The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

Despite snow and cold this week, the end of the school year is fast approaching. It is a time of expectation, for things completed and a future waiting on the near horizon. Everything is measured by graduation and family gatherings. Future plans often hang out in the mailbox disguised as acceptance or rejection letters while other students join the working world post haste. It is a mostly heady time, filled with optimism and confidence. The highlight is the conferring of degrees to eager graduates, a penultimate conclusion before doffing their caps in the air.

Yet another group of students choose the path less-traveled. My grandfather faithfully fulfilled the requirements of an eight-grade education, remaining on the family farm to allow his two sisters the opportunity to taste higher education. Both were quite successful and we learned much from their travels and experiences. What was less known was my grandfather’s voice and influence in the whole process. I recall him as quiet and strong yet tender-hearted. He was well educated, adept as I recall, at conferring kindness to those around him, not in the manner of titles or degrees, but as a matter of how he lived his life.

His rough and gnarled hands belied his sentimentality, and if there was anyone who might drop a tear or two, it was him. It did not always set too well with my grandmother who embraced traditional views of decades past. She noticed his willingness at concerts or plays to allow a tear to roll down his cheek from time-to-time. “I just wish he wouldn’t do that,” she would say, clearly and loudly enough to hear for anyone sitting close by. But haven’t we all done that at one time or another, placing our own discomfort or stress in the lap of others?

How then do we confer kindness on others without it becoming one brand or another, or hobbled by strings of selfishness? For some, kindness comes naturally. For others it helps to practice a bit before allowing our tongues free reign in public. Some of the best practice settings include the presence of children. They tend to be relatively difficult to offend in regular conversation and they immediately light up when the kindness bell is rung. Tack that together with kids’ transparent honesty, and you have a near perfect learning laboratory. Will we take full advantage? Our future as a people and a culture might depend on it.

We can never learn or model kindness enough. We need to remind ourselves, and people who know us less well, that kindness begets kindness. It’s an easy formula that is hard to mess up. With rare exception, Jesus treated others with dignity and respect. When his temper did flare, it was in a deeper context and worth noting. A close cousin of kindness is often indistinguishable from another great concept, compassion. Many have suggested the two will always discover one another. That appears to be the case with a tender-hearted grandparent. There are worse afflictions to bear. From Proverbs 21:21 … ”Whoever pursues justice and kindness will find life and honor (NABRE).”