I was driving – read that as speeding – down a back road the other day, late – if you know me this will not come as a surprise – for a meeting with a friend. Speeding down Shenandoah County back roads is not an easy (or necessarily wise) thing to do; many of them are simply paved over cow paths. I am not kidding. So, there I was speeding down the windy, curvy, dangerous road and up ahead of me (cue dramatic music) Brake Lights! NOOOOO!
So, I did the only thing I knew how to do: I screamed up into the ceiling of the car at the sheer injustice of this debacle, and, yes, I do realize that on the scale of world tragedies this does not even rate a negative fifty. Anyway, I screamed and stomped on the brakes completely frustrated and ready to be totally over-the-top irritated with the inconsiderate fool obstructing the road.
Then I saw the problem. A little old Mennonite couple – she had the prayer bonnet and he was wearing the big brimmed black hat – had pulled (mostly) off the road and were out of their car standing beside a wire fence that ran along a field adjacent to the road. She was watching as he gently tended to a goat that had somehow entangled its horns in the fence. Well, huh… can we say “heel” because that’s what I felt like?
These two people had cared enough about a poor little goat to stop and help free it from a fence. Would I have been that willing to set aside my self-involved world to do the same? That started me thinking about the nature of kindness and examples I’ve seen.
There was a girl in my first high school to whom I NEVER saw anyone speak. I don’t know why this was; she didn’t smell bad, hadn’t committed any crimes of which I knew, or burned down the local covered bridge. Maybe it was just the cruel nature of teens, and I’d like to say that I broke the unspoken rule, but I didn’t. Instead, one day I was coming down the stairs behind the senior boy who ruled the school – you know that guy – the one all the girls (including me) were totally “in love with” ( like I even knew what that meant), and this poor, unfortunate girl was coming up the stairs.
It was late in the afternoon, long after the last dismissal bell had rung. I was still there because I was a nerd, and that’s just what I did, but I have no clue why he was there. Anyway, he stopped on the stairs, actually made a point of stopping, and greeted her by name then asked her how she was. Now, I don’t know if he would have done the same if lots of other teens had been around, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even aware I was there, but here was the coolest guy in school talking to the biggest “outcast.” On purpose. In the world of teens, this was an enormous kindness, and if I’ve never forgotten it, I’m sure she hasn’t either. I doubt it raised a blip on his radar because that was just who he was.
As an adult, the kindest heart I know, the most tender heart I know, beats within my friend J. As a volunteer at the Desert Mission Food Bank, she watches the broken, the humbled, and the down-and-out queue for the graciousness of strangers to provide the very basics of life’s necessities. Desert Mission not only gives food to the needy but also has items they sell super cheap to help families make their food needs fit their budgets. Sometimes clients come into the food bank who need food but can’t afford even the discounted price. J keeps $20 in her uniform apron for just such occasions. I don’t know this because she talks about it; she’d never do that. I know because I’ve seen it.
We’re told to love God and love people – Jesus labels them the top two of the original BIG 10. Kindness is the art of the second of these. So many opportunities come to be actively kind, and mostly I miss them whether out of obliviousness from being lost in my own self-centeredness or from just being distracted, but I’d like not to miss these chances to live out love. I think it’s a conscious decision to pay attention to the world around me, even to the goats stuck in the fence. God loves those goats, too. After all, He created them for a purpose, and I don’t just mean to provide delicious cheese. Maybe one purpose is to make me more aware of my lack of kindness.
So, next time I drive the treacherous, terrifying back roads through Shenandoah County – never fear, it will be a normal, cautious speed – I’m going to look at that fence and think about that goat, and I will hope that my heart is just a little softer, a little more open. Also, I will think about delicious goat cheese.
The Unexpected Life 