Kindness is another word for compassion, empathy.
God’s creation entrusted to human beings is a gift to us to be cherished with kindness.
Compassion or empathy is to be shown to human beings and to the whole creation as well. “We know that all creation gas been groaning.” Rom. (8.22)
What St. Paul stated, more than twenty centuries ago, is all the more apt in our times. Just as human beings are subjected to cruelty, the terror and destruction of war, migration, displacement, and the like, so also our nature, environment and our eco- system are under threat.
We human beings are at fault. Our greed and our hunger for more and more power and pleasure make us go hammer and tongs at human beings, at mother earth and at all that sustains the universe.
Is it compassion to close our eyes to crores of innocent human human beings made victims of war. The cruel task masters of nations call it selfdefence and justifiable collateral damage in war. Is it empathy on our part to say yes to their justifications?
Nuclear damage to humans and nature, polluting environment, damage to ecosystem, making mother earth weep, etc, do not add up to kindness.
The world stands in need of ‘the milk of kindness.’
“In separateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength.” (BUDDHA)
