“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who,
then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to
him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless
you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew
18:1-4, NIV)
Although I
was born in Toronto , London Ontario London . I partied heavily there. I thrived
there. I know every area of the city very well, as if there was a map of the
place etched in my brain. I have spent a great deal of my time in the suburbs
and the downtown core. The Greyhound bus station nestles near the Covent Garden
Market, right in heart of it all. I used
to know the bus schedule off by heart. I still have a doctor that I see. Her
office, in the very core, overlooks one of the busiest streets in the city. I
have travelled to London
so often that its geography plays in flashback. While the downtown still exists,
it does not thrive. It is dying the same slow death that other downtowns are
all across North America . Technology tends to
kill off what isn’t advancing with it. The internet has meant doom. It’s a
plague carried in on all those smartphones. I digress. One visible
deterioration is the increase in the homeless and panhandlers. On a busy day,
you can't walk twenty feet on Dundas Street
without the standard “spare some change?” While I have compassion and much
empathy, I cannot possibly give to everyone. How do you choose who to be kind
to? I cannot actually know who is in need or who just wants some more Meth. I
must discern so I listen to my instinct.
The moment
I reached into my pocket, she exited the store we were standing in front of. I
can still feel the cold chill in the air. As I handed him all I had, she began
to accost us both. She tried to shame me for the “crime” of helping another. I
was only “encouraging” him. She attacked him, condemning him for having the
audacity of even asking for help. I have never forgotten that woman. It’s
strange how less than a minute of your lifetime can change you. You can spend
years looking for answers and guidance and in a heartbeat it comes. Now, some
harpy remains my catalyst. Every time I think of the worst in people, she is
the poster child. One of the reasons I try to be kind is because she told me that I shouldn’t be. I was
always a friendly chap when I was younger. I was polite but a little crazy. It
was easier for me to be mean than it was to be nice. I used to rest comfortably
in the darkness but I never had trouble
being kind. If not for the grace of God, I may well have been that kid, sitting on
the cold concrete begging for bus fare to get home. This is the reason I
stopped to help him. Acting on the goodness in yourself is very important. I
think God squeezes it out of us when we hold it all in. Being kind is not just
an expression to a person or a charity, it’s an expression of the divine within
us. Being generous, being compassionate, these are things we shouldn’t have to
try to be. It’s a cold enough world with so little light. Be kind, or the world
will not be kind to you. If you had memories of that unfeeling creature,
you would know I speak the truth.
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each
other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians
4:32, NIV)
It’s kind
of sad to look back over your life and realize you don’t have many examples of
kindness you can refer to. I don’t just mean from others. I am guilty. For most of my
life, being kind to strangers has never been an issue for me. Being nice to the
people I actually know has been the challenge. I have always been able to see
life from the view of others but familiarity tends to bring contempt. I believe
that kindness is a natural state I have always been able to tap into. Even in
the worst of times, I still acted on instinct and chose to be kind, no matter
what I was feeling or going though or whether the Bible tells me so. Yes, I give to the homeless, I have helped
care for the aging. I have given of myself, my money and of my time. It is still
quite the challenge for me to be consistently kind. The older I have gotten,
the more I am convinced that kindness shouldn’t be an effort but somehow it
always is. The modern world is trying at best. You have to turn rather odd in
order to actually survive. Compassion and empathy seem mere tools we use at our
convenience. Other people are only shadows that pass us in the hall. Most
times, we don’t even notice that anyone is there. Kindness is more than a happy
place. It is an attitude, not only an intention. You can give all you want but
until you give of yourself, you’re just cheating.
“Therefore, as God’s
chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12, NIV)
One of my
first exposures to the Gay community was my friend David. Although he was
considerably older than me, we became fast friends. He introduced me to Gay
culture. He exposed me to the seedier side, to bars and cruising and drag
shows. No more than a friend, he was more a mentor than anything else. This sat
well with his partner Paul. At 18, I was very single, very curious and very
driven. The entire lifestyle played right into my untreated Bipolar disorder.
I never even realized this underlying factor. Dave and his community
demonstrated, to me at least, that there was substance to what most people view
as hedonism. It may well be, but my first exposure, face to face, revealed much
more than jockstraps and Liza Minnelli. It was into the second year of our
friendship that Dave started to get sick. Treatment was different with HIV back
in the early days of the slaughter. When someone got infected, their future was
usually limited to months rather than years. People rotted right before your
very eyes. The disease ate through most victims like a spitfire. It caught on
and it spread. My friend Dave was no exception. After only six months from the
notification, he looked more like a concentration camp survivor than the man I
had known for over 2 years. I visited him regularly when he was admitted to the
hospice. I watched the Kaposi Sarcoma
spread over his torso like moss on the side of a tree. As the infection
worsened, Dave went from HIV positive to full blown AIDS. His skin became
almost translucent, the cancer spread inward and his suffering was great. At
the end, the best he could do was lay there. He developed blindness and AIDS
dementia. His time drew near, or so one would think. Like my grandfather after
his stroke, Dave lingered, seemingly unwilling to let go of this life. He became
a stranger in almost every way. I didn’t recognize him, he didn’t recognize me.
He was lost, on the brink for months.
Morality is
relative. Kindness is not. What one person might find reprehensible another
might consider mercy. Kindness is to act upon that mercy. As Paul watched David
slip slowly into nothing, you could see the weight if it. You could almost
smell his fear. He told me it was like torture but from the inside out. Each
day always more of it. The hardest part for him was the catch-22. He wanted
David to have peace, to no longer suffer. At the same time, he did not wish to
say goodbye. I can’t imagine being stuck in that endless waiting game. I cannot
imagine what happens when you just can’t wait anymore. Eventually, the Kaposi filled his lungs and a ventilator was hooked up. Almost calmly, Paul
reached for it and turned it off. It appeared methodical but I noticed his
hands shaking. He was being pulled apart, despite what may have happened as
consequence. Paul put David first. He offered mercy, the kindest gift of all. I
don’t know the details of what followed but I know charges were never laid
against anyone. I believe natural causes was mentioned in the coroner’s report. David was laid to rest, with only a few friends gathered to
say goodbye. They had trouble getting a funeral home to bury an AIDS victim but
luckily discovered a gay-owned establishment that had no issues. In all my
years, of everything that has passed before me, I have never witnessed a
greater act of kindness. To give up the thing you want the most so that another might benefit is the ultimate act of charity. Whenever I think back on the
misery of those few months back in 1985, I imagine it differently. It was a
time of great loss for the gay community and gay people in general. Few sat
unaffected by this plague. For me, I will always remember how an act of
kindness in the face of great peril freed my friend from constant and needless
suffering. Be diligent in your kindness, always.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.”
(Galatians 5:22,
NIV)
It
shouldn't be so hard to be kind. It should come easy but for some it does not. Perhaps
the most frustrating thing about being mortal is that you can wish all
you want but life always seems to stand in the way. Sometimes you have to force kindness, feed it through all the chaos and the suffering. Life, in the end, does not always allow
us such a luxury. We are so absorbed in our own misery that it tends to be
almost impossible to think about someone else. I would argue that shit always floats to the top of the toilet. Kindness is a built in reaction, not something
hard pressed and obscure. It is written in the very makeup of each and every
person. From the time we are children, the constructs of this reality battle
our nature for dominance and control. We lose a part of ourselves as we grow
and mature. Being kind becomes an inconvenience rather than a pleasure.
As children, it was second nature. It was so easy to see without judgement, to
act completely from instinct rather than some rational thinking or social instruction.
As we lose our innocence, our view of others is corrupted and warped. It is
through our integration that we lose compassion and empathy and any semblance
of unity. We strive to be individual and along the way we learn how to care
about only ourselves rather than each other. Simply through the act of
existing, we sabotage the very best part of us. In fact, as we age, we must
learn to be kind all over again. We change and so too does our reasoning.
“Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God
When we
moved from the city to the town of Paris Ontario Canada
At any time
I cared to notice, she walked home alone, down the street and into someplace
else. She rarely carried herself with a
sense of joy and adventure. She is a pretty little girl, prone to jeans and plaid
work wear. I just assume she dressed that way on purpose. It seemed to suit her
in a country girl way. I don’t know her name but I know what she looks like. I
know that she likes to pick flowers and she even skips on occasion. Every time
I have seen her, she has never walked with anyone else. She seemed to want no
part of the other children and adults who marched along the same way. I can’t
be sure if she was sad, isolated or even bullied. All I knew was what I saw and
she seemed out of place among all the other children. I was trimming the
English Ivy in my front yard when the ruckus began. Dozens and dozens of school
kids began to swarm the street like they do every weekday. I stopped my
fiddling and picked up my coffee to watch. Like on every occasion that I see
her, she sauntered without a care in the world, or at least I hoped she did.
The ring from the bicycle behind her must have startled her. She attempted to
jump up on the curb and instead tripped and fell flat on her face. It hurt to
watch as she landed hard on the grassy knoll across the street from my house.
Thank goodness it wasn’t a concrete sidewalk or driveway. I stood up quickly,
trying to determine if she needed my help. To my surprise, other children, not
the adults, came running to her assistance. A group of five of her peers helped
her to her feet and made sure she was okay. The entire event was like someone
had thrown birdseed on the ground and a flock of sparrows rushed it. I was
pleasantly surprised. Not one of them asked her name. Not one of them asked her
religion. No one cared if she would later be a lesbian. Their response seemed a
natural reaction, not based on any one factor or another. Such kindness I have
rarely seen, not like this anyway. They could have kept on without her, just
like they would every other day, but they reacted like all children should. It has
been a few weeks since this incident. I’m still working in the garden. I still
stop and sip my coffee. The sweetest part of it all is that I have not seen her
walking alone ever since that day.
“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not
hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” (Matthew 19:14, NIV)
We learn to
hate. We learn to judge and we learn to disparage. Other things we are just
born with. A cruel nature is as natural as a kind nature. You don’t have to be
taught to be either one. All you have to do is act on instinct. You can’t teach
someone to be good to others any more than you can teach someone to be rotten
to others. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. You
either have it or you don’t. One cannot be a little bit pregnant. Kindness is an essential part of being human. All you
have to do is watch children at play. No adult ever taught them to act like
that. It is innate and one of the very best things in life and some of the best
things in life are still free.
tells me so
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