The Kindness Garden

I stumbled onto a rock garden a few days ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

“Spread Love,” a hand-painted sign in it read. So, I walked over to take a closer look.

A white picket fence marked an area filled with hand-painted rocks and other cheerful pieces of art.

“Kindness grows here,” another sign read. “Take a rock for inspiration, or leave a rock to help our garden grow!”

I regularly Huckleberry Finn myself out of any hand-painting tasks, so I did not contribute any rocks to the garden. I didn’t take any either, because my suitcase already bulged with my Florida souvenirs.

But, I did snag some inspiration and a strong desire to plant a kindness garden of my own.

I think this old world could use a few more kindness gardens, pleasant plots to turn the fertilizer that sometimes comes our way into nutrients for universal joy.

I know some talented painters who could muster up a garden of painted rocks. And I have neighbors whose actual gardens are so impressive each summer they radiate kindness through both their beauty and their bounty.

Musicians can grow kindness gardens with lyrics and notes; Mechanics with ratchets and screws.

I’m thinking my own kindness garden might be a little less tactile, but equally sincere. I’m still plotting.

We’re experiencing one of those fleeting but still tantalizing hints of spring weather this week and it seems like a perfect time to plant a kindness garden.

I hear kindness is easy to grow.