Cruel Unsympathetic
Inconsiderate Distant
Apathetic Rude
Merciless Judgemental
Pitiless Insensitive
Uncaring Jerk (that one I threw in)
Most humans feel a strong devotion to treating animals with kindness, sometimes more so than they do to fellow humans. I guess animals aren't as likely to abuse one's kindness, take advantage of us or lie to us and use our generosity to buy a cheap box of wine.
Kindness is a vastly more expansive concept than just friendliness, a passing obligatory and semi-social "how ya doin'?" in which we couldn't care less about their answer or, for that matter, them. It refers to "compassion", a word that literally means "to suffer with" or to sympathize with a patient, someone who is suffering.
Com= with
Passion= suffer(ing)
with suffering or suffer with, or be a co-sufferer
Pink Floyd (yes, Pink Floyd, whom I truly enjoy) wrote a song called "On The Turning Away." The opening lyrics go like this:
"On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away"
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away"
Words to illuminate for us how easily we can slip into apathy and uncaring for those who suffer, regardless of the manner of their suffering and regardless of our judgment as to whether their suffering is, in our view, valid.
Kindness Takes Notice of Others, Looking Beyond Our Own Situation
Kindness is Not Being Consumed With Our Own Importance Or Opinions
Kindness Is Interest In the Plight Of Others
Kindness Is Seeing (not ignoring) Those Who Wound Or Abuse Others
Kindness Is Sacrificing MY Time For Others Who Need Aid
Kindness Is Being Interested In The Welfare Of Others
Kindness Is Not Accepting Suffering As Something That We Can't Help
Kindness is Feeling A Wound That Makes No Sense To Us, But Is Very Real To Someone Else
Kindness is Feeling A Wound That Makes No Sense To Us, But Is Very Real To Someone Else
For some reason we (Christians) find it easy be kind to people 10,000 miles away, supporting efforts to bring the Kingdom of God to people we don't know. Yet it can be sinfully easy to ignore the suffering, the needs, the lives of the people in the office right next door to ours, perhaps the people who sit next to us in our church service.
suffer with
Suffer With
SUFFER WITH
SUFFER WITH
SUFFER WITH
I've met people in my life who look at a person who is in pain and easily dismiss that person's suffering simply because they disagree with it, convinced that what the person is feeling is silly and illogical . Ironically, these judges of what is suffer-worthy usually get their feelings (or egos) hurt more quickly than most.
I'm not the compassionate person I want to be. I don't "suffer-with" nearly enough. Over the last few years I have been transforming into a much softer version of myself and I believe I've become more likely to suffer-with. I want to be worthy, in terms of Kindness, of the title Eagle Scout.
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