Sometimes she felt she surely...
Illustration
Sometimes she felt she surely knew the distant vision of the date farmer, for the one who planted dates would never live to see the crop. The trees took more than a single person's lifetime to mature, and only after reaching maturity would they eventually bear fruit. Her passion for justice was born during her childhood. She had seen the faces of prejudice and hatred, had seen them worn by neighbors, friends, relatives; she had even allowed them to darken her own countenance until she became the receiver of what she had been giving. Few things surpassed personal experience as eye-openers. And being the object of someone else's hatred had caused her to take a hard look at her own prejudices and fears. She realized then how little she had ever thought for herself; she had always just gone along with the crowd. Her own narrow vision had nearly cheated her out of life's more precious gifts. With that insight, she had been transformed. She had begun to plant the seeds of compassion and understanding wherever she encountered prejudice and hatred, beginning in the places she herself had once sown seeds of blindness born of fear. That was an entire lifetime ago and she had seen her efforts bear very little fruit. There were times when she had been so weary she had thought she could not go on. Then, just as the palm tree in the desert sinks a deep taproot down into the earth to obtain life-giving moisture, she would reach deep within herself to renew her will with memories. Oh yes, she knew the far-ranging vision, the hope of the date farmer. She knew that cultures take a long time to change. But she knew the day would come; her seeds would bear fruit, and the world would be a gentler, kinder, living space, a loving place. -- Fannin
