Kindness doesn’t get much place nowadays. We live in times of shrill headlines, colour TV and black and white soundbytes. Neither do lynch mobs want truth – only scapegoats. We have long memories for past faults. But kindness has a longer memory.
Particularly where people are humiliated. They’ve put everything — energy, time, and all their family’s money, into a business, and then lost it all - humiliation. Spouses are dumped, abandoned, the humiliation of being replaced. Someone is humiliated at the wrong end of a moral lapse that becomes public. It’s not easy to rebuild a future, whether you’ve been the architect or victim of your own demise.
Perhaps we complicated religion too much with excessive rules, judges and law? Have we missed the essence? Do we see kindness and compassion as weak and empty, and sneer at people with a bit of “give” in them. Then we risk forgetting that Christianity is about kindness and her close sister, compassion. We know it’s what matters because it’s what we remember. A kind word, a compassionate gesture, a helping hand in time of need is unforgettable and more likely to change behaviour where needed.
A woman whose name we don’t even know from the Gospel experienced this. Not a let-off, a lesson of compassion from one who didn’t even look up to eyeball chastened accusers as they slipped away. We’re sure that she remembered Him. Kindness always makes for lasting memories.
(Comments to Tom at tomascox@eircom.net )