“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?” — Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Once there was a woman who knit.
She knit the sky and the cemetery,
narrow alleys and the deep sea, the highway
and the willow, starlight and the bare bulb.
It was not easy to slip such things onto her needles,
but she knew she could do hard things.
Of course, she doubted herself.
That did not stop her from knitting.
Every moment of every day, the chance
to add everything she saw and tasted, felt
and heard, into one blanket large enough
to touch everyone. It never was quite large enough,
though, she every day, she kept on knitting.
She could feel herself how silky, how cozy it was.
What makes softness is no secret. It is love.
Sometimes she dropped a stitch. Sometimes
she lost the pattern and had to start a row over.
Sometimes she had to make up something new.
But she knew what she had to do. Something. Anything.
Everything she could to make this sad and beautiful
world a little softer for everyone. There is no end
to the work she does. Every day, she picks
it up, admires the progress she’s made, worries
about the holes, starts her knitting again.
Posts Tagged ‘compassion’
True Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, history, inclusion, knitting, story on March 30, 2026| 4 Comments »
This Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, time on March 20, 2026| 4 Comments »
Driving past the graveyard
listening to news
as it explodes—
while we breathe
it’s never too late
to choose compassion.
The Spreading
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, daisies, humanness, kindness, love, monks, wounds on February 10, 2026| 6 Comments »
There’s a place in my brain where hate won’t grow.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem”
Sometimes a seed of compassion
slips into my brain and lands in a place
where before only anger could grow.
These seeds appear
when I stop seeing humans
as only our actions and start
seeing all of us as walking wounds.
They appear when I see others
finding ways to be generous, to be kind.
If I offer the seed the barest scrap
of attention, it begins to grow roots.
Then a stem. Then seed leaves.
More leaves. A bud. But what allows
for this growth is far beyond me—
rather some gift that comes through
when me and my story get out of the way.
This is how I sometimes come to find
a whole field of inner daisies thriving
in a place I once torched to the dirt.
At first, they needed my constant care.
Then they reseeded again. And again.
They spread into such unpredictable
places. Sometimes outside my inner world.
The same way the seeds arrived in me.
Through kindness. Through love.
It’s beautiful.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Dear friends,
Today was day 120 of the monks walking from Texas to Washington DC to bring awareness to mindfulness and peace, compassion and connection. Today, after 2,300 miles, they arrived. What an amazing way to shine light on what is good inside all of us. How do we embody peace instead of arguing for it? What a question to live into.
The Layers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, cottonwood, layers, self-protection, tree, vulnerability on December 6, 2025| 6 Comments »
Furrowed and runnelled and rough,
the gnarled bark of this old cottonwood.
The dead thickness protects living tissue
from cold, from wind, from flames.
I, too, am older, but somehow survival
shows up for me the opposite.
Any shields I would build up as barriers—
life keeps peeling them away.
What thickens around me now are layers
of dynamic compassion—vital, vulnerable,
ever-growing. They do not protect
against wounds. Instead, they seem to say,
Be with what aches, my dear. Trusting
discomfort is the only way.
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, heartache, ice, immigration on November 13, 2025| 8 Comments »
Teachers and fathers,
bakers and builders,
sisters in plaid shirts
and sons with shy smiles
kicked and punched,
sprayed and tackled,
grabbed and tased
and thrown to the ground,
locked up and jailed,
despised, dehumanized.
What is the heart to do when,
in the face of brutality, we hear
not only weeping, but cheering?
How do we go on?
Maybe you choose to ignore it.
Maybe you tell yourself,
this doesn’t affect me.
Maybe you rationalize.
Maybe you feel your heart break
again and again, as seed walls
must give for a seedling to grow.
Maybe you notice breaking open
is the only way love can go on.
Maybe you turn toward
life, belonging, respect
and ask your longing to grow you,
to guide your hands, your breath.
Maybe you say to the ache,
teach me, bless me, enliven me.
Maybe you listen more deeply.
Maybe you find other broken hearts
with heartbeats that rhyme with your own.
The terror is real. Fear is strong.
We are still here. How will we go on?
Meeting Intimidation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, intimidation on March 13, 2025| 4 Comments »
What if, in that moment when Wendy introduced us,
I had not been afraid to say more than hello?
What if I had not turned toward someone else
as if I had something I needed to say to them.
A week later, it’s so easy to see what I was doing
was turning away from the woman who,
through no fault of her own, daunted me.
What if I’d decided it was okay to feel afraid
and I invited myself to be uncomfortable
and stay with the interaction anyway?
What if I had asked her a question, any
open and honest question, such as,
“What felt good to you about tonight?”
Or, “How does it feel to be here?”
What if I had said nothing at all, and simply
offered her my awkward but honest attention?
How often do I let my fear make choices for me?
How much is lost in these moments of cowardice?
A chance for connection? A chance to meet
the small and uneasy parts of me that I would rather
hide from? A chance to see through my defenses?
A chance to be surprised by how generous
the world can be when I don’t turn away?
Letter to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, empathy, heart, imitation, mockingbird, song on March 8, 2025| 6 Comments »
Once I was embarrassed
you were a mockingbird.
I wished you were more
hermit thrush, more meadowlark,
more cliff swallow in the canyon,
heck, even wished you were
robin or wren.
At last I’m coming to see
the gift of learning another’s song,
letting it pierce you, own you,
then braiding it with your own tune,
to sing back to the world
as one.
And in This Way, He Still Lives
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, dad, kindness, legacy on October 30, 2024| 21 Comments »
for my dad
There was that time that he bought
a television for the woman who came
to the house to clean while he and mom were sick.
She had mentioned offhand hers had broken.
He was like that. Would take smoked salmon
for the men and women at the firehouse.
Would make certificates for people
to honor kind things they had done.
It was as if he could read the small thought bubbles
that appear above people’s heads,
the ones we read in cartoons
but can’t see in real life,
the ones that say what they really need,
and then he’d offer a kindness.
Not that he was a saint.
My god, could he get angry.
Not that he looked for people to care for,
more that he really looked at the people
who came across his path.
This is how I want him to live on in me,
his hands guiding mine to give.
One Day Later
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, fear, tears on September 15, 2024| 2 Comments »
after drying the tears
her fear
still wet