Mending the world within our reach — and a video to inspire
I suspect I’m not the only one feeling a little wary and vulnerable in my skin these days. A week after the Boston bombings, as people across the nation paused yesterday afternoon to observe a moment of silence at 2:50, I stood alone in my own quiet kitchen, sad and somewhat at a loss for what to do next.
There is so much in my life to be grateful for. No one I know was injured last week. All my loved ones are fine. Nothing visible in my world has changed. And yet, I find myself blinking back tears at the slightest provocation or criticism or harsh word. There is too much violence in the world. Let us not add to it, not even with one more negative word or gesture.
The headlines in the newspaper are both an accounting and a measure of our collective sorrow: the suffering that spills across the pages in articles and images, the anger and confusion still searching for an outlet, the grief still so fresh and raw. Looking at the photos of two brothers, one dead and one facing death or life imprisonment, I search in vain for some clue that would explain such calculated, senseless evil. And then, because I am myself a mother of two boys, I can’t help but think: these boys are also someone’s sons.
At the same time, photos from the funerals remind us of all the other parents who are mourning. The losses, and the ripples from those losses, are unfathomable. Yet in the midst of loss, there is extraordinary grace, too, and resilience. On TV, a composed young dancer’s face lights up as she tells Anderson Cooper how glad she is to be alive, even as she envisions her new life without her left foot. She will dance again, she insists, leaning into her husband’s arms and gazing down at the bright pink bandage that wraps her stump. And then she makes a promise: somehow, though she’s never been a runner herself, she intends to return to the Marathon next year – as a participant, even if it means she walks or crawls across the finish line.
There is more than one path toward healing, no one right way to grieve or to recover. But after a week of monitoring the unfolding developments in Boston, after listening to this courageous young woman try to articulate why she is choosing not to look back in anger but to move forward with hope, I sense it’s time for a break from the relentless onslaught of news. Time to find my own still center and embrace the texture of life as it is – not an easy task in the best of times, perhaps even more challenging today.
The sight of my welcoming house at the end of a long car ride Sunday night filled my heart to overflowing. Hugging my husband and son after a weekend on the road, receiving a sweet text just now from a friend, bending down to the floor to snuggle my aging dog, reading a poem I love, watching the sun slip behind a cloud, just being – alive and aware and fully present in my own ordinary life – feels emotionally demanding, too. It’s as if everything has become heightened, both the fragility of my own brief presence here, and the exquisite, complicated beauty of our interconnected human existence on this earth.
Maybe, for a time, we are meant to be this raw and tender. Forced to acknowledge the dark shadow side of human nature and to feel the full brunt of that knowing, we have to face the truth: People hurt each other. Violence and suffering are intertwined, one giving rise to the other. And somehow, it is up to each one of us to do better, to soften our hearts, to sing our songs even in the midst of sorrow, to take better care of ourselves and of one another.
I think of how many opportunities I have each day to be brave and vulnerable, to offer a hand, to make love visible – and how many of those opportunities I squander, because I’m too annoyed to be expansive, too scared to reach out, too distracted to notice, or too busy to bother. And then I’m reminded of words I turn to again and again by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, words that guide me home when I stray away from the person I aspire to be:
Be brave…
“Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion. Be outrageous in forgiving. Be dramatic in reconciling. Mistakes? Back up and make them as right as you can, then move on. Be off the charts in kindness. In whatever you are called to, strive to be devoted to it in all aspects large and small. Fall short? Try again. Mastery is made in increments, not in leaps. Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are within your reach. To strive to live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world.”
Inspiration. . .I first met Carrie Carriello three years ago, when she attended a reading of The Gift of an Ordinary Day. She told me she was thinking about writing a book herself, and asked if I would read a few of her essays. Her humor and courage were evident in every paragraph. I couldn’t imagine how this busy young mother could possibly take care of five rambunctious children, including an autistic son, and find time to write a book, too. And yet I also had a feeling nothing was going to stop her; she was that determined to tell her family’s story and to share her special little boy with the rest of us. Today, What Color is Monday? is published.
It’s my pleasure to share Carrie’s video with you, in which she recalls the moment she knew for certain her special son would find his way in the world, thanks to a stranger’s generosity – a beautiful example of the way one small act of kindness can transform a life. Listening to Carrie, I’m inspired to reach a little higher myself — to love more, to be better, to be braver, to be kinder. “You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion.”
