Last week we talked of the need for solitude, quiet time by oneself, in which we approach ourselves with kindness and compassion, that may then extend outwardly. The weather in Southern Ontario in the last several days has called to mind the poem and song, In the Bleak Midwinter. The poem speaks of a time in which the mystery of life is found in simple realities that touch and call forth a response from the heart.

This reflection in turn reminded me of an interview with author Katherine May on her book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. She speaks of wintering as a time of slowing down, resting, retreating. She recalls that plants and animals do not fight the winter, but prepare and adapt for it. For us, she says, it is a time for withdrawing from the usual busyness, even frantic pace, of so much of life. “It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting you house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it’s essential.”

She goes on to say that life has a cyclical quality about it, that it has seasons, and that sadness is also and inseparable part of life. It is not a matter of wallowing in misery, but recognizing that sorrow is part of life, and becoming comfortable with it. Rather than trying to escape from sorrow or talk others out of it, we may be most helpful by making space in ourselves for others’ sadness as well as our own.

She concludes: “When I started to feel the drag of winter, I began to treat myself … with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed, and I made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me.”

One way of expressing wintering, is to ask ourselves what constitutes a warm blanket for us in chilly times– whether eating a favourite snack, listening to a piece of beautiful music, going for a walk, taking a nap, reading a novel, calling a friend–activities in which we are not simply doing, but being.

Wayne Muller has a wonderful book called Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest and Delight. He says that in the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between work and rest, and because we do not rest, we lose our way, often in frantic overactivity. Conversely: “When we consecrate a time to listen to the still, small voices, we remember the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful. We remember from where we are most deeply nourished, and see more clearly the shape and texture of the people and things before us.”

He then adds: “These are the useless things that grow in time: to walk without purpose to no place in particular, where we are astonished by the textured bark of an oak. To notice the colour red showing itself for the first time in the maple in the fall. To see animals in the shape of clouds, to walk in clover. To fall into an unexpected conversation with a stranger, and find something delicious and unbidden take shape. To taste the orange we eat, the juice on the chin, the pulp between teeth. To take a deep sigh, an exhale followed by a listening silence. To allow a recollection of a moment with a loved one, a feeling of how our life has evolved. To give thanks for a single step upon the earth. To give thanks for any blessing, previously unnoticed; the gentle brush of a hand on a lover’s body, the sweet surrender of sleep in the afternoon.”

May you find a time for restfulness and kindness in your life, time for things that are for their own sake and that nourish your soul. And may the gentle caring for yourself overflow into compassion for one another.

Norman King, January 23, 2023.

In the last reflection, I suggested that our worth cannot be lost only if it is inseparable from who we are. It is insecure and mistaken if it is sought in possessions or dominating power. I also suggested that we uncover this sense of worth through solitude, friendship, and social responsibility.

Social pressure, however unwittingly, impels us not to trust the unfolding of life from within us, but to conform to stimuli and demands from outside. Our own experience of limitations, weakness, and mortality, allows that social ethos to hook into our anxiety and trap us.

Time alone, especially in silence, is essential to becoming free within and uncovering a sense of sacred worth. Yet, the fear that what is deepest within is empty or wrong, impels us to flee from ourselves. Many years ago, spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, commented on this fear. “There are two silences,” he writes, “one is frightening and the other is peaceful. For many, silence is threatening. They don’t know what to do with it. … We have become alienated from silence. … If a person is invited to exchange this noise (i.e., radio, television, cell phone, etc.), it is often a frightening proposal.”

Yet, he adds, “still more is the achievement of inner silence, a silence of the heart. … It seems that a person who is caught up in all that noise has lost touch with his own inner self. The questions which are asked from within go unanswered. The unsure feelings are not cleared up and the tangled desires are not straightened out, the confusing emotions are not understood. All that remains is a chaotic tumble of feelings which have never had a chance to be cured because the person constantly let himself or herself be distracted by a world demanding all their attention.”

Theologian, Karl Rahner, expresses a similar view: “Have the courage to be alone,…to endure your own company for a time.” We may then find a path to self-awareness and self-worth. The words of Nouwen are worth quoting again. “To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you. … Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when we first come upon this ‘unfamiliar terrain,’ but slowly and surely we begin to see developing an order and a familiarity which summon our longing to stay home.”

“With this new confidence,” he writes, “we recapture our own life afresh from within. Along with this new knowledge of our ‘inner space’ where feelings of love and hate, tenderness and pain, forgiveness and greed are separated, strengthened or reformed, there emerges the mastery of the gentle hand. . .whereby a person once again becomes master over their own house. … If we do not shun silence, all this is possible. But it is not easy. Noise from the outside keeps demanding our attention and restlessness from within keeps stirring up our anxiety. … But the promise of this silence is that new life can be born.”

These words express that if we do find the courage to be alone, many thoughts and feelings may come to the surface of our awareness. Even if they may be disturbing, we may simply allow ourselves to feel them, notice them without judgment, and attend to them or let them be for a time. Then we may find that there is a place within us, which Nouwen calls home. It is deeper than all that rustles on the surface of our lives.

Thomas Merton recalls that we live in a society that allows us to be distracted and avoid our own company for 24 hours a day. Elsewhere, in a journal, The Sign of Jonas, he mentions his own experience of inner turmoil, along with the uncovering of inner peace and stillness within, that was more real and lasting. He tells of experiencing a kind of terror within, “a slow submarine earthquake.” Yet beneath it all, he discovered a deep happiness that was real and permanent. “It penetrated to the depths below consciousness, and, in all storms, in all fears, in the deepest darkness, it was always unchangeably there.”

Certainly, Merton’s experience, both in its joy and sorrow, was more profound than we are likely to experience. At the same time, he gives us the assurance that if we do in fact allow our lives to be infused by solitude, we may uncover a sacred identity, an inner awareness and strength, that is deeper than all else, and in fact is unshakable. It may not always or even often be felt. But we may sense its presence, beneath “the slings and arrows,” the “earthquakes” of life.

Perhaps I most felt this sense–or at least a longing to feel it–in connection with my younger brother, Mike. He died at twenty-six years of age from heart failure, the result of a condition he had since birth. I believe his value and the value of his brief life, came from who he was. Some fifteen years later, at a spontaneous writing workshop, I wrote a poem about my final visit with him. I ended the poem with these words. “Perhaps your death and my sorrow/ and your friendship and mine/ and all the sorrows and friendships since that time/ will lead a path behind the walls/ and free the child within.”

May you also discover the child within, the home within, the sacred core of who you are, deeper than and never found or lost by what you do, or what you have. May your time alone become a place of coming home to your true self. May the silence of your own heart also lead you to uncover your connection with others, the natural world, the earth, and the universe itself.

Norman King, January 16, 2023

I have often spoken of the importance of recognizing our identity and sacred worth as present from the beginning, as inseparable from who we are. In that sense it is a truth uncovered from within. It may also be described as a gift that is always there, and that can neither be gained nor lost. Yet we can fail to recognize that sacred worth in ourselves or in others. We can even violate or betray it in ourselves or others.

A problem in our society is that it tends to convey to us that we are human “havings.” Our worth is not seen as intrinsic, as within us, but as something to be acquired from outside by gaining possessions, and by gaining power over others. Our value is not given, but achieved, and achieved only at the expense of others. It is not seen as something already given and shared with others.

Such a view implies a profound insecurity. If my worth comes from outside myself, it can readily be lost. And so I have to maintain that, if someone is poor, it is their own fault. I fall into a pattern of blame rather than kindness. I also tend to be protective and even violent, since I need to protect what I have, or I will lose not just my possessions but my very self, which is identified with my possessions.. I become unfree and dominated by this need.

This view is in contradiction to the major religious traditions of the world, in their root origins at least. It is also in contradiction to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which grounds everything in what it calls the inherent dignity of each human being.

I just recently begin reading an older book by spiritual writer, Richard Rohr, called Simplicity, the Freedom of Letting Go, and was struck by his wording of these issues. He writes:

We live in a society that places great importance upon external signs of success and importance … on the distinctiveness of our cars, clothes, and dwellings. We tend to be preoccupied with being ‘one up’ on others, We have great difficulty in finding our value from within. In a materialistic society we have projected our sense of worth onto things. That is why we find it’s hard to rediscover our souls in ourselves. …

We live in an affluent society that’s always expecting more, wanting, more, and believes it has more coming to it. But the more we project the soul’s longing on to things, the more things disappoint us. Happiness is an inside job, and when we expect to find it outside ourselves, it is always a disappointment.,,,

When the soul is projected outward, we have less time for love, because we turn other people into articles for consumption too…. Ultimately we do the same thing to our own souls: we stand, as it were, outside ourselves and pass judgment on ourselves. Are we valuable or aren’t we? Are we right or wrong? But as we judge ourselves, we also tear ourselves apart…. If we don’t live from within our own centre, then we’ll go spinning around things…. Our real value depends on what we are and not what we do.

A further observation is that unless we have a sense of worth from the simple fact that we are, we are always in fear that we do not have any worth or that it can be lost, just as our possessions can be lost. In a book entitled Escape from Freedom, psychologist Erich Fromm writes that greed arises from an insatiable emptiness within that we are never able to fill with things or power. “Greed has no satiation point,” he writes, “since its consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression it is meant to overcome.” “Well-being is possible to the degree to which one is open, responsive, sensitive, awake, empty….Well-being means, finally, to be and to experience one’s self in the act of being, not in having, preserving, coveting, using.” “Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.”

The deepest fear is ultimately the fear that we are worthless and/or that there is something inherently wrong with us. It is often accompanied by a restless search for something or someone outside of us to somehow convey that worth. That worth is then illusory and easily lost because we approach things and persons as possessions. And all possessions are precarious and can be lost.

Only if we come to a sense that our worth is always already there, that it is intrinsic to us. Only then can we have a sense that it cannot be lost or taken away. And if it cannot be lost, then it need not be viewed as a possession to be defended.

Yet our experience of limitations, wounds, mortality, and even betrayals, can be a challenge to that sense of worth. I have suggested that recognition of that worth as gift, given with our very self, flows into gratitude and generosity. Similarly the challenges to that worth invite us to trust in its presence even when we cannot feel it.

The question arises as to how we may discover that worth in self, others, and the whole non-human world. It our sacred worth is intrinsic, always there from the beginning and throughout our lives, it is a question of uncovering it. Once again the suggestion is in three interrelated ways: through silent solitude, friendship, and social responsibility.

Solitude involves, in Hammarskjold’s words the longest journey, the journey inward to the core of our being. Here it is a question of coming in touch with our core, essence, soul, inmost self. This is the gradual realization that this core is not reducible to but deeper than and other than our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or experiences. Various forms of meditation, reflective reading, solitary walks, and the like are possible pathways here.

Friendship involves a mutual and gradual journey to each other’s centre. It can be a caring recognition and affirmation of that worth. Philosopher Josef Pieper, in his book, About Love, writes that love is the confirmation of another. It is the affirmation, not that it is good that he or she is this or that, clever, witty, etc., but that he or she is, that it is good that this person exists. Such friendship does not confer that sacred worth but affirms it, and helps a person come to a realization of that worth.

Social responsibility follows the same lines. It is an attempt, in whatever ways are possible to the individual, to contribute to moving a group, community, society, or culture, in the direction of establishing conditions where the worth of persons is recognized. It can take the simple form of sending cards for Amnesty International on behalf of prisoners of conscience. It can also involve meditative practices which facilitate deeper awareness and connectedness, as in Buddhist mindfulness or Taizé prayer.

In any event, we may follow whatever personal pathway is most conducive for each of us–in order to tune in to who we most truly are, to others who share our lives in some way, and to the unfolding process of life itself.

Norman King, January 07, 2023

Last week, I spoke of trust: trust in the process of unfolding life within ourselves, trust in an intelligently caring other, and trust in life and the meaningfulness of life itself. This latter includes a trust in the universe as meaningful, as unfolding in the direction of wisdom and compassion. The basic implication of this conviction is the challenge to become ourselves trustworthy persons. Underlying this whole process is an at least implicit experience of life, not as a tragic accident or a cruel fate, but as a valuable gift. This experience gives rise to an undertone of gratitude, rather than resentment. This gratefulness flows naturally into a generosity of spirit, rather than a spirit of fear or hostility.

Many years ago, I attended a conference which included a talk by David Steindl-Rast, who is at once a Benedictine Monk, a Zen Buddhist master, and a clinical psychologist. He looked at and commented on the roots of the words “obedience” and “absurdity.” Obedience comes from the Latin roots ob and audire, which means to listen truly and deeply. Absurdity comes from the Latin roots ab and surdum, which means totally deaf. He explained that our orientation to life is either one of tuning into its meaning at each given moment, or being utterly deaf to such meaning, unable to discover any meaning to life.

This view reflects the perspective of Karl Rahner and others, that our fundamental life choice is either a trust in the enduring meaningfulness of life–its lasting worth and purpose–or despair over its ultimate futility. At the same time, they add that the approach to discover, or perhaps better to uncover, such meaning, is to listen, to tune in with awareness, rather than close ourselves off. In effect the choice is to build totally encasing walls that block off all light or sound of meaning, or to allow the cracks that allow light and sound to get in.

The key, then, seems to be to listen. Alfred Tomatis, the listening specialist, has distinguished between hearing and listening. Hearing is the passive reception of sound while listening is the active participation in what we hear. We may have good hearing, but poor listening. While Tomatis’ work has a more scientific basis, it is also a reflection of the opening words of the sixth century Rule of St. Benedict, which invites us to listen with the ears of the heart. This is a question of listening with openness rather than closing our ears. It is a listening with an openness to be changed by what we hear, rather than being closed to any transformation.

There is a marvellous Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy is chasing Charlie Brown and yelling :”I’ll pound you, Charlie Brown.” He replies to her that if we small children cannot solve our small problems without resorting to violence, how do we expect the larger world problems to be solved. She then punches him and says to a friend, “I had to hit him, he was beginning to make sense.” In other words, closing our ears, that is, closing our minds and hearts, refusing to listen to someone, results in violence. Along similar lines, Lorraine once commented on the New Testament story of Peter cutting off a servant’s ear, by saying that violence causes deafness. In Steindl-Rast’s approach, “absurdity” is deafness of the heart.

In light of our reflection on trust, to find meaning in life, a sense of worth, belonging, and purpose, implies a threefold listening, a threefold tuning in with openness. It implies a listening to our own inmost core, listening to one another from the heart, and tuning in to the sound of the universe. A parallel example is found in the ancient Greek myth of Tiresias the blind seer and of Oedipus who becomes physically blinded. It occurs as well as in the later poet, John Milton, who becomes blind, as does King Lear in the Shakespearian play. In all these cases, physical blindness is an image of the transition from seeing the externals only, to seeing, that is, understanding, from the heart, It is coming to a wisdom that seems inseparable, in some degree, from suffering.

I recall a radio interview I did many years ago, when the interviewer was intent on focusing on either the adherence to or reaction against external authority. He became very angry when I suggested that whether we follow or disagree with such authority, we are equally responsible for our personal decision, and that we cannot deflect our responsibility for our decision in either case. This is one example of how anger readily results from hearing something to which we are unwilling to listen.

Listening to oneself is a dimension of solitude, in which we allow what is deeply within to rise to the surface of our awareness. It is a matter of feeling all of our feelings, then letting go of them, as if letting them float away. What is deepest can then emerge, our sacred core, which I believe, orients us, more than anything else, towards understanding and compassion, wisdom and love,.

One form of reaching this awareness gradually is just the most basic form of meditation, simply to pay attention to our breath. I have noted before that in many languages, the words, breath, wind, and spirit are the same word. They suggest that our spirit is our core self, and our spirit is also what we live and breathe by. It is the vision and values we actually live. It is the script we actually follow in our life story.

One Eastern form of meditation suggests the repetition of the sound om/aum, which is sometimes thought of as the sound of the universe. It is the creative energy from which all flows. The ancient Greeks talked of the music of the spheres, the idea that the universe is singing. In all ancient monastic traditions, there is also a form of chant which reflects a similar view. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, the creative energy is found in Aislin the lion, who sings creation into being.

One aspect may well be that to echo the sound energy of the universe is to come into harmony with all that is, to be a truthful reflection of reality. It is to listen to and embody the truth of life. In our view, we are such a reflection and embodiment, when we move in the direction of truth and love, wisdom and compassion. An interesting corollary is that it is through music and story and the other arts, as well as silence, that we are best able to hear the sound of the universe, that we are most able to come in touch with our own heart. It is perhaps our heart, our inmost core, that flows from the universe, as does all else. To be in touch with that core, to pursue the journey within, is perhaps to experience at once our own sacred uniqueness, our connection with the sacred uniqueness of all else, and our origin in the communion of all beings that is the universe.

May you come more and more to listen to you own heart and its sacredness, and discover the sacredness and interconnectedness of all that is, and live in harmony with its music.

Norman King, December 19, 2022
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I have spoken of kindness, friendship, and love as involving an openness and vulnerability. We open our heart, our core, both to reach out and to let another in. This vulnerability carries the risk of receiving a vulnus, a wounding or hurt. In the song, Some Say Love, this thought is forcefully expressed. “It’s the heart, afraid of breaking, that never, learns to dance. It’s the dream, afraid of waking, that never, takes the chance. It’s the one, who won’t be taken, who cannot, seem to give. And the soul, afraid of dying, that never, learns to live.”

Openness is essential to growth. Walls built from hurt, fear, and hostility do not allow cracks that permit the light of new life, growth, healing, or love enter or escape. Sometimes it can be a simple act of kindness, a persistent caring that glimpses behind defensive walls, or even pain that startles us to awareness that permits light to penetrate.

At the same time, there is a need for some sense of safety before we are able to open ourselves. Many years ago, a person who was a close friend at the time, told me that I was a safe place for her. That expression really resonated with me, and I have thought of what is a safe place, both for ourselves and others.

Two contrasting messages we sometimes wrestle with for ourselves and our children are:: “I don’t want you to get hurt,” and “I want you to grow.” These are often implied in our responses to life events. In the story of Sleeping Beauty, for example, the king cannot prevent his daughter from experiencing her own pain. Nor can we prevent ourselves from experiencing the pain that is an inevitable part of life. Yet we can help ourselves and others get through and beyond that pain by being a safe place for such feelings

We can be a safe place for ourselves by finding a quiet place where we can allow our feelings, whatever they are, to be felt. To do so requires a certain level of awareness. A helpful realization is that within every human being is found the whole range of human feelings, such as from despair to despair, from fear to love, etc. While these are all present within us, different feelings may arise at different times, depending upon our childhood experiences, our relationships, our life situation, and much else. We may view all these feelings, especially the more difficult ones as visitors, but not let them have the run of the house. In other words, it is important to acknowledge their presence, without judging ourselves for them. At the same time, it is equally important to recognize that we do not have to act upon them.

As mentioned with regard to the story, Where the Wild Things Are, there are wild things in all of us–our powerful feelings, especially those we have labelled negative–that threaten to swallow us up and carry us away. Max stares into the wild things, tames them, and becomes their king. In other words, once we recognize and face these feelings, they may remain within us, lose their hold on us. While they may indicate where we are within ourselves at present, they but do not tell us what to do, and we do not have to act upon them. We are then in a safe place to feel them. We can do so without condemning ourselves for having them, without pretending they are not there, or without unleashing them indiscriminately and in a hurtful way upon others. We may recognize that to allow our feelings to be felt and named does not mean we have to act on them. This awareness can be a safe place for all our feelings.

Others may also provide a safe place for us, especially if they allow us to express our feelings to them without blaming or attacking us, or telling us that we should not feel this way. For our part, as well, it is a matter of entrusting our feelings, our thoughts and concerns, without unleashing them. To do so requires at once a trust on our part and a trustworthiness on the part of another. It is a trustworthiness coupled with caring that creates a mutual safe place for us. I have often said that we cannot talk another into anything, but we can listen then into their own truth. If we have someone to whom we can entrust our feelings, we may come to uncover certain feelings, be able to name them honestly, and possibly discover their roots. We may then decide how to respond–rather than react–to them.

To be genuinely listened to, or to listen from the heart to another, may convey a profound sense of being understood. If someone is acknowledged as who they are and that who they are is valuable, that caring recognition provides a safe place. Such caring expressed in listening with understanding allows us to entrust safely where we are at present, to entrust any of our thoughts and feelings, whether what is bothering or upsetting us, or what brings us joy.

What it comes down to is that there is an underlying sacred worth in each of us. It is deeper than anything that we feel at any given moment. Even the most difficult feelings do not take away that worth. That recognition, or at least the striving to that recognition in self and others, provides a safe place for ourselves and for one another, first to feel, and then to decide a course of action, that honours that sacredness.

May you find a safe place within yourself and within a caring other to feel and name all your feelings, joyful and sorrowful. And may you come more and more to act according to a sense of your own sacred worth and the worth of others worth as deeper than all else.

Norman King, December 5, 2022.

Last week, we spoke of kindness as an essential quality of a fulfilling life, beginning with kindness to ourselves and extending to those near to us, and even to those we meet only casually or on occasion. It implies both a sense of connection to others, who are somehow kin, as the very word suggests, and a sense of our own and others vulnerability. We referred to the story of The Selfish Giant, which suggests that we must have cracks in the walls we may have built around us. Only then can children–kinder–enter. Only then, that is, can new thoughts, new images, new feelings, new life enter, and bring renewal or springtime to our lives.

Leonard Cohen’s famous line from his song Anthem says: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” It seems that the beauty of his songs is forged in a crucible of sorrow. Perhaps its meaning is that if our sorrows are felt, acknowledged, named, and not inflicted on others, they can be transformed into creativity, compassion, and even gratitude. They can be transformed into a Hallelujah, however cold and lonely its origins.

The Hebrew Song of Songs has this marvellous line, “You have wounded my heart.” The Latin words are “vulnerasti cor meum.”It can be translated, not as an injury inflicted on us, but as an openness that allows another to reach our core. The Latin root of vulnerability, vulnus, means wound, and the word vulnerability literally means able to be wounded, able to be hurt. When we allow cracks in the defensive walls around us, we are open to new life, but also to the possibility being hurt. Acts of kindness, given and received, are cracks in our defensiveness that allow light to enter and shine forth.

When we open ourselves to our own vulnerability, we can allow the light of feeling and understanding to uncover what is within us. The light of compassion is the light that can envelop our feelings and allow us to see these feelings most clearly, even the difficult ones. There is a tendency to judge certain feelings as unacceptable, and either to condemn ourselves for having them or to pretend that they are not there. If we understand that these feeling just are, that they are not a judgment on us, and that we may or may not decide to act upon them, we can approach ourselves with more compassion.

In the experience of grief, for example, surprising feelings, such as anger, may arise and arise unexpectedly. And the message to get over it and get on with our life is often conveyed. To shed the light of compassion on our feelings is to recognize them, without considering them good or bad, to see that they are part of but not all of who we are. We may say, for instance, that we feel angry, rather than we are angry. Sharon Salzberg, writer and meditation teacher, suggests that when we experience feelings that are difficult, we should consider them as visitors, but not give them the run of the house.

Last week, in my final Children’s Literature class, we looked at the wonderfully amusing story, Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. It is an excellent example of understanding and responding to feelings. The boy, Max, dresses in a wolf costume and makes lots of mischief. He is called a wild thing and sent to his room without supper. His room is transformed into a wild forest and he sails across to where the wilds things are, tames them, and becomes their king. But then “Max the king of all the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all” He returns to his room and find his supper waiting for him, and it is still warm.

Using food imagery, the story suggests that there are wild things in all of us–our powerful feelings, especially those we have labelled negative–that threaten to swallow us up and carry us away. Yet the wolf costume suggests that, though very real, these are not what is deepest in us. They are part of us, but not all of us. Max stares into the wild things, tames them, and becomes their king. In other words, once we recognize and face these feelings, they lose their hold on us and are contained within us. The end of the story suggests that it is in the context of love that these are best contained. This thought is expressed in the presence of a hot meal. Instead of being devoured by negative feelings, we are able to share a meal in love.

The ability to see requires light; it requires cracks where the light gets in. Many stories contrast the light that sees outwardly and the inner light that sees to the heart of things. It is remarkable that, in Greek mythology, the famous seer, Tiresias, who unveils the truth to Oedipus, is blind. So too is the poet who sings the story of Odysseus’ life in a way that causes his soul to groan. It is only after he becomes blind that Oedipus moves beyond a more surface cleverness to a depth of wisdom that emerges from suffering and flows into love. King Lear as well sees wisely with the eyes of the heart only after he is blinded. Only then does he realize and return the love of his daughter, Cordelia, the whose name means heart.

These stories suggest that the inner light of seeing from and with the heart requires that we move beyond externals, beyond mere looking outside for direction and answers. Rather we need to look within. This is not a matter of probing from without with, as it were, a pair of psychological pliers. Rather it is a matter of allowing cracks in our heart, a matter of allowing what is already within to emerge to the light of awareness–thoughts, feelings, images alike. It is letting our depth of sacredness emerge behind any walls of hurt, fear, or hostility. It is like the still waters that allow the clarity of its depths to be seen.

Our inmost core need not be seen as a blind alley or dead end. Rather it may be understood as the place where we emerge in our uniqueness and sacredness from the universe and whatever is within, behind and beyond the universe. It is the thrust that impels us to unfold, to grow, and to flower in wisdom and compassion. Certainly the cracks of openness that allow light to flow in and out are also cracks of vulnerability where wounds are possible. Yet is seems that, unless the hurt is totally overwhelming, our sorrows may be transformed into pathways to en-lighten-ment. They can be cracks that allow more light for ourselves and others.

May allow the sorrows and joys you experience allow more light of worth and purpose, of hope and love, to shine in your own life and reflect warmly on others who share our own life in ways large or small.

Norman King, November 28, 2022

I was very struck lately by Susan Cain’s observation that Darwin has been readily misinterpreted. She notes that perhaps his view is better understood, not as survival of the fittest, but as survival of the kindest. Very shortly before her death, writer June Callwood stated simply: “I believe in kindness.” She says it can be shown in very simple things, such as holding the door open for someone. The Dalai Lama has also said: “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” This view also calls to mind Einstein’s words to his daughter that the underlying energy of the universe and the source of its meaning, is love.

Two notable books on kindness have appeared in recent years. One is simply titled On Kindness, by Barbara Taylor and Adam Phillips. The other, yet to appear, is The Keys to Kindness by Claudia Hammond. I heard an interview with her on this book. She says that kindness is at the heart of human relationships, and there is more kindness in the world than we realize. Receiving kindness contributes to the well-being of others and even more to our own well-being.“Behaving compassionately improves the lives of others. It also improves our own lives. There are measurable boosts to health, both mental and physical. Behaving kindly can act as a buffer against burnout and stress,and improve our well being. It can bring us happiness. It can even help us to live longer.”

The root of the word kindness is kin, which expresses a connection to another person or persons. It is also cognate with the word kind, as in kindergarten, and it means child. And of course children most obviously depend upon others, and are among the most vulnerable members of our society. In fact, Taylor and Phillips define kindness as the ability to bear the vulnerability of others, and therefore of oneself. They add that the pleasure of kindness is that it connects us with others, but it also makes us aware of our own and other people’s vulnerability.

Awareness both of our connection to others and our vulnerability is something that is often denied in our culture. Our society stresses being independent, antagonistic to, and in competition with one another. It suggests that we need to asset ourselves at the expense of one another. Yet the loneliness, occasioned more visibly by the pandemic, reminds us of our need for connection, as does the threat posed by climate change. If we have some degree of awareness, we are certainly aware of our interdependence upon one another and upon the earth itself. The isolation caused by Covid also reminds us of the importance for our overall well-being of the casual contacts that have occurred in the once normal routine of everyday life.

As a colleague once said, we need only to look at our navel to realize that we are not self created. If we wish to assert total independence we may stop eating, drinking, and breathing. These are all activities that are not private but are relations with the world around us, upon which our very life depends.

A wonderful example is offered in the folk tale written by Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant. After returning home, the giant finds many children playing in his garden. He becomes enraged, chases them away, and builds a wall around the garden to keep everyone out. The result is that no flowers grow, no birds sing, and it is always winter, with icy winds. Some time later, the giant hears a bird singing and notices some flowers growing. He sees that children have crept back in to play in the garden through cracks that have appeared in the wall. He then realizes what has happened. He has a complete change of heart, and welcomes and plays with the children for the rest of his life.

As the children re-enter the garden through crack in its wall, it is once again springtime. The change in weather from winter to spring indicates that the children bring new life to the giant. This story suggests that unless we have cracks in the walls of defensiveness, cracks of vulnerability, so that children can come through–that is, new life, new thoughts, new images–then we shall remain bleak and cold and dark and desolate inside. We tear down rather than build our walls through creative, life-giving, generous, even sacrificial compassion, caring, and love. And a key ingredient is simple acts of kindness to ourselves and others.

It is striking that Taylor and Phillips define kindness as the ability to bear our own and others vulnerability. Perhaps acts of kindness, however small, require us to open our heart, both to flow outwards and to receive within. It may well be that kindness implies the recognition that we are incomplete, that we need one another, that we are invariably connected. Such openness always implies the possibility of being hurt. Yet to be closed always ensures the our lives are ever in winter, ever in a season of lovelessness, even of fear and anger. Possibly turning to kindness, aside from its assistance to well-being, is a step towards openness to deeper connection, to learning the greater openness of love. And beyond intimacy, it is a step in extending that caring in wider and wider circles.

Along these lines, Erich Fromm, in The Art of Loving, writes that the love implies a character development of the whole person that is then brought into bear in any relationship. He adds that only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose does love begin to unfold. He cites the ancient categories of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. In today’s world, we might add all those who are marginalized in any way. It may well be that kindness, extended in simple acts, to those near and far, including ourselves, may be the path to the wisdom and compassion that sees the universe as a community of subjects to respect–and sees ourselves as part of and responsible to and for that community. Educator, John Holt, holds that integral to this process is a sense of connection with and therefore kindness to ourselves. We have enough kindness and compassion for others, he says, only if we have enough kindness for ourselves.

May you more and more have enough kindness for yourself, and extend it gradually to those near and far. And may you make whatever contribution you can to creating a world where interdependence and connectedness are recognized, and where kindness and compassion are honoured.