Shoulders

by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

The Lord is my Shepherd…

“It’s hard to explain without sounding overly romantic, but when you’re in the presence of someone truly good—not performatively good, not “publicly moral” or selectively kind—but genuinely, deeply, relentlessly good… something shifts in you. You feel lighter. You feel braver. You feel like humanity, for all its wounds and wickedness, is still worth fighting for…”

When I find myself in times of trouble,

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be…

Be human in this most inhuman of ages. Guard the image of one another. We are the image of god.

Who is my neighbor?

“There are some people so hungry God can only appear as bread…”

If faith is up to us; and our feelings; that will often lead straight to, “crucify him.”

“Gather out of star-dust

            Earth-dust,

            Cloud-dust,

And splinters of hail,

One handful of dream-dust

            Not for sale.” Langston Hughes

“When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel