Love is Kindness

In Hinduism Lord Shiva is known for his dance. Shiva Nataraj’s dance represents both the destruction and the creation of the universe and reveals the cycles of death and birth and rebirth. His Dance of Bliss shows his kindness for the people. In a way, his dance represents outpouring of his grace and love to the people of the world.
We hear David experienced the intense love and kindness of God and danced heartily, making us think that great happiness comes out of great love of the self or great love of others. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God, believed St. Augustine. There could be instances in life where we experienced such moments and felt like children, filled with happiness, sang and danced for joy in our family, in friends’ circles or offices even.
The desert fathers and monks in various parts of the world want to experience this happiness all the time of their days. They go in search of God, away from the world, live in mountains, caves, forests and deserts. They have their rewards, but we live in this world. We live with the society. How do we experience this eternal bliss in our daily life? How do we dance and sing with joy, how to be cheerful? St. Paul gives us the one and only route to eternal happiness: love.
Though the hearts of the people are as hard as the rock in accepting his message of love, Jesus shows them kindness by not shouting at them without any reason, rather, pointing out what they should see. They succeeded in frustrating God's plan for their lives because they had closed their hearts to the message of John the Baptist and now to Jesus. What can make us spiritually dull and slow to hear God's voice?
Love is kindness. Kindness is the overflowing of self upon others. Kindness is our imitation of Divine Providence, as if we open our hearts to the needs of others like God. A kind deed, a kind word, the mere tone of voice is enough to convey sympathy to the poor suffering heart. A little kindness goes a long way. A kind action lasts a long time. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. The kindest persons are generally those who have received the greatest number of kindness.
Kindness is one the ways we experience the heart of God since in kindness we come to realize the value of giving; we realize God’s generosity. Let us pray that we be kind to our own selves first in accepting the message of love thus we be prepared to be show God’s generosity to others. Amen.