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Health & Fitness

A Little Kindness

Our community is so much more than its fights and factions. The wonderful every day kindnesses are what makes life here good!

     Welcome to “A Little Kindness.”  I’ll be blogging about the wonderful kindnesses that I observe in our community and area.  I’ve lived in Oak Lawn for 17 years, serving as senior pastor of Pilgrim Faith United Church of Christ.  While the factions and fights make good headlines, it is the wonderful words and acts of kindness that people do every day that glue us together and make life good.  I want to encourage kindness from everyone.

   Most of the kindnesses that people do are such an ordinary part of their lives that they never become news.  In fact, when my congregation was challenged to report all the “acts of kindness” they did during a three month period, some refused to write them down!  They said it was just a part of who they are and therefore nothing special.  I disagree!

   At Sunday worship this week, my church remembered all our members who passed to their greater glory this past year.  They include Margaret Woodruff, who settled displaced persons after World War II, taking some into her own home in Chicago.  And Mary Ida Chapman who went door to door in Oak Lawn raising money so Oak Lawn could have its own hospital and then gave over 10,000 hours of service to Christ Hospital Auxiliary.  And Gus Jones who continued to coach Little League in Oak Lawn even after his own children were grown.  And Karen Everett, who quietly donated over 20+ hours a month as church treasurer for over 20 years.  And Bernice Batty, who was a Beauty Angel, donating her beautician services to students with special needs and elderly patients so they could look pretty.  And Mary Anderson, who for 35 years went every week to Misericordia to be a friend to a stranger with profound disabilities, patiently singing and talking and brightening her day.

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   I am awed by every one of these individuals.  They were true servants who made the world a better place.  I only hope I can do a fraction of the good they did.

   Let me know about kindnesses that you would like to see celebrated.  This is the real stuff that makes the world work!

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