My Religion is Loving Kindness

"My religion is loving kindness."

I saw the bumper sticker as I was driving home from the paint store this afternoon in heavy traffic. I couldn't read the fine print, which may have mentioned another, more familiar affiliation. First Baptist?  Bible Fellowship?

Or  did it mean just what it said?  My religion is loving kindness, therefore I don't belong to any church or fellowship.

I did wonder if the bumper sticker owner knew that loving kindness is generally regarded as a Christian trait. Or maybe it's not anymore.  Maybe loving kindness is simply a desire to be lovingly kind, and if so I guess it's a beginning.

What serious Christians understand though, is that loving kindness is difficult to offer to everyone, under all circumstances. For example, what does loving kindness  mean when, say, your car bumper comes into contact with a Ford F110, and the driver of the Ford is carrying no insurance and gives you false contact information, all the while he is smiling ingratiatingly and telling you how sorry he is that he failed to yield the right of way?

The church, in her great wisdom, understands these dilemmas and offers teaching, prayer time, adoration, the Holy Eucharist all as encouragement and help for one's attempt to live in a loving way. And, perhaps even more to the point, she offers the sacrament of Reconciliation for the many occasions when loving kindness takes a back seat to snippy sarcasm, angry retorts, and pie in the face. Or worse.

My religion is about loving kindness, in a way, but it mostly comes from God and to the extent that I offer loving kindness  it is the work of the Holy Spirit.

But I can't quarrel with loving kindness as a goal. As I said, it's a start. We could all do with more loving kindness in the world and less deception, rudeness, calumny and boorish behavior.