By Prem Gongaju
You, my friends, are born free in the land whose horizon is adorned with the blue firmament. The dawn and the dusk of your lives are two of the most majestic stanzas set in a dazzling array of colors. And your night is a velvet shawl studded with innumerable stars, and the stars watch over you while you sleep.
Your table is laden with goodness— miles away from the shadows of urban centers, miles away from the fields of cotton, and miles away from the legacy of doom, decay and death.
The table is laden with a loaf of bread, a jug of milk, and your grandma’s marmalade.
The bread is baked in the oven stoked by the hands that were warmed by the bush burning in the wilderness once upon a time.
The golden sun streamed through the lace-curtained window, illuminating the cherubic faces in the coveted land.
You are the guests, my young friends, and the table is set for you.
As the hands broke the bread, you inhaled the aroma of goodness wafting toward you.
As the hands broke the bread, you felt the warmth of love enveloping you.
As the hands broke the bread, you felt the heartbeat of charity in your bosom.
Filled with goodness, love and charity, you went forth to till the land, to irrigate the fields, to prepare the parcel of your inheritance for planting love and peace.
There is no guarantee that your work will be any easier than that of your neighbors. Nor is there any assurance that you will not tremble at the task in front of you.
You will stumble upon the clods—hard and obstinate—on your path; you will be pained by the sand burs of human condition.
There will be times when you will feel tired, hungry and thirsty. But there is no well to quench your thirst. And no stars to guide you home.
All alone, you have arrived at the crossroad of your journey.
You will go into the roadside inns for sustenance and sleep. I hope that you will not be satisfied nor satiated with what you find in the roadside lodgings that punctuate the highways and byways of life.
Your sleep in the wayside inns will vex you to nightmares; the food you eat will make you want more food; and the drink will parch your tongue.
You will roll from one pillow to the next, from one dinette to the next, from one drink to the next. You have become a beast tied to the yoke of needs. You go round and round churning the mash for your master.
But yet you are not lost. Not yet.
Pause and consider the peeling of the skin resulting from the pressing yoke on your once smooth nape.
You may recall, my young friends, you were the guests at the table not too long ago. And a pair of hands broke the bread for you so you may not go hungry. And the milk was poured for you so you may not go thirsty.
Recall, my young friends, you were the guests at the table, and you inhaled the aroma of goodness. You were enveloped by the shawl of compassion, and you heard the heartbeat of charity in your bosom.
May the fountain of fellowship burst forth from your bosom—the home for goodness, love and charity.
And the bread is sandwiched between the covers of the book of your life.
Seek, my friends, and you will find he alchemy you need to metamorphose from a young adult into a woman, from a young adult into a man.
You will plant peace and harmony, honesty and integrity in the parcel of your arable life.
And you may rejoice at the harvest time, for your labor helped produced a bumper crop to sustain the fellowship of humanity under the arc of love.
