New Perspectives

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Reverend Keith Reynolds

“I believe in kindness,” June Callwood said in her last interview before she died.  This woman often referred to as “Canada’s conscience” gave a great deal in her lifetime.  Kindness was the benchmark for her.  It summoned her and summed up how she oriented herself toward others.

In this age of internet news, e-mail, texting, facebook, twitter, blogs and other forms of instant communication kindness can get lost in cyberspace.  The typed word can be detached, distant and disembodied from an encounter with another person.  We can write something and write someone off at the same time, even whole groups of people.  

“It’s just an article,” “only a tweet” or “simply an e-mail” we might say.  That is true.  And yet.  And yet the impact of what we communicate has a potentially larger audience than ever before.  Words matter.

June Callwood was someone who had her fair share of criticism and confrontation come her way.  She was also someone who did not back away from an opportunity to stand her ground.   Beneath it all and through it all she believed in kindness.

What we believe matters.  What we do not believe matters too.  The growing challenge in a time which can polarize us is to allow kindness to be our compass and guide.

I am reading Mary Jo Leddy’s new book called, “The Other Face of God.”  She has spent the last twenty years living with a number of people in a place called “Romero House.”  She lives in a house in the west end of Toronto with people who come to Canada as refugees.  Mary Jo writes beautifully about the names and faces of people who began as strangers and then summoned her to a new way of seeing and living in the world.  The subtitle to her book is “when the stranger calls us home.”

These people were not just refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Guatamala and elsewhere.  They have a name, a history, a story and a face.  It is difficult to make blanket statements about a group of people when you are faced by someone.  It is harder to stereotype when you listen to the complex story of someone’s life.

Mary Jo Leddy and June Callwood were friends.  It doesn’t surprise me.  Kindness toward others and a summons from someone who is different from us both offer a hopeful ground to stand on.  The ground may be rocky and uneven at times.  But take a look around at the landscape of your area – what makes it beautiful is that it doesn’t all look the same.

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Monday, November 21, 2011