My niece stared intently at the flames of the yahrzeit candles and said, "The memory might stay in the candle. No matter how it melts, there comes water."
My mother said, after my niece offered me a piece of her chocolate chip cookie that it was too late for me to eat, "When in doubt, teach kindness."
I don't know how to feel about Yom Kippur in a year when the levers of the world seem all in the hands of people who will not submit to judgment, who will never acknowledge the harm they do, much less consent to the much harder work of halting it, healing instead of merely apologizing, repairing the world they broke. It does not absolve me of the need to shore my own fragments and try not to cut anyone else further on them. It does not remove my responsibility for as much of the wounded world as I can reach. It feels right now like very little. It doesn't matter. If all you can do is tell the story, you tell the story, the forest and the fire and the prayer. The memory in the candle. Teach kindness.
My mother said, after my niece offered me a piece of her chocolate chip cookie that it was too late for me to eat, "When in doubt, teach kindness."
I don't know how to feel about Yom Kippur in a year when the levers of the world seem all in the hands of people who will not submit to judgment, who will never acknowledge the harm they do, much less consent to the much harder work of halting it, healing instead of merely apologizing, repairing the world they broke. It does not absolve me of the need to shore my own fragments and try not to cut anyone else further on them. It does not remove my responsibility for as much of the wounded world as I can reach. It feels right now like very little. It doesn't matter. If all you can do is tell the story, you tell the story, the forest and the fire and the prayer. The memory in the candle. Teach kindness.
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