“What is kindness?” she asked.

“Is it being naïve?

Is it seeing no wrong in a person?

Is it looking away from the dark

Is it stepping around any shadows?”

“Not so,” said the Wise,

“Kindness is to know wrong exists and yet

also see goodness that lives right beside it.

Kindness is to call dark by name without being righteous,

to look into the voids and offer them light;

To acknowledge the shadow

and hold a hand to those in it,

compassion to those who forgot what light was.

Kindness is the courage to speak truth

and make good on promises.

It is the strength to keep one’s heart soft

when it might be easier to harden.

It is being gentle with all

without martyrdom

and without losing sight of one’s own imperfection.

It is knowing one’s own needs

and the soul’s True North.”

“It sounds like hard work,” she sighed, “this whole kindness business.”

“It is,” the Wise smiled, “as it is also

the work of all life, love, and heart;

of laughter and joy

of likeminded spirits

of light multiplied;

the gift of play

and children’s delight;

the work of Spirit,

the air of all life.

Be kind, and you would have fulfilled

all that is enough.”