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Posts from the ‘Kindness’ Category

Nov 7

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Supple Heart

“Suffering breaks our hearts, but the heart can break in two different ways. There’s the brittle heart that breaks into shards, shattering the one who suffers as it explodes, and sometimes taking others down when it’s thrown like a grenade at the ostensible source of its pain.
Then there’s the supple heart, the one that breaks open, not apart, the one that can grow into greater capacity for the many forms of love. Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life.”― Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old

“I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.”― Ellen Goodman

To remain soft in a hard world
To be kind without expectation of return
To walk beside another
To do your part to make a difference
To grow, bloom, break open
Supple heart, porous and strong.

“To grow in love and service, you must value ignorance as much as knowledge and failure as much as success.”― Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old

Aug 14

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Watch Your Words

“Good words are worth much, and cost little.” – George Herbert

“Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.” – Buddha

To build up or break down.
To encourage or criticize.
To converse or chide.
To multiply or divide.
To understand or spout.
Choose your words well.
Contribute and enhance.
Gratitude and enthusiasm.
Bear good fruit.
Salt and light.
Be kind.
Costs nothing.
Priceless returns.

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao Tzu

Jul 26

Proximity to Understanding

“In his magnum opus, The Nature of Prejudice, Allport reasoned that bigotry often boils down to a lack of acquaintance. Its antidote was just as simple: Bring people together, and they’ll awaken to their common humanity. A similar thought led Mark Twain to quip, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” In psychology, this idea came to be known as “contact theory,” and it caught fire. Allport’s book, published in 1954, became a bestseller; he delighted in spotting it at airports and malls alongside beach novels. Thanks to him, optimists everywhere came to believe that hatred was a misunderstanding and that contact could fix it.”― Jamil Zaki, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

When you think you know something, in some cases everything, think again and again,
Question assumptions.
Slow to judge.
Quick to extend a hand.
Get closer, ask more questions, don’t believe what you hear.
Check your sources on all sides.
Beneath the surface, complexity and nuance.
Make up your own mind.
Kindness, empathy, proximity.
Love well.

“The answer to growing complexity in the social sphere is renewed efforts at participation by each one of us, or else a progressive decline of inert and unquestioning masses submitting to government by an elite which will have little regard for the ultimate interest of the common man.”― Gordon Willard Allport

Jul 24

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Seeds to Fruit

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” – Saint Basil

“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.” – St. Francis of Assisi

Sow seeds.
Simple actions.
A call.
A text.
A smile.
A hello.
Laughter. Joy. Light.
Generosity. Kindness. Enthusiasm.
Sow. Nurture. Bear fruit.

“I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.” – Sojourner Truth

Jun 27

Ask Yourself

“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world.” – Annie Lennox

“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”― Margaret J. Wheatley

Enter today, each day, with an open heart, fresh eyes, generous spirit.
Walk anew, lightly, with attention to detail of other, of beauty, of joy.
Reach out, connect, ask, be kind.
Hold a hand (or a paw), sit, listen.
Simple acts.
Big impact.

“I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help, there is no mistaking love, it is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Jun 1

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Gravity of Kindness

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” – Saint Basil

Kindness

“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 everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

May you know the tender gravity and embrace of kindness.
Giving.
Receiving.
A gift.
An exchange.
To self and other.
The beauty, power, height, depth, invitation, generosity of a simple act of kindness.
Moving mountains.

“The smallest of actions is always better than the noblest of intentions.”― Robin Sharma

May 24

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The Good Wolf

“Mindfulness brings us back to the present moment and provides the type of balanced awareness that forms the foundation of self-compassion. Like a clear, still pool without ripples, mindfulness perfectly mirrors what’s occurring without distortion. Rather than becoming lost in our own personal soap opera, mindfulness allows us to view our situation with greater perspective and helps to ensure that we don’t suffer unnecessarily.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

“A Native American wisdom story tells of an old Cherokee who is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Feed the good wolf.
Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
Self-compassion to empathy to companionship on this journey.
The full human experience of being alive, present, and awake in this day.
Be kind to yourself and it overflows into the world.
More love.

“Happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.”― Kristin Neff

Note: Outstanding podcast with researcher and author Kristin Neff on No Small Endeavor

Aug 29

Ministry of Presence

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”― Rumi

“We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don’t know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don’t compare. The sensitive person understands that each person’s ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else’s. Next, they do the practical things–making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don’t try to minimize what is going on. They don’t attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don’t say that the pain is all for the best. They don’t search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don’t bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

Show up.
Be present for others.
Reach out to those struggling.
Go beyond self to connection.
Nothing to say or do.
A ministry of presence.
Acts of love.
That’s your purpose, our purpose.
To be human and spread it.
A kindness pandemic.
One we never want to recover from.
A lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder.
A generosity of spirit in action.
A lighthouse moving into the world.

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

Jul 14

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Ray of Sunshine

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”― Kahlil Gibran

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”― Henry James

Be a ray of sunshine.
It brightens not only your path but spills into the world.
Kindness creates connection, belonging.
In giving, we are the receiver.
Kindness. Generosity. Light.
Cast the net wide.

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”― Anne Frank

May 24

The Connections We Make

“The connections we make in the course of a life–maybe that’s what heaven is.”― Fred Rogers

“There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.”― Fred Rogers

May kindness be the path you walk today.
With enthusiasm, with anticipation, with appreciation.
Saying “hi” to a neighbor.
Stopping to share a moment or two of connection.
The holy, sacred ground of love.
Give and receive, like breathing.
In and out.
Ebb and flow.
Yin and yang.
And all of it inbetween.

“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing–that when we look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something sacred.”― Fred Rogers

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