This video I encountered at the end of a Children’s Health Defense show. It is a reading of a poem by Jonathan Reed, which was the winning entry of a 2007 AARP contest. It went viral back then, and there are quite a few readings on YouTube. This is only one of them. It’s fascinating because when you reverse the order of the versus, the message is completely opposite. It brought me to tears the first time I watched it.
The poem in the first order is one of cynicism and materialism, disbelieving there’s anything other than decay, entropy, and corruption. The reverse reading is one of hope, fully aware of the challenges, but choosing to affirm the value of life and having faith that good will win out in the end, and most importantly, choosing to take a role in moving to a better future.
The poem made me think of the numerous references to the sea of negation and the sea of affirmation in the Bahá’i writings. Here’s a passage from the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh’s forerunner.
SAY, verily God hath caused all created things to enter beneath the shade of the tree of affirmation, except those who are endowed with the faculty of understanding. Theirs is the choice either to believe in God their Lord, and put their whole trust in Him, or to shut themselves out from Him and refuse to believe with certitude in His signs. These two groups sail upon two seas: the sea of affirmation and the sea of negation.
Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 189. (Excerpts from the Book of Names – Kitáb-i-Asmá’ 5:19)
God created all things in this sea of affirmation, but gave humans the choice. We can choose the positive or the negative. Either will be true for us, depending on our choice. This is maybe the most immediate and practical of the posts so far, if you just remember that God has provided for us, the Universe is His creation, and we can either choose to trust in God, or we can choose to go the other route. I pray you choose join the rest of God’s creation, and sail on the sea of affirmation. If you ever glimpse that glory in a beautiful sunset, or a child who chooses to build a good life rather than destroy him or herself, that will be a glimpse of the sea of affirmation.