An Ode We Owe

‘An Ode We Owe’ - By Amanda Gorman 

“How can I ask you to do good,

When we’ve barely withstood

Our greatest threats yet:

The depths of death, despair and disparity,

Atrocities across cities, towns & countries,

Lives lost, climactic costs.

Exhausted, angered, we are endangered,

Not because of our numbers,

But because of our numbness. We’re strangers

To one another’s perils and pain,

Unaware that the welfare of the public

And the planet share a name–

–Equality

Doesn’t mean being the exact same,

But enacting a vast aim:

The good of the world to its highest capability.

The wise believe that our people without power

Leaves our planet without possibility.

Therefore, though poverty is a poor existence,

Complicity is a poorer excuse.

We must go the distance,

Though this battle is hard and huge,

Though this fight we did not choose,

For preserving the earth isn’t a battle too large

To win, but a blessing too large to lose.

This is the most pressing truth:

That Our people have only one planet to call home

And our planet has only one people to call its own.

We can either divide and be conquered by the few,

Or we can decide to conquer the future,

And say that today a new dawn we wrote,

Say that as long as we have humanity,

We will forever have hope.

Together, we won’t just be the generation

That tries but the generation that triumphs;

Let us see a legacy

Where tomorrow is not driven

By the human condition,

But by our human conviction.

And while hope alone can’t save us now,

With it we can brave the now,

Because our hardest change hinges

On our darkest challenges.

Thus may our crisis be our cry, our crossroad,

The oldest ode we owe each other.

We chime it, for the climate,

For our communities.

We shall respect and protect

Every part of this planet,

Hand it to every heart on this earth,

Until no one’s worth is rendered

By the race, gender, class, or identity

They were born. This morn let it be sworn

That we are one one human kin,

Grounded not just by the griefs

We bear, but by the good we begin.

To anyone out there:

I only ask that you care before it’s too late,

That you live aware and awake,

That you lead with love in hours of hate.

I challenge you to heed this call,

I dare you to shape our fate.

Above all, I dare you to do good

So that the world might be great”

Amanda Gorman

“The understanding of Truth and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 561:1-3

“If you would look upon love, which is the world’s reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense against it, the underlying appeal for it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the appeal for it by giving it? The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of fear does dispel it, for the awareness of truth cannot be denied. Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus will you learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true.” 

A Course in Miracles T-12.I.10:1-6