Almost six years ago to the day, my wife Bethlehem and I launched the Ghion Journal with the aim of standing up for justice and giving voice to the voiceless. The birth of this publication came at a tumultuous time in my life as I was living at a homeless shelter called Harvest Farm in Wellington, Colorado. In a blink of an eye, the iniquities I protested against while I was a high-priced consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton went from being an abstraction to part of my daily reality.
As a consequence of going through this two-year crucible, my yearning for an authentic change that would lift all boats instead of one that only levitates yachts transformed from pursuit to purpose. Perhaps it was survivor’s guilt that compelled me to speak up for the friends I left behind who were mired in poverty while my life morphed from eating donated food to dining at fine restaurants. Gone were the days of making $7.00 a week as a cook at Harvest Farm, I found myself right back in corporate America making big bucks only to feel the deepest remorse each time I walked by a panhandler.
Feeling helpless to help the record numbers of homeless people who are proliferating in towns and cities throughout America, I turned to my pen to fight against “Babylon”. My encounter with penury opened my eyes to the universal nature of human suffering. No longer blinded by imposed identities and ideologies, I made it a point to speak up for all and advocate for universal justice. My disposition changed from the fire of Malcolm X to the water of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz after he came back from Mecca as a dance with heartrending destitution made me look beyond color and political factions. Naivete replaced with a touch of sagacity, I came to understand the root causes of economic inequalities and the planned scarcity of the rigged pyramid scheme that is globalism.
As I tempered the fires towards my citizens who happened to be of a different hue of political ideology, the rage that I felt towards the ruling class increased by an even greater margin. In a time that desperately calls for adults and maturity, too often I reacted with pique at the hypocrisy of Democrats, the false piety of Republicans and the duplicity of the establishment writ large. From Trump to Biden and all in between, every time I saw a politician, pundit or Hollywood personality leveraging the pains of the people to enrich themselves while furthering the chasms that prevent a coalition that transcends our differences, I reacted with fury and banged out articles that I thought were hammering at the status quo.
What I did not realize is that I was contributing to the very fires I thought I was putting out. As much as I kept quoting Martin Luther King Jr. over the years, I never really applied his wisdom internally. It took my 47th birthday, a tsunami of hostility and a sea of indifference from people I embraced as my own family that led to me being intentionally separated from my most precious treasure in the name of “concern” for 50 days and counting to make me see the error of my ways. It is said that with wisdom comes woe but the inverse holds equal water. It took the greatest adversity of my life, one I’m still coping with at this very moment, to realize that one must be water when confronted with fire. Knowing this truth is but the first leg of the guzo (journey), the harder leg is applying this knowledge in my heart and walking that walk on a daily basis.
There are many who point fingers at others while refusing to own up for the part they play in the festering wounds of this world. I should know, I was one of them. Always easier to identify the splinters in the eyes of many instead of addressing the planks in our own, what is needed more than anything is authenticity in a world that has gone to the dogs with pretensions. Nelson Mandela charted his country towards the path of reconciliation by first initiating a national exercise of harsh-truth telling. Part of truth-telling is accountability.
To this end, as much as I thought I was doing the right thing, I finally realized that I have been failing myself and the readers of the Ghion Journal. For too long, I have led not with humility but through ego, I wanted change to happen at my pace and I demanded to be heard. What is needed now are not more talkers but more doers who are willing to listen more than they want to get on megaphones. My father used to always tell me “the proof of the pudding is in the taste”, If I believe I have something to contribute, I must do so not through bluster and rhetoric but through sweat equity and hard work.
For too long I've raged at the machine only for the machine to win and grind me into dust. I finally learned at the age of 47 that fighting fire with fire only profits the match company—it is time to be water:: #Guzo2Healing Click To TweetTo this end, I have decided to shutter the Ghion Journal in order to figure out the next chapter of my life. In Ethiopia, it is said that the Abay Ghion (renamed to the “Nile River” by foreign interlopers) gives life and takes life concurrently. That is because the Ghion is a raging river, as much as it is a vital natural resource for all who depend on it, it is also a source of conflict and causes countless deaths as it sweeps away people even as it provides life to those who drink from it. I no longer want my pen to unleash a raging river, I want my work to be still water that calmly speaks against injustice and tamps down passions instead of stoking them.
This article will thus be my last one at the Ghion Journal, this site will remain operational until at least the New Year, after that within short order it will go silently into the night. I will take the Sabbath day tomorrow to reflect and pray about my next move; whether that means silence for a long time or a temporary absence remains to be seen. No matter how long my sabbatical is, I guarantee you I will be back more resolved to speak up for justice but will do so from a place of healing. I guess you can say this is my guzo (journey) to healing, I will see you on the other side of this voyage. Until then, peace and God bless::