Good Morning, Kindness

Have you ever wondered why people need credit? Why great buildings are brought forth on the backs of many so that we can worship a singular human from a moment in history?

Why do we need busts of Presidents, or Presidents at all? Why does a tower need to be built in honor of The Great No One Really Cares?

I find myself often pondering the space we have found ourselves in as a growing society. We’re surrounded by hierarchy… in our jobs, in our families, in our friendships, in our entertainment. If we have 1,000 followers we need 10,000. If we have $1,000 we need $10,000. More is always better, and there is no such thing as enough. Someone always has to be on top and that typically isn’t us average folk, and yet us average folk want to be on top AND we worship those who are. We break our backs to serve our CEOs, we fall over backwards to shake hands with that guy who was on that TV show. The cycle is perpetual, never ending, a treadmill of continual not-enough-ness.

Why do we need to glorify a member of our species, instead of a member of the moral code?

This week I was at the Bahá'í Temple in the Chicago during a silent day in the middle of my first week of training as a Spiritual Guide. As I walked into the Welcome Center, I found myself staring at two photos of these elaborate designs and buildings around the dead bodies of the religion's founders, or "Messengers" as they called themselves. They were glorious, and costly. The entire area—temple, welcome center, gardens—looked very costly and was probably built by people who weren’t paid what they are worth. (There we go again, never enough… is it even escapable?)

I was so curious, why we worship the dead, why we worship the living, why we worship the people. What if we changed what we worshipped?

What would a House of Worship look like if it was dedicated to compassion? Butterflies and spiders allowed to live in peace. Wildflowers growing however they wish because hey, compassion. We love what you are exactly as you are. Each smile full of bliss, because let’s face it—true Compassion is a type of high we’re grateful to experience (and it's free.)

What would our day look like if each morning we woke up and said a prayer to Kindness?

"Good morning, Kindness. I ask that you please show me throughout the day how I can best emanate you, and how I can best serve you with the people I meet today." Or, "Strength, I really need your help. Work is taking over my life and I am miserable. Please help me stand up for myself."

Friendships would change. We’d be praying to Authenticity so we could no longer be fake. Honesty would blossom as we turned to her each and every day to guide us along our path. No more filtering our lives, the rawness seeping into each moment and awakening before us like a beautiful sunrise. There would be no need to fake it anymore, Humility would see to it that we no longer had to join in on the rat race and we could just be.

Could you imagine the world we would live in, if instead of saying our prayers to Jesus or Buddha, we worshipped the morals they lived by? If instead of saying we could never be like them, we went through them to the way they lived? "I am enough, and here’s how." The Great Truth of my Existence pushes me onward toward a beautiful destiny of lovely memories and embraced sorrow. Woah. Just imagine that kind of world. Where when we were sad, we could just be sad—because we worshipped the beauty of Sorrow. We sat with her as she held our hands and we wept into her lap.

That reality may be too much for us to bear. It might just be easier to filter our photos and caffeinate our sorrow so we can just make it through another day in the attempts to be like that other person who looks so much better than we do, who has it all together. We’ll just keep pushing forward and die not enough. Or maybe… just maybe, we’ll wake up tomorrow and pray to Compassion—no need to add a human face, no need to put yet another thing between us.

Yes, Mother Compassion, we need you today. Please be with each of us as we walk through this frighteningly beautiful reality.

All my Love to each of you. <3