It has been several months since I last wrote a harvesting love blog post. (Perhaps in the future, I will say more about the weave of factors related to that long pause.)
What is prompting me to write right you now is having found such welcome upliftment in a wonderfully inspiring book about the power of human kindness. Human Kind: Changing the World One Small Act at a Time shines a light on how even the smallest of actions can be life-changing.
Whether you choose to read this balm-for-the-soul book or not, the primary reason for my sharing about it has to do with the choice to focus on light right now, to carry light, to be light. This is such a vital time for each of us to be the change we want to see in the world.
What led me to Human Kind have been my ongoing, inner questions and yearnings about how to contribute to a better world, a world rooted in love and its manifestations.
Of late, I have often felt powerless and discouraged in the face of the dispiriting developments in the United States, the devastation in Gaza, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, drought and starvation in African lands, and much other human suffering. But instead of succumbing to fear and doubting humanity’s better angels, I have been trying to focus on the light, no matter the darkness.
Witnessing the fanning of fear and feeling fear stir in me in response, I have also been meditating on Trust. I am not speaking of blind faith nor denial, but rather of choosing, to the extent I can, to root deeper in Love. It feels so important that this focus on love and light be practical, i.e., a practice.
All this led me to Brad Aronson’s wondrous book about just that: practicing love–one small action, one kindness, at a time.
Human Kind is replete with story after story of acts of human kindness and their transformative power. At this time in particular, this book is exquisite medicine for the soul.
A few days ago, I read about Markeytia Poindexter, a girl exposed to terrible violence and abuse as a very young child. During yet another stay in her city’s large youth detention center (aka juvenile jail), Markeytia was summoned by the center’s director. Expecting the worst, Markeytia opened the door and to her amazement the room was full of balloons. Turning fifteen, this was the first time in her life that Markeytia had ever had a birthday party. It was also the first time, she recounted later, that she experienced anyone expressing gladness that she had been born and was alive in the world.
The entire life of this young woman—who had been running away from abusive foster placements, doing drugs, sleeping in stolen cars, and becoming more and more lost to herself—was changed by that birthday party. Markeytia committed herself to school and worked her way up to earning a Master’s degree. She is now a clinical social worker focusing on supporting traumatized youth in the foster care system.
There are so many examples in the book of how being seen, heard and valued can change a life.
What makes the book extra wonderful is that it is full of entry points, listed at the end of chapters and at the end of the book in the “Human Kind Hall of Fame,” small yet immeasurably meaningful ways to contribute to the lives of others in our families, communities, and beyond. Some of these are actions that take 15 minutes, such as writing cards to people in a variety of difficult and/or isolated situations.
At a time when it could be so tempting to feel hopeless about human nature, Human Kind is a splendid reminder of our innate capacity and desire to be kind to each other—and of our power to effect the world.
And I/you/we do not have to wait to do any of this “perfectly” or in ways better or more far-reaching than we imagine ourselves capable of–as I was reminded by the Baal Shem Tov and I share below…
💜
A BIT OF BACK STORY
So, here’s what happened one morning a week or so ago when I first felt moved to tell you about Human Kind, which was also the first strong stirring in a long while to write and send a Harvesting Love letter.
One of the reasons that I stopped sending Harvesting Love letters had to do with questioning their value. Who, I thought, needed more words, yet another email? Everyone’s lives so full already… So many other people sending loving messages…
Unsure of whether to write you or not, I picked up my novel, The Tremble of Love, and, as I do sometimes, I closed my eyes and opened the book. The passage to which I was led could not have been more aligned with the essential message in Human Kind and with my question about whether or not to write you.
The intention to love is our fuel.
Instead of being held back by some imagined measure of value, we can simply invite love to infuse and guide our words, our hands, our offerings.
Imperfectly perfect beings that we are, we offer our perfectly imperfect actions with love.
A tiny, flickering flame in a very dark room can bring a whole lot of light.
From The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov
The night after the seven-day mourning period ended, Yisroel climbed the narrow staircase to the small room. He knocked lightly on the door and, after Elias invited him to enter, he pushed the door open slowly.
Yisroel expected to find Elias carefully fashioning letters by lantern light. Instead, the young man sat with shoulders hunched on the edge of his bed, his quills idle on a wooden board.
Yisroel drew closer, seeing the quiver he had noticed earlier in Elias’ right hand. Elias stretched out his arm, not lifting his gaze. When he spoke, his voice was subdued.
“It has been a year since I have been able to work as a scribe. The tremor in my hand prevents me from forming the letters with the perfection required.”
Yisroel crossed the room, knelt, and picked up a piece of parchment that lay crumpled near the leg of the table where Elias had worked previously. He spread the wrinkled parchment on the table. Yisroel motioned Elias to approach.
Reluctantly, Elias crossed the room and sat in the chair he no longer came to regularly.
“Pick up your quill, Elias.”
Perhaps because he was used to following the directions of his former tutor, Elias did what was asked of him. He murmured that he had picked up this quill less than a handful of times in the past year. When he now failed to control the movement of his right hand, he put the quill down.
“In the right corner of the page,” Yisroel told him, ignoring Elias’ reluctance, “make the smallest of letters: Yud—a single flame with immeasurable power to ignite.”
Elias slowly opened a jar of ink with only a very small amount left in it.
“What makes the Yud perfect is not its shape or that you write it without trembling,” Yisroel said firmly. “What makes the letter perfect is the intention with which you write it.”
Elias put the point of the quill to the paper, his arm trembling so much that he feared tearing a hole in the page. After making a small mark where Yisroel had asked for the Yud, Elias, discouraged, let his arm slacken.
“Now the letter Heh, Elias. Be less concerned with controlling your hand than with directing your mind and heart. What I am asking for is not the perfection of your previous work, but a different kind of perfection.”
When Elias finished the Heh, Yisroel asked that it be followed by a Vov, then another Heh. He was instructing Elias to form one of the ineffable names of God, Yud-Heh-Vov-Heh whose syllables are never to be pronounced as written, but instead spoken as Adonai.
Yisroel smiled, placing his hand lightly on Elias’s left shoulder. “Perfection is a pure heart willing to write the names of God, despite doubting one’s ability to do so.”
The two spent the entire night together, Yisroel intoning the names of God, which Elias then wrote.
Adonai. Ayn Sof. Elohim.
Some were written with great hesitation. Others poured out of the tip of Elias’ quill almost as they had before the trembling had begun.
In closing,
I wish you and our world a new year in which human kindness and awareness of each other’s value and beauty triumph, one small action, one open heart at a time.
Please join me in not underestimating your contribution to life.
From my heart to yours,
Ani
G'Mar Chatima Tova
I close with this customary greeting whose literal meaning is: "a good final sealing." I will add to that: May you know the love of which you are made. What better than to know this?
With gratitude,
Ani
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