Article March 15, 2004 Issue

COMMENTARY: A REVOLUTION IN KINDNESS

Meg Dendler

The latest publication from Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, is a challenge to us all to see kindnesss in a new light. She has compiled a series of short essays by a wide variety of people from various walks of life. Many of them you may never have heard of, but the stories they have to tell and the comments they share are beautiful and inspiring, and they touch a hope that dwells deep in our humanity.

Covering topics such as healthcare, religion, the media, politics, and the criminal justice system, Roddick poses the question What if this system was kinder? What would it look like and feel like? "It's a work of imagination," she says, "in the sense that people in a wide variety of places and roles have imagined what kindness would mean in the structures they exist within."

One of the most moving stories is about a wealthy businessman named Rob who ended up, through a strange chain of events, out of cash and stuck in downtown Manchester, England, late one cold night. A homeless man named Tom took pity on him and used the small handful of change in his pocked to buy Rob a cup of coffee. Focused, conscious kindness—that's what Roddick is honoring.

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