our pain for them would run so deep... it would move us into action... propel us into passion... throw us into inspiration like we never dreamed of before... because all of our pain, our deep rooted undeniable aches, would be born of an even deeper love.

How is it that we so quickly forget humanity?
How can we look into the eyes of another human being and not allow our souls to connect?

We are more than flesh and blood and organ and tissue. We are mind and spirit and soul and heart. Our passion, it kindles us to each other... in the simple exchange of a glance... and yet we are so blinded.

We cannot connect because we see not a person, but a body. We see the corpse but we never allow ourselves to see the light within... we never allow ourselves out of the lit room of our soul to see the blinding world around us... radiant with proclamations of light from each and every weary soul.

We are broken people... but it's the cracks that allow the sun to illuminate our beings... it's the cracks that allow us to see the light in the eyes of another... if we would only look...

If only we would see past the disconnect in our gaze and focus on the unity of the spirit. If only... if only we could chase the heart of God so fervently that in doing so... we'd run right into the light of the one beside us... we'd run right into the radiance pouring forth from every broken heart... every loosened tear... every torn hope... every fallen dream...

If only we could see...
   We could never be the same
Because our eyes would take us to places untamed
     Into the souls of the desperate, the unworthy, the unclean
          Into the eyes of the ones crying out to be redeemed
  Crying out, crying out hoping their last breaths are not in vain
     That this rich man's God would welcome the insane
Because time is short and hope is waning
   They have no dream and the light is fading
            If only someone would see past their shame
        Hold out a hand for the disfigured and maimed
                   Grasp the light before it is lost
 See past the person and peer upon the soul it could cost

The Prophet Thoreau

I just read through this play, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail... really excellent... one of those books that you finish and are convinced you're going to change the world while you walk back to put it on the shelf beside all your ambition and good intentions.... and it got me thinking about the importance of our voices and the great power we have through speech and the written word... which in turn tossed me into the black abyss of my mind where I store all memories of editing poorly written articles... double negatives... and unnecessary word abbreviations used in everyday conversation. It's not a place I like to visit often. It reminds me that we have a problem; minds like Thoreau are becoming a rare commodity. My generation is having a hard time communicating... expressing themselves fully... and I can't help but wonder if it's not so much about our poor grammar and pathetic expanse of vocablary as it is our inability to find a truth to speak for. Maybe it's not so much that we don't have worthwhile things to say... maybe the problem is that we're missing the passion that gives our voices sound.

Truly friends, what is a word if it speaks not truth? Why, it's not a word at all. Isn't the purpose of a word to convey the reality of the mind... detail the movement of the soul? Is it not that movement that causes us to speak? If only it were so. Only in a world of precocious ignorant fools could such a thing be true... a world where human kind lived according to the innocence of clarity... true clarity that is... the things unspoiled by the skewed perceptions of societal expectations...

But what is left in this world that society has not marred?

For we have polluted even the skies with our distaste for patience...
We have stolen away the individuality of the blades of grass decorating our lawns with our need for unifomity...
We have damned the freedom of the streams with dams.

How much more have we done to man? Have we not confined integrity to a ballot? We shout for justice and silently cast a vote while we judge the character of the ones who are calling out idle promises for change...
calling out... speaking words... but do we believe them to be true?
                                                                                                      No.

Because even we, "simple-minded citizens," know the honor that has been ripped away from the innocent words we borrow... the words we steal to formulate mindless babble and convenient lies. Oh how we manipulate the piety of syllables and sounds to compose songs of deceit.
               And yet, we entitle them truth.

I pray for our souls dear friends... for if our words speak the truth of our minds and the reality of our hearts... surely we have done to ourselves what we have done to the streams.

Dams kill even the purest of intentions to reach the oceans, just as untrue words blockade even the most honorable acts towards reconciliation. We must find harmony. We must reach for peace through our disunity.

Just as we must allow wind to flow through the leaves to sing the melodies of the branches... we must also allow truth to flow between action and speech to bridge a chord... to allow harmony to flow from the connection between our hearts and our lips. The sweet harmony of reuniting the spoken and written word with the honesty it once prized.

I live in a generation of mummbling dreamers... searching for purpose... an identity of meaning... misguided by the poetic lies of society...
        We babble... in search of the truth.
            We whisper... in search of confidence.
                 We grumble... in hopes of meaningful criticism.
                      We whimper... in hopes that someone will hear our pain.

Because we ache to speak...
                                  but we don't know how...
                     because we don't know what the harmony of truth sounds like.
          Because we, like the sky and the grass and the streams, have only known the confines of societal expectation.

We live under the veil of "societal truth"...
          a truth that is not truth at all.
                                                                 So we do not know how to speak...
  
I live in a wordless generation... because the words we've been taught are not words at all. I pray that one day we will recite poetry... that we will compose songs of truth... that we will write paragraphs born of integrity... that we will speak words inspired by the honor that language was created to communicate...

       If only someone would teach us to speak.
   
  Is there not one...
                 bold of heart and courageous of mind willing to step into our cell...
                                                                           willing to break these chains of silence?

For they are heavy and I am weary
    I'm running out of breath
         But if I could utter just one word
  Upon impending death...
May it be defiant truth that escapes from my lips born of my soul
Inspired by a precocious, ignorant fool who taught me to speak words not societally sold.