“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” — Rabindranath Tagore
The year 2020 has been an interesting and difficult year for this planet, this country, this locality, and even this person. So many of us can attest to that statement and follow the macro-to-micro narratives invoked. It has been a relentless pounding at our hearts and heads. Imagine telling yourself on January 1st what was just around the corner and consider your reaction; impossibly unimaginable events.
The global pandemic, social unrest, and the unending political turmoil have been incessantly stoked by the media of your choice and put on display everywhere you turn. Messages and stories far too disturbing to process and fear mongering running rampant on both sides of the ballot in our history making elections.
Now layer in the duplicity of men who say and do different things. Take into consideration that your foundations and your identify are set aflame by greed and immorality for power, and social unrest is not merely a racial claim. Just when the fires were burning the fiercest, a knock at the door reminded you that the gravest of all plagues, that seemingly only existed in the statistics of the media, had every intention of making a personal visit.
To move ahead we leave the past where it belongs.
The battle and perseverance make us who we are. If we quit and roll over, we are quitters. If we fight the past and hang on, we are doomed to live in fear and repeat it. If we are lucky enough to survive, we need to burn free and burn completely and reduce ourselves into the ashes that remain.
Because when we survive the most unimaginably difficult times of our lives and we fight for our collective future, we will, indeed, rise from the ashes into a new and more impactful and powerful form.
Leave the past behind, but don't ever forget it.