May 2009

My true religion is kindness.
--Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

May is my birthday month, and celebrating it up on the hill is extra-special. The property around our little green house comes fully alive this month, so there’s no need for crepe paper streamers, or party hats, or gaudy wrapping paper. The wisteria and crabapple trees take care of all that for us. My birthday cake can be plain, as well—the lilacs’ scent is sweeter than any buttercream frosting. And, although I love a party, our guest list can be pretty short: the woodchuck who lives under the big pine, the rabbit family, our crazy squirrels, and the throngs of chickadees and dark-eyed juncos will be plenty of company. It would really be a special day if the fox we’ve seen on just two other occasions showed up.

The hill has my birthday gifts covered, too. A rosy pink sunrise, a few mild showers mid-day, and a fiery sunset are all the presents I could ask for. Although I wouldn’t turn down a bit of solitude, some camaraderie, lots of smiles and maybe a quick tear for those no longer around to help celebrate. But most of all, it’s kindness I seek. I want kindness for my birthday. Not toward me, necessarily, but kindness practiced by those around me, and by those around the people around me, and by the people around the people who are around me, until we’re all kind to each other and to the other inhabitants of our poor, mistreated planet. I want us to do to what St. Paul told the young church at Ephesus to do almost two millennia ago: Be ye kind, one to another.

The loveliest thing about kindness is that there’s an inexhaustible supply. Although it is as essential as food and water, it cannot, like these, be used up. In fact, the more we use, the more there is to go around. Kindness—and its twin, compassion—might not solve all of the world’s ills, but they would go far in halting the creation of new ones. If only we could be kinder to each other, kinder to the creatures around us, kinder to the environment and the planet as a whole, the problems we face would seem less insurmountable than those we grapple with each day on what folk-singer Nancy Griffith calls “this big blue ball of war.” For, even in a world suffering from kindness-deficit disorder, kindness begets kindness, and compassion should be, as philosopher Helena Blavatsky implored, the law of laws.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one—there are plenty of you out there, dreaming, praying, working for a kinder world. One where we can celebrate the trees and flowers instead of bulldozing them down to build another unneeded superstore. Where wildlife is invited to the party instead of being corralled and dismissed, or worse—simply exterminated. Where people feel valued for being themselves, not reflections of a pop culture run amok. Where “Drill, Baby, Drill” can be swallowed up by “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Where a morning spent on the seat of a bicycle, or an afternoon walk through Fox Hollow with a neighbor, or a quiet evening at home under the stars is all the entertainment we need.

On my birthday, I’ll call my parents and thank them for all they’ve done for me over the decades. I’ll walk around the garden with D and the dog. I’ll celebrate the fruits of our landscaping labor and revel in the sights and sounds and smells of our hill. And I’ll try very hard to remember always to be kind. A birthday gift to myself. After all, as Judy Collins sang so long ago, “it’s easier than pie to be kind.”