KINDNESS REIGNS

Response to Random Acts of Kindness Week has been overwhelming, far exceeding even the brightest expectations. The Southeast Missourian is coordinating the first-ever weeklong celebration of kindness in the Cape Girardeau area. The special week begins on Mother's Day, May 12.

More than 200 businesses, organizations, churches and individuals have signed a form indicating they will find special ways to participate in kindness week. Many more are expected to sign up before the week begins.

In spite of this enthusiastic endorsement of the concept of an entire week devoted to kindness, many questions have sprung up, as could be expected, about how to organize something that is supposed to be random. The evidence so far, however, is that once a commitment is made to participate, what to do and how to do it just comes naturally. That is a wonderful result of setting aside Random Acts of Kindness Week.

The events and activities that have been put together so far are varied and wonderful. For example, after more than 35 years of coexistence as neighbors, Grace United Methodist Church and Cape Girardeau's junior and senior high schools will come together for a picnic during Random Acts of Kindness Week. The church expects 200 to 300 students to show up in the parking lot for hot dogs and hamburgers grilled by parishioners, but church members could be surprised by acceptance of their act of kindness, especially if it is a nice spring day. And a family that has signed up to participate plans to take refreshments to the man who picks up the garbage.

It is easy to see how a week focusing on kindness generates ideas and stimulates good deeds.

All of which raises another question: Does it take a special week to make kindness a reality? Of course not. The week recognizes that residents of this area are, by nature, giving, friendly and concerned about the needs of others. That has been demonstrated time after time. This is despite the burdens of the world that rise up in the form of mayhem and malaise. The special week celebrates the good in all of us and focuses our attention on the positive.

Many acts of kindness take on religious dimensions, which may help explain why the recent addition of a simple, one-sentence prayer each day on this Opinion page has generated so much positive feedback. It is, in a way, a demonstration of the fact that good deeds have as their source a supreme being who deserves to be acknowledged and thanked.

One hope is that this first Random Acts of Kindness Week will spark a renewal of positive actions in the lives of those who choose to participate, and that this renewal will obtain the momentum to last throughout the year, and that, God willing, the world will be a little better for it.