"Our Real Work"

"Our Real Work" - Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work.
And that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.


The writing below was based off the above poem, and the writing prompt, "We've come to our real work." 

We’ve come to our real work.

Now is the time to learn the history.

The history that was always there… but maybe we didn’t learn because it got whitewashed in all the textbooks and curriculum.

Now is the time to learn the history.

The history that was deemed too controversial for a high school.

The history that would “ruffle feathers” or make us too uncomfortable. 

Instead, we got the cursory introductory course.

Now is the time to study our own history.

The books, the documentaries, the articles, the memoirs that tell it straight.

Thank God for these history keepers.   

Thank God for the ones who will hold it right up to our face. 

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

What has been heard cannot be unheard.

Take the posture of a student.  Be attentive. 

We have new teachers now.

Listen to them, listen to them, listen to them.

Take it all in, then sit with the uncomfortableness.

Do not rush away to the next distraction.

It is not too late.  It is not too late to learn the history.

Fill in the blanks.

Fill in the blanks and connect the dots.

Look back on your own life… and see, maybe for the first time, where the untruths led you to think what you thought. 

Challenge those places where the ugliness of racism shaped you, shaped us. 

Be willing to be unshaped.

Then shaped into something new. 

Be willing to be transformed into someone new.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” says Paul.

Recommit to the work.

Recommit to working for justice.

Recommit to a transformed mind, heart, world.

Recommit to a vision of life together, a vision of which the culmination we may not see in full in our lifetimes…

But is nevertheless worthy of working towards.    

Now we’ve come to our real work:

To loosen the bonds of injustice, to lift the yoke, and the heavy burdens.

To free ourselves of the illusion that everyone in the U.S. is free.

For many are still waiting for their full freedom…

Now, we’ve come to our real work.