One of the things that kindness will do for you, if you practice it enough, is expand your view of the world and God's creation.
The place I have found this to be most true for myself is in my relation to Nature.
I have also had a general respect for Nature. I tried not to burn things down growing up (let us be honest, young boys love fire). I did not litter. The fish that I caught with my maternal grandfather were always for eating.
But I had my own not great side as well. Stepping on snails and slugs. Randomly ripping off leaves of plants (mostly wildflowers) for no other reason than a nervous habit.
Being older and trying to be more consciously kind over the years has helped with that.
My fidgeting I have mostly learned to keep to myself now instead the need to strip something of leaves. I will walk around the snails and slugs, perhaps picking up the snails and helping them across (not the slugs, of course; I merely wish them well). I have now been known to rescue earthworms in our parking lot after the rain (maybe to a bird's maw of course, but at least that seems better than getting run over or drowned).
I have always had a respect for animals - we always had cats growing up and through my life, we have had dogs, hamsters, chickens, quail, a pony, guinea pigs and of course rabbits - but I find my relationship with them in general has become much deeper than before. When The Ravishing Mrs. TB travels, I am far more likely to let A The Cat sleep with me, knowing that he is home alone during the day (although I will not sleep as well). I am learning to read J The Rabbit's moods better as well.
I cannot point to one event in any of this and say "This has made me more kind". But I can say that through learning to be kind, it has made me much more aware, which in itself enables kindness.
It seems that the kinder one is, the more one finds to be kind to.
W. in CA
ReplyDeleteWhen you name them, they become friends.
Carpenter bees "Chubs"
Spiders "Hector "
Bees in general "Mr. Bumbles"
Frogs "Sticky Toes"
Lizards "Rudy"
Squirrels "Itchy"
Finches "Pavarotti"
Many more of course. Don't get me started on the plants we have named. All bugs and beetles are relocated to safety unless they are ants, mosquitoes, or flies. I know they are God's creation, but they aren't allowed in the house and we don't want them to get comfortable. They get to see our sinful nature 😉
W, I have never thought of naming them. What a delightful idea!
DeleteHere too, we (mostly I) will relocate anything that is not a mosquito. And do not get me started on cockroaches, which (thankfully) have never been a problem anywhere we have lived.
Bugs that make it inside the abode forfeit their lives, they can live outside all they want.....except for the mosquitos, they're shoot on sight/sound. The older I've gotten the more live and let live is the motto except for what I just stated, spider webs are not likable indoors TB. Getting older means perhaps getting a bit more mellow and kindness comes more to the forefront.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, plus 1000 on spider webs in the house; that said, I do try to escort the spiders outdoors to make a living on the pests out there.
DeleteI wonder if, as we get older, we realize how difficult life is - not just for us, but for all living things?
Like Nylon12, I have rules about inside of homes, gardens and lawns, I pretty much have let animals go about their lives as they see fit. Right now I have mole traps set to kill moles in my front yard that seem to have waken up again now that it is spring and of course 7000 volts of electricity surrounding my garden.
ReplyDeleteEd, it is always a balance - for example, I have put down beer traps in the past for snails and slugs in my garden (but leave them alone if they are "out there".
DeleteMoles and gophers were a particular problem at The Ranch and TB The Elder spent long years at war with them as they moved beyond "just living" to creating issues around the house. And my own struggle with mice there some years ago.
Perhaps you are pointing out the caveat that the gloves come off when their nature becomes immediately destructive to our world. Although I also wonder if we draw the boundaries of our world as tightly or loosely as we should.
Did you know about Proverbs 12:10? I remember the first time when someone told me about that. I still have a farmer mindset about animals. But as I've aged, putting down the sick and wounded hurts more than it used to. Some bugs are nuke on sight, but daddy long legs are friends. They eat the flies and skeeters I don't manage to off.
ReplyDelete"A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel." - Proverbs 12:10
DeleteSTxAR, I am certainly in agreement that suffering need not be extended and, like you, agonize more over it, even when it must be done. Then again, I find that driving by regions devastated by forest fires or clear cutting has a similar effect on me.
Spiders are pretty hard to argue against as neighbors (outside of course - I do not like spider webs).
My view on nature is that it's there for the next person, so that's why I try to take care of it. I'm a speciesist, I guess.
ReplyDeleteJohn, we are all ultimately just passing through. Like picking up litter on the trail, it is nice to leave it in good shape for the next person.
DeleteI'm reading here a link between kindness and respect, and a link between respect for nature and respect for our fellow humans. I hadn't thought about that before, but perhaps it points to kindness stemming from an inner aspect of Self, rather than just acts of doing.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I had not thought of it that way, but it is not a bad connection to make. But I think it is merited: if I respect things, I will be kind to them, no matter if they are people or aspects of Nature. We treat well what we value and respect.
DeleteAt this point in my life, I like critters more than most people.
ReplyDeleteI rescued a pond turtle from the road yesterday. He made it a job. Stop in the middle of my lane, turn on hazard blinkers, go in front of my truck to pick it up (they ALWAYS just sit there), as I'm bending over, he JETS under my truck, well shit. At 75, I'm not crawling under. I get the shovel, down on my hands and knees, trying to go push it out the passenger side. It runs aft, me following on my hands and knees, ass to on coming traffic. Now, I'm serious, it's billiard time. a couple glancers, then a solid hit and it's launched, spinning out the other side, dazed. I, not so gingerly, "jump" up, hurry around the back of my truck discarding the shovel, around to the passenger side and GRAB it! Yay! As I'm heading for the fence, some guy in a newer SUV, stopped, that I hadn't noticed, yells "You're a good man!". There were about 3 cars that watched my little rescue mission. I put the turtle over the fence to the pond side, mission successful.
I live in farmville, Tennessee, I see too many dead turtles, so I "help" as many as I find, could be as few as a half dozen a year or well over a dozen.
The most notable was a 30ish pound, dinosaur looking snapping turtle, it looked like it had a gilly suit on! The wife is driving, so I bail out and size up the situation, I've got this, I've watched the tutorials and the tragedies on utube. I know they have lightning like striking abilities. I get behind it and grab it by the edge of the shell, between the legs. Snake like neck can't reach me, but he uses his legs to try to dislodge me, no luck (I only bleed a little)! I get him to the fence and over he goes! After it settles from a bit of a rough landing, it looks at me, intentionally, momentarily, then heads for the creek, about 30 yards dead ahead. No witnesses, except my screamingly, instructful, wife. It seems she didn't approve of my course of action. Getting back in the car, she says, "Well, that went better than I thought it would."
This woman, on our first trip to the desert, saw me stop in the middle of a county road to shoo a rattler off the road. Nope. I'm 25, been a bush kid in the rurals of So. Cal. all my life. By this point, my rattler catching technique has been refined to, pointing the sole of my boot in the snakes face, until it strikes at it enough to realize it's futile, then it coils up defensively and quits striking. Now I can step on its head, grab it hard up against the back of the head and haul it over to the edge of the road and toss it down the embankment. I'm still that reptilian kid.
I've hauled dozens of medium to giant chicken, black snakes and two rattlers, from our little farmlet to the bus station (relocation), not the train station (death). Only killed one rattler, I was on my way to an appointment, couldn't leave for my dogs to deal with. I apologised, gave it a death prayer for it and dispatched it quickly.
Some people think I'm weird, dumb, foolish, they're probably right, but I'm still alive and in undeservedly good shape, so I'll just keep being me, it's still fun. I've also hauled 3 possums from the chicken coop, to the bus station. Two possums were hardened criminals, so they were dispatched.
"Farm living is the life for me!" sung to the tune of Petticoat Junction.
Whoa, that went a little off the rails.
DeleteAll good, T_M. Reptiles and amphibians deserved to be saved as well.
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