One Wish For You

I will use my time to make a suggestion. It is more so an entreaty, as these words come to you with considerable supplication.

I understand that you distrust me, and I do not blame you. Faces like mine in backdrops like mine have pillaged your communities and robbed you, all in the name of concepts so amorphous you will be forgiven your faithlessness. What is “freedom,” when your child is dead? How can “liberty” mean much of anything to you, with your house on fire? And “peace”? Who can think of peace when their countryfolk are gunned down in the grocery store? I cannot expect you to trust me.

Know that I am sorry. I am sorry that the individuals in these chairs have harmed you. I am sorry that you were a pawn in a game they had determined to win, no matter the cost to you. Like you I come from a town of no particular repute, from a family equally anonymous. People like me, I was told, are unremarkable. We make no indelible mark on this world. We come to be and soon we expire. And if our lives had not transpired, all would be the same.

From those plebeian depths I regarded this seat of power as an elusive and also sinister one. I inhabit it now only out of a sense of humble responsibility to you, my brothers and sisters, and not out of any allegiance to state or creed. If it is of any guarantee that I carry a kind heart, know that I am glad my time here is limited. It is for the better. Each of us, no matter how pure our intentions, becomes corrupted, in time, by the throne. It is good that in some hours I must go, because I do not wish to see whereof I am capable. Soon I will return to my life of anonymity, where I can hurt no one but myself.

I said I come with a suggestion. It is of no panacean nature, as there is no governmental cure-all for our maladies. It is time someone told you that our towers and flags will not save us. The solution to our worldly suffering lies not in the policy proposals of a pontifical politician but rather in the heart of your community: we will be saved by your family’s love, your neighbor’s kindness, and the stranger’s smile. We will not be saved by a prima-donna in a seat like mine.

And yet, friend, I bring you this entreaty: regard yourself as a ruler, not of a city, street, or family, but of yourself. While you may have no fancy chair or well-stocked coffers, you have something of much greater value, and that is yourself, the life you lead, the thoughts you keep. Govern these as if they constituted a vast, green kingdom of boundless potential. As an individual, your utmost role, it has been said, is to put your life in order. Do this, and all else will follow: the lives of those around you will bloom in concert with yours, and your community will flourish like a heavenly garden.

You should not, remember, trust me. You should only try and see. I wish you the spectacular peace that is in your reach, if you only close your eyes, look within, and touch it.