In the early Nineties, Unitarian minister Robert Fulghum wrote a little book entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In it, Fulghum offers his credo for life which originated in his early school years. His list includes: Share everything, play fair, don’t hit people, say you’re sorry when you hurt someone, flush, and (my favorite) warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. If you want to view the whole list, click here.
I like Mr. Fulghum’s thinking. Though it’s not stated in so many words, I see one theme that could be drawn from his list: Kindness. Thinking of others. Putting someone else first. Whatever happened to kindness? It saddens me to say that I just don’t see it much anymore.
Case in point – last week I was headed to the post office. It had just begun to storm, and a flash of lightning had hit the traffic signals on a busy corner of SR 436. The lights weren’t out, but they were all flashing red. Now, from what I recall from Driver’s Education in my sophomore year of high school, a flashing red light is treated like a Stop sign - “Stop, look both ways, and proceed.” It’s a good plan. If a traffic signal is taken out, everyone is put on the honor system of taking turns. This is not what occurred on 436 last week. No one was stopping. Whatever lane happened to be in transit when the signal was hit continued on their merry way. When a break in traffic occurred, another segment of traffic would begin – again, not stopping until a break occurred. I eventually managed to get to the post office, and on my return home a police officer had arrived to bring some sense of order to the flow of traffic. How sad. I guess everyone driving that day presumed their plans, their time schedule, their to-do list was more important than everyone else’s.
As Christians, we are called to behave better than this. Unfortunately, the world isn’t seeing a drastic difference in the behavior of those professing Christ as opposed to those who don’t. Ephesians 4:32 states, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” It’s the good old Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do to you. That’s something they teach in kindergarten as well.
Tami Cinquemani
You're so right Tami! It seems that in our rush to get to "the next thing" we've forgotten the importance of common civility and manners, much less kindness and compassion. Being "mindful" of our responses is a good start. Being willing to live with the "mind of Christ," no matter our circumstances, is the harder part . . .
ReplyDeleteHey kiddo, good post. Driving is usually the place you will least likely find anything similar to kindness. It's me first, and everyone behind me. We drive like we play Nintendo (or Wii or Playstation). We live in a world that has minimized the amount of empathy that anyone needs to feel toward others because we have distanced ourselves from others. (Kinda crazy saying this as I write on a blog). We need to take some time and get out from behind our computer screens, blackberrys, video games, and any other electronic interaction and spend some time face to face with others. There should be time for both the electronic interaction and the physical interaction. My 2 cents for what it's worth...Your Bro
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