The first is said to be easier to follow with its large width and plenty of companions. You never have to battle the wayside thorns nor the fear of loneliness in the darkest of nights. The pounding of a myriad of feet mean that the weeds never have time to grow and store dew that might wet your trousers on spring mornings. When danger pounces, statistics are in your favor in terms of surviving. Most, so the holy book asserts, choose this path and it leads them to an ending rich in pain and horror.
The second path is narrower, its dangers more severe, and the shoulders to lean on are as abundant as the grey of an infant's mop. It takes courage, hope, and faith to tread the dust of this path. Along its length, the pilgrims succumb to hunger, thirst, and other dangers rather than turning back and taking the wider, comfortable path. At its end is a rumored paradise meant for those who are faithful and selfless in the present life.
In living, we exhibit qualities that make us either selfish or selfless. Based on our hopes and values, we choose between the physical or mental comfort, then we spend the rest of our lives seeking and asserting justifications for our stances until we either die or come to the realization that we had been wobbling on the wrong path and seek out its nemesis to rectify our actions. Throughout all of this, we ask ourselves- and perhaps others- about what the right path is, how to identify it, and what it requires of us.
There can be but little doubt as to what life gives and requires of us. Individual satisfaction is wired in each individual to the point where many would seek to put out their own lights rather than letting others subject them to a state of perpetual dimness. Centuries of oppression and fear have left many in our midst feeling like candles in the midst of a storm, whose light depends on the gale's fickle mercy. We cower behind our fears and wait for the moment when it's our turn to be extinguished, hoping against all odds to live out our lives in dimness. In the meantime, we fail to give our light to other candles who may also spread it until it becomes too powerful for the storm to extinguish. If only we could see our own potential, then we can become an eternal light for all creation to witness and judge.
Fear is the one thing keeping us from accomplishing that. We fear for our lives, the termination of our privileges, rejection from our peers, and many others, but what we don't realize is that we end up living as shadows of our true potential. Someone once said that sometimes a person meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it. In trying to avoid pain, we end up taking a path that directs us to the ultimate pain source. What if we decided to put our fear aside and followed what our hearts and minds tell us is the right path? What if we chose to be vocal about the injustice being committed against others rather than hiding in stoic silence that ultimately leads to our own demise? What if you and I's fears are really a result of generations of fear geared into our genes by those who feast on them to enrich themselves at our expense? What if fear is the main ingredient in dividing us so that they can easily conquer us? If all this was the true, what should our next step be?
The first step is to realize that our silence helps neither us nor our situation. In Maurice Ogden's poem "Hangman," the hangman poses the riddle: ""He who serves me best shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree." One by one, the citizens of the town are led to the gallows until only the narrator is left. When the dreaded call of the hangman seeks him out, he realizes that all along the gallows had been meant for him and that the hangman had been killing those who might have stood up to save him. Here's an excerpt from the poem.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square. - Maurice Ogden,
http://homepage.mac.com/steveklein/hangman.html
When we speak out and face the dangers from those who profit from our silence, we tread the path least trod and, though we might not live to reap the benefits, tomorrow will owe its prosperity to our selfless actions. The fight for peace and justice never ends, but we are not to fool ourselves into thinking we don't owe the sliver of freedom we enjoy today to those who sacrificed their past. Some, like Mandela, lived to see a better day while many of his comrades like Steve Biko like Robert Sobukwe died before the realization of their dreams, but I have no doubt that those who died had seen the promised land and were satisfied by their sacrifices. Rather than stand around cowering while the hangman terrorized their people, they sounded the alarm and, in time, their efforts helped to chase him away.
It is up to us now to guard against his kind from establishing their footing in our midst again. Wherever we perceive injustice, we are to stand against it and make sure our cry for freedom is heard across the land. Treading the straight and narrow is the only way to guarantee our safety and that of the generations to follow. However, if you decide to waddle in fear of your own shadow, do not be surprised if no one comes to your aide when your number comes up...those who kill by silence shall be killed by silence.
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