“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little Children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew18:1-4, NIV)
Although I was born in Toronto , London Ontario London . I partied heavily there. I thrived there. I know every area of the city very well, as if there was a map of the place etched in my brain. I have spent a great deal of my time in the suburbs and the downtown core. The Greyhound bus station nestles near the Covent Garden Market, right in heart of it all. I used to know the bus schedule off by heart. I still have a doctor that I see. Her office, in the very core, overlooks one of the busiest streets in the city. I have travelled to London so often that its geography plays in flashback. While the downtown still exists, it does not thrive. It is dying the same slow death that other downtowns are all across North America . Technology tends to kill off what isn’t advancing with it. The internet has meant doom. It’s a plague carried in on all those smartphones. I digress. One visible deterioration is the increase in the homeless and panhandlers. On a busy day, you can't walk twenty feet on Dundas Street without the standard “spare some change?” While I have compassion and much empathy, I cannot possibly give to everyone. How do you choose who to be kind to? I cannot actually know who is in need or who just wants some more Meth. I must discern so I listen to my gut.
The moment I reached into my pocket, she exited the store we were standing in front of. I can still feel the cold chill in the air. As I handed him all I had, she began to accost us both. She tried to shame me for the “crime” of helping another. I was only “encouraging” him. She attacked him, condemning him for having the audacity of even asking for help. I have never forgotten that bitch. It’s strange how less than a minute of your lifetime can change you. You can spend years looking for answers and guidance and in a heartbeat it comes. Now, some harpy remains my catalyst. Every time I think of the worst in people, she is the poster child. I try to be kind because she told me that I shouldn’t. I was always a friendly chap when I was younger. I was polite but a little crazy. It was easier for me to be mean than it was to be nice. I used to rest comfortably in the darkness but I never had trouble being kind. But for the grace of God, I may well have been that kid, sitting on the cold concrete begging for bus fare to get home. This is the reason I stopped to help him. Acting on the goodness in yourself is very important. I think God squeezes it out of us when we hold it all in. Being kind is not just an expression to a person or a charity, it’s an expression of the divine within us. Being generous, being compassionate, these are things we shouldn’t have to try to be. It’s a cold enough world with so little light. Be kind, or the world will not be kind to you. If you had seen the ugly Face of that unfeeling cow, you would know I speak the truth.
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians4:32, NIV)
It’s kind of sad to look back over your life and realize you don’t have many examples of Kindness you can refer to. I don’t just mean from others. Yes, for most of my life, being kind to strangers has never been an issue for me. Being nice to the people I actually know has been the challenge. I have always been able to see life from the view of others but familiarity tends to bring contempt. I believe that kindness is a natural state I have always been able to tap into. Even in the worst of times, I still acted on instinct and chose to be kind, no matter what I was feeling or going though. Yes, I give to the homeless, I have helped care for the aging. I have given of myself, my money and of my time. It is still quite the challenge for me to be consistently kind. The older I have gotten, the more I am convinced that kindness shouldn’t be an effort but somehow it always is. The modern world is trying at best. You have to turn rather odd in order to actually survive. Compassion and empathy seem mere tools we use at our convenience. Other people are only shadows that pass us in the hall. Most times, we don’t even notice that anyone is there. Kindness is more than a happy place. It is an attitude, not only an intention. You can give all you want but until you give of yourself, you’re just cheating.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12, NIV)
One of my first exposures to the Gay community was my friend David. Although he was considerably older than me, we became fast friends. He introduced me to Gay culture. He exposed me to the seedier side, to bars and cruising and drag shows. No more than a friend, he was more a mentor than anything else. This sat well with his partner Paul. At 18, I was very single, very curious and very driven. The entire lifestyle played right into my untreated Bi-polar disorder. I never even realized this underlying factor. Dave and his community demonstrated, to me at least, that there was substance to what most people view as hedonism. It may well be, but my first exposure, face to face, revealed much more than jockstraps and Liza Minnelli. It was into the second year of our friendship that Dave started to get sick. Treatment was different with HIV back in the early days of the slaughter. When someone got infected, their future was usually limited to months rather than years. People rotted right before your very eyes. The disease ate through most victims like a spitfire. It caught on and it spread. My friend Dave was no exception. After only six months from the notification, he looked more like a concentration camp survivor than the man I had known for over 2 years. I visited him regularly when he was admitted to the hospice. I watched the Kaposi Sarcomaspread over his torso like moss on the side of a tree. As the infection worsened, Dave went from HIV positive to full blown AIDS. His skin became almost translucent, the cancer spread inward and his suffering was great. At the end, the best he could do was lay there. He developed blindness and AIDS dementia. His time drew near, or so one would think. Like my grandfather after his stroke, Dave lingered, seemingly unwilling to let go of this life. He became a stranger in almost every way. I didn’t recognize him, he didn’t recognize me. He was lost, on the brink for months.
Morality is relative. Kindness is not. What one person might find reprehensible another might consider mercy. Kindness is to act upon that mercy. As Paul watched David slip slowly into nothing, you could see the weight if it. You could almost smell his fear. He told me it was like torture but from the inside out. Each day always more of it. The hardest part for him was the catch-22. He wanted David to have peace, to no longer suffer. At the same time, he did not wish to say goodbye. I can’t imagine being stuck in that endless waiting game. I cannot imagine what happens when you just can’t wait anymore. One evening, a few of us gathered round as support. The Kaposihad filled his lungs and a ventilator was hooked up. Almost calmly, Paul reached for it and turned it off. It appeared methodical but I noticed his hands shaking. He was being pulled apart, despite what may have happened as consequence. Paul put David first. He offered mercy, the kindest gift of all. I don’t know the details of what followed but I know charges were never laid against anyone. I believe natural causes was mentioned in the coroner’s report. David was laid to rest, with only a few friends gathered to say goodbye. They had trouble getting a funeral home to bury an AIDS victim but luckily discovered a gay-owned establishment that had no issues. In all my years, of everything that has passed before me, I have never witnessed a greater act of kindness. To give up the thing you want the most so that someone might benefit is the ultimate act of charity. Whenever I think back on the misery of those few months back in 1985, I imagine it differently. It was a time of great loss for the gay community and gay people in general. Few sat unaffected by this plague. For me, I will always remember how an act of kindness in the face of great peril freed my friend from constant and needless suffering. Be diligent in your kindness, always.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
(Galatians 5:22, NIV)
It shouldn't be so hard to be kind. It should come easy but it does not. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about being mortal is that you can wish for it all you want but life always seems to stand in the way. Sometimes you have to force it, feed it through all the chaos and the suffering. Life does not always allow us such a luxury. We are so absorbed in our own misery that it tends to be almost impossible to think about someone else. I would argue that shit rarely floats to the top of the toilet. Kindness is a built in reaction, not something hard pressed and obscure. It is written in the very makeup of each and every person. From the time we are children, the constructs of this reality battle our nature for dominance and control. We lose a part of ourselves as we grow and mature. Being kind becomes an inconvenience rather than a pleasure. As children, it was second nature. It was so easy to see without judgement, to act completely from instinct rather than some rational thinking or social instruction. As we lose our innocence, our view of others is corrupted and warped. It is through our integration that we lose compassion and empathy and any semblance of unity. We strive to be individual and along the way we learn how to care about only ourselves rather than each other. Simply through the act of existing, we sabotage the very best part of us. In fact, as we age, we must learn to be kind all over again. We change and so too does our reasoning.
“Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God
When we moved to Paris Ontario Canada
At any time I cared to notice, she walked home alone, down the street and into someplace else. She rarely carried herself with a sense of joy and adventure. She is a pretty little girl, prone to jeans and plaid work wear. I just assume she dressed that way on purpose. It seemed to suit her in a country girl way. I don’t know her name but I know what she looks like. I know that she likes to pick flowers and she even skips on occasion. Every time I have seen her, she has never walked with anyone else. She seemed to want no part of the other children and adults who marched along the same way. I can’t be sure if she was sad, isolated or even bullied. All I knew was what I saw and she seemed out of place among all the other children. I was trimming the English Ivy in my front yard when the ruckus began. Dozens and dozens of school kids began to swarm the street like they do every weekday. I stopped my fiddling and picked up my coffee to watch. Like on every occasion that I see her, she sauntered without a care in the world, or at least I hoped she did. The ring from the bicycle behind her must have startled her. She attempted to jump up on the curb and instead tripped and fell flat on her face. It hurt to watch as she landed hard on the grassy knoll across the street from my house. Thank goodness it wasn’t a concrete sidewalk or driveway. I stood up quickly, trying to determine if she needed my help. To my surprise, other children, not the adults, came running to her assistance. A group of five of her peers helped her to her feet and made sure she was okay. The entire event was like someone had thrown birdseed on the ground and a flock of sparrows rushed it. I was pleasantly surprised. Not one of them asked her name. Not one of them asked her religion. No one cared if she would later be a lesbian. Their response seemed a natural reaction, not based on any one factor or another. Such kindness I have rarely seen, not like this anyway. They could have kept on without her, just like they would every day, but they reacted like all children should. It has been a few weeks since this incident. I’m still working in the garden. I still stop and sip my coffee. The sweetest part of it all is that I have not seen her walking alone ever since. Whatever was at issue for her before was left far behind, stuck in her face print on that grassy patch across the street from my house.
“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” (Matthew 19:14, NIV)
We learn to hate. We learn to judge and we learn to disparage. Other things we are just born with. A cruel nature is as natural as a kind nature. You don’t have to be taught to be either one. All you have to do is act on instinct. You can’t teach someone to be good to others any more than you can teach someone to be rotten to others. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. You either have it or you don’t. Kindness is an essential part of being human. All you have to do is watch children at play. No adult ever taught them to act like that. It is innate and one of the very best things in life and some of the best things in life are still free.
“‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him.
‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read,
“From the lips of children and infants you,
Lord, have called forth your praise.”’”
(Matthew 21:16, NIV)
Photo
http://abc7news.com/society/exclusive-bay-area-teen-discusses-act-of-kindness-that-went-viral/1793614/
