fear and courage


It feels like a tidal wave of emotion, of desperation, of anguish, of disgust, with just a tiny grain of hope churned. This past week as though we couldn’t experience anymore emotion, we did. And yet, this past weekend I witnessed love and joy. I witnessed a beautiful wedding (on zoom); I witnessed the rivers and mountains of Northwest Connecticut; I witnessed the faces of my grandchildren, too young to know, and I witnessed protest as I also knelt for 8min and 46 sec. I studied the myriad of photos on the news, on Facebook, and on Instagram and one in particular stood out. Taken from above one protest looked like an ocean of people, a sea of color and so blended as to be One. I want to be in that ocean, buoyed by the saltiness of love and yet I am afraid. It is the fear expressed here in Gibran’s poem. I will pray to know all that has gone before has brought us here. And I will pray that I take the risk that I can become the ocean of love and justice. I will pray for holy courage. 

Fear by Khalil Gibran
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river cannot go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

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