Kindness

 Yesterday I led a "Conversation in Contemplation" for the Spiritual Directors Association of Ohio.  We started with a time of reflection on the poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shahib Nye.  It consists of three sections which each explore kindness from a different angle.

What spoke to me in this was the line that kindness is the deepest thing inside and sorrow is the other deepest thing.  In our conversation about this poem someone said that this was an expression of the maturity of kindness. That this kind of awareness of our shared struggle and sorrows in life enables us to become compassionate companions to each other.  Our kindness, "like a shadow or a friend" is born of loss and suffering. 

I share the poem here on this blog and am grateful for the artists and writers who can capture the truth and mystery of LIFE  and how we can live together in love.

 

 KINDNESS

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 gaze at 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.

 

 

 

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