"Be Kind, For Everyone is Fighting a Great Battle"

Quiet intelligence with civilizational power

Dear Friends,

In these quiet days of a violent December, a single, simple sentence is coming back to me from the earliest days of On Being. It was a gift from the late wise physician Sherwin Nuland. He attributed it to Philo of Alexandria, but I also find it credited to Plato or the 19^th-century Scottish Reverend John Watson:

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

This sentence has stayed alive for centuries, because it tells an enduring truth each of us feels in our bones upon reading it. But it is far more than a gentle reminder in this world we inhabit. It is quiet intelligence with civilizational power. The news brings it home every day now with awful variation — the chaos and terror that a despairing human being can wreak.

On my bad days, I can almost grow nostalgic for the high geopolitical terrors of the Cold War world of my childhood and young adulthood. Then, we lived with the stark knowledge that nuclear missiles, hidden in the ground within striking distance of any one of us, could ascend at any moment with the push of a button. Now, it feels like our time and its technologies are weaponizing the inborn vulnerability and volatility of human beings.

This counsel of Philo (or Plato or Rev. Watson) becomes a way to anchor and stand more gracefully before this reality of our time. “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.” See what happens if you take this as a life practice through the ordinary encounters of your days. How do you internalize the news differently? How do you grieve the pain and celebrate the beauty of this world differently? That fathoms of struggle hide in you and in people you love is true too of every stranger, even those who vex and frighten. So is the fact that we and they are more than the sum of our struggles, and we are all capable of surprising ourselves, and of healing and changing, our whole lives long. Tenderness on the part of beloveds and strangers goes a long way to help.

I send this note with blessings to you for a tender, peaceful turn of the year. We are in production for a short, powerful season of new On Being episodes that will be published beginning in January. Stay tuned for more, and I’d love to encounter you at one of the events planned for the months ahead that are described below.

I offer this with love, as always,

Krista

In the World

You’re Invited:

Los Angeles, Sunday, January 11, 2 p.m. “In Search of Common Cause”: Krista will be in conversation with acclaimed Iranian-German thinker Navid Kermani on literature, politics, and spirituality in a polarized world. At the Los Angeles Public Library, in collaboration with the Thomas Mann House. Reserve a ticket here.

Brookline, MA, Wednesday, January 14, 7 p.m. Krista will be in conversation with novelist Nicole Krauss, hosted by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They’ll explore how music and literature offer redemptive paths through history, loss, and the search for meaning, taking inspiration from Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms”. Purchase tickets here.

New York City, Thursday, February 26, 7 p.m. Krista will host a Well-Being Concert, presented by Carnegie Hall, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Grammy Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan will perform works by J. S. Bach and Buxtehude, joined by Theotokos, a renowned sacred ensemble, and the Cathedral’s timeless, healing acoustics. Purchase tickets here.

Listen:

Poetry Unbound is back! A new season is underway and will run through March. ICYMI: Padraig published two new books this year — 44 Poems On Being with Each Other and Kitchen Hymns. Find them on our Bookshop page, and subscribe to Pádraig’s newsletter, Poetry Unbound, to stay in touch with his reflections and adventures.