"Kindness is simple, profound. It doesn't take much time, yet leaves a lasting mark. As I look back over my life I can easily recall so many people who were gentle and good to me. Some are gone now — it is too late to thank them personally. However, I can do better than offer them my words of gratitude. I can emulate them with the people who are in my life now. It takes so little effort most of the time.
"On a visit to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I heard about a cardiopulmonary surgeon who was a legend in the hospital among the patients and staff. He was an excellent surgeon, but that was almost a given in this hospital of fine physicians. What he was known for beyond his technical expertise was his visible kindness.
"Although he was very busy — in many cases busier than some of his colleagues — he approached his patients with an aura of 'I have all the time in the world for you.' He would come into the patients' rooms, sit down, stretch out his legs, and inquire after their health. He usually didn't stay very long, but it felt like he would stay for hours if needed. Patients felt cared for and at ease. He was present to them.
"He was the same with the families. You would occasionally see him perched on a windowsill, leaning forward toward a family member with his chin leaning on his hand, listening intently. He saw both the family and the person who had surgery as worthy of the highest attention. He was not only competent; in a word, he was 'kind.'
"Kindness requires slowing down, paying real attention, and sharing some of yourself with others. But that requires you to get out of yourself, your own needs, your own desires. Actually, because it is a product of our gratefulness to God in prayer and is cradled by our spiritual attitude, kindness is unselfconscious. If you feel you're being kind, that's not real kindness. Kindness is a natural unselfconscious outpouring of all you know you have been given yourself. That is why people with seemingly little can be so kind. They have the good fortune to feel blessed in all they receive, so the blessings keep coming and flow through them to others."
