“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Mark Twain
Mr. Twain’s language, kindness. Today, as I reflect here, I am struck by how language is used more as an act of aggression. An act of kindness? Not so much!
It has been written that we learn from our experiences and many times we choose to experience from the opposites in an active way as participants, or in a passive way as being witnesses. To be sure the negative dramas streaming into my daily life certainly obstruct my journey as I travel to find my inner peace. I look closer to see acts of compassion, love and yes, kindness that immediately attempt to comfort victims in the aftermath of a mass shooting or a disaster, natural or man made: family acts of kindness, neighbors’ acts of kindness, communities acts of kindness, acts that radiate like the waves from the pebble tossed traveling across our ponds of inner peace.
I believe history teaches little to many because they didn’t live it. The same dramas, then, are repeated allowing new generations to experience old dramas first hand! Over and over again.
After the Civil War ended with President Lincoln’s emancipation of the slaves. The African-Americans were free. Peace was not their lot. Groups of like minded souls acted to strike at men and women of color. The condition of affairs in the late Insurrectionist States was one of terror for many. The terrorists identified were the Ku Klux Klan. White supremacy’s main tool, hate. This hatred shared by too many, lived on through the “Jim Crow” era from the 1870’s through the 1950’s. New people born into old generations of hate and fear practiced that hate, fear, division and segregation.
The “Civil Rights” era attempted to end forced segregation. Sadly we still see fear and hatred directed at anyone judged “different”. My point is not to point out the obvious. Dramas based on fear and hatred are too easy to see. I am looking for Kindness.
If I accept the premise that many groups of people are attracted to each other or an organization based on their level of evolution then I must find groups that showed courage and compassion to act out in “truth to power” to balance out the hate.
An example of this is a notice of a meeting first published in the Yorkville Enquirer in 1871. (The following are excerpts from the notice.)
“Public Meeting at Clay Hill”
“A public meeting of white and colored citizens was held at Tate’s store, in the vicinity of Clay Hill on Saturday , 11th instant. The meeting was organized by calling Captain J.C. Phillips to the chair, and the appointment of Colonel W.B Allison, secretary.
” On motion, the chair appointed a committee of seven , consisting of Peter McCollum, D.T Partlow and Major A.A. McKenzie on the part of the whites, and Peter Watson, June Moore, Sol Hill and Francis Johnson, on the part of the freedmen, to prepare business for the meeting.
“Whereas there has lately been many acts of violence committed in York County such as shooting at, whipping, and otherwise abusing white and colored citizens, by unknown pursuits in disguise, and that those acts are in nearly every instance, followed by the burning of barns, gin houses, and other buildings by persons who are likewise unknown, and like those preceding them cover their outrages by midnight darkness: therefore,
“Resolved: To condemn all, and everyone who commit such outrages to be disavowed by law abiding citizens.
“and that we believe it to be the duty of every law abiding citizen, white or colored, to aid offices of justice and bringing to punishment all such offenders against law and order. “acts of injustice which we utterly condemn, and are only calculated to produce greater animosity between whites and blacks: and if continued will, we fear, a crisis terrible to contemplate. (italics page 1362, The Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States- South Carolina Volume III).
Unfortunately, “a crisis (to) terrible to contemplate.” has repeated itself many times from 1870 until today. Fear and hatred show itself in violence spawned by white supremacy, fear of immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic acts of violence. Many people consider themselves “good” businessmen, “good” politicians, “good” religious men and/or other “good” walks of life but they choose to cheat, steal, commit fraud and graft, and demoralize their fellow men. Negative actions and negative energy need to be met with compassion, truth, courage and yes, kindness.
My lighthouse has been history today but literature is never far away. Shakespeare’s opening line in King Henry’s speech in Henry V comes to mind; “Once more unto the breach, my friends, once more;” Needed, another act of kindness, courage and compassion to fill the breach we all face.
Where do I begin? I begin by looking within myself to find my kindness, my courage, my unconditional love. How? One pebble at a time….
Thank you for reading,
Mark