“Forget injuries; never forget kindness,” wrote Confucius.

This happened in Italy decades ago. I had just landed in Rome, tired and disheveled, for an international conference. There were two of us traveling together, neither of us very wise in the ways of international travel yet.

We gathered our luggage without too much trouble and headed for the taxi cab rank outside the teeming airport. A cab swished up to the curb in front of us before we even signaled.

My Italian was limited but clear enough for the occasion. I not only told the driver the address, I showed him the letter of invitation as well. “No problem, no problem,” he said and careened out of the airport toward Roma: Il Centro.

And he drove and he drove.

After winding through crowded streets for well over an hour, he suddenly stopped in the middle of a piazza, flung open the door of the cab, pointed vaguely in the opposite direction, charged us well over $100 USD, jumped into the cab again and took off, tires screeching, back the way we had come.

“But where is it?” I shouted after him. “Where is it?”

With no money left to hire another cab and dragging suitcases packed for a month’s stay, we walked up and down hills, getting more and more exhausted, stopping people to show them the letterhead as we went. But no one knew anything.

Then, suddenly, a small boy who had been running circles around us for the last several blocks, watching the whole scene, listening to the conversations, began to wave us up another hill. Maybe we had finally stumbled onto the place.

But when he stopped in front of a walkup flat on a narrow, winding back street, I despaired. An ample old lady sat on a small square stool there. This must be Grandma, I realized. The child had brought us to his grandmother for help.

Clearly Grandma didn’t know the place either. But instead of turning her back on us, as all the others had done, she suddenly began to call her neighbors over to look one at a time. Finally a strange man in a white business suit and a briefcase came hurrying up the hill. Grandma stopped him too, letterhead in hand, gesticulating all the while.

The old man looked at the address, frowned a bit, and looked at his watch. Finally, “I’ll get my car,” he said, and started down the street. It was another half hour before we pulled into the gates of the hotel. Having lost all my currency to the cab driver, I tried to give the man a traveler’s check.

“No, no,” he said. “No, no,” he repeated over and over as he carried our bags down the walk to the door. Then, without identifying himself, he got back into his car and drove away.

Note to Confucius: I never think of the cab driver. But the little boy, the grandma, and the old man, challenge me every time I find kindness an inconvenience.

FRIDAY, MAY 1: Kindness is the one gift we never lack. The only question, then, is, why would anyone give it so sparingly?

SATURDAY, MAY 2: When we carry hurt with us through the years, we serve to stoke an acid in our hearts that corrodes only ourselves.

SUNDAY, MAY 3: Kindness in the midst of pain is salvific. It heals the sick and strengthens the weak and gives hope to the depressed. It makes another week, another day, another hour possible.

MONDAY, MAY 4: In a strange place, there is no substitute for a smile from a stranger.

TUESDAY, MAY 5: Kindness has become a premium in an internet society. Now the intent to hurt has become a stand in for free speech.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6: It is the ability to put a smile in our voice that makes every day better for everyone we meet.

THURSDAY, MAY 7: We talk of- ten about loving one another. It might be far more real and far more impacting to simply be kind to one another. Or, as the Talmud says, “Deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the commandments.”

FRIDAY, MAY 8: Moodiness is the scourge of human relationships. To leave people wondering which side of me they’ll meet the next time they see me–the caring me or the caustic me–is the unkindest thing of all.

SATURDAY, MAY 9: To be kind does not mean that we must be weak. It means that we have the strength it takes to be ourselves without having to hurt others in the process.

SUNDAY, MAY 10: To be consistently gentle and kind in the way we deal with people is a greater gift than any other gift we have to give. “Kindness,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”

MONDAY, MAY 11: Authority is not a synonym for overbearing domination. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “We do not believe, or we forget, that the Holy Ghost came down, not in the shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove.”

TUESDAY, MAY 12: To be kind is to be equally approachable in all situations. Hard times are hard enough without our adding to them by making it even more difficult for people to survive the difficulties.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13: To attempt to protect ourselves from others by being sarcastic, aloof or harsh is the weakest form of control in the human lexicon. Soon, however much power a person may think they have, it fails to impress. Then we become victims of our own failure to care for the others who no longer care for us.

THURSDAY, MAY 14: Life is a game of pass-it-on. Try starting the game with a smile, someday, instead of a frown. For all our sakes.

FRIDAY, MAY 15: Nothing makes the difficult more possible than the simple acts of kindness that carry us through it. “A kind heart,” Washington Irving wrote, “is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.”

SATURDAY, MAY 16: Have you ever gone to an office where the person behind the desk can’t even bother to look up, let alone say, “And how can I help you?” Welcome to productivity without humanity, efficiency without heart, a world without kindness.

SUNDAY, MAY 17: Kindness is not recompense for favors received, it is unearned warmth given for absolutely no reason at all. Joseph Joubert says of it, “A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”

MONDAY, MAY 18: The kindnesses we remember are the ones that saved us from the straits we were otherwise incapable of leaping over by ourselves.

TUESDAY, MAY 19: “A soft word turneth away wrath,” the scripture says. More than that, it disarms the one whose heart is breaking so much they know how to do nothing but break someone else’s in return.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20: Life is not easy. Make it easier for someone else today by being kind. As the proverb puts it, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

THURSDAY, MAY 21: It is not enough to be right. I must also be kind or, in the end, I may be correct but I definitely am not being right.

FRIDAY, MAY 22: When we confuse religiosity with being religious we are substituting Christian rituals for Christian values. The distance between the two can be transversed only by kindness. “To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act,” Saadi says, “is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.”

SATURDAY, MAY 23: We are all here to help the rest of the world move through life as gently as possible. To make the world a softer place in which to live. To be the presence of God where God is most needed now.

SUNDAY, MAY 24: What is kindness? It is a tendency of care, for which all the skill in the world cannot suffice. “Kindness is more than deeds,” C. Neil Strait writes, “It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.”

MONDAY, MAY 25: There are three possible responses to the other: We can be kind, unkind, or completely unaware. Unawareness is the worst of the three because it renders a person invisible. And that is the greatest unkindness of them all.

TUESDAY, MAY 26: No one fears a person who is kind. Everyone feels safe with the person who is kind. Kindness makes friends of us all. “Kindness,” Mark Twain says, “is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27: Some people are not unkind, they are simply insensitive. Which means that some people are too gauche to know what’s gauche. Or as Robert J. Hanlon puts it, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” To be able to do that is kindness itself.

THURSDAY, MAY 28: We pride ourselves as a people on being “honest,” and “direct,” when “kind” would do more to bring real honestly and directness than being rude ever will.

FRIDAY, MAY 29: There is always a kind way to say a hard truth. But it takes a great deal of intelligence and love to figure out how. Not to mention holiness.

SATURDAY, MAY 30: Pope John XXIII modeled love and kindness for all the world to see. “See everything,” he said, “overlook a great deal; correct a little.”

SUNDAY, MAY 31: Kindness is not idle socializing. It is the kiss of commitment to those with whom we share life. “Never part without loving word to think of in your absence,” says Jean Paul Richter. “It may be that you will not meet again in this life.”

LET’S SHARE OUR THOUGHTS
The following discussion questions, Scripture echo, journal prompts, and prayer are meant to help you reflect more deeply on The Monastic Way. Choose at least two suggestions and respond to them. You may do it as a personal practice or gather a group interested in sharing the spiritual journey.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Joan Chittister’s reflection, and the quotation from Confucius, suggest that kindness is more memorable—or should be—than unkindness. Has this been your experience? Can you bring to mind memories of other people’s kindness toward you as easily as you can remember grudges? Share one of these memories with another person.

2. Which daily quote in is most meaningful to you? Why? Do you agree with it? Disagree? Did it inspire you? Challenge you? Raise questions for you?

3. After reading The Monastic Way, what is one way that you can put Sister Joan’s teachings into practice in your own life?

4. Joan Chittister uses other literature to reinforce and expand her writing. Find another quote, poem, story, song, art piece, novel that echoes the theme of this month’s Monastic Way.

5. On May 24, Sister Joan defines kindness as, “a tendency of care, for which all the skill in the world cannot suffice.” How would you define kindness? Who has been the best example of it in your life?

JOURNAL PROMPTS

Prompt 1: Here are a few statements from this month’s Monastic Way. Choose one that is most helpful to you and journal with it.

• Kindness in the midst of pain is salvific.

• We talk often about loving one another. It might be far more real and far more impacting to simply be kind to one another.

• To be kind is to be equally approachable in all situations.

Prompt 2: Spend a few minutes with this photograph and journal about its relationship to this month’s Monastic Way. You can do that with prose or a poem or a song or....

SCRIPTURE ECHO

Jesus replied, “There was a traveler going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, who fell prey to robbers. The traveler was beaten, stripped naked, and left half-dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road; the priest saw the traveler lying beside the road, but passed by on the other side. Likewise there was a Levite who came the same way; this one, too, saw the afflicted traveler and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was taking the same road, also came upon the traveler and, filled with compassion, approached the traveler and dressed the wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then the Samaritan put the wounded person on a donkey, went straight to an inn and there took care of the injured one. The next day the Samaritan took out two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper with the request, ‘Look after this person, and if there is any further expense, I’ll repay you on the way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was the neighbor to the traveler who fell in with the robbers?” The answer came, “The one who showed compassion.” Jesus replied, “Then go and do the same.” - LUKE 10:30-37

PRAYER

People are often unreasonable,
illogical, and self-centered;
forgive them anyway.
If you do good, people may
accuse you of selfish,
ulterior motives;
do good anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends
and some true enemies;
succeed anyway.
Honesty and frankness
make you vulnerable;
be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could
destroy overnight;
build anyway.
If you find serenity and
happiness, there may
be jealousy;
be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people
will often forget tomorrow;
do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may
never be enough;
give the world
the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is
between you and God;
it was never between you and
them anyway.

—Kent M. Keith