Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all

Host: The field stretched endlessly beneath the August sky, its color caught between gold and sorrow. Half of it shimmered with wildflowers — fierce, radiant, alive — while the other half lay still and dry, the earth cracked, its silence heavy. The wind moved unevenly, skipping from bloom to dust, as if even nature couldn’t decide where to rest.

A small road cut through the middle — a thin gray thread. On its edge stood Jack, his shirt clinging with heat, his eyes tracing the invisible border between fertility and failure. Jeeny sat on a fence post, her hands holding a straw hat in her lap, her gaze drifting toward the brighter half of the field.

Host: The sun hung low but merciless, pressing its weight on both the living and the lifeless. Around them, the cicadas sang a slow dirge of summer — monotonous, ancient, real.

Jeeny: “Kent Nerburn once said, ‘Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun.’”
Her voice was soft but carried through the heat like a thread of shade. “I think he meant that compassion isn’t a luxury — it’s survival.”

Jack: He kicked at the dirt near his feet, dust rising and settling like a sigh. “You say that,” he murmured, “but people love to measure each other — success, failure, worth. As if we plant and reap in the same soil.”

Jeeny: “We don’t,” she said. “That’s exactly the point. Chance decides more than choice ever does. But we forget — and then blame the ones whose roots never found water.”

Host: The wind shifted again, brushing through the dry stalks, making them whisper. The air smelled faintly of earth and something brittle — like endings dressed in sunlight.

Jack: “You really think it’s all chance?” he asked. “You think the ones who struggle were just unlucky?”

Jeeny: “Not unlucky,” she said. “Unchosen. By rain. By timing. By fate. The world doesn’t hand out fairness — it hands out weather.”

Host: Jack looked across the divide — one half glowing with the brilliance of life, the other pale and cracked, yearning.

Jack: “But doesn’t that make everything meaningless?” he asked. “If it’s all chance, why try?”

Jeeny: “Because trying is what makes us human,” she said. “Even the dry field still holds the memory of seeds. Effort isn’t wasted just because the outcome is uncertain.”

Host: Her words lingered like the dust caught in light. Jack exhaled, his shoulders relaxing slightly, his gaze softening.

Jack: “You sound like you’re forgiving everyone,” he said.

Jeeny: “Maybe I am,” she smiled faintly. “Forgiving is just remembering that no one chose their soil.”

Host: The sunlight glimmered on her hair, making her look like part of the field — half fire, half grace.

Jack: “You make it sound easy,” he said. “But I’ve spent half my life angry at people who had it easier. And the other half angry at myself for not being one of them.”

Jeeny: “That’s the cruelty of comparison,” she said quietly. “We keep thinking we’re all running the same race, when really, some of us were born on hills and others in valleys.”

Host: The sound of cicadas swelled again, louder, a vibration that seemed to fill the emptiness between words. The heat shimmered, distorting the horizon like a mirage of hope refusing to die.

Jack: “Then what’s the point?” he said, his voice low. “If life is just chance and weather, how do you live without bitterness?”

Jeeny: “By remembering gentleness,” she said. “For yourself first, and then for others. The world doesn’t need more judges. It needs witnesses — people who look at what’s broken and don’t turn away.”

Host: Her words sank into him like water finding a long-forgotten root. He stared out at the fields again — one side bursting with life, the other dry and barren — and for the first time, he didn’t see contrast. He saw kinship.

Jack: “Maybe the brown field isn’t failure,” he said slowly. “Maybe it’s just resting.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said. “Even the earth needs time to heal before it blooms again. Why should we be any different?”

Host: The sun dipped lower now, the light turning softer, forgiving. Shadows stretched long and thin across the land. Jack walked a few steps into the brown field, knelt down, and touched the cracked soil with his fingers.

Jack: “It’s still warm,” he said quietly. “Still alive underneath.”

Jeeny: “See?” she said, her voice like a smile. “Gentleness isn’t weakness. It’s recognizing the life still hidden under what looks dead.”

Host: He rubbed the earth between his palms — coarse, dry, but somehow grounding. Then he stood, looking at her with an expression caught between wonder and regret.

Jack: “You know,” he said, “I’ve spent years blaming myself for not blooming fast enough. For not being someone else’s harvest.”

Jeeny: “And all that time,” she said, “you forgot — even flowers grow slower in drought.”

Host: Silence again, but now it was not heavy. The wind moved gently through both sides of the field, as if carrying reconciliation from one to the other. The golden side swayed; the brown side listened.

Jack: “You ever wonder,” he said, “why some people blossom so effortlessly while others keep breaking just trying to grow?”

Jeeny: “Maybe because the ones who break learn compassion,” she said. “And that’s its own kind of blooming.”

Host: The first stars appeared faintly above them, trembling in the cooling sky. The cicadas quieted, as if the earth itself were sighing in relief.

Jack: “So that’s what Nerburn meant,” he said softly. “Being gentle isn’t about fixing what’s wrong — it’s about seeing it and loving it anyway.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said. “We are all children of chance — and that makes kindness the only thing that’s truly deliberate.”

Host: The last light of the sun brushed across their faces — warm, fleeting, forgiving. Jack turned toward her, and for the first time, smiled without defense.

Jack: “Maybe next time, I’ll plant with hope instead of expectation.”

Jeeny: “And water with patience,” she added.

Host: The two of them stood there, side by side, as the horizon swallowed the last of the sun. The field — both living and barren — lay quiet, equal now under dusk’s mercy.

Host: And as the wind passed one final time across the soil, carrying the scent of both bloom and dust, Kent Nerburn’s words seemed to rise with it — tender, timeless, true:

that we are all children of chance,
born into different fields beneath the same sun;
that some of us flower, some of us falter,
and all of us deserve gentleness — for we do not choose our seasons;
and that to be kind, to be patient, to forgive —
is to love the world as it is,
and still believe in its quiet promise to bloom again.