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Kindness Before you know what kindness 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 regions and 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 speak to it till your voice catches the thread of 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 produce bread only kindness that raises its head from the crown 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 is the poet. This poem appears in What Does It Mean To Be Human? compiled by F. Franck, J. Roze and R. Connolly I have selected this poem in lieu of the usual weekly column simply because it touched me deeply. I hope it does the same for you. In the face of our daily concerns and our ever present issues dealing with other people, this poem reminds us of what is essential and so easily forgotten. Elaine Z Mosher PhD The cases in point which appear in this column do not represent any particular individual or couple, but are a composite representation of people with relevant life issues. Similarities with actual people are coincidental. ©1999 Elaine Mosher Cases in Point: Archive Home || Contact Background ||  Fee Schedule Types of Consultation ||  Confidentiality Approach

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