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Friday, June 26
Elder William S. Dixon
Love and Kindness in the Midst of Crises
“Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good repute
In the sight of God and man.” Proverbs 3: 3-4 (NASB)
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” I Corinthian 13: 4-5
Brief periods of significant stress and long periods of low-level stress seem to be ideal breeding grounds for impatience, unkindness, rudeness, and irritability. Each of these has made more than one appearance in my life since these crises began. Neither the command to love others as love is defined in I Corinthians 13 nor the command to be kind, however, are limited to times when things are going well. The God who expects us to love even our enemies, also expects us to love others and to be kind in difficult circumstances. Just as light is more welcome as the night grows darker, love and kindness become more important as life becomes more difficult. As Judith Martin (a/k/a Miss Manners) said:
“Civilized people are supposed to recognize that discomfort and other provocations are not an excuse for being rude. They are conditions that demand more attention to politeness, not less.”
We interact with so many retail employees, waiters, baristas, drivers of other cars, unseen voices manning telephone help desks, and others who provide services, that we frequently do not see the people we are interacting with or only see them as a means (or impediment) to getting something done. We forget that they, along with all those we love, deserve to be respected as beings created in the image of God. Realizing the respect they deserve, I’ve taught myself to read name tags, to listen when people tell me their names, to use their names in conversations, to ask them how they are doing (and where they are if it’s a phone call), to wait patiently in seemingly interminable lines without complaint, to assure those who apologize for delays that it was really fine, and to thank people for their help. In a devotion two weeks ago, I talked about the frustration of waiting 2 ½ hours for curbside pick-up. During that wait, in one of my many conversations with Michelle, the manager who got involved, I expressed sympathy for the fact that she must be having a difficult day after hearing another customer tell her about something that had gone wrong. Given how frustrated I was at that point, I could have easily expressed all kinds of things other than sympathy. I continue, however, to believe how much love and kindness matter in these thousands of everyday interactions. C.S. Lewis said:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” --from The Weight of Glory
Mother Theresa once said, “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” May we live, love, and conduct ourselves accordingly.
Prayer: Father, as we collide and mingle with different people, remind us of the grace and love that you so freely give to us so that we may in turn share and offer it to others. Work in our hearts so that we have the desire and ability to be people who help those around us reflect more of your image. Teach us to let love and kindness be our currency so that all may find and know their value in You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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