Following my bleak examination of the fascism of doing, I thought it appropriate to invite a guest alter-ego to speak on something positive and practical this morning. Please welcome the honorable Rev. Soothsayer.
--Mr. Stickfigure
Good morning, brothers and sisters! On this day of rest, I’ve been asked to speak to the people on the subject of shoes.
As a child, I ran barefoot, unshod across rocks and broken ground. All of us, when we are children, run like this, and it is our naked feet that prove we are all the same, one to another.
As I grew, I grew heavy, and my weight came to press down on my calloused toes. So I put on some shoes and walked a mile in them. I walked a mile and I kept on walking, passing my brothers and sisters along the way. I wore sneakers in the mold of moccasins because I wanted to feel the speed and stealth of youth through rubber soles.
In my time I have worn other shoes. I have strapped on work-boots to brace my back and fancy-boots to loosen my wallet. I have saved my feet from flying chainsaws and prying eyes alike. And yet my moccasins have taken me farther than any. Far enough to see that I will never wear enough pairs to know what life is like for my brothers and sisters.
I am want to take a shortcut to find you, brother, sister. I, like you, am responsible to keep god’s commandment to walk a mile in another’s shoes. But everywhere my path takes me shows me more shoes I will never fill. Yes, I have been troubled, brothers and sisters, when I think of where your feet are taking you. Especially when you are so far away. Where are you going, I wonder, and what’s that you’re wearing on your feet?
How are we supposed to walk in all of these shoes when we’re already wearing the only pair that makes sense? Well, first you’ve got to bring your brother and sister closer to you. You have to bring them from a thousand miles away, or a thousand years ago. You have to bring them from the mountains, from the seas, from the farms and the cities. Bring them all of the way up so that they’re standing right beside you on common ground.
Don’t forget that you already have all the common ground you need, it’s the dirt around your feet and the map of your journey so far. Bring your brothers and sisters to this familiar ground if you want to walk with them. They may have to come a long way to get there, but if they can’t cover the distance you’ll never make a mile.
Because it’s only the last foot that matters, brothers and sisters, that little leap between your shoes and the next person’s. By now, you should be close enough to see that they are much like you: They were young once, they walked upon paths trodden and untrodden, they have climbed and fallen and made their way. All this difference, this was the only the difference between mountain and valley, forest and city and sea. And even all this difference was only part of a perfect sphere suspended between darkness and light.
No, the only difference is in that last foot, the one that changes your shoes to the shoes of another. And if you still think your foot won’t fit, you must count yourself among the specially blessed or cursed of the earth. For the rest of us, if we can walk a mile, we will have found a new brother or sister.
Never think that someone lives too far away, brothers and sisters, to be your brother or sister. And never think you’ve walked a mile in someone’s shoes until they feel like your own.
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