Liberation
“If
you have come to help me, you're wasting your time. If you have come
because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work
together.”
Lilla
Watson (Aboriginal Elder & Educator, Queensland, Australia)
Becky
brought this quote to Spirituality Group yesterday. It is such a
fitting statement for our time. So many of us truly want to be
helpful to others, but we come to it with the idea that we know what
will fix their problem. We see ourselves as the “helper” and the
other as the “one in need of help,” as though this is a river
that flows only one way. While it's usually well-intentioned, it
simply doesn't work.
We
assume too often that people in need depend upon the largess of those
who are not in need. We are more than willing to provide clothing and
food and even money. But too often what people actually need is the
opportunity to help themselves. That's much harder than writing a
check, or loading up boxes of cast off clothing to take to a shelter.
It requires a change of attitude on the part of the culture—not a
trickle down from the top to the bottom, but a hand-in-hand effort to
listen and learn. We must understand that we all have something to
offer, and we all have needs in equal measure. This is a lake, not a
river.
We
are not our brother's keeper, we are our brother's sister or brother.
We are all bound up together in a circle, not a pyramid. Our
liberation is dependent upon all being free and equal. Let us begin
the work.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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