Twenty-five years ago I wrote a Dispatch column titled: “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty. Glory be, I think it’s me!” That was 25 years ago, so . . . well, you can
do the math. Let’s just say I’m now a
card-carrying, bona-fide, certified, qualified member of the Medicare
generation. In other words, I am
officially old!
I was telling my
grandchildren a story and said, “When I was a little boy, cars didn’t even have
seatbelts.” “Wow Gdaddy,” they
said. “They had cars when you were
little?”
My grandson saw
the sign in front of our church that has my name and the inscription, “Founded
1881.” He studied it for a minute and
said, “Gdaddy, you have been here a long time!”
They say that
getting older makes one wiser. I’m not
so sure about that. In that column 25
years ago I think I shared some of my “wisdom” that I had acquired through the
years, but I can’t remember what it was. But now that I have traversed this planet for
three-score and five years, allow me to share the most important truth that I
have gleaned along the way.
Be kind.
That’s it. The greatest advice, the principle truth, the
primary wisdom, the most important thing a person can do is to be kind. Kindness will not only make a difference in
the world, it can transform it.
There is
something more important than being right—and that is being kind. Kindness is a gift. Kindness is a blessing. Kindness is the power to impact the lives of
others in a redemptive way.
The Italian
psychologist Piero Ferrucci not only believes in the power of kindness, but
feels it is a necessity in today’s fractured world. He warns against the danger of “global
cooling” as our world becomes more anxious, difficult, frightening, and
divided. He observes: "In these days of rising impersonality,
when a computer voice will say hello and thank you at the supermarket, and people
look at their smart phones and not at you, and eat in front of a screen, warmth
and human contact are a dangerously dwindling resource."
Kindness has many
components: love, forgiveness, empathy,
compassion, honesty, patience, and understanding. Kindness is like a breath of fresh air, like
a fine-tuned musical instrument, like a bubbling mountain stream. Kindness not only sees the good in other
people, it enables them to see the good in themselves. Kindness is contagious, it is
life-giving. It inspires hope and
trust. It lifts us up to a higher level
of living.
Dr. Ferrucci in
his book The Power of Kindness reveals that “the kindest people are the most
likely to thrive, to enable others to thrive, and to slowly but steadily turn
our world away from violence, self-centeredness, and narcissism- and toward
love.”
The Apostle
John was the only one of the twelve disciples who lived to old age and died a
natural death. The story goes that when
he was elderly he suffered from dementia, but the believers always made sure he
was present at their gatherings because his kindness never diminished. They said he would smile and repeat over and
over, “Love one another. Love one
another. Love one another.”
And so
Gdaddy, now that you are old, what wisdom do you have to share with us? “When I was a little boy, back in the horse
and buggy days, we would travel to the church down in LA (Lower Alabama) in the
deep snow and learn Bible verses. One of
the first verses I learned was ‘Be ye kind, one to another.’ After sixty-five years I can’t think of any
better advice than this: Be Kind.”
