For some time now I have tried to hold this thought as a mantra, I fail, daily. Not long ago, in a feeble attempt at being clever I was quite unkind, and I regret it. The hearer did not take it to heart, but I knew that my words had been unkind, and I am sorry.
Recently I had occasion to talk with some friends about my interest in Virtue Ethics. While my formal background is limited to a few undergraduate philosophy courses and a grad class in Ethics of Helping Professions, I have been motivated to educate myself in this area informally. I am old enough to have spent a little time under the Baltimore Catechism and was exposed to the four cardinal and three theological virtues while quite young. As I have grown older, I have come to appreciate the role of kindness as the paramount virtue, at least for me.
I am currently un-churched. Not unusual for an American of my age and education. My last formal affiliation was with an Episcopal parish, obviously I was raised a Roman Catholic, but when I identify with anything at all these days, it is usually Unitarian/Universalism. So what does this have to do with virtue, and in particular kindness?
I have written before of my father, my relationship with my dad was not unlike most men I know, we always loved one another, but I acknowledge that we didn't always like one another. Liking the people we love is often very difficult, and we experienced some of that. Respecting one another took more time. My greatest memories of my father are around his almost unfailing and nearly universal kindness. He regarded everyone with respect. He was as unaware of, and as unimpressed with, wealth or status as anyone I ever saw. As I have moved through life I have tried to emulate that behavior, to be kind, even when it is difficult.
Which brings me back to my issue, I was unkind not because someone had been rude or unseemly to me, but because I wanted to make a joke, a bad one admittedly. Humor at the expense of another is cheap. I want to be better, smarter and kinder than that. My Dad was.
What does any of this have to do with March?
I realized while struggling to sleep a few weeks ago that I was feeling a sense of anxiety, something "bad" coming, and I was unsure what brought on this sense of dread. Then it struck me, March has been an unkind month to me.
My Dad died 6 years ago, March 15, 2009, although the massive coronary that took his life occurred on March 7, his birthday, and the birthday of my son and his namesake, Thomas. Two years ago,my Mother also died in March,at the end of a very difficult struggle with Progressive Supranclear Palsy. March giveth, and March taketh away.
I have admitted to my "unchurched" status, but I am not closed off to trying to understand "why" certain things happen in life. Sunday Morning on CBS aired a segment on "Godwinks" a few weeks ago, expressing a belief that random coincidences are proof of a higher power "winking" at us, to remind us that he/she is watching. I have had a few of those recently. A beautiful article in the NYT by a woman who lost her mother to PSP, finding a scrap of paper with my father's handwriting in among my school papers, so many seemingly random things that bring me back to considering "why." Why now?
As I approach the coming of Spring, I like to share this bit of wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut:
