April 2026 Monthly Letter
Dear Reconcilers,
Welcome to the first digital version of our monthly letter by contributing writer Mike Feazell! If you know anyone who might like to receive our monthly letters in their email inbox, please encourage them to send a message to curtismay@gci.org. We will continue to post the monthly letters on our website, www.atimetoreconcile.org as well.
The Quiet Power of Kindness
Have you ever noticed that when we are kind to another person, something happens inside us? It’s as though there is a kind of quiet settling, a certain sense of calm that some researchers have called “Helper’s High.”
Helper’s High is something that rises up naturally, the way warmth rises from a fire. When we’re kind, we feel more alive, more at peace with ourselves and the world.
When we offer a smile, a word of encouragement, a listening ear, a moment of patient attention to another person—we are doing something that resonates at a deep biological and spiritual level. We are being what we were made to be.
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness,” wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca. He was writing about the very nature of human life. Every human interaction carries within it the possibility of kindness.
When a lawyer asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, Jesus didn’t point to religious achievement or moral perfection. He pointed to love, and he set an example that surprised and baffled the religious leaders of his day. He was kind to the people who were left out, who were passed over, the ones in need.
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said. “And who is my neighbor?” the lawyer immediately retorted. Jesus’ reply? The Parable of the Good Samaritan.
In today’s culture, there is a daily torrent of advertising making every effort to divert us away from love and kindness and toward pleasure and satisfaction. Pleasure dissipates quickly. Satisfaction fades instantly to the next desire.
Kindness, on the other hand, blossoms into joy that settles into the bones and remains. Kindness gets us out of our own heads and into someone else’s experience. That small shift changes everything about how we move through the world.
A Practice, Not a Personality Trait
One of the most liberating things we can understand about kindness is that it is not a personality trait reserved for naturally warm or gentle people. It is a practice, a choice made in the ordinary and often uninspiring moments of daily life.
That’s not a sentiment for the saintly. It’s a practical instruction for anyone willing to pay attention. Isn’t paying attention really where kindness begins? Most unkindness isn’t malicious. It’s just distracted. We look past the person who could use a smile or a kind word because we’re preoccupied. We snap at our loved ones because we’re tired or frustrated. Maybe one key to kindness is to slow down a little to see what’s actually happening in front of us.
The Return You Didn’t Expect
Kindness is one of those rare things that grows when you give it away. The person who cultivates a habit of kindness never ends up depleted. They end up more connected, more resilient, more at peace in their own skin. The giver and the receiver are both, in their own way, enriched and made more whole. Jesse Jackson reminded us, “Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.”
That’s not a small thing. In a world that often feels fractured and hard, a quiet act of kindness may be one of the most genuinely life-changing acts available to any of us. It costs very little. It asks only that we choose to treat people around us as if they matter. Because they do. And so do you.
—By J. Michael Feazell