Listen to a version of this column on the POETRY IN EDEN podcast, episode #44, available on Spotify or Apple podcasts.
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The content varies, but the mission I write under, “solving the human search for meaning & purpose,” is the consistent thread.
On September 9, 1967, Nelson Mandela saw his mother for the very last time when she visited him on Robben Island prison, a year before her death.
Nelson Mandela’s life stands as one of the clearest testaments to the human spirit’s ability to turn struggle into strength.
He began as a young lawyer who dared to imagine a South Africa free from the chains of apartheid, though he lived in a nation where race dictated destiny.
His dream of freedom and equality came at a price. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned because of his leadership role in resisting South Africa’s apartheid system.
In the early years of his activism, Mandela pushed for peaceful protest through the African National Congress (ANC). But after the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when police killed 69 unarmed protestors, Mandela and others concluded that nonviolence alone would not end apartheid.
He co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the armed wing of the ANC, which carried out sabotage against government infrastructure, like power plants and military installations.
Arrested and sentenced in 1962-1964, he and other leaders were charged with sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government. Facing the death penalty, Mandela delivered his famous speech declaring that he was prepared to die for a democratic and free South Africa.
Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison and spent 27 years confined within concrete walls.
Yet, it was in that confinement that he integrated the lessons of struggle into his soul. He emerged not bitter, but refined, ready to lead a people across the bridge from oppression to freedom, negotiating with the very leaders who had thrown him in prison.
His story reminds us: the prison that is meant to silence us becomes the place where we discover the depth of our voice.
Mandela’s release marked the beginning of the end of apartheid. In 1994, during South Africa’s first democratic elections, Mandela was chosen as the nation’s first Black president.
I often hear the voice of my coaches and ancestors as I move from instruction to integration.
The bridge from instruction to integration carries us over the river of doubt and confusion to the land of strength and wisdom.
In order to cross that bridge. . .that takes insurmountable perseverance.
But here’s what everyone misses: when we go from instruction to integration, we unlock a deep, true, and undiscovered part of ourselves.
Mandela did not just free a nation; he revealed to the world a part of himself that even prison could not contain.
Absence creates an opportunity for application.
Let me say it again: Absence creates an opportunity for application.
For example, Mandela’s absence from society gave him the ability to apply his strength through imprisonment. He became a leader forged in patience, humility, and unshakable resilience.
While everyone focuses on their struggle, the real opportunity is the wisdom that comes from it. Struggle is not the end; it is the invitation to discover the continuously undiscovered self.
So I ask you: what is the source of your struggle? And more importantly, what part of yourself is waiting to be revealed in order to cross your next bridge?
🙏 This is Our Final Home 🙏
I climb the mountain higher,
Each breath a burning fire,
Each step a weight, desire,
To see what waits for me.
But the peak is not the summit.
The path does not outrun it.
The echo says, “become it.
The valley is the key.”
For funnily, all is relative.
The loss becomes the sedative,
The wound, the gift . . .repetitive:
A paradox we see.
The truth is our returning,
A hearth forever burning,
A circle, not a yearning:
This is our final home.
