I was going to write this column on endings, as that is the obvious choice for the end of my time as Clinical Director at Buchanan Rehabilitation Centre. I was looking at poems about endings and trying to write the column backwards from those poems. It just wasn’t coming together. Endings are times for reflection, assessment and good-byes. I find myself immersed in emotions and logistics of planning an international move. Oftentimes the demand of the logistics leaves little time for emotional processing and the emotions leave little intellectual energy to deal with the logistics. I feel there is so much more that can be done at Buchanan to make it not just an alright place, or an ok place, but to make it a real gem of a service that combines the best of psychiatry, rehabilitation and recovery. Of course, this implies that there are things that we could be doing better and this is what leads me to a discussion of Idealism and Cynicism.

I am an Idealist, I have come to terms with this in my life. It means that I often see how things could be “better,” different, and it can lead me to a dissatisfaction and frustration with “the way things are.” The Greek philosopher, Plato, can be considered an Idealist. His allegory of the cave illustrates this. He describes a person whose only experience of reality is in seeing moving shapes on the cave wall. These shapes are created by light striking objects and casting shadows. There are two implications here. The first is that the person is only seeing an image or representation of reality (the object). The other is that the person could get up and leave the cave, go out into the sun and experience the external real world. Either way, it can be said that the person is not in touch with reality, but just a shadow of it. The spiritual and philosophical concept of “awakening” is relevant here – that the awakened person recognizes the limited or even illusory nature of the reality that we tend to respond to in day-to-day life. It can be said that an Idealist sees the ideal, that which could be, but is not found in mundane reality. Visionaries and transformers are Idealists.

Psychiatrist, Carl Jung, borrowed from Plato’s concept of “archetypes,” these ideal forms that exist outside of the day-to-day realm. These forms exert an unconscious and sometimes conscious influence on the development of the individual. While he listed many different examples of archetypes, the primary one he was interested in is called “The Self,” which is an image or representation of wholeness that works within the individual, who is by nature a small, separate being when compared to larger reality. Jung saw this archetype or force of the Ideal at work in spiritual and artistic creations and experiences in which the individual had some form of healing or renewal in a connection within the self as well as a sense of connection to a larger whole or purpose in the world.

Plato and Jung are Idealists, they view a True Human Being as actually something that is in the process of becoming through a dialogue with the Ideal (or Real). In the last column, I discussed this dilemma about a True Human Being, whether Truth is something in the moment or whether it is something that is gained in the future. I suppose this argument is reduced if we say that a True Human Being is someone who is in an open dialogue with the Ideal (or we could say the Real, or even the Divine if you are spiritually-oriented). In this sense, it is the connection between the Ideal and the individual that is crucial, rather than some present or future state of the individual.

A discussion of Idealism is incomplete without a discussion of Cynicism. There is a Greek school of philosophy called Cynicism, but my own view is that Cynics are Idealists whose dreams and ideals have been frustrated and unrealized. This calls to mind Nietzsche’s saying that man would rather will nothing than not will. Cynics are Idealists who put their energy into tearing down dreams. In a way, you could say that Cynics are the most important part of an organization because they hold a lot of energy, but it is being directed in a destructive rather than a constructive way. A rehabilitated Cynic will bring far more change to an organization than a level-headed Pragmatist. You can always find Idealists, any young person going into health care is generally an Idealist, but most quickly become either Pragmatists or Cynics as they become frustrated and disillusioned with the idea of being able to do the “best” at their jobs.  Really, a healthy and growing organization needs a balance of all 3 types. The Cynics can pull back the extremes of the Idealists, the Idealists can inspire the others, the Pragmatists can be in the middle, working on what is possible in the moment.

These are my thoughts this morning and they link back to my work on my book, Re-humanizing Medicine, which is essentially a guide for maintaining Idealism and rehabilitating Cynicism. How well have I done in my role as Clinical Director? Well, my answer to that changes minute to minute sometimes throughout the day and ranges from extremes to middle ground. I suppose my answer to that question is sometimes Idealistic, sometimes Cynical, and at times Pragmatic.  Perhaps I could have done more or “better,” but I did what I could. Perhaps if I stayed longer and worked harder, it would make a difference, but it is time for me to go. What do I hope will be the outgrowth of my work? I suppose it is related to all this talk about Idealism and Cynicism in some way.

I have had (before the movers so efficiently and swiftly packed up all my things around me) a plaque on the wall with a quote by Howard Thurman, “Ask not what the world needs, but what brings you alive, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” This is a good definition of Idealism and includes the Jungian concept of Self, that what is ultimately important is in discovering what it is that brings you alive, that enthuses you and fills you with energy. The challenge of the Idealist is in bridging the gap between the Ideal and the mundane world. Most Idealists would agree that this is never completely possible, that it is always a work in progress and always a compromise to some extent.

A successful Idealist, one who can continue to work and create, must come to terms with this dual-natured reality: on the one hand, to be true to the Ideal vision and on the other hand, to accept that the Ideal is unrealizable. Rebecca Solnit, in her book, Hope in the Dark, describes “activists” (who I would say are a kind of Idealist) who work to make the world a better place. She sees activism as a mode of being, a moral responsibility, that is ongoing, and that one engages in regardless of the “state of the world,” or the “chance to succeed.”  She describes the term activist “to mean a particular kind of engagement – and a specific politic:  one that seeks to democratize the world, to share power, to protect difference and complexity, human and otherwise,” (18).  “For a long time, I’ve thought that the purpose of activism and art, or at least of mine, is to make a world in which people are producers of meaning, not consumers, and writing this book I now see how this is connected to the politics of hope and to those revolutionary days that are the days of creation of the world,” (115).  To define an activist or Idealist as a kind of engagement or a mode of being, de-couples it from the outcome. One maintains hope because one has decided to be a hopeful person. One is an activist because they have decided that it is right to work to make the world a better place, regardless of the chance of success. One is an Idealist because they have made the choice to work to bridge the gap between the Ideal and the world.

What does all this have to do with Buchanan and my departure? I have said before that in psychiatric rehabilitation we are in the business of hope. What I hope I have contributed to Buchanan is some of this attitude that we can and should work to bring the Ideal into the actual. This means we can and should work for change and growth in ourselves and for clients. What about endings and new beginnings? Well, those two always seem to go together, don’t they? I’ll have to leave you to work that out for yourself.

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp sites
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

(Stanley Kunitz)

“we are…making ourselves better heart people,” (Joseph Rael)

A hobby of mine is personal growth and transformation. This is a larger context for human being than a focus on psychiatric treatment or symptoms, although it can include addressing those. During my time at Buchanan Rehabilitation Centre, my goal has been to bring this perspective into our daily work in psychiatric rehabilitation.

What does it mean to be “A True Human Being” or to be Fully Human? What I have found is that it is a funny paradox that involves both acceptance of where someone (or one’s self) is, that people are “ok” (with all their quirks and oddities and problems) and it also involves being on a path of change, growth, self-knowledge and transformation. Every human being is unique and will hit a unique point in their life in which the drive or need to change becomes stronger than past patterns and ego defenses. Rehabilitation is fundamentally holistic – it requires many different approaches and disciplines to support the growth of the True Human Being (by this I mean, again, both for ourselves as health professionals and for clients). That is why a collaborative Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) is so important. Each discipline brings a different perspective and dimension to working with human beings and this fosters authentic growth and transformation.  A collaborative MDT is like a healthy human being or ecosystem – comprised of significantly different organs or organisms that all work together in an expression of their unique individuality while simultaneously working together as a collective. Sometimes this is how writers describe the difference between reductionism and holism – that reductionism is about breaking down something large into standard, interchangeable component parts, whereas holism is about something greater than the sum of the component parts. This means that somehow, beyond the biochemistry, trauma history, family dynamics and substance abuse, there is something larger that is both already present and in the process of emerging – the True Human Being.

Ok, I admit that there is a serious paradox here. Is the True Human Being something that is already present in the individual (maybe already ok as it is or maybe just obscured and waiting to be uncovered) or is the True Human Being something that is always in the future – waiting to emerge? As with any paradox about life, the answer is generally both/and rather than either/or. We can look at the relationship or dialectic between Being (already present in the moment) or Becoming (unfolding in the present and into the future). In spiritual terms, this is the dialectic between immanence (already there) and transcendence (something separate that needs to be moved toward). Being is similar to mindfulness, which is a slowing down with awareness of who one is in the moment. Becoming is like what is often called the road or path of growth and transformation, for instance M. Scott Peck’s, The Road Less Traveled. Of course these are artificial distinctions for connected processes, as the mindful act of the Acceptance of Being actually is quite transformative. Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), a Native American spiritual teacher describes this paradox in the following quote:

In each moment that we live there is an opportunity to change ourselves in some way. We shatter what we were in the past, so that in the new moment we can remake ourselves. In a day’s time, we go through many different moments, many different opportunities to re-make ourselves and therefore evolve…What is a road or a path? The road is the metaphor for the head of the family of ideas continually investigating themselves to find out who they are being in every single moment. Because we are changing constantly, we have to be continually investigating ourselves. Otherwise, we lose who we really are. Another meaning for road is the direction or form by which our fears are challenged and the manner in which we face them, (Joseph Rael, Being and Vibration, 57-58).

An earlier column that I wrote on Adam Kahne’s theory of Power & Love in social change brings this back to our work in rehabilitation. Love, in its many forms, is acceptance and support for how someone is in the present – it promotes transformation from the inside. Power is more external change from the outside as it structures and shapes external behaviour. In psychiatric rehabilitation Power takes the form of medications, the Mental Health Act, and behaviour plans. Notice how I use the word transformation for the internal process and change for the external process.

Rather than an either/or, Kahne recommends a both/and approach which promotes a balanced dialectic where through the harmonizing of Love and Power a transformation emerges that is greater than what can be achieved through the application of either principle alone.

Thus, for rehabilitation of the True Human Being, both Power and Love; both External Structure and Internal Transformation; both the work of individuals and the collaboration of groups are necessary.

Let’s return to Joseph Rael and hear what he has to say about “Becoming A True Human Being.” (Word of Caution: this might get a bit spiritual and mystical, which is what is often lost in a reductionistic view of human beings).

The true human is someone who is aware, someone who is, moment by moment, totally and completely merged with life. He is a listener. She is a listener. Out of that capacity of inner and outer listening, comes the capacity of humility. The true listener is no longer defined by desires or attachments. Instead, he or she is sensitized to consciousness, (67).

In the language of nature, working and listening are the same. Working, or listening, means sensitivity, (65).

A true human is a person who knows who he is because he listens to that inner listening-working voice of effort, (68).

Rael introduces the pair of human activities of plowing and playing (which we could take as more examples of being [playing] and becoming [plowing]).

Plowing is a metaphor for this physical way of looking at life…What ideas do we want to cultivate? We study something and then walk it out so that we can plow the fertile field of consciousness and then move forth and plant the seed in that field that we have plowed, which in this case is our bodies. In that way, we plant what we cultivate in the weeks to come and it eventually produces fruit, (68-69).

The metaphor of playing is quite different. Playing means strengthening oneself…making the self what is becoming…Whether we are playing a violin or a guitar, or playing football, tennis or cards, we are, through playing, making ourselves greater heart people, (69).

For the true human, the first thing is to find out how to listen. Listening is different from seeing. Seeing, and the eyes, were created so we could move into things and through things. The ear, on the other hand, was created for the art of giving. One of the attributes of the ear is the give-away; to give into the effort of giving, to give into the effort itself, the effort we can find in the toil of our work in our lives. When we are listening, we are giving. When we are giving of ourselves, we are strengthening the work-listening aspects of ourselves. We are listeners to people’s cosmic needs. First we listen to what needs to be done. But if we start with trying to see what needs to be done we will miss the point and we will not really touch the basic humanity of the situation that is talking to us at that moment in time, (70).

To return back to what all this mystical stuff means for us as health professionals and the clients, we can see a couple things in these quotes. First, to be human is to listen and this is also related to work (work-listening), and this is all related to giving. We must listen with our hearts first, and then see with our minds what needs to be done. This can all be another example of the listening-heart (as holistic transformation) and the seeing-mind (as reductionistic action).  The recent presentation I gave at the Health of Health Professionals conference in Brisbane focused on this aspect of giving as crucial to providing whole person care as well as to supporting the whole person of the professional. When we view work as a gift rather than a time-limited resource or a uni-directional vector, we move from a draining experience to a collaborative and regenerating experience. Lewis Hyde describes the gift experience as:

*         “the gift is not used up in use” (187)

*         “a gift makes a connection…a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people, while the sale of a commodity leaves no necessary connection” (72)

*         “A gift that has the power to change us awakens a part of the soul” (65)
(Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World)

So far, I hope this all can be at least partially translated back to our work in psychiatric rehabilitation. Let’s go ahead and follow Beautiful Painted Arrow a little further, though, even if it might become a greater challenge to bring it back to our work in a psychiatric system. For the most part, I just let the words speak for themselves.

We become human in order to continue listening so that we can continue to verify that we exist, (72).

In the end, the mystery is the infinite void and the mystery of the void is all of us remembering, because, truly speaking, we do not exist, (75).

Sorry, if you follow any mystical line of experience and inquiry you generally end up with strange statements about the void and reality.  Let’s just close with a poem by Rael and then I’ll add an appendix for those of anyone who wants to hear more of Rael’s ideas.

Life is the road of Goodness.
Life is connected to time
as crystalized meanings.
Life purifies itself with heart connection
so it can ascend beyond the heavens as radiating innocence.

(Joseph Rael – Beautiful Painted Arrow)

Appendix: Eighteen Ideas from Joseph Rael

1. Planet Earth is constantly giving life to all things on the earth so that, in the act of giving to us, she shows us all how to serve, to give to her and ourselves.

2. First was the Dream and then the Vision that became the walking, talking, light of the one Great Mystery, which is all of us who are living on the Earth.

3. Taah-Keh (The Big Bang) was created “to initiate action” and from this came the first circle of light. [Taah-Keh refers to a Tiwa myth in which two fawns being pursued by the Old Giantess hide inside the crack in a plow. When the Plowmaker hits the plow with his hammer, the fawns go flying out.]

4. The eyes are channels for the “washing lights” that bring clarity to ideas.

5. The rainbows are hues (vibrations of the rock people) of life on the earth. And the rainbows represent, in metaphor, the breath of the Butterfly of Dream Time, the bridge to eternity.

6. The Earth is the Mother Starship of the Ancient Ones.

7. Resonating energy is simply universal intelligence descending onto its own understanding of the vast greatness of its own greater, inner self.

8. The idea of enteringness created the first form of the face.

9. Water is crystallized light which produces physical light as well as spiritual light. Interestingly, the symbol for water in chemistry is H₂O. In Tiwa, the sound of HO, “Haah-Oo,” means “Little Leaf.” The leaf is the symbol for life.

10. From the first mist of the first cloud comes the idea of birthing as dropping from the biological mother’s womb. And the thread that keeps us connected to our origins was primarily created to help us keep vigilance over what we do and say: right actions/right thoughts.

11. Life on the earth is a living daily experience of inspiring qualities and inner knowing. We find them, these gems of truth, only as we are ready to acknowledge them in our lives.

12. The light is always chasing the shadow and the shadow is always following the light.

13. The breath is the key to all of the mysteries.

14. The breath is the infinite void from which all creativity is first given life, then its purpose.

15. Dream essence of life is what heals life, whereas living life is the visionary part of it.

16. The first visionary who came from the first dream was in the dream state too because he was dreaming his vision. That is, he was the dreamer and the one being dreamed. Consequently, all of life is simply made up of a healing sate that is dreaming itself beyond itself.

17. The eyes are how the Great Mystery sees, how it holds on, moment by moment holds to the gifts of each moment before the next moment appears, bringing with it its own face.

18. The earth is a large stone which is the holder and keeper of all the mysteries that created the life potential here on this earthly home of the People.

Having read these ideas, go outside and sit on a rock that has been heated by the sun. As you sit on the stone, the warmth of the rock will travel through all parts of your body and when the radiant heat from the stone has traveled through all the different parts of your body, the knowledge that lives in what you have just read will be acknowledged and appear in your life. Hereafter, you will get greater clarity on these principles.

[Isn’t this interesting! For this fortnightly installment I went back to my first draft I wrote when I first thought about this project, June 11, 2012 – one year ago! It is interesting to read this now, to look back at where we were and at how much great work we have already done addressing some of these issues. For that opportunity to look back, I won’t edit this, so please bear in mind that you are reading something written one year ago. I’ve made a few small comments, in brackets, in the text, but otherwise it is what I wrote one year ago this month. Special thanks for the poem that Sue Bailey supplied when she realized that it was by the same author of the poem about the spontaneous community that sprang up around the distressed Palestinian woman in the airport lounge.]

This is the first in what I am hoping will be a series of weekly thoughts from me about our work at Buchanan. I know that we are all very busy and that we all work very hard. I know that our daily work is often so crisis-driven and that we all have so many meetings, that we don’t have the time and opportunities to sit down and really talk together about our work. I am working on creating the time and space for such important discussions through the Recovery Forum, the working groups on Substance Use (AOD) and on the Recovery Culture; and I know we really need a planning day as soon as we can get that organized – however, it just seems that this isn’t enough, what more is needed and what more can I do? Until we can have these dialogues in person, maybe sharing my thoughts with you can help you to understand what I wish for – for Buchanan. Maybe this can get us all starting to think about how we do things and what is working well and what could work better.

Please do not feel obligated to read these messages. I offer them with the hope that they will be supportive and promote dialogue; I don’t want them to be just one more thing that you have to read during the week. I am writing these messages as much for myself, in order to get some clarity, as I am for the benefit of anyone else, but I hope that you find something for yourself and our work together in them. Some of these initial messages may be a little long, but I am sure that many weeks will just have a short thought or an inspirational quote.

When is Enough, Enough?

We all go through our days trying to do the best that we can. Yet, often it seems that something more is needed. Things don’t always go smoothly, systems need to be tuned up – just as cars need routine maintenance. What we did before was good, but what needs to change as we change [our clientele changes] and as systems change around us?

Sometimes I find myself asking the question: “Am I doing enough?”  “Is there something more that I could be doing, or should I be doing things differently?”  When I answer that there is more that I could or should be doing, I push harder, I try new things, I rush to get everything done so that I can get to the real work that needs doing. Sometimes in my work, I feel like I am so busy doing things that come up all day that I never have time to get “my” work done. I recently came across this quote below that I thought summed this up and I wonder if you relate to it the same way I do.

“As work turns into an ongoing series of emergencies, our efforts to achieve our major goals give way to damage control. Time is spent in stop-gap measures: putting out fires, plugging leaks, and filling cracks. There is no possibility for creative action or for enjoying the flow of productivity because all our resources go into catching up, repairing mistakes, and adjusting plans. The cycle is self-perpetuating: We do not have the time to make a good plan because our time is taken up dealing with the flaws in the old plan; we cannot clear up our communication because we are processing emotions stirred up by previous communications,” (Tarthang Tulku, Mastering Successful Work, pages 31-32).

Can you relate to those words?

How can we change the feeling that no matter how hard we work, it seems like it is not enough? (I am assuming that you relate to at least some part of this). As individuals, we can decide that enough is enough, that we aren’t putting in any more effort because we don’t feel that we are being recognized for our efforts, or that we feel we are already putting in too much. Sometimes this is necessary as a boundary or of recognizing our human limits, but we have to be careful that it is also not a sign of burnout, hopelessness [for ourselves, our jobs, or even the clients we work with], giving up, withdrawing, going through the motions, or even quitting.

There is another way when we reach this point, and that is to re-evaluate our expectations, our systems, and where we are putting our energy. This can be an evaluation as an individual, or it can be an evaluation of the system in which we, as a group of individuals, are working. As individuals, it takes time and space in order to be able to take a deep breath, to be able to see and understand our situation clearly, and in order to make decisions to change the way we are working on a day to day basis. This may mean looking at what really matters, what is important to us in our work, and what our needs are. Tony Schwartz and colleagues, in the book The Way We Are Working Isn’t Working, write that everyone has physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs, and that contrary to the way jobs have been set up in the past, that for an individual to be the happiest and most productive, these needs actually need to be addressed at work. This doesn’t mean that work is the only place in your life that you address these needs, but that in order to not only do your job, but also to feel replenished, valued, stimulated, and rewarded in your job, that we need these elements in our work. (Perhaps in another column, I’ll go into these four needs in more depth).

As individuals working together in a system, we need to look at how the system is structured to see if it makes our work easier or more difficult. We also need to look at other people around us, our friends and colleagues, to see if we can support them in getting their work done. I know that when I feel stressed, burnt out, over-worked, the last thing I want to do is look for more work, but in the business we are in – working with people to support them in their recovery and rehabilitation – the outcome for a client depends on all staff being able to do their jobs effectively. The other really important way that we, as individuals working in a system, can greatly affect our individual work, is by stepping back and looking at the structure of the system. We as individuals may not have created the system, but how we work every day maintains the system. Systems are full of complexity, however, and changing one aspect of a system often has unforeseen consequences, but this isn’t a reason not to evaluate and change systems when necessary, it is just a challenge of working with systems. The benefit of going through the change (which is hard work, just as any kind of therapy, recovery, or rehabilitation is hard work) is that putting in more energy, doing a little more, up front leads to our work becoming easier, more rewarding, more effective, and more productive down the road. In a way, changing a system is an investment of energy in the present that pays dividends in the future.

These are some questions that I have been asking myself, in my work, and in our work together:

How can we work better as multi-disciplinary teams, in such a way that we are better supporting our clients in their journey, and that we are happier in our work with clients and with our colleagues?

How can we feel more supported and valued in our daily work?

How can we keep our eye on the big picture, on what is really important for both ourselves and the clients we work with?

How can we change the system so that it feels more like we are all pulling in the same direction?

We have choices as individuals in deciding when we enough is enough. If things feel too hard; if it seems we work and work and work, and yet, it seems to have no effect; if we start to feel like it just isn’t worth it – that enough is enough – then we make have hard choices to make: we can do less, we can go through the motions, we can even quit, and quitting can take many forms, including just doing the bare minimum and going through the motions. However, I would like to offer another choice, and that is to re-evaluate our daily work as individuals and the functioning of the system that we are maintaining every day. If we change, the system changes; if we change the way the system functions, we can change the nature of our work every day.

I invite you to re-evaluate the structure of the system where we work:

How can we bring more of our natural caring and compassion into our work?

How can we nurture and support that part a client that wants to change and grow?

How can we make our work less stressful?

How can we improve our working relationships with our colleagues?

One way of doing this is a programme called “Releasing Time to Care,” developed in the National Health Service in the UK. We will most likely be using this as a framework for change where we work [this may happen in the future, but it is a complex, lengthy process and there are no immediate plans to implement this]. I will write more about this program in the future, but my understanding of it is that it can be applied in a way that is consistent with the recovery and rehabilitation model that we use with clients. I believe that we can only create an environment supportive of recovery and rehabilitation for clients if we are able to create the same environment for ourselves. Perhaps we can use this programme, as well as any other existing programmes, or even programmes that we create that are particular for our work, to support our daily work, so that we can feel energized by our work, valued for the work we do, intellectually stimulated and engaged in our work, and to feel that our work is purposeful and has profound meaning.

[Doesn’t it seem like I should have written something about when “enough is enough” with working with clients and we decide to move them on from BRC? I thought I wrote something on that, maybe we’ll have a part II of “When is enough enough?”]

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 hold in your hand,

what you counted on 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 of 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