The Kitchen: Right, good, true?

Then I said,

“You asked me if I thought your visions were true,

I would say that they were if they make you become

More human,

More kind to every creature and plant

That you know.”  Hafiz

The conversation could be about anything that matters to us.  The question could be about that thing:  is what is important to me true, is it right, is it good, is it the way?  Is it good for me to work in the kitchen preparing food for my family?  Is it good for me to get up on Sunday and go to church?  Is it good for me to go downtown and volunteer in a shelter or stand in witness at a protest?  Is it good for me to work hard at my job and earn a pension? Is it good, right, true for me to . . . ?

We would be hard pressed to surpass the wonderful dish that Hafiz serves up in The Kitchen:  what you do is right, is good, is true, is honorable–if it makes you become more human, more kind to every creature and plant that you know.

And if what we do or devote ourselves to or practice does not make us more human and more kind, then why does it matter?

I ask my students to write for me at the beginning of every school year their personal responses to two questions:  what is important to you?  why does it matter?  And then, I read them.  What a feast!  What repast they create for me in their writing about what is important to them and why it matters.  Take those two questions today, and if you will, live with them for a while.

Bob Patrick