Have you been somewhere new recently? Maybe somewhere where everyone knows each other but you? Was there someone there who made you feel welcome?
When we remember what it feels like to be an outsider, we realize how powerful a warm welcome is. How generous the welcomer was to look outside of their usual orbit to notice a stranger and invite them in. A smile is the first step.
For today, consider this lovely poem on smiles and consider who you might welcome. How lucky you are to be in the position to welcome another!
In The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Tom and Huck attend their own funeral, overhearing all the nice things the town members had to say about them, the kinds of things they rarely heard in life.
As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.
There was a rustle in the gallery, which nobody noticed; a moment later the church door creaked; the minister raised his streaming eyes above his handkerchief, and stood transfixed! First one and then another pair of eyes followed the minister’s, and then almost with one impulse the congregation rose and stared while the three dead boys came marching up the aisle, Tom in the lead, Joe next, and Huck, a ruin of drooping rags, sneaking sheepishly in the rear! They had been hid in the unused gallery listening to their own funeral sermon!
Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves upon their restored ones, smothered them with kisses and poured out thanksgivings, while poor Huck stood abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what to do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes. He wavered, and started to slink away, but Tom seized him and said:
“Aunt Polly, it ain’t fair. Somebody’s got to be glad to see Huck.”
“And so they shall. I’m glad to see him, poor motherless thing!” And the loving attentions Aunt Polly lavished upon him were the one thing capable of making him more uncomfortable than he was before.
Suddenly the minister shouted at the top of his voice: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow — Sing! — and put your hearts in it!”
And they did. Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
I wonder why we save the kind words for funerals. Eulogies, literally translated ‘good words’, are maybe needed even more before our loved ones pass, at a time when relationships can be mended and people thanked. Before opportunities are lost. When the ripple effects from the kindness can travel far and wide.
What kinds of things get in the way of saying the kind words now? Fear, stubbornness, pride, anger? What if we could lay these all down now, before our opportunity to be heard is gone?
In all the din, what is one voice more? Why bother speaking up? No one seems to listen to each other anymore anyway.
But inside you is a well spring, and you’re fueled by truth and an honest desire to help others. Your opinion matters.
Consider these words from Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Who are you to speak up?
You are a child of God. Let God’s light shine on a dark world through your words.
These days there is a lot of noise—everyone has a soapbox—but I wonder how much is really heard. This article explores the problem of autobiographical listening, listening with the hope of injecting a story about yourself into the mix. There are levels to this. The matcher, who always has a similar vacation or achievement to switch the conversation to. The topper who has an even better vacation or achievement to turn the conversation to. And the outright conversation narcissist where really all parts of the conversation somehow turn on him.
But if our goal is connection, we really need to learn how to better listen:
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.”
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Practice listening to understand. Avoid autobiographical listening:
“When we fail to listen from the other person’s perspective, we are listening through our own lens and tend to pass more judgments compared to simply listening,” Reigstad added. “There are four types of autobiographical listening ― evaluate, probe, advise and interpret. These responses tend to have us asking questions based on our experiences, offering advice to fix the problem and so on. It’s important to resist the urge and allow the other person to speak.”
Today, I want to lift up the caregivers. Whether for an aging parent, ailing spouse, struggling child, or young grandchildren, or all or some of these together. It takes a good person to care and do their best to help.
Rosalyn Carter made this insight:
There are only four kinds of people in the world: Those who have been caregivers. Those who are currently caregivers. Those who will be caregivers. And those who will need a caregiver.
We are all interconnected. We all will experience a time when we need help and times when we can offer help. It is a blessing to care about others and to let others care for us. Caring is at the heart of every good thing done in the world.
So, to the caregivers: may God bless you. Your work is making a better world.
The potential for a loving relationship is in one embrace. The potential for peace is in forgiveness. The potential for harmony is in stillness. The potential for quality conversation is in listening.
Consider the opportunities you have to make your world and the world a better kinder place with the actions you sow today.
Compassion is an active, engaging emotion. It recognizes that another’s pain is as important as your own and seeks to help alleviate it. It is the emotion behind all social justice reform.
Compassion comes from empathy which is very different from sympathy. Dr. Eric Perry describes the two like this:
To better understand empathy, it is important to distinguish it from sympathy. Sympathy is the ability to understand another person’s situation from your point of view. It is a self-centered point of view that helps you understand what the other person is going through based on your own circumstances. You are able to acknowledge how the other person is feeling but, from a distance. You do not become emotionally connected to the person. For example, you are able to sympathize with someone having problems in their relationship because you have had problems in your own relationship. You do not feel what they are feeling but you have an understanding of what they are experiencing.
Empathy is a bit more complicated and abstract. In order to experience empathy, you must have the ability to identify the emotion and to place yourself in the other person’s position. The focus of empathy is self-less. You are experiencing another person’s emotional life by your ability to connect with them. In a sense, you are vicariously feeling the emotion. For example, through empathy, you are able to feel a stranger’s loss of a child, even if you are childless, by seeing the loss through their perspective. Through this connection, you are able to wear the emotional skin of another and essentially feel with them.
The inability to imagine yourself in someone else’s place in order to understand what they are feeling will result in difficulty in connecting with others.
Narcissists and sociopaths can feel sympathy. They use their knowledge of a person’s emotions, not to help them, but to manipulate and control them. But the empathetic person shares the pain of another and works to alleviate it.
The good new is that compassion is like a muscle and can be practiced and strengthened. In this fascinating article by Greater Good, they outline some steps for increasing your empathy.
They identify four goals to the practice:
Bringing attention or awareness to recognizing that there is suffering (cognitive)
Feeling emotionally moved by that suffering (affective)
Wishing there to be relief from that suffering (intentional)
A readiness to take action to relieve that suffering (motivational)
With the news this week that former President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care, many people have been sharing stories about his accomplishments in office—his efforts for peace, his push for environmental stewardship, and his efforts toward energy independence, among others.
But his most striking accomplishments perhaps are what he has done since he lost his re-election bid. Rather than retreat to Georgia and exit the public arena, he began building houses for the poor, and working for democracy—a principle he firmly believed in—around the world, and standing up for women’s rights, even when that stand conflicted with his religion, and working to eradicate disease and so on. He has never stopped showing up to make a difference.
In a world that has grown more cynical and jaded since his entry into the public spotlight, he continues to show us what it means to walk the walk, quietly, humbly, and without fanfare. Here, surely, is a good and faithful servant of God.
What do we regret most as we contemplate the end of our time here? Maybe the lesson from that regret can inform our present. In an outstanding commencement speech, George Saunders reflects on his own failures and encourages the graduating students to look for opportunities to be kind. He reflects on a memory haunting him from his childhood:
In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.” ELLEN was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.
So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”
Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.
And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing.
One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.
End of story.
Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.
But still. It bothers me.
So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
We all have so many opportunities to make a difference, just by simply being kind, offering a smile, reaching out in friendship. And, when we reflect on the kindnesses that have made the difference to each of us in our own lives, we realize those little shows of kindness are what matter.
Saunders continues to remind each of us that our inner selves, our souls, shine as brightly as ever, and, even as we strive for success, to keep checking in with that inner place, and to believe it exists and greet the world from there:
Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.
When you are confronted with a choice, err in the direction of kindness.
Rob Kenney has a YouTube channel Dad, How Do I? where he teaches his nearly 3 million viewers how to do stuff. He got the idea for his channel wondering about the kids growing up without dads and wanting to help fill that space for them, teaching them how to tie their tie, do their taxes, check their oil, plant a tree, and so on. He tells them he’s proud of them.
What a sweet idea. And resource! But, more importantly, how wonderful it is to see someone consciously being a positive role model, using his know-how to help others, and trying to fill a void.
The truth is we all have the potential to be role models. Whether it’s how we behave under pressure, handle a crowded line, or talk with someone who disagrees, our actions matter. People will see us and think about whether they want to follow our example. We have a responsibility to be a good one.
QuotableCreek.com 