Kindness ― Widening the Boundaries of Our Being

"Writers who go on spiritual quests put themselves in a position to observe spiritual transactions."
― William Zinsser

Yesterday was Day 36 of the 72 Days of Kindness -- the halfway point of our summer project on kindness.  When I asked my children what they had learned so far, they said:

"That being kind can be fun to do and it helps people."

"Kindness is a good thing to do because it makes you feel better and makes life easier for everybody else."

"That being kind helps people and makes their lives easier.  It makes me happy to see them happy."

I was reflecting on the midpoint of the journey while also reading a book by the brilliant William Zinsser, who inspires me to no end.  Zinsser, now 90, is an American writer, editor, critic and teacher. 

Thanks to Zinsser, I was introduced to a lovely essay by Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda.   In Childhood and Poetry, Neruda recounts a childhood exchange of gifts with another young boy, someone he didn't know and never saw again.  He wrote:

I have been a lucky man.  To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life.  To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.  But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses, that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

That exchange brought home to me for the first time a precious idea: that all of humanity is somehow together.

As I read those beautiful words by Neruda, I realized that that is what the kindness project has done for our family:  It has widened the "boundaries of our being."  By definition, kindness cannot be practiced in a vacuum.  A kind action must have an object.  Not a solitary activity, kindness connects us to others.

My husband remarked that he has been moved by how the children have been thinking  about "the possibility of kindness."   They have seen the impact of kindness and felt the "good joy" that comes from being kind, as my son said a few weeks ago.  By connecting with others through kindness, our children have thought beyond themselves and widened their worlds. 

For me, both the experience and the writing of it have expanded my boundaries in profound ways.  As with Zinsser's "spiritual quest," this kindness quest has led me to observe and to experience many kindness transactions that unite us.  How truly precious is our being "somehow together."