Pity the Nation - Kahlil Gibran (read aloud by Erich Landstrom)

"Pity The Nation"
Title: The Garden Of The Prophet
Author: Kahlil Gibran
Date first published: 1933
Read aloud by Erich Landstrom on Sunday, November 3, 2024 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton
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The Garden of the Prophet narrates Al Mustafa's discussions with nine disciples following Al Mustafa's return after an intervening absence.
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"And on a morning his disciples sat around him, and there were distances and remembrances in his eyes. And that disciple who was called Hafiz said unto him: “Master, tell us of the city of Orphalese, and of that land wherein you tarried those twelve years.”
And Almustafa was silent, and he looked away towards the hills and toward the vast ether, and there was a battle in his silence.
Then he said: “My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
“Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.
“Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
“Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
“Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
“Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
“Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
“Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
“Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.”
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