Lucy in the Sky with Kindness…………..
January 7th, 2012 at 3:03 pm (Uncategorized)
You could really bend yourself out of shape with trying to work out what is beauty. Seriously give it a go. Are we talking about physical beauty, or spiritual beauty? Is beauty universal or do we trust the saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”. Is it all about aesthetic beauty or is there something deeper. I like to work with these starting thoughts sometime. I can not say I know for sure what beauty is by definition but I certainly know when I am in its presence.
It may be different for everybody but to me the most beautiful thing in the world is kindness. My definition of kindness may be a little different from others or it may be the same. I find the kindness that reduces me to a humble piece of jelly is usually always linked with courage. The two seem to hang out together often and I think as kindness is a choice, and choices so often require courage, they thrive in each others company. I have a friend that cries if she sees anything sad about dogs, in fact, I have, in the past, read books before her so I could tell her that nothing bad happened to the dog and it is safe to read. I know how she feels. If I am in the presence of true kindness I am always reduced to a quivering crying mess not worthy of a beauty so great.
I find the real kindness that levels me is the sort that is done without anything to be gained by the person doing the act. I remember one such act when I was 17 and had just finished my year 12 exams. One of my father’s good friends had just passed away suddenly due to a massive heart attack. His wife, who was a teacher, and who had been devastated by the loss, had happened to see my name in the newspaper regarding the exam results a week later. Even with all that she was enduring, she brought me a card and a congratulation gift and dropped it off at my home. When I got home later that day with my high school sweetheart in tow, I was blown away to find the gift and card waiting for me. As I read the card and her kind and supportive words of encouragement, my thoughts were with her loss and her pain. How had she managed to rise above all that to think of someone else, to offer such beautiful words about life? I couldn’t stop crying tears that seemed to come straight from my heart much to the astonishment of boyfriend and mother who kept saying “I thought you would be happy”.
Why indeed are some people so selflessly kind? Is it a strong sense of who they are? A strong sense of what is intrinsically the way to live? Is it a lack of ego? This question has intrigued me for a while and I have studied several public people as case studies, perhaps one of my favourites being Gandhi. By far the Gandhi story that touches me the most occurred well before he was the “Gandhi” we all know today. He was a lawyer living in South Africa and he had boarded a train to go to work and had taken a seat. This was the time of apartheid and only “white” skins were allowed to take seats. The train conductors advised him that he must move, Gandhi was astonished and remained seated. They repeated their commands to move. Something in Gandhi that day stayed grounded and refused to obey their authority. He realised that even though the whole train was staring at him and he was about to get beaten, he would not move, could not move as it was a matter of principle, of equality and not just his but for all South Africans, for all people that weren’t being treated equally. He did get beaten and humiliated and he did suffer injury to his body, but I am guessing that his soul was just fine and was just starting to find its true strength. That day Gandhi chose more than not moving for his own well being, he chose not to give up his seat as an act of kindness towards all those that were being denied one. Such acts of kindness don’t get more beautiful than that!