(Francis Gay)

 

Some of our stories this morning have been because it is Mother’s Day. Some have had to do with my topic of kindness. Maybe I’ve done this because I see a connection between the two.

 

If you look up the definition of “kindness” you will only get answers like “kindness is the quality or act of being kind.” So, OK, what is it to be kind? Here is some of the great breadth of what it means to be kind. As I read these, think about the ways you have been kind that perhaps you have not given yourself credit for, thinking yourself a generally not-so-kind person. Or think of the kindnesses bestowed upon you, of late or long ago. What little kindness in your life made a big difference for you?

 

 

 

When I think of acts of kindness, I think of the expression “in kind,” meaning to return an action with equal value or intent. One might relate, then, the expression of kindness to the Golden Rule, treating others as you would be treated. To respond “in kind,” with kindness, to each other, as if we were all family. Which is very interesting because I discovered that etymologically, the word kind comes from an Old English word I can’t pronounce that meant “with the feelings of relatives for each other.” The word “kin” is, after all, part of the word “kind.”

 

Speaking of relatives, just as I wrote that last paragraph, it came to be my turn in the 0n-line Scrabble game my brother and I are playing between California and Massachusetts. I finished up writing “to respond with kindness, as if we were family,” in my sermon, and then opened my brother’s email in order to take my turn in the game. He had just written “I hope your congregation knows what a mean sister you are,” because my previous move had been a very good word worth lots of points. The timing was humorously perfect, and I told him so.

 

To be kind, to act with kindness, is to act as if we are all one human family. How very simple it seems on the surface… but how difficult in practice. It is not easy to be kind to someone we do not respect, or who does not like us. But some unknown author wrote The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's shoulder is to pat him on the back. If we can call up our courage, and our First Principle respect for the inherent worth and dignity of even that neighbor, a little kindness might be the answer. The first step is to break through the icy surface of our occasionally frozen hearts.

 

When we are born, from whom do we receive our first gifts of kindness – from our mothers and fathers and other relatives. Sometimes our older siblings have to be reminded about being kind and sharing their toys and time with us, but kindness is all around us in our childhood.

 

And we very soon begin to receive, and give, kindness outside the loving relationships of family. Pertinent to the quote at the top of your order of service, “Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not,” we do not have to love, or like, or even know, someone for a kindness to occur.

 

Here is an account by a woman named Joann C. Jones, about something she learned about kindness in school.

 

During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz.  I breezed through the questions until I read the last one:  "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"  Surely this was a joke.  I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name?  I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.  Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade.  "Absolutely," the professor said.  "In your careers, you will meet many people.  All are significant.  They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello."  I've never forgotten that lesson.  I also learned her name was Dorothy. (http://www.quotegarden.com/kindness.html)

 

Do you know the name of our sexton?

 

I am not trying to compare kindness, in this sermon, to either civility, which was another sermon, or to altruism, or even to compassion and empathy, although there are certainly connections. There are many arguments among sociologists, evolutionists, and religious people about the nature of human beings and with what we are born and what comes to us through our experiences and the examples with which we are surrounded in our childhood. I believe kindness is partly a genetic part of our human nature – maybe that “people pleasing” gene we’ve heard talked about – but definitely also partly a learned behavior. One of the silly things I read about kindness this week is by Mignon McLaughlin who says, in her book The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer. 

 

For me, kindness is just simple kindness. A loving touch, a smile “just because,” a compliment to bolster someone’s confidence, giving flowers because they are beautiful, just like the person to whom you are giving them. Being nice. Sure, sometimes the motivation is compassion and caring, but sometimes it’s just simply being nice. How lovely the world and our lives would be if we all practiced just a little bit more simple kindness. Maybe we could each think of a few ways to practice some kindness, and then maybe, after a while that practice will feel so natural it becomes a habit.

 

When I was a little girl we used to make paper baskets out of construction paper and fill them with myrtle flowers and violets and dandylions, too, and take them to all the women in the neighborhood for May Day. Some were mothers, some grandmothers, some might not have had anyone in their lives for all I knew. Just a little sweet nothing of a kindness, full of wilting flowers, but the thought was the thing. We had no grand plan of compassionate generosity, but who knows what lonely heart was made just a little less lonely by our simple gift.

 

Did I ever tell you that there were some, in my preparation for ministry, who were worried that I was “too nice.” They must have been working from the generally accepted but, I believe, mistaken idea that to be a good leader you can’t be too nice. I disagree. Since then I have read articles, in Scientific American Mind, for example, about the success of a different style leadership that leads not by up-front power alone but significantly, and simply, by kind example. I think that might be me. Whatever I have to do in my ministry and in the leadership of this congregation, I want to do it from a place of love, with kindness. I believe there is strength in trying to live and work and lead in as kind a way as possible. I wish I always succeeded as well as were my intentions…

 

I had some funny thoughts in preparing for this sermon. Mostly I couldn’t get that old song out of my mind: Be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody’s mother. It seems especially appropriate because it ties my two themes of the morning together: Kindness and Mothers (but let’s say parents, shall we, because we never get to celebrate Father’s Day!)

 

Then I found this strange little quote about kindness: A word of kindness is better than a fat pie. It’s a Russian proverb – I’m thinking something might have been lost in the translation, but then again it could mean that even a single kind word feeds something in us that an entire big and delicious pie cannot touch. (Words on Words, David Crystal and Hilary Crystal, 32:47) A word of kindness is better than a fat pie.

 

This is not a long, heavy-duty sermon on a subject meant to chastise or exhort or make you cry the way last week’s sermon might have done.

 

I would merely like us to think about kindness and how we can fit a little bit more of it into our lives, and thereby into the lives of all those around us.

 

Leo Buscalia writes, too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. 

 

For the Dalai Lama, kindness is hisreligion. He says, there is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

 

We’ve all heard the axiom that one good deed leads to another. I imagine kindness is like that too.

 

And while I don’t very much like those emails that tell me I will suffer a disastrous streak of bad luck if I don’t forward this message to 31 of my best friends, I will suggest that with the message of kindness, a simple smile, a hand, an ear… we can’t do better than to pass it on.

 

Whether you are a mother or not, whether you are adopted or have an adopted child, whether you are a father, whether you knew your mother, or not, whether you liked your mother, or not, (the permutations are endless) I wish you a day of good memories and joy and laughter, and a lot of kindness all the way around.