‘IT IS IMPORTANT THAT AWAKE PEOPLE BE AWAKE’. . .

I awoke this morning with tears in my eyes.  I quickly became aware of a searing pain in my gut, heart and soul.  I also became aware of a scene that was playing on my mind’s screen.  I was watching the 39 year old man in Detroit hugging his wife and two children; I could feel their pain as he was, literally being torn from their lives.  I also felt great shame because this scene was occurring because of ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ and I am one of ‘WE.’

I also became aware of another pain.  My mother was Polish.  My great grandfather, age 8, and six of his relatives (brothers and cousins, ages 7-12) had, five years prior to Ellis Island opening, come to the United States as immigrants (no adults came with them).  They had come from a poor village in Poland (a certain person would probably refer to this village as a ‘s…hole’ village).  ALL OF US, everyone one of us, are immigrants (even our Native Americans came from somewhere else).  Many of our ancestors came from what this person might well call a ‘s…hole’ village or country.

How have ‘WE’ moved from compassion to fear?  How have we moved from inviting and accepting to shunning and rejecting?  How have we moved from seeing the ‘other’ as a fully human being to seeing the ‘other’ as less than human?  How can ‘WE’ condemn people who were brought here or sent here as children (just as my mother’s grandfather was sent here at age 8) and now, years later say to them – ‘THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME!’

As I sat with all of this – and other feelings, images – I began to recall the last lines of a poem.  I opened my file of poems and found the poem.  I read it.  I read it again.  The poet, William Stafford, provides us some insight as to ‘WHY’ we are, today, where we are and ‘WHY’ we are, today, who we are.

Gentle reader, I invite you to read and reflect upon Stafford’s gift to us.  Here is his poem.

 A Ritual To Read To Each Other

 If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.