We tend to be a snarky bunch here at KNN. We see a lot of bad news about a lot of if-not-bad-then-silly,-thoughtless,-or-avaricious people. And it wears on us. Frankly, all that grinding can cause sharp edges on anyone's psyche (and teeth).
Still, all too infrequently, we do find ourselves treated to our favorite part of human nature: kindness. A church in our region went out into the community on October 30th offering to do, well, whatever needed doing. It sounded like it was too good to be true and, shrugging, we assumed it was.
We were completely and pleasantly wrong. Those, like us, who availed themselves of the service found themselves treated to a crowd of people ranging in age from the very young to people of retirement age, doing whatever needed to be done, from lawn work to minor plumbing. For us, it was days worth of work done in just a few hours. They asked for no payment or any sort of recompense. It was amazing.
But the thing that rendered us speechless was the response from young and old when we tried to thank them for all their hard work. To a person, they thanked us for the opportunity to serve. Every one.
As referred to above, we are a snarky bunch here, but we are not so far gone that kindness and extraordinary effort of that sort fails to effect us. We dare not give the name of the church no matter how rightly they deserve their acknowledgement; kindness is the sort of thing that gets abused easily, and the people who practice it don't always count the costs they should, because it isn't in their nature to do so.
To be sure, though, there was one overwhelmed couple who so very appreciated what was done for us that it's hard to express. So we close with this: thank you, and through your generosity, we are reminded that the true benefit of kindness is not what was done for you, but that you will take up the practice of it elsewhere. And we will.
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