On Random Acts of Kindness

     After 9/11 we Americans learned that our assumptions of general safety were not as unassailable as we thought. In fact we have become more aware of our vulnerabilities to armed attack, even as we go about our business as ordinary citizens. It seems we have not only nature’s rampages to contend with---hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and floods---now we have nameless, faceless enemies looking for “soft” targets to destroy. I believe in these years we have grown aware of an ambiguous overtone of dismay that overlays us as a populace. It is difficult to view ourselves as a united citizenry right now. Instead we seem to be sorted out into irritable tribes gathering into pockets of alienation, satisfied only when we are with our own. People who would normally be interesting to us now just look like strangers and are not to be trusted.

     After one particularly odious bomb attack, I suddenly became awake to something that always happens after such disasters, and I mean always. Almost in an instant, once the smoke begins to clear, people “come to,” so to speak, and begin to help. Certainly there are rescue workers trained in disaster work and they arrive as soon as possible, but I am thinking of ordinary people who turn to do whatever is at hand. The ubiquitous media coverage and social networking began at once to stream pictures of people carrying injured folks out of harm’s way. They may themselves have had bloodied faces, but they were aiding others. This particular bombing not only killed but also caused great injuries to limbs, causing necessary amputations. In all the reporting coming in, there was a call from a man that was nowhere on the scene who was himself am amputee. He reportedly said, “Call me when I can help people learn to live full lives again, even with missing arms or legs.” Somewhere in all this disarray, someone coined the notion of engaging in “random acts of kindness,” which is exactly what so many were busy doing as a natural response.

     What is it that happens at these times? Is there some chemical, altruistic wiring in us that is activated during disasters? We can be snarling at each other over disputes and complaints one minute, and then jump into action during an emergency the next. I am not satisfied with the idea that some communal, preservative instinct is taking over. I am a believer. I believe that all life is joined in an eternal movement that we all share. Often we blow this off during the course of normal days. But let something out of the ordinary happen that jolts us out of our common lethargy, and the heart-to-heart connection becomes hyper activated. Massive love is mobilized; intense caring is heightened, and we do extraordinary things…going toward destruction to find and serve. Absolutely we are more than we think we are, and maybe we can find a better means of discovery, perhaps in acts of kindness that are intentional, not simply random.