This is a true story about kindness, and of something what a young paper-boy did for me years ago. At that time I had recently been laid off from a job at a hotel.

After my finances had soon run out, I was somewhat "forced" to live off of "pop bottle" money as work was very hard to come by at the time. As it happened during the few previous years when I worked at this hotel, the maids, rather than throwing out the pop bottles that they gathered from the rooms, gave them to me when I asked for them. I didn't really need them at the time, but waste not, want not, right? Well I took them home and stashed them away. At this time, now, they were coming in very handy (about $40.00 worth), and so I had them by the back porch to be handy when I went to get groceries ever so often.

Now the paperboy always came from the back lane, and around the house to the front, to deliver the newspaper to one of the guys that I was living with. On one of these days he knocked on the front door, and when I happened to answer it, he asked what we were doing with the pop bottles around the back of the house, and if he could have them (he was about 11 years old, and pop bottles still mean a "lot of money" to these kids). I politely replied that I really needed them to buy groceries, as I had lost my job, and that was the only money I had, and then I half joked with him that I was about to ask him if I could have some of his. "Oh!", he said, and skipped off. Somehow I felt like I should have still given him one or two, though.

The next day there was a knock at the door again, and when I happened to answer it, again, there was the paperboy and before I realized it he thrust two huge pop bottles into my hands and said something like "these are for your groceries!" Well I was so taken back with surprise, that for a second I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! I protested that I couldn't accept them and that I didn't need them that much, but he insisted. And so with great humility, and not wanting to spoil his kindness and generosity, I humbly took them.

I've thought of this incident many a time, over the years (among many other things that people have done for me - but I think this is one of the "tops"), and have always wondered how on earth a young boy could give up that much money to an older guy like myself, and what was he thinking that prompted such an ACT OF KINDNESS!!! It's absolutely mind-boggling when you think about it!

I no longer live in that area, and don't know what has all become of that young boy and maybe I'll meet him again someday, and once again thank him for his "innocent, yet very mature, kindness and generosity"!

But in the meantime, you have my testimony of his kindness and can also enjoy it along with me!

I, myself, was raised in this manner to be kind, but at times it sure seems that no matter how much you give to people, you always get back more. God does provide in mysterious ways[1]!!!

SERMON

Kindness is contagious and warms the grateful heart.

In words penned by William Wordsworth a few miles above Tintern Abbey,

"That best portion of a good man's life,--
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love."

It all began with a line scrawled on a paper place mat in the early 1980's in a Sausalito restaurant by Anne Herbert:

"Practice Random Kindness and Acts of Senseless Beauty"

She had been turning the phrase around in her mind for days. "That's wonderful!" said a man sitting nearby, and he copied it down carefully on his own place mat. "Here's the idea," Herbert said later. "Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly." "Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can[2]."

Herbert, a Berkeley writer and peace activist in 1982 published the phrase in CoEvolution Quarterly (now called Whole Earth Review). Fast forward to 1991 when San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Adair Lara, saw the phrase, tracked down Herbert and wrote an article about her. The article was picked up nationally by the Reader's Digest and reprinted after the Los Angeles riots. That got noticed by the editors of the Conari Press, a small press in Berkeley.

Inspired by the phrase and the people involved in the movement, the editors of Conari Press held a reception at their offices one night, during which their guests recorded and celebrated their stories of Random Acts of Kindness. These stories, recounting individual experiences with kindness, were combined with others collected from around the country, and in February of 1993 were published by Conari in a book aptly titled Random Acts of Kindness. The response was phenomenal. Hundreds of thousands of people read the book and embraced the concept.[3]

Berkeley, the home of the 60's counter culture has become the home of the 90's kindness culture. The kindness movement is sweeping the nation. People Magazine highlighted the concept with a two page article. Oprah Winfrey dedicated an one hour show to promoting "Acts of Kindness." Congress has created a "Random Act of Kindness Awareness Week" in February 1998.

Anonymous acts of kindness touch the heart and inspire gratitude. Gratitude comes from the latin word "gratus" which means "grace". The experience of receiving unexpected kindness strongly parallels what the religious describe as the feeling of receiving God's grace. Whether or not God's got a hand in the giving, the very human hands who do the giving renew our faith in our species and give us meaning and hope.

One of the places kindness is making a difference today are in our schools. Peer violence has become a big problem in many of our schools especially in grades four through eight. Three fourths of all students report being bullied at schools or in their neighborhood. When kindness programs are introduced to elementary and middle schools, referrals to the office for discipline typically drop by one-third. Even the bullies get attracted to kindness when they see their classmates getting recognition for it[4]

Sam Keen in his latest book, Hymns to An Unknown God, writes the following:

Creating a political community based on kindness may seem like an impossibility. ... We are discovering lately in American society that we can't build a good society on the principles of self-interest and entitlement alone. Without generosity there can be no community. Without the kindness of strangers, a society is turned into an armed camp....The atmosphere of compassion that transforms a mass of alienated individuals into a caring community is created by countless acts of kindness and charitable foresight.

The Random Acts of Kindness or RAK movement has been fueled by the Internet which networks people together to share their stories. Just reading these stories lifts the spirits and inspires one to commit a random act like feeding someone's parking meter that is about to expire, paying the toll for the person behind you on a bridge, buying the next ten people coffee at the bagel store or saving your bottles for someone down on his luck.

So this morning I'd like to share a few of these stories[5] with you that I've found, a couple of which brought tears to my eyes. All of them are simple acts you or I could have done too. And I know there are many here who do them. Please be thinking about your own experiences of being a giver or a receiver of such kindness so we can share our stories in the Conversational Response.

From a 27 year old man in Madison Wisconsin:

"Buy a stranger lunch. From time to time, when eating out, I look around the room to find a person eating alone or an elderly couple. After choosing a person or couple, I discretely ask the waiter or waitress for the bill of the chosen person or persons and I then pay it. Sometimes the waitress tells them, other times I remain anonymous. Either way I feel better and I am sure they do also."

From Leslie H. Smith, 30 years old in Whitefield, New Hampshire:

"I am a registered nurse at a small local hospital in northern New Hampshire. I recently relocated here and the adjustment has been tough. But I am a firm believer that kindness breeds kindness and ... well, it has!!!!!! We have been having a lot of snow and freezing rain here this winter and when I am able to be the first one off my shift at the hospital I go to the parking lot and scrape off my car and then start on my co-workers cars...the goal is to be done and gone by the time they get to their cars. I have been able to do this a couple of times, be gone that is, and when I haven't finished soon enough it has brought everyone helping everyone. It is wonderful to see people helping each other and supporting one another, in our profession it is often stressful and challenging and easy to let emotions take over. But in the early morning after a long night shift to see my coworkers all smiling and helping each other, it renews the reasons that we are all doing what we do. And to top it off, I had just finished a really stressful night and was the last one off the night shift leaving the hospital and thinking about the snow and cleaning my car and how tired I was, when to MY surprise, my car was all cleaned off and no one was around to thank. I got in my car with a smile on my face and knew that kindness really does breed kindness. Spread the kindness...it will come back to you."

A 30 year old woman in Richmond, California writes:

A few weeks ago, when I was driving to San Francisco I was so upset and frustrated and overwhelmed by life (law school, kids, work, husband, bills (& no money, deadlines, etc), that I thought I would really lose my mind. I didn't know if I would cry or scream to the top of my lungs. The traffic was horrible as usual, and people on the freeway were not very nice to each other. As I approached the toll booth and handed the attendant my dollar bill, she told me that I did not need to pay because the person in the white car ahead of me had paid the toll for me. I was shocked and overjoyed by it all. Tears rolled down my face as the tension I was feeling just moments before dissolved into a smile. I don't know who that person in the white car was, but his or her random act of kindness "saved" me that day.

A 19 year old University of Minnesota student reports:

Last year, at the beginning of winter quarter, I began to feel a little low. I decided that the best way to cheer myself up was to do something for others. I went to the bank and got twenty one dollar bills. I inscribed 'Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty' on all of them. I put them in envelopes and slipped them under the doors of my floormates. No one ever found out it was me, but I know I brightened my floormates' days by the conversation on the floor for the next few days. Also, this started a movement. My floor, later that quarter, choose another floor and created signs for their doors, with encouraging words and 'practice random...' written on them.

Here is a story that touched me from a 31 year old Mountain View, California man:

Last summer while on a road trip from San Francisco to the Grand Canyon I stopped in a family-style burger place to get some lunch (about 45 minutes from Kingman, AZ). It was smokin' hot out and the place was empty (I couldn't imagine it ever being crowded; it was off the beaten track quite a bit). The waitress was about 19 and very friendly. The food was good and as she was taking the plates away I asked her how long she'd been there. She said she'd been there about 2 years and was saving her money so she could go to the University in Phoenix. Her story was believable (we talked for a few minutes) and I could imagine that it was going to take her quite a while to save up college money working in a place like that so I left a $100 bill under the $6 payment for the meal (I'm not rich). I left right away and headed for the Grand Canyon with a good feeling that just maybe I'd made a difference in a nice person's life.

Here is another from Toronto, Ontario:

I was a teenaged refugee in Vienna, in December after the 1956 Hungarian revolution. I was traveling on a crowded streetcar. My knitted gloves were outgrown, and had holes at the finger- tips, but I wore them carefully folded over, so the holes would not show. At a stop, a woman pushed her way through the crowd to get off. As she passed me at the door, she thrust her leather gloves into my hands, along with a 20 shilling note inside them. She was gone before I could return them, or even say thank you.

Those were the most expensive gloves I ever owned. I have paid thousands of dollars ever since then, to various charities, trying to pay for them. I have passed similar favours on to strangers, in hopes that kindness might be contagious.

There were lots more great stories where these came from. I had to do a lot of editing to come up with the ones I've used! I saved this one for last titled, "A Simple Gesture[6]"

Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all of the books he was carrying along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove, and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they were going the same way, he helped the boy carry the burden. As they walked Mark discovered that the boy's name was Bill, that he loved video games, baseball, history, that he was having a lot of trouble with his other subjects, and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend.

They arrived at Bill's home first and Mark was invited in for a Coke and to watch some TV. The afternoon passed pleasantly with a few laughs and some shared small talk, then Mark went home. They continued to see each other around school, had lunch together once or twice, then both graduated from high school. They ended up at the same college where they had brief contacts over the years.

Finally the long awaited senior year came, and three weeks before graduation, Bill asked Mark if they could talk. Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met. "Do you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things from school that day?" asked Bill. "You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn't want to leave a mess for anyone else. I had stored away some of my mother's pills and I was going home to kill myself. But after we spent some time together, I realized that if I had, I would have missed that time and so many others that might follow. So you see, Mark, when you picked up my books for me that day, you did a lot more. You saved my life also."

Acts of kindness are not trivial. Kindness is contagious and warms the grateful heart. The foundation of our religious community is built on such generosity and kindness.

And even a simple act of kindness can save a life.

Let us be grateful for simple acts of kindness this morning and be inspired to do them.

CLOSING WORDS Gwen Randall-Young[7]

Allowing a spirit of kindness to permeate our collective lives would be a quantum leap, from an evolutionary standpoint. Eliminating meanness, pettiness, gossip, criticism, judgement, polarity, and blame would be a superb act of kindness. It is also a fundamental step along any spiritual path...

We can resolve to be kinder, gentler beings. All day, every day. We can treat those closest to us with the same respect and politeness that we reserve for friends and colleagues. We can refuse to litter the lives of others with negative energy. If we do this, we will be doing our part to create a world in which kindness is never a random act, but rather a way of life.

Go in Peace, make peace, be at peace.

© 1998 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved

[1] http://www.angelfire.com/ca/DaleFriesen/1paper.html

[2] http://www.en.com/users/dsieg/my-ano-5.htm

[3] http://www.rmii.com/kindness

[4] http://www.rmii.com/kindness
[5] http://www.readersndex.com/randomacts/stories.html

[6] http://home.earthlink.net/~mormmom/stories5/
[7] Gwen Randall-Young is a psychotherapist who bridges the worlds of psychology and spirituality, and the author of several books and audio tapes. grandall@telusplanet.net