‘To Be Kind’ by Lurana brown

“Love is little, love is low. Love will make our spirits grow.

Grow in peace, grow in light. Love will do the thing that’s right.”

– Shaker hymn

Love wears many faces, such as kinship, passion, and forgiveness. It shines through any act that willingly gives the “other” the same or greater esteem that we give ourselves. Kindness is a form of love that includes compassion and generosity, and seeks to grant comfort, dignity, or joy. Like gentleness, it is not so much an emotion as it is an expression of love.

To be kind is to offer words and actions as gifts. There is empathy in kindness that notices another’s needs or shortcomings, and then grace that offers to cover them unasked. There is encouragement that aligns with potential, and respect that speaks to the nobility in others. There is humility in kindness, because we seek the happiness of another, even at our own expense. There are also endless opportunities to show kindness at no cost to our own integrity or property.

Every moment offers choices. Kindness lives in the present. It holds no blame for the past nor expectation of future return. It simply seeks to do the next best thing, for the greatest good of all it touches. Kindness chooses tact over legalism, mercy over contempt, and hope over cynicism. It sees the darkness but reflects the light, so that even the smallest glimmer is magnified.

Every choice creates new possibilities. To extend a blessing is to affirm the value of the other, creating a restorative or even trans-formative experience. Opportunities for more love arise every time we act in love.

The magnanimity of spirit that is kindness is not the noblesse oblige of charity. It does not act out of ego or piety. It looks at the other through eyes of affection and delights in quietly lifting them up, even just a bit higher, so that they can see themselves as worthy of kindness. And when their eyes shine back into ours, they magnify such light into our spirit that we grow in love too.

Lurana Brown is a licensed massage therapist, pianist/accompanist, published poet, and owner of Firefly Healing, LLC.

Lurana has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Drew University, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1999 with a double minor in Business Management and Middle Eastern Studies.

She was the valedictorian of her 2004 graduating class at The Soma Institute – The National School of Clinical Massage Therapy.

She is a Certified Pediatric Massage Therapist through the Liddle Kidz Foundation).

Lurana is currently training with the Beyond Hospice certification program to become a Midwife to the Dying.

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