Junior School News - Week 6, Term 1 2020

Kindness

If you knew that someone you cared about was due to pass away within a few hours, would it shape how you spoke to them, how you behaved towards them? I guess the answer is pretty obvious – but it is at the heart of a provocative quote I read not so long ago: “Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.” Og Mandino

Kindness. It is such a power for good when we seek to utilise it. We know it when we see it, hear it, feel it. As Mark Twain wrote: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see”.

Its cruel brother unkindness is responsible for so much unnecessary hurt. The staff at St Philip’s are blessed to work with wonderful young students who mostly treat each other with generosity, thoughtfulness and care – and yet even in our fabulous school we have occasional upsets. Children sometimes hurt each other's feelings. When we talk the matter through with them, the root cause often proves quite simple ... unkindness.

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you”. So said Princess Diana. Unexpected kindness can be especially delightful, can't it? I have known teachers to be on the verge of tears after receiving a thoughtful and encouraging note from a student or parent. Not that we seek accolades, but such acts of kindness are a huge morale boost!

How wonderful it is when members of a community adopt a kindness mindset ... to have kindness at the forefront of their minds, so it might then be expressed in words and actions. We have witnessed some glowing examples of this during this torrid summer, haven’t we, as people around Australia have wrestled with fire, drought, tempest and flood. Some people inspire by their kindness. They plot acts of kindness that will make someone else's day.

In our school we care about kindness and will often return to it as a theme.

When God is at work in a person, group or community, kindness will be one of the hallmarks:

Galatians 5:22-23 NIV
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

This is the kind of fruit salad I love! May it form the core of our diet here at St Philip’s!

Mr Keith Dalleywater
Head of Junior School