The closest our culture comes to an exhortation is the command: “Be Kind.” Emblazoned in all manner of places, this seems to be a call vague enough to seem acceptable to most people. A particular favorite for this author is the children’s shirt with a honey bee image above the words “kind.” Maybe the bee represents adversity in life or maybe we’re supposed to ignore the inevitable pitfalls and bee stings. In any event, we are told to “be kind.” But what does it actually mean?
A closer look at kindness
Not to pick on anyone in particular but simply to examine a relevant example, let us turn to an interview with Jan Turnquist, the executive director of Orchard House, the historic site of Louisa May Alcott’s childhood home. The details disclosed about Alcott’s life are fascinating and the house sounds well worth a visit. Throughout the interview, Turnquist comes back to her admiration for the character of the Alcott family members. She seems genuinely impressed with their generosity, commitment to education, and attention to the individual.
While all this is agreeable and understandable, Turnquist’s conclusion about their motives seems so far off base it bears further investigation. Again, this is not to skewer Turnquist but simply to address our cultures unhelpful ideas, some of which made their way into this particular conversation.
Having expressed great esteem for the Alcott family and their life’s work, Turnquist said towards the end of the interview that she was also deeply impressed with a bumper sticker. There is certainly something to be said for the pithy wisdom of a good bumper sticker, but it doesn’t hold in this case. The great adhesive thought that caught our director’s eye was: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
This, Turnquist seemed to suggest, captures the ethos of the Alcott family. She assumes that their Christian faith had little to nothing to do with their life’s work. No, it was just a matter of choosing to be kind. So facile! When considering an action, you could think about whether it would make you a jerk or not and then choose the not-jerk option. What a concept!
Just try harder!
From this saccharine perspective, people living anything less than stellar lives are only doing so because they haven’t learned that they get to choose. Perhaps there is something to this, but, again, that pesky problem of implementation comes up. Sure, all you have to do is decide to be kind. But this is the same you who accidentally polishes off a stash of cookies and becomes irate listening to the way someone else chews. We have an abysmal track record on following through on intentions and maintaining composure in the face of obstacles (or just the presence of a snotty child masticating cheerios).
There’s got to be more to it than just willing hard enough and becoming really, really kind. If we cannot keep some of the most sacred promises we make to ourselves and we continually struggle to master the simplest forms of self-control, the kindness regime is going to have a bumpy roll-out if it’s all on us.
The difference seems to be the source of kindness. If the source is within our own power, we are bound to struggle, perhaps always to fail. What the Alcott family, like many Christians, display in their abundant generosity and enjoyment of beauty is attractive to many people. It is also disturbing. What do they have that you don’t have? How are they capable of immense sacrifice, patience through trials, and loving commitment to each other and those around them?
If we stop at a vapid “kindness” reading, we are bound to become terribly frustrated. We won’t be able to white-knuckle our way to magnanimity. Here’s where it gets uncomfortable; people outside of AA also need that “higher power” to overcome their faults.
Where Turnquist seems to dismiss the Alcott’s Christianity as one characteristic among many, the form of religion (submission to authority, acknowledgment of our shortcomings, acceptance of divinity that surpasses us) was arguably the animating force of their lives.
The uncomfortable part of recognizing this is that it can compel us to action. If we look at the lives of saints and pretend it’s just a whole lot of “choosing kindness,” we don’t have to look at the unbecoming parts of ourselves that need saving. If we recognize the internal theodrama at work when any fallen person acts for the Good, we may be prompted to invite that terrifying power and its purifying force into our own hardened hearts.
An appalling alternative
In The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God: the Story of Ruth Pakaluk, we see what such a response might entail. The memoir and collection of letters tells the story of Ruth Pakaluk, a wife and mother who converted to Christianity while at Harvard. Reading the accounts of pilgrims who, in starvation conditions, tended to the sick and dying until they themselves were on their deathbed, prompted her to desire not simply the kindness but the source of this superhuman compassion. Pakaluk found the source in Christianity and later Catholicism.
By all accounts, Ruth Pakaluk was no intellectual lightweight and had a razor-sharp intellect with which she would interrogate the world and ideas around her. Our culture has reduced full-fledged spirituality to the category of emotionalism when, in fact, witnessing religiously-inspired self-sacrifice should rationally prompt us to investigate the divine.
What is not rational is thinking, as so many of us do, that it’s just about choosing to be kind. In the face of a mountain of evidence of our short-comings and imperfections, we would be fools to rely on our own power to make the world a better place.
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