Last week I posed a question that had come across my desk from a Fargo mail carrier. He asked, “Where does citizenship end and kindness begin?”
His job often puts him in positions where he feels compelled to help. A lost cell phone, a wandering child or an emergency that requires a call to 911.
We are taught to be nice and ... Read More
You know what I just realized? I do not know the name of the woman who delivers my mail.
Usually my mail carrier just leaves the letters in the box by the road and eventually I wander out and collect them. But every few months, she pulls her truck into my driveway and hops out to hand me a package or ... Read More
Children’s hearts are precious. They love big, forgive quickly and are incredible readers of the emotions around them. Sort of like a magnet, they attract the feelings of others and wear them as their own.
Sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad. It can be bad when it locks up the mind in fear and confusion, but it’s incredibly beautiful when ... Read More
The hardest thing to do when I’m feeling down is the one thing I know will help me feel better. It’s not exercise or sleep or eating healthier meals.
It’s kindness.
I know when I’m at my worst, I have to get my eyes off myself and put them squarely on the needs of others.
It works. Every time.
But it doesn’t just work ... Read More
I’ve never been described as a gentle person. At least not to my face, and I’m not sure that’s one of the words that comes up behind my back.
Bold. Direct. Bossy. Brave. Maybe even energetic.
But gentle? No.
We are in the process of memorizing a weekly verse together. Actually it’s a paragraph I’m breaking into verses because my brain likes bite-sized ... Read More
They say what goes around comes around. If you consistently treat others with kindness, you can expect to have a pretty big kindness bank account to draw from when life throws you a curveball.
I’ve seen it happen again and again in my own life, and so has Mary Derosier from Red Lake Falls, Minn., although she and her mom were ... Read More
Walt Disney once said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
That works well for amusement parks, but it also works well in the realm of kindness.
Alicia Stewart is a mom who feels frustrated with the way girls sometimes treat each other. When she saw it happening in her daughter’s second-grade classroom, she decided to put ... Read More
Twenty years ago this month, people along the Red River in Minnesota, North Dakota and Southern Manitoba experienced the worst flood of the area since 1826.
Homes and businesses were destroyed. Lives were swept up in a torrent of emotional and financial ruin. An entire geographic area was collectively exhausted.
Yet, when the river finally returned to its banks, along with a ... Read More
I was at a Weight Watchers meeting this morning. Don’t ask. The wheels fall off the bus pretty quickly when you live in a family who loves to celebrate track meets, baseball games and good grades with ice cream. Easter baskets don’t seem to help the problem either.
Anyway, I was sitting in the meeting listening to the celebrations and challenges ... Read More
Have you ever seen one of those funny sentences where all the letters are jumbled and yet you can still read it?
It’s amzanig rlealy hw teh hmuan brian cn d0 tht!
Except when you don’t want it to happen…
I was on Day 3 of handing out kindness tokens when I was talking to my friend, Paul. You might know him as ... Read More
