Do Not Be Ashamed
You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
“I am not ashamed.” A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.
- Wendell Berry
Do Not Be Ashamed
by Hortensia 5 Replies latest jw friends
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Hortensia
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Hope4Others
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
Interesting poem.....
h40 -
Gopher
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.This sounds a LOT like guilt-trip-imposing people who have tried to bend me to their will. I was far too yielding when I was a JW.
No more.
No grown person who's done nothing wrong needs to be lectured by another "grown" person who wants things done their way. We should always doubt the motivation of the lecturer who wants to take us on an unnecessary and harmful trip called "guilt".
-
cameo-d
Hortensia,
That sounds really spooky.
Do you know about the red list and the blue list?
How soon should I look for the spotlight?
-
BabaYaga
...woah.
Thanks... I... think. -
Hortensia
no, I don't know about the red list and blue list. What are they?
I thought that poem just exactly hit the nail on the head as far as my JW experience. I wonder what was going on in Wendell Berry's life to lead him to write that poem? I also wonder why people call that kind of writing poetry - although it is very compelling and true, it doesn't have anything I associate with poetry such as rhythm, pace, structure, rhyme. It looks like prose broken into short lines. Compelling, however. It really speaks to the JW experience.
I think Gopher got it perfectly.