The Way of Mary: Kindness

 

Good Wednesday morning, fellow pilgrims of Advent, as we walk The Way of Mary. It was not an easy morning for me so I'm very late posting this. You will understand, I know.

As I've been thinking about some of the things I've learned over the years of walking The Way of Mary every Advent, I thought of the word kindness. One of my first associations with that word is "the kindness of strangers".

I suppose both Mary and Joseph had to rely on the kindness of strangers as they made their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The thought has occurred to me that, as they traveled, Mary had to learn how to be kind to herself.

She had to grapple with her own anxiety. Anxieties, no doubt. Many and varied layers of them, which were no doubt intensified by feelings of shame and guilt.

Her own vulnerability - out here alone in the desert, away from family and friends and The Familiar - with this man who had not fathered the child in her womb.

The angel said it was God's child. What did that mean, anyway? It was not Joseph's child. Was this even 'her child'? Could it be 'her child' if it was God's child?

With every step and sway of the donkey on whose back she rode, I'm sure she pondered all of these things in her heart and had to learn to be kind to herself. Anyway.

A dear friend sent me this poem which, I think, says a great deal about kindness and some of the lessons we need to learn in order to be kind. It probably explains why there's a paucity of kindness in the world right now.

It's an inward journey that starts with other lessons. It's the pulling together of various pieces and discovering an answer to the puzzle. It's the respecting and the honoring of the brokenness in ourselves and others and the world that helps to make us whole.

I think that, when Mary discovered sorrow as the deepest thing inside her, she discovered kindness as the other deepest thing inside her. And, she taught that to her son. Who taught it to his disciples. Who taught it to us.

"Love one another," said Jesus. Which is not the same as "like one another". That's too easy. Love one another even if you don't like one another. Which is to say, at the very least, be kind.

I think kindness is one of the lessons on The Way of Mary.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Kindness

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 mail letters and purchase 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.

Naomi Shihab Nye (1953-)