Not taking sides
Mar. 25th, 2025 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mickiToday I’m reading about the necessity of not taking sides. This is probably the hardest one for me. It’s interesting; I never used to think that to be the case, but I guess I didn’t have a strong sense of enemies before. It's so much harder for me to empathize with the people in power who are trying to destroy the institutions society relies on.
This is also the chapter with the poem that is so famous, "Please Call me by My True Names."
Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow.
Because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second.
To be a bud on a spring branch,
To be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
Learning to sing in my new nest,
To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
To be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
In order to fear and to hope,
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
Death of all things that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosisizing on the surface of the river,
And I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond,
And I am also the grass snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
My legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the 12-year-old girl, a refugee, on a small boat,
Who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo with plenty of power in my hands,
And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom, and all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and my pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can wake up,
And so the door of my heart can be left open,
The door of compassion.
This is also the chapter with the poem that is so famous, "Please Call me by My True Names."
Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow.
Because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second.
To be a bud on a spring branch,
To be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
Learning to sing in my new nest,
To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
To be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
In order to fear and to hope,
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
Death of all things that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosisizing on the surface of the river,
And I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond,
And I am also the grass snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
My legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the 12-year-old girl, a refugee, on a small boat,
Who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo with plenty of power in my hands,
And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom, and all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and my pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can wake up,
And so the door of my heart can be left open,
The door of compassion.
