“Abandoned Shelter” by carva822 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
What If We Discover How to Live?
By Jane Tawel
March 24, 2020
*
What if we discover
that this is how we were meant to live?
What if by sheltering from the world,
We find shelter in each other?
*
What if we discover
That this is how we save the planet?
Not by using, craving, hoarding, earning, making, shipping, storing
more and more and more and more and more and more,
But by simply doing less?
*
What if we discover
That life is more entertaining when lived,
Than when watched?
That love is more meaningful when given,
Than when received?
What if we learn that
Hope is more fierce than fear ever could be?
That waiting and watching are more pleasant than grasping and greeding?
That Good will conquer both ignorance and evil if we believe it can?
What if we learn our best lesson
While school is out?
*
But….
What if
We never discover anything
more lasting
Than this unsettling moment?
What if we return to what we were
Before?
What if we go backwards,
Again,
Not forwards,
For once?
What if we forget–
And by forgetting
Lose all?
*
What if we find
we really would still rather discover far-off places,
than seek the places close to heart and home?
What if we keep gaining the world
And losing our souls?
What if some of us still believe that
tax shelters and oil
Are more important than birds and bees?
What if we continue to worship
At the trough, like sheep,
believing the world’s money players will save us
While we cheer from the sidelines?
What if we still believe that morality is
A problem for them, not us?
What if our convenience and comfort
are still more important than our existence?
And what if we discover
that we liked things just fine–
Before we thought we might have to die for them?
What if we never learn that we’ve been dying for them all along?
*
What if we discover too late that
we have already abandoned
the shelter of each other?
*
But what if we can finally, truly, earnestly, humbly learn
like a eureka,
like an epiphany,
like a salvation —
That every day always has had
Always will have
Always
holds a choice
Between death and life?
*
What if the only questions we should have asked are:
What are we dying for?
What will we live for?
*
What if we discover that it was actually quite practical —
(Not esoteric at all)
To believe:
That the meek will inherit the earth–
Because they were the only ones who learned how to care for it?
That the last among us–
will be the honored ones
because they were the first responders?
What if we discover that the least will be the greatest–
Because they learned how to survive and still love
with so little?
*
And what if we discover
that the only thing that matters
In the end–
When the clock stops for each of us—
As it will
As it surely will–
The only thing we have ever needed to learn—
Is what to do with love?
*
What if we discover that—
In the shelter of each other,
We will live?
*
Please enjoy this video of the beautiful song by Jars of Clay, entitled “Shelter”. May you be bound to hope today.– Jane