My response to trauma.... Restoration

Maybe it is audacious of me to speak and act in the ways in which I do. I will still speak and act in the ways in which I do.  Maybe it is unrealistic of me to look at circumstances and situations that humanity finds itself in, both on a local and  larger level and stay determined to  see hopefully.
Maybe one could say it is naive of me to hold the beliefs I do in regards to humanity and restoration. But I do still hold them.
Maybe it is easier when seeing a valley of dry bones, to despair.
Seeing children suffering
Seeing adults not knowing how to adult (whatever that is...)
Seeing so much, maybe too much
Maybe it is easier when seeing a valley of dry bones, to allow those dry bones to dictate and determine the realities of life and living.
Maybe more than naught the world gets to have its way of terror, pain, suffering.
Maybe it is hard to see the glass half full.
Maybe the glass is beyond empty, if that would be possible.
Maybe the screams of lack of resources and tired people get to drown out the whispers of hope.
Maybe we see the glass and want to break it.

It isn't that there aren't the days where I don't agree.
It isn't that there aren't the days where the realities of living upon this earthen soil do their best to weary my soul.
I am not so optimistic as to think that the glass is always half full, certainly not usually the person who says F%*& half full, we are overflowing.
I am painfully realistic at times
I am sorrowful
I am pained
I am doubtful
I grieve
I lost
Maybe those realities get to darken out the sun.

Maybe it is a beaten dog that comes back for more and more, not knowing when to retreat.
Maybe it is that one just doesn't know when to throw in the towel.
Maybe it is the lack of wisdom that doesn't allow for the call of "uncle," to come forward.

Or maybe it is curiousity.
For most days it doesn't feel like resiliency or hope.
Most days it feels like stupidity to not just give up, give in, wave the white flag...

My response to trauma does not come from learning in a book.
My response to trauma hasn't been gathered from lecture or text.
My response to trauma isn't because I have studied.
My response to trauma is because I have lived.

I have lived days that have screamed surrender
I have touched moments where my soul did just that

I  have laid my head down not knowing how to pick it back up
I have swallowed that which life handed me and despaired of the very breath.

Maybe the landscapes that are covered, with dry bones, serve to remind us all of the brutality of human kind towards one another. Maybe greed and Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest get to rule the manner in which we step towards one another. Maybe acquiring and consuming not just goods but lives empower the powerful to rest securely.

My response to trauma was not forged sitting in the seats of lecture halls.
My response to trauma was found in dark rooms and scary places.
My response to trauma was not formed as a thesis, an idea,a suggestion
My response to trauma was formed out of a need to find that life after trauma is possible, that it can be more then just surviving.
My response to trauma was formed because I needed to see the valley of dry bones more as the exceedingly great grouping of people then a pile of thrown away parts of humanity.

What does it mean to live and live a mangaliso life?

First and foremost it means you get to live.
You've already survived.
It isn't so much thriving, while that is my hope I will hold space for for all.
It is living.
It means that restoration is possible.
It means restoration is possible because there is a people who see you already as a member of an exceedingly great population, that once was aware of depths of dryness, sorrow and lack but now gets to know breath renewed and bones made strong.
It means this isn't hype, or selling you an empty bill of goods.
I wouldn't sell you short like that.
Too much already has.
It is realisitic.
That I promise.

Why Living Mangaliso?

Because I had to find a way forward that was beyond surviving. Because I wanted to hope against hope that it wasn't because I was resilient enough or hopeful enough. Maybe it is that I am just that stupid enough to not know when I've been beat. But you see, I am convinced that that is who you are too! You've survived already more than what should ever be asked of any human being.  Now human beings gather around together to say, survival isn't enough for you. I want you to touch life.

RECOVERY

My response to trauma is that upon each day, sometimes only upon each step within the day there is hope. That darkness must flee when light comes rising above the horizon. That life and breath and beauty and movement comes and restores the soul into places of peace.

My response to trauma comes against all those that said I should not become a wife or a mom. My response to trauma comes against all those that said I would live drooling sitting in some corner locked away. My response to trauma comes against all those that said I can't. I respond to trauma's whispers and shouts, au contraire I most certainly can. I can and I will.... Once a pile of dry bones, I am now standing on my feet. Body and breath are being restored through the words of creator and prophet.

Living Mangaliso...

It is your life
It is your body
It is your breath
This is your restoration...
This is your moment
This is the fact that YOU ARE AN AMAZEMENT!


And it is time you lived!!!!