In 2025 Annual Meeting, Mary Lou Hatcher guided us in worship. This is part 3 out of 3 of her notes from her worship offering. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here.
To be kind is a discipline and a GRACED mercy.
It is the antithesis of another cultural myth – the myth of redemptive violence, the false belief that revenge will bring us healing and peace. It will not.
There is an intimacy to the word kindness. It is in some way right-sized. It conveys a stance towards life in the moment. It has a way of prioritizing the present moment in the way a list of caregiving jobs does not.
Kindness conveys a sense of intimacy, affection even.
There is something true about right-sizing our care. In her book My Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen tells the story of a young child who had a small Matchbox car that he played with constantly, took everywhere. Friends and family, seeing this, would bring him matchbox cars, and soon he had a whole shelf full. And then he moved on to playing with other things. When asked about this change he said, “Well, I just can’t love so many cars.”
When something is right-sized it can go deep. Kindness can show up as powerful love.
I don’t know of any better description of this than that offered in the poem entitled “Kindness,” by the Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shahib Nye.
The poem came to her in one full swoop, when she was in her early 20s and had just had a life threatening and terrifying experience. She and her husband were newlyweds, and on a bus trip through Latin America – a big adventure. Their bus was attacked by thieves, everyone was robbed of everything, one person was killed. Here is the poem:
‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
The kindness she speaks of is one that looks pain right in the face and leans in. This must be what the Dalai Lama means when he says: My religion is kindness.
One might think of the many stories told about Jesus of Nazareth: touching the leper, locating the blind man, calling the tax collector out of the tree, stopping a stoning, accepting a drink from the “unclean.” Perhaps he also said, “My religion is Kindness.”
Kindness is also a practice. Small kindnesses prepare us when big ones are needed. And Kindness sets a tone, it has a posture that makes healing possible.
I wonder how someone’s commitment to kindness has shaped your life.
So we have paused here for a little bit of time, together, to ponder “how might Spirit be speaking to each of us, and to the FCNL community, about our own healing and well-being?”
How might we each be invited to accept divine grace and mercy in this time of tremendous loss and overwhelm?
What will we endeavor to notice about courage in ourselves and others?
What spiritual practices will we hold close for our own healing and the healing of the world we seek?
How might Kindness show up as our accompanying friend and guide?
And, does this not all speak to Joy?
Please join me in waiting worship.
