That Voice Crying In The American Wilderness

At the very core of our idealism as a nation is a philosophical insistence that: "... All persons are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". This is the central idea informing the “exceptionalism” we claim as a nation. The preachers among us constantly remind us of the indelible imprint of the Judeo-Christian influence on our sense of who we are as a nation. 

Those who insist on the validity of the fundamental ideals informing our nation's origins, it's growth and  it's development; must never forget that our core religious belief is founded in a moral and ethical relationship with the God of Abraham and Moses. This is a Being who, throughout History, has declared on behalf of the disadvantaged, the oppressed, the widow and the orphan, and the wanderer seeking a place to build a better life for self and kin. 

If we have ears to hear we will pause and listen to the consistent call to Community that proceeds from a righteous Creator. That would be HIS/HER voice calling out to us from the “burning bush” at the center of our communal experience. It is a voice that demands that we reign in our scandalous propensity to the kind of violence that issues in torture and murder and wars for profit. It is a voice that calls us to account for the innocent blood that we shed, and are complicit in shedding, in our own nation and around the world. 

The Power from which that voice emanates is defined in the reality that we are inextricably connected in our "being", and are therefore essentially affected by all the circumstances that touch each of our lives. This connectedness of being transcends all national and tribal distinctions.

The voice of our supreme moral and ethical Source declares in no uncertain terms that, as a nation,  we must take off the boots of moral ignorance which weigh us down in the miry clay of a corrupt sense of being. Those boots keep us from advancing overdue liberty-promoting actions toward our fellow persons withering away as captives of an unjust system. They wither away in the Guantanamos in our midst, and our other prisons known and unknown. 

These captives yearn for deliverance from the liberty-suppressing, life-thwarting circumstances prevalent around them. The undeniable dynamism of that Voice holds our feet to the fires of Justice. Cover our ears as we might, that same voice echoes disturbingly from the distant “wilderness” of our beginnings as a nation. A nation founded on the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Justice, as endowments of our common Creator.

Those among us who would “preach” to us about our religious foundations - especially those who claim to be conservatives- are required to have an exegetical moment that is ontologically meaningful. A nation that claims the God of Moses as its moral standard-bearer cannot continue to ignore the call of this same God “to do justly, and to love mercy”. 

This is not a moment in which we can comfortably resort to the kind of meaningless obfuscation that calls our crimes "mistakes”. Slavery was, and is a crime. Racism is criminal behavior. The predatory behavior of investment bankers is criminal. A for profit healthcare system that denies care in order to cull a profit for investors and shareholders is legally and morally reprehensible. Building jails as investment opportunities is in and of itself an injustice that reeks of criminality. 

Repeating platitudes that comfort those who choose various convenient states of inaction while ignoring the need for change, will only cement us in a place of cultural and spiritual decadence. Our claims to moral and political exceptionalism are meaningless in the face of our unwillingness to deal with the contradictions in our midst. 

It is time that we renew our commitment to the faith expressed in our foundational rationale for being America... Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Beyond the parochialism of our claim to some special existential privilege, ours is a nation that claims a Faith based on an understanding of Salvation that is rooted in an act of Liberation. That Faith resonates in the powerful vibrations of one Robert Nesta Marley when he declares: 

"Jah come to break downpression (every manifestation of oppression)... Rule equality... Wipe away transgression,

Set the captives free... Set the captive free!... Set the captive free!" 

... Like a Morning in Spring

“Sing me a song

Like a morning in Spring;

Play me a tune

That warm sunshine will bring...

Wake me up 

With words so warm;

Sing me a song that will sound the alarm

Of all my senses.” 

~From “For All My Seasons” by the author - Roy Alexander Graham~

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

~Pablo Neruda~

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We experience the world and most things in it through the portals of our five senses. We see, we hear, we smell, we feel, we taste… And so we know. But beyond these five portals is a sixth sense… an innate intelligence that is shared by the trees, and the animals in the environment around us. 

This innate intelligence helps us prepare for essential changes in our world. It makes the birds fly South when they sense the imminence of certain changes. It makes the squirrels hoard nuts for the season of scarcity. It makes the trees shed their leaves in preparation for a season of dormancy. 

When the psalmist declares “Lord teach us to number our days, so that we may apply our hearts to Wisdom”; it is this intelligence that is being appealed to. Most people hear this as an oft repeated admonition at funerals, or as a gentle reminder to be conscious of the passing of time, especially around our birthdays. Beyond its function as an existential admonition however, we may aspire to relate to this piece of advice in the way that the birds and the trees and the flowers do. Yes, they too can, and do apply their hearts to Wisdom.

Engaging our sixth-sense-abilities...

Oh that we could or would connect with the world around us in ways that would cultivate a greater sense of the wonderful-ness, not just of our immediate environment, but of the vast universe that we are privileged to be dynamic atoms in. We can, if we want to. We can if we develop a strong enough desire to tear ourselves away from that superficial engagement with the world around us that we find so… convenient. We can, if we detach ourselves from the selfishness that keeps us bound to our fears. 

We can cultivate a more acute connection with our world, but only when we commit ourselves to being truly selfless explorers of its treasures. In moments of transient nobility some of us wish we could do for others what Spring does for the cherry trees... We hold on to this notion until we are forced to concede that in the absence of an essential empathy we can’t. We are unable to because for the most part we are not sensible enough… Sensible as in sixth-sensible. We can’t because we have become prisoners in the open penitentiary of our own lack of benevolence. We trap ourselves in the cages we construct out of our unwillingness to let others in… .

We are so limited to the world created by our own myopia, and so fenced in by our narrow self-indulgent interests, that we have no true connection to the universe of the birds, and the bees, and the flowers, and the trees. In our pursuit of a world in which we seek to exclude others as a function of our own unjustness… our prejudices, our greed, our xenophobia, our warped sense of being, our gross ignorance - we have created a wilderness. 

We, out of the abundance of our own fears, have created a wasteland in which we are ruled by the multitude of our own existential anxieties. In the constant pursuit of our transient vanities, we have lost our sixth-sense-abilities. The result of all this is an inability to release our boundless potential - that dynamic in us that would allow us to be all we can and should be, to ourselves and to each other, in each season of our lives. It is a reason we wilt and die when we should be vibrant and prosperous. 

The absence of this dynamism weakens our rootedness in this world, and stunts our growth in ways that are at times life-threatening. This inability to live into the promises of the various seasons of our lives is an issue that must be addressed. It must become the focus of remedial action if we are to experience the wonder-filled vigor of lives lived fully.

Sing me a song…

The activation of our innate potentials begins with a declaration in our souls of our intention to be everything our Creator intends for us to be. This declaration may not express itself as poetry in its infancy, but it evolves as such when we steadfastly lend ourselves to its promises. 

Poetry, in this sense,  is an expression of the art of the possible. It is the manifestation of the creative instinct in us. A poem is the thing we do or make to give expression to our co-creative genius. It is a witness that the Creator dwells within us. Through this poetry your life and mine become the Songs through which we express the many ways in which Life affects us.  Our songs are also testaments through which we declare the many ways in which we want to affect Life in return. 

Play me a tune…

Songs that are worthy of our attention, are essential expressions of the best notions of our idealism. Such songs are the intermingling of our spoken intent with the stimulating instruments of our steadfastness. A steadfast rhythm is in and of itself essential to every song to which we lend our voices and our emotions in the sway of our daily dance through this life. 

Steadfastness is that quality of being which evidences our commitment to an idea… to an ideal. It is the oft-repeated attribute of ideals that are worth holding on to... and dancing to. It rocks and motivates us in ways that others may see but not always understand or ably imitate. It is steadfastness that lends a remarkable motility to our daily strides. Steadfastness has a core capacity to incorporate even the stumbles to which we are sometimes prone.

Wake me up…

We sleep. Sleep is essential. It is the necessary recreative interval that our vitality demands. The season of dormancy will naturally come to an end. To some a restful interlude sometimes seems like death. Like the tree in its moment of deciduous recline and apparent fruitless-ness, our exhaustion can sometimes present as destiny… but it is not! Sense- abled people know this. They have eyes and ears and an experience of life that allows them to tell the difference. 

It is Spring… Again!!

Spring is the ultimate declaration of the fact that dormancy isn’t destiny. It at once enables our regeneration and commands us to “wake up!” - but not in a harsh way. That command is enlivening. It brings with it an expressed warmth that is essentially life affirming. It calls us to join again the chorus and the choir of Life. 

And so we wake up from the state of being dormant; and we find ourselves in a world that seems like a wilderness… a place that has no obvious beauty or joy. That is how it seems in the initial period of wakefulness. And then, eventually, we face the realization that dormancy is not destiny. In the refreshing warmth of a new season of being we come to realize that, in fact, we may be able to do for each other what Spring does for the cherry tree. 

Spring comes as a chronological fact when the days of cold have run their course. Kairotically, it is when the frost of Despair is replaced by the sunshine of Hope. It is that season of our lives when the regeneration that the lilies signal replaces the grayness of the season of dormancy. 

Spring is the effervescent now in which the wilderness created by and of our fears becomes again a garden of opportunity for the oppressed, a resort for the healing of the sick and lonely, a refuge for the widow and the orphan… A once barren place now becomes an oasis; a place of comfort for those who have been bruised and broken in their travail through the wasteland of dried-up perspectives.

Spring wraps us in its regenerative warmth... it silences the murmur of selfishness, and gives prominence to a chorus of inclusivity. We feel it’s novel comfort; and in the distant recesses of our being we rediscover a renewing and dynamic sense-ability. In the effervescent reawakening of this wonderful season we blossom forth, and find again our places as participants in the grand choir which is Life...

Sing me a song… 

Play me a tune… 

Wake me up with words so warm; 

Sing me a song that will sound the alarm of all... all… all of my senses.