The Kindness line: a reflection for St Andrews Day

I was struck by a beautiful image in the last few days. It is the postcard at the bottom of this blog. Created by Edinburgh-based illustrator Emily Hogarth it is a core part of the One Million Words of Kindness campaign which was launched in the last few days by the Scottish Government.

It is a campaign which is asking people across the country to recognise the value of connecting with and helping others by reaching out to friends, family, neighbours and communities near and far in a bid to generate One Million Words of Kindness by Monday 30 November to mark St Andrew’s Day.

Apparently more than 100,000 free postcards which feature the beautiful image have been sent to 104 Lidl stores across Scotland for shoppers to pick up and send messages of thanks, hope or a simple hello to mark Scotland’s national day. You can download and share online from the Scottish Government’s website: www.onescotland.org/st-andrews-day

St Andrews Day is of course our national day, and it is entirely apt in a year of challenge and hurt that we should be focussing on kindness.

I have to confess that I’ve had to delve into my books to try and find out a little bit more about Andrew such is the rustiness of my memory these days. Once I started reading, images of Andrew the fisherman, one of the first followers of Christ, came rushing back. They offered me a man of dynamic determination, practical matter of factness, and of someone strongly associated with place and people, with kith and kin.

Apparently, in Scotland we have been celebrating this man from Palestine since the 11th century. From the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath when he officially became Scotland’s patron saint through to our national flag, the St Andrew’s Cross, Andrew has been prominent.  Even the ancient town of St Andrews was named due to its claim to being the final resting place of St Andrew – or at least one of them! We know surprisingly little about St Andrew but one of the characteristics he seems to possess both in legend and through tradition is that of kindness.

The last year has seen some astonishing acts of generosity and kindness. People have walked the extra mile in their compassion and care, in supporting neighbour and stranger. Folks have noticeably been there for one another and the world has felt for many a little less lonely and a bit more connected.

But at the same time as we all know the pain and hardness of lockdown has caused ache and hurt for so many, with thousands struggling with their mental health and wellbeing, many feeling isolated and lonely, cut off and despairing. We know too the tragic loss that this virus has wrought in care home and community, in family and hospital. Lives have and still are being destroyed and ruined.

So, on St Andrews Day I will indeed think of the words of kindness that I have heard in the weeks and months gone by. I will think of the words spoken from pain and loss but which still thanked staff who were there to hold the hands of a dying husband; I will think of the words of kindness from shop staff who despite their own fear brought a laugh and smile to those confused by a new way of shopping; I will ponder the words of generosity from those who helped dig the garden of a disabled neighbour; the word of encouragement from the teacher to a student fearing a lost career and the word of assurance from the carer to a person who had lost touch with friends after feeling shackled up in their own house.

I will also think of the words of kindness that we need to say to one another and hear from others in the days and weeks ahead. These will be challenging times and whilst hope is on the horizon there is a hill to climb before we achieve that summit. So, we need to be less judgemental and more forgiving, we need to discover again the solidarity of the spring in the darkness of December. We need to hear these words of kindness and need to offer them also.

One of my favourite modern poets is Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay, who wrote a stunning poem, ‘Essential’, at the height of the pandemic which captured the acts of kindness which we were seeing all around. In an interview with the BBC, she reflected on why she wrote the poem. I hope that in the weeks before and after Christmas we can all of us find the kindness line.. that even in absence we can sense the links of our family under the same sky,  that we will reach out and touch our belonging to one another as the pulse of our togetherness, that we can bind ourselves into one another like yarn around the wheel of our days, and that we can be the strength underpinning one another should we stumble on the path to our hope. Not just for St Andrews Day but that for many months to come we can make our journey into the future by sharing One Million Words of Kindness.

Jackie Kay said to the BBC: (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52310996)

“In these harrowing times it’s been really heartening to see how much people have actually come together, how much kindness there’s been out there and how dependent we are on all essential workers.

“Not just people in the NHS and carers who have done an amazing job. The child care workers, the post men and women, the delivery workers, the people in the food supply chain, the people stacking the supermarket shelves.

“We’ve become as a society and as a world even more aware and are more appreciative of every single thing that people do.”

 Essential

 Up, doon, the length of our land –

Aberfeldy, Ardnamurchan –

There’s uplift, sharing; pass the baton!

A frontline forming, hand to fierce hand.

Shopfront workers, doon the aisle;

New-era queues metres apart.

The chemist’s prescription warms the heart.

Delivery folk vanish, ghost a smile.

Volunteers at the local food bank…

Shy half-moon in a clear Scots’ sky.

We leave with tins, groceries, goodbyes…

Clap in the gloaming when we say our Thanks.

And the sky greets with stars

And the bold birds sing

As we clink in our links in the Kindness line;

Holding absent hands for Auld Lang Syne.

 

 

Donald Macaskill

Last Updated on 8th December 2020 by Shanice