Of Kind Bear and Bad Dog

“If you’re kind and polite, the world will be right.”

From "Paddington 2" (the best-reviewed movie of 2018)

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Dear Alex,

Everywhere I went last Summer, I saw Paddington.  Paddington storybooks in my neighborhood bookstores, Paddington plush toys in 3 growing sizes, miniature Paddington keychains and even a local arts-and-craft shop in downtown named Paddington.  

Paddington became more personal during my first family flight to London.  My daughter next to me laughed a bit more wildly than usual at a movie.  What is it?  I asked curiously.  She responded with a Paddington of course.

I could not quite see myself interested in the genre of Paddington though I had known very little about it.  But if the Paddington 2 movie had tickled her in ways I could not have done, I was set to discover its allure for myself.  Reluctantly.  

In my next 105 minutes of watching Paddington 2, I laughed cringed scowled and laughed many folds over till I publicly embarrassed my daughter.  In memory of our boldest brown bear, we later boarded a train at London Paddington Station.  It was a small modest platform, not half of half as grand as the one projected on cinematic screen.  

So this became a roundabout Paddington way of how I have understood the gesture or thought of being kind and courteous.  Something simple and tender a child or anyone can gift.  

Kindness looks like an old buddy, maybe a music album you could sing along, a pair of worn-out, wrap-around sneakers on many trails explored.  

We may catch a glimpse of kindness in subterranean space: the listening presence to the nonsensical elderly leaning over a table; a housewife on her second round of laundry to be interrupted with the words thank you; the grace of an Autumn honey leaf pirouetting through mid air to its burial ground that once nourished the tree of its life; waking up to the cleansing scent of rain in the virgin morning light.  

Sometimes we forget to be kind to ourselves before we share kindness with another.  You may have heard of Mr. Fred Rogers’ Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood at PBS.  It teaches kids about kindness and goodness when they may not have learned or experienced these virtues themselves.  

When dwindling public funds threatened the program, Mr. Rogers appealed in his most remarkably generous voice of deep convictions to the 1969 U.S. Senate hearing.  In the brevity of 6 minutes, he spoke about managing the “inner drama of childhood” in the tongue and tone of Paddington.  His speech was more than kind:  it led to a grant of $ 20 million for PBS.

Can we imagine a world set right by every cascading of kind, polite words?  The adult mind may struggle, even revolt against this utopia.  

Within us the child whose arms are entwined with Paddington believes in the marmalade of messy wholesome adventures, the imperfections in trying to be and do more than we may doubt in and out of ourselves, to being human as human beings can be - by first being kind.  

Yours, Kate 

Dear Kate,

You told me you struggled with this piece, or generally with writing not "from your guts" (my words not yours).

I can feel your pain because this is also what I was told about self-expression, that anything I personally don't feel (strongly!) about at this (very!) moment is probably not "authentic," a self-betrayal, and thus embarrassing and not worth writing about.  Call it the "auteur theory" of writing, of art, of speaking, of me being me.

We say this has to do with honesty and integrity, but it's a very peculiar understanding of the words, given how unaware or unrepentant we are of the manifold ways we deceive ourselves.  (I can imagine someone reading this last sentence and starts to consider one's father and mother and friends and neighbors and probably the rest of the world before coming to oneself.  If ever.)

Your writing today beckons, calls out of me all sorts of memory, reflection, and imagination.

I thought about N. T. Wright's follow-up to probably his most influential book (on resurrection) and it is appropriately about what happens when a person starts to truly live: to build Godly character.  And to build it faithfully, patiently, one moment at a time, all moment precious and significant.  "Salvation" is not a flick of a switch to claim ourselves being "set right."

I can imagine Wright having a Paddington in his study room, putting it right beside his collection of Augustine.  Maybe even a conversation with the bear about simple, unadulterated goodness.  I've never looked up the etymology of the word "unadulterated," but I take it to mean not being tainted by the cynicism and hopelessness of adults.

And I thought about Jordan B. Peterson, a force of nature coming from an angle I can understand and would not mind being carried along for even a great length but am not too sure about the direction he's going.  I am not trying to be funny but it worries me that Paddington might not like him.  "Mad as hell" is not a sustainable state of being.

Do you know Tom Hanks is going to be Mister Rogers? I can't wait for the movie to come out.  Another movie I am eagerly looking forward to is based on the little-known masterpiece, John Williams' "Stoner." It is one of my favorite novels. And Tom Hank's.  The story is as anti-Mister-Rogers as it gets.  But don't get me wrong; Mr Stoner is not rude or unkind.  His world is.  "What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

I am walking to work and it is dark now.  A big black dog with a long thick leash just charged at me, growling, her owner about twenty steps away down a dark creek washing his face mumbling something to try to deter her, as if--thank you very much.  I shouted the bitch down.

I think Mister Rogers would have done that too.

Yours, Alex