Tuesday's Thought

During the Christmas Season things pop into your mind that make a kind of mystical connection with the whole Christmas Story. In the past couple of hours, the whole idea of kindness has kind of swallowed me whole. This morning at precisely 6:00 a.m. ( precisely because she is NEVER late) my eldest daughter, Katy, arrived at my house for the 4th early morning time to help me bandage a stray cat who we found at school with a terrible injury. His rear paw had been "decuffed" and the flesh was down to the bone. As I hold the cat, she applies a complicated bandage she invented for the wound.

There are many people in the world who would ask, "Don't you have better things to do with the little time you two have?" The answer to that would be, "We have lots to do, and this is just one of those things. It's about kindness. Kindness to a cat is none the less kindness."

The keeping of animals teaches kindness. The ability of an adult to be kind to creatures smaller than self, less able to understand than we are able, and needy when we are not is a movement of spiritual side of the heart. When this kindness is demonstrated to the child, the child models the parent and becomes kind. Kindness often earns more than it costs to do.

As a child, kindness was not a thing I learned at home. There was little if any kindness applied toward the scapegoat child. I learned kindness from two beloved neighbors, Parky Doyle and Margaret Kyle who treated me with great kindness when there was little at home. My first grade teacher, Mrs. MacDonald, also showed me great kindness. For these women in my life, I am truly grateful.

Kindness is really an act of mercy. We don't use the word mercy much because it has a flavor of the "court" these days. But using the words interchangeably, we can quote Shakespeare and understand a little about kindness and mercy: "The quality of Mercy is not strained; it dropeth as a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; it blesses him who gives and him who takes."

And that is the message we want to give to our children. Kindness offers so much to so many. When we are kind to one student in front of other students, children learn how powerful an act of kindness is. When we are kind to parents, they learn, when we are kind to animals, children can actually model this behavior because they can be in charge of this kind of kindness.

We have had many little projects going on at school these days. I would call them "corporal works of mercy." It's an old term meaning it's a physical act of goodness which the children are involved in. One of those things is the Advent Box. Every year we have done the Advent Boxes, and never before has there been such an interest. One little child is so keen on getting one, she talks about it at home. Trouble is, this child is SO good all the time, that her quiet little goodness is often passed over - but not today. Today, her kindness to her friends and teachers will return a little box of kindness to her.

Do we teach children to choose works of kindness? Do we calculate kindness and apply it to some things and not others? Do we keep back kindness because it might not benefit someone in our own family? Do we hold back kindness because "too much kindness is never a good thing." Those are questions that make kindness something it's not.

Kindness, it seems to me, should be a spontaneous offering from the heart. When it has to be scrutinized and weighed by the brain for possible gain, it becomes the Old Scrooge rather than the New Man, Scrooge.

Should kindness be acknowledged, or is kindness its own reward? Kindness is its own reward, but because of the nature of the human being, acknowledgment is an essential part of communication and community. When there is a failure to give praise to a child who is kind or even some adults - a failure of communication, a spiritual loneliness can fall upon a person and pull community apart.

As a child I was "Alphie Kohn-ed." I was allowed to be kind only to those people my parents deemed worthy. It was calculated and engineered. If I was kind to someone they didn't like, I was punished and belittled. It made me wonder about people and behavior from a very early age. It still does. As an adult, I am always sad when my efforts of kindness and affection are dismissed without a word. It takes me back to the icy hearts who reared me and makes me shiver. People who dismiss other people, to me, become the Old Scrooge.

The Christmas Season is filled with possibilities for kindness and right modeling for children. "Tis the Season" should be our reminder line. When we hear it, it should send us into right action because more than any other season of the year, Christmas is by its own nature a whole act of kindness and fulfillment of promise. Blessings always.