In the following blog, I will be talking about the war in Ukraine. Feel free to make a decision that feels right to you about continuing to read.
March 2-4, 2022
Possibly like you, I have been checking in quite often on what’s happening in Ukraine. It might be possible that both you and I have been in tears, sitting with loved ones, listening to each other read the news or watching a video. Sometimes it’s because I have been thinking about the pain and loss that the Ukrainian people are experiencing. Other times it’s because I am thinking about the bravery of the Ukrainian citizens or Russian protesters. In other moments, the emotions rise up because I’m thinking about the kindness that people are showing each other.
There is a New York Times photo that keeps finding its way into my consciousness. It is a photo of four Ukrainian women who are sitting together with their guns before heading out to fight. When I first saw it, I was reminded of Naomi Shihab Nye’s words in her poem “Kindness”
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.
I could see how I could be them, sitting with other women, a gun in my hands, knowing that I would be risking not only my own life, but, also the chance that I might take another person’s life. I have been sitting with this image, walking with this image. I’m waking up to this image. It has become an integral part of me that will continue to shape me for the rest of my life. I am a self declared pacifist, and yet my body has been aching to go and fight. I have spoken with other women who have had similar thoughts.
Although I cannot know what the women in the photo are thinking, I imagine they might be thinking that they must fight to save their country and their democracy. I can imagine them thinking that they must fight to save the civilians, including children, their friends, their loved ones, people they don’t even know, that may needlessly be killed by the bombings or the street fights. And so I find myself thinking of them often, wondering where they are, wondering what they’ve seen. I wonder if they’re hungry. I wish I could know if they were still alive?
Naomi’s poem continues:
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,…
I feel like we keep being asked to “see the size of the cloth.” We keep being asked to see how we we are all connected in sorrow. And yet, we are also connected in kindness. Each time I feel connected to the threads of sorrow, for I must, I am finding kindness to ground me. What have you found that signifies kindness to you? How are you getting through your days?
I was fortunate to be able to spend time with Naomi’s poem while setting it for CorVoce Chamber Choir. They have yet to premiere “Only Kindness” due to COVID, but they recorded a performance that was included in the documentary, “Singing Kindness.” You can view the score and watch the video here.
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 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.
by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Kindness” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, copyright © 1995. Used with the permission of Far Corner Books. All rights reserved worldwide.