Some Concluding Thoughts on Maya Angelou’s poem “On the Pulse of Morning” (along with some references to Martin Luther King, Jr.)
I know some people think that I do not have the right to write about the sorts of issues I do, especially racial injustice because I am White. I don’t need any trite advice like that. I don’t need to be told I cannot understand, sympathize, empathize, or identify with fellow human beings. Their cultures may be different, their skin a different color, and their language, religions, and social/cultural contexts may be different, but we are not essentially different. We all have Ego and Heart.
Such attitudes do absolutely nothing except damage to the cause of the fellowship of the Heart, a union in which we maintain our unique identities both individually and culturally yet work together in love and light, creating and living purpose, facing challenges, simply being happy in our personal truth, enjoying equality, freedom, and mutual dignity.
The issue in all of these matters is choosing to operate with Heart as our driving force. Ego has its value but not here. Heart-energy must be employed in the development of policies, legislation, and governance, if we want true equality and freedom. Heart-energy must also guide us individually, if we want personal significance, fulfillment, and happiness.
Yes, government must ensure certain Ego practices and rules do not destroy others, do not favor one group over another, do not systemically embed racism in a nation. The individuals who propose, debate, compromise, write, and enact legislation need to be operating in Heart-energy. Laws borne of Ego that are unjust laws must be disobeyed, protested, and nullified. This Earth is experiencing a major shift in understanding our interconnectedness, and without Heart being the driving and designing force in shaping ourselves as individuals and our interactions with one another, little hope is to be had for the sort of nation envisioned by leading founders of this nation.
Maya Angelou and Martin Luther King lived in this spirit. They did not sit still, bowed under the marginalization, rejection, abuse, and hopelessness into which a white-engineered society cast them. Faced with centuries of oppression in a society under a government rigged to keep things exactly as they were, Maya and Martin worked their magic, produced hope, and instigated change, each in their own way.
With full knowledge of the way things were, they chose to express their personal truth and purpose, knowing that whatever others thought, whatever the consequences, whatever their success or rejection, they were doing the only thing they could honestly do: live true Self.
Oppression, burdens, and hardships may elicit a variety of responses from us humans: we may succumb, wilt, and be crushed. We may learn to live with bowed backs and downcast eyes, ignore the brutishness, and accept it as normal — and this is true over a wide spectrum of human experience, not only racial issues. On the other hand, we may choose to live in Heart energy and radiate light and love as we discover self and create purpose.LM
One choice is easy but dismal. One choice is challenging but bright. I’ll have challenging, bright, and love and light, please.
