A Devotion by Willie Sordillo
The poet Naomi Shihab Nye says:
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose thingsBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
More than two months into the altered world of sheltering in place and social distancing, we’re all too aware of the things we’ve lost. We look toward an uncertain future and wonder how long it will be, or if we will ever see the return of at least some now forbidden and previously taken for granted things in what was once normal life: the handshake or embrace of a friend, singing in a choir or with a group of friends, taking in a ballgame at Fenway park on a warm summer’s evening, going to school and camp, going to a restaurant with family and friends, going to work, going to church – the list goes on. More than pleasures which enrich our lives, many of these things we consider necessary to a life fully lived and worth living. What does it mean to live in a world barren of human contact, of simply gathering in public spaces? We know loss. We know sorrow. We grieve.
Naomi says that when you know this deep loss, “then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.” I want to believe her. We see evidence to support this hope in the medical personnel and essential workers, the sewers of masks, the preparers of meals, the givers of dollars, the singers of songs and in countless small ways.
And yet, we also witness angry mobs brandishing weapons and screaming about “liberty” and “freedom,” as if freedom were not a collective enterprise and the “freedom” to infect others with a potentially deadly disease is somehow more important than someone else’s right to simply survive, or for us to survive as a nation and world. We see leadership that has failed to lead in a time of crisis. We see impatience and self-centeredness trumping kindness and compassion. Either Naomi is wrong or we don’t really know loss yet.
In truth, kindness and self-centeredness have always lived side by side and will continue to do so, regardless of the circumstances of the world; we’ve never been at a loss for loss. We always have the choice to go one way or the other, and we all make that choice, even if we make it unconsciously, deluding ourselves in thinking that we can be neutral. For failure to act is an act in itself, and if our failure to act allows others to suffer, we cannot call ourselves kind.
Ultimately, our ability to flourish in a world which can feel more like smoke and mist than solid ground is dependent not on our ability to envision a return to “normalcy” with new rules, but our determination to live fully in this very moment. The great jazz pianist Herbie Hancock tells a story from when he was a young, up and coming musician working in Miles Davis’ band. In the midst of one of Miles’ brilliant trumpet solos, Herbie played an impossibly wrong chord. Miles, rather than being thrown by the dissonance, or even perturbed by it, simply took a beat and played a note which made the chord sound like that was the chord meant to be there all along. The lesson was, there are no wrong notes- it’s how you respond to the notes that are given to you.
So, here we are. We are given this circumstance, this set of unexpected notes. We do not know what the future will look like and we cannot control that. But we have this moment. In fact, this moment is all we have. How do we respond, in this minute, to make it beautiful? May we find the kind notes.
God of Eternity and of Now, help me hear the notes you play in this moment, and help me find the compassionate notes to play in return.