Holding Up The Sky

I am one of those people who wanders around this world, picking up every piece of fallen sky I see - every tear, every broken heart. Yeah, I know they're not mine to hold. Yeah, I know I should learn to put them down. I'm trying.

The sky is so big. There will always be more pieces falling than my tiny hands can hold.

The sky is so big. But I'm not the only one under it.

There is a South African word, ubuntu, which has been broadened into a philosophy. As it was explained to me by my high school field hockey coach, this word means "I am because you are". Humanity is inarguably connected, no matter the mantras of individualism or the geological rifts. And if one member of us is not allowed to be all that they are meant to be, we are all barred from being what we were meant to be.

If there is yet one person belittled, confined, harassed, wounded, forgotten - then all of humanity hurts because of it.

The sky is so big. But there are so many of us under it. There are so many hands among us to pick up the pieces that have fallen, to keep our heavenly ceiling from crumbing.

So I don't have to hold up the sky by myself.

But I also cannot forget all those who are pushed back from reaching the sky.

Sure, the idea of holding up the sky was one I found in a book about women's right's issues across the world*, but this post isn't just about feminism. Whatever group just popped up in your mind three lines before, that's the one I'm talking about. Yeah, those people you'd rather not think about. The ones that you know are marginalized, beaten down, unheard. It could be women, or it could be the stranger in our land, the LGBTQ community, the homeless man you studiously avoided eye contact with as you walked past his cardboard plea for help this morning.

We cannot be all we were meant to be - beautiful and curious, powerful and whole-hearted - until each member of humanity is all they were meant to be.

It takes all of us to hold up the sky.

*this book is called Half the Sky and was written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It is by far one of the best books I have ever read, and you should read it too. I have copies to share. Seriously, it will change you.