There is a rock. A good sized rock. It sits at the entrance of a housing development near our home. Fortunately it faces a very busy street. I say fortunately because someone painted the words “Be Kind” on it along with some flowers. Lots of people drive by it every day. Lots of busy people need those two words.

As we drove away I said to my wife, Doree, “It’s really not anymore complicated than that.” She said, “That’s true.” Fortunately I live with this wonderful person who lives “Be Kind” as well as anyone I have ever known. She is like a professor that teaches at the University of Kindness, and I’ve had the privilege of being in her class for 45 years. Well, you know, some of us are slow learners.

The ego fights such simplicity. Be kind. “It can’t be that simple” it wants to say. The ego loves making things complicated. It gives it something to do. Life is a constant struggle and fight. A big problem or puzzle to be solved.

I asked myself the other day, “what do you believe now?” After almost 71 years? After letting go of much of your past in the Church, what do you really believe in now?”

It came to me quite easily and simply. “I believe in kindness.” Why? Because it works. Everything just works better in kindness. Me. You. Everything around us.

But that doesn’t sound very “spiritual”. What of God? “I believe in God”. That’s what you’re supposed to say isn’t it? That is much more “spiritual.”

Sometimes we can get hung up on the word “God.” It can have a lot of heavy baggage for us to carry from our past, and can seem so nebulous (unclear or vague).

But kindness. We know kindness. That is clearer for us. And in that clarity we come to know the Great Designer by experiencing how much better the design works with kindness.

Kindness reveals the design. The design reveals the Designer.

Yes. There is a rock. A rock that is always there to stand on in an ever changing, fearful, and often unkind world. Yes. The Rock of Kindness always prevails. Of course hard things will still happen. But the path of kindness (toward ourselves and others) is the way through.

Yes. There is a rock. It stands at the entrance of every moment. Every experience. Every circumstance we enter as we go along in our busy lives. “Enter here” it says, and “Be Kind.”

At the entrance into kindness we first meet ourselves. “Be kind” to her or him. For that will raise up the kindness already within you toward all your neighbors.

In kindness we remember. What we came from. What we truly are.

An adaptation of Psalm 46:10: (Be still and know that I am God)

Be kind and know that I am God.

Be kind and know that I AM.

Be kind and know.

Be kind.

Be.

You are Kindness,

Pastor Tim Tengblad

timtengblad@comcast.net