[Donald]
We have traveled far from Cole’s
concern for a just
compensation for labor’s
toll on every soul.
For your consideration
equate each point a matter
of personal choice
that conflates with previous
decisions that will
accumulate into paths,
circuitous or direct.
Perhaps a small wish
to deviate from a past
trend that needs mending,
or words from friends that caution
against brazen missteps that
upset your chosen
trajectory toward unknown
harsh consequences.
What we three now perceive is
that we ultimately chose
a path that may lead
to a bloodbath or, better,
sharing with others
harmoniously content
and joyfully tolerant.
The difficulty
for humanity involves
limited knowledge
and magnitude of choices
as being infinity
raised up to the sixth
power. I’m not so clever
in playing chess well.
I can’t think much past three moves.
Steadfast Masters know the whole
board and tactical
grooves of good strategic play
to conquer the day
when Masters duel at high noon.
Imagine now that I soon
must resume learning
a better way to play chess
but the test now rests
with navigating three clear
chessboards stacked via spacers
one on top of the
other to attack my wit
to rack my small brain
under the strain to gain safe
moves but confuse enemies
who won’t be appeased.
It is an act that’s far less than
the fact that we must
choose and win or loose within
Reality’s magnitude.
[Daine]
Quite remarkable!
You three amaze me with your
perceptive ways formed
to perform displays of your
keen insightfulness expressed
in blazing a new
trail through Reality’s maze
made with obstructions
that barricade smooth movement
via intangibles placed
in the tangible
weave of walls that will forestall,
ironically,
any significant gains
until brains obtain insight
that sheds abstract light
that promotes slight conduits
through hidden gambits.
We have arrived at the time
when we can find the answer
to a much broader
issue concerning the pay
for my day’s labor.
Of all that I’ve learned choice is
the voice of freedom, but then
my freedom remains
and expands with the quantum
of self-discipline
I possess which some assess
as being impeccably
law abiding. Thus
there has never been much fuss
among us who trust
our banner as guidance
for maintaining our group’s
essential social
balance with confidence I’d
be more focused on
community while still
preserving my honest view
of the best to do
’til shared facts aired honestly
barred erred positions.
[Yolanda]
So, a bunch of us agreed
to lead the way to persuade
Diane to survey
stewardship or ownership
as a choice for her.
[Diane]
To me stewardship is not
choice but is friendship’s highest
awarded honor.
[Johnathan]
Stewardship is afforded
not to those who wish
to possess it and brandish
it like a special bright badge
in boastful, verbal,
authoritative displays
that seek to convey
certainty of one’s beliefs
as a position beyond
question or to keep
it sheepishly hidden to
slavishly commit
to every presented whim
and wish as if one has no
standards to apply.
[Bob]
And yet we can’t have standards
if stewards belie
to ply consistent, honest,
firm accountability
which is directly
correlated to standards
for acceptable
human behavior that will
assure the best grandeur for
individuals
to procure necessities
for all to thrive well.
Loopholes, favoritism
unequal biased payrolls,
cronyism and
the like strongly fight against
harmony because
these breed resentment, a plight
on young souls who know their worth
but this errant blight
upon good impoverished youth
clouds Life’s cogent truth.
[Johnathan]
Good farmers know the slow death
of harvests so infested.
[Crystal]
These explanations
and revelations align
with my state of mind
that finds choice to be about
choosing a course one’s life force
traverses via
an invoice of related,
moment to moment,
decisions that indorse or
divorce one from her picked path.
For all these revealed
reasons, spoken here today,
seasoned stewards meet
and convene in privacy
to speak plainly about new
prospects for growing
respect for their guild knowing
mistakes will be made.
I could wade into the high
stakes that make or break stewards
but the critical,
indisputable truth is
stewardship must rule
over ownership. I’ve grasped
that gamesmanship has unclasped
true statesmanship from
the governance of our
townships and nation.
This is the sad consequence
when economic power
resides in the hands
of the few who rue sharing
decision making
that pursues equitable
resources-distribution
as the solution
for the dissipation of
tragic woes and wars
via cooperation
over pure competition.
Winning at all costs
exhausts all humanity
and loving caring
for the struggling, weaker,
targeted souls ground beneath
soles of expensive,
fine footwear and Gucci suits
that belie rough brutes.
[Johnathan]
Members of the Stewardship
Guild were thrilled to hear chatter
scattered throughout folks
wondering about Diane’s
potential service
so we convened to screen her
strengths and weaknesses because
fairness is never
about our approval
or firm dismissal
of any person wishing
to reveal their reason for
investigation
of the ramification
of stewardship’s high
ideals while musing
about personal concerns.
[Diane]
The real appeal to
seal my choice was a deep fear
to adhere to the
dominate thrust of mainstream
society’s pervasive
lust for powerful
individualism
trussed up with tinseled
accolades and much money
to dissuade all challenges
to the fierce winner-
take-all-of-everything, harsh
king-competition.
Of course our discourse led
to fear versus trust that must
also include faith,
a wraith of an idea
when fear sears human
souls to create avoidance
and/or conflict that afflicts
one’s stance to enhance,
through limited strategies,
the life-course one chose.
Jungle competition was
overt, lethal fight or flight
that morphed concretely
as financial treachery
deaf to frantic pleas
of writhing, modern, human
prey squeezed with sharp claws forayed
to bloodless torment
from a slow economic
evisceration.
This was my concealed, dark fear
that my soul would disappear
under the sheer force
of mainstream society.
[Crystal]
We morn lost souls scorned
by narcissistic brutes born
from ignorance and absence
of genuine love.
But, motivations should be
above fear to steer
away from reactive moves
that often prove less than those
from proactive plans
that band together in sync.
[Diane]
I had to rethink.
Stewardship isn’t winning
or loosing. Nor is it linked
to hoarding or for
rewarding favors or friends.
Essentially it
is nurturing, protecting;
thus improving life for all
individuals
big and small and our Earth.
Private ownership
is never alien to
stewardship but ownership
can easily chip
away and waylay real,
honest stewardship.
Once it was clear to me that
I harbored real fear tacked
to sincere feelings
to improve the condition
of situations
of those exposed to blatant
usury and greedy acts,
I was informed that
I’d need to confront truly
the fact I lacked faith
in the cooperative
nurturing of, not just me,
but all whom I must
trust to be true to the source
of the course I chose.
With faith in lessons learned, had
they not earned my trust to serve
and protect every
aspect of my next journey
into stewardship?
I have chosen stewardship
over ownership and so
I’ve elected to
relinquish direct cash pay
for everyday’s work.
I am learning ownership’s
subservient position
to stewardship’s fine
tradition of serving and
protecting our
shared course to nurture the source
of all our livelihoods —
cooperation
throughout the whole of our
small community.
[Yolanda]
I was not surprised when I
surmised that Diane’s high school
had a strong craving
to appeal to the zeal for
independent thoughts
stimulate by teachers
who resist being preachers
because all public
schools must tolerate fools who
are morally sick
from a lack of wise elders
who are quick to stick better
ethical standards
into political and
economical
investigations that forge
harsh discord or harmony.
I am immensely
grateful for my elders here
who sensibly hear
and revere youthful queries
but never veer from duties
inherent within
the banner that flies in the
face of ignorance.
Education’s not neutral.
It’s a battle to tackle
brutal ignorance
and endeavors to sever
such from consciousness
once naïveté gives sway
to new knowledge’s linkage
regarding improved
decision-making moves that
behoove humans to
take thorough inventory
of their hoary decisions.
Look around and sound
the alarm. California
is burning, burning
and the world is churning with
grief, fear and despair pulsing
from Covid-nineteen’s
global nightmare that spared few
and killed at least five
million, three hundred thousand
lives that nosedived from calloused
leadership’s deceit
complete with political
long term ignorance.
We need a lasting reprieve
from the narcissistic sleaze
squeezed into closed-door
meetings composed of power
brokers, lobbying
agents, politicians and
C E Os, but not public
factions equipped to
stick tough questions that bristle
secrete financial
deals that reveal special goals
that if told would scuttle their
subtle deceptions
and crush accountable lies.
I’m also grateful
for Diane’s ability
to analyse, scrutinize
and apply her sound
judgments to circumvent walls
built with ill intent
to prevent equitable
distribution of what we
accrue and produce
to nurture and reduce the
unenlightened use
of humankind’s competence
to project scenarios
to check the credence
of choice possibilities
becoming certain
fitting probabilities
in accordance with one’s goals.
She’s a testament
to the elders’ excellent
youth development.
[Marlo]
Just as formative for Cole
and Sarah, many others
gained from the exchange
between new found friends and aged
sages who engage
nuanced events constantly
being ensconced restlessly,
ardently to free
young souls harmoniously
to see every thing
for what it is, nothing more,
nothing less to bring clear sight
to the forever
hard fight against ignorance.
That said, I must spread
the wisdom Compton fathomed.
“To know that however much
I grow and evolve
I can’t bestow perfection
as a quality
fastened to my personhood.
I would if I could but facts
distract from such hope.
Perfection can only be
an aspiration
because creativity
is forever and always
present blissfully
whether I can perceive it,
or not, making it
arguably lessons learned
well throughout infinity.”