Saturday, April 27, 2013

3 Keys to Kindness

“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
— George Sand[1]
We can well imagine for all the life in us how we are to live the most prosperous of lives. Most of us think that. Most of us want that; the access to and the ability to enjoy abundance. How do we gain such a life? What investment is required?
If we accept we live in an upside-down world where those who take are taken from and where those who give receive even more, we are well placed to receive this truth.
Kindness is at the heart of blessing; that sort of other-centredness that has us rejecting the overtures of the flesh, yet clamouring with any minds for how we might serve another.
Kindness is at the heart of blessing.
It bears repeating and that’s why I have repeated it. Kindness is at the heart of blessing.
There are at least three tangible ways we express kindness:
1.      Giving without hesitation: holding things lightly is a great blessing in itself. It proves we are directed by the Holy Spirit so far as our decisiveness is concerned. Because we cannot take to heaven any material thing, besides perhaps our character of soul, we should be motivated to give without hesitation. When we give without hesitation others receive what we give with more genuine appreciation.
2.      Losing without regret: when things disappear from our grasp we have a choice how we receive those losses. We are not blown by many winds if we have removed the sails of our greed. Nothing that disappears is entirely regrettable, but we must think past grappling for the thing that has gone.
3.      Acquiring without meanness: because we can take things in this life, as they lay there physically within our grasp, we may often forget the morality of acquiring. Things should only be acquired at the right time, in the right way, for the right reasons. In acquiring there is never any good in leaving a sour taste in someone else’s mouth.
***
Kindness is at the heart of blessing. It’s the consummate manifestation of love. When we give without hesitation, lose without regret, and acquire without meanness we come close to this thing called kindness. There is no better legacy than kindness.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.


[1] a.k.a., Baroness Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin (1804–1876)

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