Operation

Operation "Acts of Kindness"

Giving away balloon flowers brightened everyone's day at the local nursing home.

According to Lily Tomlin, what is the trouble with the rat race? The answer is given below*.

In Operation Acts of Kindness members of our congregation have gone out into the community - to nursing homes, to the entranceways of grocery stores - to express kindness to strangers. Carnations or a balloon flower are given out freely with the prayer of St. Francis attached to it:

Lord make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me show love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Sometimes people are altogether dumbfounded to receive an unexpected act of kindness, and assume there is some kind of catch - that a donation is requested. Hopefully, when they realize that there are no strings attached to the gift they are receiving - that we don't want their money - people will catch a little glimpse of the love God freely gives us. Perhaps they will feel inclined to pass the kindness on to another stranger, and the world won't be quite so hostile a place.

*The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.