The Fabric of Kindness

I could hardly wait to walk into the school room that day, the last day of second grade, my small hands clutching a cellophane wrapped corsage for my teacher.  Would she remember?  Would she have it on? Mrs. Porter stepped from behind her big oak desk and my face lit up with joy: She was wearing it- her pink gingham shirtwaist dress. She knelt down and hugged me, and I was enveloped in the scent of her rose- scented perfume and the soft folds of well-worn cotton.  I slid into my desk, with a feeling of relief and a sense of something else I couldn’t quite identify.  Today, I know exactly what I was feeling – I had touched the fabric of kindness.

Just months before, I came into that same classroom hysterically weeping.  A disastrous experience with a bully of a teacher had left me terrified and hysterical.  Mrs. Porter gently pried me from my mother’s arms. I buried my head in the folds of her pink dress. Somehow, I felt safe. With patience and tenderness, day by day, my shattered confidence grew. Instead of ridicule, Mrs. Porter taught kindness.  Instead of shaming, Mrs. Porter accepted and affirmed the child I was and the child I could be.   In the healing embrace of Mrs. Porter’s compassion, the damaging memories faded, but even nine months later, I was still too shy to ask Mrs. Porter for what I longed for that last day of school…  Oh how I wanted her to wear that pink gingham dress! 

She was wearing her pink gingham dress, of course she was. Mrs. Porter’s tender, intuitive spirit embraced my fragile one, and we both smiled as she pinned the corsage to her dress. That simple garment was more beautiful to me than any intricately crafted evening gown. It was made of the healing fabric of kindness.  

Long, long ago, there was another person, a damaged person, a suffering person, who longed desperately to be accepted, to be healed. She knew what it was like to be shunned, perhaps even bullied. She longed for strength in place of weakness. She wanted to be the whole person she was meant to be. For many reasons, she could not ask for what she needed– to touch the hem of a garment, to be enfolded in a non-judgmental acceptance. Still, she believed and reached towards the One who could heal not only her body, but her soul.  She touched the holy fabric of compassion.   She was restored.

And behold, a woman who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him and touched the hem of his garment. For she said within herself: If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.  But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; Thy faith hath made thee whole.  And the woman was made whole from that hour.   Matthew 8: 20-22. KJV

The miracle on that day was Jesus’ divine recognition of a faith-filled woman. He turned about and saw her in a way that only Jesus could do. He knew her need and divine healing flowed instead of debilitating illness.  What is healing if not compassion?  And what could be more healing than being seen for who you are and who you could be?

What does kindness feel like? Once, it felt like the hem of a roughly woven cloth, a dusty cloak worn by One so immersed in the power of Love that his very garments were infused with healing.   Once, it felt like the soft folds of a pink gingham dress, worn by a woman who kindly wrapped her arms around a suffering child and led her to a safe place where a slow and gradual healing of another sort could begin.  

 Our hands reach out in faith. We receive healing. We pass it on to those who are reaching towards us. We are heirs and the keepers of a holy legacy, the legacy of healing, the fabric of kindness.

And what does the Lord require of you?  To seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

This tile is pink—Of course it is.  It smells like a rose-scented perfume.  Of course it does.  It was painted from a memory, a legacy of love. Of course is was.

When and how have you touched the fabric of compassion, healing and kindness?  When and how have you reached out to another with the fabric of kindness?

Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40