Be Kind

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.”