Rekindle your kindness to strangers

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18: At least four times this past week the saying ‘Keep Hope Alive’ proved to hold true for me. Here of late, I have become rather weary of our behaviour to each other.

I don’t have too much faith in people; I have been let down too much.

I have almost adopted a Murphy’s Law attitude — if something can go wrong, it will.

People seem to embrace negativity before they embrace patience and positivity.

To put it bluntly, people are just plain rude. They seem to take advantage of their positions and hold whom they think subservient at bay.

Our dear Prophet Muhammad advised: “Do not become proud of your position. Do not become harsh toward those weaker than yourself. And always speak of Allah’s kindness to you.” 

What is so ironic and hypocritical is that they proclaim in all their mission statements, pledges and creeds to have a different approach.

They talk about respect and tolerance and yes, even use words like collegial partnerships.

Do you know what that represents — it means mutual respect, yet their actions are adversely quite different.

And we all know that the Bible says ‘actions are stronger than words’.

Yet the majority of people, organizations, ministries and schools, only offer lip service — they have no substance to their words.

They cannot or even will not back up what they profess or claim to represent.

And we wonder why the children have such a bullying attitude.

There is a book entitled Behave, so that your children will behave too.

I can’t remember the author, but truer words were never spoken. Let’s think about it Bermuda.

However, this week, I was proven that good still does exist, and that not all people are mean bullies.

I had to do an urgent posting and time, as it quite often does, got away from me.

Hence I rushed on a Saturday, minutes before 12 noon, to do a large posting.

As I arrived at the door, it was being locked literally in my face. However, the kind key holder, an employee of the Bermuda Postal Service… Lo and behold, let me in.

I was flabbergasted to say the least and very, very grateful.

Once in, I was given the best of services by the attending staff — they harboured no bad feelings to my ‘near miss’ arrival.

Another incident was that I went to the bank, and after coming from the teller line, waltzed off to the card department. However it was a second late past their closing time.

As I was being turned away, the staff member — a very young lady — offered to assist me, which I gladly accepted.

Another incident, at Oleander Cycles in Hamilton, was that I took my bike to get the brakes fixed.

I had had a meeting with the wet road minutes before.

When I went to collect the bike a few hours later, I was $4 short and guess what, the staff member loaned me the $4.

Pope Benedict XVI said: “In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair.” 

Yes, that is happening in our society right here in Bermuda.

Despair is beginning to set in. We are not the neighbours we used to be to one another.

But all of this can change. We can begin to act right towards one another, one person at a time.

We have to believe and obey Allah’s commandments to love one another and show love and kindness, but worshipping Him and allowing him to guide us for prosperity in this world and the next.

God has shown me, through these random acts of kindness from literal strangers, that though there are tons of mean and unkind people in the world, there are even more kind and loving people still around.

So we shall not give up hope because it’s alive and well.

Acting together we can all benefit from the hope of a better Bermuda. Peace be unto you.