In this week’s newsletter I want to do something different.
Normally, I break down a scientific idea and connect it to homelessness or de-escalation.
But today, I just feel anxious.
I feel anxious about the upcoming election….
I feel anxious because I don’t know how AI is going to change the world, especially for my kids…
And, honestly, I’m anxious about how a customer treated a stockboy at the grocery store last night…
When I feel like this I turn to a collection of quotes, poems and images I have hand selected for such moments.
They are my “kindling,” small sticks and dried leaves that I toss on the fire to hold back the bitter cold.
I have finally accepted that hope is the fire that warms the soul on the dark nights.
When I was a younger man, I thought that I needed to keep the fire blazing at all times—a bonfire of ambition for a better world.
Decades of fighting the forces of cruelty and indifference, though, have taught me something. It isn’t possible—or sustainable—to always burn brightly.
And it isn’t necessary.
The important part is that the fire not go out.
Working in a homeless shelter I witnessed how hard it is to restart a fire in a cold hearth. (Not impossible, but really hard).
But as long as there is a flicker—or even warm coals—there is potential… there is life.
So, perhaps you too need to tend your fire—to add a twig or a handful of leaves.
If so, I offer the poem that I huddled around this morning as I waited for dawn to break…
Holding the Light
by Stuart Kestenbaum
for Kait Rhoads
Gather up whatever is
glittering in the gutter,
whatever has tumbled
in the waves or fallen
in flames out of the sky,
for it’s not only our
hearts that are broken,
but the heart
of the world as well.
Stitch it back together.
Make a place where
the day speaks to the night
and the earth speaks to the sky.
Whether we created God
or God created us
it all comes down to this:
In our imperfect world
we are meant to repair
and stitch together
what beauty there is, stitch it
with compassion and wire.
See how everything
we have made gathers
the light inside itself
and overflows? A blessing.
Peace,
Ryan
