Please join me in a spirit of prayer and compassion. We call to mind and heart all those who suffer, whether physical pain or emotional loss. We call to mind all people; those giving birth and those losing loved ones. We call to mind all world situations; those full of transformation and those running out of hope.

God who is unending compassion, and a tender heart full of grace, may kindness reign!

KINDNESS
by 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,
Your 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 any sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes
And send 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

May kindness increase

May it come from within

May it extend to friend and neighbor, acquaintance and enemy alike

May it fill the earth, may it change lives

May it soften harsh oppression

May it ease hostility, give comfort to loneliness, hope in despair

May kindness increase.

Amen


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