Soft Soil

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.”― Yehuda Amichai

May I seek not to be right, but to soften.
To till the soil of inquiry, compassion, understanding, kindness.
Seeking what resides beneath the trampled path of indignation, judgment, assumption, othering.
A journey of belonging, inviting others to join, all are welcome.
From scarcity to abundance.
A patch of ground where flowers bloom and flourish.
May I answer, again and again, with faltering to be sure, “I have done love.”

“At the end of my life, when I say one final What have I done?, let my answer be, I have done love.”― Jennifer Pastiloff, On Being Human