O the Kind Words We Give…

The words of an old song suggest a subject: “Let us oft speak kind words to each other. At home or wher-e’er we may be…” Negatively, it suggests another subject: the opposite of kindness, which is cruelty. There is so much need of kindness, and yet so many kinds of cruelty⎯the physical kind and the sometimes the almost crueler, subtler kind⎯the cruelty of sarcasm, the cruelty of indifference, the cruelty of neglect, the cruelty of ignoring people, of making them feel small, inadequate, foolish or frustrated. There is the smaller boy who is picked on; the gang or crowd cruelty; the cruelty of the piling on process; the cruelty of ridicule. The world is physically harsh at times⎯fighting the elements, making a living⎯and survival is sometimes difficult. But it is not the harshness of nature we have so much in mind as the cruelty of man to man. Everyone has need of kindness, of love, of understanding, and of the uplift these give to life. The kindness and love of parents from infancy on, pays rich returns⎯not pampering or spoiling, but sincere, consistent love and kindness. If children feel they can come to open arms and open their hearts, we shall keep them closer. With kindness, we can keep all people closer. Constructive discipline is necessary, and sometimes patience seems exhausted, but we should be quite sure that patience isn’t too soon cut short. Deliberate unkindness punishes the punisher as well as the punished. No one can be cruel without leaving self-inflicted marks and without hardening himself inside. Whatever we do to others rebounds to us. “Kind words,” said Jeremy Bentham, “cost no more than unkind ones. …and we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness around us at so little expense. If you would fall into any extreme let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigor [force] and yields to softness [kindness].” “O the kind words we give shall in memory live and sunshine forever impart; Let us speak kind words to each other; Kind words are sweet tones of the heart.”¹