Shine!
| Recently I was in New Orleans for a conference and spent the better part of my time in the lower ninth ward. You do remember the lower ninth don’t you? How could any of us forget what happened in New Orleans when the levies broke and for four days thousands of people were stranded in the streets of a major American city without food or water? How could any of us forget what we saw on television that week or how we felt as the coming days brought no relief to the victims of Katrina and the people of New Orleans in particular. And as I stood on the saddest soil in the United States of America I could hear the melancholy music of the levies, the sweet sound of conscience, and the requiem of some inner voice reminding me of why God loved King and Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Eleanor Roosevelt. They were |
People who are only motivated by their personal interest will soon be forgotten after their time here on earth is done; but those of us who find the courage to speak for the least of these, who advocate for children and perhaps even for the child in us, who believe in the dignity of every expression of our collective humanity even if we disagree with the person or their lifestyle, for those of us who work for possibility and not for a check, who give without needing something in return, and for those of us who know the joy of celebrating someone else’s success, history, even if it is a story told only once, will not forget that we were here.
Martin Luther King didn’t have a laptop, a cell phone, or a fax machine but he changed the course of human history with what he had, because whenever you are doing what you were born to do– you don’t need a lot to be effective at making difference. And the moment you become more concerned about your legacy than your rent, you will, in that hour, find yourself in the company of greatness.
True greatness is a perspective, a way being in the world; it is an unshakeable belief in the nobility of life in spite of its apparent cruelty. The world has never seen a life like yours and after you are gone it will never see another like you again. You are, in a word, an original soul, a beautiful mind, but your gifts are not your own; they belong to the rest of us; not just to your family or to the people you know, they belong to the world; even to people who hate you and oppose you at every turn, it is to them that you must be willing to give the most.
We need you to shine. People who have never met you and will never see your face need you to spread your wings in tight places so that the power to fly will be real to them. The children of Bangladesh and the Sudan need to hear how you refused to dim your light even amid the horrors of an unspeakable situation so that somewhere in the bruising darkness they will feel the glow of what you do and know that life will make away. So keep shining like the sun-the world needs you.
Comments