I search for those with beacons and lanterns, the ones who leave us hidden treasure maps that show us the way to go, the ones who raise their light and say, ‘Look at this!’

James Baldwin was born in August. If he were still alive, I’d tell him how thankful I am for the words he left us. Baldwin dedicated his life to writing about his revelations, about the hatred and injustice he encountered, about struggling to live in the world and make sense of the world. Here are quotes from him, for us, I think.

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world… The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”

“I am saying that a journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you.”

“The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” 

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death–ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.” 

Until next space….