How a humble king arrived

You can tell my mood quite often by what I choose to wear. Several years ago one of my children accused me of only having two colors in my wardrobe as they evaluated my pile of laundry that was about to go into the washer. I clearly pointed out that there were, in fact, three colors in my wardrobe. Black, which was about 85% of my clothing, 10% was denim and accents of hot pink rounded out that last 5%. After a lengthy discussion about whether “denim” was a color, I conceded that I did actually only have two colors in my wardrobe.

Since then, I’ve been a bit more intentional about what I wear, and why. I no longer buy what I think will match with everything else I have (since all the black sweaters I own already match each other). I started paying attention to clothes that match my mood, my mindset or my intentions. Some of my favorite shirts say things like “Ignite Change” or “Dream Bigger.” When I am trying to be a bit less serious, I wear my ripped up jeans that I picked up at a thrift store. Most of the jewelry I wear reminds me of people or places I love. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll often see me working at the church in dark jeans, a black shirt and a long gray sweater (look at how much diversity I’ve added to my wardrobe…ha-ha), but if my clothing is outside of the very basic/classic, it’s not by accident.

One of the first items of clothing I purchased that was radically outside my comfort zone was a bright orange sweatshirt that says “nice is the new cool” in big bold white letters. The color alone made it a challenge to think I would ever wear it, but the words had me hooked. I must have bought it at least nine or ten years ago, and whether it’s the brightness of the orange or the context of the message, people remark about it every single time I wear it. Last week as I was visiting someone in the hospital, a man in the parking garage mumbled past me “the new cool…..cool.”

There’s one thing I really wish I could change about it though, and it’s not the nearly obnoxious bright orange color. I would replace the word “nice” with the word “kind.” I’ve heard it said that Midwesterners can out-nice anybody, and the phrase “Kansas nice” isn’t necessarily a compliment depending on how it’s used. Niceness sounds all well and good on the surface, but when you compare it with kindness, nice just doesn’t cut it.

Nice readily offers up a seat at the table that isn’t being used. Kind gets up out of the chair they are sitting in for another before that person even notices the seats were all taken. Nice oozes politeness and geniality. Kind cares deeply in words and actions. It comes naturally to me to be nice. I think that is true for most of us. Kindness requires humility and doesn’t serve any other purpose. We must set aside our own egos and get out of the way for the divine within us to be realized through acts of kindness.

When we step a bit further and go a bit deeper with a commitment to kindness, I believe we genuinely have an opportunity to change the world–not just for others, but for ourselves too.