Tag: kindness

SOME ADVICE

ADVICE TO MY CHILDREN 
AND GRANDCHILDREN

Notice the way stars seem to rustle 
when you see them from a field. 
Find the place where sunsets disappear,
and visit it when you're sad. 
Listen to the breezes 
when they organize themselves and sing together. 
And keep your eyes 
on other faces. 
Notice the kindness 
that often blossoms  
in these faces 
like crowds of flowers.
Be like water, 
just waiting and watching and choosing patience 
over chancy things like tenaciousness, 
and work with thoroughness and silkiness 
like water does,
doing the singing and dancing of the universe
with serenity and acquiescence. 
See mist as something special, 
and downpours too,
and suffering also, 
because it causes understanding
and flows beside us 
forever and ever.

Ignite

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

         Life is always igniting, though I usually miss the fun of watching it. Today,  each moment will ignite with the soft flames of newness, and thoughts will burst into various kinds of flares, again and again. Kindness will kindle all day long, giving me and everyone a chance for some soft light and warm-heartedness, and sparks of words will shoot up as people talk and old, bald men make paragraphs and poems. Explosions of freshness will occur all day long, like life set alight over and over. One second of silence might inflame me, the way a sunrise arouses the sky. Come on, young March 16. I am ready. Fuel me with your fire!

Below, some scenes from our 3-mile walk this morning on the Beebe Pond Trail…

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Thursday, September 16, 2021

INVINCIBLE

            What can lighten any day for me is the realization that the most precious powers in life are invincible. Something as simple as kindness, for instance, is absolutely indestructible. Nothing – no ‘thing’, no material supposed power – can even slightly weaken the power of kindness, consideration, and helpfulness to create peace in my life and the lives around me. And gentleness – what hardness or meanness can make gentleness wither away? And the power of patience – even the worst disaster bows in humble subservience to patience, which simply stays where it always is with quietness and confidence. And, of course, love. Whenever I let love loose in my life, it spreads like a soft, unassailable ocean, unfailingly flowing over any seeming obstacle. 

            How lucky can an old fellow get!  

TELL ME

Tell me why a gray day 
can give me wisdom. 
Tell me how happiness
can drive down my street 
at the last possible second.
Show me silence 
and how it speaks. 
Show me the inside 
of sincerity and kindness 
so I can stay there. 
Tell me about the rolling world, 
and the stars that sigh above us. 
Give me truth 
to be beside me.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Thursday, September 2, 2021

WEALTHY

            In terms of dollars, I don’t have money to burn, but in terms of real riches, I am a wealthy man. I am actually an heir – a beneficiary of assets that can never be exhausted. I have access, 24/7, to funds that can keep me continually healthy and happy. These funds are not dollars, not coins or cash or any kind of material currency. No, my wealth is the wealth that all of us share – the wealth of intangible – and therefore inexhaustible – qualities, like caring and calmness and quietness and patience. Like all of us, I have a bottomless ‘bank account’ of these qualities. I can withdraw them at any time, and amazingly, the account instantly refills with more than I withdrew. I get wealthier with kindness the more I spend it, and patience produces more patience the more I practice it! 

IN WEALTH

In Wealth, WA, USA,
there's prosperity in every moment, 
even in sorrow, 
which makes mounds of wisdom 
for those who wait for it. 
Even confusion has riches to bestow
when clarity comes back, 
and hard work always shows 
where treasures lie. 
In Wealth, the true valuables 
are kindness and caring,
of which there are mountains 
in this little town's treasury, 
and patience always produces resources
 folks had never noticed before. 
This town has cash hidden 
in breezes and sunshine and shadows, 
there are stacks of securities 
called 'quietness'
in every resident's portfolio,
and every street is called 'Easy'.

If you visit well-off Wealth, 
you're in for a surprise, 
for you'll discover how filthy-rich 
you, too, have always been!