Be Kind

A friend of mine invited me to attend a Conversations speaker series luncheon and the guest speaker was Marion Blumenthal Lazan, who is Holocaust survivor and wrote a memoir titled, "Four Perfect Pebbles." Listening to her, I had to fight back my tears - I've heard so many accounts, read stories and visited the Holocaust museum and it bothers me how this happened.
She shared her account, which if I remember was six years in prison camps, much of which was her early childhood years and shares a message a of respect and tolerance.
We now know how horrible and tragic the Holocaust was and often we think, something like that could never happen again, but yet even after all we have come to learn and understand from this time period there are worlds still at war, still punishing and killing groups of people because of religion. While I'm far away from all these conflicts; young girls being persecuted for wanting an education and men being captured and executed because of religion; it's easy to turn away and ignore these issues because it seems so removed, but are we not all connected to one another?
Or does removing ourselves just make it easier to pretend these problems don't exist? My sweetpea is reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," and she asked me how people allowed that to happen and I couldn't answer her. She then asked me, could it happen again and I said yes, it could and in some places it still does, but I reminded her that there is still good in the world.
And that is what Marion continued to repeat at the luncheon, "Be kind, be good, respect one another," and how simple her message is and easy of a concept, but so difficult to practice.

Just for a moment, think of those words....Be kind......Be good......Respect on another.......yet how often do we see this reflected in our daily lives, television, radio, and the internet? How often do we see people pitted against one another (Republicans vs Democrats, this religion against that religion, sister vs brother, fat vs skinny). We are surrounded by hurtful and demeaning messages that eventually we become so use to this, we grow apathetic and just accept it. We are shocked by "random acts of kindness," when in reality we should be shocked by what we have accepted as everyday messages.

I will share Marion's story with my children with hopes that they take her message to heart, but they hear it all the time....
I tell my children every day as I drop them off at school, "Be kind to someone today," they get tired of me saying it everyday and one day my wee man said, but what if they are unkind to us and I replied, well that is when that person needs it the most. I suppose if I can pass anything down to my children, it would be the importance of being kind and compassionate because as easy as the acts are, they are some of the most difficult.

“If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.” - Dalai Lama

"I do believe we're all connected. I do believe in positive energy. I do believe in the power of prayer. I do believe in putting good out into the world. And I believe in taking care of each other." - Harvey Fierstein