“But his kind will always lose in the end. I know this, and now I know why. Whether it’s wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same: they stand still, and their stake moves underneath them….Even a language won’t stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time. They stake everything on that moment, posing for photographs while planting the flag, casting themselves in bronze. Washington crossing the Delaware. The capture of Okinawa. They’re desperate to hang on.
But they can’t. Even before the flagpole begins to peel and splinter, the ground underneath arches and slides forward into its own new destiny. It may bear the marks of boots on its back, but those marks become the possessions of the land. What does Okinawa remember of its fall? Forbidden to make engines of war, Japan made automobiles instead, and won the world. It all moves on.”
– The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, p. 384.
Our politics today make me tired. I’m so bloody tired of hearing the same old diatribes repeated ad nauseam, over and over like wheels on a tired, creaky, aged wagon. They talk and talk and it’s like buzzing in my ears. For they say nothing new and none of it even applies anymore. It feels like they’re talking about Spaceman Spiff, when the rest of us are staring at moldy cheese in an empty refrigerator. They talk in the language of the Cold War, and the rest of us are sharing DVDs with the Japanese and watching You Tube videos coming out of Iran.
We have real problems and real concerns. And they’re still talking ideology. The world doesn’t operate on ideology. It operates in the handshake between neighbors, the crops grown by farmers, and the earthquakes and hurricanes that steal our homes away. Who cares about ideology when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun?
I hear the noise and it makes me tired. I hear the lies and it makes my bones melt. I hear the anger and I feel sorrow.
But when I turn off the noise and look at people, I see a different story. I see people buying produce from local farmers. I see people biking to work. I see people wringing their empty pockets to give to others in need. I see people ignoring corporations, eschewing industry and taking the path less walked. Home schooling. Midwives. Etsy. Blogs. Project 3/50. Interracial marriage. News, products, food, and information home grown and shared neighbor to neighbor.
We throw the pills that cause atrocious side-effects down the drain and we eat better food. This is not a revolution. This is not the masses rising up in revolt. This is the world moving on, like ants marching steadily out from under the boot through the gaps in the platform of the sole.
So you can have your soapbox. Let the potentates feed the lie. Let the corporations write our politicians’ speeches. We’re not listening anymore. Because while you sit there spouting and playing your chess games and lining your pockets while everyone else suffers, one by one, we take the road less traveled by.
What? Two posts in one day? Two Women Unbound posts in one week? What’s going on here? Actually, this post is totally impromptu – I just finished reading a book I happened to come across a reference of, had to read it asap, and was SO ENTHRALLED by it the entire time reading it, I just had to post about it immediately. And I would say any parent with a daughter over the age of about 7 MUST READ THIS BOOK.
Time for a confession. Do any of the following statements apply to you?
In the era before the birth of Christ, and before the emergence of Islam, the ancient Persians used to believe that all of the world’s existence was engaged in a mighty cosmic battle between good and evil. In this battle, the sun god, Ahura Mazda, a god of truth, goodness and the light who was said to have created all life, fights against Ahriman*, the spirit of darkness, of lies and evil.
The two were destined to wage a war against each other through the millennia, and the earth was to be their battlefield. Ahura Mazda claimed guardianship over a host of angels, while Ahriman led an army of demons.
Though the battle is said to last for centuries upon centuries through the ages, it was believed that in the end, Ahura Mazda would prevail.
But in the meantime, all creatures on earth would participate in this battle, humans included. And each person had to make a choice. Each person must choose between the truth and the lie.
Each day and night represented part of this cosmic battle. In the morning, Ahura Mazda would rise victorious, to fall each night into the hands of Ahriman. But each morning, he would rise again victorious.
But sometimes that experience helps us appreciate more deeply each day that the truth, the goodness, and the light rises again.
Have you ever left things unsaid? Is there anything you wish you could say, but haven’t, or someone you wish you could talk to, but can’t? What if you had the chance to change that?
