Strive to remember our lessons about simple kindness

Have we forgotten what we learned in Sunday School? Perhaps. I'd argue that the first Bush — that would be George H. W. Bush, the nation's 41st president — hadn't forgotten his Sunday School lessons when he campaigned on the desire to return the country to a "kinder, gentler" time by focusing on values like compassion and respect. He's also the president who brought us "a thousand points of light" to serve as a rallying call for communities across the nation to strive to help each other during tough times. Perhaps he truly stumbled onto something that could have blossomed into something greater, but his attention soon focused more on other events that crowded onto the stage, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and a lackluster economy. And then he backtracked on a pledge of "no new taxes" and that started the beginning of the end for his presidency, the rise of the turbulent Clinton era and the dimming of those thousand lights. But we shouldn't count on presidents and politicians to deliver something as basic as decency, kindness, compassion and respect. Those must come from deep within every individual. Think of the core of many of those long-ago Sunday School lessons, which placed importance on helping others, gratitude, forgiveness, the necessity of telling the truth and, I'd argue above all the others, showing kindness. Thankfully, plenty of people remember the importance of lending a helping hand. But unkind words and actions appear almost epidemic in their rise. How do we learn one important lesson and abandon another? Is there a solution that can thread the needle? Maybe we start by spending less time anonymously behind a screen on social media. It's so tempting to land a sarcastic, snarky or simply unkind remark on something that, in the overall scheme of things, does not need or even deserve our attention. Here's a tip. If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, perhaps it would be best not to say it in a social media post or comment. Kindness should run deeper, though. Return kindness to the real world and let those vexing social media platforms sort things out for themselves. Kindness in the real world requires not taking satisfaction in the misfortune of others: No gloating, no smugness, no belittling and no "ha-ha" vindications à la Nelson Muntz. Kindness requires that we recall one of the most basic lessons taught with such lasting endurance in our earliest Sunday School classes. Do unto others only what you would have them do to you. These are the simplest of lessons, and refresher lessons are not difficult to achieve. ••• Bryan Stevens is managing editor of The Erwin Record, Unicoi County's weekly newspaper.