JOY ALONG THE WAY: KINDNESS CAN MAKE YOUR DAY

George Eliot (Mary Evans) said it well: "If you sit down at set of sun and count the acts that you have done, and counting, find ... one deed, one word ... one glance most kind that fell like sunshine where it went ... then you may count that day well spent."

Synonyms for kind are amiable, charitable, friendly, humane, pleasant, propitious. But, kind, a little four letter word that could turn the world around is better than any of its synonyms. Everyone understands what it means to be kind.

Suppose everyone in the world, population now at 5,664,000,000 did a kind deed everyday! Suppose they even did two kind things a day. 11,328,000,000! That's the kind of astronomical data I'd like to contemplate. Cape Girardeau could contribute approximately 34,000 or more daily to that number.

Kindness is so easy to accomplish -- a smile, a wave, a thrown kiss, just reaching silently to touch someone who is struggling for composure, supplying your name when someone is striving to remember it, a nod of the head to denote understanding when someone is having trouble explaining.

Kindness is like oil on rusty wheels, getting them going. George, rather clumsy at most things, being observed hammering, was told, "George, you drive a nail the straightest I ever saw. Right on the head. Never miss." George became an accomplished carpenter. Praise is kindness in Sunday clothes.

Oprah Winfrey, stopping at a toll gate to pay for her passage left enough money for the next five cars behind her, although she had no idea who the occupants were.

A lady's wig, on a windy day, blew off in a gust of wind and went beneath a car. A young, agile lad crawled in to retrieve it and said, not knowing exactly what to call it, "Lady, here's your, er, muff." Instantly the lady wrapped the wig around her hands, muff-like.

Mary Stewart's prayer Collect, repeated by multi-thousands of club women every month, after pleading for rejection of many shortcomings, then naming things we wish to be, ends with this summing-up, "Lord God, let us forget not to be kind."

Some faces just radiate kindness, not that they were born that way, but because they have practiced kindness so much it has formed lines of graciousness. That's not to say that those with bloodhound expressions are not kind. Maybe the bloodhound faces get that way because they spend so much time studying what their next kind deed will be. See how kind I can be! Since it's Mother's Day, I should bring mother into this some way. It's hard to separate mothers' love from kindness. Anyway my sister Lou and I were walking along behind Mama on a gravely road, going after the mail. We were amusing ourselves by picking up gravel and seeing how far we could throw it. We sought out bigger and bigger stones for they went the farthest. Somehow one of my biggest stones went awry and hit Mama in the back of the head. She turned swiftly and could see by my horrified expression that I was the culprit. She bore down on me and said, surprised-like, "However in the world did you learn to aim so precisely?"

Sometimes, purposely making the same harmless mistake that another has made is a small act of kindness. Co-hostess at a club meeting once, I put a cup of crushed peppermint candy into my cake batter instead of one fourth cup. I called my co-hostess who was supposed to make the same cake and told her of my mistake. "Well," she said, "that's all right, I'll just make the same mistake. And the eaters of our cakes said, kindly, "What a wonderful cake. So pepperminty."

"Be ye kind one to another," was spoken by someone with far more authority than George Eliot or Mary Stewart. I hope you know who it was.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.