Recently we read a story about ”Late Bloomers.” It told of a 78-year-old widower who lived on a busy street. He decided to go out in the morning and stand on his curb during rush hour when everyone was hurrying to work and school and simply wave at them and smile.

He then began to call out to them, ”Have a happy day,” ”Have a great day,” ”It is a beautiful day.” The response amazed him. Everyone waved back as enthusiastically and energetically as he waved to them.

As days passed, all kinds of people became involved – families with children on their way to school, kids on bikes, truck drivers, commuters, people walking on the sidewalk. The people would honk their horns and wave back. It seemed that no one could go by and still hold on to a depressed feeling.

The Reader’s Digest had an article recently about practicing random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. This man was doing that and he said that it made him feel happy and young again.

Does scripture support this attitude of being kind and thoughtful to others’? Paul tells us to ”Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience.” He also says, ”Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.”

The apostle also exhorted us, ”As we have therefore opportunity, let us do unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” This sounds like practicing random kindness, to all men, but especially unto the household of faith.

Jesus tells us that God is ”kind to the ungrateful and wicked, be ye therefore merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

This kind of behavior is contagious. As Christ’s brothers and sisters we should be causing an epidemic of kindness and compassion. Are we infecting everyone we meet with so much love and cheer that everyone is happy to see us come and sorry to see us go?

Are we a ray of sunshine in a dark and degenerate world, shining for all to see’? Paul tells us, ”We are all the children of light, and the children of the day.” Jesus told us, ”We are the light of the world.”

Of all the people in the world, we should be exhibiting these qualities of love, thoughtfulness and kindness. The Psalmist tells us, ”We have thought of thy loving-kindness, 0 God.” As we think of God’s goodness, it should cause us to try to be merciful as He is merciful. When we do these loving acts of kindness we do it unto the Lord for as he said, ”Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me.” John told us, ”My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

”Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love is not proud. Love is not rude. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil hut rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Let us become a carrier of these contagious virtues. As Paul put it, ”Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience.”