Scene: chairs around a kitchen counter and two place settings.
Characters: Dick, Jane, a bowl of fried potatoes, and other comestibles playing bit roles.
Dick (with a puzzled look): “Baby, what did you put in these potatoes?”
Jane (eyes narrowed): “Why?” Pause. “Is. There. A. Problem?”
Dick (with a deep sigh); “Can you, for once in your life, just give me a simple answer to a simple question?”
Jane (chin forward): “Can you, for the first time in your life, not find fault with everything I do?”
Dick (pushing the plate away): “You want these potatoes? ‘Cause I’m done here!”
Oops.
2006 was supposed to be the Year–at least First Quarter–of Kindness for me. I was going to follow Mother Theresa’s directive and be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in my face, kindness in my eyes, kindness in my smile.
The Great Potato Debate was just one small example of the Lack of Kindness in my face, eyes, smile, words, or deeds. My bad. Because I was starting with the face, eyes, and smile and that’s not the way it works. Kindness doesn’t start on the outside and work its way in. Kindness doesn’t start with me at all, because kindness–caring, in big ways and small, for the welfare of others–is actually foreign to me.
2006 will be my year of kindness only if it is the year when I devote more time to being still and consciously aware that of the presence of God. More time in worship. More time in prayer. More time steeping in the love of God. Any kindness I express is an infusion of Christ in me and working through me to make others better and happier.
It’s gonna happen.
Read about it: I Corinthians 13:4-7