commit random acts of kindness

I usually hesitate to stop for a broken-down car, but saw one two days ago as I drove home from work. You know, “women have to be careful with strangers” – well we all do, I guess. In this case I made a U-turn and pulled up behind the car. A young man got out and I was able to offer the use of my cell phone to call for assistance. As it was, he had already used HIS cell phone to do so. So my act of kindness was not practical but I hope it encouraged the young man that people can and do care, and perhaps he will “pass it on” to someone else in the future. It made me feel positive too.

The family of a 16-year-old girl who was held hostage, assaulted and killed at her school urged mourners Saturday to remember her with random acts of kindness and not negative thoughts.

“We have the power to do this,” family spokesman Louis Gonzales said. “Let’s take the random act that has occurred and turn it to random acts of kindness.”

Emily Keyes was shot in the head Wednesday as she fled Duane Morrison, who had held her and six other girls hostage. Morrison killed himself after a SWAT team stormed the classroom.

Several thousand people turned out in the small mountain community for a memorial at the National Farmers Union Education Center. Pink ribbons lined the road, tied to ponderosa pines.

“Emily was a part of my life and a part of all of your lives, and I know that,” her twin brother, Casey, said. “And that part was torn away and stolen this Wednesday. But the part of us that can never be torn away and never be stolen is the love and strength that keeps us together.”
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/09/30/ap3057096.html

Yesterday an evil man took teenage girls hostage in their school in Bailey Colorado and murdered one of them, Emily Keyes.

Her family issued this request: “In memory of Emily we would like everyone to go out and do random acts of kindness, random acts of love to your friends or your neighbors or your fellow students because there is no way to make sense of this. It’s what Emily would have wanted.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15041037/

That is grace in a time of righteous anger and heartbreaking grief.

Please pray for the Keyes family and in her memory bless someone with a kindness.

Thank you.

For instance, asking clients who are depressed to try to do a kind (anonymous) thing for someone each day for a week.
I think it is a little behavioral thing that could encourage them and help them look outward while they recover…
PT

The 18th-century Scottish utilitarian moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson noted: “The surest way to private happiness is to do publicly useful actions.”

I have been “cut-off” from others as I have had a lot of paperwork and cleaning, etc., to do the past week or so. So, I haven’t thought about “committing any R A O K” But then I remembered that today I boxed up a bunch of books for a flea market, but remembered a friend who will be visiting near here in a week. She LOVES murder mysteries. So, I listed them on my “List murder mystery goal” and emailed her to see which ones (if any) she would like to take with her….rather give them to her, than sell. Actually, she gave me the Anne Perry’s – or at least got me started on it. One good turn….

William James, “I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest of monuments of pride.”

“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” Abraham Joshua Heschel

The ranDOm acts of KINDNESS (DO KINDNESS) foundation is chock full of good ideas, stories, and quotes about RAoK!

http://www.actsofkindness.org/index.asp

-Where a single person can make a difference

-Not exactly random but kind, nonetheless

http://www.singlevolunteers.org/