KINDNESS

 

"What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness."  Barbara Kingsolver

In the past couple of years, kindness has taken on new meaning for me. I have always embraced kindness as an act of doing something nice for someone. But, as life goes on and my insight grows, I am understanding that kindness goes beyond actions. I have come to understand that kindness extends to the realm of being, it goes past the realm of doing.

I see kindness as an attitude that flows from the heart. It is a genuine mixture of care and compassion that extends to all. There is no exclusivity in true kindness. Kindness does not see color, religion, ethnicity, or political belief. 

When kindness roots itself in our heart, we become a kind person. Rumi says, "the pot drips what's in it," and someone filled with kindness, drips kindness. It becomes much more than an act. It is a way of being. 

A kind person notices the suffering of others and holds humanity close within. Upon observing or hearing of someone committing a vicious act or speaking spiteful words, the heart of kindness sees beyond the actions to the pain that has created the meanness and the anguish of another. A heart of kindness feels the suffering of others and knows on a deep level that all the children of the world are our children and we are all one race, the human race. 

When our hearts are filled with kindness, we withhold judgment and look instead to the spirit of the person. No one deserves to be kicked when they are down, or told they need to lay in the bed they made. Sometimes we need to be taught how to make the bed differently by someone who cares enough to reach out and show us how to do it. 

I aspire to a life of kindness and gentleness towards myself, and a spirit of benevolence towards the world and its occupants. I have seen the power of kind words and actions and have witnessed attitudes soften and behavior change in an instant through one act of kindness.

We all need kindness in our lives. Civilizations and relationships rise and fall on kindness. We are born for kindness. To be treated with kindness feels like a gentle rain falling upon a thirsty earth, and I do believe there are many parched souls among us. I wonder what would happen on this planet if we shared a vision of being kind souls who pour gentleness upon the earth and its inhabitants. 

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

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 every where

like a shadow or a friend.

from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Eighth Mountain Press. 1995

THE LITTLE PLEASURES OF LIFE

 

It is important to have pleasure in our lives. Pleasure, or even the thought of it, motivates people. Pleasure is good, and it is alarming how many people are afraid of pleasure. Many believe if they have too much pleasure, pain will follow. It's like pain is the price we have to pay for pleasure. I do not believe this. I have a sense there is much in life that is here for us to enjoy.

I have many pleasures, and I delight in all of them. A few of my pleasures are reading a good book, riding slowly through the mountains or forests on the back of our motorcycle, wrapping myself up in my warm fuzzy robe on a chilly night, well prepared food, a glass of Evan Williams honey whiskey in the evening, intimate conversations with friends, family gatherings, sitting quietly on my patio watching the birds, butterflies and squirrels and talking to the trees, sunrises and sunsets and following through with an original idea or project. Since getting sick in my physical body over a year ago, sadly, some of my pleasures have been curtailed. 

When Paul and I first met seventeen years ago, nothing pleased us more than getting on our motorcycle and taking off for parts unknown. We sometimes had a destination but were prone to take the long way to get there.

When we ride, we are truly engrossed in the journey and the pleasure we derive from being out in the open. We mostly stick to back roads and over the years we have seen a lot of americana in small towns off the beaten path.

We take trips on our motorcycle and absolutely delight in strapping a suitcase to our luggage rack and off we go.

One of my favorite motorcycle trips was in Ireland. We rented a motorcycle in a town outside of Dublin and for nine days traversed the island. We had no reservations and no agenda. We just rode. Some places were so delightful,  like the Caha Mountains, we went twice. 

Another delightful trip was when we were headed for the Poconos and wound up in New York in the Adirondacks. We hit the Poconos on the way back!!

I really enjoy our motorcycle rides, however for the past one and a half years, we have not done much riding because of my extreme fatigue and general sense of not feeling good. I miss those rides and hope I will feel good enough one day soon to experience copious amounts of motorcycling. 

Another great pleasure of mine is eating good food. I am a "from scratch" cook and baker and I used to make so many enticing, tasty dishes and desserts. Being a Cajun girl from Southeast Louisiana, I specialize in good Cajun cooking. Before I got sick, I would have fresh home baked breads, cookies and cakes around and often cooked a pot of gumbo or jambalaya. 

I still cook some and occasionally will bake, but for the most part that has all gone by the wayside, because one of the symptoms of my illness is a loss of taste. Now to some, that may not be an issue, but I am one who eats slowly, thoroughly chewing my food and paying attention to the explosion of tastes in my mouth as I eat a meal. I also am, so often, too tired to stand and prepare meals and baked goods, so I don't cook like I used to.

Today when I eat, I still eat slowly and pay attention to the food I am eating, but due to lack of taste, eating a meal is just something I do to fuel my body. I really miss the pleasure I used to get out of my food. I still have a little taste but what is left seems to be tainted. Every once in a while I will eat something that is really delicious. At those times I am filled with gratitude that I can taste the food. 

I have heard people use the term "guilty pleasure." Personally, I am not sure what that is because try as I might I cannot find a down side to experiencing pleasure, unless you are hurting someone or something. We all need those moments of pleasure. 

I believe pleasure has a transcendent value. Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet, writes that pleasure is a freedom-song, a by-product of spiritual freedom. This freedom is experienced when a person has the ability to say yes to life. Think about the concept of saying yes to life and yes to those things that bring you pleasure. We all deserve to experience  that which bring delight to our hearts. Don't say no. Delight in your pleasures because you never know when they will be curtailed for a while, or totally eliminated. 

ENFOLDING LIFE AS IT UNFOLDS

To enfold is to wrap up, embrace or surround. 

To unfold is to open and spread out, to reveal, display or unwrap.

Enfolding and unfolding are at opposite ends of the spectrum, since one is about embracing or holding close and the other is about opening and spreading out. 

What I know about life is this. If we are awake and aware, and therefore paying attention, we will notice that life continuously unfolds. Events and circumstances are always giving us the opportunity to see life and ourselves in a new way.  

As who I am, the authentic me, unfolds, I am given the choice to either embrace what I see or make it wrong and deny it. We are always at choice about whether we react negatively or respond positively. 

It is not always easy to accept what I see unfolding before my eyes. However, experience has taught me that when I make the decision to let whatever is there to be what it is, and not fight it or deny it, I grow as a human and my soul experiences a new level of healing. 

As I have given myself over to the healing of my childhood wounds, and the growing of my soul, I have had experience after experience happen in my life, and these experiences have presented the opportunity for me to enfold what was unfolding. Often, I wanted to deny what was before my eyes, but thankfully I found the courage to enfold instead. 

One example of what I am talking about is:

About two years ago, some family members came to spend a couple of weeks here at my house. One of my guests was a teenager. Now, let me tell you, I love this child very much and was glad to have her here. However, as the days went by I found myself reacting to her negatively. I was always angry with her. I got to the point where I could hardly bear being around her and made her wrong for everything she did or said. 

Finally, one morning, sitting out on my patio, while thinking about what was going on with this child, and writing about it, I had a great unfolding. Suddenly, before me was the truth of the situation. I saw myself, when I was her age, in her. I saw her doing the things I did out of my discomfort in being who I was. As a young girl,  I longed to be seen, and to be heard and accepted.  Because I felt unseen, unheard and judged for being who I was, I acted out. I said and did inappropriate things. I saw her doing the same things I had done. But most importantly, what really got to me was realizing the pain she was carrying in her being. 

Recognizing her pain activated the unhealed sorrow and pain that I was carrying from my tumultuous teenage years. Seeing myself in her, enabled me to sit with that pain and let it in. As I sat with in, I had a deep awareness of the choice before me.  I could embrace my suffering child within so I could open the door for healing to happen or I could deny the pain I was carrying and just continue to shut her out and therefore shut out the pain that was swirling around in me.  I knew enough to know that until I allowed myself to embrace/enfold this pain, it would not go away. It would be exacerbated and activated whenever faced with a similar situation, such as what I was experiencing. 

The morning this unfolded before me, this sweet little teenager woke up and told another family member that she knew I did not like her. She cried because she felt I was being mean to her.

The other family member came to me and told me how this child was feeling. I told her, "Oh my gosh. She is right. I am just now seeing this unfold before my eyes and I need to apologize to her and make this right."

I went to the child and told her how sorry I was for being mean to her and for rejecting her. I went on to tell her how my behavior had nothing to do with her because she was just being her sweet self, but it had to do with me. I let her know that because I saw my teenage self in her,  all of that hurt and anger I felt then came back up in me. Because I had not yet healed that part of my life, I could not allow it to be in front of me. It brought up too much hurt that needed to be embraced and held lovingly by me, and I had not been willing to do that, so I rejected her. 

Facing our orphans, the pieces of self that we ignore, deny and reject, do not go away. They only go into hiding for a while, but will resurface again and again. Invariably, someone will say or do something and BAM, that stuff is activated. The result is usually pain or anger or both. Because we are endowed with choice we can either acknowledge/embrace what has been activated, or we can continue to push it back down and not let the light shine on it. 

Thankfully, I was able to enfold that which was unfolding,and she and I were able to reach out to each other. As I shared my insight with her, she was able to hear me  and we held each other and we cried together. It was a healing time for me and for this precious teenage girl. 

It is not easy to enfold the unacceptable parts and memories of our lives, but it is important if we want to lead an authentic life and be at peace.