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This week’s Karuna News is all about kindness and how it can be nudged into action, even in the most unlikely places. At the Olympics where the stakes for winning are high, one Olympian surfer jumped in to translate for a rival who had just beaten him, while two runners falling in a tangle of legs decided to help each other to the finish line. At a prison in Missouri, a group of male inmates gather to sew quilts for fostered children with the ambitious goal of sending a quilt to every fostered child in their county. These and many more stories are examples of how small acts of kindness are tiny seeds waiting to be planted and blossom to their full potential, lighting the world and filling many lives with hope.
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David Goldman | AP Photo
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A surfer jumping in to translate for the rival who'd just beaten him. High-jumping friends agreeing to share a gold medal rather than move to a tiebreaker. Two runners falling in a tangle of legs, then helping each other to the finish line. In an extraordinary Olympic Games where mental health has been front and center, acts of kindness are everywhere. The world's most competitive athletes have been captured showing gentleness and warmth to one another -- celebrating, pep-talking, wiping away one another's tears of disappointment.
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Pexels
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Working a 17-hour shift on a Sunday and still taking the time to pay attention to an elderly customer's needs may have been an ordinary day's work for Megan King, but her customer felt differently. The note left by the elderly lady overwhelmed the waitress: "Thank you very much for your kind service. This was my first time eating out alone since my husband passed. I was hoping I could get through it." King recalled that she had stopped by the lady's table for a small chat, since she looked a little sad, but had not realized that her attentiveness would affect someone so deeply. The fact that her tweet has fetched more than 600,000 likes shows the viral impact of seemingly simple acts of kindness.
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Alfons Morales | Unsplash
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Carole-Ann Warburton has loved books all her life, but it took an experience of terrifying disorientation to realize her dream of working in a bookstore. After she collapsed at home in 2010 and was diagnosed with an inner ear infection, she had to learn to walk again. Urging her to retire, her daughter showed her some houses for sale, including a little shop with a flat above it that Carole-Ann loved. She already had 8,000 to 9,000 books at home, although it was often hard to sell them. This year, The Book Rest celebrates its 10th anniversary. "I would like to keep doing this until I no longer can. It's a wonderful feeling. Someone can walk in tomorrow and say: 'I have been looking for that for an awfully long time!'"
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After local radio DJ Ray Stevens drove past a young man walking for long periods of time, multiple times, he decided to offer him a ride. The man, 20-year-old Braxton Mayes, told Stevens that his truck had broken down and now he was walking 12 miles (or 3 hours) to work every day. As a response, Stevens started a GoFundMe campaign and raised over $8,000 to repair Braxton's truck. "It brought me to tears. I didn't know when I would come up with the money to fix it or how many times I would have to walk."
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Ekrulila | Pexels
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A small group of inmates at the Licking, Missouri prison spend their days making intricately designed quilts for charity. The group, which relies entirely on donations, is working on an ambitious project: sewing personalized quilts for every foster child in Texas County. The quilting program offers the men a temporary escape from the prison world and a chance to engage with the community, said case manager Joe Satterfield at the prison. "You can see a change in their attitude. A light flips on like, 'Oh this is a new avenue. I can actually be part of something,'" said Satterfield, who runs the program. The project hinges on the concept of restorative justice, which emphasizes community-building and rehabilitation over punitive measures.
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