“His heart is kind and gentle and that is better than being wise… Let us forget everything but his good nature which puts new heart in us when we are sad.”— L. Frank Baum, Rinkitink in Oz
It’s been six months now since COVID-19 laid siege on our homes and for many, sequestering with fellow fallen human beings has been a monumental trial. As tensions mount, tempers flare and otherwise gentle souls become bad-tempered trolls.
Albert Barnes, an 18th century Presbyterian theologian wrote, “All usefulness and all comfort in our homes may be prevented by an unkind temper of mind,—a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion. A spirit of trivial fault-finding; and constant irritation with others; little inequalities in the look, the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied—your husband or your wife cannot tell why—will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render life anything but a blessing.”
Hanna Moore suggests similarly,
Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from our foibles springs;
Since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease,
And though but few can serve, yet all can please;
Oh, let the ungentle spirit learn from hence,
A small unkindness is a great offense. —Hanna Moore
Paul, on the other hand, insists that, “love is kind,” using a word that occurs only once in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 13:4), and is difficult to translate into English. One source suggests “sweet reasonableness.” The adjectival form is used by Jesus in Matthew 11:30 with reference to his cross and is translated “easy to bear.” Perhaps the best rendering is “pleasant.”
It’s an exotic that comes from the Holy Spirit alone as we ask for it,
a blessing that "puts new heart in us when we’re sad."
David Roper
9.13.20
