Do Not Be Ashamed

Just wanted to share this Wendell Berry poem with the brave truth tellers in my life...here's to mastering the difficult, delicate art and timing of speaking what pulses inside as real and true. And saying it anyway, because you know you will die otherwise.

You will be walking some night

in the comfortable dark of your yard

and suddenly a great light will shine

round about you, and behind you

will be a wall you never saw before...

Though you have done nothing shameful,

they will want you to be ashamed.

They will want you to kneel and weep

and say you should have been like them...

Be ready.

When the light has picked youout

and their questions are asked, say to them:

"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon

will come around you. The heron will begin

[her] evening flight from the hilltop.

-Wendell Berry, from Do Not Be Ashamed