THE DAILY SPARK

KINDNESS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Poem by by Naomi Shihab Nye – Poet, songwriter, novelist    Born 1952 – 

REFLECTION:

What sorrows have you experienced that have given way to a deeper kindness?

How can you be more kind?

NEW EVERY MOMENT

What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.  And they have changed since then….

We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a Stranger.

Excerpt from the play:  THE COCKTAIL PARTY  by T.S. Eliot

REFLECTION:

We often form an opinion of a person based on behavior we believe to be acceptable or unacceptable. We can lock on to that belief and decide that is ‘who they are.”  We forget that at every moment we can become new. 

What if you could open to the possibility you are meeting a stranger.  How would that change/shift that relationship?  

CHERISH YOUR GOODNESS

My beloved child,
break your heart no longer.
Each time you judge yourself
you break your own heart.

You stop feeding on the love,
which is the wellspring of your vitality.
The time has come, your time
To live, to celebrate…
and to see the goodness that you are…

Let no one, no thing, no idea or ideal obstruct you
If one comes, even in the name of “Truth”,
forgive it for its unknowing

Do not fight
Let go
And breathe – into the goodness that you are.

Poem by Swami Kripalvananda

REFLECTION:

If you are like me, you often judge yourself.  Yet I know this serves no one, least of all, me. How can you stop breaking your own heart and see the goodness that is you?

What will you do today to live, to celebrate you?