This one is about "Kindness eases Change" ...

It's a quote from Parable of the Talents, the sequel of Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I like it.

As part of his interim rabbi tour around the northeast and Midwest, Rabbi Dad has used the subject of transition and the difficulty of change as a call to action during High Holiday sermons. Definitive change demands redirection. The river will keep flowing. The river will always keep flowing. It will erode, diverge, and even topple to ensure its current. The river will flow. Time continues as our constant, changing reliably evermore. If I’m to lift my head skyward through the earth towards the clouds, I cannot plant my stake with the hopes of stopping the current. The current prevails; the river flows. Yet instead of simply riding it completely at its will, I can build a raft and, maybe in my naiveté, can optimistically control my comfort level as I ride. Maybe install a steering mechanism. I cannot go backwards and I cannot stand still. But can I take hold, focus my locus of control, to center my experience? I believe I can. I believe in happiness. It is not inevitable, as I’ve found. Happiness does not always beget happiness. It must be actively pursued and nurtured. I am not as happy now as I can be. I took an emotional risk and it did not go as I would have liked. And now I’m hurting. But the hurting is new and will not last. It acts to ground me to my experiences and will one day be quite the beautiful overcome mountain behind me.

Look up. Look out. Reach up. Reach out.