Barefoot

It is an evening when you can touch the world, hold every part of it and understand that these are not things apart from you;
glass
streetlamp
lock of hair
wooden chair
star
- they are all revealed, all part of the whole.

And in this sudden glow of understanding - and it does glow, touching everything with a halo of light - you sit and breathe and smile, for no reason and every reason.

A story comes to you then. You read it in passing today, by accident, but like a jigsaw puzzle piece you have been carrying curled in your palm, you see suddenly where it fits

- perfectly.

So you start to tell it aloud, in a little restaurant in South Africa. An old speech by Desmond Tutu.

He talks about his time with the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. He shares a few different memories from it, one of which is about an incident many many years ago.
The ANC were banned, but a group of ANC supporters had decided to march peacefully.
And, like so many similar moments in history, around the world and in different places, they were shot upon by the defence forces.
And some were injured and killed.
It was an incident which went straight to many people's hearts and stayed there.

Yesrs later, Tutu was chairing the Commission when this incident was being looked into.
The day it was heard the room was packed with people
and with great emotion.
And he personally was aware that this was an incident which upset him, and was tense himself.
The commander of the defences forces went up first, and what he said upset the people gathered there further.
There was a very bad feeling in the room, a lot of hurt.

Then the four men directly under the commander came up. Three black men, and a white man.
The men who gave the orders to shoot.
So tense now.

and the white man stepped forward and he said
please
forgive
us



and everything just changed

There was applause, great noisy applause, and when the noise stopped
Tutu said in a whisper

we ought to take off our shoes

(and here you start to cry as you are telling it,
and the person across the table from you does too)

because we are standing on holy ground.


And you can hear a retelling from a retelling and it still has that same utter beauty,
a beauty with no answer other than to sit with tears streaming down your faces, gazing at each other in sheer awe
in the presence of it
knowing it to be true
knowing that people have this within them
that it does exist
when we find the way.


let there always be people who seek to show us that way.