“Long Walk to Freedom” is the name Nelson Mandela gave to his autobiography. The book is a fascinating portrait of courage and spiritual strength demonstrated in the man who would ultimately lead black South Africans to their freedom.
When I first purchased the book, I set it aside not knowing how emotional I would get as I went on this journey with Mandela. I wasn’t sure I was ready. But...from the day I determined that I had to get started, I did not have a free moment when I did not read it until the end. In the more than 600 pages, Mandela captures and captives your mind with his story. It is a fascinating read; it is gripping. His story is told so clearly, simply, without theories or lofty ideals. He was just a boy when he got started on the journey. We followed him from there, until he became a grown man, who has reached heights few men will in one lifetime.
I was gripped in the same way when I read “Left to Tell,"Immaculee Ilibagiza’s story of her survival during the Rwandan Holocaust. This time, though, I cried through the pages, as I relived with Immaculee the horror of her imprisonment for 91 days in a bathroom with seven other women. When she entered she weighed more than 120 lbs; when she left, she weighed 87 lbs.
What made Immaculee’s story so poignant was her discovery of God soon after she entered the bathroom. This “discovery” was what made her survive and even thrive during her captivity.
There is a common theme in both Immaculee’s and Mandela’s stories: Strength, Courage and Survival...and yes, the ever present God!
I thought of both these stories recently when someone rhetorically asked whether slaves were “responsible for their imprisonment.”
Slaves obviously were not responsible for their imprisonment, neither were Immaculee and Mandela. You can say all atrocities result from the “evil beliefs of man.” No one would give you an argument there. Yet, we do not know why the beliefs and minds of men become so warped to commit such evil.
To a much lesser extent, as humans walking the earth, we all battle demons that arise in our lives: chance events, happenstance and randomness. Things that truly can be considered “bad,” some even evil. How do we surmount these events?
I believe the most touching stories in history, like those of the slaves, or a Nelson Mandela, or an Immaculee Ilibagiza light the way to our redemption: Faith and Trust of the Power Within.
We know the story of the house slaves and the field slaves, with the latter being banished out in the fields to do “hard” labor because they were less amenable, less likely to acquiesce to the master’s control. We have some key examples of slaves, like Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Madison Washington Jones, Frederick Douglass, and hundreds of other slaves who left their sacrificial blood as trails for us to follow their stories.
What were the “real” stories of the slaves who chose to die, rather than live, in enslavement?
As we take our own “long walk to freedom” through the valleys of our souls, probably through long days and nights of bewilderment and seeming abandonment by God, we should ponder the stories of those great men and women.
I believe that those of us who will be able to walk to “freedom” are those who demonstrate no less strength of character, no less faith, no less trust in God. For to each of us fighting a mountain of battles and daily struggles, the pain of separation from God seems just as great.
True redemption, I believe, will come when we stop resisting our struggles and instead embrace them, listening “with all our hearts” to the guidance that would lead us on. That’s when we’ll begin to get glimpses into the souls of all the great men and women who suffered before us. We’ll probably be lead to fully understand the ONLY impetus that could have led them all to freedom: The Spirit Within.
I believe that once we acknowledge our own impotence and stop the struggle, we immediately “GO HOME!”
The return journey home is almost immediate. There is NO travel involved. All it takes is the acquiescence and acceptance that “By myself I can do nothing... but with God, all things are possible.”*
But for most of us, we have a Long Walk to Freedom: We refuse to let go!
Can you blame us?
All of our lives we’ve learned that God was this big, formidable figure to whom we had to plead and beg and for whom, we had to be on our best behavior.
All of our lives, of course, we’ve fallen short.
Then, we step onto the path, and we’re told that it takes lots of practiced meditation, prayer and sometimes a guru or two.
Many times, in the beginning, we find books that point us in the direction of home right away. But, no, those are “too way out.”
They can’t be true. So, we soldier on.
Then finally... when we’ve done all our poor human heart can hold... we sigh and say, “not my will but thine be done!” or “I surrender all.”
It is in that moment that we’re finally ready to go home. It may take us a lifetime, or like Immaculee, a short time locked in a small bathroom, to get to that place of surrender. It all depends on our level of consciousness and openness to Spirit’s guidance.
But it is in that moment when we indicate true readiness, we’re welcomed back home. Like the prodigal son, we’re welcomed home without a lecture, only with love.
“Son...daughter, you’re home. Welcome back.”
It is in that moment, we feel the whisper of our very breath...the tremor of our inner being...the part of us that always knew the TRUTH.
It is then that we silently whisper back, “Daddy, Thank you!”
Immaculee saved herself and at least seven others, and inspired millions with her story. Nelson Mandela freed himself and an entire nation. The slave rebellions resulted in the freedom for millions and changed forever the course of History.
We are only trying to save our own souls.
Do we truly have to take “the long walk to freedom” or, can we, in a moment, surrender and say: “Father, not my will but thine be done?”
Spirit (consciousness, God) always is calling us to come up higher in our level of awareness of itself! Regardless of your level of consciousness, can you just allow God to be GOD through you?
Namaste’,
Che’
***John 5:30-32; Matt: 19-26
NOTE: Today is exactly 20 years when I can pinpoint beginning my journey on the Spiritual Path, leaving my secure, corporate job in NY City on this day to move to the West Coast. Of course, I did not know I was on a “journey.” I was just answering a restless “call” to my Soul! Little did I KNOW where my journey would take me! I’m still traveling on down that Road!
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