Random acts of kindness, senseless acts of beauty

We live in a world today where the term "random act of violence" is used occasionally to describe some unfortunate circumstance.

Well, some good-hearted people around the world have started a campaign for all of us to commit "random acts of kindness" as we go through our day-to-day existence.

I think it is a great concept.

It might mean doing something as simple as offering a person a compliment on how nice she or he looks. Or it might be as complicated as writing a nice check to somebody who really needs some money. Especially during this holiday season, such acts should be done.

Last year, there was even a movie now out called Pay It Forward. It features some great stars and a great idea. However, the critics, who are probably more than a little cynical, have panned it.

The idea is that when someone does something nice to you, instead of "paying it back," you "pay it forward." The movie suggests that you take your good fortune and pass it along to three other people. The premise is that if enough people operated this way, all the world's problems would be solved. Sounds idealistic, but it also sounds pretty darned good.

In fact, the premise of the movie sounds an awful lot like people going around and doing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. A friend of mine refers to it as "lighting up somebody." Maybe it involves rounding up some clothes for somebody who has had their personal goods destroyed in a fire. Or maybe it means spending a few minutes with someone who is ill or with someone who has lost someone dear to him or her.

It could be as simple as spending money at a bake sale to help a family of a person who has lost his or her job. Or contributing to a fund drive for a person who has been diagnosed with cancer.

Or it might just involve leaving a larger tip than usual to someone who went out of his or her way to help you.
Maybe it means being more patient in traffic -- maybe just allowing someone to move ahead of you in line at the grocery store when they are in a hurry.

The whole concept of committing random acts of kindness sounds like a way of life. And we know people who have actually lived their lives this way. These are people who go through life helping others without having to be reminded to do it.

Those people are special. Most of us have become so wrapped up in our own busy lives that we might need to write it down in our daily planners: be extra nice to somebody. Commit to the idea of committing a random act of kindness today -- to somebody somewhere!

For some time, a group of my friends have tried committing these acts and in most cases, they say they got more out of the endeavors than the people they were trying to help did. At other times, their grumpy old selves emerged and they felt bad about it later.

So that's my thought as we start a new year -- if more people were out there committing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, we would all get along better and the world would be a better place.
If you see somebody performing a wonderful random act of kindness take note of it and thank that person for his or her effort.

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Here is one of those stories about random acts.

This is reportedly an eye witness Account from New York City, on a cold day in December... A little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefoot, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.

A lady approached the boy and said, "My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?" "I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's reply. The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy.

She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and towel.

He quickly brought them to her.

She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel. By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes. She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him.

She patted him on the head and said, "No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?" As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears his eyes, answered the question with these words: "Are you God's Wife?"

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Authorized by William C. Sniffin
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Bill Sniffin for Governor - P.O. Box 900 ­ Lander, WY 82520 (307) 332-3111, ext. 17