[Firstumemo] Memo: "The Only Thing That Matters"

[Memos from Rev. Barbara Merritt and Rev. Tom Schade]

M I N I S T E R’ S   M E M O
"The Only Thing That Matters"

I am thinking about giving up reading newspapers. I say this as someone who
once seriously considered journalism as a career, as someone who reads the
editorial pages religiously. The daily paper is my best source for world
events, political analysis, movie reviews, and good recipes. I appreciate
the in-depth news articles in the Sunday magazines. And I scan the
obituaries for personal, as well as professional reasons.

What I find unbearable are the stories about human violence and rage.
Husbands are killing their wives. Parents are killing their children. Kids
are killing other kids. Gang members don’t care who gets caught in the
crossfire. And professional soldiers are executing innocent civilian women
and children. I imagine it has always been so. But lately the graphic
descriptions of human nature at its most malevolent seem to be appearing on
the printed page at an alarming rate. The stories are profoundly disturbing.

The people who commit these horrifying crimes appear to not value the life
of other human beings. They don’t seem to believe that their own lives have
any inherent worth or dignity. Their cruelty and indifference to the
suffering of another takes them into a world where destruction and death are
the answer, the solution and the strategy.

The only antidote to such a world-view that I am aware of is kindness.
Kindness, defined as: extending benevolence to another soul, deciding to be
as gentle, as encouraging and as compassionate as you are capable of being.
Kindness: the quality of graciousness, sympathy, tender-heartedness and
consideration for others. It used to be known as “goodness.”

How do we learn to be kind? I suspect it begins when we receive kindness.
That is how Valjean, in Les Miserables, changed from a bitter, desperate man
into a good citizen. When he stole a priest’s candlesticks, the priest not
only forgave him but also provided an alibi. When kindness touches our lives
we can’t help but change. Kindness is immensely powerful.

At some point we have to learn to be kind to ourselves. We must learn to
treat our own humanity, our own failures, limitations and shortcomings with
as much mercy, patience and forbearance as we would offer to our best
friend. Then we are ready to practice extending kindness to the astonishing
variety of people who inhabit our lives. We might begin with our family and
friends. But kindness is also what the stranger is looking for, and the
exhausted clerk in the grocery store. Kindness can be offered to the
motorist who is lost and getting in your way on the highway. Kindness is
meant to be given to the judge and the jury, the lawyer and the prisoner, to
the powerful and the powerless, to the one who is just like you and to the
one with whom you have nothing in common.

Many people do not see their role in life to be one of extending kindness.
Some honestly believe that they have been put on earth to criticize, to
judge, to attack, to diminish others, to tell anyone who will listen what’s
wrong with their neighbor. Others understand themselves as being so abused,
so injured and so victimized that they don’t think they have any kindness to
offer. Perhaps saddest of all are those who have received tremendous
kindness and offer real kindness to others, but don’t experience either. All
their attention is given to what is wrong with their world, what is wrong
with their family and friends and what is wrong with themselves. They’ve
somehow learned not to see, or acknowledge or experience kindness.

There was a season in my life when I was sure that the only thing that
mattered was courage. At other times I have been convinced that the critical
human virtue was gratitude, or forgiveness, or hopefulness, or humility, or
service, or persistence, or patience, or generosity, or grace. But at this
moment I’m placing all my bets on kindness.

We have this extraordinary capacity to bless one another. It is, as far as I
can tell, the only reason to be in a congregation. Here we are given
countless opportunities to extend kindness to the very young and the very
old, to the stranger and to the dear friend. Religion teaches us to breathe
in a kindness that is at the heart of reality. Religion reminds us that we
ourselves are children of God; worthy of every kind of kindness, gentleness
and graciousness.



No matter where you are on your journey, may you find a way to be kind to
your fellow travelers. And may you become aware of the kindness that
surrounds you, now and always.



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