Kindness Is The Best Surprise
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Monday, July 06, 2009 2:00 PM
I love Christianity!
Let me explain what’s got me exulting in this Pollyanna fashion.
A person I’ve never met did the nicest thing for me yesterday. I’ll keep him anonymous so as not to embarrass him, especially without his permission, but it involves an author and blogger I’m sure at least some of you would recognize.
About a year ago this gentleman posted a request for prayers for a priest friend diagnosed with serious cancer.
I also knew the friend, but had lost touch, so I wrote the blog asking for contact information so I could send my good wishes, which was graciously provided. Later, as our mutual friend entered his final hours, the author took the additional step of informing me so I could join in prayers for our buddy’s “safe passage.”
Our friend passed, and with it, I assumed, our correspondence.
Yesterday, however, I received an email saying, “I got to Fr.‘s grave last week and remembered you there.” A photo of the gravestone was attached.
I can’t tell you how touched I was and remain at the kindness of that gesture! Who else in the world but a Christian, receiving a comment from a stranger in a comment box, remembers that stranger in prayer a year later in a way particularly meaningful to her—and tracks her down to tell her about it?
That got me reflecting in stream-of-conscious fashion on the communion of saints and the power of Christian witness. Our late priest-friend was someone I knew in college. We sort of kept up with each other’s doings through mutual friends, but I think the last time we personally corresponded was about the time of his ordination a long time ago. So even though we were once good friends, I doubt Father ever knew fully the impact he had on my life.
Yet the mere fact of him, if you will, inspired the post that allowed me to pray for him when he most needed it and even now, after his death, has been a catalyst for prayer and for an inspiring act of kindness. Goodness multiplies across time and space in ways we can’t imagine or conceive.
Which, if you’ll forgive me a digression, brings me to a pet peeve of mine. I hate “random” acts of kindness. The expression reminds me too much of a wicked short story in our literature anthology freshman year of high school. The tale contrasted the life of a man who goes about doing good with that of a woman who goes about spreading bitterness and hard feelings. They turn out to be married to each other and the next day, they switch: she’s kind and he’s sour. Conviction, character, principles, solidarity, charity—these have nothing to do with it. It’s all just “random.”
In fairness, I suppose that is not what the “random acts” people are driving at: they’re not hoping for a world where it’s just the luck of the draw whether any given person treats you with kindness or civility. Presumably they’re actually trying to “up” the goodness quotient of the world by encouraging kindness even to strangers. But that sort of kindness is not random; it’s a habit of mind inculcated by commitment and repetition. Also known as the virtue of charity.
Which is what Christians, when we’re being true to our faith, are striving to live with greater and greater perfection all the time.
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