Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

If you are a believer in the magic of hope, we are in this together.

If you are not yet a believer in this magic of hope, try it out today….start with small steps. We are still in it together. Might show you where we can start.

Just for today,I am resting.Just for the today, I do not do much. Just for today,I sit and take in nothingness. Just for today,I give myself a hug and say - it is ok.

I came along this journey with a deep sense of hope, so engrained in my tissues that sometimes I might sound a bit unworldly.I have not spent years to cultivate it or curate some specific goals around it. I have spent years to benefit from it. It is my deep life source. So deep that it might even bring few tears along.

I was getting on the boat yesterday early mornings to meet very good friends downtown for a small intimate community event. I did carry a bit of tension on my shoulders and equally I was also carrying a 10kg backpack, luckily waterproof, as the day kept us under waves and waves of down-pouring.

Sitting on the benches right outside of the ferry pier and waiting for the gate to open,I was scrolling something on my phone. Nothing of importance, just distracting my attention on purpose so I could relax a bit.

I raised my head and a lady was just passing by, coming towards the gate with a nice cuppa in her hand. I have no idea who she was. She however smiled at me with a very kind big smile and light radiating from her very clear and soft blue eyes, she said hello, and that’s it.She moved on at the gate. She did not ask any question, she simply carried on about her business.

I was puzzled for a bit- have we met somewhere perhaps, but as far as I am the anti-social one on this island, I doubt entirely.

I took the smile to heart and bowed to her gentleness. My shoulder tension was gone. The 10kg backpack was still there. I was radiant and that was hope for me.

It can take an instant if we can also be aware enough to appreciate the gift of generosity, the generous smile offered by a very kind stranger.

In the name of this simple act, I would invite you to play along with me this little inquiry in ourselves and list few things as:

I become hopeful when…..

As you noticed…

I become hopeful when a stranger smiles at me.

I become hopeful when a coincidence falls into my day and brings good news

I become hopeful when I see that younger generations are wise already and say “No” to things that do not align to their values

I become hopeful when a new baby is born and brings so much joy

I become hopeful when my friends share their good news with me and I see them loving the life with enthusiasm ….

I become hopeful when sun is back after days and days of rain

I could easily write pages and pages with this.

Hope is my everything really. And I have an unshakable hope in the my own goodness and the goodness of others. Nothing less. Is a big one!

Today I would like to share two poems with you.

The first one is LOVE AFTER LOVE, by Derek Walcott

The time will come

when,with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your owndoor,in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say,sit here.Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine.Give bread.Give back your heart to

itself,to the stranger who has loved you

all your life,whom you ignored

for another,who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs,the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.Feast on your life.

The second one is called Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye.

(click on her name for the link)

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

1952 –

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 gaze at 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.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

I have also found the poet herself reading the poem and telling us the story of the poem. I got goosebumps when I found this poem first time, many years ago and as it happened,I just found an older note with the poem in some old notebook. Talking about timing of everything.

Naomi Shihab Nye reading Kindness

“There is only kindness that make sense anymore”

Have a kind kind Sunday dear friends,

Much love…..