Reflection
Love is all we really have to give, and love is free, even if it costs blood and a broken heart. Sadly, we live in a culture where so much is distorted, caught in the shadowlands of ego and greed. We are fed endless desires, manipulated by advertising and the media, no longer knowing what to trust. We have almost forgotten that life is sacred. At such a time it is especially important to return to what is essential and true, what cannot be bought or sold. Simple acts of loving kindness, an open heart that listens, hands that care—with a friend, a stranger, with someone in need. These are the true currencies of our shared humanity, which easily break through barriers and remind us of a unity deeper than our surface divisions. In our true nature we are not consumers but lovers, and life is not about economic prosperity or getting more stuff, but is a love affair waiting to be lived,
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Prayer
That all may be one.
Action
Think of some of the ways you can offer “simple acts of loving kindness, an open heart that listens, hands that care.”
Suggested Reading
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Let us learn to live with kindness, to love everyone, even when they do not love us.
Pope Francis
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
Dalai Lama.
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
Desmond Tutu
Compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got.
Cheryl Strayed
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
That is what compassion does. It challenges our assumptions, our sense of self-limitation, worthlessness, of not having a place in the world, our feelings of loneliness and estrangement. These are narrow, constrictive states of mind. As we develop compassion, our hearts open.
Sharon Salzberg
A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.
Steve Maraboli
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind
Eric Hoffer