One Good Word

Supersoling and I are having a bit of a conversation in a diary down below and I wanted to bring this portion of it up to the top. Here's a poem by David Whyte that captures some of what we've been talking about:

Loaves and Fishes

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

I love a poem like this because I think it speaks to something VERY BIG and then we can all project what our own limited vision finds in the words. What it speaks to for me is a feeling lately that I need to ramp down the amount of "data" that is going into my head right now about the state of our insanity in the world. I'm feeling overwhelmed and I think that pulls me down into the "muck."

I'm starving for "one good word." I don't mean the kind of superficial words that cover over the current state of things. But a good word that goes into the belly and builds up something that can withstand the onslaught.

UPDATE: I want to add something here that supersoling said in a comment below (and I hope you don't mind super):

Maybe Loaves and Fishes signifies a need to return to seeing to the basic needs of those without and a turn away from higher pursuits and goals. It's in the streets with the homeless, or around the kitchen table with our loved ones where the best we have to offer will make a difference. The larger tasks seem unattainable and out of reach now. So no matter what happens to our country, our planet, if we maintain those small, loving things we do for each other we'll retain enough of our humanity to begin something new, and hopefully better :o)

I know that I will always want to see the "big picture" of what's going on in the world and do what I can to have an impact. But if we get lost in that pursuit to the point that we don't attend to what we can do on a person-to-person level, I do think our humanity suffers. I believe that in our natural state, we are hard-wired for compassion. And if that need to reach out and have an impact in a very real way is dismissed, we begin to starve what is best in us.