The Words I’m Still Thinking About

Weekly wisdom to bring you home in 3 minutes.

A SHORT STORY

This past weekend, I concluded a months long collaboration with TED-ED and my nonprofit in Nairobi, Kenya. For the past 15 years, I have been running programs with refugees and empowering them to use their voice through poetry, entrepreneurship, theater, creative technology, and now public speaking.

For their TED-Ed student talks, each participant shared their ideas, questions, and visions for the future. What moved me most by this particular group is their focus on what it meant to be a migrant.

So much of their lives have been defined by these words - migrants, refugees, alien. For many of them, they were adamant that “a line cannot erase a person’s value.”

In a world where the word migrant is filled with the idea of entering a country illegally, I was humbled how much these students reminded themselves and all of us, the dream and survival that person seeks when they attempt to cross a border. The reminder that above all they are human.

As I listened to them, I kept wondering to myself, where in my life do I stand up and fight for something I believe in? Mohamed Bisle, one of the students, left me with this question: “Crossing a border does not make anyone less human, but forgetting that too, makes us less human.”

Even now as I write this, I haven't stopped thinking about what it asks of me.

A POEM

“Cross that Line” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Paul Robeson stood
on the northern border
of the USA
and sang into Canada
where a vast audience
sat on folding chairs
waiting to hear him.

He sang into Canada.
His voice left the USA
when his body was
not allowed to cross
that line.

Remind us again,
brave friend.
What countries may we
sing into?
What lines should we all
be crossing?
What songs travel toward us
from far away
to deepen our days?

Grateful,

Michael