At the end of the street is an area of grass and weeds that really doesn't belong to anyone in particular. It would get completely overgrown if it wasn't for one of my neighbors. He's at least as old as I am and every week or so he gets out his mower and weed trimmer and quietly cleans it up. No one asks him to do it. No one pays him. As far as I know, almost no one thanks him. He just does it. In a world where we're constantly reminded of what's broken, it's easy to miss what is quietly being made whole.
Acts of kindness rarely get headlines. Sometimes kindness looks like cutting grass that isn't yours. Holding a door, returning a shopping cart, checking on a neighbor, doing the right thing simply because it's the right thing. My neighbor probably thinks he's just mowing a little patch of ground. I think he's cultivating something bigger. He's reminding me that communities aren't built by extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. They're built by ordinary people choosing kindness when no one is watching. This is Dr. Scott Morris for Church Health.
