What The World Needs Now Is Kindness
What a week! A tragic school shooting in Nashville that took the lives of three 9-year-olds, their principal, a teacher and a custodian. The Trump indictment that threatens to tear us apart even further as a country. Lethal weather ravaging the South and Midwest, the arrest of an American journalist in Russia, and rising tension between the U.S and Iran in Syria, are but a few of last week’s other events.
As my friend Brother Paul Quenon of the Abbey of Gethsemani told a retreat group recently, “We have been given a sad time to live in.”
I’m pondering the same question the people ask of John the Baptist in Luke’s gospel when he confronts them about the world’s turmoil and their own sinfulness: “What then can be done?”
The coming days of Holy Week offer us a respite in which to reflect on our priorities and what we can do to help each other and our wounded society to heal.
On Palm Sunday, I like to read each of the narratives of Christ’s Passion in the gospels. While the basic elements remain the same, each version offers a slightly different prism for viewing these events. Every year, I discover some new insight into this timeless story.
Perhaps because we seem to be in dire need of simple acts of kindness, this year I focused on some of the “minor players” in the Passion story and their gestures of compassion.
I am struck by Simon the Cyrenian who steps in to carry the cross when a battered and bleeding Jesus falters. While Matthew’s gospel says Simon was “pressed into service,” I can’t help but think he could have refused or just run away out of fear, as Peter did when some in the crowd identified him as a follower of Jesus. Simon stayed. His act of compassion lives on.
Would I have had the courage of Joseph of Arimathea? A disciple in secret, he asks for the body of Jesus, wraps it in clean linen and lays it into a tomb he owns.
Would I have had the conviction of Nicodemus, who also at personal risk, brings “myrrh and aloes” to cleanse and anoint Jesus, a “criminal” the state has just put to death? He brings not just a few symbolic drops of oil but, as John’s gospel tells us, “myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds.” Wow!
Veronica is another important figure in my view. She isn’t mentioned in any of the Passion narratives, but is remembered in the Sixth Station of the Cross as the woman who steps out of the crowd to wipe Jesus’ face of blood and sweat with her shawl.
At a parish I once attended, I was asked to select a Station and write a short reflection on it, drawing out is relevance for our time. I chose the story of Veronica. I’d like to think I would have done the same thing she did had I been in the crowd watching the events of Christ’s crucifixion unfold.
Every nurse’s aide who bathes the body of a frail patient, every volunteer at the Mexican border who offers a food and drink to a migrant, every shelter worker who offers a homeless person a shower and a meal, every parent who wipes away the tears of a child are all in their way modern-day Veronicas.
I admire too the perseverance of the women who return to Jesus’ tomb when most of his male disciples disperse and disappear into hiding.
Our country — our world — is starving for whatever small acts of kindness we can muster. The troubles of our times call on us to persevere like the women at the tomb, and to step forward with random acts of compassion even when the crowd is pressuring us to remain silent, stand still, or worse, give in to hateful instincts.
I recently came across a meditation offered by the great Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh that seems appropriate for the sad times we’ve been given, as Brother Paul calls them. It’s called “The Nine Prayers:”
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May I be free from injury. May I live in safety.
May I be free from disturbance, fear, and anxiety.
May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and of love.
May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.
May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in myself.
May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.
May I be able to live fresh, solid and free.
May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
Thich Nhat Hanh suggests after we pray this prayer, we then pray it again, substituting the “I” in the prayer with the name of someone we know.
As Holy Week unfolds, may we make the words of this prayer our practice. May we have the courage to imitate the compassion of Simon, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Veronica, and the women at the tomb.
As Servant of God Dorothy Day once said, each of us carries within us a pebble of compassion that can make a difference when thrown into the world’s great sea of need.
This Holy Week, may we add our small acts of kindness to the world’s sea of need.
