A Journey of Soul Discovery
“Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learned the great lessons of those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you? or who treated you with contempt, or disputed the passage with you?”
– Whitman
If you want to know your own mysteries, why you do what you do, feel what you feel…. look inside and know your own wound
It could be shallow or it could be deep, but we each have one…
so we can’t afford to sleep
Don’t know if our wound is pathological or it’s our human condition, but alas, to know and love this wound is our only life mission
This yin and yang inside our being, can come and go without its reasons,
a friend one day but then the next, it rises up like a ghost of treason
So know its shape, know its aim, where its sojourns and what’s its name.
It’s scar will define the injury you carry..
but its name will describe the fear you find most scary
Names such as “what about me,” or “you’re going to leave” or “I’m not good enough” or “if you know me, you will not love me” or “no one is perfect enough to love me” or “I need the perfect person, so they don’t leave me.”
The name of my wound is “I’m not wanted” and it comes from days afar. Sometimes it is my strengths and other times, it’s as if it’s my most recent scar
On difficult days my wound is one of self blame and deep shame.
And inside my heart and my chest, a literal ache it can claim.
But on good days, when I accept and love how this wound may behave
I’m keenly sensitive, highly intuitive and extraordinary compassionate and wonderfully loving, creative, funny and brave.
Each day, “not wanted” and I, skirmish amidst our pain
It’s a rugged inner path but it slowly reveals my wisdom and gain
So “I’m not wanted” and I, we’re working to make
the deep and possible amends
For one day I hope we’ll be
both tender and loving friends
400 years, 400 years, 400 goddamn years
And yet, we are still afraid of the black man
400 years of paralyzing terror hidden behind reasoned excuses and argued logic
400 years of putting the black man in his place against the cold, hard red clay
400 years of hiding behind our cowardly white skins only to protect what we never possessed.
400 years of telling the black man and woman they’re not good enough
400 years of stealing their tender souls and squeezing the god ordained life out of them
400 years of letting their strapping, beautiful gleaming, limp bodies dangle from a frayed, wet rope
400 years of tearing their flesh open against a razored slab of concrete, each precious drop of blood filled with the tears of those who cherish them
400 years of rusted chains and shackles, braided whips, splintered boards and sterile, hollow hot barrels dripping with lost lives of hope and potential
400 years of tears, shattered dreams, devastated lives, unbearable suffering and broken hearts.
400 years, 400 years, 400 goddamn years
America is blind to who we are versus who we think we are.
“With liberty and justice for all”… Unless you’re black.
We hide behind our idealistic belief that we are colored blind. And we prosper because of our denial.
“Land of the free”… Unless you’re black where prison is your freedom.
But we prosper because our knee is on the neck of the black person.
“God shed his grace on thee”… Unless you’re black.
Our white supremacy, hyper white masculinity inner slavery oppresses anything not white or male.
“Someone had to pick the cotton, someone had to plant the corn, someone had to slave and be able to sing, that’s why darkies were born.” (unofficial anthem of the Confederacy)
We still build our wealth on slavery and this still exists at all levels; justice, policing, jobs, healthcare, food, and safe communities for people of color.
“No refuge could save the hireling or the slave, from the terror of the fight or the gloom of the grave.” (Unsung stanza of national anthem)
Medgar, Malcolm, Martin…. We killed you and locked up all of your brothers.
“All men are created equal.” Unless you’re a slave.
We are our history and we whites pretend the world is only white. We’ve become monsters trying to expounge the negro from our souls.
“We are presumed innocent until proven guilty”… Unless you’re a black man.
And the black man suffers mightily at the hand of these injustices.
“We can’t change the world with just ideas in our minds but convictions in our hearts.” Just Mercy
Note: For every 9 people on death row executed, 1 has been proven innocent and most are black. A shocking error rate of injustice.
We blame those who love us, for what we despise in ourselves,
hoping they can see through our confusion…
We despise those who love us, for loving that which we hate in ourselves
hoping they can bare the tests of our fears…
We loathe those who love us, because we don’t believe they really do or can love us
hoping they do, can and will, despite what we think of ourselves…
It’s hard to let people love us and easier if we can just control how they love us
except when we do let people in we discover their love gives us
hope in our ability to forgive ourselves for…
…to forgive ourselves for not being perfect
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
Brene Brown
“I come to understand that for most of my life, when I was looking for love, I was looking to be loved. In this, I am a prism of my world. I am a novice at love in all its fullness, a beginner.”
― Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
“I like messy people, people who don’t fit in a box or stay between the lines, but whose integrity is greater than any rule book and whose loyalty is stronger than blood.”