I Honour You

The story is told of a series of correspondences between Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein watched a movie in the days of silent moving pictures in which, the News Reel caption featured Gandhi. Now for those of you not old enough to remember News Reel, it was a little caption of current news that would be shown before the main feature. In the News Reel, Gandhi was shown holding his hands together, moving his lips as if in words and then bowing to the people around him, who then did the same in return. Intrigued, Einstein wrote to him and asked,

‘What is it you say when you bring your hands together and bow?’

The reply came, ‘Namaste.’

So Einstein wrote again, ‘What does that mean?’

‘I honour God within you.’ Gandhi answered,

And so today, I honour you.
I honour you for your life;
I honour you for the lessons you have learned and are yet to learn;
I honour you for the “errors” and for the “wrong” that you regret;
I honour you for the difficulties and challenges that you are facing;
I honour you for the dark moments of silent despair that you meet with only a sliver of hope that things will get better if you just hold on;
I honour you for the triumphs that you experience;
I honour you for the ‘failure’ you admit.
I honour you for the great things you do, unknowing, unconsciously;
I honour you for the ‘routine things’ that you do.
I honour you for those moments that you lift your head up as you walk in the rain and notice the daffodils in bloom.
I honour you for staying in that painful relationship;
I honour you for leaving.
I honour you for biting your tongue when you so wanted to say Fuck You!
I honour you for saying it.
I honour you for a spirit that seeks truth;
I honour you for defending your truth.
I honour you for the breath that you take
for in each breath, there is life and the promise of another Now.
I honour you for facing your adversities;
I honour you for quitting.
I honour you for doing what you believe is right
even when it seems like the foolish thing to do.
I honour you for following your heart even when your head screams NO!
I honour you for your health;
I honour you for your wealth;
I honour you for your love;
I honour you for your desire,
for your passion,
for your perseverance.
I honour you, my dear, dear friend.
I honour God within you.
Namaste.

(c) Renee Ngamau

Image Credit: Picture Milieu