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Kindness Korner

Stop the Drift

Beware of the Infection of Self-Centeredness

As we grow older there is a tendency to drift into preoccupation with ourselves: our health, our physical problems, our sleep, money, trips, grandchildren and more.  The process also may include losing interest in others—their trips, interests, accomplishments, new items.

There is little as pleasant as another person taking interest in our lives.  So it is essential that as we grow older, and the self-centered drift progresses, that we resist it.  It often requires a deliberate decision to move in that direction.
Not only does such a choice thrill the ones we show interest in, it is also an antidote against an older-person malady (me-ism) that turns others off.

Becoming a giver may require upgrading our self-concept.  We must believe this truth—“I am a reservoir of blessings”.  We are all full of goodness and must be ready to overflow with nourishment for the souls of younger folks. 

It doesn’t matter who you are, or how healthy, educated, wealthy or attractive.  You have within you words, interest, stories and expressions that can make a wonderful positive difference in the lives of younger men and women.  We are all potential healers. Check that self-centered drift, and spill loving interest on some young ones.  It can be life-giving to them, but it will always be spirit-lifting to us as well.

AS WE GROW OLDER WE MUST DELIBERATELY TAKE THE SPOTLIGHT OFF OURSELVES AND TURN IT ON OTHERS.

Death of a Bean

THE DEATH OF A BEAN
Children and their grief
Philip had successfully planted a bean seed and it was growing in a clay pot at school. Warm weather had arrived so he was moving the plant outside to the garden.  In the process it slipped from his grip.  Pot and plant smashed, beyond rescue, on the porch steps. “Oooooh,” he moaned, obviously broken hearted.  At the same time he quickly glanced at me expecting, it appeared, my reproach for his apparent carelessness, or maybe he was needing a sympathetic response.

What should I say?  Many thoughts flashed through my computer before selecting one:  “That’s a dumb thing to do.”  “Clean it up!”  “Why can’t you be more careful?”  “That pot cost 85 cents.”  “Nothing serious.”  “You can start another one.  They grow quickly.”  None of those seemed appropriate.  Instead it occurred to me that Phil had just lost a friend. He was hurt, mourning the loss of something he cared about and had invested himself in.

I felt what he needed was understanding and empathy.   I finally said  “Oh, Phil, how sad!  That bean meant a lot to you, didn’t it?  You really cared for it.” To which he replied, Yes, it’s the first plant I ever grew.”

When his bean crashed it didn’t mean to me what it did to him.  My initial feelings were irritation that a mess was made, a good pot broken, a project ended.  If I had let those feelings dictate my response I would have totally missed what Phil was feeling-loss, sorrow, disappointment. Caring demanded that I ignore my first rush of irritation and tune in instead to Philip’s feelings, especially his hurt and disappointment.  So I tried to put in words an expression of what I perceived to be his feelings. 

Another temptation parents must resist, in addition to not blaming, is to provide a quick solution to the problem.  When pets die, a bike is stolen, or toys are broken, it’s so easy to say, “Don’t worry, we’ll buy you a new one.”  We want to rescue the child from his or her pain.  We don’t want them to hurt. We want to quickly fix it so uncomfortable feelings will go away, both theirs and our own.


This seems like a good thing to do, but it cheats children of an important life experience.  It’s better to let them feel the pain and mourn the loss with a sense of its permanence. In this way the child goes through a sample of real life.  Minutes, hours or days later they will emerge healed.  New interests and activities will replace the lost.
Life will go on, as it must in the future with major losses like the death of a brother, sister, father, mother or grandparent, or when divorce takes away someone dear and breaks up a home.

Allowed and encouraged to feel the hurt over small childhood losses, children learn that hurts heal, and they discover the inner resources to cope with grief on those occasions when there can be no repair or replacement.

There are frequent small bereavements in a child’s life.  Each offers the opportunity for parents to model sensitive acceptance of the pain:  A friend moves away; failing a grade; a favorite teacher quits; not making a team; breaking up a friendship; valuables stolen; a job loss. We cannot “fix” these hurts.  The best repair comes from support, understanding and the natural process of mending that time provides.

Summary of Helping in Times of Loss

1.      Allow and encourage tears, and other negative feelings.  Sometimes we see a child fighting to hold back the tears.  Gently say “Go ahead and cry” or “Let the tears go”.  That can provide the permission needed to weep.  This is good for the griever.
2.      Let them talk about it.  Repeating the story of how it happened helps work it out emotionally and intellectually.
3.      Touch, hug, holding are deeply meaningful.  The child who can’t cry or talk may need this even more than the expressive ones; their feelings are more easily overlooked.
4.      Encourage involvement in the work surrounding the loss.  For example, with a stolen bike, let him or her call the police and go and  try to locate it.
5.      Avoid pat answers and clichés like “I know how you feel,” “It could have been worse,” You’re a brave young man.”
6.      Don’t rush them.  Let them get through it at their own speed.
7.      Be tolerant.  Avoid judgment or blame such as “If you’d been more careful, this wouldn’t have happened.”
8.      Avoid moralizing:  “We live in a world where you have to expect this sort of thing.”
9.      Use religious resources to provide support and a way of thinking about loss, e.g., “I believe Jesus is hurting with you right now.”  When praying about it, do so in a way that talks to God about how the child is feeling:  “John is hurting badly, Lord, and angry, too, over what has happened. . . “Leave out expressions that may directly or indirectly lead them to blame God, e.g., “It was God’s will that this happened.”

The grief of children in major losses may also be poorly handled simply because they are overlooked when the family is hit with a death or other tragedy. One teen-ager reported, “Everybody told me what a rough time my dad was having when my mother died.  They acted like my sorrow was non-existent or of little consequence.”
This may happen also when a grandparent dies.  The grandchildren are often closer than their parents to this older person, but seldom are they considered the primary grievers. Parents can easily underestimate the intensity of this pain when a grandparent dies, and miss chances to let children talk and express their feelings about grandfather or grandmother. Recently I tried to talk with a young girl whose grandmother had died unexpectedly.  Unfortunately, her father was with her and kept answering for her.  Try as I might to let her talk about what this was like for her, I was thwarted by her father’s speaking what he thought she was feeling and thinking.

Most children are so full of life they will bounce back strongly from minor or major losses.  Their vitality gives them a resiliency to go on, to live again.  This is often true regardless how ineptly the big people treat their grief.  Nevertheless, careful handling and sensitive, well-thought-out reactions, plus eliminating some of the typical pat answers or avoidance responses, are called for. These painful events can then be turned into more positive growth experiences where a child sees life and people in a new, realistic way.



Act Like You are Glad to See Me

"Act As If You're Glad To See Me"

(How To Increase Global Warming)                  
                                                                             

There are at least six major supermarkets to choose from when I contemplate my weekly foray into the grocery world.  Sales and specials attract me toward one.  "Double coupons" seduce me toward another.  The free blood pressure machine draws too. 

But usually I gravitate toward the store where there is an employee who regularly acts as if she is glad to see me.  She stands out like a Lighthouse on a rocky, barren coastline.   She radiates hospitality.

There are few like her in the marketplace.  The rest offer the mandatory eye-contact and "hello" required by the management.  Eye-contact is better than nothing, but not much.  Mostly they appear as grim functionaries, making a living.

One day I lingered to investigate the source and power shining from the Lighthouse.  I complimented her, telling her how much I appreciated the warmth she exuded, and what a difference it made.

Then I pushed a little further, inquiring how it was that she gave so much, so warmly.  I was hoping, of course, that she would say "Well, I'm a Christian."  Instead, "Oh I get it from my dad," she quipped breezily.  "He's the same way."  "Oh," I replied, "I thought maybe it came from being a Christian."  "Well I'm Catholic, but it comes from my dad," she said.

True, some traits are carved in the genes, or learned by example.  They're natural.  But as Children of Hope we must go beyond that, to display something extraordinary in the marketplace.  We can and must see our place in this world as a calling to be different.  Merely doing what comes naturally may not be good enough.

While traveling in Utah a few years ago we stopped at a gas station.  The car was serviced, the family refreshed, and we sped on our way again.  A family member commented, "Those people running that station sure seemed different."  Everyone agreed.  They exuded conscientiousness, courtesy, kindness and helpfulness.  Then it dawned on me--"We're in Mormon country.  Their religion makes them different."  As unacceptable as their theology is to me, they blessed us by their lives.

The world hungers for personal attention, caring service and unsolicited kindness.  The drought deepens.  Showers of such blessings sprinkle down rarely. Loneliness and hardness, harshness and indifference, fear and worry, describe humanity.  There is so much need for spirit-lifting, heartache healing, attitude adjusting, confidence building warmth and friendliness.

A friend of mine met a customer in his store one day who was wearing a colorful button on her lapel.  It read "Act Like You're Glad To See Me."  The human race cries for more such performances.

Religious People are Different

BETTER TO HIRE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE

Does it make any difference who we hire?  Do religious people think and act the same as others?  A study entitled “American Values in the Eighties:  The Impact of Belief” is revealing.  Some discoveries from this research reported in the Bulletin of the Protestant Hospital Association:
1.      Although less than half the public (44%) attend church frequently.  Three-quarters (74% consider themselves to be religious.

2.      73% of the general public say they frequently feel that God loves them.  Nearly all
Americans (94%) say they experience this feeling at least occasionally.

3.      57% of the population report they frequently engage in prayer.

4.      The most religious Americans are distinctly more likely than the least religious to vote in local elections (77% to 49%).

5.      The most religious are far more likely to do volunteer work for a local organization.

6.      Those who are most committed to religion are more likely than the least to frequently feel they “belong to a community”.  (83% vs. 45%)

7.      THE MOST RELIGIOUS AMERICANS ARE MORE LIKELY TO FEEL A SENSE OF DEDICATION TO THEIR WORK (97% vs 66%).

8.      THE MOST RELIGIOUS ARE MORE LIKELY TO FEEL THEIR WORK CONTRIBUTES TO SOCIETY (91% vs 53%).

9.      THE MOST RELIGIOUS ARE MORE LIKELY TO SAY THEY WOULD PREFER TO REMAIN AT THEIR PRESENT JOB RATHER THAN TAKING ANOTHER (78% vs 52%).

"More Than Love is Kindness"

"More than love, I value kindness.  Love comes and goes, but kindness remains."

A quote from Burma's (Myanmar) First Lady of Freedom.  Her name is Aung Suu Kyi

You Who Weep Will Laugh

“You Who Weep, Will Laugh.”

An ancient guru is reputed to have inquired of  disheartened and dispirited people, those who were knowing no pleasure or joy in life--  “When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing?”

By this unique line of exploration he often arrived at the origin of their unhappiness.   Their loss of vitality often harked back to a major grief in their lives; the death of a dear one, loss of a job or fortune, a significant illness, or some other major blow.

Some didn’t even realize they had stopped singing or dancing, which this teacher regarded as the symbols of loss of joy.  Their zest for life had just quietly trickled away leaving them dry, dispirited shadows, of their old selves.

Grief can do that.  It can slowly drain us of our vitality.

Jesus says, “Blessed are you who mourn for you shall be comforted.”  That is the version in Matthew’s Gospel.  Luke puts it this way:  “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”  This is The Lord Jesus’ promise:  healing and happiness can follow mourning.  Proper, natural weeping, and sorrow, leads to renewal.  Weep first, laugh later, Jesus implies.  Psalm 30 puts it this way:  “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

This teaching of Jesus creates a safe place to be real, which is a must for proper mourning.  Also, knowing the Lord weeps with us is a major encourager, as we shed our tears and grieve.  Jesus said “Inasmuch as it [happens] to the least of these my little ones, it happens to me.”   Psalm 23 helps with these thoughts:  “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.” 

Little comforts as much as kind people “walking with us”, “sitting with us”, “weeping with us”.  They are the Lord’s presence, embracing the hurting.  Joy then comes “in the morning”.