Name: 【TED】Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes: "Chasms" ("Chasms" | Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes)
Uploaded: 2018-10-19T15:23:57.000Z
Duration: 6 min 24 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

There are some chasms so deep and so wide,

we find it hard to imagine how we'll ever make it to the other side.

That space between who we are and who we want to be,

The raging river that flows between what actually happened

flooding our speech with waters, caustic and rank.

passing through me and you, as we look one another eye to eye.

But so often, that look is filled with our hesitations,

and we can't help but glance to the side.

See, we've long ago let go of the language

We learn early that those with softer hearts suffer.

never noticing that only strain has been the fruit of our restraints.

Yet and still, despite our desire and willingness to heal,

we often find ourselves fighting hard in the paint,

holding onto false images of everything we ain't.

So while our dream coincide, our fears collide.

And we want to know one another, but think we can't.

is as unfathomable as the fissures that line our collective integrity.

Perhaps you have met one or two of the virtuous on your path.

and I know that I have, from time to time,

yet still make room for the possibility that it's I who's been pretending.

but I'm no longer bending to the will of my injuries,

I much prefer to stretch my arms like Nüt until I become the sky.

our bridge to cross when we look one another in the eye.

But the tongue, like the heart, gets tired.

The weak make it hard for the strong to stay inspired,

like the lost prevent the found from escaping the mire,

and the degraded stop the enlightened from taking us higher.

But no matter what you hear from the mouths of these liars,

that's why it really stresses me to see our hearts so tattered,

We're enslaved, yet think of our shackles as gifts.

Rather than resist our masters, we let them widen our rifts,

Justice is getting restless in its chains.

Our youth find it useless to separate their souls from their brains,

their truth is ingrained, their integrity insustained.

Let me call your attention to those who serve as examples.

the fullness and the sweetness of their composition.

Nor the unadulterated truth of their mission.

you have no idea how fulfilling and energizing that is.

I've had the privilege of codesigning with my neighbors

a space in New Orleans known as Under the Bridge.

In 1966, Interstate 10 landed on the Tremé neighborhood,

effectively destroying the region's most successful black commercial district,

of the nation's oldest African American neighborhood.

Today, after 45 years of community advocacy,

after capturing the voices of thousands of residents

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes: "Chasms" ("Chasms" | Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes)

privilege

pretend

empathy

stretch