Serenity… a life's expedition

Lately I’ve been remembering a short story I read a few years ago in one of those little Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock magazines. I think it was by Bill Pronzoni. It went something like this:

A series of letters between a woman and her husband, who was in prison for stealing a large amount of money or something – which had never been found. The prison authorities read every incoming and outgoing letter.

In one exchange the woman mentions how she is having trouble getting someone to plow the fields so that she could plant whatever for the next harvest, because she has no money. Husband writes back, telling her to look on the south field, where she will find something to help her out.

Well, of course in the next letter she says that she was unable to do that as the authorities had been out there since dawn, digging up the entire field and if anything was there to be found they would have found it, because they’d turned over every inch of ground. And he writes back two words: Now plant.

I thought that was just a great, funny end to the story. By hook or by crook someone’s plowed the field and prepared the ground, even if they didn’t know they were doing it. Now plant.

Those words run through my mind lately whenever I see/hear someone crying out “Where’s my hope? Where’s my change? Where are my rainbows and ponies I was promised? I’m going home!”. Thus removing their shallow roots from the field.

Or when, as I’ve seen in a couple of places recently, someone says “Where did the Movement go? I’ve been sitting here waiting for it to continue, I was on such a high after the election but now I am tired of waiting. I’m disappointed and giving up”. Some cannot grab hold of the trellis to grow upward.

Or “I haven’t gotten everything I wanted when I wanted it or in the form I wanted it, so I hate you and I’m done!”. Bindweed is a killer, I understand.

I don’t begrudge anyone their feelings or their disappointments – but movements are not formed on the mountaintops, or in continuous sunshine, or on pathways strewn with roses.

They grow up out of the sometimes very dark valleys, the paths strewn with sharp rocks and slippery pebbles. Like pearls they come from an irritant, and in all shapes, colors and sizes – sometimes smooth and round and perfect; other times lumpy and haphazard but still containing its own beauty.

That’s because Movement, change, hope, progress… is never about a single person and never a result of a single person’s efforts, nor should it be based on a single person’s personality or abilities.

Effective, long-term, continuous, sustainable change comes when many make one, when batons are picked up by one person (or a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand) then passed to the next to take it as far as they can go.

Hope is not a panacea, a destination, a resting place. It’s a journey – often through the dark with no torch or GPS, through the smelly alleys and bug infested dwellings; through the swelled bellies and dead eyes; through the lost homes and vanished jobs; through the injustices and descriminations; through the trials and tribulations, hope is the belief you’ll make out the other side.

Hope is what keeps you working to make that happen.

So, no, I don’t begrudge anyone their feelings or disappointment. I do, however, gaze at those packing up and going home with something less than sorrow.

I’ve never been interested in politicians and political shenanigans, but when I look at the cleared plot marked “hope and change”, at those still standing holding their seeds, at those who look around at a field that may not be pretty and perfect, may be full of rocks and hazards and that needs a lot of work still – and see those who have figured out “Hey! WE are the ones we’ve been waiting for”, I smile and think -

NOW plant.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 6:02 am and is filed under Barack Obama, hope, politics, the breeze at dawn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.