Legacy

The idea of legacy is an interesting one.  In some ways it can be a simple thing - something left in a will by someone who has died.  But in others it speaks of a choice to live a life that is so rich it doesn’t end with this one.  

“The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave. “ Tavis Smily

You get the feeling that legacy should be about much more than how much money and possessions we leave behind.  A friend of mine who worked in London with the rich set, used to wear a badge saying he who dies with the most toys wins.  It kind of sums up the pointlessness of acquiring stuff.  

 Shakespeare put it differently, “No legacy is so rich as honesty”.  

I like that, it makes you think.  But others have their own definition

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones.  A legacy is etched into the hearts of others and the stories they share about you.”  Shannon L Alder

Now, that feels like a better definition, closer to what legacy should be about.  Makes it almost an inspirational thing rather than a post script to life.

 “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” … Ray Bradbury

But maybe legacy is not so complicated.  I hate it when I have to struggle to understand something.  I like simple clear explanations.  Definitions that just stay in my head and yet make me think.  So I think my favourite quote on legacy will have to be this one.

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”    from Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps that is a good point to stop, or in the words of Forrest Gump, “and that’s all I am going to say about that!”

Ain’t I a woman? and The Real Good poems

At our creative writing group today we were asked to bring in poems and there was a surprising mixture but really enjoyable.  Here are two, hope you enjoy them.
 A poem from Sojourner Truth's most famous speech (Ain't I A Woman? by Sojourner Truth Delivered in 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio), adapted into poetic form by Erlene Stetson.  Sojourner Truth was born a black female slave in 1797 and yet her words are so powerful it takes you by surprise.

Ain’t I a woman?

That man over there say
     a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
     and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
   or over mud puddles
      or gives me a best place. . .

And ain't I a woman?
     Look at me
Look at my arm!
     I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
     and no man could head me. . .
And ain't I a woman?
   I could work as much
and eat as much as a man--
   when I could get to it--
and bear the lash as well
   and ain't I a woman?
I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me. . .
and ain't I a woman?
     that little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again.

The second poem below was just a feel good one that had heads nodding all around the room.
   
The Real Good
John Boyle O'Reilly 
         
 "What is the real good?"
I ask in a musing mood.

"Order," said the law court;
"Knowledge," said the school;
"Truth," said the wise man;
"Pleasure," said the fool;
"Love," said the maiden;
"Beauty," said the page;
"Freedom," said the dreamer;
"Home," said the sage;
"Fame," said the soldier;
"Equity," said the seer.
Spake my heart fully sad:
"The answer is not here."

Then within my bosom,
Softly this I heard:
"Each heart holds the secret:
'Kindness' is the word."