What does it mean to be kind? How do we know what kindness really is? How has kindness shaped this past year, helping us through tough times?

These questions, and others, stemming from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Kindness,” gently guide us through a beautiful documentary chronicling our collective journey this past year through the eyes of Twin Cities based choir, CorVoce and interviews with Naomi and me.

CorVoce’s performance of “Only Kindness,” my setting of Nye’s poem, commissioned by CorVoce, is interwoven throughout the film. The final product, produced by Barbara Wiener Media, is incredible.

The Premiere and Gala (featuring conversations with special guests!) will take place virtually on April 25 at 4:00pm CST. If you’re interested in taking part, CorVoce is asking for a small donation.

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Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Kindness,” was one of those poems that grabbed me off the page. As I lived with it and set it to music, it became even more dear to me. The poem tells us that in order to truly know kindness — to “know kindness as the deepest thing inside,” we “must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.”
I had no way of knowing when I composed “Only Kindness” for CorVoce that we would experience collective sorrow at the level that we have this past year. Sorrow on a worldwide stage due to the global pandemic, the death of George Floyd (and so many other people of color) and the continued climate crises. Add to that the loneliness of not being able to gather together in community to grieve and to sing.

When I volunteered with a local church after the death of George Floyd, delivering plywood to local businesses and food to protesters, then later when I joined a group of protesters on the streets of Minneapolis, I kept hearing Naomi’s words. “You must see that this could be you,” or a friend, or a neighbor or… a stranger, “…how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.”

As I heard about friends and complete strangers who had lost loved ones to COVID, as collective sorrow rose, I was reminded of Naomi’s words — “you must speak to it” (speak to sorrow) “till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.”

The size of the cloth is global. And the cloth connects all of us. Day after day this past year, we have gathered to watch as people in Italy sang on their balconies, as New Yorkers banged on pots and pans, as protests erupted all over the world in the wake of George Floyd’s death. And here we are still watching families and friends grieve the death of loved ones from COVID, gun violence and at the hands of police. I’ve been watching the news, watching families and friends grieve their loved ones. I’ve been at protests where I’ve seen these intense emotions up close and I’ve listened to protesters tell me why they’re there. I am just beginning to “see the size of the cloth.”
During difficult times this past year, I have heard my music in my mind. I hear my setting of Naomi’s words and I am comforted. Maybe a better word is companioned. I am companioned by kindness. “Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.” Only kindness that says, “it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.”

I am holding you all, my friends, in a hug of kindness. May you find daily peace.

With Love,
Catherine

P.S. To view and purchase the score, click here.

Photo of Naomi Shihab Nye by Chehalis Hegner
Photo of neighborhood art by me