Ripples

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Dallas Kindness Week is over. Yes, the dates have come and gone. The Festival on Saturday—full of hundreds of performers, thousands of happy participants—fell silent after the gospel choir One Voice sang “O Happy Day.”

We heard from 600 Dallas ISD students who sang or danced or played instruments or read stories. They were followed by many other students and adults alike—from Duncanville, Richardson, Midlothian, Waxahachie, Frisco, Oak Cliff, Grand Prairie, and DeSoto. So much variety as these performers represented not just professional organizations (Dallas Winds and Dallas Symphony Orchestra Young Strings) but also private and public schools, different genres of music and dance, some by way of Northern Ireland and India. Art by definition shares what it means to be human. That happened Saturday in a rich display of talent and joy.

From its earliest planning stages, Thanks-Giving Foundation President and CEO Kyle Ogden has called the week “First Annual.”  One focus was kindness in the classroom. Over a million stickers and buttons with a QR code to the Kindness Pledge flooded Dallas ISD and other area schools. Students found ways not only to act kind but also to observe kindness in others. Resources of all kinds were made available to businesses and community centers. Cards with a quotation on the front and a challenge for fulfillment on the back were popular: Plato wrote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Challenge: Write a letter of appreciation to a family member.

Isn’t love important? Remember the 1965 Hal Leonard-Burt Bacharach hit “What the World Needs Now”? Love, sweet love—for everyone…True enough. But love is a feeling. Kindness is an action, a reaction, a gift. You can’t love someone who has cut you off in traffic or said something disagreeable. Or worse. You can take a breath and respond with kindness.

People think in pictures, so an image helps us understand a principle. Kyle Ogden often writes about common ground, a great unifier. Kindness—the decision, the action—needs motion. In recent articles, he has used a different approach: “Acts of kindness ripple outward—turning small gestures into cultural change. Our goal is to position Dallas as a national leader in compassion and inclusion.”

On a personal level, I have felt changed by the Pledge. It’s more solemn than a promise, certainly weightier than those pages-long agreements we sign without reading. Yes, sometimes it’s easy enough to give a compliment to a friend. It’s not always as easy to wait a few seconds before making a snappy comeback to a rude stranger. Those few sentences beginning with “I will” are making a difference in my life.

Most people are warm and friendly. That goodness can go to the next level with a little time and attention. The ripple has a center. And that center can be your kind words or quiet actions. Let’s watch as others catch the vision, too!

The Kindness Pledge (if you don’t want to go to the link)