I’ve been thinking a lot recently about tenderness. I’ve been thinking about care, and attention, and holding things close. And the heart, that tender organ, the home of our histories and hopes, I’ve been thinking about the heart, too. I’ve been thinking about how it can expand and can encompass so very much. But it cannot do this without tenderness. And it cannot do this without a little bit of tension and discomfort.
The words “tenderness” and “tension” share the same word root. They both come to us from the PIE *ten which means “to stretch.” I know that this is important. We cannot be tender with others without being willing to stretch, without being willing to risk discomfort. And this wildly brave act of willingness will always come with a sense of tension, because we cannot know what will happen. We cannot know that our tenderness will be met with safety and care.
And yet, when I think about tenderness I always come back to this: that the word itself, tenderness, holds more than one definition:
✨Tenderness is lovingness, is gentleness, the enactment of caring.
✨Tenderness is painfulness, is vulnerability, the site of a wound.
How immense it is that this word can hold these two definitions at once! I do not think this is by accident. I think we can only be loving and caring if we acknowledge our own soft spots, our own vulnerabilities.
Do not close yourself off from tenderness. Do not become hardened. Do not turn away from the tenderness needed in the world. We are all delicate. We are all easily bruised. But we are also all worthy of love. I dream that our tenderness will stretch and cover all the earth with caring. I hope that we can remember to be tender in even the hardest times. Do not let your tenderness be hidden.
Be tender-hearted.