Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver
“We are Orlando.” “We are Charlie Hebdo.” “We are Ferguson.” The slogans go viral on Facebook. But, in fact, we are not Orlando or Charlie Hebdo or Ferguson, not if we are not writing and acting to change these brutal times. I understand what stops so many of us. I wrote politically for decades. Then, as the internet burgeoned – in some ways like cancer – I became increasingly reluctant to add my writing to what seemed to be galaxies of words. And of course, it was so much easier to click on a petition.
I don’t have an answer. I don’t know how to write incisively in today’s glut of opinions. More accurately, I do know how to write with a razor. I don’t know where to put the laceration where it can open out a healing wound in our rotting times.
Please take time with the theme of this post. Write what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life. Send us your words so they can appear in next week’s Breakthrough. That much, we have that much: the willingness to be in connection. Here is Dean Kocjancic’s wondrous response to last week’s request for writing:
I am the sky
From nothing to the eternity,
from the left to the right, from the back to the front,
from up to down, I am the sky.
You cry in the morning because you are happy,
the new life you bring in a new day,
you are red, you are the sky.
You are full of life during the day,
You are blue, you are the sky.
You cry in the evening, you are sad,
because the beautiful day was gone,
you are red, you are the sky.
The birds fly across the rays of the sun,
the moon follows you in the next day,
I am the sky.The sky is big.
There is a place for all hearts of the World.
There is a place for all love of the World.
Every star is our soul every star is our light.
I am the sky full of the air. I am freedom for your breath.
I am the sky. —Dean Kocjancic
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