In the summer of 2005, I was on my grandma’s couch with my brother Giovanni, and my cousin’s Jazmine and Adrian. I remember the general details of the apartment. A small kitchen right next to a heavy door with an old keyhole, and an embroidered mat for her living room table. Grandma Hazel had a small analog television with the most unreliable antenna. With that TV set, we would all tune in every afternoon to Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood. Unbeknownst to us, the show began and ended years ago. From February 19, 1968, to August 31, 2001, the show originally aired and helped bring kindness into the world. Of course, we were watching reruns on PBS, and the show felt ever-present to us. Because it always seemed like kindness was in short supply.

For me and possibly many of us, the honest next step would be to look outward on the lack of kindness. But I often think that we don’t mourn the loss of our own kindness enough. It’s not all gone, of course, but the moments when we forget to be a helping hand and empathetic do come. My previous entry told the story of taking the risk and leaving my job. In the beginning, sometimes even to this day, I left and feel incredibly stressed. Not having money coming in through employment is hard, and that sense of security is gone. Scarcity is what a felt when I thought that I didn’t have the experience to get the jobs that I wanted or the gas money to even go grocery shopping. I wasn’t strapped for cash because of savings, but I didn’t want to spend money either; I was too afraid. Truthfully, that scarcity led to cruelty. Whether it was not being as loving as I ought to be with my girlfriend and being pretty self-centered at times, or refusing to take my brother to work when he really needed my help and support, I felt that my kindness left me then. It did or die for me, in getting a job, and I needed to focus fully on myself. I didn’t have time to care for anyone else.

Cruelty is bred from scarcity. The feeling of not having enough can make us selfish. What is ours being threatened can cause us to only tend to our inner needs? I didn’t feel like myself when I came back home after leaving work at Andrews University. My kindness was replaced by a selfish heart. That heart mourned when I watch the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” that details the life of Mr. Rogers and his important work. I wept because of how far I felt I had fallen in being someone that was helpful and kind. It didn’t start with my big risk, but that was the tipping point.

What was so keenly Mr. Rogers was his ability to take real and scary issues and help kids cope and understand. Helping them to not lose their kindness out of fear or scarcity and confront the darkness in real ways. He guided children through the Kennedy assassination and helped the country cope with 9/11. I can’t help but wonder what he would say in response to the two mass shootings that took place over this weekend. The response Mr. Rogers would always give in the face of tragedy is, “…If you look for the helpers, you know that there’s hope.” Are we being the helpers that children can look to, or does the help that could possibly solve the problem threaten us?

Issues of gun violence are complex, and I can’t help but think that the relationship some of us have with our guns is complex too. I understand that completely. A firearm can have immeasurable value for a family and an individual. Possibly an heirloom passed through the family, or an honest means of protection for loved ones. But is this relationship making us less kind? Possibly more concerned with our desires, rather than being a helper that our country desperately needs? Constantly asking ourselves, what am I doing to help in this moment of suffering, and is selfishness getting in the way of that. Is true empathy being displayed from my heart? Am I being a helper?

Honestly, I don’t know what exact steps we should take to make our society safer but I hope we can come together and try to figure it out. I can imagine God hoping that we can pull from the collective good in us and try to help. Not doing anything just doesn’t seem like something a helper would do. So, I would recommend two salves for our hearts in this cruel and beautiful world. Mourn our personal failures of not being kind, and start being a helper today.