Welcome back to this little series on the book Living the Gospel as a Way of Life by James R. Jones and Gabriel Meyer. Today we look at the fourth principle for living the Gospel in community: reliability and kindness.
Reliability and kindness are quite practical aspects of living the Gospel, but, as Jones and Meyer say, they “can become sore points and obstacles in people’s paths to love and trust if we do not have a common appreciation of, and approach to them.” I have seen how a lack of reliability can erode a community, almost imperceptibly, in that people don’t know why there is a lack of commitment or growth in the community. But steps toward reliability and kindness can work imperceptibly, it seems, to build an environment of trust. These are the kind of people I want to share my life with.
Reliability: “If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Your integrity and credibility rises or falls on whether you do or do not keep your word. This not only involves keeping specific promises and commitments, but also other instances in which you’ve simply said you would do something.”
In order for this kind of reliability to take root, though, we need to take much better care of the promises we make. So often, I have casually said, “Sure, I’ll do that,” without thinking about whether I can really carry it out. It is better to say, “No, I don’t think that will work,” than to be unreliable.
Now, are there cultural factors at play here? For example, my ancestry is German, which means, among other things, that I really appreciate punctuality. Some of my friends, for example the Italians, do not think it a big deal to arrive to an event fifteen minutes late. There is definitely wiggle room in what counts as reliability or not. We do not have to impose one way or the other. But it would be good to be honest with each other about what really bothers us, even if it doesn’t change anything. This kind of honesty also builds community. Going back to our first post, I am reminded of the temptation to tell everyone else but the late person how much that person’s lateness bothers me. Even our cultural differences, in short, can be occasions to grow closer in community.
Jones and Meyer spend a lot of time talking about borrowing and lending. In a real community, we ask things of each other. This is risky business: sometimes people take advantage of our generosity or break the things they borrow. Reliability here means responsibility for the things that we borrow and use. And honesty goes a long way in this case as well. It does not help the community, when something gets broken or lost, to say “No big deal” and then seethe inside with anger at your broken tool!
What about kindness? Isn’t this a rather watered-down Christian virtue? Aren’t we called to be more than kind? Yes, we are called to be more than kind, but never less. Kindness and courtesy put others ahead of ourselves. Here is how Jones and Meyer describe the community created by kindness:
Cultivating as parish and family culture marked by graciousness and kindness is more than good manners. It’s a way to encourage us, in the midst of an increasingly solitary and self-centered culture, to be more person-oriented. More than this, an atmosphere of graciousness in our relationships encourages and spreads the effects of goodness.
Kindness goes to the heart of the dignity that each person has, made in the image and likeness of God. We spoke about this in the post on honor. Kindness is a type of reverence before the other person, the conviction that every encounter holds within it the promise of God’s love. I can give that love and I can receive that love in the most unusual and unexpected places. Nothing is outside the scope of Christian love. No one is “beyond the pale”. Kindness “encourages and spreads the effects of goodness”.
The beautiful thing about reliability and kindness is that I can start today. I can see the effect these things have on my family, my workplace, my parish, or whatever community I am in. To be a person is to be in relationship, always. We can waste our personhood and become ever-more-selfish individuals. Or we can use our personhood to establish relationships of love and respect.
Jones and Meyer end with an exhortation to build character, to become more reliable and kind through practice. They say, “Loving God and neighbor—the essence of what it means to build brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ—is built not on the sand of inspiration, but not he solid rock of character.” And we can start to build character today.