http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcK-8sjrFmE
We always turn the greatest wisdom into meaningless
platitudes don't we? It's a constant
struggle for me, but a joyful one, to try and unpack the wisdom that has moved
beyond platitudes for me. Right now, I’m thinking of -
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." Seems easy, doesn't it? Be a competent climber of Mt. Everest. Somehow that doesn't seem so easy. Being a potent activist, being the change we
need to be in the world is more difficult still. Gandhi's calling us to re-create ourselves,
to heal ourselves, to go through the arduous physical therapy, and
self-building to regain the humanity we were born with. Nothing less will do.
Loving, here - for the last 13 years I've quote, sacrificed,
unquote, everything so that I could become exactly what is exactly sitting here today. No, I didn't know it would be in front of the
Canadian Embassy no I didn't know that it would be to avert climate Armageddon,
but I knew the world was in deep trouble and I knew I needed to begin the
process of becoming what the world needed me to be, and it was going to take everything
I had and everything I was. This just
comes with the territory of being a brother or sister.
Some become medical doctors for the right reason, few
anymore, but some do. Joyful, but what
an arduous process, to become what the world needs them to be.
To be the potent activist is the most demanding of human
pursuits. They become world authorities
in their subjects, Vandana Shiva, for example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alice Paul,
top of her class from the uber-elite Sarthmore. These are the world experts in their
fields. They become the moral icons not
by moralizing, but by creating themselves into the truth, into the solution,
into one willing to pay with their life for the solution.
These people are constantly making of themselves the antidote,
making of themselves the cure to the disease of their suffering global
neediest; and it's the most joyful life,
and it's the only hope.
So be a potent activist or go. Stop fooling yourself and people around
you. But choose choice a. Become what the world needs you to be.
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