A Surrender to Greatness...
.by Phillip Edward Alexander on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 9:36pm.
"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking..."
— Leo Tolstoy
How is it possible that things could turn to rot so completely and so quickly?
We are choking on mediocrity, led by men with no vision; the people live in fear, many are starving, and death and disease stalks the land. The acrid smoke of despair fills our nostrils and hangs low and darkens all around us.
Hope lies a distant memory, leftover like a plaything discarded from childhood.
Now survival is all that matters to those who still have choice, and all skill and all knowledge is geared to this one pursuit, this last remaining endeavor.
Of this I am absolutely sure, at some point it must dawn on the silly and the inane, possibly just before their life expires, that they might have squandered it all in vain, glorifying the absence of substance, while leaving the actual substance behind.
Our country is in a mess on many levels, and it is a very hard place to live and to raise a family in.
But it did not get so on its own, it required the consent and acquiescence of us all.
So does change.
The exploits of the selfish and the self obsessed creates the very space that robs them of the life they mimic and pursue. By their actions they carve a space and open the door to death and destruction that follows them close behind.
One opportunity, one unguarded moment is all it takes for life to change forever, and in that moment, if understanding comes, it will bring with it the shame of knowing that at every step along the way we could have made better choices.
Where the beauty of life mirrors the cycles of night and day is that the sun always rises, and with it the opportunity for a new beginning, for a turning away from the path of destruction and an engaging of the process of redemption.
We are indeed our brother's keeper, the good samaritan and that village that they say it takes to raise a child.
Maybe, just maybe in our senseless pursuit of unending pleasure we have learnt that once it remains then pleasure never stays a pleasure, and like Merlin's advice to the young King, the entire banquet is only in the first mouthful.
Life is not meant to be a circus nor a parade, but seasons of learning and growing and giving and taking and most of all of sharing and loving.
"We give but little when we give of our possessions, it is when we give of ourselves that we truly give, so give now, while the season of giving is yours, and not your inheritors."
- Kahlil Gibran
We have stumbled about like drunken fools for too long. laughing on cue to help life imitate the plastic art provided to enslave us as grist for the mill.
Let that be our childhood, and let it be said that that time has passed.
Now is the time for enlightened men to read the signs and lead the way, for the people to agree to live as a means to each others success and not function as obstacles to progress.
We have within us the seeds of greatness and the promise of a family of man.
We have the knowledge of truth and life, the passed on skill for the shovel and the hoe, and it is time for planting....
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