We Are More

On Monday night, we got together for a little while with a few friends to share stories and to imagine a better way to be together. Our theme for the night was “Ancestors” so we talked about how we had been formed by those who had gone before us. We also talked about the things that connect us all.

At the end of the evening, I shared a piece I’ve been working on recently, an exploration of who we are together. Here it is as I shared it on Monday.

Ancestors

How does one make a human?
A head, arms and legs
Some plumbing and wiring
Bones and skin
Hands and feet
Eyes, nose, and mouth
Assemble it and turn it loose
But will you have a human?
No, they say, don’t be silly
There’s more to it than that
But what?

I was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
A little more than fifty years ago
What makes me human
Are the moments and days of my life since then
My journey from there to here
My childhood, my youth, life as an adult
From day one, stretching even to tonight
Here with each of you
These moments that have shaped me
And formed my memories
This is where I start to understand
What it means to be human

But wait! I am more 
We are more
We are the dreams of our fathers
The manifestations of our mothers
We are the words whispered in darkness
The song sung through silence
When it seemed the night would never end
We are the bread and wine shared between friends
When life seemed too short to waste another minute
We sat down and looked to the stars
We are the image in our eyes
Of the endless desert skies
We are more
We are the kings in their castles
And the ones who lost the battles
We are the winners and the sinners
The failures and the givers
We are oppressor
We are prisoner
We are lover 
We are resistor
We are the ones
Who left their homes behind
The ones who journeyed far
Across the water in a little boat
The train gone north to freedom
A caravan of hope
We are the ones who dreamed
Of something more
The ones who planted trees
We are the trees they planted
We are the world they imagined
The inheritors of the life they granted
We are more
Than a list of our experiences
From birth and moving forward
Even now we are afforded
Grace upon grace
We are the air that we have breathed
The food and water we’ve received
The soil beneath our feet
We are the apple from the tree
The honey from the bee
The river to the sea
The cooling ocean breeze 
We are all these things and more
We are St Theresa and the Buddha
Mahatma Gandhi and Neruda
We are Martin, we are Malcolm
We are Mohammed on the mountain
May peace be upon them

All of these
Passing on 
To all of us
We are in them
And they in us
Ancestors
Everything in everything
All in all
We are more
Than meets the eye

- 15 Nov 2021