Thread by @SoliPhilander

Good Morning, Fellow What-What's 😁
Here's my insistence
Wear a mask, wash your hands
And KANALA keep your distance 🙏🏽

The art of what's in my heart:
👇👇👇

This reading below
Is from nearly six years ago
The ask is pretty much the same though :

Moonlight Sleeping'
8/19/14

It's very
'O, koud is die windjie, en skraal'
in The Mother City this evening

Reminded me of this morning
seeing what was obviously a homeless person's bedding

shoved under a bush,

then walking
through the subway
on my way home passing

another obviously homeless couple huddled together for warmth.

Thing is, I get unhappy when I'm cold, the feeling creeping into my bones with the temperature. I've tried people's suggestion to 'think warm', but apparently it's not an ability I'm able to develop.

Imagining
having nowhere to turn
against this freezing
breeze
is anathema to me. 

So I invoke gratitude for having, try to remember how blessed I am, and give thanks for home and hearth,

but what won't escape me is this sense that somehow our humanity

Is struggling to evolve.

That so much is wrong with the world because somehow we've learnt
not to care if it doesn't affect us directly.

That when decisions are made
about how we share
and how we compare,
the agenda is always for self.

We've become so self-ish, that the us in others is something we're completely estranged from. 

And so we take to our warm beds,
we 'spare a thought',
and then settle into our comfort and our privilege.

Our charitable deeds
ease our nagging consciences
and we somehow manipulate
how we think and feel
to 'make it okay'. 

But is it not our
brothers and sisters
facing these harsh realities?
Is it not the human family
suffering
in front of our eyes?

Don't think I scorn charity, it helps.
Do good, for good needs to be done.

Don't believe though that it is enough.

If we really want it to be different for those amongst us who suck on the hind teat,
are constrained by circumstances, and handicapped by need,
we are going to need more than charity.

We need a world committed to change, a radical remake of the system that we inadvertently support, and a focus away from the individual, geared towards community.

If the change truly starts with each one of us, it is important to remember that it should be for the benefit of all of us. 

And maybe the best place to start is to stop 'thinking it okay' for ourselves, and work towards 'making it okay' for everybody.

That way we remain bothered, concerned and uncomfortable with things 'being as they are'
and hopefully challenged
to consider, evolve and execute
some lasting solutions.

Our charity can't reach everybody,
our empathy doesn't make the cold night warmer,
our professed humanity is meaningless under a bush,
in a doorway or under a subway this cold night.

Our hope lies in the ability to change 'the way things are', to challenge ourselves in the big-picture context, and to be courageous in activating also for others what we desire for ourselves.

Then the magnitude of what is required won't seem so overwhelming, and the dream of everyone 'having enough' won't seem so unreal.

And those in need,
without recourse to opportunity
and access to resources,
with nowhere to turn,
and seemingly only hardship to earn,
can feel comforted
knowing we're working
towards a bigger dream.

An inclusive one.

For all humanity.

It might not help those who are cold, hungry and homeless tonight,
but it does mean
there's intention to help
effectively tomorrow.

And the day after that.
And long after that. 

Better tomorrows

Soli

Be safe. Be warm. Be loved

#LivesMatter

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