ACTS OF KINDNESS

1. Bridge and Roses

A man was having a difficult time. So he went for a walk to collect his thoughts and

then came to a bridge. Looking down he noticed a rose garden by the river in the

backyard of a house. It was a beautiful garden. He walked by the house, just to tell the

owner how beautiful the garden was. The owner explained that someone had once

jumped off that bridge. That was why the owner planted the rose garden, in case

someone else ever came to that bridge for the same reason, so that they’d see the

beautiful roses and not jump.

2. Two Necklaces

When Kayla was in kindergarten she wore a cheap plastic glitter necklace everyday.

Kayla thought another girl’s necklace looked prettier than her own. It had wood beads

and gold beads and silver beads. She wore it everyday too. One day a rough boy

pulled off that girl’s necklace and the beads went rolling everywhere. The girl cried.

They could not find all the beads. The next day the girl had no necklace on. Her neck

looked so bare. So Kayla gave her her own cheap plastic glitter necklace to wear. Her

new friend wore it proudly everyday.

3. First Journey

It was the start of the Third Reich. A Jewish man had walked through the town to the

other side. He was tired. He came to a vegetable stand. He saw some tomatoes. Jews

only got ration tickets for radishes. He said, "I suppose I couldn't have any of those

tomatoes?" But the lady smiled and said, "Of course you can have some tomatoes."

4. Second Journey

Osip Mandelshtam, Russia's great poet, wrote a poem, privately circulated, critical of

Stalin. He was sentenced to forced labor. He died as a result, and his widow was

forced to travel from one province to another, till her shoes got so worn they barely

hung to her feet. She found a cobbler in one small city where she was hiding. She told

him the story of her love, her fear and her sorrow. He looked at her and said, "You'll

never go without shoes again."

5. Freedom Begun

All men are created equal. As a slave boy Frederick Douglass had to eat cornmeal

like a pig from a trough. All men are created equal. He had one shirt, no blanket, and

he'd get whipped if he didn't obey fast enough. All men are created equal. But then his

new owner's wife, Sophia, treated him like a child instead of a pig. All men are created

equal. She said "thank you." She also let him look her in the eye. All men are created

equal. She even taught young Frederick how to read. All men are created equal.

Sophia's husband was angry with her for doing this. All men are created equal. He said

 that slaves who learned to read were no longer fit to be slaves. All men are created equal

6. First Sacrifice

After her brother was killed in an Israeli raid, a young Palestinian woman volunteered to

be a suicide bomber. All they taught her was how to hide explosives on her body and

when to push the button. The day came that she would go to some Israeli city with

another bomber. It was a bright sunny day, and all of the people looked so happy, and

parents walked with their children, and some of them were playing. She thought to

herself, "But they taught me as a child that it wasn't right to take another person's life."

She turned herself over to the Israeli police. The other man only blew up himself.

7. Second Sacrifice

A Korean girl was adopted by missionaries. As a teenager she had an identity crisis,

thinking her parents had abandoned her. One day they told her, “In Kangwon province

when the enemy left, a baby was heard crying. Under a bridge they found a woman

frozen to death, clutching her crying baby in her arms. The woman had taken off her

clothes and wrapped her baby in them. You were that baby.” They went to her mother’s

grave. The girl put her own clothes on the grave and said, "Mother! You must have

been cold."