Kindness...

I got invited to join a Facebook group that I found extremely confusing. It was about random acts of kindness, which are good things. But the group, it seems to be a place to crow about them...and so I thought about it. And I was finishing up the Key Trilogy by Nora Roberts (best author ever) and the third book, some of the things in it, got me thinking. About kindness. And then, one of my friends re-posted this dumb article on facebook about Denzel Washington and how he wrote a check while he was at a hospital for some thing and it was a GOOD THING, but the article was more focused on how people like Paris Hilton and other celebrities DIDN'T do this thing.

And this confuses me. I just don't relate to this kind of thinking. I think, in my life, that there are three kinds of kindness. The first is the simple, everyday things that I do for the people I love. Clean socks are a kindness. Warm chicken nuggets, fresh from the toaster oven. The second is the occasional cup of coffee that I buy for the person in the drive-thru behind me at Starbucks or the toll I pay for the person behind me. The third is things like picking up a piece of trash, simply because it's THERE. Not just walking by and leaving it. But this doesn't mean that people who don't pay for a stranger's coffee or wash anyone's socks but their own or leave the trash laying there are UNkind. I have lots of random acts of kindness that I could share with you, and I promise you I have a "you wish you knew what I was up to" smile on my face right now...but I feel like the crowing about it takes something away. It turns the kindness into something else. I like anonymity. I would rather NOT get credit for things and just see the person's happiness in my head - I don't have to see it in person. I don't need kudos from my friends.

One more thing - at my son's school, they call kindness #3 (things like picking up something that you didn't drop, helping someone without being asked, etc) "Think Twice". He got his first award for thinking twice on the second day of school and has gotten many more since then. He's NEVER told me when he gets this award, I've found out from Facebook and because the teachers send home little notes in his backpack. He is my heart.

PS - I declined membership to the facebook group. I like quiet kindness.