Kindness

I was waiting in line at the pharmacy this week. The line was long with only two assistants working up front. Often, with so many people to serve and too few workers, people get stressed under the pressure. They can understandably feel the need to be short with responses to move the line along. At the counter was an older gentleman. Both his insurance cards had been rejected. The assistant calmly explained that the man would need to call the company and see what the issue was. Rather than moving the customer along, the assistant offered to look for discounts so the man could at least take home his medicines. This took a little time, first finding one discount, but with further effort finding another for even $10 less.  Then he helped the man work through the final paperwork before finally moving him along.  All this while being calm and kind, even with the line hardly moving.

Even more surprising, no one was grousing in the line. If anything, the kindness of the attendants made those of us waiting even more appreciative of them. We knew when we reached the counter we too would be met with respect and kindness, not hurry and curtness.

We all appreciate kindness, because we’ve all experienced the opposite. I’ve wondered many times if the rude person at the counter in front of me really wants their job. Maybe they don’t, but this is the only job they could find. Sometimes when the person in line in front of you is hard on a cashier, the cashier takes it out on the next in line. I only know that when the cashier is kind, regardless of how they are being treated, I truly appreciate it (and know I could never do their job).

Service people are often treated like they don’t exist, or exist only for the benefit of the person in front of them. Our own selfishness gets in the way.  Once I manned the front desk at school on a Saturday PSAT test day. Kids and parents would check in with me, and I’d direct them where they needed to be and tried to answer questions about what to expect. Most parents were quite nice to me. Some just ignored me. Very few knew I was a teacher there and assumed I was “just the secretary”. One parent shoved some paperwork at me and told me to make copies for him, so he could work while he waited for his student. I complied, making copies isn’t that much of an imposition, but as I was handing the copies back to him, a parent of one of my students stepped up to say hello. It became obvious in our conversation that I was a teacher, not “just a secretary”, and the man apologized as he took his copies. So it wasn’t ok to demand things of a teacher, but if I’d been a secretary….

However, even being a teacher didn’t guarantee respect. One student, who was thinking of going into education, told me her parents were discouraging her from “settling” to be a teacher. Like teaching was the least favorable option for their child. Another time a student wanted me to go out and meet his mother and see their new car. The mother was on the phone and never got off.  She kept gesturing to her son to get in the car. Finally he told her I was his teacher and he wanted us to meet. Without stopping her important phone call, she looked over at me, summarily waved and then gestured again for him to get in to the car.

In some people’s minds there are a lot of little people, unworthy of their time or consideration. I’ve seen it and experienced it. It always feels so demeaning and hurtful, depressing even when you begin to expect it. So when someone continues to serve with kindness and generosity despite the rudeness, that’s a rare gift. Unfortunately such kindness does seem rarer today.  Often this is blamed on the pandemic, where we all somehow lost our social skills. I wonder if it really only gave us an excuse not to use them.

Times are hard, what with the economy feeling shaky and hopes for a positive future seeming darker. Anxiety is soaring. Most days it’s easier to just put our heads down, do what needs to be done, get through the shift and go home. Being kind to the people around us is just not necessary to completing the job and doing what needs to be done. That doesn’t mean we’re rude; we are just going through the motions, not really thinking about the person in front of us, or working beside us. We say the cursory words “Hi, how are you today?” and totally expect the “I’m fine, how are you?” in response. Then we say “good, thank you” and go about our business. It’s fun sometimes to throw people off and say “Not so great” or “It’s not been a very good day” and have the rote response “good, thank you” follow. They were just asking the question because they had to, and didn’t expect an actual, honest response. In fact, most people don’t want to hear anything other than “I’m fine” in response. Even more interesting is when you beat them to it and ask how their day is going, or if it’s been a hard shift – something that engenders something other than a rote answer from them. Making the conversation about someone else is a kindness.  

The New Testament has much to say about being kind. The key text refers to the fruit of the Spirit, the results in a life when the Holy Spirit has control. The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. The word “fruit” is singular, so if we have one characteristic we have them all. And the result is totally Christ-likeness.  Believers in Jesus should be controlled by the Holy Spirit and producing this fruit. When people encounter us they should see all of these things. I might wish I were more patient or loving – but in truth, it’s our nature to often live counter to these characteristics. It really has nothing to do with losing social skills, and everything to do with whether or not I wish to live like Jesus or not.

Obviously there are kind, loving, patient people who are not believers. But to show all of these characteristics consistently, even when we are tired and the line is long and the last person who spoke to us was terribly rude, that is something only the Spirit can create in us. If anyone should exhibit kindness, it should be people who profess a belief in Jesus. I knew people whose parents ran a restaurant. They said the crowd they most fretted about were the after-church “Christians” on Sundays. To the restaurant owners, this Sunday crowd was the worst – impatient, unkind, poor, if nonexistent, tippers. How sad that their view of Jesus’ followers was this.

I seek, imperfectly, to give the Holy Spirit control in my life. I want to be loving and patient and kind, to be good and joyful, a peace giver who shows self-control. I know the only way I can successfully do this is to continually monitor who is in control. Sadly, too often, I’m the one calling the shots.

I don’t know if that pharmacy assistant was a believer or not, but his patient kindness reminded me of what I should be about.