Kindness

Being really honest for a moment, I just had one of these things happen where you wonder about the world. It was a small ting really, but nevertheless it made me think. We live next door to the dentist. It’s a business. They have a gardener who occasionally arrives to cut the grass, the hedge and do gardening things. He doesn’t come often and mostly the dentist’s garden is the one down the road that hasn’t been done. So, whenever I cut the grass, or the hedge, I always cut their grass out by the road as well as ours. And I always cut their side of the hedge between the two houses too. Nobody else in the road does that. They cut the grass outside their houses, but not their neighbours. I’ve done it for the twenty three years we’ve lived here. When he does come to do the grass, the gardener only ever cuts the dentist side of the grass. I know that because you can see it. And he’s done it again this morning! What I don’t understand is how he can’t tell that someone else must be cutting their grass because otherwise it would be up to his knees! No, really it would! And, apparently, no-one at the dentist surgery notices either. At least not enough to ever say “Thank You!” Maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy. But the thing is, the other day I had the opposite thing happen. I met someone I hardly ever see who thanked me for an act of kindness that happened nearly twenty five years ago. Before we rebuilt the church, the old church had a couple of pre-fab huts out the back that were used as meeting rooms. They were raised slightly off the ground, and the was a small crawl space underneath them. One morning, when I was still in training, I found someone sleeping under one of the huts. He was in a sleeping bag, but he was sleeping under the hut. I woke him and spoke with him, thinking he was a homeless sleeper. It turned out he wasn’t homeless, but had left his friend’s house to walk home, but decided to stop at the church and sleep there because it was a long way home! I made him a cup of tea and we chatted for a while before he went on his way. I met him this week, having completely forgotten about that moment. To be honest I would never have remembered it was this person who I’d found unless they’d told me! But they did. They recounted the story and then said: “I will never forget how kind you were to me, making me a cup of tea and chatting. Mostly, my experience of church had been being told off all the time. So, to be shown kindness made a real difference to me. And I’ve never forgotten it.” Wow! One simple act of kindness, that cost me nothing, and was nothing more than a human response to a moment, had a huge impact. Maybe, just maybe, how we treat people in a moment can affect them for life. Before I started writing this blog today, I had decided I was no longer going to cut the grass outside the dentist. Why should I? They never do the same and they never even notice. Having written this blog, I might have some thinking to do!