Should Kindness/Compassion be afforded conditionally?

CAKCy

CAKCy

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Location
Cyprus, East Mediterranean
Welcome the my next thread of the series "What's wrong with this person???"!

A few days back @ohioboy posted a thread with the title:

Death row inmate denied request to have clergy lay hand upon him when being executed

which made me wonder whether Kindness and Compassion should be given on the condition that the recipient deserves it.

I quote Matthew 5:44 (KJV) when Jesus said: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

I believe that Kindness and Compassion should be given out magnanimously and without any judgment/assessment of the recipient.

Do I practice that always? It would be a lie to say yes. There are times that the emotions inside me are so overwhelming that make me fail. For instance... if I can't stop someone from hurting a child, or an animal, or someone being cruel to someone else... I don't know if I should feel pride or shame for failing...

What say you? :)
 

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Well, when I moved to a New England state, I discovered that it was against the rules to at people and greet them, while walking around. Of course, coming from the South, I had no knowledge of this. So I'd say good morning (or whatever) and look at the person to whom I was speaking.

This included homeless people. They started following me back to my office, which was in a huge brownstone, with lots of stairs in front of it. The homeless people would sit there and (I guess) wait for me to come out again. One lady was schizophrenic (I'm pretty sure), and she never gave up - she sat there all day. So, I'd go to the White Hen to get a cup of coffee, and bring her back a sandwich (they had a deli counter) and a cup of coffee. Then she sat there every day.

Well, my boss, who owned the company didn't like all this very much. She told me to stop whatever I was doing to make homeless people follow me around. I had no clue. So she took a walk with me, and told me to stop looking at people and speaking to them. I just couldn't do that - it was a habit of many people where I came from. It just felt so rude.

So the boss called my husband and begged him to make me understand the situation. So I told the homeless lady to wait further down the street.

I have plenty of opportunity to be kind and compassionate because I'm either at home with dog and daughter, or at the cancer center. There are lots of hardworking people there, along with the people who have cancer. So I am. I also try to make stressed out people laugh. When I'm there, the staff and I have a lot of fun joking around. A lot of the cancer patients are too sick (or get sicker due to the treatments they are getting), and I notice that and stick with being kind. By this time, they are usually feeling too poorly to respond, but I know they can hear me. I make friends with the patients' relatives who are driving them, too.

I am rather extroverted and when I finish radiation next week, I'll be talking a lot to my dog.
 
Alligatorob said:
Mostly but to be honest there are exceptions I make and I suspect others do as well. Maybe we shouldn't but it is just human nature.
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Oh wait, I wasn't kind or compassionate to the masked woman who entered an elevator at the cancer center with me. She whipped off her mask and started shouting Trump 2016 at me, over and over. I did not speak, I just turned to face the corner to avoid Covid germs and wondered if I looked like I was not a Republican.

Nor was I kind or compassionate when I called out a woman sitting, without a mask, in the cancer center waiting room. A mask was required and the staff was too busy to do anything about it. So I told her in no uncertain terms to put her mask on NOW because the room was full of cancer patients.

One of the staff said, you aren't supposed to do that - it is the receptionist's job. I said well if you guys are too busy to police everyone's mask wearing, I'm going to do it anyway because I have cancer and so do most people in the waiting room. These incidents occurred when there was no vaccine and masks were required.

I still can't think of a way to be kind and compassionate to people who act like Covid is a hoax. I can be polite, but that is it.
 
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Shero said:
Yes, unconditional love is agape love, and the only real love.
Matthew 6:3 do not let your right hand know what your left hand does.
Give without revealing who you are, no need to blow trumpets from rooftops.
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Thank you for your reply!
If you care to share: Do you always manage to practice this? Are there times that you have failed and why?
 
WheatenLover said:
Oh wait, I wasn't kind or compassionate to the masked woman who entered an elevator at the cancer center with me. She whipped off her mask and started shouting Trump 2016 at me, over and over. I did not speak, I just turned to face the corner to avoid Covid germs and wondered if I looked like I was not a Republican.
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You did the least unkind thing you could!
 
CAKCy said:
Thank you for your reply!
If you care to share: Do you always manage to practice this? Are there times that you have failed and why?
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This is something my mother taught and I have done since childhood. I don't know for sure if I have failed. Once I did something really big in the islands and they wanted to put my picture in the papers and so on and I refused.
 
Shero said:
This is something my mother taught and I have done since childhood. I don't know for sure if I have failed. Once I did something really big in the islands and they wanted to put my picture in the papers and so on and I refused.
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Warning: Sarcasm
OF COURSE you have failed. Or have you forgotten already the eggs and the threats against me????
 
CAKCy said:
I quote Matthew 5:44 (KJV) when Jesus said: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

I believe that Kindness and Compassion should be given out magnanimously and without any judgment/assessment of the recipient.
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CAKCy said:
What say you?
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Nuff said
 
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