Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 Main Street, Sharon, Massachusetts 02067
www.uusharon.org
LOVING KINDNESS
The 46 London bus was crowded: teenager with I Pods, a mother with her baby, Islamic women in
traditional dress, the sounds of languages I couldn’t identify – it was a diverse sprinkling of humanity. The
bus stopped at the Royal Free Hospital, where people got off and on. Then a man in a motorized wheelchair
appeared at the door. What unfolded was a drama of loving kindness. A gentleman with Jamaican dred locks
got up to help the elderly man. A mother with her pram and beloved child got off the bus so the motorized
wheelchair could enter, and then she got back on. A series of people readjusted their positions to make all of
this possible. No one said a word – it just happened. The driver waited patiently. When the choreography
was complete then Bus 46 continued its journey. Watching this scene kindness, strangers helping strangers,
I felt happy. I thought: “Most people really do want to be loving and kind.”
When I was younger I admired people who were successful, intelligent, and productive. I still admire them.
But now that I am older, I most appreciate people who are genuinely kind and loving. It can be the clerk at
CVS who sells me toothpaste with a smile, it can be the nurse at my doctor’s office, it can be a stranger who
helps me carry my groceries to the car. It can be anyone: rich or poor, young or old, with an important job or
no job at all. I admire people who, without any personal fanfare, practice loving kindness.
I know it is not always easy. What happens if a person is treating us badly? Are we supposed to be “nice” and
just take it like a doormat? Of course not: we have every right to set boundaries. Sometimes love needs to be
“tough love”. When a child breaks the rules, then love is giving them consequences. When a teenager is
acting out in a dangerous manner, love is giving them limits. If a partner is being abusive, the society needs
to get together and say “Stop it!” Enabling someone in their addiction is not love. So knowing how to practice
loving kindness is not always easy. The important thing is that our intention is to encourage human dignity
for everyone, whether it by soft love or tough love.
At this point in the sermon it is tempting to tell a series of heart-warming stories and then conclude with the
words of the Dalai Lama: “If you want to be happy then practice loving kindness.” That would make a sweet
sermon. But what I really want to do now is go to the heart of the matter.
Plato once wrote: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This is the human condition: it is
a struggle for everyone. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” wrote John Donne, “It tolls for thee.”
The Arab-American poet, Naomi Shihab-Nye, wrote this poem entitled kindness:
“Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
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4 Main Street, Sharon, Massachusetts 02067
www.uusharon.org
all this must go, so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road
You must see how this could be you
How he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing
You must wake up with sorrow
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrow
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then - it is only kindness that makes sense anymore
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Page 2 Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 Main Street, Sharon, Massachusetts 02067
www.uusharon.org
Only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread.
Only kindness that raises its head
From the crowd of the world to say:
“It is I you have been looking for”,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
I learned this “deepest thing inside” kindness when I hit bottom in 1988. In retrospect it was inevitable. How
long could I run from my childhood demons? How long could my wife run from hers? How much longer
could I deal with the stresses and strains of the ministry? How long could I be good until I cracked open and
fell apart? How long could my love come from my head and not from the depth of my heart?
It was Christmas Eve, and I felt “sorrow as the deepest thing”. No matter how hard we try we all die. We lose
our loved ones. No matter how hard we try we make mistakes as parents. No matter how hard we try
tragedies and wars keep happening. No matter how hard we try the bell tolls for us. That is the size of the
“cloth of sorrow” in every land and for every person. So I sat looking at the Christmas tree wondering: “What
is the point?”
“Then – it is only kindness that makes sense anymore”. When life has broken your heart open, and there is
no putting the walls of denial back in place, then in that center of our being we either say “Yes” to love, or
else we constrict in despair. When we realize then that the whole human family is in this thing together;
when we realize that every human being feels joy and suffering; then, our heart just releases into
compassion. We have no choice but to love – if we want a meaningful life. The alternative is resentment, or
quiet desperation, or becoming a robot. So we proclaim “love is the doctrine of this church”, not because we
are trying to be nice or politically correct, but because it is our deepest response to the joy and suffering of
human life.
So I left the Christmas light on that night and went to bed. The next morning, when I came downstairs (with
my wife and daughter still asleep) there was a candle on the mantle which had just been lit. There was one
small bead of wax showing that the candle had been lit just a few minutes earlier. Now I am a rational
human being, but in the locked house I have no explanation for who or what lit that candle. I only know it
was a profound affirmation. There is a “yes” to life that is deeper than death or any human suffering. It is the
“yes” of love.
I close with this story about a man named Robert. He was the first African-American president of a New
England college. He was an advisor to President Johnson on race relations. He knew the ugliness of racism
and he also knew the goodness of people. Robert had seen the best and worst in human nature. When he was
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4 Main Street, Sharon, Massachusetts 02067
www.uusharon.org
diagnosed with terminal cancer, he asked me to help him through the dying process. We chatted many times
about life and death.
The last time I saw him was in the hospital. We visited for awhile, and then just as I was leaving the room, he
called out to me: “Jim!” I turned around to see him smiling. He raised his hand in the air and said: “It’s all
about love!” He died that evening.
Yes, Robert, it is all about love.
So now I can conclude with the words of the Dalai Lama: “If you want to be happy then practice loving
kindness.”
Meditation
I invite you now to join in a time of meditation. I invite you to sit comfortably with your eyes open or closed
as you wish. After a minute of quiet I will invite you to join in a guided meditation.
Begin by feeling your body and your breath.
I invite you now to love yourself.
Imagine taking your self-criticism and softening those voices into love.
Imagine a warm light of love surrounding you.
Now expand that love to everyone in this room.
Everyone in this room knows joy and suffering.
Imagine surrounding each person with that warm light of love.
Now expand that love to the whole human family.
Every human being knows joy and suffering.
Imagine surrounding each person in the world with the warm light of love.
Now expand that love to the whole planet.
To all the life forms
To all the rivers and mountains
Imagine the whole earth bathed in the warm light of love.
Love
It does not promise you an easy life
Yet it makes life worth living
Love is the doctrine of this church
Our meditation continues with music
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