On Human Kindness

I like to think of myself as a kind person. One of my absolute favorite quotes is by Henry James, “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” In my dream world of hearts and rainbows (and chocolate), kindness would be the most esteemed achievement in life. Unfortunately, this week has witnessed a series of events that have challenged my views as well as my perception about my own personal kindness towards others.

Last Friday, Henry’s piano teacher, who also happens to teach music out at his school, pulled me aside after his lesson and asked if Henry’s teacher or the school counselor had gotten in touch with me concerning Henry. Completely baffled, I replied that they hadn’t and she proceeded to tell me that for the past several weeks, none of the girls in his class were willing to pair up with Henry when they practiced an Irish Jig that they are performing at the school’s St. Patrick’s Day party in a few weeks. She said she always downplayed it and just used him as her partner but she found it curious. I made a note to contact his teacher on Monday.

After conferencing with both his teacher and the school counselor, I learned that Henry has essentially been the class “cheese touch” since January (if you don’t know what a cheese touch is it’s from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Basically, it means he is the person nobody wants to partner with, play with or sit next to at school). His teacher was obviously concerned about how this social isolation (which she says the kids are really good hiding when teachers are around) was affecting Henry...if he was acting out at home or not wanting to come to school and I could honestly say that it didn’t seem to be affecting him at all. He had confided in me a couple of weeks earlier that he had gotten in trouble with his teacher because he kept touching some girls’ hands and asking them to the valentine’s day dance (what dance???) after being dared by some of his classmates who said they wouldn’t be his friend if he didn’t do it. It’s quite a bit more complicated than I feel like sharing right now but, in short, Henry’s lack of social self awareness is both partly responsible for him being targeted and also the protective bubble that keeps him oblivious to the ridicule. I’ve always admired Henry’s unique personality but also worried if and when his charm and quirk would be labeled weird instead.  Turns out...third grade.  It made me so sad.

Then, the very next day, I got a call from Seth’s spanish teacher. Like all teachers, I feel like they try to lessen the blow by saying how much potential they see in your child but after buttering me up with assurances that he doesn’t think my son is a delinquent, he went on to say that he felt Seth was really underperforming in class and possibly bullying another student. I listened, acknowledged the likelihood of him not using class time wisely, but my heart hurt at the thought of him making someone feel stupid or small in class. It was extra surprising because the other boy mentioned by the teacher is a friend of Seth’s from cross country. I know my son well enough to know that he is not intentionally mean. Well, that’s not entirely true. He can be really mean to his brothers....but, he is mostly a huge tease and if he’s really comfortable with someone and thinks someone can handle it, he can say obnoxious things to them thinking he’s being funny. I’ve seen him do it with his cousins, coaches, church leaders, friends - and 90% of them actually think he’s funny.  I can’t tell you how many adult leaders have come up to me saying how much they love harassing Seth because he “can take it and dishes it right back at me!” And he can take it. He loves it. It’s like teasing is his love language or something. I told his teacher I’d be sure to have a talk with him about it.

It felt so weird to be simultaneously straddling both ends of the kindness spectrum. How was it that my boys were not recognizing the importance of kindness? After this Friday’s experience, I worry I may not be setting the best example.

The deacons and teachers had a fun, overnight trip planned for Friday night at one of the leader’s cabin. In the winter, the remote road gets snowed in and so the only way to access it is by snowmobile. All boys were told to meet at the church at 4:00 with their snow clothes on and all of their other belongings contained within a backpack. Because they were riding in and would need to use their hands to hold onto something, sleeping bags, pillows, snacks all had to fit inside a backpack. Jay and I made sure Seth and Sam were ready to go so I could take them straight to the church after I picked them up after school.  Jay even threw in an extra sleeping bag in the off chance that one of his deacons, who is on the autism spectrum, showed up. I couldn’t imagine that this boy would come. When he was in primary, he was always a challenge because he never wanted to be there and part of his personality is to loudly complain about what is making him uncomfortable. So...we and what we were doing in primary was often “stupid and boring.” It was hard to keep him in a seat because all he wanted to do was leave and wander. Mostly, he just wanted to play on his tablet. It was extremely difficult to get him to participate so we tolerated and accommodated him. His mom is a single mother who has her own mental health issues so it has never been something anyone could really take to the family for help. Tangent over, when I got to the parking lot, this boy’s mother was quickly driving away and her son was sitting on the sidewalk, with a stuffed pillowcase as his only luggage, ranting about how his, “big, fat, stupid mother” had left him and he wasn’t ever going to move and he wasn’t going anywhere until his mom came back to pick him up.

Jay was working and there was no way he was going to be available by 4, so he had already planned on driving up on his own later and either walking in (the guy’s in shape. He could do it) or, hopefully, having someone come and pick him up on a snowmobile. Because he is the deacon’s quorum advisor and the leader who has handled this young man on Sundays (he doesn’t come to activities on Wednesday night), none of the other leaders had any experience with his social tantrums. Once they saw me, they asked me what to do. Irritation at the entire situation pulsed through me. I am not a mental health or behavior expert. Jay isn’t either. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to have to know what to do. I told several of the leaders that it was unfair and possibly harmful to have this young man go on this trip. I used the comparison of someone dropping off their handicapped son, who needs a wheelchair, without his wheelchair. He had no snow clothes other than his coat. He was mad but I might have felt just as mad. I was mad at his mother for just leaving him there (and not picking up her phone now when we tried to reach her). The other counselor in the YM presidency said they would do the best they could and if the situation turned impossible, someone would leave the activity and drive him home. That didn’t really help calm my unkind feelings. If anything, it just inflamed them more. I asked Seth and Sam that since their dad wasn’t there yet, could they be this poor, frustrating young man’s emotional ambassadors and help encourage him, or even just quietly ignore him while he ranted? They sort of glared at me but I watched Seth go and sit next to him on the curb and when they led him to get into one of the trucks, I watched Sam go and sit with him. When I got back into my car to leave, I called Jay to complain. He sighed and hoped for the best.

The rest of the story is both heartwarming and embarrassing. I was certain that this boy would be miserable and, in turn, make the entire activity miserable. I was wrong. By the time Jay got up there, ever other adult leader approached him independently and told him that Seth and Sam had saved the trip. By the time the group got to the cabin, this boy had calmed down, was laughing, and saying it was so much fun. He never snowmobiled and didn’t participate in any of the conversations or games but Jay said they eventually talked him into turning down the volume of his tablet and he helped the other boys make breakfast the next morning. Sure enough, when I picked up the boys the next morning and took this young man to his mother (who was at McDonald’s using the wifi and unable/unwilling to drive to the church to pick him up), he was happy. Not easy or socially adept or any less rigid in his conversation, but not angry and he kept saying, “I had fun.” I felt shame. Because I had been very unkind in both thought and deed.

I know I am not an unkind person. Perhaps, what I have realized is that all of us, to some extent, have unkind moments. The kids we don’t like have them. Our own kids have them. I think the goal is to try harder to show kindness to all.  I tthought of the words in a primary song, “Love one another as Jesus loves you. TRY to show kindness in all that you do. Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought for these are the things Jesus taught.” I think I am most kind when I feel secure in that love that Jesus has for me - when  I feel His spirit with me. I think of the sacrament prayer and the promise that it will be with me if I keep His commandments and always remember him. I need to do better at doing both. I didn’t realize how distant and distracted I’ve been lately and how infrequently I choose to “remember Him." It’s such a cycle. I think what I realized yesterday is that if I help my children feel Christ’s love, they will also be more likely to love others and themselves in the same accepting way Christ loves us. It’s easy to be kind to some people. It’s not as easy to be kind to others. I want to be better at being kinder to all.

The Problem With Depending On My Brain

Perhaps it’s only surface righteousness, but, on Sundays, when driving to church, I tend to try to listen to more uplifting programming than the normally tuned in pop music. Today, it was Henry who suggested I find BYU radio on Sirius XM (a recent addition to my car) and when we found it, they were rebroadcasting a talk Elaine Dalton had given sometime in the past. We didn’t get to listen to much, but as I turned onto 15th Street, she quoted her favorite scripture found in Proverbs.  It’s a very well known scripture and certainly not the first time I had heard it but when my ears got the signal, “Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path,” my heart received its truth. I didn’t even know how much I had been thinking about the Lord’s truth and how mankind usually bungles handling His truth until I was sitting in Testimony Meeting. Sam had just been sustained in Sacrament meeting to being worthy to hold the office of a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood and almost like Jason Bourne, my brain kept flashing to all these thoughts I’ve been having over the past two weeks that all had to do with the priesthood and that scripture.



Two weeks ago, I had the amazing and blessed opportunity to travel to Mexico with my parents and sisters.  We had a marvelous time and the majority of memories will be attached to the sand, sun and nightly order of fajitas, but we spent one day touring some Mayan Ruins at Chichen Itza and Tulum. I’m sure any tour guide would have provided an interesting interpretation and explanation of Mayan history and archaeologic discovery but we chose to have an LDS tour guide who added his own thoughts and interpretations from his understanding of scripture. Most of what he had to say focused on how the symbolism they used in building and their traditions in sacred worship could be recognized as perversions, lost truths and misunderstandings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which I believe had been brought to this land by different peoples and from Jesus Christ himself after his resurrection. For instance, there is an idol placed atop the place where human sacrifices were offered inside their temples. They called him Chaac Mol and this idol sat in a reposed position with a box of a sort onto of his torso (I hope I am getting this right. If I take the time to research this, I doubt I will ever get back to writing. I just need to get this post out!). In the box, they would place a human heart. Our tour guide theorizes that they had been taught at one time that God wanted “broken hearts and contrite spirits” and after many generations without any priesthood authority to keep truth in check, this perverted human sacrifice came as a result. It’s an interesting thought.

In a similarly gruesome comparison, my dad sent me a link to a story exposing the relationship between a Utah husband and wife who killed themselves and all but one of their children this past year and Dan Lafferty, a man who murdered my cousin and her daughter because of religious perversion. They had become infatuated with his teachings and person and had visited him many times in prison. The article reminds the reader about the horrific Lafferty murders and I just felt so sad that such evil could stem from someone who had once been taught the gospel.

While that depressing train of thought was swirling on one side of my brain, I simultaneously recalled a funny conversation I had with the two women who help me clean my house once a week. They have been helping me with my poor housekeeping skills for years and we have become pretty good friends. They will frequently ask me questions about my religion and we always have honest conversations about what we believe. Last week, I could tell they thought their question was weird based on how they asked each other if they should even ask me, but I laughed when they asked, “Is it like a rule of your church that you have to own a piano if you are Mormon?” I laughed and said that I was positive all non-musical and non-piano owners could also be Mormons should they so choose and even though it was a silly question, it made me start to think about how easily something can seem like a tradition or even become a tradition.

The church has done a valiant job during the past year of acknowledging past mistakes and admitting uncertainty about how some past church policies came into existence. I think it is both commendable and concerning. Why are we doing things wrong...ever...when we have the restored gospel, priesthood authority and a prophet? You know? Oh, I know, I know, I know. The church is true but its people aren’t perfect. Past prophets’ policies and ideas have been implemented when they weren’t necessarily revelations but merely opinions of men. I get it. I hear it. I just wish it hadn’t happened.

It’s so, so, so tempting to rely on my own understanding. I think I come up with some pretty good stuff. Still, I believe that priesthood authority matters and that that authority exists on the earth today.  I believe Sam received that power today, through an ordination of power given to him by his father who was given the power by another worthy priesthood holder. Not only do I believe that Sam now holds the priesthood but I believe that this power is what allows Heavenly Father to bless His children and direct His church through revelation. Without it....if it didn’t matter....if we’re just left to our own understanding....if it gets perverted....all hell breaks loose.  That’s what history teaches me. Really. Being forced to own pianos would be the most benign.

I’m proud of Sam. I’m grateful he has great examples of worthy, humble, dedicated priesthood holders to teach him how to best bless the lives of those around him. I will continue to trust in the Lord and let Him direct my path.

Model Sam

Still modeling

Sam is the same size Seth was when he turned 12.

It kind of amazes me what changes are in store over the next few years.