Be Kin(d)
To be kind… how often as children we were told to be kind!
In preschool or kindergarten we learned that to be kind meant to share the classroom’s books and toys, to take turns on the playground, or to allow another child an opportunity at the paint easel. Perhaps to share a bit of our lunch if a classmate was missing theirs, or include someone who was sitting alone.
Kindness also inferred a contrast: don’t hit (or bite, or scratch), don’t use harmful words, don’t take cuts in line, don’t laugh if someone wet their pants, don’t take all the Play-Doh.
Kindness finds its root meaning in kinship, that quality of being family. To be kin designates our birth origin, our place and people of belonging. We are alike, of a kind. Kind, kindness, kin, kindred, kinship… the Oxford English Dictionary (in 20 volumes!) devotes pages and pages to these related words.
To be kind, according to the OED, is to be of a generous or gentle birth or disposition. To have a sympathetic or benevolent nature; to be ready to assist or show consideration for others. Kindness means to be favorably disposed or bearing good will to a person or animal.
Being kind means to be on intimate terms.
To be kind is to be good natured.
Kindness, then, arises from the natural affection born of kinship. Deep connections and shared origins.
Does this suggest that we need not be kind to strangers, to those with whom we have no familial ties? Our kindergarten teachers certainly did not think so! In fact, the best of teachers create a beloved community among children who begin as strangers.
Kinship speaks beyond immediate familial relationships to the common origin of all people, of human-kind. We demonstrate our common humanity when we choose to be kind, to be kin, to receive one another and to care for one another as one of our kind. As beloved members.
We are all, each of us, members of one another.
Be kin(d).
Image: Three playful figures with funny faces made of Play-Doh. Credit "69/365: Play-Doh Toys" by Mark Bonica is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
