Knitting Our Hearts Together

When someone does a truly kind thing for us, they pierce our hearts and bind us to them. If we allow their generosity to go unacknowledged, then the cord of love between us will stretch and snap and we will lose out on that connection between us. However, if we show true gratitude, not with a perfunctory "thanks", but with a true desire to show our love and appreciation with a sincere act of kindness, then we can return that cord of love to pierce their hearts. And if they in return reward our gratitude and kindness with more gratitude and kindness of their own, then together we can back and forth knit our hearts together with the cords of love in mutual kindness and gratitude. In this process, it helps to remember that gratitude and indebtedness are not the same thing. When we thank someone else with a true act of kindness, we are not paying them back and wiping away our debt. If we have that mindset, then our goal is not to strengthen the bonds between us but to sever them. When we engage in true acts of love and kindness we do so despite the fact that the target of our love and kindness has not earned and does not deserve it. And when we are truly grateful and show our thanks sincerely through more acts of kindness, we do so by first admitting to ourselves that we did not deserve such love and kindness and there is nothing we can do to repay that debt. In the economy of love and kindness and gratitude, debt does not exist and has no place in our calculations. People don't love us with the goal of creating out of us indentured servants, and if someone is trying to build a relationship like that with us, then love has no part in it. Love knows no envy, seeketh not her own, and does not keep score. We need to get away from the idea that we must be engaged in restitutions and reparations. It's not about making things right, but rather it's about making things better. We don't want to level the playing field, not really. We want to keep building on top of each other's kindnesses. This is about reciprocity. We go back and forth. When we are on top, we reach our hand down to pull them up. When we are at the bottom, we reach out and grab the hand that's offering to pull us up. We take turns being gracious enough to offer our services and also being gracious enough to accept the services of others. And back and forth the cords of love and kindness and gratitude knit our hearts together.