“I firmly believe that in every situation, no matter how difficult, God extends grace greater than the hardship, and strength and peace of mind that can lead us to a place higher than where we were before.”
Andy Griffith
Breaking News: Mayberry Reborn
Rarely do we hear good things in the daily news. Far less, do we hear about random acts of kindness. We are bombarded with stories of shootings, political corruption, drugs and money, money, money. It’s pretty difficult to have a great day when you drink your morning coffee watching a news report about the drug raid that happened last night down the street.
What would it be like if we were overwhelmed with stories of random acts of kindness instead? When we turned on the news, we watched stories about people helping people, about communities taking care of each other, about simple acts of compassion and care. What if our media began showcasing the basic good in people? What if kindness became more valuable than the almighty dollar?
Who Remembers the Andy Griffith Show?
I enjoy watching the old black and white sitcoms. The Andy Griffith Show is one of my favorites. The idea of a wholesome town that prides itself on taking care of one another is a comfort to me. I am envious of the simple, easy going, uncorrupt lives shared among the members of Mayberry.
Some people might say that focusing on simply being kind to one another and reminiscing about times when there were more “Mayberry’s” in the world, is naïve or unrealistic. I disagree. I think Andy Griffith, Barney Fife and Aunt Mae had the right idea; A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
What Does Kindness Involve?
What does kindness involve? How much time does it take to help out a fellow human being? What is the cost of showing that you care about a family member, friend or stranger? Is the commitment too great? I think a better question is what does our future look like if we don’t make being kind a priority? How much worse will it get?
At one time we had more communities that took care of each other. They weren’t so far and few between. If your car got a flat tire someone would pull over to help change it. You held the door for the next person. You let someone with only two items cut in front of you in line because you had a cart full. Someone needed change for the soda machine, so you offered the jingle in your pocket.
Kindness doesn’t have to cost a thing. Mercy, grace, compassion, humanity, integrity…these are the things that create acts of kindness. Coincidentally, these are also the attributes our society once held above all other things. We held how we treated each other above the almighty dollar. We held it above whether we were a Democrat or a Republican. Decency and common respect were more important than being right or winning.
Kindness is Still All Around Us
The good news is that we are not so removed from the time we made kindness a priority. There are still random acts of kindness that occur every day. We may not read about them in the paper or see breaking news about them on the television, but they happen. We are not a lost society, and this proves that we have what it takes to get back to a kinder time when we cared about each other.
It’s true, we find our society, our nation, our world, in a difficult situation. We are broken. But we can change the condition we are in. We can glue the broken piece back together and make something even more beautiful than what we started with. We can change the world with one random act of kindness at a time. We can do better than “Mayberry.”
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