No Act of Kindness Is Ever Wasted

Where is our kindness? Aesop lived 2,500 years ago and wrote stories. So famous was he that Aristotle quoted them. Of all the fables, the “Lion and the Mouse” – no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted – rings loudest for me. In this moment, we need to reorient toward kindness.

Aesop’s story, of course, is about a mouse scampering across a sleeping lion’s nose, waking him. About to kill the mouse, the lion appeals for mercy. The lion relents. The mouse promises to repay him. Soon after, the lion is caught in a trap. The Mouse, true to his word, gnaws the lion free.

Sometimes, as the world’s disinterest in kindness grows, I am reminded how values are timeless. In the Christian and Jewish faiths, if not others, there remains a strong appeal to kindness.

In the Christian faith, the entire life of Jesus Christ, God and Man on earth, is spent in acts of radical love, reminding us to lift ourselves above the moment, keep the horizon and salvation before us.  While we are mortal, we are asked to forgive, love the least among us, and prioritize kindness.

“Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as Christ God forgave you,” writes Saint Paul. In short, we are rewarded by the mercy and forgiveness we show. Writing to the Corinthians: “Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.”

Looking around, I wonder if we remember, if we care about these timeless words, which appeal to the heart that Jesus Himself made. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” He said. Have we just forgotten, become cold?

Matthew writes that Jesus saw in little children’s innocence their nearness to God. “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Have we so soon lost this understanding?

Matthew, Mark, and Luke note that Jesus warned the world to care for children. This was not just a test of our kindness or closeness to Him, but a command from God. “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

But stop. Where are we? Do we honor this appeal to kindness still – test of our souls, test of our leaders? One is hard-pressed to see it – in the mounting intergenerational debt, rising drug addiction, violence against children, modeling hate, indifference of our leaders to reality.

In Maine, now ranked “Worst in the Nation” for “Children’s Well-Being” from 2019 to 2025, we see the opposite. To become momentarily local, my opponent for governor was in charge of “children’s well-being” in Maine, ran the “Children’s Cabinet,” and yet utterly abandoned Maine’s children.

Today, thanks to her, they are living in conditions not found elsewhere. They are dying in state custody in record numbers, double the nation’s average, with a 38 percent increase in “extreme poverty,” a 26 percent increase in no food, and a 55 percent increase in teen deaths. Drug overdoses, abuse of children, failing schools, declines in life…all shocking. Does she care?

Does anyone care, or has politics just become an insiders’ game for grabbing and holding power, abusing it nonchalantly, an arena with no accountability for kindness through measurable outcomes, just power? Sadly, facts tell what we know: Insiders care little; they just crave power.

In Jewish tradition, other words return and should give us pause. Hillel the Elder, living before Christ, wrote: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And not now, when? That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow.” Is anyone listening?

Look around. Except for cheap words, how do many state and federal leaders measure success? Is it by empowering individuals, shrinking the government, expanding reliance on faith, rewarding them for courage, acts of kindness, getting citizens on their feet, or the opposite?

I will close with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a New Englander who has always resonated with me, who knew what we speak of: “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”  That is what our governors should model. As Hillel asked, “If not now, when?” As Jesus Christ reminded us, “Blessed are the children…” Where is our kindness?