Fiercely Kind? What an interesting concept…
i saw this on the social medias this week and absolutely fell in love.
Keep me Fiercely Kind!
That line jumps out at you! Ooh, i love that.
Who would have thought to put the words ‘fierce’ and ‘kind’ together in a way that somehow mysteriously carries so much power? [Edit: i have since found out it was Laura Jean Truman who came up with this @LauraJeanTruman]
Cos the fierce speaks of passion. But ‘Keep me passionately kind’ doesn’t carry nearly the same weight. Because ‘Fierce’ for me conjurs up the image of a mother animal – say a lioness – protecting her cubs. Or maybe even a gentler animal that would normally be seen as prey and not predator – so a deer or goat or Egyptian goose for that matter – suddenly switching gears the moment her young is threatened. That, for me, is fierce.
So fiercely kind? Ooh, that’s a serious form of kind!
We need to get angry
Anger often gets a bad rep. Because we tend to associate it with nasty or uncomfortable moments.
But the line here: Keep my anger turned towards Justice, not cruelty… but with the caveat of ‘Keep my anger from becoming meanness.’
A tough one for activist types who have committed to interrupting injustice in the form of racism and sexism and more. How do we stand against the perpetrators of bad things without ending up resembling them too much?
Maybe holding those two lines together will help us in this regard, because we DO need to be angry.
A heart that feels
‘Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking’. Wow, now that is fiercely beautiful.
When you work against injustice – and maybe even if you just spend too much time on social media – it can be easy for your heart to grow hard. It’s the Patch Adams vs the medical profession conundrum – if we treat patients as real people then we will keep getting hurt. Yes, keep getting hurt.
When you catch yourself watching a news bulletin talking about five people being shot and killed and your go-to response is, “Phew, only five people!” then you need to catch yourself and recondition your heart.
Resensitised needs to be a word. Through the media and particularly extremely violent movies and games we have desensitised ourselves beyond what is healthy and possibly what is humane.
Let me heart continue to break. That way i will continue to care. My anger will stay focused on Justice and my kind will remain fierce.
The author is Laura Jean Truman