Out of the Way

______________

Kindness and suffering are wordless teachers, ready to bend us and soften us until we accept that we are here; that, try as we will, we can’t build our way out of existence or dream our way out of being human. Once opened in this way, we come to realize that the only way out is to love being here.

Out of the Way

Kindness bends us, the way

the strike of a bell bends the

smallest leaves.

Suffering softens us, the way the

beak of a dark bird pokes the water

of the heart, leaving a ripple

that shimmers through us.

Kindness and suffering will bring us

to a clearness that everyone knows as

home, once what is unnecessary is

loved or pained out of the way.

A Question to Walk With: Describe one way you have been bent by kindness and one way you have been softened by suffering. How have these experiences shaped you?