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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
The Cost Of Kindness . Keeping The Faith
Spring (is it spring yet? My ice scraper is still in my car) makes me think of dirt . and planning for trips to Europe.
But I haven't enough time for gardening these days, and with the exchange rates the way they are, I haven't the wherewithal for traveling.
When the kids were toddlers, I'd bring them out in the perennial bed with me so I could keep an eye on them; they were very happy just to search for worms in my path and gingerly move them away from the trowel for safety's sake. We made up stories about the worms as they were carefully tucked away in safer quarters under my children's small-scale relocation program.
In looking back at those days, it strikes me now that it costs so little to be kind.
Perhaps that was, indeed, the lingering lesson of those slow afternoons when my thoughts seemed to be more bent on the merciless elimination of weeds.
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I typed the preceding words in early May, but discarded those few paragraphs in favor of publishing some other column that I have now forgotten.
Perhaps it was better that way; after the events of the past few weeks, I have seen human kindness at its best, and I think there is hope for us after all.
It occurs to me, however, that it may cost little to be kind, but in many instances, it can cost a lot to be generous.
Like the widow in the Bible (Mark 12:38-44) who gave all she had-even though it was only a penny-many stepped forward to help, even those who could least afford to give.
The little girl who dug deep in her "Hello, Kitty" purse at Forest Lake Area High School's "Pops! on the Green" concert to make a donation; the residents who used their own funds to print up T-shirts for sale, the proceeds of which will go to the Hugo Relief Fund; the parishioners who volunteered to provide free daycare for the children of tornado victims; the folks with the chainsaws who showed up to help homeowners remove all of their downed trees; the people from all over Minnesota who spent a day in eastern Hugo combing the fields for other people's memories; the shoppers who paid for a Festival Foods grocery bag for the Hugo Community Food Shelf-residents of the city of Hugo have seen not only kindness displayed by total strangers, but generosity on a grand scale.
Truly, at times like this it is tempting to try to thank all those who have acted to help those individuals who have lost so much.
I'm not going to risk missing somebody. In this case, it seems to be most efficient to simply thank everyone, as I haven't met anyone who didn't step up to the plate after that tornado whipped through Hugo and Lino Lakes.
Which is interesting, because if you think about it, there are very few in Hugo, Centerville or Lino Lakes who didn't lose something in that storm.
But as Sara Bailey of Hugo told me a few minutes after she found that her house was missing, "It's just money."
For most people, that was very true.
But through it all, we managed to hold onto something very important: our perspective, and our faith in people.
And perhaps that is the last thing we would ever want to lose.