In this Advent season, we are all looking for light in the darkness. Where do we see this light? It’s hard to find it sometimes, because the days are short and darkness comes early, but it’s there if you’re looking.
I just watched a speech by CNN’s Dr. Kwane Stewart, founder of “Project Street Vet,” who was voted “Hero of the Year for 2023.” Stewart is a veterinarian who brings health care to the homeless and their animals. The award brings with it a $100,000 cash prize. There were ten nominees for the award and he split the award ten ways. It was a pretty cool thing to do.
Most importantly, during his acceptance speech, Stewart talked about meeting and attending to a homeless man and the health of his dog. The homeless man expressed to the doctor that he was hungry. Stewart was hungry, too, so he bought himself a sandwich and one for the homeless man. When he presented the homeless man the sandwich, the man tore off a quarter of the sandwich that he ate and gave the rest to his dog. Interesting how the lessons of kindness express themselves in unique ways. The doctor was touched by the homeless man’s compassion for the animal and teared up when talking about it in his acceptance speech.
If you watch closely in life, you’re going to capture moments that cling to you like a warm weighted blanket. It will kindle the fire of your heart with the ineffable springs of Divinity’s power.
The beatified activist Dorothy Day said: “Once I was on the steps of Precious Blood church early one morning. A woman with cancer of the face was begging (beggars are only allowed in slums) and when I gave her money (no sacrifice on my part but merely an alms which someone had given me) she tried to kiss my hand. The only thing I could do was kiss her dirty old face with the gaping hole in it where an eye and a nose had been. It sounds like something but it was not. One gets used to ugliness so quickly. What one averts one’s eyes from one day, can easily be borne the next…. One suffers these things and forgets them. But the daily, hourly, minutely, giving up of one’s own will and possessions, which means poverty, is a hard, hard thing, and I don’t think it ever gets any easier.”
In another instance, a friend of mine sends me money at Thanksgiving and Christmas to help my former students in need. My administrative friend at the school, who helps find the right family who needs it, told me, “That little blessing changed something in me.” Although he wasn’t the one receiving the gift, he told me his relationship with the student whose family received it changed. The student saw how attuned he was to his needs and how much the man cared. He told me that it established a credibility for garnering mutual respect. My friend who gave the contribution had no idea that his gift was inspiring more than just giving a family a decent meal at Thanksgiving, he was also bridging a relational divide he had no idea he was healing.
Another friend of mine teaches at an inner-city school and is vocal social justice advocate. Her kindness is so disarming that when she’s making a point about social justice, you can’t help but listen and respect her; even when she’s quietly admonishing you that your soul is in jeopardy because of your selfishness. It’s quite a thing to witness. She is not manipulative. She is centered and has tapped into an authentic voice that is so quiet and humble but expresses the heart of truth so boldly that it echoes like a call into a canyon off the peak from a great mountaintop. Her choice of words is disarming and poignant and resonate with clarity and kindness. Her Christian persuasion is honest and people see that and take it to heart. This honesty is so refreshing and awakens people to consider her point.
This is what happens when we look for kindness and righteousness in the world. A shelter is a great place to see it. There is one moment in every day where one can witness kindness as the order of the day in survival.
In an interview, David Brooks quotes C. S. Lewis saying, “There’s a core piece of us inside that is the piece that decides. It decides how we’re going to behave in life.” These little decisions make our character. Brooks asserts that Jimmy Dorrell in Waco has a church under the bridge. The homeless don’t attend his church, so he brings the church to them. He has a shelter attached to his home and built a pantry. Dorrell’s work with Mission Waco, Mission World is extending kindness in extraordinary ways and making a difference one person, one building block at a time. Dorrell took his lead from St. Francis of Assissi. “Come and let yourselves be built as living stones into the spiritual temple.”
Every community has a place like this – a place where love is the cornerstone of dignity and kindness is the order of the day.
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