Kindness

"If we are in a supermarket when someone drops a bag of groceries on the floor and we don't help that person pick things up, what difference does it make how deeply we know we're a being of God?" Lee Lozowick

Kindness involves a constant attitude.  It seems to me that people who are selectively kind (and we all know some people like that - may even have been ourselves at times) are kind to people from whom they get some payoff, but their unkindness occurs with family members - to whom they feel safe to let down their mask, and to service people -- the people at the cash register, waiters, etc.  It has seemed to me for a long time that kindness cannot be genuine unless it is practiced within one's own home.  Many, many years ago it occurred to me that I had an opportunity (and responsibility) to choose how I was going to affect the atmosphere in our home.  Cheerfulness, courtesy, fun, respect, careful and loving communication, doing my share of what it takes to keep a house going:  all of these are, in my opinion, acts of kindness.  Many years ago I was with a group going into a place to eat in the evening.  On the path going in, there was a broken beer bottle with the jagged edge up.  I stopped and - seeing no garbage can, moved the broken bottle against the building with the jagged edges down, so that no one could inadvertently step on it in the dark.  I thought nothing of the action, but someone in the group - noticing what I had done, commented that it was so like me.  I am not trying to make myself out to be a hero; it was something anyone would have done, but I do think it was reflective of my decision to practice 24/7 kindness.  What act of kindness have you done or received today?