If it’s important to remember our childhood darkness, trauma, or pain, then it’s even more important to remember our joy, because joy is our natural state, the original spirit and foundation of our very existence. If we cling to our pain, that pain becomes our identity. If our pain seems a greater, more powerful force than joy, then we need to work harder at remembering our own joy, however small […]
Let’s speak and act in such a way that kindness is the inevitable response. * Instead of telling a child that a certain bright light in the sky is the moon, ask her what it is. Whatever she says will be true. * When you press the Publish button, do so as if you’ve just run all the way from your village to mine and arrived breathless and eager to […]
We sat in rows in classrooms. We laughed and squirmed and raised our hands. Pretty girls, awkward boys. Pretty boys, boyish girls. Dervish whirls and eyes. Teacher, teacher, tell us true. You have seen us, bright and blue. We were meek and we were wise. You taught us, and we taught you. Some were lies, some were true. Teacher, teacher. Teacher, teacher, teacher. * I don’t resolve, but I do […]
Remember, act towards one another as if you’re in the company of an invisible guest — someone kind, gentle, unselfish, dearly loved, the better angel of your nature. . [ 1635 ]
Save a dollar — what does that mean? Is the dollar in danger? Is it in dire need of my help? And how do I know which dollar it is I’m to save? How will I recognize it among other dollars? Will any dollar do? What happens if I save the wrong dollar, a dollar that doesn’t want to be saved, or doesn’t need saving at all, a dollar on […]
Each act a kindness, each breath a prayer, Each word a poem that finds us there. . [ 1560 ]
It’s easy to live without clocks where there are none. My early childhood was one of those places. Now, in this childhood, I’ve hidden the clock on the computer. I wonder: was teaching me how to tell the time an act of kindness, or unwitting cruelty? And might I not ask the same thing about putting on and tying my shoes? In both instances, shouldn’t the teaching also have stressed, […]
Kindness is everything. It’s a way of life. It’s love in the form of an action. It’s gratitude for all things, not just for those of one’s arbitrary choosing. If we’re not grateful for loss and pain and death, then we’re most certainly not equal to their perceived opposites. One of those beauties is that if we happen to forget any of this, we’re reminded by new acts of kindness. […]
Anger, irritation, frustration, impatience; negative thoughts, unkind thoughts; worry, anxiety, fear, a desire for control — each brings tension to the body. Not only does this cause discomfort, illness, and wear, it becomes part of one’s daily physical and verbal language, thus amounting to a kind of communicable disease. During my run yesterday morning and the morning before, I heard an owl each time I passed through the street just […]
I helped another ant. Or did I? Finding it in one part of the house and then taking it out through the front door must have separated it from its colony, in which case it’s now disoriented and lost in the rhododendron leaves, or the maple leaves, or the grass, or the flowerbed, depending on the direction it chose. My intention was kind — kind, yet possibly selfish. Did I […]
William Michaelian 