Be the Cause – Page 21 – Make a Difference

Beyond the Mangled Barbed Wire

Will be back soon….to give voice to their visions and narrative. Together we can make sound for those who are often muted in this world.

CAPTIVE

Man constructs the barbed wire,
And the barbed wire forms the man
Clinging to hot metal; grazing shoulders; between protruding spikes
Wistful, fatigued from de facto hallucinations
Thirsting for liquid donations
And getting rations of raised suspicions and murmurs instead
Equipped only with munitions of his ethnic claim
And remembrances of his human shield offerings
All must return home â€“ yet home gives itself to no one.

But the defenders force step it in reverse,
Stumbling past the wire wall
Thwarted by the internment of their own minds,
Held in custody by habitual unrest
And banished by tranquilized soldiers and guardsmen
We all retreat to the picket fences of home
And dive head first into that haze of complacency

And as we sit there, suspended in dispassionate maintenance,
The war crimes of the mind suddenly give way,
To the armed insurgents attacking at you.
But you forward march anyway â€“ in the hope of the save
Because you know their sunken eyes have at last arrested you,
Through a mass of twisted separatism
As they exhale a breath of anguish
All over your crooked prosperity

And so you blow the cycle of protests wrestling inside
And take the assault of the opposition,
Keeping your fists in check all the while â€“
Storing all that fury for the groundwork
And you go; you give way to all that detains you
Knowing that you are entangled in their captivity,
And that they remain caught up in yours.

Sonali Fiske

Food for Life Goes On

Posted on 7/1/2009

When I first stared to volunteer for food for life back in Sep 2007, I had not imagined that it would become a part of me just as much as I was a part of it. I very clearly remember the group ofÂ around 15 volunteers who had gathered in the halls of Hare Krishna Temple on that warm sunday afternoon. Being my first time and among people I had not met before, I was a little apprehensive about how the whole experience would turn out. As they say, the first step is the hardest , it wasnt long before my fears turned out to be straw monsters, they disappeared just as soon my eyes met the warm smiles of the people around. A feeling I could not then understand started to take over, it didnt feel so much unusual anymore. It was like I was gently being lifted from my darkness to a soothing soft light.

Now almost 2 years down, I still struggle to understand the force which drives us to serve someone beyond our own self.Â Maybe its one of the basic elements of nature which goes down to our very existence. What I do know is that when we gather every sunday and just as soon as the tables are laid out and bottles of jelly emptied and mixed, it manifests itself as rythm to which we rejoice as we go through the process of making those 300 sandwiches over and over again.

I am glad, that through the help of all the vounteers and supporters here in Houston, we are able to carry on and hopefully be able to expand in the future.Â Â The participation we have had over the last few weeks has been exceptional , we have regularly had new volunteers join including groups like the Girls Scout, the Humanitarian Society to name a few.Â This sort of participation has been personally very motivating for me, just to see such a selfless gesture fromÂ so many people itself is a reason big enough to keep programs like FFL alive.

– Abhinav Kumar