Creating A Shelter of Kindness

A Reflection At The Turn Of The Year

Jan 01, 2023

man in black jacket and black pants standing on brown rock formation in middle of body — Photo by Adam Rhodes on Unsplash

But what happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?“ Ross Gay “Inciting Joy”

January is named for the Roman god Janus, who presided over endings, beginnings, doorways and transitions. The gaze of Janus is often depicted as looking simultaneously forward and back, an image of the eternal “now” living smack dab in the middle of all that was and all that is yet to be. At the turn of the year there is much written about looking forward, self improvement, assessing what has not been done (or done well enough) and resolving to do it (or do it better). But I think I prefer the image of Janus and imagining how I might turn the last page of the calendar year as not just a time to look forward, but rather as the moment when before and after meet, when I my joys and sorrows pull up a chair and share a cup of tea with my hopes and dreams. There is a wholeness to it, an acknowledgement of our unchangeable past, and a claiming of all that we aspire to in the unseeable future, meeting (as it they always do) in the eternal now.

In the opening chapter of Ross Gay’s luminous new book, Inciting Joy, the author imagines a potluck gathering where everyone brings their joys and their sorrows (along with a hot dish). In his description, our joys and sorrows are not separate things like two sides of a coin, but more like a piece of beautifully woven cloth, each thread a part of the whole. It goes on to describe how people treated one another differently when they really saw and better understood the the unseparated whole of one another’s experience. They were more giving, more tender, less judgmental, more appreciative of the moments when joy softens and connection lifts our lives.

We are all that we carry, not just the stuff we might put on a resume. We are more than the most winning cards in our hand. We are all the things that made us weep for joy and relief as well as grief and loss. We are all the experiences we carry that made us wiser and more tender to the sorrows of others. We are the courage we found after hope was lost, the wonder and mystery of what we sense, but cannot yet see.

So perhaps the turn of the year is a place to rest, a moment for the eternal now to sit in kind regard and warm conversation with all that was and will be. Perhaps today is a good time to ponder the whole cloth of our own life and the other lives around us. Perhaps in recognizing our shared human condition and that we all carry our joys and sorrows, hopes and longings as well as our eternal now, we might be kinder in the process more tender with one another. Perhaps in sensing the whole cloth, I might embrace delight with more exuberance and humble gratitude.

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Below is the poem The Most Important Thing by Julia Fehrenbacher. I loved the generosity of this poem and the poet’s fierce and tender resolve to open up more inner space for kindness toward herself and to create a safe place for the whole of her experience to live. I found it fitting for the new year, a way of looking forward and back with more compassion and love, to create “a shelter of kindness” and “fiercely friendly place”.

Question: What does it mean to create “a shelter of kindness” within yourself?

What do you think about the image of Janus and the idea of a meeting place where our sorrows and joys, hopes and longings are all welcomed and embraced as we enter the new year?

A Gathering of Spirits

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