Wednesday, June 22, 2011

And be ye kind to one another….



And be ye kind to one another…. (Ephesians 4:32)

Kind. I’ve been thinking about this word a lot lately. I heard a father berate his 5 year old kid at Target the other day and thought “Man, kindness is lost in society.” We have a presidential election next year – that is bound to be nothing but kind. Kindness is so infrequent sometimes that I’m not sure I can always define it anymore.

From thefreedictionary.com:
kind adj. kind•er, kind•est
1. Of a friendly, generous, or warm-hearted nature.
2. Showing sympathy or understanding; charitable: a kind word.
3. Humane; considerate: kind to animals.
4. Forbearing; tolerant: Our neighbor was very kind about the window we broke.
5. Generous; liberal: kind words of praise.
6. Agreeable; beneficial: a dry climate kind to asthmatics.

Kind is one of those things that you hope your mom or grandmother thinks you are, but that is forgotten in our daily interactions with other people. I’m not sure kindness is respected in this world. I kinda think it’s almost seen as a weakness. At my end of the year evaluation at work, “kind” isn’t ever listed as a strength or development area for the next year. I don’t often walk away from tough interactions with people saying “I wish I had been more kind”, instead I wish I could have stuck up for myself better, or was more articulate to make this other person understand my point. As I’m driving down the interstate, I seldom think “how can I be more kind to the drivers around me?”, rather I think “You jerk!” (or slightly more profane even, to be perfectly honest!) while secretly wishing I had the guts to cut the people off in front of me to make it to Denver faster.

As I go through the day, I am pretty quick to find areas where other people can be more kind to me. I’m great at noticing where people can be more kind to clerks at the store, or other drivers, to waitresses and airplane row fellow occupants, to parents, to kids in a store, to the call attendant that is supposed to fix your internet for you.

I’m not so great at noticing where people have been kind to me and I’m really not great at noticing where I should have been more kind to others (or where i could have been more kind, even if I didn’t feel they deserved it).
In a nutshell…when I really think about it….I wish I were more kind. I want more than just my grandmother and my mom to think of me as a kind person. I wish that I always gave the benefit of the doubt to other people, I want to be grateful when people help me out not because they need to, but because it was just part of their nature.

So, its time, I WILL be more kind to those around me. I will be of a friendly, generous or warm-hearted nature. I will show sympathy and understanding and be charitable. I will be humane, and considerate. I will be forbearing and tolerant. I will be generous, liberal (not THAT liberal though), agreeable and beneficial. I think this starts by appreciating when I’m shown kindness instead of focusing on being shown not-kindness. I will start noticing that around me, and figure out how to incorporate those examples into my own life.

It’s in the Bible, it’s a command. Be ye kind to one another.

ps. Really, that picture up top had nothing to do with this, but no post is complete withouth a photo. So, its a picture of my kind Momma and I!