The Rhythm of Each

I was at a fascinating all-day workshop yesterday about dreams and the messages they hold -- a fundraiser for the organization that has won my heart and soul. It's called Bread for the Journey and if you're lucky enough to live in a town like Ashland that has a chapter, you are blessed indeed. Bread for the Journey is a neighborhood philanthropy. They raise money from local townsfolk and give it back -- every single penny of it -- in the form of micro-grants to people who have a passion, a dream, a something that will benefit or heal or bring joy to the greater community.

Wayne Muller, an ordained minister, therapist and author founded the organization 20 years ago. "The success or failure of any single project is far less important than the offering of the gift," he said. "The project can always be altered, revamped, resurrected. But a gift not offered dies in the heart."

I was the recipient of a Bread for the Journey grant several years ago when I was invited to speak about peace at an international conference but didn't have the money for airfare and hotels. I didn't apply for the grant, but somehow Bread for the Journey heard about my plight, invited me to lunch, and handed me a check for the exact amount of the airfare.

At yesterday's event, my housemate Nancy, who's now on the board of directors, read the following poem. It was written by Mark Nepo, the poet laureate of Bread for the Journey. It comes to you with love.

THE RHYTHM OF EACH

I think each comfort we manage—
each holding in the night, each opening
of a wound, each closing of a wound, each
pulling of a splinter or razored word, each
fever sponged, each clear thing given
to someone in greater need—each
passes on the kindness we’ve known.

For the human sea is made of waves
that mount and merge till the way a
nurse rocks a child is the way that child
all grown rocks the wounded, and how
the wounded, allowed to go on, rock
strangers who in their pain
don’t seem so strange.

Eventually, the rhythm of kindness
is how we pray and suffer by turns,
and if someone were to watch us
from inside the lake of time, they
wouldn’t be able to tell if we are
dying or being born.