So I’m sitting on my living room sofa yesterday, just sitting, enjoying the company of my beautiful mother (who, alas, has now gone home) and my dear tworivers (who has also gone home, because she never stays forever), watching the wind turn the leaves to silver outside the window, when my mother says to me:”You know, sometimes you are just too nice.”
And before I can get my breath or come up with a reasonable retort, tworivers chimes in with a “Hear, hear!” or something equally affirming, whereupon I whack her in the shoe with– what was it?– a book or something. And tworivers says she hopes that the whacking I’ve just given her shoe brought damage on the object with which I whacked her because, you see, she hasn’t got a problem with being too nice.
That’s how it went, or something along those lines, and there’s more to it, which I will share with you shortly, but let me pause here. Because already, in the three paragraphs above, I can hear my mother’s gasp of sadness in how she may have been misunderstood and tworivers’ gasp of exasperation in how she may be being misrepresented, and so, out of love for these two precious friends, I will segue into an explanation. (A segue which, it must be said, under normal circumstances might aggravate or aggrieve them both, but which here will be, I am guessing, appreciated) (And if these parenthetical segues are annoying or difficult for you, then kindly put the blame on the deceased Mr. Thomas Mann who, in his current state in the great hereafter, will likely not feel your censure quite so keenly as I, but whose work I am reading and Most Decidedly Enjoying and who employs segues and recursive thought To A Great Degree in his Joseph and His Brothers).
The context of the sudden accusation of niceness was a discussion of parenting and the possibility that one of my children may indeed suffer from a kind of indolence, a—shall we say–slothfulness that might in fact interfere with his success in various areas. My mother did go on to say that laziness runs in the family (though I myself do not seem to suffer from this particular malady), a gracious effort on her part to relieve some of the blame from the shoulders of the child in question. But the issue of niceness was not in regard to that child so much as it was in regard to my dealing with him, and that I might wish to exert a little bit more pressure on him to elicit the behaviors I wish to see and which he needs to exhibit.
Well, I cannot disagree with her (or tworivers) in this regard. I have, in fact, been thinking this thing precisely, and have been mentally going about finding ways in which I might be more firm and strict and, well, less nice, in the hopes that it will help him Behave Himself and, basically, be More Glad about life.
(For it is true, you know: Deliberate laziness, such as one might enjoy when, say, watching an episode of Pride and Prejudice in the Middle Of The Afternoon, can be restful and refreshing, especially after one has Worked Hard; but an attitude of laziness, expressed in days and months of indolent lassitude, is often born out of a kind of depression and will quickly lead to more of the same).
But this post is not about laziness. No. Neither, quite frankly, is it about niceness, or the state of being nice. What, after all, is nice? What does it mean? “Nice” is a bland word, vapid. It helps us not at all. You don’t believe me? Say you are asking a friend about someone you’ve never met before, and that friend says, “She’s very nice.” See? You know nothing. Nothing. “Nice” doesn’t say anything.
But Kindness. Ah, yes. Here is something of Substance.What is it, exactly? I would propose it is Not this: Several nights ago I went to bed to read (and what, you so segue-ishly ask, was it you were reading? And I, eager to talk– at any time– about books, will tell you I was reading Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers which, as I said earlier, is Recursive To The Extreme and I Love It) before my husband came upstairs. And just as I was about to turn out the light, he called to me and said, “Love, do we have any stamps?” And I knew we had stamps and I knew, moreover, that I wouldn’t be able to tell him with any kind of precision exactly where they were, and I knew that I would have to get out of the bed and go down the stairs and retrieve the stamps from their obscure location. Which I did. And so I guess you could say that this was kind of me, but let me tell you that my Attitude was Not Kind, that I was irritated, and did not want to do this for him.
So it might have been kindness, but it was a kindness that was, maybe, Thin.
On the other hand, kindness is two friends getting together and spending a Large amount of money on groceries and then going home and preparing with their dear hands All Kinds Of Meals to store in the freezer because people they know of (some of whom they love and some of whom they’ve only met and some of whom they know Not At All) have fallen from a has-been deck and are Injured.
That is kindness, rich and sweet.
But what about this kind of kindness? “’If someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.’”
This is a different kind of kindness altogether. This is a kindness that might very well Get One Hurt.
And we don’t want that. Heavens.
“’You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”’” Ah, that sounds good, doesn’t it? Not so hard. But what is one to do when the neighbor and the enemy are One And The Same? “”But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’”
Blast it all! I knew it. The Love command trumps everything else. Kindness wins.
I don’t want to employ that kind of kindness, and it’s a battle I fight daily. Perhaps you know it. Perhaps you’re in it with me, just down the field a ways, or in a different flank of the militia. But you know what I’m talking about: that battle with your own heart to not let it, and not let it, and not let it get hard. And then, when you take a breather, to clean your sword maybe, or get a glass of ice water, the hardness creeps in again, just a little hardening around the edges, and you find yourself beginning—in just the eentsiest ways—to hate your enemy after all.
“Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science or eloquence,” said Mother Teresa.
And this makes a great deal of sense to me. Because I am rarely eager to apologize in the face of zealous righteousness, even when I am Dead Wrong. But faced with gentleness, love and kindness, well, that’s another thing all together.
Back in Jane Austen’s day, it seems that people were always kind. Too kind, in fact. Her writing is just sprinkled with exclamations like these: “Oh Mr. So-and-So, you are too kind.”
Maybe they were that kind in those days. But for my part, I’ve never met anyone who is Too Kind. We are all of us, at the core, too self-centered and self-absorbed for that.
No, I’ve never met up with that kind of kindness.
Okay, maybe just Once.
“So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” Romans 2:3-4
