the siren call to uplift

Hope begins in the dark,

the stubborn hope that if you just show up

and try to do the right thing,

the dawn will come.

You wait and watch and work:

you don’t give up.

~Anne Lamott

when I find the jewels inside…

inquiry for today~ how do you scream inside?

only this

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.

~Naomi Shihab Nye

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