Walking is good for you. So they say. I have to, believe me, walk that is. Shed these extra pounds that I've allowed to pile on... :)
But what do you do when you have to walk for forty years? Forty years? That is some serious walking, but apparently, none the worse for wear for you, literally speaking..
'Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.' ~ Deuteronomy 8:4
So then, at the end of forty years, what is my attitude? What do I see before me?
But I am digressing. I ask myself when I start to moan, am I grateful? Yes indeed I am ~ I look at the world around me and I say, I am blessed indeed ~ My children, the fact that I can sleep on a bed with a roof above me, a meal daily to fill my needs, friends, family, so many reasons to be grateful....
To those that complain that technology is advancing every day and that they are not equipped with the latest gadgets or modes of transport, to those that live in some modicum of comfort and feel they are lacking, to those that battle with private demons and see no respite, I give you this.
Children all over the world, children, facing insurmountable odds every single moment of each day as they awake to yet another morning of their lives.
The right to live freely – denied. Ask the millions who live under cover of gunfire and mortar shells in bombed out remnants of what was once a home.
The right to be free of sexual oppression and abuse – denied. Ask the girls and boys, still missing, taken from homes, from fields, from school compounds.
The right to be educated – denied. Ask the boy at the street side, cutting, cooking, cleaning dishes; the girl who mops the floors and tends to your babies.
The right to be fed and held and loved - denied. Ask the many that sleep alone at night, on pavements, under bridges, with no one but themselves.
Children looking after children.
As adults, we grow too quickly into defeat and jaded weariness, often times too wary to get, be involved. We cannot see the world ahead of us; we see only the path and the endless walking, the drudgery of everyday life.
And yet through the horrors unimaginable, we catch a glimpse of the world that does lie ahead of us and so I give you this.
Anne Frank.
Malala Yousafzai.
Our religions do not define us.
Our races cannot confine us.
It is our choices ultimately to rise again and again and yet again, that do describe us.
We are after all, all one breath that makes us, creatures, creations of the One that completes us.
# A Path too slow
A path too slow! Some say that befit a walking
A journey too long,
The horizon distant, unending.
How long was it? A decade and then some, unceasing;
The days, brazen, unbroken
The nights in pursuit, dark, forbidding.
Who was it that said?
Freedom lies but across the shore, beckoning
Why then this ceaseless, infinite marching?
For you my child, the learning
Of patience, fortitude that comes in the waiting,
Stillness, hush! The dark night’s a breaking!
For heads bowed down in the thanking
Of sustenance daily, the protection encompassing
In pillars white and red, resplendent, approaching.
A path too slow? Us mortals, the visions beyond
Unseen yet, uncharted, unfelt, all-reaching
The horizon yet distant, still unending…
But what do you do when you have to walk for forty years? Forty years? That is some serious walking, but apparently, none the worse for wear for you, literally speaking..
'Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.' ~ Deuteronomy 8:4
So then, at the end of forty years, what is my attitude? What do I see before me?
But I am digressing. I ask myself when I start to moan, am I grateful? Yes indeed I am ~ I look at the world around me and I say, I am blessed indeed ~ My children, the fact that I can sleep on a bed with a roof above me, a meal daily to fill my needs, friends, family, so many reasons to be grateful....
To those that complain that technology is advancing every day and that they are not equipped with the latest gadgets or modes of transport, to those that live in some modicum of comfort and feel they are lacking, to those that battle with private demons and see no respite, I give you this.
Children all over the world, children, facing insurmountable odds every single moment of each day as they awake to yet another morning of their lives.
The right to live freely – denied. Ask the millions who live under cover of gunfire and mortar shells in bombed out remnants of what was once a home.
The right to be free of sexual oppression and abuse – denied. Ask the girls and boys, still missing, taken from homes, from fields, from school compounds.
The right to be educated – denied. Ask the boy at the street side, cutting, cooking, cleaning dishes; the girl who mops the floors and tends to your babies.
The right to be fed and held and loved - denied. Ask the many that sleep alone at night, on pavements, under bridges, with no one but themselves.
Children looking after children.
As adults, we grow too quickly into defeat and jaded weariness, often times too wary to get, be involved. We cannot see the world ahead of us; we see only the path and the endless walking, the drudgery of everyday life.
And yet through the horrors unimaginable, we catch a glimpse of the world that does lie ahead of us and so I give you this.
Anne Frank.
Malala Yousafzai.
Our religions do not define us.
Our races cannot confine us.
It is our choices ultimately to rise again and again and yet again, that do describe us.
We are after all, all one breath that makes us, creatures, creations of the One that completes us.
# A Path too slow
A path too slow! Some say that befit a walking
A journey too long,
The horizon distant, unending.
How long was it? A decade and then some, unceasing;
The days, brazen, unbroken
The nights in pursuit, dark, forbidding.
Who was it that said?
Freedom lies but across the shore, beckoning
Why then this ceaseless, infinite marching?
For you my child, the learning
Of patience, fortitude that comes in the waiting,
Stillness, hush! The dark night’s a breaking!
For heads bowed down in the thanking
Of sustenance daily, the protection encompassing
In pillars white and red, resplendent, approaching.
A path too slow? Us mortals, the visions beyond
Unseen yet, uncharted, unfelt, all-reaching
The horizon yet distant, still unending…
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