Kindness

 

 

 

 

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 every where
like a shadow or a friend.                 

This poem by Naomi Shihab Nye points out that it is easy to be kind when life is kind. But the point is to find refuge, hope, and joy in kindness even as darkness threatens to swallow up our world. The above images of the butterflies exemplifies the softness and kindness that exists in our world. Even as dark, sinister events happen all around us, the light of kindness cannot be extinguished. Because that light of kindness is with us, in us, and all around us as we travel the journey of life.