through
the looking glass
As
I write it is a sad and gloomy day in April. The weather is not
helping with the sad reality of recent days in our world. Like many
others I am searching my heart for how to understand what is
happening. I know with all of my heart that the world is still a
beautiful place and that there is so much good in the world, so many
good people and yet there is so much pain. How do we bear the random
violent death of people whose lives are a sacred story with so many
connections to other lives and their sacred stories? How can our
own story not be torn and shattered as well? Furthermore this is not
the first time in the history of the world that such pain is present
among us. No, the world and its people have experienced this pain of
so much loss and horror so many times. When did it ever cease?
It
will not help to hurry and fix it. Perhaps it cannot be fixed. It
will not help to rush to forgiveness for forgiveness that is too easy
does not change anything. No, we must take our time, the journey from
such an event must be long and slow and there must be time spent in
silence and in thought and in prayer and in grief. Even justice seems
out of reach. What justice can there be for those who are lost, who
are maimed for life, whose lives have been torn apart forever? We
will try to understand but we must be prepared to reach a place where
we understand nothing. In the end there may be only one recourse, to
simply practice kindness anyway, anyhow, to do all the good we can,
to love more despite the failure of love to keep us safe, to love
more when love seems impossibly futile, when the damage is already
done, to love even more. Love is something we can do even when we do
not understand. We can do good. We can practice kindness. We need to
do something. Doing it will keep us going. What we practice will be
who and what we become.
I
don’t know to whom to attribute these words but they are beautiful
words and wise words and may enlighten us in the time of sorrow of
what blessing may be found even in a broken heart.
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 . . . .
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 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 . . .
May
the sadness soften our hearts and not harden them.
Only kindness
makes sense anymore.
Larry
