Kindness is the true touchstone of sanity. Little acts of unseen love are carried
out all over the world by unproclaimed nobodies, seeking no publicity, but acting
spontaneously on some undefined impulse.I've come to the conclusion that that's
how you best define sanity : by a person's capacity for kindness. In contrast, you
look at the insanities of Hitler or Pol Pot and what do you find : the glaring absence
of human kindness... those people were truly insane.
When we are NOT kind, we deviate
from our humanity and true sanity - we fall short of that clear-minded wholeness
and sanity which we know to be our best.
Posting on this forum, I feel privileged
to have encountered warm-hearted, real and essentially sane individuals over these
past months. Not perfect 'saints' - no-one expects that of anyone. But people who
have felt perplexed by the implicit unkindness of corrupt executives, and the insanity
of LaPlante's unreal spin, which seems to emanate from a different universe, a fantasy
world of his own creation - a world where kindness to honest individuals is subordinated
to the corporate quest for wealth and success and self-interest.
To all of you
who have said 'No' to that inferior, disappointing abuse of trust : I wish you a
relaxed, peaceful and meaningful holiday. I hope you and those you love know happiness
and kindness in these coming days... as most of us probably go 'offline' for a while,
and take time out.
And I'm sure, too, we also bear in mind those, for whom this
Christmas will be especially hard - those who have lost loved ones recently (or not
so recently); those for whom this year brings especial hardship; for whom Christmas
this year is not a time for celebration at all. I feel so much for parents short
of cash at this time of the year - who can't afford big presents for their own kids,
while the rest of us veer towards consumer frenzy.
We share a common humanity.
The Internet is a wonderful way of encountering that shared world. It deserves to
be responsibly run. All over the world, wherever you are, may the peace and essential
kindness of Jesus Christ (or whoever you worship) be with you. Or if you worship
no-one at all, the essential kindness of our own humanity, which we can reclaim again
and again, and which John reminds us, makes itself manifest in obscure acts of kindness
and the embrace of love...