When you entered this hard world the first thing you sought was soft. After your voyage through the birth canal that is what your newborn self wanted: your mother's breasts, her rounded touch, her cradling arms, her body-warmed milk.

   You never lose your yearning for what the kind earth can offer you. Thus there are the pillows of sleep, the lullabies of the moon, your fascination with clouds, the appeal of dawn's light. 

   As John O'Donohue told us, "Light is always more fragile at the threshold." So were you in your first moments. So will you be in your last breaths. And in the raw moments when illness returns you to a brittle state your body and soul will scream for soft. 

   Injury is the essence of hard. Illness thins the cushion between you and the jagged blades of agony. 

   Hospitals are lined with hard surfaces and harsher light. Caregivers must keep curing environments sterile and filled with enough light to see where the scalpel must cut and the needle needs to go. 

   Yet, healing (beyond curing) occurs in settings where hard competence is balanced with soft compassion.

   You can buy treatments. But, healing cannot be purchased.

   Just as Beauty cannot be acquired Love cannot be owned. 

   Love, as God, is an experience not a thing, a question not an answer, a continuous exploration not a final discovery.

   Love is wild and beyond taming.

   Love tamed is Love drained.

   Possessive parents and jealous lovers are always surprised to discover this deep truth. 

   Today, you can soften life with your hands, your eyes and with the kinder tones in your voice. Today, let Love dance through you in all her willd and gentle beauty. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph, "Elaine soft with child," 2009