The subject of this painting were the blossoms of an African Tulip tree. The blossom forms a large cup that catches rain water. Birds coming to drink from these cups carry the pollen from one blossom to another. Thus, by providing a service to the birds, the flower receives service in return. It is by giving and sharing that we grow in loving and caring.
Things of Joy
By Al Vester
I shopped for gifts early this year
And gathered a sack full of good cheer.
I polished up memories of things I’d seen,
Until they gleamed so bright and clean.
Things of joy and boundless mirth
Showing to all for all their worth:
The diamond sparkle of falling rain,
The shadow smile of the old moon’s wane,
The billows and curls from a chimney at dawn,
The husky smell of a new mown lawn,
A sapphire sky over an emerald sea,
The tender smile that you gave me.
What is Kindness?
Kindness is most easily described by the impact that it has on individuals in our society. When a person helps a child get up after a fall, brushing off the dirt and giving words of comfort, they enable that child to find the courage to try again and to improve. Kindness is the lending of a helping hand without worrying about being helped in return. Kindness is listening respectfully to an opinion with which we disagree out of respect for the other person as a fellow human being. Kindness is treating others with the same respect that we wish to be treated ourselves. Kindness has the warmth to melt cold relations and turn adversaries into friends.
An old story is told of a contest between the wind and the sun to see who was strongest. The task chosen as proof of strength was to remove the coat off the back of a man walking along a lonely country road. The wind went first, blowing and tearing at the man’s coat with greater and greater ferocity, but the harder it blew, the tighter the man clutched his coat to his body. Then, the sun began to shine, gently warming the man until gradually, he first unbuttoned, then removed the coat from his back. What the fierceness of wind could not do by violence, the sun easily did through gentleness.
In a world filled with both verbal and physical attacks and counter-attacks spiraling downwards into ever increasing bitterness, we need to restore kindness as a hallmark of our democratic society. Dictators don’t worry about kindness because they believe that they can just eliminate any who disagrees with them. But in democratic society, we need to work together with people of all sorts of opinions. This can only be accomplished as we patiently and kindly listen to each other. Kindness will unite us. Kindness is the only way we as a people will make progress. Divisiveness only leads to paralysis in governments and societies. Please seek to be a kinder person today for both your sake and for our society’s sake.
