We set out for the other side.
We set out crossing borders.
We set out against a brewing sea: a sea of injustice, oppression, poverty, racism.
And yet, with some courage, some sense of adventure, some energy, we place our oars in the cold water,
at the same time expecting turbulence, expecting hardship, expecting the ordeal.
Then come the buffets.
Another war without justification.
More lives lost.
Regimes that use their armies to snuff out lives of those whose hearts are set on justice, yet demand the price of surrender of profit at the expense of rain forest or the rights of farmer workers to unionize, or native peoples clinging to the land that is their heritage.
Hearts once strong become fearful;
Resolve once set begins to melt;
Expectation once high dwindles with each new failure, each new frustration.
And we realize heroism, social agendas, naive idealism,
did not disturb the slumber of the man curled up in the boat.
Faith is what held him fast in sleep, and the erosion of faith is what made his followers cry out --
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
In the teeth of ever menacing waters, patient endurance, simple kindness, ethical life choices, hard work, all springing from that same faith,
carry us through to the other side.
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