Dear Woo Woo Girl:
What is the worst thing in life that a person can do? I think it is murder. Do you?

This is an unusual question for dear woo woo girl. It’s not the “should I leave my husband who hits me on a daily basis” query where the only possible answer is a whole hearted yes. There is no definitive yes or no answer, is there? It strikes a deep chord and the kind of query that takes us over to the dark side of life – where evil and spirit resides and goodness must find it’s way out groping through the dark.

But here goes…

The intention and physical action of snuffing out a life is horrific. So is the pain and terror that must run through every fibre of the body of the person being brutalized. Imagine the shock, the fear, the rage at the injustice at hand. Trembling with fright and knowing only pain and violence in your last moments. Is murder the worst thing that can happen in a person’s life? It is for the person being murdered. It is also the last thing. The last insult that will ever be felt.

But isn’t this kind of pain transitory and forgotten when the body moves into the spirit world. I think we as a society feel it is the ultimate crime because it is the final crime. But there are far worse things. Torture, Child abuse. Psychological abuse. It is, I truly believe, the absence of kindness that is the greater tragedy; the worst crime.

Why?

If a child abuser were shown kindness at a crucial point in his/her life would they still abuse? If a wife beater was given the kind act of choice to be empowered would he strike out? Unless you are a pathological personality it impossible to be touched by kindheartedness and still invite evil in.

Small gestures of kindness can change the trajectory of a life for a lifetime, a day, a nano second. Consider the starving refugee given a loaf a bread by his fellow refugee. Would he beat him later?
What about the homeless person on the verge of a psychotic rage. A stranger passing by asks how is day is going and hands him a five dollar bill. He might calm down and trot off to Tim Horton’s or the liquor store. The gangster looking for revenge from a gang shooting might postpone his actions if his neighborhood pastor paid him a visit.

An absence of kindness leaves the world a very cold place, and it’s people longing. Remember those times in your life when the world was a very dark place? What a difference it would have made if you had been shown a little kindness. If someone had said or gave you some small gesture that you would get through it; to let you know you would be alright, it would fill you with gratefulness, if not immediately, but perhaps looking back, you would remember, and understand the impact it had.

 Kindness gives hope. It lights a bonfire, a flash, a flicker of light the size of a match head that lights our soul for however long, but just long enough to remember we are all people.

A lack of it robs us of our humanity which is the biggest crime of all.