Let My Heart Be Open
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church
May 26, 2019
With spring finally here, I have been trying to spend some time out in the yard. The other day I decided to get a shovel and dig up the new patch of Japanese knotweed that is trying to invade the strip in front of my house. And yes, I know that eliminating this plant is practically impossible and that it will be back. But so will I. At any rate, when I finished I dusted off my hands and thought to myself, “Well, there’s my good deed for today!”
And then I thought, wait a second. It’s about 10:00 o’clock in the morning. Is that all the kindness I need to offer for the day?
The answer is, of course not. Digging up the invasive plants was a good start, it was a kind act. The goal for the day, and for every day, should be more than doing one kind deed, sort of like a checklist item. As Kelly pointed out, there is a difference between doing something kind, and being kind. If I helped care for our native habitat here on Cape Ann, and then cut someone off in traffic, or yelled at someone for getting my Starbucks order wrong, then I would have failed to be kind. And digging up all the Japanese knotweed on Cape Ann wouldn’t balance out my unkindness.
The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
Our theme this month has been Curiosity, and, sparked by the example of the Kindness Cafés that Kelly has organized, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about how curiosity helps to foster kindness. In fact, without curiosity, kindness might be almost impossible. For what curiosity enables us to do is to open our eyes, our hearts, and our minds: in other words, curiosity is what makes it possible for us to truly see each other’s humanity and to take into consideration what each person wants and needs.
Curiosity is a way of life, and a choice. Kindness also becomes a way of life, and a choice. If you see a woman walking down the street wearing hijab, or a headscarf, what is your reaction? Do you find yourself wondering what that is like for her? Is she afraid?
If you encounter a school group of African-American children at the Museum of Fine Arts, or at Fenway Park, or at Symphony Hall, do you react badly to their chatter and their very presence, or do you wonder what it might be like for them to be in a space so overwhelmingly white, and so different?
Curiosity is a choice. Kindness is a choice.
Lately it feels as though we have been turning away from kindness as a nation. We watch as rights are rolled back: rights for women, for transgender people. We watch as children are separated from their parents at our southern border. In many ways cruelty seems to have the upper hand. This cruelty is founded in fear – fear of a loss of power and status, fear of people who are perceived as different. We should think about this lack of kindness on Memorial Day Weekend, when we honor the sacrifices made by so many when a nation engages in perhaps the unkindest act of all: war. Today is a perfect day to ask ourselves: Do we choose cruelty and fear, or curiosity and kindness? For what is absent in the decisions to remove people’s rights, and to justify cruel treatment, is any sense of curiosity about their lives. What are some of the reasons women seek abortions? Why do people feel so unsafe in their homelands that they choose to walk to the United States?
Too often, we are choosing to not open our eyes, our ears, our hearts. And as a result, we, and our society, become unkind.
In the face of an unkind society, and an unkind government, we should be curious about our church. In what ways are we kind here? Are we kind enough? Is our true religion kindness?
My own answer to that question is that I experience a lot of kindness here. But I hope that as the Kindness Project continues, as people work together to focus on making Gloucester as kind a place as we can, that we also take time to foster even more curiosity about each other, and ever more kindness here at church.
As we leave here today, I am going to ask you all to deliberately choose to be curious, and to be kind. Remember that it is a choice, every single day. I ask you all to make kindness your religion. Look at the world with soft eyes; remain open-hearted to the people and creatures all around you.
Blessed Be,
Amen.
