礼品之路 – The Gift of Legend

Legend

An unverified story.

Handed down from earlier times.

One popularly believed to be historical.

Legend tells of a boy who was an outcast.

Tolerated by most.

Almost tolerated by his family.

He could have been an illegitimate child.

He looked different from his older brothers.

The last of many.

Usually the last child is cherished.

He was not.

And one day his defiance was their salvation.

As he stood before an obnoxious giant.

Not even there in the face of adversity putting on the armor of respectability and acceptability.

Using little pebbles.

And the most unlikely weapon.

He slays the giant.

No matter how often the story is told – he always wins.

There were many like him.

Many apparently small people.

Ill-equipped for going up against the giant.

Legend has it there was only one who ever tried.

And he won.

Legend must be weak.

For Goliath does not tremble.

And David does not rise.

Or perhaps he does.

The beautiful painting by Rana Mariem Ghassan is of a David.

In Palestine.

Holding his rocks in the colors of his flag.

Legend has it those rocks were powerful enough to slay the giant.

Legend is legend for a reason.

In 1989 he stood before a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks in Beijing.

Alone.

And changed our world.

Forever.

In 1976 he died in the arms of his brother in Sharpville. He became a symbol of the injustice of a social-system applied in the country of my birth. A symbol so powerful it fueled a movement to slay the Giant.

David slays Goliath even in death.

His greatest power – his lack of aspiration.

To be like them.

To wear the shiny armor.

To walk tall and be revered.

They do not ‘get’ him.

They cannot.

Heck they do not even see him. For more than the irritating inconvenience which he is.

Until a moment.

A part of a moment. Just before the little unpolished pebble hits.

His weakness is his strength.

His inconsequentiality.

His ridiculousness.

May you be him.

May you be legend in your little bit of world.

Today.

Wherever you are.

Whomever you are.

Along 礼品之路 – The Way of the Gift.

For this is you becoming the gift.

Unnoticed.

Always.

As you receive the gift of your Origin who quietly came to be like you, to live without home, to die without possession the death of a criminal, to change the story of our kind, from eternity, to eternity, as time becomes irrelevant even to the curse of the moment.

This is you being.

Quietly.

Like a whisper.

And as you are, may we be rid of condescending selfish giants.

Who reap with no regard.

Who rape and maim our being and feast on our soul.